Tag: Google

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Supplier Report: 11/15/2019


Photo by Andres Urena on Unsplash

Xerox is looking to combine with HP Inc, which brings me back to the early days of this blog. There were rumors that HP Inc and Xerox were going to merge way back in 2015 but then Xerox got involved with Fuji Film and then they were no longer involved with Fuji Film. I am not sure how this deal would work considering Xerox wants to acquire HP which has the bigger market cap.

Google’s growing pains continue as critics ponder why the company is pushing so hard to get into hardware while the Government investigates them.

After years of fending off Microsoft, Slack is looking vulnerable due to poor paid growth projections. Everybody seems to be loving Microsoft at the moment, but they know how to be aggressive when they want to be, and they seem to want Slack out of the way.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • HP confirms it has received a proposal from Xerox about being acquired

    The Wall Street Journal got things rolling earlier today when it published a report that Xerox was interested in the printer company, reporting the offer could be for more than $27 billion. That’s a lot of money and the company has to at least consider it (assuming it’s accurate).

    HP acknowledged there are ongoing discussions between the two companies and that it received an offer letter from Xerox yesterday. What’s odd about this particular deal is that HP is the company with a much larger market cap of $29 billion, while Xerox is just a tad over $8 billion. The canary is eating the cat here.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/06/hp-confirms-it-is-having-discussions-with-xerox-about-being-acquired/
    Xerox to Sell Stake in Joint Venture to Fujifilm for About $2.3 Billion

    Xerox has agreed to sell its 25% stake in the venture, Fuji Xerox, to Fujifilm as part of a deal that will bring Xerox total proceeds of $2.3 billion, the companies said.

    Xerox has also agreed to sell a majority stake in a smaller joint venture to an affiliate of Fuji Xerox and extended the timeline of an agreement allowing Fujifilm to be a major supplier to Xerox, the companies said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/xerox-to-sell-stake-in-joint-venture-to-fujifilm-for-2-2-billion-11572931801

  • Workday to acquire online procurement platform Scout RFP for $540M

    The acquisition builds on top of Workday’s existing procurement solutions, Workday Procurement and Workday Inventory, but Workday chief product product officer Petros Dermetzis wrote in a blog post announcing the deal that Scout gives the company a more complete solution for customers.

    “With increased importance around the supplier as a strategic asset, the acquisition of Scout RFP will help accelerate Workday’s ability to deliver a comprehensive source-to-pay solution with a best-in-class strategic sourcing offering, elevating the office of procurement in strategic importance and transforming the procurement function,” he wrote.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/04/workday-to-acquire-online-procurement-platform-scout-rfp-for-540m/

  • T-Mobile’s latest merger gambit isn’t subtle

    The three programs T-Mobile announced are contingent on the merger. The company will only provide these services if it is able to complete its merger with Sprint. These programs are each cleverly designed to give T-Mobile instant rebuttals to potential criticisms of the merger. They’re so well-crafted that I can’t help but applaud how genius they are as pieces of propaganda. Even calling them “propaganda” makes me the asshole!

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/8/20954479/t-mobiles-5g-publicity-stunt-firefighters-merger-sprint

Artificial Intelligence

  • OpenAI has published the text-generating AI it said was too dangerous to share

    GPT-2 is part of a new breed of text-generation systems that have impressed experts with their ability to generate coherent text from minimal prompts. The system was trained on eight million text documents scraped from the web and responds to text snippets supplied by users. Feed it a fake headline, for example, and it will write a news story; give it the first line of a poem and it’ll supply a whole verse.

    It’s tricky to convey exactly how good GPT-2’s output is but the model frequently produces eerily cogent writing that can often give the appearance of intelligence (though that’s not to say what GPT-2 is doing involves anything we’d recognize as cognition.) But play around with the system long enough and its limitations become clear. It particularly suffers with the challenge of long-term coherence; for example, consistently using the names and attributes of characters in a story, or sticking to a single subject in a news article.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/7/20953040/openai-text-generation-ai-gpt-2-full-model-release-1-5b-parameters

  • Google’s AI education tool makes it easy to train models for your projects

    Google’s Teachable Machine is no longer just a handy lesson in AI — you can now put it to work. The tech giant has launched Teachable Machine 2.0 with the ability to use your machine learning model in apps, websites and other projects. You can upload your model if you need it to work online, or save it if you’d rather have it on-device. You could create your own Not Hotdog app without having to craft an AI system by hand.

    Teachable Machine can also accept more than just images. You can train AI models based on sound and poses in addition to the usual image data (including photos, not just webcam images). Want to determine whether or not your music is metal enough? Now you can. The system also lets you upload your own data sets if you have some on hand, and can train more than three classes per model if necessary.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/07/google-teachable-machine-2/

Cloud

  • Indeed says Deloitte, IBM, Accenture top hirers for blockchain staff

    The report observed that software roles make up the highest percentage of crypto and blockchain jobs. Deloitte, IBM, Accenture, Cisco and Collins Aerospace are the top five companies hiring for crypto and blockchain roles. Another consultancy, EY, comes in at number six. But the proliferation of blockchain technology is not limited to one industry and startups are popping up everywhere.

    The data covered both blockchain and cryptocurrencies, and the top six appear to be firmly in the enterprise blockchain camp. One startup – ConsenSys – falls into both sectors. Earlier in the year it was in the top ten but has now fallen to number 13 on the list of top hirers.

    https://www.ledgerinsights.com/indeed-says-deloitte-ibm-accenture-top-hirers-for-blockchain-staff/

Security/Privacy

  • With a Laser, Researchers Say They Can Hack Alexa, Google Home or Siri

    Researchers in Japan and at the University of Michigan said Monday that they had found a way to take over Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri devices from hundreds of feet away by shining laser pointers, and even flashlights, at the devices’ microphones.

    In one case, they said, they opened a garage door by shining a laser beam at a voice assistant that was connected to it. They also climbed 140 feet to the top of a bell tower at the University of Michigan and successfully controlled a Google Home device on the fourth floor of an office building 230 feet away. And by focusing their lasers using a telephoto lens, they said, they were able to hijack a voice assistant more than 350 feet away.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/technology/digital-assistant-laser-hack.html

  • Google’s cybersecurity project ‘Chronicle’ is in trouble

    The employees Motherboard talked to said people have been leaving the company due to “a distant CEO” and “a lack of clarity about Chronicle’s future.” A former employee called Gillett a figurehead who didn’t care what everyone did outside of money matters. Sales and engineering people have apparently been finding other roles in Google or leaving the company entirely, because they have no product roadmap.

    Gillett himself already left for another role inside Google, while co-founder and chief security Mike Wiacek exited the tech giant. “Chronicle had one of the most healthy and vibrant corporate cultures I could imagine. Things were never perfect, but that’s important,” Wiacek wrote in his farewell note. Motherboard says Will Robinson, the Chief Technology Officer, also announced internally that he’s leaving the company.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/09/google-chronicle-trouble/

Software/SaaS

  • Microsoft reveals the future of OneNote and it’s all about Fluid and desktop

    So what does this mean for the separate OneNote for Windows 10 app? Hodes didn’t reveal exactly what Microsoft is planning, but Mike Tholfsen, a Microsoft product manager, says “there will still be a Desktop and separate Windows 10 app.” It’s hard to imagine that two OneNote apps will exist to confuse Windows 10 users, but Microsoft does still have two Skype apps. It’s far more likely that at some point Microsoft will put development of this dedicated version on hold, as the company will start installing OneNote 2016 by default with Office 365 installs in March.

    Microsoft experimented with universal Office apps for Windows 10, but the company put these apps on hold last year. “We are currently prioritizing development for the iOS and Android versions of our apps; and on Windows, we are prioritizing Win32 and web versions of our apps,” explained a Microsoft spokesperson at the time.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/7/20953691/microsoft-onenote-to-do-integration-fluid-framework-future-features-ignite-2019

  • Slack continues to sink as analysts worry Microsoft will kill it

    The Microsoft threat is a big reason why Slack’s stock, which debuted in late June through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, has plunged in the past few months. It’s a classic David vs. Goliath story — except that most investors don’t believe Slack has a big enough rock to slay the giant from Redmond, Washington.

    Slack shares fell 2% Friday and dipped below $20, hitting an all-time low that is 25% below the stock’s reference price of $24 on the day of its Wall Street debut. The stock has plummeted more than 50% from its peak of $42, which it reached on its first day of trading.

    The company reported a big loss and slowing sales growth in September, news that spooked investors.

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/08/investing/slack-stock-microsoft-teams/index.html

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Why Google, a software giant, is spending billions to get into gadgets

    Despite the billions Google has spent to get into hardware, the tech giant is still a small player in gadgets. Its Android smartphone operating software is in more than three times the number of global devices as Apple’s, but Google continues pushing its Pixel-brand phones, a laggard in market share. Advances in hardware like GPS and radar mean gadget makers are increasingly the gatekeepers for companies that make software for mobile phones. In terms of data collection, having customers using both the device and the operating system is akin to owning the mall rather than just the department store in it.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/04/googles-hardware-dreams-havent-yet-yielded-home-run/

 

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Supplier Report: 11/8/2019


Photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash

For a company that is under investigation for monopoly behavior, Google doesn’t seem to be very concerned. Google announced its intention to purchase smartwatch company FitBit for $2.1B. Rumors are that Google will leverage the information collected by the watches for their health services division. They are also looking to expand their Wear OS platform.

Meanwhile the drama over the Pentagon’s JEDI contract continues. Reports emerged that President Donald Trump gave orders to “screw” Amazon out of the deal. Personally, I am more interested in Oracle’s next steps since they have been so vocal about Amazon’s perceived preference in the bidding process.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Google reportedly in talks to acquire Fitbit

    Reuters says the deal is still being negotiated and could still fall apart, but if it came together, it would surely strengthen Google’s position in the wearables space, an area where it has struggled despite its efforts around smartwatches and Wear OS.

    With Wear OS, Google only focused on the smartwatch market, though, and while many of these devices have fitness tracking built-in, either through third-party apps or Google’s own Fit app, there’s still a large market for dedicated (and cheaper) fitness trackers. Fitbit, meanwhile, has been stepping up its smartwatch features with its Versa line, which does not use Wear OS.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/28/google-reportedly-in-talks-to-acquire-fitbit/
    Google to Buy Fitbit, Amping Up Wearables Race

    Google reached a deal to buy wearable fitness products company Fitbit Inc. for roughly $2.1 billion, a move that intensifies the battle among technology giants to capture consumers through devices other than smartphones.

    For Google, the deal marks a further push into consumer electronics, an area where it has yet to gain significant traction to complement its massive internet-search and advertising business. It also puts Google in renewed and direct competition with Apple Inc., which this week said rising sales of wearables and related services were becoming a bigger driver of its earnings.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/fitbit-to-be-acquired-by-google-llc-11572613473

Artificial Intelligence

  • AI will not be job killer – IBM research

    The report acknowledges that AI has only just begun to transform work and that the rate of change is likely to accelerate. But, IBM – which is at the vanguard of AI – says that workers have time to adapt by learning or honing skills that require innovation, creative thinking, or deep insight and experience.

    “As new technologies continue to scale within businesses and across industries, it is our responsibility as innovators to understand not only the business process implications, but also the societal impact,” says Martin Fleming, chief economist, IBM. “To that end, this empirical research from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab sheds new light on how tasks are reorganizing between people and machines as a result of AI and new technologies.”

    https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/34680/ai-will-not-be-job-killer—ibm-research

Cloud

  • Trump Ordered Mattis to “Screw Amazon” Out of Pentagon Contract, Book Alleges

    Few thought Microsoft would beat out Amazon for the massive contract, and legal analysts said the president’s role in the procurement will almost certainly become the subject of litigation.

    “It’s crystal clear here that the President of the United States did not want this contract to be awarded to one of the competitors,” said Franklin Turner, an attorney with the law firm McCarter & English. “As a result it’s fairly likely that we will see a number of challenges that the procurement was not conducted on a level playing field.”

    https://www.motherjones.com/impeachment/2019/10/trump-ordered-mattis-to-screw-amazon-out-of-pentagon-contract-book-alleges/

  • Even after Microsoft wins, JEDI saga could drag on

    They went to court. The judge dismissed their claims that involved both the procurement process and that a former Amazon employee, who was hired by the DoD, was involved in the process of creating the RFP. They claimed that the former employee was proof that the deal was tilted toward Amazon. The judge disagreed and dismissed their complaints.

    What Oracle could never admit was that it simply didn’t have the same cloud chops as Microsoft and Amazon, the two finalists. It couldn’t be that they were late to the cloud or had a fraction of the market share that Amazon and Microsoft had. It had to be the process or that someone was boxing them out.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/28/even-after-microsoft-wins-jedi-saga-could-drag-on/

  • SAP Deepens Embrace of Microsoft Azure Cloud

    As part of an effort to make it simpler to deploy ERP applications in the cloud, SAP and Microsoft last week announced they have extended their existing alliance to provide tighter integrations between S/4 ERP applications running on the SAP HANA database deployed on the Microsoft Azure cloud.

    These integrations and reference architectures will reduce the amount of time and effort required to deploy S/4 on the Microsoft Azure cloud in addition to streamlining the support process, says David Robinson, senior vice president and managing director of SAP’s cloud business group.

    https://www.rtinsights.com/sap-deepens-embrace-of-microsoft-azure-cloud/

Security/Privacy

  • Maps Incognito is launching for Google Maps Android Users

    When Incognito mode is on, Maps will not:

    • Save your browse or search history, or send you notifications
    • Update your Location History or shared location, if any
    • Use your personal data to personalize Maps

    Turning on Incognito mode in Maps does not affect how your activity is used or saved by internet providers, other apps, voice search, and other Google services.

    https://support.google.com/maps/thread/18141335

Other

  • Google, in Rare Stumble, Posts 23% Decline in Profit

    Alphabet reported that its revenue rose 20 percent to $40.5 billion for the third quarter, but that profit dropped to $7.07 billion. Profit, which missed Wall Street forecasts, was hurt by rising costs for research and development and marketing, the company said.

    In after-hours trading, Alphabet’s stock declined 2 percent.

    The performance demonstrated the challenges of trying to maintain growth at the company and showed how Google must invest to keep that up. While advertising, rooted in the dominance of Google’s internet search engine, has sustained Alphabet’s bottom line in recent years, that business isn’t growing as fast as it once did. Google is also facing new competition for marketing dollars from Amazon and others.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/technology/google-alphabet-earnings.html

  • Don’t Look Now, But GE Is Getting Somewhere

    In releasing its third-quarter results on Wednesday, GE also raised its guidance for 2019 free cash flow and now anticipates its industrial businesses could bring in as much as $2 billion this year. That’s a $4 billion swing from GE’s worst-case scenario in its initial March forecast. There’s a fine line between setting a low bar and sandbagging the numbers, but GE’s rosier outlook is supported by signs of stabilization in its beleaguered power unit and there being less of a drag than anticipated from the transition of a supply-chain financing program to a third party. The aviation business was also able to largely offset the negative impact of the continued grounding of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max. Those were key worry points that ended up not being as worrisome.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/dont-look-now-butge-is-getting-somewhere/2019/10/30/6d0b12d6-fb35-11e9-9e02-1d45cb3dfa8f_story.html

  • SoftBank is turning to its Sprint leaders to bail out WeWork—they’ll need to do better this time

    There’s little reason to believe Son, Claure and Fisher can use their Sprint playbook to give WeWork investors and employees confidence in their future success, said Craig Moffett, a telecommunications analyst at MoffettNathanson.

    “Sprint has been an unmitigated disaster,” said Moffett. “Sprint has contracted steadily since SoftBank bought it, even in a growing wireless market. Their only hope for an exit is to pray their deal to sell it to T-Mobile is approved.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/26/softbank-taking-masayoshi-sons-sprint-playbook-to-wework.html

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Supplier Report: 11/1/2019


Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

Microsoft pulled off the upset victory! They beat AWS for the lucrative $10B+ Government cloud project known as JEDI. Several large IT firms like IBM and Oracle protested the procurement process saying Amazon was favored. Did the Pentagon pivot to quiet down the criticism or did Microsoft really deliver the best solution?

Google continues to have a rough time. They are being investigated for anti-trust behavior (as is Facebook) and now their years-long effort to consolidate texting/chat protocols is moving forward without them. Mobile service providers have joined forces and agreed to adopt RCS but are pushing Google out. Many tech journalists are proclaiming this to be disaster for Google.

Finally, Foxconn continues to fail in Wisconsin. Those buildings are still empty and all those promised jobs still haven’t arrived.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Amazon acquires Health Navigator for Amazon Care, its pilot employee healthcare program

    This is the second health startup acquired by Amazon. The first was online pharmacy PillPack, purchased by the company in 2018 for slightly less than $1 billion. PillPack’s services have also been integrated into Amazon Care, which offers deliveries of prescriptions with remotely communicated treatment plans.

    Health Navigator’s platform was created to be integrated into online health services, including telemedicine and medical call centers, to standardize the process of working with patients. Its platform includes natural language processing-based tools for documenting health complaints and care recommendations, and is integrated into apps with APIs.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/23/amazon-acquires-health-navigator-for-amazon-care-its-pilot-employee-healthcare-program/

  • Microsoft Acquires Cloud File-Migration Company Mover

    Microsoft commented that as customer demand continues to grow for moving content to the cloud, Mover should make it easier for customers to migrate files to Microsoft 365.

    The company is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada, has fewer than 11 employees and has raised less than $1 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Owler estimates its annual revenue at $5.2 million.

    The Mover acquisition marks Microsoft’s ninth acquisition this year, according to data from S&P Capital IQ, as outlined below. Microsoft is making acquisitions in a several diverse areas, including data migration, business intelligence, coding, games and security.

    https://coresight.com/research/microsoft-acquires-cloud-file-migration-company-mover/

  • SoftBank says it has now invested $18.5 billion in WeWork, ‘more than the GDP’ of Bolivia, which has 11.5 million people

    One possible hitch that Claure understandably didn’t raise yesterday — one in addition to the countless obvious challenges WeWork faces in trying to generate forward momentum, including convincing corporate customers not to look elsewhere for office space — is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS.

    As Bloomberg reported last night, SoftBank will seek national security approval from CFIUS for its takeover, and the committee has stymied the Japanese conglomerate before.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/24/softbank-notes-it-has-now-invested-18-5-billion-in-wework-more-than-the-gdp-of-bolivia-which-has-11-5-million-people/

  • Smart home platform Wink is dying as Will.i.am’s tech company is low on money

    Will.i.am’s technology company i.am+ is running out of money, according to current employees, company emails, and documents obtained by The Verge. As a result, two current employees of smart home platform Wink — which i.am+ acquired in 2017 — tell The Verge that workers haven’t been paid in seven weeks, and that their office in Schenectady, New York has been temporarily closed. Wink users have also reported on Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook that all sorts of third-party devices have stopped working with the platform, and that the company’s customer support line is dead.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/25/20932055/wink-smart-home-problems-iamplus-william-black-eyed-peas

Artificial Intelligence

  • Why IBM Thinks Google Hasn’t Achieved ‘Quantum Supremacy’

    In a blog post published on Monday, IBM researchers Edwin Pednault, John Gunnels and Jay Gambetta disputed Google’s claim that it would take a state-of-the-art classical computer around 10,000 years to complete the sampling task Google used to demonstrate quantum supremacy on its Sycamore quantum computer. “Supremacy” here is the point at which a quantum computer can quickly complete tasks that would take a non-quantum computer more than a human lifetime to do.

    The researchers instead claim that IBM’s Summit supercomputer could perform effectively the same job in just 2.5 days, by using hard drive storage and “performance-enhancing techniques,” which Google allegedly did not consider in its estimation.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb5jxd/why-ibm-thinks-google-hasnt-achieved-quantum-supremacy

Cloud

  • Microsoft reports a strong fiscal first quarter, but Azure’s growth rate continues to decline

    Microsoft posted quarterly results today that were well ahead of analysts’ expectations, but Azure’s growth rate continues to decline as it competes with AWS.

    The company’s revenue for the first quarter of the fiscal year rose 14% year-over-year, to $33.1 billion. Net income increased 21% to $10.7 billion, or $1.38 per share.

    Revenue from Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes segment, which includes its Office products and LinkedIn, grew 13%, to $11.1 billion. LinkedIn’s revenue increased by 25%.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/23/microsoft-reports-a-strong-fiscal-first-quarter-but-azures-growth-rate-continues-to-decline/
    But Wait…
    In a victory over Amazon, Microsoft wins $10B Pentagon JEDI cloud contract

    Microsoft beat out Amazon in the final round for this lucrative contract after the two cloud giants beat out other competitors like IBM and Oracle in an earlier round. Most pundits considered Amazon to be the frontrunner to win the deal.

    “We’re surprised about this conclusion. AWS is the clear leader in cloud computing, and a detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings clearly lead to a different conclusion,” an Amazon spokesperson told us in an emailed comment. “We remain deeply committed to continuing to innovate for the new digital battlefield where security, efficiency, resiliency, and scalability of resources can be the difference between success and failure.”

    The process to get to this point has been anything but uncomplicated, though, with various lawsuits, last-minute recusals and other controversies, with even the president getting involved at one point.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/25/in-a-victory-over-amazon-microsoft-wins-10b-pentagon-jedi-cloud-contract/

  • SAP teams up on cloud sales with Microsoft

    “We bundled SAP’s cloud platform services to support customers around the extension, integration and orchestration of SAP systems,” Morgan told reporters, adding that Microsoft would act as a reseller for the product.

    SAP said it expected annual revenues of around 75 million euros ($84 million) from the deal: “There’s no downside to those numbers – only upside,” she told analysts on a call.

    In the third quarter, SAP reported a 10% increase in revenue and a 15% rise in operating profit, after adjusting one-off items and currencies, helping it to achieve an expansion of 1.7% in its operating margins. The company reiterated its forecast for the year and through to 2023.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sap-results/sap-in-three-year-cloud-partnership-with-microsoft-idUSKBN1X00DR

  • Forty-six attorneys general have joined a New York-led antitrust investigation of Facebook

    Forty-six attorneys general have joined a New York-led antitrust investigation of Facebook, officials announced Tuesday, raising the stakes in a sweeping bipartisan probe of the tech giant that could result in massive changes to its business practices.

    The expanded roster of states and territories taking part in the investigation reflects lingering, broad concerns among the country’s competition watchdogs that “Facebook may have put consumer data at risk, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, and increased the price of advertising,” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said in a statement.

    Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) added, “By working together, state attorneys general are leading the way in ensuring digital platforms respect consumer privacy and do not engage in anticompetitive behavior.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/22/forty-six-attorneys-general-have-joined-new-york-led-antitrust-investigation-into-facebook/

Security/Privacy

  • Comcast Is Lobbying Against Encryption That Could Prevent it From Learning Your Browsing History

    The plan, which Google intends to implement soon, would enforce the encryption of DNS data made using Chrome, meaning the sites you visit. Privacy activists have praised Google’s move. But ISPs are pushing back as part of a wider lobbying effort against encrypted DNS, according to the presentation. Technologists and activists say this encryption would make it harder for ISPs to leverage data for things such as targeted advertising, as well as block some forms of censorship by authoritarian regimes.

    Also

    Of course, it’s worth noting that, in 2017, ISPs lobbied Congress to make it possible to sell your browsing data without your consent.

    “Either, they are doing something with this data today that is not transparent to users, or they are working incredibly hard to protect a future business model,” Erwin said.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kembz/comcast-lobbying-against-doh-dns-over-https-encryption-browsing-data

  • NordVPN confirms it was hacked

    “While this is unconfirmed and we await further forensic evidence, this is an indication of a full remote compromise of this provider’s systems,” the security researcher said. “That should be deeply concerning to anyone who uses or promotes these particular services.”

    NordVPN said “no other server on our network has been affected.”

    But the security researcher warned that NordVPN was ignoring the larger issue of the attacker’s possible access across the network. “Your car was just stolen and taken on a joy ride and you’re quibbling about which buttons were pushed on the radio?” the researcher said.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn-confirms-it-was-hacked/

Software/SaaS

  • Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield says that Microsoft has been ‘surprisingly unsportsmanlike’ as a competitor

    In July, Microsoft said that it had had 13 million daily active users, indicating that it both had more users than Slack, and that it was growing faster. In October, Slack released a new figure of 12 million daily active users, while also saying that its users were highly-engaged with the chat app — which it said was as important, or more so, than user metrics.

    On stage at the conference, Butterfield said that it was “kind of crazy” for Microsoft to release those numbers while Slack was in the quiet period after its direct listing. He also highlighted the fact that several of the top Google search trends for Microsoft Teams are related to how to uninstall the app.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-ceo-microsoft-sees-us-as-an-existential-threat-2019-10

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile have finally agreed to replace SMS with a new RCS standard

    Google is a fascinating and perhaps telling omission from the press release. Up until this point, the primary advocate for RCS has been Google, which bet on it as the only platform-level messaging service for Android. It was a bet that carriers haven’t backed until now. Verizon isn’t supporting RCS on the Pixel 4 after doing so on the Pixel 3, for example. Google recently stopped waiting for carriers in the UK and France and rolled out RCS support for Android phones using its own servers.

    Google was unable to immediately provide comment on the CCMI. That in and of itself is telling — as is the fact that the word “Google” appears precisely zero times in the carriers’ press release. Garland says the company continues to be an ecosystem partner and that this release was focused on the carriers.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/24/20931202/us-carriers-rcs-cross-carrier-messaging-initiative-ccmi-att-tmobile-sprint-verizon
    Somehow, Android’s messaging mess is about to get even worse

    At any time in the past five years, Google could have leveraged Android’s 80-plus-percent market share and told carriers that it was launching a default messaging service that works like iMessage, falling back to SMS only when necessary. It’s not in Google’s nature to push partners around (though it does make exceptions). For reasons that probably seemed reasonable every time, when it came to messaging Google always blinked.

    All that blinking and now the opportunity to simply fix Android’s messaging mess by fiat might have passed. By handing control of Android messaging over to the carriers, Google wasn’t just blinking — it was blinkered. Now the company has to scramble to make sure this entirely foreseeable outcome doesn’t end up wrecking the default texting experience on every Android phone sold in America.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/25/20931699/android-messaging-ccmi-rcs-mess-isis-google-fiascotastrophe

Other

  • Foxconn finally admits its empty Wisconsin ‘innovation centers’ aren’t being developed

    Beyond the halted innovation centers, Foxconn’s general Wisconsin plans are similarly in flux. The company announced a partnership in September with an automated coffee kiosk company to help manufacture its product domestically, with plans to add the coffee kiosk to its manufacturing contracts for the planned Mount Pleasant factory.

    But the factory doesn’t exist yet. The company is now aiming to open it in 2020 after repeatedly shifting its deadlines. It’s also reduced the planned number of jobs and the size of the factory from the original 13,000 jobs and 20 million square feet to a 1,500-employee, 1-million-square foot facility that will no longer produce the promised big-screen LCD TVs that were part of the initial contract. Earlier this month, the company announced, scrapped, and then re-announced plans to build a giant, nine-story glass orb that would serve as a data center.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/23/20929453/foxconn-innovation-centers-on-hold-wisconsin-mount-pleasant-trump-deal

  • Report: SoftBank is taking control of WeWork at an ~$8B valuation

    SoftBank, a long-time WeWork investor, plans to invest between $4 billion and $5 billion in exchange for new and existing shares, according to CNBC . The deal, expected to be announced as soon as tomorrow, represents a lifeline for WeWork, which is said to be mere weeks from running out of cash and has been shopping several of its assets as it attempts to lessen its cash burn.

    WeWork declined to comment.

    To be clear, it is reportedly the Vision Fund’s parent company, SoftBank Group Corp. that is taking control, with SoftBank International chief executive officer Marcelo Claure stepping in to support company management, per reports.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/report-softbank-is-taking-control-of-wework-at-an-8b-valuation/

  • Bill McDermott aims to grow ServiceNow like he did SAP

    It’s unclear how quickly the move came together but the plan for him is clear: to scale revenue like he did in his last job.

    Commenting during the company’s earning’s call today, outgoing CEO John Donahoe said that McDermott met all of the board’s criteria for its next leader. This includes the ability to expand globally, expand the markets it serves and finally scale the go-to-market organization internally, all in the service of building toward a $10 billion revenue goal. He believes McDermott checks all those boxes.

    McDermott has his work cut out for him. The company’s 2018 revenue was $2.6 billion. Still, he fully embraced the $10 billion challenge. “Well let me answer that very simply, I completely stand by [the $10 billion goal], and I’m looking forward to achieving it,” he said with bravado during today’s call.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/23/bill-mcdermott-aims-to-grow-servicenow-like-he-did-sap/

  • President of SAP Customer Experience departs

    Atzberger’s departure follows on the heels of Bill McDermott’s, who left his post as SAP CEO two weeks ago. McDermott was replaced by co-CEOs Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein. The change is not a surprise to some industry experts, but it raises questions about the future of SAP Customer Experience and its ability to compete with Salesforce in the CRM market.

    Morgan announced Atzberger’s departure in an email to SAP Customer Experience employees Tuesday. The email also said that enterprise industry veteran and former SAP employee Bob Stutz was joining SAP Customer Experience as president of engineering and operations.

    https://searchsap.techtarget.com/news/252472717/President-of-SAP-Customer-Experience-departs

Posted on

Supplier Report: 10/25/2019


Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

The ongoing saga of the T-Mobile/Sprint continues with positive news for T-Mobile… the FCC approved the merger. There are still more hurdles for the companies to clear, but for now they are moving forward.

Speaking of Sprint ownership… current Sprint owner SoftBank is mulling over the idea of taking over WeWork. SoftBank has invested almost $10B in WeWork, which is currently estimated to be worth $15B (down from $45B). SoftBank has made some dubious investments in the last few years, should they double down on WeWork?

Meanwhile, there are rumors that Jeff Bezos is mulling over splitting Amazon and AWS to get in front of government momentum that might force the company to split apart in the future. Would a split even matter?

Acquisitions/Investments

  • The FCC has voted to approve the T-Mobile-Sprint merger

    Now, the T-Mobile-Sprint merger faces one more battle before they plan to close the deal. The FCC and DOJ are the only two federal agencies required to approve telecom deals before they can close, and the DOJ already gave the companies the thumbs-up in July. However, a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general are still trying to block the deal through a multistate lawsuit, and representatives from the two companies said that they won’t close the merger until that is resolved.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/16/20917162/fcc-tmobile-sprint-merger-justice-department-ajit-pai-geoffrey-starks-jessica-rosenworel

Artificial Intelligence

  • Google and Ambient Computing

    Frankly, it’s a compelling vision on multiple dimensions:

    • First, it is a vision for the future that actually seems larger than the smartphone reality we live in. Alternatives like augmented reality or wearables feel smaller.
    • Second, it is a vision that does not compete with the smartphone, but rather leverages it. The smartphone is so useful for so many things that any directly competitive technology would have to cover an impossible number of use cases to displace it; ambient computing, though, simply conceives of the smart phone as one of several means to deliver on its promise.
    • Third, it is a vision that Google is uniquely suited to pursue. The company is a services company incentivized to serve the maximum number of customers no matter the means (i.e. device), and it already has a head start in providing services that contain and accumulate essential information about people’s lives.

    https://stratechery.com/2019/google-and-ambient-computing/

Cloud

  • Workday Casts a Large Cloud

    Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri answered a question about the state of the market by saying “we’re definitely seeing some delays.” He also said companies were still moving ahead with “transformation projects”—meaning an overall shift to cloud-based software—and that Workday isn’t seeing anything “drastically different” in the marketplace.

    The company maintained its previous projections for the fiscal year ending in January, but investors in the richly valued cloud computing software business tend to react badly to signs of sales deceleration. Workday’s stock price slid 11% Wednesday—its worst decline in nearly three years.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/workday-casts-a-large-cloud-11571252400

  • Amazon Could Be Open To Splitting

    CNBC ran an interview with writer Franklin Foer, who said breaking off the service “would be the obvious thing for [Bezos] to do in the face of this.”

    “I think that eventually Bezos, who is seeing around corners, is going to break up his own company,” Foer said. “AWS exists as its own fantastically profitable business. There’s no reason that it needs to be connected to Amazon the e-retailer. And as he looks at what’s happening in politics, where there’s this increasing bipartisan consensus that Big Tech is a problem, I’m pretty sure he’s going to say, ‘okay, fine.’”

    In a June interview, Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, said the company would listen to regulators if it was ordered to split off, but that he saw no upside to doing it just yet. As for revenue, AWS made up 13 percent of Amazon’s total in Q2, but more than half of its $3.1 billion in operating income for the same time period.

    https://www.pymnts.com/amazon/2019/could-jeff-bezos-spin-off-amazon-web-services/

Security/Privacy

  • Samsung will fix bug that lets any fingerprint unlock a Galaxy S10

    “Samsung Electronics is aware of the case of the S10’s malfunctioning fingerprint recognition and will soon issue a software patch,” the company told Reuters in a statement. The problem has been deemed serious enough that an online bank in South Korea, KaKaobank, has advised owners to switch off fingerprint recognition until it’s resolved.

    It’s not clear what’s causing the problem, but the Galaxy S10 uses an ultrasonic sensor to detect fingerprint ridges. Plastic or silicone screen protectors can stymie it, so Samsung has been recommending that buyers used approved protective devices. That doesn’t explain why the system is allowing access to non-registered fingerprints, however. Engadget has reached out to Samsung for more information.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/17/samsung-patch-fingerprint-reader/?guccounter=1

Software/SaaS

  • Andrew Yang at Democratic debate: No one uses Bing. ‘Sorry, Microsoft, it’s true.’

    Yang, who has worked as a tech entrepreneur, referenced Bing while answering a question during the CNN and New York Times debate about the proper level of oversight for tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter.

    “We also have to be realistic that competition doesn’t solve all of the problems,” said Yang, 44. “It’s not like any of us wants to use the fourth best navigation app, that would be like cruel and unusual punishment. There’s a reason why no one is using Bing today.”

    A slow “ooh” began to rise up from the audience.

    “Sorry, Microsoft, it’s true,” he said.

    https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2019/10/andrew-yang-at-debate-no-one-uses-bing-sorry-microsoft-its-true.html

  • Amazon’s consumer business says bye bye to Oracle databases, moves to AWS

    But let’s get real. AWS will get more marketing returns out of this Amazon consumer migration than ever. More than 100 teams in Amazon’s consumer business contributed and the AWS move gives it a purpose built approach to databases. Again, Oracle would argue that leads to database sprawl. It is also worth noting that Amazon still has some Oracle databases. AWS explained: “Some third-party applications are tightly bound to Oracle and were not migrated.”

    But generally speaking, Amazon’s consumer unit moved most systems to AWS databases such as Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Aurora, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), and Amazon Redshift. The migration covered 100% of Amazon’s proprietary systems.

    As for returns, Amazon is claiming that it reduced database costs by more than 60% with latency reductions of 40% and database admin overhead by 70%.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazons-consumer-business-says-bye-bye-to-oracle-databases-moves-to-aws/

Other

  • Former Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd has passed away

    Mark Hurd, who until last month was one of two CEOs leading the database software giant Oracle, has passed away at age 62, one month after telling employees in a letter that he was taking a leave of absence owing to health reasons.

    Hurd joined Oracle nine years ago, after spending five years with Hewlett-Packard, where he was CEO, president and, ultimately, board chairman, all roles from which he was pressured to resign in 2010 after submitting inaccurate expense reports that concealed his personal relationship with an outside consultant to the company.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/18/former-oracle-co-ceo-mark-hurd-has-passed-away/

  • IBM Earnings Fall in Prolonged Sales Slump

    IBM on Wednesday reported sales of $18.03 billion, below analysts expectations and trailing the $18.76 billion it posted in the year-prior period. Shares slumped 6% in after-hours trading.

    The revenue decline was IBM’s 27th overall under Ms. Rometty, who has struggled to adapt the more than century-old company to a changing global IT landscape since taking the reins in 2012.

    The company’s closely watched adjusted earnings per share fell to $2.68, but came in slightly higher than analysts’ forecasts of $2.66.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-earnings-fall-in-prolonged-sales-slump-11571258768

  • Son, SoftBank Risk Too Much With WeWork Takeover

    Son’s desire to be a savior may be strong. His 2012 takeover of U.S. telecommunications company Sprint Corp. is one of the most notable examples. But Vision Fund investors may also take it as a warning: Sprint remains unprofitable. It has also taken up a lot of management time as SoftBank executives worked to find a buyer — Sprint now plans to merge with T-Mobile USA — and then regulators to allow the deal to go through.

    As big as WeWork is, that investment is just 10% of the Vision Fund. Yet VC investing returns aren’t measured in percentage points, but multiples. The Vision Fund should be able to write off WeWork in its entirety and still post solid profits. It also means that expending an inordinate amount of time, and reputation, on one investee is not in the best interests of the Vision Fund’s other 82 portfolio companies, nor its investors.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/son-softbankrisktoo-much-with-wework-takeover/2019/10/14/f3b46fd8-ee4e-11e9-bb7e-d2026ee0c199_story.html

Posted on

Supplier Report: 10/18/2019


Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Facebook’s eCurrency platform Libra continues to lose support with payment vendors as scrutiny increases from the Government.

Huawei remains a security concern both in the US and EU as nations and communities try to figure out a way to replace billions of dollars of Huawei infrastructure.

Large corporation’s leadership is still in a season of change.  SAP’s Bill McDermott is stepping down and more details are being shared in Red Hat’s CFO Eric Shander’s dismissal.

Acquisitions/Investments

None this week

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM unveils Sterling Supply Chain Suite

    The “IBM Sterling Supply Chain Suite,” built on the foundation of Sterling B2B Network and Sterling Order Management, enables manufacturers and retailers to integrate critical data, business networks, and supply chain processes, Armonk, New York-based IBM said. The system’s open-architecture capabilities are a result of IBM’s recent acquisition of enterprise open-source solution provider Red Hat.

    These intelligent, self-correcting supply chains can continually learn from experience, creating greater reliability, transparency, and security while providing new competitive advantages, according to the company.

    “Supply chains are the central nervous system of global trade,” Bob Lord, IBM’s senior vice president for Cognitive Applications and Developer Ecosystems, said in a release. “Many organizations have risen to the top of their industries by building efficient and agile supply chains. But the technical infrastructure underlying many of these systems is still largely based on siloed, monolithic applications, which leads to inefficiencies throughout the supply chain.”

    https://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20191008-ibm-unveils-sterling-supply-chain-suite/

Cloud

  • Texas attorney general, Google’s new competition cop, says everything is ‘on the table’

    Since then, Paxton said, Washington has failed to pursue key signs that Google and Silicon Valley are in violation of federal law. “Antitrust seems like it hasn’t been focused on for decades, through several administrations, not just Democrats but also Republicans,” he said, later adding: “I think this should have been looked at sooner than it is.”

    The result is a significant legal and political challenge on the horizon for Google and its executives. Bipartisan in nature, and born out of a belief that the tech industry has escaped government accountability for too long, Paxton and his team said nothing is off limits — words that threaten a broad review of Google’s business in a way that could reshape not only the company but the rest of Silicon Valley.

    “If we end up learning things that lead us in other directions, we’ll certainly bring those back to the states and talk about whether we expand into other areas,” he said.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/08/texas-attorney-general-googles-new-competition-cop-says-everything-is-table/

  • Oracle Hiring Cloud Experts, Despite Cloud Chaos

    The announcement of these cloud-based hires comes four months after Oracle reportedly laid off hundreds of employees from the Seattle facility that served as the nucleus for much of its cloud operations. At the time, Business Insider suggested that the layoffs stemmed from vicious infighting among the cloud teams, along with a broader struggle to determine the company’s direction.

    Indeed, a new article in Bloomberg suggests that Oracle is retreating from its previous vision of competing directly against Amazon Web Services in the cloud-infrastructure arena. Instead, Oracle is focusing on cloud-based platforms and applications that serve its clients’ database and analytics needs. On top of that, the company is reportedly abandoning its previous strategy of going it alone in favor of partnerships with companies such as Microsoft, Box, and VMware.

    https://insights.dice.com/2019/10/10/oracle-hiring-cloud-experts/

Security/Privacy

  • No one could prevent another ‘WannaCry-style’ attack, says DHS official

    Jeanette Manfra, the assistant director for cybersecurity for Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF that the 2017 WannaCry cyberattack, which saw hundreds of thousands of computers around the world infected with ransomware, was uniquely challenging because it spread so quickly.

    “I don’t know that we could ever prevent something like that,” said Manfra, referring to another WannaCry-style attack. “We just have something that completely manifests itself as a worm. I think the original perpetrators didn’t expect probably that sort of impact,” she added.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/06/government-prevent-wannacry-style-dhs/

  • EU Warns of 5G Risks Amid Scrutiny of Huawei

    The new assessment has raised alarm among officials in European capitals over Huawei, in particular, according to officials familiar with the report. Huawei has been a big supplier of network gear in large European economies like the U.K. and Germany. European leaders will lay out specific guidelines for member states on how best to approach issues of security within 5G networks later this year.

    “These vulnerabilities are not ones which can be remedied by making small technical changes, but are strategic and lasting in nature,” said a person familiar with the debate inside the European Council, the bloc’s top political policy-making body.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-warns-of-5g-risks-amid-scrutiny-of-huawei-11570814799
    Huawei helped bring Internet to small-town America. Now its equipment has to go

    Other rural telecom companies face a similar predicament. About a dozen small rural carriers have purchased gear over the years from Huawei or ZTE, another Chinese company that has raised security concerns, according to their trade group, the Rural Wireless Association. The carriers often bought the equipment with U.S. government subsidies intended to help bring Internet service to sparsely populated areas that larger telecom companies deemed unprofitable.

    Replacing the gear would cost roughly $1 billion, the association says, and Pine and other small companies are calling for federal funding to help. “If not, rural America takes a hit,” Whisenhunt said, adding that it would take Pine years and tens of millions of dollars to strip its Huawei equipment off more than 140 cell towers.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/10/huawei-helped-bring-internet-small-town-america-now-its-equipment-has-go/

Other

  • SAP’s Bill McDermott on stepping down as CEO

    SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott today announced that he wouldn’t seek to renew his contract for the next year and step down immediately after nine years at the helm of the German enterprise giant.

    Shortly after the announcement, I talked to McDermott, as well as SAP’s new co-CEOs Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein. During the call, McDermott stressed that his decision to step down was very much a personal one, and that while he’s not ready to retire just yet, he simply believes that now is the right time for him to pass on the reins of the company.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/10/saps-bill-mcdermott-on-stepping-down-as-ceo/

  • Mastercard, Visa, eBay Drop Out of Facebook’s Libra Payments Network

    The moves came after lawmakers, central bankers and regulators expressed deep concerns about the libra project.

    The loss of four of the largest payments companies in the world leaves Facebook without much of the muscle it assembled for libra, a digital currency it hoped would make it a player in e-commerce and global money transfers. The project now mostly hinges on smaller payments companies, telecommunications providers, venture-capital firms, e-commerce merchants and nonprofits.

    “I would caution against reading the fate of Libra into this update,” David Marcus, the Facebook executive overseeing the project, wrote Friday on Twitter. “Of course, it’s not great news in the short term, but in a way it’s liberating. Stay tuned for more very soon. Change of this magnitude is hard. You know you’re on to something when so much pressure builds up.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/mastercard-drops-out-of-facebook-s-libra-payments-network-11570824139

  • Red Hat CFO Loses Out on Retention Bonus Following Standards-Related Ouster

    Red Hat Inc.’s finance chief Eric Shander has been dismissed from the company, forfeiting a $4 million retention award that was agreed to ahead of Red Hat’s acquisition by International Business Machines Corp.

    The Raleigh, N.C.-based software company confirmed late Thursday that Mr. Shander was no longer working at Red Hat. “Eric was dismissed without pay in connection with Red Hat’s workplace standards,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/red-hat-cfo-loses-out-on-retention-bonus-following-standards-related-ouster-11570825819