Tag: Google

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Supplier Report: 1/14/2017

AI, speech recognition, and cognitive computing are emerging as the hot terms in 2017 for both enterprise and the public. As these technologies truly become common, how do IT departments keep up when buying IT is becoming simultaneously easier and more complicated at the same time?

What happens to the companies this new technology is displacing? Dell/EMC announced another round of (expected) job eliminations and more are expected to follow.  Fitbit snapped up another smartwatch company to retire.  The remaining scraps of Yahoo are renaming and becoming a holding company.

Acquisitions

  • Atlassian acquires Trello for $425M

    Trello launched in the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in 2011 and in 2014, it was spun out of Fog Creek Software as a stand-alone company. With Trello, Atlassian is acquiring one of the fastest growing project management services. It now has about 19 million users and just under 100 employees, all of which will join Atlassian. After it was spun out of Fog Creek, Trello raised $10.3 million from BoxGroup, Index Ventures, Spark Capital and others.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/09/atlassian-acquires-trello/?ncid=rss

  • Amazon quietly acquired AI security startup harvest.ai for around $20M

    The San Diego-based startup, co-founded by a team that includes two former NSA employees, uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze user behavior around a company’s key IP to try to identify and stop targeted attacks before valuable customer data can be swiped.

    We were alerted to the acquisition by a tipster, who said the purchase price for harvest.ai was $19 million — a good return, considering that the startup only raised $2.3 million. The tipster also said the team’s 12 employees are relocating to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/09/amazon-aws-harvest-ai/?ncid=rss

  • Fitbit just bought another smartwatch startup

    Fitbit can confirm it has acquired specific assets from Vector Watch, a highly respected wearables company based in Europe and known for its innovative and cross-functional approach to design and development. The deal excludes Vector Watch’s hardware products. As with our recently announced acquisition of Pebble assets, Vector brings valuable industry expertise that will help accelerate the development of new products, features and functionality. With the addition of the Vector Watch team, we are establishing a cutting-edge development center in Bucharest, Romania, further building our global engineering capabilities and expanding our presence in EMEA.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/10/fitbit-just-bought-another-smartwatch-startup/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Amazon Is Building the Fourth Pillar of Its Business

    Nowhere is this emerging technology more evident than in the areas of voice recognition and natural language processing. Amazon’s contribution to the field is Alexa, its AI-driven, cloud-based, voice-activated assistant. Alexa controls a variety of Amazons products including the popular Echo smart speaker and its sibling the Echo Dot. Alexa acts as the software to the Echo hardware. This product ecosystem has a dedicated team of over 1,000 working on its development. Alexa’s home in the cloud allows it to learn continuously from all the devices it controls. The Echo and Echo Dot were among the most popular products on the Amazon website this holiday season.  Some estimates put sales of Echo products at over 5 million since their debut two years ago, and they were sold out on the website in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

    http://host.madison.com/business/investment/markets-and-stocks/amazon-is-building-the-fourth-pillar-of-its-business/article_3377eafd-ef72-5953-9961-72cabe3e0d3f.html

    AWS is the only one of its pillars that doesn’t have parallel connections with the retail part of Amazon’s business, and will probably be the last such silo Amazon builds. All of their current efforts for the future…Alexa integrations, Amazon Go physical stores, drone deliveries with a massive “mothership” fulfillment center hovering 45,000 feet above you…all of that is designed to eventually make Amazon the largest retailer in the world by any yardstick – sales volume, number of products, earnings, profitability, memberships, etc.

    http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/08/amazon-echo-alexa-follow-prime-aws-footsteps/

  • IBM Watson: The Growth Story Finally Unfolding

    I expect that IBM’s deal with Siemens will be a game-changer for Watson. Siemens has an enviable track record of introducing new innovations to OEMs and application developers. Its MindSphere platform, which is basically a PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) for the industrial sector, is the leading platform in the world. MindSphere offers cost-effective apps to the manufacturing industries across the world to allow them to benefit from the advantages of big data and analytics. The platform consists of a variety of tool for developers for enabling them to create specialized apps for industrial use. To put it into perspective, an app can allow a company to minimize manufacturing cost by adjusting output according to current input price in an automated manner.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/4034857-ibm-watson-growth-story-finally-unfolding

  • IBM’s Watson Health, Illumina team up on genomics sequencing, cancer research

    Under the partnership, Watson Genomics will be integrated into Illumina’s BaseSpace and Tumor Sequencing Process. Specifically, Watson Genomics will be available to interpret data produced by Illumina’s TruSight Tumor 170, which is a solid tumor profiling panel. The system aims to detect variants across 170 genes and looks at both RNA and DNA.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibms-watson-health-illumina-team-up-on-genomics-sequencing-cancer-research/

Cloud

  • Big Healthcare Players Store Big Data in the Cloud

    These benefits are moot points if privacy and security are not achieved. The security of personal health information is among the biggest concern with decision-makers when it comes to adopting cloud technologies. Most large cloud vendors, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), are HIPAA compliant and understand the complexities of healthcare. They have large and talented security teams that understand the impact a breach would have on their business.

    http://insidebigdata.com/2017/01/11/big-healthcare-players-store-big-data-in-the-cloud/

  • Unsanctioned cloud use remains a problem for enterprises

    The results show that half of all users of officially sanctioned cloud storage services like Box and Dropbox also have a personal instance of the same service. This can make detection of unauthorized copying of data more difficult.

    “Until very recently, organizations had to take an all-or-nothing approach to allowing cloud services. If they sanctioned a cloud storage service for corporate use, they also needed to accept any additional personal instances of that cloud storage service or block the service entirely,” says Sanjay Beri, founder and CEO of Netskope. “As our customers make cloud services a strategic advantage for their businesses, when it comes to governing and securing those services, they are realizing granular policies can ensure that sensitive data does not leak from the sanctioned instance of a corporate cloud service to an unsanctioned one”.

    http://betanews.com/2017/01/11/unsanctioned-cloud-problem/

  • Microsoft drops a pay-as-you-go Azure cloud option

    Geared to organizations with at least 250 users, MPSA is Microsoft’s simplified agreement consolidating purchase of cloud services and software. The move detailed today follows on Microsoft’s decision to not proceed with its proposed Enterprise Advantage program, which was meant to allow customers to buy organization-wide on the MPSA.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3156032/cloud-computing/microsoft-drops-a-pay-as-you-go-azure-cloud-option.html

  • Apple, Facebook, Google Rank Highest In Greenpeace Report

    Apple’s rating earned the company a clean energy index score of 83%, followed by Facebook at 67% and Google at 56%.

    Specific to search, company scorecards show that Google received a final grade of A, followed by Bing and Yahoo with a B rating. Daum.net received a C rating, followed by Naver with a C rating and Baidu, Nate, and Zum with a rating of F.

    To earn an A rating, Google received an A in renewable energy committing and siting policy, energy efficiency and mitigation, renewable procurement, and advocacy. The company earned a B rating in energy transparency.

    http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/292606/apple-facebook-google-rank-highest-in-greenpeace.html

Datacenter

  • All-flash storage startup Kaminario snares $75 million investment

    Kaminario made a couple of big bets when it launched back in 2010 that look pretty good today. First of all, the company decided to go with all-flash storage arrays when, Golan says, flash was running around a thousand dollars a gigabyte.

    It also made a deliberate play for the cloud market, particularly SaaS vendors, who need the kind of performance flash storage can provide. This was contrary to most storage vendors’ approach at the time, who were targeting enterprise IT.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/10/all-flash-storage-startup-kaminario-snares-75-million-investment/?ncid=rss

  • Dell EMC lifts the post-acquisition axe: Swwwwwing

    Dell Technologies’ 140,000 staffers have been wincing in anticipation for the expected 2,000-3,000 layoffs after the $67bn EMC acquisition completed, and now the wait is over. The axe is swinging and heads have begun to roll.

    A person close to the events told us: “Almost 80 people have been terminated from the Hopkinton location and there is more to come.”

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/12/emc_layoffs/

  • IBM: Cognitive computing needs flash arrays, mark our words (of course it does)

    IBM is putting its latest “cognitive” marketing spin on these systems, saying the microcode “is ideal for cognitive workloads requiring the highest availability and system reliability possible for mainframe and Power Systems.”

    It tells us that the arrrays are integrated with z System mainframe products through patented software that provides data protection, remote replication and optimisation for midrange and large enterprises.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/12/flash_arrays_for_cognitive_computing/

Software/SaaS

Other

  • IBM Sets New World Record With Over 8,000 Patents Granted In Just One Year

    IBM’s record setting year breaks down to more than 22 patents being granted per day in 2016. No other company was in contention to beat IBM for the most patents this year, as its nearest competitor, Samsung, earned a second place finish with 5,518 patents. After that the top 10 list is comprised of Canon (3,665), Qualcomm (2,897), Google (2,835), Intel (2,784), LG Electronics (2,428), Microsoft (2,398), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (2,288), and Sony (2,181).

    http://hothardware.com/news/ibm-sets-world-record-with-over-8000-patents-granted-in-one-year

  • Marissa Mayer resigning from Yahoo board as remaining company renames itself Altaba

    Only five board members will remain at Altaba: Tor Braham, Eric Brandt, Catherine Friedman, Thomas McInerney and Jeffrey Smith. The rest of Yahoo’s board, including CEO Marissa Mayer, will step down from the newly-formed company. Mayer may be tapped for a role in Yahoo’s integration at Verizon, but her position has yet to be announced.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/09/marissa-mayer-resigning-from-yahoo-board-as-company-renames-itself-altaba/?ncid=rss

  • Trump set to restrict program for foreign tech workers used by Microsoft

    Microsoft and other companies say the visa program is necessary, because there is not enough tech talent in the U.S. to fill jobs. Trump calls the H-1B visas “a cheap labor program.” His allies in Congress say they will introduce the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act to scrap the program, according to the Post.

    Trump’s stances on trade, foreign jobs, clean energy and immigration could present problems for the U.S. tech industry.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/01/09/trump-foreign-tech-h-1b-microsoft-jeff-sessions.html

  • LinkedIn may move its 10,000 employees off Google Apps – and not because of Microsoft

    According to someone close to the company, this change is not being driven by demands from Microsoft that LinkedIn switch to Office 365. We hear that Google is the one that isn’t thrilled to have such a large G Suite customer owned by Microsoft. Google doesn’t want to be put in a position where it’s sharing product road map and other tidbits with a company its biggest rival, this person tells us. (Google declined to comment)

    http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-may-move-its-10000-employees-off-google-apps-2017-1

  • Ex-Autonomy CFO Pleads Not Guilty in Case Over HP Buyout

    After Sushovan Hussain entered his plea Thursday, the San Francisco federal judge overseeing the case said he wants to move toward a trial without delay. The executive traveled voluntarily from England for Thursday’s hearing and his lawyer has said he’s eager to prove his innocence.

    Prosecutors charged Hussain in November, five years after Hewlett-Packard admitted that its 2011 acquisition of Autonomy was a bust. He and Autonomy co-founder Michael Lynch face a lawsuit by Hewlett-Packard in a London court seeking $5.1 billion over allegations they made false claims about Autonomy’s performance and financial condition to boost the company’s value. Lynch wasn’t charged in the December indictment.

    http://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/2017/01/12/ex-autonomy-cfo-pleads-not-guilty-in-hp-accounting-fraud-case

Photo: Kristopher Roller

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Supplier Report: 1/7/2017

Japan’s love of technology might be backfiring for their salarymen as 36 white collar workers have been replaced by IBM’s Watson technology (long term they will need it due to declining a declining population). Foxconn workers in China are also being phased out in favor of automation and robotics (because young Chinese workers don’t want to be treated like robots).

The US Healthcare industry is expected to grow their use of cognitive computing by 42% (compound annual growth rate) over the next 4 years. During those 4 years your car is also expected to get much smarter as Amazon and Microsoft are putting their AI technologies in your dashboard.

Acquisitions

  • Google buys Sweden’s Limes Audio to boost Hangouts voice quality

    “As more and more businesses adopt our video conferencing solutions, powered by Chromebox for Meetings and Google Hangouts, it’s critical that we provide a great audio experience. With G Suite customers now relying on video communications for their day-to-day meetings, it’s more important than ever to ensure low-cost, high-quality audio.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/05/google-acquires-limes-audio/?ncid=rss

  • Why LinkedIn Under Microsoft Is Doomed (this article is a little misguided, but a fun read)

    There are two things Microsoft will most likely do to LinkedIn. The first would be to leave it alone, which—from what I can tell—will worsen the product. But Redmond could also come in and ruin the product with a few years of meddling, just as it did with everything from Nokia to WebTV.

    So the likelihood of anything good coming from the LinkedIn buyout is improbable, at best. This, despite the fact that Satya Nadella is at the helm. The problem is the corporate culture, not the bosses.

    http://www.pcmag.com/commentary/350754/why-linkedin-under-microsoft-is-doomed

Artificial Intelligence

Cloud

  • AT&T Goes All In on IoT at CES

    In a series of announcement at the show, AT&T revealed a new partnership with Emerson for methane emissions monitoring, announced the addition of Portland, Ore., as a new spotlight city in its Smart Cities program, and launched a new IoT Professional Services offering that will lend the carrier’s expertise to help businesses design, test, deploy, and manage IoT solutions. Alongside the latter, AT&T also introduced a new light version of its IoT Starter Kit, a dedicated starter kit for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT service, and a more streamlined IoT device certification process.

    https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2017/01/t-goes-all-iot-ces

  • Microsoft unveils connected car strategy at CES 2017: ‘Cloud will do the heavy lifting’

    The platform allows automakers to leverage Microsoft’s virtual assistants, business applications, and office services, the post said. It will also help integrate productivity tools such as Cortana, Office 365, and Skype for Business into vehicles.

    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-unveils-connected-car-strategy-at-ces-2017-cloud-will-do-the-heavy-lifting/

Datacenter

  • Dell EMC serves up ‘white glove’ treatment to exclusive top-tier partner level

    “Partners with Titanium Black status have placed a big bet on Dell EMC,” Byrne said. “They’re going above and beyond. They’re investing heavily in us and we are returning the investment in them so they can continue to achieve the extraordinary.

    “Titanium Black provides a rare and distinctive opportunity far and above what partners have experienced anywhere in the industry. Through the Dell EMC Partner Program, Dell EMC and our partners will attack the market, with our Titanium Black partners leading the way. We will deliver incredible transformation for our customers. We’ll be the channel to watch.”

    http://www.channelnomics.com/channelnomics-us/news/3001801/dell-emc-serves-up-white-glove-treatment-to-exclusive-top-tier-partner-level

  • Better Buy: Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co vs. Cisco Systems, Inc

    Even after its banner 2016, HP Enterprise stock is trading at a mere 11 times future earnings, making it one of the best values in its sector. Cisco is tradingat just 12 times forward earnings, and with its nearly 3.5% dividend yield and future prospects, it’s the better buy for growth and income investors.

    That said, when the smoke clears, HP Enterprise will be ideally positioned to grow by leaps and bounds as 2017 progresses — and beyond. For investors in search of pure growth potential, HP Enterprise gets the nod.

    http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/04/better-buy-hewlett-packard-enterprise-co-vs-cisco-systems-inc.html
    But where is HPE’s growth coming from? Storage? That can’t last.

Software/SaaS

  • Oracle is starting to fine customers who thought they were using free Java software

    At issue, reports Clarke, is a hugely popular version of Java called Java Standard Edition (or Java SE), that anyone can download from the Oracle website.

    One unnamed retailer that underwent an audit on Java was issued a $100,000 bill, negotiated down to $30,000, The Register reports. And this could be only the beginning. Sources told Clarke that Oracle has hired 20 Java specialists for its License Management Services (LMS) department, the ones who do the audits.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-starts-to-audit-java-customers-2016-12
    But Oracle is publicly stating that they ARE NOT increasing audits…
    Oracle denies it’s ramping up a program that fines customers for using software they thought was free

    Oracle’s commitment to Java and its community remains stronger than ever, as shared recently at JavaOne. Oracle is not ramping Java SE compliance activity or hiring of compliance staff. The licensing model and policies for Java SE have remained unchanged since before the acquisition of Sun Microsystems. It is incorrect to imply that it’s easy for users to accidentally use Java SE Advanced features.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-says-it-is-not-ramping-up-a-audits-of-java-2016-12

  • It’s Official: Microsoft Eliminates Yammer Enterprise Plan

    Orton described that decision as a natural product evolution. Earlier this year, Microsoft turned on Yammer by default for all eligible Office 365 customers. Since then, the vast majority of Yammer customers use it as part of an Office 365 subscription. The stand-alone version was retired Jan. 1, although those who are already using it can continue to do so at least through the end of this year (and, in exceptional cases, as long as 2019).

    http://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/its-official-microsoft-eliminates-yammer-enterprise-plan/

Other

  • 11 things we think will happen in business technology in 2017

    In 2016, Microsoft and Google — widely seen as the second- and third-place contenders in the cloud wars with Amazon, respectively — made big hires and masterminded partnerships and acquisitions to bolster out their sales pitch to enterprises.

    Amazon may be the undisputed leader in the space, but Microsoft and Google aren’t taking it lying down. Watch this space: The cloud computing market is still growing, and so vicious competition will be the order of the day.

    http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/11-things-we-think-will-happen-in-business-10830675.php

  • Department of Labor sues Google over wage data

    The agency is seeking what it calls “routine” information about wages and the company’s equal opportunity program. The agency filed a lawsuit with its Office of Administrative Law Judges to gain access to the information, it announced Wednesday.

    Google, as a federal contractor, is required to provide the data as part of a compliance check by the agency’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), according to the Department of Labor. The inquiry is focused on Google’s compliance with equal employment laws, the agency said.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3154772/government/department-of-labor-sues-google-over-wage-data.html

Photo: Megapixelstock

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Supplier Report: 12/17/2016

Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo is in major trouble with the announcement that Yahoo was hacked yet again (impacting 1 billion accounts). Will Microsoft capitalize on Verizon’s misfortunes?

Perhaps Yahoo should speak with IBM as they are focusing their Watson AI technology on Cyber-security.

Cisco’s ambitions towards the cloud have been crushed by the AWS juggernaut. The company announced the discontinuation of their Intercloud platform this week… and there are rumors they might move customers over to Amazon.

Acquisitions

  • Yahoo shares tumble as investors fear Verizon acquisition trouble

    After the first big Yahoo hack was unveiled a few months ago, there were reports that Verizon would demand a $1 billion discount. In an October earnings call, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said they were “still evaluating what it means for the transaction.” But we have not been given any reason to believe that the deal was no longer happening.

    Should the latest hack change things? Well, it’s certainly not a good look for Yahoo.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/15/yahoo-shares-tumble-as-investors-fear-verizon-acquisition-trouble/?ncid=rss
    If Verizon Walks Away, Then Microsoft Should Finally Buy Yahoo

    All of that sounds rather complicated, but the bottom line is that Microsoft and Yahoo have been in bed with each other for years, and now Microsoft might have a renewed chance to make their relationship official. The golden goose of the deal would likely be the mobile search traffic that Microsoft currently has no stake in.

    http://etfdailynews.com/2016/12/16/if-verizon-walks-away-then-microsoft-should-finally-buy-yahoo/

  • How Autonomy Fooled Hewlett-Packard

    One fact really stands out: in each of the 10 quarters preceding the acquisition, Autonomy’s revenues were within 4% of analyst expectations. That’s a level of precision that should arouse suspicion. In hindsight, achieving revenue targets like clockwork looks awfully strange.

    http://fortune.com/2016/12/14/hewlett-packard-autonomy/

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM Starts to Apply Watson to Cyber-security

    Kelley notes that there are over 1.5 million open IT security positions that IT organizations have little to no hope of ever filling. Advances in cognitive computing will equip IT organizations better to counter cybersecurity attacks that make use of bots and other automation tools to launch attacks at unprecedented levels of scale.

    http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/it-unmasked/ibm-starts-to-apply-watson-to-cybersecurity.html

  • Google Artificial Intelligence Whiz Describes Our Sci-Fi Future

    Reinforcement learning is the idea of being able to assign credit or blame to all the actions you took along the way while you were getting that reward signal. It’s really effective in some domains today.

    I think where reinforcement learning has some challenges is when the action-state you may take is incredibly broad and large. A human operating in the real world might take an incredibly broad set of actions at any given moment. Whereas in a board game there’s a limited set of moves you can take, and the rules of the game constrain things a bit and the reward signal is also much clearer. You either won or lost.

    http://fortune.com/2016/11/26/google-artificial-intelligence-jeff-dean/?iid=sr-link1

Cloud

  • Cisco Officially Throws In The Towel On Intercloud

    “Cisco has internally communicated that we are discontinuing one of our internal cloud platforms and will be transitioning affected workloads onto other platforms,” said the statement. “The cloud market has shifted considerably in the last two years, and many of our customers are asking Cisco to help them develop cloud strategies that will help drive their digital transformations … We do not expect any material customer issues as a result of this transition.”

    http://www.crn.com/news/networking/300083157/cisco-officially-throws-in-the-towel-on-intercloud.htm
    Also:

    While Cisco isn’t saying the name of that cloud provider, there’s a good chance that it’s Amazon because enterprises are tripping over themselves to use Amazon these days. Amazon has got more features and more partners than any other cloud provider out there.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-claims-another-victim-cisco-kills-its-1-billion-cloud-2016-12

  • Red Hat’s Container Platform Lands on Google Cloud

    Red Hat and Google are container compatriots, in the sense that both have gone all-in with Kubernetes as a container scheduler. Google started the Kubernetes project, so its commitment there isn’t exactly shocking. Red Hat had developed its own scheduling mechanism for OpenShift but switched to Kubernetes due to the community support the project was getting, says Brian Gracely, Red Hat’s director of product strategy.

    https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/red-hats-container-platform-lands-on-google-cloud/2016/12/

  • Amazon Launches A Data Center Built On A Semi Truck

    Snowmobile is a secure data truck that stores up to 100 PB of data and can help you to move exabytes to AWS in a matter of weeks (you can even get more than one if necessary!). Physically, Snowmobile is a 45 feet long, 9.6 feet high, and 8 feet wide tamper-resistant shipping container. It is water-resistant, climate-controlled and can be parked in a covered or uncovered area adjacent to your existing data center. Each Snowmobile consumes about 350 kW of AC power, and if you don’t have sufficient capacity on site, they can arrange a generator to ensure power stability.

    http://www.psfk.com/2016/12/topline-amazon-launches-a-data-center-built-on-a-semi-truck.html

  • Buyers Guide to cloud computing (who is HIPAA compliant)

    Despite this rush to the cloud, healthcare decision makers must keep in mind they can’t just tap into anybody’s offering. A cloud-based solution that is purpose-built for the regulatory and privacy demands of healthcare and life sciences requires more than compute, storage and networking services.

    http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/buyers-guide-cloud-computing

Datacenter

  • Old storage guard face incoming tech squeeze

    The prime tech transition in the SAN area is from disk and hybrid flash/disk to all-flash arrays. Such systems take up less physical space and need less power and cooling to operate. Despite a solid wave of startup acquisition and tech adoption, Pure Storage has emerged as a post-IPO independent and Kaminario survives and is growing.

    The three hybrid array startups – Nimble, Tegile and Tintri – have morphed into all-flash array vendors, with Nimble running an IPO. These three are also surviving and growing, meaning three more suppliers sharing the SAN market.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/13/old_storage_guard_flash/

    Image: The Register

Software/SaaS

  • IBM Helps Organizations Respond to and Manage Ransomware

    According to a new IBM (IBM) study, seven out of 10 U.S. businesses surveyed infected with ransomware have paid to resolve a ransomware attack, with more than half paying more than $10,000. To help organizations respond rapidly and strategically to this type of threat and many other types of threats, Resilient’s new Dynamic Playbooks are an industry first in the incident response management market. Resilient’s Dynamic Playbooks provide an unmatched orchestration of incident response by adapting in real-time to the details of a cyberattack or other business threat, and enabling effective, rapid response to more sophisticated threat types.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/resilient-ibm-company-helps-organizations-110000984.html

Other

  • IBM vows to hire and train US workers

    “We expect to end 2016 with our US workforce about the same size as it was at the beginning of the year. By 2020, we expect it to be larger than it is today,” Pratt said.

    Let’s review:

    1. Trump calls out IBM for outsourcing jobs
    2. Rometty is the only technology CEO to be added to Trump’s business council
    3. IBM promises more US based jobs in the future

    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/12/15/2003661222

  • Microsoft’s surprise hardware hit: The Surface Hub

    The average Surface Hub customer is buying about 50 devices for each deployment, and the company has achieved more than 2,000 customers. One (unnamed) car manufacturer bought 1,500 of the things. Though Microsoft didn’t reveal the exact mix between sizes, Surface Hub looks like it’s another billion-dollar-a-year business for the software giant—to boot, it’s a piece of hardware that it got right even in version one. In a Forrester report commissioned by Microsoft, it’s claimed that meetings start more promptly—less faffing about to get remote attendees dialed in or computers hooked up to the projector—saving 15 to 23 minutes per meeting. Less measurable, Microsoft claims that Surface Hub is also driving greater meeting engagement, with people standing up and engaging with each other and the screen rather than hiding behind their laptop screens around a conference table or quietly playing games on their phones.

    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/12/microsofts-surface-hub-sales-surprisingly-strong-its-a-huge-hardware-hit/

  • Oracle CEO Safra Catz joins Trump transition team

    Unlike some of the other attendees of Trump’s tech summit, Catz was not particularly outspoken about politics during the election season. Federal Election Commission data shows no contributions to presidential candidates in Catz’s name, although the CEO has donated to Republican and Democratic Congressional campaigns. Larry Ellison, Oracle’s chairman, is a Republican mega-donor who contributed millions to a super PAC that backed Marco Rubio’s failed presidential bid.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/15/oracle-ceo-safra-catz-joins-trump-transition-team/?ncid=rss
    Trump’s Tech Summit Was Missing These Key Players

    Salesforce.com co-founder and chairman Marc Benioff was absent. As was Hewlett-Packard Enterprise chief executive Meg Whitman. Fortune reached out to the Trump team as well as HPE for comment, and will update this story as needed.

    http://fortune.com/2016/12/15/tech-execs-trump-summit/

Photo: Stefan Kunze

Posted on

Supplier Report: 12/10/2016

AWS continues to grow and gain customers. As their competition finds ways to differentiate themselves, Google opened their Deepmind training environment up to the masses and announced they will run their data-centers on 100% renewable energy by the end of 2017.

Speaking of data-centers… Verizon is selling theirs to Equinix for almost $4B to raise cash. Interesting number considering they are spending just over $4B on Yahoo (which I maintain they don’t need since they already own AOL).

President-elect Donald Trump announced the formation of an economic council and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty was the sole technology CEO in the group… good for IBM, bad for an economy  that is driven by technological innovation.

Acquisitions

  • Equinix to Buy Some Verizon Data Centers for $3.6 Billion

    Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam said at an investor conference Tuesday that Verizon didn’t have very much scale in data centers so it was better to sell them and put that money to better use. The carrier wants to “trim the branches of the tree so the tree can be stronger,” Mr. McAdam said.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/equinix-to-buy-some-verizon-data-centers-for-3-6-billion-1481034980

  • Oracle Corporation (ORCL) Aims To Benefit From NetSuite Inc (N) Acquisition

    Derrick Wood, Cowen analyst highlighted that Oracle did not offer any financial commentary related to the acquisition and the news is likely to come along with earnings report later this month. “NetSuite will be organized as a separate Global Business Unit (GBU) within ORCL, with Jim McGeever being the President and COO of the unit reporting to Mark Hurd. ORCL confirmed its commitment and support for N’s products with plans for investment in sales and distribution, R&D, international expansion and verticalization,” commented Mr. Wood.

    http://www.thecountrycaller.com/52336-oracle-corporation-orcl-aims-to-benefit-from-netsuite-inc-n-acquisition/

  • Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition approved by regulators, but there’s a catch

    In order to receive the approval of those in Europe, Microsoft said that it is doing several things over the next 5 years to preserve competition: ensuring that LinkedIn competitors will still receive access to participate in Office Add-in and promotional opportunities in the Office Store, not entering into agreements with PC manufacturers to pre-install a Windows LinkedIn application or tile that would “favor LinkedIn on an exclusive basis,” and more.

    http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/06/microsofts-linkedin-acquisition-approved-by-regulators-but-theres-a-catch/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Google DeepMind Makes AI Training Platform Publicly Available

    DeepMind is putting the entire source code for its training environment — which it previously called Labyrinth and has now renamed as DeepMind Lab — on the open-source depository GitHub, the company said Monday. Anyone will be able to download the code and customize it to help train their own artificial intelligence systems. They will also be able to create new game levels for DeepMind Lab and upload these to GitHub.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-05/google-deepmind-makes-ai-training-platform-publicly-available

  • Zo is Microsoft’s latest AI chatbot
    Microsoft is attempting to do another chatbot after the unfortunate racist hacking of Tay a few months ago…

    And now, it seems like Microsoft is ready to introduce its next chatbot. Meet Zo — the software giant’s latest take on chatbots powered by artificial intelligence. The chatbot was spotted by Twitter user Tom Hounsell, and users can give it a try right now. At the moment, Zo is only available on Kik which is definitely an interesting platform to choose. Unlike Tay, Zo isn’t yet available on Twitter and that’s not really a surprise after what happened earlier this year. However, the app will likely come to Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat once it’s officially announced.

    https://mspoweruser.com/zo-microsofts-latest-ai-chatbot/

  • IBM creates Watson-powered robot for eldercare assistance

    IBM MERA combines Watson AI with a technology called CameraVitals, developed at Rice University, that calculates vital signs using recorded video of a person’s facial expressions. The MERA runs on the IBM Cloud and uses a Softbank Pepper robot interface to estimate an individual’s vital signs, including heart and breathing measurements in a non-invasive manner. It can view and respond if a person has fallen, alerting the caregiver that a patient may be in distress.

    https://thestack.com/world/2016/12/09/ibm-creates-watson-powered-robot-for-eldercare-assistance/

Cloud

  • Google says it will hit 100% renewable energy by 2017

    While it’s not quite there, Google says it will cross the 100% mark next year due to its commitments to purchase enough direct wind and solar-sourced power to match its annual consumption for the year. Google isn’t being solely charitable with this drive to adopt green power, either; it notes in a blog post that solar, wind and renewables as a general category is becoming the cheapest source of power around, meaning that as its data center operation costs grow with an increasing investment in cloud-based services, it makes the most fiscal sense for Google to continue to invest in creating new renewable sources to help meet its growing demand.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/06/google-says-it-will-hit-100-renewable-energy-by-2017/?ncid=rss

  • AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud – Best Prices and Discounts

    The charge rate is influenced by a lot of factors such as storage, networking and computing power so users need to pay attention to those details before choosing a cloud service. The most important thing users need to pay attention to is discounts, because all providers offer up different discounts.

    http://neurogadget.net/2016/12/04/aws-vs-azure-vs-google-cloud-best-prices-discounts/48329

  • AWS Launches Managed DDoS Protection

    Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels announced Amazon Shield, new layers of protection designed against service interruptions like the cyber attack that took down top websites and affected some Amazon Web Services customers in October.

    “This will really help you protect yourselves even against the largest and most sophisticated attacks we’ve seen,” he said on Thursday at AWS re:Invent, a conference in Las Vegas that drew 32,000 attendees.

    http://mspmentor.net/cloud-computing/aws-launches-managed-ddos-protection

  • Can Oracle Really Beat AWS?

    However, Oracle’s biggest risk is that despite its platform and software strength it might gradually become irrelevant with the new waves of open source software hitting the enterprise shores. A well-defined cloud strategy which would help it leverage its strengths can save it in the long run. I believe offering customers the chance to deploy containers on bare-metal is such a strategy. Why? Well, as I said, I believe containers will be used extensively in the cloud IaaS space going forward.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/4028650-can-oracle-really-beat-aws

  • Netflix to Hand Over Infrastructure Management to Amazon Cloud Service

    ZDNET reported Netflix CPO, Neil Hunt, gave a presentation at AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas yesterday, revealing that AWS will now manage the entire infrastructure of the world’s leading online TV network, particularly where it is not Netflix-specific. With this, the streaming titan’s development team can rather focus on providing features that can deliver “most compelling service” to its subscribers.

    http://www.thecountrycaller.com/37901-netflix-to-hand-over-infrastructure-management-to-amazon-cloud-service/

  • Connectria Certifies Microsoft Azure Hosted HIPAA Compliance

    “Connectria has supported customers in Azure for the past two years,” said Rich Waidmann, Connectria President and CEO of Connectria Hosting. “We’re excited to now enable customers to host HIPAA Compliant environments in Microsoft Azure. Our extensive background in HIPAA Compliance, combined with our close partnership with Microsoft, will help ensure that healthcare providers and healthcare software companies can meet their HIPAA requirements when they store electronic PHI in Microsoft’s Azure Cloud.”

    http://hitinfrastructure.com/news/connectria-certifies-microsoft-azure-hosted-hipaa-compliance

Datacenter

  • Infinidat CEO Moshe Yanai on providing speedy, affordable, reliable storage

    We think the trend in 2017 is the rise in “hyper storage”. That is ultra-high density, enterprise-class, software defined, flexible storage for the cloud and enterprise data centers.

    One of the main characteristics of that will be that it will run on any hardware — it does not have to be proprietary, or hard wired into a particular model. People want to see a hardware stack that can adapt to any media type.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/storage-q-a-infinidat-ceo-moshe-yanai/

  • Dell posts $2B loss, but sees accelerating growth

    Dell said legacy revenues were flat but that the addition of EMC increased total revenue by 28 percent. Officials cautioned that the consolidation with EMC and its operating companies makes year-over-year comparisons extremely difficult, adding that the discontinuity is likely to continue for several years. As a quasi-public company, Dell isn’t required to issue guidance on future revenues or profits.

    Dell said it has already cut the $57.4 billion in debt it incurred at the time of the acquisition of EMC to $50.5 billion. The recent divestiture of its software, services and content management divisions added $7 billion to its cash hoard, enabling the company to accelerate the payment of its debt obligation and end the quarter with $15 billion in cash.

    http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/12/08/dell-posts-2b-loss-sees-accelerating-growth/

Software/SaaS

  • Slack and Google announce partnership focused on better integrating their services

    One of the new integrations is a Google Drive Bot that will post comments and requests for access into Slack. Recipients can then approve or reject requests from Slack, or settle comments, or they can launch Google Docs to work with the files directly.

    Slack will also allow users to preview Google Docs files in the app itself, and, when shared, Slack will check the permissions on the file. If you’re sharing with people who don’t have access currently, Slack will prompt you to update your sharing settings.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/07/slack-and-google-announce-partnership-focused-on-better-integrating-their-services/?ncid=rss

  • Microsoft’s Plans for LinkedIn Sound Awful
    This article is a little dramatic… but it does provide a solid overview of potentially new features.

    Tying a LinkedIn identity into Outlook and MS Office is more problematic. Let’s say I tie my LinkedIn ID to my Outlook account here at New York. Next week I am fired after fabricating several interviews and many key facts for my post “Why Google, Facebook, and Apple Are Merging Right Now at This Very Second.” When I eventually find a new job writing for one of the web’s fastest growing sites, PatriotNewsTruth.net, how will I disconnect my LinkedIn ID and my old Outlook account and connect it with my new one? Will an Outlook admin need to do it? Why did I link my LinkedIn profile to my Outlook account anyway, considering Outlook is widely only used by people at work, and LinkedIn is mainly a place to look for other jobs?

    http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/12/holy-christ-microsofts-plans-for-linkedin-sound-awful.html

Other

  • There’s only one tech CEO on Trump’s economic advisory team

    Rometty is an interesting choice for a lot of reasons. She’s not from the center of the tech universe, Silicon Valley. IBM is headquartered in New York. We don’t know if she knows Trump personally or not, but as a fellow New Yorker, its likely they’ve at least hobnobbed a time or two.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/the-only-tech-ceo-on-trumps-advisory-team-is-not-from-silicon-valley-2016-12

  • “Bullsh*t and spin”: Autonomy founder mocks HP’s $5B fraud suit against him

    HP originally paid Lynch $730 million for his stake in Autonomy. Now its trying to recover that money and what it thinks it overpaid for the big data company. HP ended up having to write-down nearly $9 billion of the $11 billion buyout after Autonomy fell apart in its arms. Lynch is countersuing for $160 million, claiming the fraud suit ruined his reputation.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/05/fraudtonomy/?ncid=rss

  • Two top EMCers bail from Dell EMC

    The two are Core Technologies Division President Guy Churchward and Emerging Technologies Division President CJ Desai.

    Churchward was responsible for products spanning the bulk of EMC revenues; Avamar, Data Domain, Networker, RecoverPoint, Spanning, Unity, ViPR, VMAX, VNX, VPLEX, and XtremIO. Desai looked after Isilon and IsilonSD Edge, ECS, DSSD and ScaleIO.

    This leaves Chad Sakac, rently promoted as President of Converged Platforms (Vblocks, VxRail, VxRack, XC Appliances) as the sole remaining Tucci-era product business line manager of consequence.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/07/two_senior_product_line_execs_leave_emc/

  • Nadella confirms Microsoft isn’t stepping away from Windows phones

    What we are going to do is focus that effort on places where we have differentiation. If you take Windows Phone, where we are differentiated in Windows phone is it’s manageability, it’s security, it’s continuing capability that is the ability to have a phone that in fact can even act like a PC. So, we are going to double down on those points of differentiation. In fact, the HP X3, which came out recently, is perhaps a great example of a differentiated device built using the Windows phone platform and that sort of points for the direction. We will keep looking at different forms, different functions that we can bring to mobile devices, while also supporting our software across a variety of devices. So, that’s the approach you will see us take.

    http://windowsreport.com/microsoft-windows-phone-future/
    A look at the X3:

Photo: Matt Palmer