Tag: IBM

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Supplier Report: 8/2/2019


Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

Microsoft continues to make strides in the cloud space inching closer to Amazon’s crown (but not that close…yet). The company is also betting on massive AI investments to continue their success in the future.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile and Sprint are finally allowed to merge and Dish will officially become a telecom company.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • T-Mobile and Sprint get DOJ approval for $26 billion merger deal

    The U.S. Department of Justice this morning gave the green light to T-Mobile US and Sprint for their proposed $26 billion merger. The deal, which would combine the nation’s third and fourth largest carriers (by subscriber number) has been green lit on the condition that Sprint sell its prepaid assets (including Boost Mobile) to Dish Network.

    As part of the deal, some nine million prepaid subscribers will move over to Dish, which will also have access to T-Mobile/Sprint’s network for a period of seven years.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/26/t-mobile-and-sprint-get-doj-approval-for-26-billion-merger-deal/

    Experts Say the DOJ Justification for T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Approval Is a Joke

    “Today’s settlement will provide Dish with the assets and transitional services required to become a facilities-based mobile network operator that can provide a full range of mobile wireless services nationwide,” DOJ Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim said of the deal.

    But experts consulted by Motherboard say the proposal isn’t likely to work, and the end result of the merger will still very likely be higher prices and worse service for all.

    For one thing, Dish has been promising to build a wireless network for the better part of the last decade with little to show for it. The company has routinely been accused of “spectrum squatting,” or buying spectrum it doesn’t use in a bid to turn around and sell it later when it’s more valuable. Even T-Mobile made this complaint when Dish initially criticized the merger.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvw55/t-mobile-sprint-merger-is-a-joke

Artificial Intelligence

  • Microsoft to Invest $1 Billion in Artificial-Intelligence Startup

    “This is a big investment for Microsoft, even at their size,” said Stifel analyst Brad Reback. “They’ll do scores of acquisitions annually but most of them tend to be smaller technology tuck-ins.”

    OpenAI was launched in 2015 as a nonprofit with a goal of leading efforts to develop artificial general intelligence. It competes with Alphabet Inc. ’s DeepMind Technologies and others. OpenAI is led by CEO Sam Altman, a former president of startup accelerator Y Combinator.

    The Microsoft investment signals a vote of confidence in OpenAI’s recent transformation into a private company from a nonprofit. In March, OpenAI revamped its legal structure to raise more money and gain scale, which enabled it to accept the investment from Microsoft.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-to-invest-1-billion-in-artificial-intelligence-startup-11563813648

Cloud

  • Google Cloud’s run rate is now over $8B

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who recently installed former Oracle exec Thomas Kurian as the new head of Google Cloud, announced that this business unit now has an $8 billion annual revenue run rate. That’s up from the $4 billion the company reported in early 2018.

    While Google often felt like an also-ran in the cloud wars, it’s clearly starting to make up some ground. “Other cloud providers would have you believe that no one is using Google, which is not true,” Kurian told me when I talked to him earlier this year. Now he can put some numbers behind this claim.

    To put that into perspective, AWS’s run rate topped $30 billion last quarter while Microsoft Azure is somewhere around $11 billion, though concrete numbers are hard to come by.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/25/google-clouds-run-rate-is-now-over-8b/

  • The cloud computing market is closing in on a $100 billion milestone, but half of it is going to either Amazon or Microsoft, according to an analyst report

    The cloud market, which covers web-based services for infrastructure, platform and hosted private clouds, totaled about $23 billion in the second quarter, according to Synergy Research Group. That’s up 39% from the year-ago period and $1.6 billion from the previous quarter.

    Amazon owned 33% of that market, bigger than the combined share of its four closest rivals: Microsoft, which had 16%, Google, 8%, Alibaba and Tencent. The report also mentioned other key players in the cloud market — IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and Rackspace — which posted lower growth rates and “are more niche-oriented.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-microsoft-cloud-gap-narrowing-2019-7

  • Microsoft, AT&T sign cloud deal worth more than $2 billion

    Under the deal, Microsoft and AT&T will also work together on so-called edge computing, which will see Microsoft technology deployed alongside AT&T’s coming 5G network for applications that need extremely small delays in passing data back and forth, such as air traffic control systems for drones. The multi-year deal is worth more than $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    The agreement is a major win for Microsoft, which will become AT&T’s “preferred” cloud vendor and is fighting to gain market share from Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services, the biggest provider of public cloud services. Cloud service customers run their software applications in data centers managed by the cloud provider.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-at-t-cloud/microsoft-att-sign-cloud-deal-worth-more-than-2-billion-idUSKCN1UC1KK?il=0
    IBM Lands AT&T as Client in Cloud Deal

    The partnership builds on IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of open-source software firm Red Hat, which closed last week. Buying Red Hat strengthened IBM’s standing in the hybrid cloud market. Companies use the hybrid cloud to manage software and other systems across different cloud services and their own data centers.

    IBM said that Red Hat’s open-source software will give AT&T Business the flexibility to move data and applications among various clouds and data centers. AT&T Business until now has worked with multiple cloud vendors.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-lands-at-t-as-client-in-cloud-deal-11563317480

Security/Privacy

  • An Equifax hack settlement promises a $125 payout. The truth is more complicated.

    First, if your information (most importantly, your social security number) was part of the hack, then you should assume it’s out there forever. Even if someone hasn’t stolen your identity yet, it could still happen.

    Second, even if you file for reimbursement, there’s a good chance you won’t actually get the full $125 that Equifax and the FTC are talking about. Things are worded carefully in the agreement, but the bottom line is there’s a limited amount of money in the payout pool, and it won’t cover $125 checks for 147 million people.

    Given all that, the biggest loophole you should be aware of is that if you do nothing, you will automatically waive your right to take legal action against Equifax in the future.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/27/equifax-settlement-guide-how-get-money-what-you-need-know/?utm_term=.ae82df97b9e0

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Apple’s and Intel’s No-Brainer Deal

    The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the two are in “advanced talks.” A deal would purportedly involve both the intellectual property and staff related to Intel’s effort to design and build the crucial smartphone component that ultimately landed only Apple as a customer. The reported purchase price under discussion is about $1 billion.

    That is less than a week’s worth of free cash flow for Apple. It also is about what Intel has been losing annually on modems. Despite landing the sizable iPhone business, Intel’s modem-chip operation never achieved the necessary scale to compete profitably with market leader Qualcomm . QCOM -0.17% Meanwhile, Apple was effectively locked into the Intel modem during its bruising legal tussle with Qualcomm. The latter’s advancements in 5G technology ultimately spurred a settlement of that dispute, but it is an uneasy peace. Intel now has a modem operation with no customer following this year’s iPhone model, and Apple is back to depending on a supplier with whom it now has a rather tortured history.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-and-intels-no-brainer-deal-11563900798

  • Sony’s wearable AC will arrive too late to save you from this year’s heatwave

    Sony has announced the Reon Pocket, a small cooling device that you can wear like a portable air conditioner. It’s currently live on Sony’s crowdfunding website, where prices start at ¥12,760 (about $117). SlashGear notes that as well as cooling you during hot days, the device, which slots into the back pocket of a specially designed T-shirt, can also warm you up during the winter.

    https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/7/27/8931701/sony-reon-pocket-portable-wearable-air-conditioner-heater-heatwave-t-shirt

    I need this thing now. Right Now.

Other

  • Tesla’s longtime CTO is stepping down

    Longtime Tesla executive JB Straubel is leaving his post as chief technology officer after some 15 years, CEO Elon Musk announced Wednesday evening. Straubel will transition to a “senior advisor” role, according to Musk, and is not fully leaving the company. The news comes as Tesla announced a $408 million loss for the second quarter of 2019.

    “I’m not disappearing, and I just wanted to make sure that people understand that this was not some, you know, lack of confidence in the company, or the team, or anything like that,” Straubel said on the call.

    Straubel is the second C-suite executive to announce a change in his role on one of Tesla’s earnings calls in the last six months. Longtime chief financial officer Deepak Ahuja announced he was retiring on a call in January. Tesla also has a well-documented revolving door when it comes to lower-level executives.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/24/20726728/tesla-jb-straubel-cto-is-stepping-down

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Supplier Report: 6/28/2019


Photo by Craig Sybert on Unsplash

Automation and artificial intelligence will likely change the world, for both good and bad.

The dark side of automation is making itself known through robocalls. We all get them, including hospitals. Many help lines are getting clogged with robocalls which are preventing people with urgent care needs from getting through.

Meanwhile, Oracle is on a roller-coaster ride this month. Their financials are up, but people are calling out financial engineering due to $36B in stock buy back.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Blue Prism acquires UK’s Thoughtonomy for up to $100M to expand its RPA platform with more AI

    Blue Prism, which helped coin the term RPA when it was founded back in 2001, has announced that it is buying Thoughtonomy, which has built a cloud-based AI engine that delivers RPA-based solutions on a SaaS framework. Blue Prism is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange — where its market cap is around £1.3 billion ($1.6 billion), and in a statement to the market alongside its half-year earnings, it said it would be paying up to £80 million ($100 million) for the firm.

    The deal is coming in a combination of cash and stock: £12.5 million payable on completion of the deal, £23 million in shares payable on completion of the deal, up to £20 million payable a year after the deal closes, up to £4.5 million in cash after 18 months, and a final £20 million on the second anniversary of the deal closing, in shares. Thoughtonomy had never raised outside funding, although that was not for lack of interest.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/blue-prism-acquires-uks-thoughtonomy-for-up-to-100m-to-expand-its-rpa-platform-with-more-ai/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Microsoft PowerPoint gets an AI presentation coach

    Microsoft’s AI can’t tell you if your jokes will land, of course, but the new coaching feature gives you real-time feedback on your pacing, for example, tells you whether you are using inclusive language and how many filler words you use. It also makes sure that you don’t commit the greatest sin of presenting: just reading the slides.

    After your rehearsal session, PowerPoint will show you a dashboard with a summary of your performance and what to focus on to improve your skills.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/microsofts-powerpoint-will-use-ai-to-make-you-a-better-public-speaker/

Security/Privacy

  • Robocalls are overwhelming hospitals and patients, threatening a new kind of health crisis

    “These calls to health-care institutions and patients are extremely dangerous to the public health and patient privacy,” said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), the Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who has put forward legislation to try to clamp down on robocalls. “The FCC and Justice Department need to go after these criminals with the seriousness and urgency this issue deserves.”

    The absence of immediate relief spells particular trouble for medical professionals. Scammers often adopt a technique known as spoofing to cover their tracks, a practice that results in people receiving calls from numbers that look similar to their own. For a hospital, that often can mean calls appear to come from local area codes, tricking health care workers into thinking it’s a nearby patient in need of care.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/17/robocalls-are-overwhelming-hospitals-patients-threatening-new-kind-health-crisis/?utm_term=.3184fc47f8f7

  • Your used Nest camera could be spying on you

    A member of the Facebook Wink Users Group discovered that after selling his Nest cam, he was still able to access images from his old camera—except it wasn’t a feed of his property. Instead, he was tapping into the feed of the new owner, via his Wink account. As the original owner, he had connected the Nest Cam to his Wink smart-home hub, and somehow, even after he reset it, the connection continued.

    We decided to test this ourselves and found that, as it happened for the person on Facebook, images from our decommissioned Nest Cam Indoor were still viewable via a previously linked Wink hub account—although instead of a video stream, it was a series of still images snapped every several seconds.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90366910/your-used-nest-camera-could-be-spying-on-you

Software/SaaS

  • Oracle shares rise on bullish earnings report

    Good numbers: Oracle Corp. shares rose 7.5% to $56.63 Thursday after the business software maker reported a bigger-than-expected 14% rise in quarterly profit driven by growth in its cloud services and license-support business. The shares closed Friday at $56.12.

    http://www.startribune.com/market-recap-oracle-shares-rise-on-bullish-earnings-report/511662182/
    Oracle investors breathe a sigh of relief on rising sales

    “We are focused on our star products and our star products are now driving the top line higher,” Ellison said on the call. “We have these other businesses that are melting away and we just don’t care.”

    Cloud licence and on-premise licence sales increased 12 per cent to US$2.52 billion, suggesting that Oracle is doing a good job of signing on new customers. The company said that revenue from NetSuite grew 32 per cent, and Fusion HR and financial suites gained by the same amount.

    https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/technology/oracle-investors-breathe-a-sigh-of-relief-on-rising-sales
    Oracle spent $36 billion in one year buying its own stock back, and it raises some uncomfortable questions about how it’s spending its cash

    For example, in contrast to the $36 billion spent on stock buybacks, Oracle spent $1.66 billion on capital expenditures in 2019, down from the $1.73 billion it spent in 2018.

    Remember, Oracle is trying to build itself into a cloud computing giant to take on the likes of mighty Amazon Web Services and, more importantly, keep itself relevant in an age where its customers want the cloud.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-stock-buybacks-growth-cloud-investors-2019-6
    The New Oracle Looks Like the Old IBM

    Oracle is an aging tech company that lacks real growth engines and repeatedly props up its earnings with buybacks. It’s stuck in the same downward spiral as IBM used to be, and it lacks the motivation of IBM under Ginni Rometty to break the cycle. Therefore, I’d avoid Oracle and stick with stronger tech companies — like Amazon or Microsoft — even though they trade at higher valuations.

    https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/06/20/the-new-oracle-looks-like-the-old-ibm.aspx

Other

  • IBM CIO Focuses on User Experience to Keep Staff Happy

    New employees expect that the IT services they use at work will be as good as or better than the technology they use at home, he said. To be competitive and attract talent, “we have to create an environment where talented engineers want to work,” he added.

    To that end, Mr. Previn and the design team have created new ways for employees to get and set up new devices. Device provisioning, or the act of assigning employees laptops, desktops and mobile phones with the appropriate encryption, email and productivity software, can be costly and time-consuming for IT departments.

    Mr. Previn’s user-research team oversaw a monthslong project in which they observed how much friction was involved for employees setting up their laptops. Many of the steps are now automated and cloud-based, similar to the way a consumer would be able to set up a device out of the box. “That’s materially different from an experience standpoint,” Mr. Previn said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-cio-focuses-on-user-experience-to-keep-staff-happy-11560984488

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Supplier Report: 6/14/2019


Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

A week after news broke that Google will likely be under anti-trust investigation, the company announced it plans to acquire data analytics company Looker. I am curious if the Justice Department’s activity will impact this acquisition (Google isn’t doing so well in cloud hosting).

Microsoft and Oracle are teaming up to weaken cloud leader Amazon. Azure will now support some of Oracle’s database products, which should lead to quicker cloud migration for (formerly) on-prem applications.

FedEx is ending their priority shipping relationship with Amazon. Amazon has been building out their own shipping and logistic services for years and FedEx was tired of the customer/competitor dynamic.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Google to Acquire Data Analytics Firm Looker for $2.6 Billion

    The Alphabet Inc. unit unveiled a deal on Thursday to acquire Looker, a business-intelligence software and big- data analytics platform, for $2.6 billion in cash. The two companies were well acquainted; Alphabet earlier invested in Looker through its venture-capital arm CapitalG.

    The move indicates Google will continue to pour resources into its Google Cloud division as it remains far behind rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp in cloud computing. The area is a priority of Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai, who replaced the unit’s head, Diane Greene, with ex- Oracle executive Thomas Kurian earlier this year. Analysts have long speculated an acquisition as likely.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-acquire-data-analytics-firm-looker-for-2-6-billion-11559829249

  • German Chip Maker Infineon Buys U.S. Rival in $9.4 Billion Deal

    German chip maker Infineon IFNNY 0.18% Technologies AG has agreed to acquire Cypress Semiconductor Corp. CY 0.23% for €8.4 billion ($9.4 billion), the latest in a series of transactions reshaping the industry.

    Infineon shares fell 8.1% to €14.79 on Monday, as analysts questioned whether the company was overpaying for Cypress, especially as global economic fears roil markets. Infineon itself cut its full-year targets in March due to the uncertainty, including a slowdown in the Chinese car market.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/infineon-to-buy-cypress-semiconductor-in-multibillion-dollar-deal-11559540811

  • The Fiat Chrysler-Renault merger is dead over suboptimal ‘political conditions’

    FCA confirmed to TechCrunch that it has withdrawn its offer, largely due to political conditions.

    “FCA remains firmly convinced of the compelling, transformational rationale of a proposal that has been widely appreciated since it was submitted, the structure and terms of which were carefully balanced to deliver substantial benefits to all parties,” according to a company statement provided to TechCrunch. “However, it has become clear that the political conditions in France do not currently exist for such a combination to proceed successfully.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/05/the-fiat-chrysler-renault-merger-is-dead-over-suboptimal-political-conditions/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Germ-detecting AI and virtual farms: How tech will revolutionize food across the globe in the next 5 years

    AI sensors installed in mobile phones and other portable devices will allow the detection of food-borne pathogens wherever they may appear.

    With this sort of tech, we’ll easily be able, for example, to detect the presence of E. coli or Salmonella in food and to prevent outbreaks. According to IBM: “Mobile bacteria sensors could dramatically increase the speed of a pathogen test from days to second.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-virtual-farms-to-revolutionise-diets-across-the-globe-2019-6

Cloud

  • The Google Outage Highlights the Perils of a Centralized Internet

    Sunday’s issues once again highlighted how fragile the modern internet really is, and how reliant we are on Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), and Google (Google Cloud), who collectively dominate the $70 billion cloud computing market.

    The outage also again showcased that however carefully engineers may plan, having a centralized point of failure will inevitably cause headaches—especially when you’ve trusted your entire backend computing power or storage to just one company.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xzdak/the-google-outage-highlights-the-perils-of-a-centralized-internet

  • Microsoft (MSFT) Ups Ante in Cloud With Oracle Partnership

    Through this partnership, Oracle will support its software which includes Oracle’s Autonomous Database on Microsoft’s Azure services, comprising AI and analytics capabilities. Meanwhile, Microsoft will offer Oracle’s software to its Windows Azure customers. Further, Oracle will make its software available to Microsoft’s cloud computing customers.

    For instance, customers can now run Oracle software and other applications including Oracle E-Business Suite on Azure. Further, Oracle applications are enabled to utilize Azure Active Directory.

    This flexibility is expected to accelerate digital transformation of business database to public cloud platforms significantly. Overall, the partnership is aimed at providing direct and secure network connectivity, and fast data exchange between the two cloud platforms.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-msft-ups-ante-cloud-142502667.html

Security/Privacy

  • U.S. Cities Strain to Fight Hackers

    Municipalities in general are less prepared than companies due to limited resources and difficulty competing for cybersecurity talent, security professionals say. They are also increasingly reliant on technology to deliver city services and some have aging computer systems, according to Standard & Poor’s.

    Ransomware attacks often start when an employee opens a link or an attachment in a phishing email. Hackers can also exploit vulnerabilities in a security system. The ransomware then blocks files the cyberattackers say they will unlock in return for a payment, typically in bitcoin.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-cities-strain-to-fight-hackers-11559899800

  • Microsoft deletes massive face recognition database

    Microsoft has deleted a massive database of 10 million images which was being used to train facial recognition systems, the Financial Times reports. The database was released in 2016 and was built of online images of 100,000 well-known people.

    The database is believed to have been used to train a system operated by police forces and the military.The deletion comes after Microsoft called on US politicians to do a better job of regulating recognition systems.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48555149
    Microsoft Deleted a Massive Facial Recognition Database, But It’s Not Dead

    “Despite the recent termination of the msceleb.org website, the dataset still exists in several repositories on GitHub, the hard drives of countless researchers, and will likely continue to be used in research projects around the world,” Harvey wrote on Megapixels. A facial recognition challenge this year at Imperial College London plans to use a variant of the MS-Celeb-1M database, and offers download links.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3x4mp/microsoft-deleted-a-facial-recognition-database-but-its-not-dead

  • Google is reportedly arguing that cutting Huawei off from Android threatens US security

    Because Huawei phones are already banned in the US, understanding how Google is making that case that a forked version of Android being sold elsewhere in the world is a serious threat to US national security might seem like a bit of a jump. Although the Financial Times’ sources don’t explicitly lay out Google’s argument, it’s not difficult to imagine how it would go.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/7/18656163/google-huawei-android-security-ban-claims

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Infinidat Announces Data Rescue Program for IBM Storage Customers

    “IBM created the high-end storage market, but aside from its commitment to storage for z/OS mainframes, layoffs at their Tel Aviv development center and their lack of architectural innovation together show an apparent lack of commitment to the open systems storage market,” said Stan Zaffos, Senior Vice President at Infinidat. “The company’s reliance on obsolescent storage architectures and their willingness to lay off developers, most recently its XIV and A9000 developers, has left many IBM storage customers searching for an exit strategy.”
    **
    As part of the program, every IBM customer, globally, with an active support contract for A9000/R, XIV, or other IBM storage solutions, is eligible for no-cost data migration to InfiniBox. The InfiniBox FLX program provides ultra-high performance, simple pay-as-you-go pricing, a 100% availability guarantee, and free total hardware refresh every three years – for life. For customers wishing to purchase the storage, Infinidat also offers a Capacity-on-Demand CapEx model to purchase what you use as you need it. To further mitigate risk, Infinidat will also provide the data migration services to InfiniBox or InfiniBox FLX at no charge for most installations.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/infinidat-announces-data-rescue-program-120000975.html

Other

  • Google Gets Ready for Legal Fight as U.S. Mulls an Antitrust Probe

    Google’s competitors are pressing antitrust enforcers to look far and wide at the company’s practices. Perhaps the most common complaint against Google around the world in recent years is that it uses its search engine to privilege its own content at the expense of its competitors’.

    For example, it created new design features like the “knowledge graph,” which populates the boxes that appear at the top of search, often answering a query without requiring the user to click through to another website. In March, 62% of Google searches on mobile were “no-click” searches, according to research firm Jumpshot. Google has argued that if consumers don’t find the rearranged content useful, they won’t click on it.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-gets-ready-for-legal-fight-as-u-s-weighs-an-antitrust-probe-11559521581
    Google appeals $1.7BN EU AdSense antitrust fine

    The AdSense antitrust decision is the third fine for Google under the Commission’s current antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager — who also issued a $5BN penalty for anti-competitive behaviors attached to Android last summer; following a $2.7BN fine for Google Shopping antitrust violations, in mid 2017.

    Google is appealing both earlier penalties but has also made changes to how it operates Google Shopping and Android in Europe in the meanwhile, to avoid the risk of further punitive penalties.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/05/google-appeals-1-7bn-eu-adsense-antitrust-fine/

  • FedEx Says It’s Ending Express Shipping Service for Amazon

    Friday’s move also reflects how Amazon has gone from simply a sought-after customer to a direct competitor of FedEx. As Amazon has built its own delivery capacity through a fleet of airplanes and same-day couriers, the internet giant has been able to ship more of its products on its own and control its costs. That has put FedEx in an untenable position of essentially competing with Amazon for Amazon’s own business.

    FedEx is betting on other retailers, which are expanding their e-commerce businesses but still need shipping companies to help them fulfill their express orders. FedEx said e-commerce was expected to double to 100 million packages a day in the United States by 2026.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/business/fedex-amazon-express-delivery.html

  • IRS Wins Again in Closely Watched Intel Tax Case

    The case involves what is known as share-based compensation and where it should be deducted as a business expense. The IRS wrote a regulation that required companies to deduct more of it abroad as opposed to deducting it in the U.S. Especially before the 2017 federal-tax overhaul that lowered corporate rates, companies had an incentive to claim those deductions against the higher U.S. tax rate—and thus pack more of their profits into low-taxed foreign jurisdictions.

    “We disagree with the Tax Court that the 2003 regulations are arbitrary and capricious,” wrote Chief Judge Sidney Thomas, who was appointed by President Clinton. “While the rulemaking process was less than ideal, the [law] does not require perfection.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/irs-wins-again-in-closely-watched-intel-tax-case-11559928738

  • Not Your Daddy’s Regulation: Tech Giants Face A Complicated Reckoning In Washington

    Amazon is ferociously aggressive in many of its business lines, yet it faces fierce competition in nearly all of them. There’s Amazon.com vs. Walmart, Whole Foods vs. the broader grocery industry, AWS vs. Microsoft Azure, Amazon Echo vs. Google Home.

    With such a diverse set of businesses, Amazon will make it hard for regulators to reign in the “bigness” many are hoping it will tackle. Amazon and its fellow tech giants are nothing like the Bell Telephone Company or Standard Oil, which grew dominant by finding a core advantage and defending it at all costs. They have instead built their empires through continual reinvention, and they are far more nimble than their corporate predecessors. Regulators will therefore have to comb through each business line, consider the market dynamics in each, and toe the line between policing anti-competitive behavior and picking winners and losers.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/not-your-daddys-regulation-tech-giants-face-a-complicated

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/17/2019

There is growing public pressure on Facebook to make some kind of change. Former employees and government officials want to break up the company calling it a monopoly, but are Facebook’s services essential?

Seeing this drama unfold, Google is quickly pivoting to privacy-based position. In recent weeks the company is allowing users to limit tracking and delete information Google has stored about usage.  Very smart move… but is it enough?

Meanwhile Oracle just can’t give up on Project Jedi.

Acquisitions

  • Apple buys companies at the same rate you buy groceries

    This weekend, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that Apple purchases a new company every two to three weeks on average, and has bought between 20 and 25 companies in the last six months alone.

    That’s roughly as often as I bought groceries during some… oh, let’s just call them “fresh vegetable adjacent” periods of my life.

    You know how human beings never fail to be surprised when they get to the cash register and see how much of their paycheck is about to turn into food? I wonder if Apple ever feels that way. I’d guess not, considering how the company’s reportedly sitting on $225.4 billion dollars of cash on hand alone — enough to settle a historic array of lawsuits with Qualcomm 50 times over, if push came to shove.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18531570/apple-company-purchases-startups-tim-cook-buy-rate

  • Marvell to Acquire Aquantia, Eying Automotive Networking Market

    Marvell on Monday announced that it had reached an agreement to buy the networking specialist firm Aquantia for $452 million. The acquisition will allow Marvell to significantly augment their current networking capabilities, with the company intending to use Aquantia’s technology in future PC, enterprise, and especially in-vehicle applications.

    Under the terms of the deal, Marvell will pay Aquantia shareholders $13.25 per share in cash, bringing the total value of the deal to $452 million. The transaction has already been approved by board of directors of both companies, and subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close by the end of calendar year 2019.

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/14300/marvell-to-acquire-aquantia-eying-automotive-networking-market

Artificial Intelligence

  • The Morning After: All the important stuff from Google I/O

    An AI-powered assistant that responds to voice commands faster than you can type or swipe, even offline? That’s what Google promised at I/O, with demos showing off how its next-generation assistant could operate across and through several apps, using voice control almost exclusively to get the information users need when they need it. Plus, it learns what you like and can even make restaurant or menu suggestions based on those preferences. Expect to see these features roll out on Pixel phones first later this year.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/08/the-morning-after-google-io-highlights/

Cloud

  • Oracle Alleges AWS Recruited DoD Officials To Influence JEDI Cloud Award

    After Oracle first raised the issue, the DoD Inspector General, assisted by the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad, reopened a prior investigation and again concluded those potential improprieties didn’t impact the integrity of the process. A previous Government Accountability Office investigation also found no flaw warranting a change in how the military was selecting a cloud vendor.

    But Oracle argued Tuesday the military’s contracting officer was wrong to take Ubhi’s claims at face value during the investigation, noting he actively sought to return to AWS, where he previously worked, during his short stint at DoD, where for a time he worked as a JEDI project manager.

    https://www.crn.com/news/cloud/oracle-alleges-aws-recruited-dod-officials-to-influence-jedi-cloud-award

  • SAP embraces cloud customization – with interesting partners

    SAP is launching SAP Embrace, a new initiative to enable users of the SAP S/4 HANA ERP system to move it to the cloud, with platform, software, services and infrastructure customized to their specific industry needs. Interestingly, SAP is collaborating with cloud competitors Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. SAP Embrace customers will be able to select one of those three cloud services providers as a hyperscaler, and also leverage SAP’s network of global strategic service partners.

    https://www.chainstoreage.com/technology/sap-embraces-cloud-customization-with-interesting-partners/

Security/Privacy

  • Google Says It Has Found Religion on Privacy

    Google plans to permit users to navigate its maps, watch videos on YouTube and search for information in “incognito mode,” limiting the amount of information shared with the company. It will also allow users to delete web and app activity history automatically after three months or 18 months.

    Google added incognito mode to its Chrome browser a decade ago.

    The company also said it would make it easier for users to find and delete information they have shared with the company, including location data in maps. For its Android operating system, Google said a new update would simplify how to limit the sharing of location data with app providers.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/technology/google-privacy-tools.html

Software/SaaS

  • Symantec CEO Abruptly Resigns Amid Financial Turmoil

    Symantec CEO Greg Clark abruptly resigned yesterday immediately before the embattled security company reported its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings, which included weak enterprise sales and disappointing forecasts for the first quarter and full 2020 fiscal year.

    The company appointed Richard Hill, current Symantec director and former chairman and CEO of Novellus Systems, as interim president and CEO, effective immediately, and said it will begin a search to find a permanent CEO.

    https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/symantec-ceo-abruptly-resigns-amid-financial-turmoil/2019/05/

  • IBM sells $28.6b of bonds to help fund Red Hat buy

    The Red Hat purchase will push the combined company’s borrowings above $US60 billion with debt that’s more than three times a key measure of earnings, said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Robert Schiffman and Mike Campellone. Though IBM won’t buy back shares in the next two years, it still risks a potential downgrade to the BBB range, the tier of corporate debt that’s just above junk, they wrote.

    IBM took out a $US20 billion bridge loan to fund the Red Hat deal and will use some of its cash pile, the company said in October when the transaction was announced. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings cut IBM one level to A at the time, the sixth-highest investment-grade rating, while it remains on review for downgrade at Moody’s Investors Service.

    https://www.afr.com/markets/debt-markets/ibm-sells-28-6b-of-bonds-to-help-fund-red-hat-buy-20190509-p51li8

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Microsoft open-sources its quantum computing development tools

    This move, the company says, is meant to make “quantum computing and algorithm development easier and more transparent for developers.” In addition, it will make it easier for academic institutions to use these tools, and developers, of course, will be able to contribute their own code and ideas.

    Unsurprisingly, the code will live on Microsoft’s GitHub page. Previously, the team had already open-sourced a number of tools and examples, as well as a library of quantum chemistry samples, but this is the first time the team is open-sourcing core parts of the platform.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/microsoft-open-sources-its-quantum-computing-development-tools/

  • Apple’s would-be sapphire glass supplier charged with fraud

    Apple loaned $578 million to a company called GT Advanced Technologies, which was supposed to build highly scratch-resistant screen covers from synthetic sapphire crystals. Instead, it produced flawed “boules” of sapphire that couldn’t be cut into displays and went bankrupt months after it started. Now, the SEC has announced that it’s charging the company and its ex-CEO with fraud for allegedly withholding key information from stockholders.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/06/apple-sapphire-glass-supplier-charged-with-fraud/

Other

  • Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, calls for Facebook to be broken up

    The tl;dr of Hughes’ argument against Facebook/Zuckerberg being allowed to continue its/his reign of the internet knits together different strands of the techlash zeitgeist, linking Zuckerberg’s absolute influence over Facebook, and therefore over the unprecedented billions of people he can reach and behaviourally reprogram via content-sorting algorithms, to the crushing of innovation and startup competition; the crushing of consumer attention, choice and privacy, all hostage to relentless growth targets and an eyeball-demanding ad business model; the crushing control of speech that Zuckerberg — as Facebook’s absolute monarch — personally commands, with Hughes worrying it’s a power too potent for any one human to wield.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/09/facebook-co-founder-chris-hughes-calls-for-facebook-to-be-broken-up/

    Facebook is not a monopoly, and breaking it up would defy logic and set a bad precedent

    Hughes and others have cited historical precedents such as the government’s breakup of Standard Oil and AT&T as a justification for stricter antitrust regulation against tech giants. But these companies not only had clear monopolies with pricing power that hurt consumers, they also offered products that were vital to the economy.

    Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are only three of many ways people can communicate digitally, and while many people spend hours every week using them, they are replaceable and inessential — and, in fact, getting away from Facebook and Instagram might make people happier. Even Hughes acknowledges, when he finds himself scrolling through Instagram at idle hours, “The choice is mine, but it doesn’t feel like a choice.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/facebook-should-not-be-broken-up-commentary.html

  • Elon Musk is going to trial for calling a cave diver a pedophile on Twitter

    Defamation law doesn’t apply to opinions or derogatory hyperbole, and Judge Wilson concluded that Musk’s case would be stronger if he’d simply tweeted an insult. But Musk “did not call [Unsworth] a ‘pedo guy’ and leave it there,” writes Wilson. “Rather, he made follow-up statements indicating that he believed his statements to be true.” That included the emails to BuzzFeed, where Musk “purported to convey actual facts and even suggested that the BuzzFeed reporter call people in Thailand to confirm his narrative.”

    The decision doesn’t mean Musk is guilty, but it means Unsworth’s case is strong enough to deserve a trial. A pre-trial conference will take place on October 7th. This won’t be the first time Musk has gone to court for some bad tweets. He recently settled a separate lawsuit with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused him of making misleading financial statements on Twitter.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/10/18564625/elon-musk-vernon-unsworth-pedo-guy-tweets-defamation-lawsuit-trial-date-set

Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/3/2019

There is good news for Amazon this week with reports that the company is securing BILLIONS of dollars of cloud contracts. Names like Apple, Slack, and Lyft have all recently reported long-term/big-money contracts with the company.

As Amazon’s cloud business continues to dominate and they put more energy into their advertising business – there should be concern with how the company is going to leverage their position for pricing and for privacy.

Additionally, with accusations that Apple is not playing fair with apps that compete with their own services, we have to ask ourselves if companies creating these enormous ecosystems are reliable business partners over the long term.

Acquisitions

  • A $603 Million Deal Sheds Light on Cybersecurity Space

    In a deal that puts a spotlight on the shadowy world of cyberwarfare, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. agreed to acquire KeyW Holding Corp. for about $603 million, increasing its number of employees with top-secret government access by 50 percent.

    While neither company is a household name, both have deep ties to Washington’s web of cyberintelligence specialists. Jacobs, a Dallas-based engineering firm with more than 80,000 employees, already gets about 23 percent of its $15 billion in annual revenue from the U.S. government. In the past three years, Jacobs has acquired two other cybersecurity firms in the greater Washington area — Reston, Virginia-based Blue Canopy and Columbia, Maryland-based Van Dyke Technology Group Inc.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/a-603-million-deal-sheds-light-on-secretive-cybersecurity-space

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM’s head of HR says ‘100% of jobs are going to change’ with AI. Here’s how the tech giant is adapting.

    To make it through these market changes, IBM had to assess what skills its workforce had, and what skills it now needed. That’s not an easy feat when you’re a giant, multinational business. Gherson said that the company turned to the technology that was partially responsible for this disruption: AI.

    Instead of having managers work with each of their employees to map out their current skills and then work with other managers to see what skills were still needed, IBM automated the process. Internal software could analyze employees’ work experience and writings to infer what they excelled at. It prompted a cultural shift within the company.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibm-is-using-artificial-intelligence-to-retrain-workers-2019-4

  • The growing backlash against facial recognition tech

    This month has made clear that public pressure is working when it comes to facial recognition. Behemoth companies know they can no longer ignore the criticisms — or, as they recently did, simply say they’d welcome regulation of this technology. Critics are making clear that’s not good enough — they want to see such companies “get out of the surveillance business altogether,” as the American Civil Liberties Union told Vox.

    Meanwhile, several bills are being considered to limit the use of facial recognition. San Francisco could soon become the first US city to institute an all-out ban on local government use of the tech, if its Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance passes. Neighboring cities like Oakland and Berkeley have already passed similar but slightly weaker ordinances. (Legislation along these lines was also introduced in the California state Senate, but was quashed after police opposed it.)

    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/27/18518598/ai-facial-recognition-ban-apple-amazon-microsoft

Cloud

  • Amazon’s Profit More Than Doubles on 17% Rise in Sales

    Expenses, however, are expected to jump in the second quarter in part because Amazon said it would invest $800 million to make one-day free shipping the standard for Prime members, instead of two days.

    The e-commerce company’s bottom line got a big boost in the first quarter from its cloud-computing unit and burgeoning advertising business, helping to offset sluggish growth from the core online retail business. The profit more than doubled to well above what analysts were expecting.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-profit-more-than-doubles-on-17-rise-in-sales-11556224159

  • Slack to spend at least $250 million on Amazon Web Services over five years — less than Pinterest or Lyft

    Slack said on Friday that it has a hefty commitment to spend money with Amazon Web Services through 2023, though it’s not as big of a customer as other companies to recently go public, such as Lyft and Pinterest.

    In 2018, Slack signed an agreement with AWS to spend at least $50 million a year over five years, for a total of at least $250 million, according to the company’s filing with the SEC for a public stock listing. As of Jan. 31, the contract has a remaining minimum payment of $212.5 million. Slack said it uses AWS, the leading public cloud vendor, “as our processing and delivery infrastructure.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/slack-to-spend-at-least-250-million-on-aws-over-five-years.html

  • Apple Is Heavily Reliant on Amazon Web Services

    Apple has previously mentioned that it uses Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) for its iCloud storage. It could also be using Amazon’s cloud service for some of its other services.

    According to CNBC, this expenditure is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. According to the report, Apple has signed an agreement committing to spending a minimum of $1.5 billion on AWS over the next five years.

    Many other companies are also heavily reliant on Amazon’s cloud service. According to CNBC, Lyft has an agreement worth over $300 million with AWS to power its service until the end of 2021.

    https://articles.marketrealist.com/2019/04/apple-is-heavily-reliant-on-amazon-web-services/

Security

  • Managing Risk in Light of the Wipro Data Breach

    Wipro, the Bengaluru, India-based ITO and BPO services provider, confirmed on Tuesday, April 16th, that it fell victim to a data breach—specifically, an advanced and persistent “zero-day” malware attack. The attack may have begun in March as a phishing incident (an unauthorized attempt to access a target’s information systems, usually via fraudulent emails or other communication) involving one Wipro employee, and it has apparently led to a broader infiltration of Wipro’s email systems.

    Initial reports have indicated that the attack may have impacted more than a dozen of Wipro’s customers, but the ongoing investigation has yet to uncover whether, and to what extent, those customers’ data are at risk.

    https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/managing-risk-in-light-of-the-wipro-data-breach.html

Software/SaaS

  • Apple accused of clamping down on apps competing with Screen Time

    The introduction of Screen Time in iOS 12 was ostensibly a boon for parents and anyone else wanting to keep a lid on device use, but there are concerns that it’s cracking down on apps that compete with that feature. The New York Times and Sensor Tower have learned that Apple has either pulled or requested feature limitations for “at least” 11 of the 17 most popular parental control and screen time apps, and leaders at those developers claim it’s trying to discourage apps that rival Screen Time’s functionality. The creators of two apps, Kidslox and Qustodio, filed an EU competition complaint on April 25th.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/27/apple-clamp-down-on-screen-time-apps/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Samsung reportedly pushes back Galaxy Fold release

    Samsung is pushing things back a bit, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal that cites “people familiar with the matter.”

    There’s no firm time frame for the launch, though the phone is still expected “in the coming weeks,” at some point in May. We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment and will update accordingly. When a number a reviewers reported malfunctioning displays among an extremely small sample size, that no doubt gave the company pause.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/samsung-reportedly-pushes-back-galaxy-fold-launch/

  • Turnover Hits Apple’s Famed Industrial Design Team

    Rico Zorkendorfer and Daniele De Iuliis, who together have more than 35 years of experience at Apple, decided to leave the company recently, people familiar with the departures said. Another member of the team with a decade of experience, Julian Hönig, plans to leave in the coming months, people familiar with his plans said.

    The departures of members of the core design team that revived Apple in the 2000s and did the work behind the iPhone, iPad and watch come amid a pause in new products, as the company emphasizes new subscription services this year instead of new gadgets amid slowing iPhone sales. It also follows chief designer Jony Ive’s resumption a little over a year ago of day-to-day oversight for the industrial design group.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/turnover-hits-apples-famed-industrial-design-team-11556225563

  • Comcast Is Surviving Big Media’s Horror Flick

    While the company is losing cable subscribers as consumers cut the cord, it also is winning over more internet customers in need of high-speed connections to fuel their entertainment binge.

    In other words, the grim reaper comes bearing unexpected gifts.

    This dynamic was visible in Comcast’s first-quarter results. On Thursday it reported earnings of 77 cents a share, up from 66 cents a share in the same period last year, beating estimates of 68 cents a share. Revenue rose 18% to $26.86 billion, thanks partly to the company’s recent acquisition of Sky, the European pay-TV giant. It also was boosted by a 10% rise in Comcast’s high-speed internet revenue. The company said it added 375,000 customers in the period.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/comcast-is-surviving-big-medias-horror-flick-11556215034

Other

  • Google Walkout Organizers Say They’re Facing Retaliation

    Claire Stapleton, another walkout organizer and a 12-year veteran of the company, said in the email that two months after the protest she was told she would be demoted from her role as marketing manager at YouTube and lose half her reports. After escalating the issue to human resources, she said she faced further retaliation. “My manager started ignoring me, my work was given to other people, and I was told to go on medical leave, even though I’m not sick,” Stapleton wrote. After she hired a lawyer; the company conducted an investigation and seemed to reverse her demotion. “While my work has been restored, the environment remains hostile and I consider quitting nearly every day,” she wrote.

    https://www.wired.com/story/google-walkout-organizers-say-theyre-facing-retaliation/

  • Microsoft has become the third US company to achieve a trillion-dollar valuation

    Microsoft revealed double-digit growth in its third-quarter financial results on Wednesday (April 24). Revenues grew by 14 percent to $30.6 billion, with profits climbing 19 percent to $8.8 billion. What really excited the stock market, however, was the 73 percent increase in revenues from Azure cloud services. This helped drive a five percent rise in Microsoft’s share price to $131.37, finally elevating it into the 13-digit club.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-has-become-the-third-us-company-to-achieve-a-trillion-dollar-valuation-albeit-briefly/

  • Elon Musk, SEC agree to guidelines on Twitter use

    Musk can tweet as he wishes except when it’s about certain events or financial milestones. In those cases, Musk must seek pre-approval from a securities lawyer, according to the agreement filed with Manhattan federal court.

    U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, the presiding judge on this matter, must still approve the deal. Nathan had given the SEC and Musk two weeks to work out their differences and come to a resolution.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/26/elon-musk-sec-agree-to-guidelines-on-twitter-use/

Photo by Sašo Tušar on Unsplash