Tag: Intel

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Supplier Report: 3/16/2018

Broadcom’s bid for Qualcomm has been shut down by the government citing fears over national security.

Amazon is hiring more developers for Alexa than Google is hiring for everything.  As Team Bezos builds out more cloud services, there are rumors this week that Amazon is focusing on corporate training services.

IBM thinks Lotus Notes can make a comeback… is it wishful thinking or is there a real strategy?

Acquisitions

  • Apple to Acquire Digital-Magazine-Subscription Service Texture

    Apple Inc. said it will acquire Next Issue Media LLC and its digital-magazine-subscription service Texture, a product developed by top magazine companies that bundles together some 200 subscriptions into one monthly service.

    The acquisition comes as Apple looks to beef up its services business, which includes music streaming and mobile payments.

    Apple has set a goal of increasing total revenue from services to more than $40 billion by 2020. The company generated nearly $30 billion in services revenue in its fiscal year ended in September.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-to-acquire-magazine-subscription-service-texture-1520875158

  • Why Intel Is So Wary of a Broadcom-Qualcomm Merger

    Since late last year, Intel has been exploring a bid for Broadcom to forestall that company’s $117 billion offer for Qualcomm in what would be the biggest-ever tech deal, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal in an article published Friday. Intel’s interest in derailing that deal reflects its worry that a combined Broadcom-Qualcomm, which would create the third-largest chip company by revenue after Intel and Samsung Electronics Co., would endanger its competitive position, the people said.

    A merged Broadcom and Qualcomm would combine market-leading smartphone chips with a strong presence in data centers, two areas Intel has targeted for growth. And Qualcomm’s own proposed purchase of Dutch automotive chip specialist NXP Semiconductors NV would turbocharge such a merger in the automotive market, where Intel has placed one of its biggest bets.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-intel-is-so-wary-of-a-broadcom-qualcomm-merger-1520800808
    Broadcom’s Bid for Qualcomm May Be Headed for Rejection, U.S. Panel Warns

    A government panel reviewing Broadcom’s $117 billion bid for Qualcomm has warned that it may refer the potential deal to President Trump for rejection, further dimming the prospects for what would be the biggest-ever technology takeover in history.

    In a letter to the two companies on Sunday, the panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, said that it believed the offer by Broadcom posed national security concerns. Broadcom is currently headquartered in Singapore, but is in the process of relocating its legal base to the United States to allay those issues.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/business/dealbook/cfius-broadcom-qualcomm-merger.html
    Rejection of Qualcomm-Broadcom Deal Followed Monthslong Strategy

    Qualcomm’s Jan. 29 filing to CFIUS helped trigger a chain of events that culminated in President Donald Trump’s decision Monday to block the deal. Broadcom on Wednesday said it had withdrawn its offer for Qualcomm, though it is proceeding with plans to change its domicile to the U.S. from Singapore.

    Qualcomm’s appeal tapped into gathering concern among some congressional Republicans and the Trump administration about U.S. national security and competitiveness with China, especially in advanced technologies—sentiment that already was fueling an effort to expand the power of CFIUS. The company also got help from sympathetic senators and representatives who pressed the administration.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/rejection-of-qualcomm-broadcom-deal-followed-monthslong-strategy-1520986563

Artificial Intelligence

  • Amazon Is Hiring More Developers For Alexa Than Google Is Hiring For Everything

    Amazon is hiring 1,147 people for its Alexa business unit alone, says Citi Research in a new report. That’s more than Google is hiring for product and technical roles across the entire Alphabet conglomerate, including YouTube, Waymo, Google Fiber, and — of course — the main money maker in the Alphabet empire: the original Google.

    “Key takeaways from the job openings at Alphabet include that the company’s pace of hiring relative to its current headcount (3%) is among the lowest in our coverage,” said Citi analysts Mark May and Caleb Siegel.

    That could bode well for Google’s margins, Citi says.

    It also could mean that innovation is slowing.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2018/03/13/amazon-is-hiring-more-developers-for-alexa-than-google-is-hiring-for-everything/#657b51e31985

Cloud

  • Amazon’s cloud is looking at building a corporate training service

    The move suggests Amazon Web Services sees ready-to-use services, rather than raw computing and storage resources for roll-your-own application development, as vehicles for maintaining the rapid growth of its cloud and keeping its lead ahead of the likes of Google and Microsoft. With learning-management software, individuals can go through collections of content such as videos to gain skills, and managers can track progress.

    Amazon already has online training programs for partners to train their employees on how to use AWS offerings. This would be a broader general-purpose service that companies could use to manage all kinds of corporate training and learning programs.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/amazon-aws-exploring-learning-management-space.html

Security

  • Microsoft expands software and microcode fixes for Meltdown and Spectre

    Included as part of today’s Patch Tuesday rollout, Microsoft has expanded protections for the Meltdown vulnerability to x86 editions of Windows 7 and 8.1. That’s in addition to emergency fixes Microsoft first rolled out just after the exploits were disclosed. The company notes that it will continue to work on providing updates for additional supported versions of Windows.

    In addition to expanding its software fixes, Microsoft says that it has also removed the antivirus compatibility check for security updates on Windows 10.

    https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-expands-software-and-microcode-fixes-meltdown-and-spectre

Software/SaaS

  • IBM thinks Notes and Domino can rise again

    Since announcing that HCL would take over development of IBM’s collaborationware, the two companies have conducted a long listening tour that saw them stage 22 meatspace meetings and four online forums. The results of that consultation, which reached 2,000 people, plus lab work already conducted by IBM and HCL, were recently presented to the faithful.

    The top line message imparted to users was that IBM and HCL think Notes can rise again: the companies have given themselves the “big hairy audacious goal” of having Notes seen as “… the application platform that business users tap to solve their collaboration intensive business problems – anyone, anywhere.”

    Execs from the companies said the first step towards that goal will be version 10 of the platform, which will land sometime in 2018. Attendees at a webcast were told version 11 has already been planned.

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/13/ibm_hcl_notes_domino_10_roadmap/

  • Amazon Chime to be charged per-use

    A blog post penned by Amazon Web Services (AWS) chief evangelist Jeff Barr explains that following the initial 30-day free trial where users have access to all Amazon Chime features, users can still chat with each other and attend meetings at no cost. However, in order to use the scheduling and hosting features once the trial is over, users must be connected to an AWS account.

    On days where users host meetings, they will be charged $3 per-day, capped at $15 per month, starting from April 1, 2018.

    “Based on historical usage patterns, this will result in an overall price reduction for virtually all Amazon Chime customers,” the blog reads.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-chime-to-be-charged-on-a-per-use-basis/
    Slack Needs to Worry About Microsoft Teams

    In a blog post on Monday, Microsoft provided an update on Teams to mark its one-year anniversary. Teams is now in use at 200,000 organizations in 181 markets, with big-name users including A.P. Moller-Maersk, Macy’s, and General Motors. That’s up from 125,000 organizations in September.

    One reason Teams has taken off so quickly is that it’s included with various Office 365 plans. Office 365 Business Premium, which costs $12.50 per user per month, includes Teams along with the full Office suite and other services such as OneDrive, Exchange, and Skype for Business. Office 365 Business Essentials, which leaves out the Office suite, is priced at just $5 per user per month. Microsoft’s three Office 365 enterprise plans, which start at $8 per user per month, also include Teams.

    Slack offers a free plan, with two other plans priced at $6.67 and $12.50 per month. For any business that already uses Microsoft Office 365, using Teams over Slack is a no-brainer, even with Slack being a more mature product. For businesses using alternative productivity software, like Google’s G Suite, Office 365 with Teams and Slack are both priced in the same ballpark.

    https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/03/13/slack-needs-to-worry-about-microsoft-teams.aspx

Other

  • Some hard truths about Twitter’s health crisis

    Because Twitter’s content problems really boil down to Twitter failing to enforce the community standards it already has. Which in turn is a failure of leadership, as I have previously argued.

    A good current example is that it has an ads policy that bans “misleading and deceptive” ads. Yet it continues to accept advertising money from unregulated entities pushing dubiously obscure crypto exchanges and flogging wildly risky token sales.

    Twitter really doesn’t need to wait for a new metric to understand that the right thing to do here is to take crypto/ICO ads off its platform right now.

    https://beta.techcrunch.com/2018/03/10/some-hard-truths-about-twitters-health-crisis/?ncid=rss

  • Former Equifax executive charged with insider trading ahead of massive data breach

    According to the SEC, Jun Ying, the CIO of an Equifax business unit and next in line to be the global CIO, received confidential information about the company’s breach before the news was public. Ying allegedly exercised his stock options and sold his shares, making close to $1 million and avoiding a $117,000 loss when the stock price tanked post-announcement.

    The SEC said the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is also filing criminal charges against Ying.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/14/17119538/equifax-insider-trading-data-breach-charges

  • Why media companies are shifting their attention from Facebook to YouTube

    While Facebook Watch hasn’t taken off as a revenue source for publishers and the social network has deprioritized publisher content, YouTube offers something of a safe harbor for publishers that want to get into the video business. For example, publishers can direct-sell into their video on YouTube, said Kai Hsing, svp of marketing and operations at Bustle, which recently rekindled its interest in YouTube. YouTube was the most lucrative platform for publishers after Facebook, according to a Digital Content Next report.

    Publishers also recognize that people are going to YouTube specifically to watch videos. That’s a reason parenting publication Fatherly recently resurrected its YouTube channel. In January, Fatherly hired Adam Banicki, a former video producer at Vice, as its first vp of video. In February, it began uploading videos to its YouTube channel for the first time since June 2017.

    https://digiday.com/media/media-companies-shifting-attention-facebook-youtube/

Photo: Michael Baldovinos

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Supplier Report: 1/12/2018

The tech industry is still dealing with the fallout of the Spectre and Meltdown bugs as companies scramble to patch the vulnerability.

A consequence of such hasty actions is that the patches are 1.) introducing new bugs, 2.) breaking some AMD-powered computers, and 3.) most computers that are patched will see permanent performance impact.

There is a rumor that IBM is looking to reduce global services headcount by another 10,000 employees as news of a new CFO is announced.

To complete this wonderful news cycle, it seems that Boston might be the front-runner to host Amazon’s HQ2.

Acquisitions

  • Verizon acquires autonomous threat detection startup Niddel

    Niddel’s primary product, Niddel Magnet is a subscription service that uses machine learning to locate infected or compromised machines inside an organization. It works completely autonomously and doesn’t require customers to generate their own code, rules, searches or even any kind of content.

    “Using machine learning to improve information accuracy significantly reduces false positives and significantly improves our detection and response capabilities,” Alexander Schlager, Verizon’s executive director for security services explained in a statement. Those capabilities were one of the primary reasons the company made the acquisition.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/05/verizon-acquires-autonomous-threat-detection-startup-niddel/?ncid=rss

  • Google acquired Redux, a U.K. startup focused on audio and haptics

    Alphabet, the umbrella corporation of Google, Inc. etc., has quietly acquired a UK-based startup called Redux, reports Bloomberg.

    Redux was founded in 2013 out of Cambridge, and built technology that uses vibrations to turn surfaces of phones or tablets into speakers or provide haptic feedback.

    The acquisition is reflected on Crunchbase, and in confirmed transfer of shares within U.K. regulatory filings. Google has made no mention of the acquisition as of yet.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/11/google-acquired-redux-a-u-k-startup-focused-on-audio-and-haptics/?ncid=rss

  • Accenture: Large-scale agency M&A is ‘not our game’ as we have ‘amazing momentum’

    However, Pierre Nanterme, the chairman and chief executive of Accenture, gave a strong signal on his most recent quarterly earnings call that he is not interested in large-scale M&A.

    “This is not our game at Accenture,” he said in response to a question from a Wall Street analyst about whether Accenture Interactive might make “larger deals, rather than tuck-ins”.

    Nanterme explained: “Our game is to drive organic growth on top of acquisitions of very specific companies with very specific and differentiated capabilities.

    “And then what Accenture is offering to these companies we’re acquiring is our unique access to the best brands in the world and our unique geographic footprint.”

    https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/accenture-large-scale-agency-m-a-not-game-amazing-momentum/1453907
    Accenture to acquire Germany based visualization firm Mackevision

    Accenture has entered into an agreement to acquire Germany-based Mackevision, a leading global producer of 3D-enabled and immersive product content. The acquisition will add visualization capabilities to Accenture Interactive’s digital services portfolio – strengthening its ability to create compelling, next-generation customer experiences and industrial, extended reality applications. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

    https://techobserver.in/article/enterprise-it/accenture-acquire-germany-based-visualization-firm-mackevision

Artificial Intelligence

  • Japanese scientists just used AI to read minds and it’s amazing

    But the scientists from Kyoto developed new techniques of “decoding” thoughts using deep neural networks (artificial intelligence). The new technique allows the scientists to decode more sophisticated “hierarchical” images, which have multiple layers of color and structure, like a picture of a bird or a man wearing a cowboy hat, for example.

    “We have been studying methods to reconstruct or recreate an image a person is seeing just by looking at the person’s brain activity,” Kamitani, one of the scientists, tells CNBC Make It. “Our previous method was to assume that an image consists of pixels or simple shapes. But it’s known that our brain processes visual information hierarchically extracting different levels of features or components of different complexities.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/01/08/japanese-scientists-use-artificial-intelligence-to-decode-thoughts.html

Cloud

  • Why Oracle can’t buy its way to success in the cloud wars

    For such modern cloud applications, Oracle proves a poor fit. Not only does the company offer a comparatively malnourished catalog of cloud services compared to leading vendors like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, even its former strengths become weaknesses in the brave new cloud world. For example, one of its best selling points—vertical scale—proves its Achilles Heel in modern application infrastructure, where horizontal scale at levels simply impossible in an Oracle environment becomes the norm.

    Oracle’s immediate answer seems to be to stick to its old game plan, leveraging its legacy database to broker a role in modern workloads. It’s not working. As Rishidot Research’s founder and chief research advisor Krishnan Subramanian has called out, “[Oracle] needs to shore up higher order services…to compete effectively with AWS and Azure. They cannot just rely on their database service as the path to cloud success and they need to compete with AWS on the breadth and depth of higher order services.”

    https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-oracle-cant-buy-its-way-to-success-in-the-cloud-wars/

Datacenter

  • Intel reveals possible slowdowns from ‘Meltdown’ processor fix

    Your personal computers will be less than 10 percent slower after you install the Spectre/Meltdown fix, Intel has revealed in a blog post. Intel has come to that conclusion after assessing the performance changes in computers using 6th, 7th and 8th Generation Intel core processors with Windows 10. Systems equipped with 8th generation (Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake) chips and SSDs will be the least affected, with the expected impact being less than 6 percent. Devices using the 7th Gen Kaby Lake-H mobile processors will be around 7 percent slower, while the performance impact on systems with the 6th Gen Skylake-S platform is approximately 8 percent.

    Depending on how you use your computer, you may not even notice a difference. Based on Intel’s benchmark results, though, you will notice some slowdown if you browse the web and use applications, and it’s safe to say that most people do. Obviously, if you use your computer for heavy applications, the slowdown will be more noticeable.

    https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/11/intel-reveals-meltdown-processor-benchmark-slowdown/

Software/SaaS

  • Why Microsoft’s Cosmos DB may displace AWS’s cloud databases

    While Oracle, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server stand supreme at the top of the database heap, their cloud competitors have been gaining steam—and fast. It’s probably not yet accurate to say that databases like DynamoDB and Azure Cosmos DB are gaining ground on the old guard, given that Oracle remains more than 100 times as popular as Cosmos, for example. But for new applications largely born in the cloud, these cloud-first databases dominate.

    This matters because, as Gartner analyst Thomas Bittman has written, there’s a pronounced (and accelerating) shift from private datacenters to public cloud environments: “New stuff tends to go to the public cloud, while doing old stuff in new ways tends to go to private clouds. And new stuff is simply growing faster.” Not just a little bit faster, either: We’re talking about a 20X growth rate for the public cloud versus a 3X growth rate for private datacenters, by his analysis. Of course, legacy workloads dwarf these new cloud-friendly applications, but that won’t be true for long.

    https://www.itworld.com/article/3245808/database/why-microsofts-cosmos-db-may-displace-aws-cloud-databases.html

  • Barry Padgett Appointed as New SAP Ariba President

    SAP announced two leadership changes Thursday, with Alex Atzberger moving to president of SAP Hybris and Barry Padgett taking over the helm at SAP Ariba, according to a press release. SAP Hybris solutions “comprise the omnichannel customer engagement and commerce business at SAP” and include offerings for commerce, marketing, sales, service and revenue. Padgett, who joined SAP through the acquisition of Concur, will focus on the oversight of SAP’s business network strategy as Ariba’s new president.

    “Positioning these proven leaders, both with deep customer empathy and a business vision rooted in a beautiful customer experience, will have a tremendous, positive impact for customers worldwide,” said Robert Enslin, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and president of Cloud Business Group, SAP. “The business acumen and expertise both Alex and Barry bring to their respective roles, coupled with the engineering innovation agendas already underway, will greatly advance SAP’s leadership pursuits in the areas of procurement, customer engagement and commerce.”

    http://spendmatters.com/2018/01/09/afternoon-coffee-barry-padgett-appointed-new-sap-ariba-president-whole-foods-places-new-limitations-suppliers/

  • Signal Partners With Microsoft to Encrypt Skype Messages

    The newest Skype preview now supports the Signal protocol: the end-to-end encrypted protocol already used by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Allo, and, of course, Signal. Skype Private Conversations will support text, audio calls, and file transfers, with end-to-end encryption that Microsoft, Signal, and, it’s believed, law enforcement agencies cannot eavesdrop on.

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/skype-finally-getting-end-to-end-encryption/

Security

  • Intel Fumbles Its Patch for Chip Flaw

    Intel is quietly advising some customers to hold off installing patches that address new security flaws affecting virtually all of its processors. It turns out the patches had bugs of their own.

    The glitch underscores the complexity of Intel’s challenge as it scrambles to fix the unprecedented vulnerabilities, which were disclosed more than a week ago.

    In a confidential document shared with some customers Wednesday and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Intel said it identified three issues in updates released over the past week for “microcode,” or firmware—software that is installed directly on the processor. The updates are separate from patches produced by operating system companies such as Microsoft Corp.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/intel-warns-its-patches-for-chip-flaws-are-buggy-1515715212

  • AMD Hits a Snag Over Patch for Chip Flaw

    Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday said some customers found their AMD-powered computers were unusable after applying the latest security patches for the Windows operating system.

    On an online support page, Microsoft said it would “temporarily pause” sending updates to some devices running AMD processors. After investigating, the software giant said it found “some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amd-hits-a-snag-over-patch-for-chip-flaw-1515528197

  • Oracle app server hack let one attacker mine $226,000 worth of cryptocoins

    These attackers aren’t stealing data from victims, however—at least as far as anyone can tell. Instead, the exploit is being used to mine cryptocurrencies. In one case, according to analysis posted today by SANS Dean of Research Johannes B. Ullrich, the attacker netted at least 611 Monero coins (XMR)—$226,000 dollars’ worth of the cryptocurrency.

    The attacks appear to have leveraged a proof-of-concept exploit of the Oracle vulnerability published in December by Chinese security researcher Lian Zhang. Almost immediately after the proof of concept was published, there were reports of it being used to install cryptominers from several different locations—attacks launched from servers (some of them likely compromised servers themselves) hosted by Digital Ocean, GoDaddy, and Athenix.

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/hackers-turn-weblogic-peoplesoft-servers-into-cryptocoin-miners/

Other

  • China Swats Jack Ma’s Ant Over Customer Privacy

    Chinese internet regulators scolded the country’s leading mobile-payments company for compromising its customers’ privacy, putting pressure on firms to better protect personal data in a society subject to heavy state surveillance.

    The Cyberspace Administration of China said Wednesday that it had summoned representatives of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. affiliate Ant Financial Services Group to dress them down for automatically enrolling users in its credit-scoring system.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-swats-jack-mas-ant-over-customer-privacy-1515581339

  • IBM names James Kavanaugh as CFO

    IBM chief financial officer Martin Schroeter will move to a new role and will be replaced by company veteran James Kavanaugh, effective immediately.

    Schroeter, who has been with the company for more than 25 years and has been finance chief for the last four years, will become senior vice-president for global markets.

    His replacement, Kavanaugh, joined IBM in 1996 from AT&T and is currently a senior vice-president heading IBM’s transformation efforts.

    While the announcement was unexpected, the logic behind the move is not and Kavanaugh would be a logical replacement for Schroeter, said Stifel analyst David Grossman.

    https://www.itweb.co.za/content/j5alrMQgae9vpYQk

  • IBM reportedly will reassign 30,000+ staffers in services division and possibly cut 10,000 jobs

    According to a report in The Register Thursday, IBM is planning to reassign more than 30,000 staff from its Global Technology Services division, which primarily offers hardware and infrastructure consulting services, to other roles within the company.

    That amounts to about 30 percent of GTS’ overall staff, who are set to be “productively redeployed,” according to a leaked document (pictured). About 10,000 of the affected staff are said to be based in the U.S., The Register added.

    The staff reassignments, expected to take place later this year, could ultimately see about 10,000 jobs lost through “attrition,” with no plans to replace departing employees. However, the overall head count could be even higher, as a document leaked to The Register shows that 5,000 staff have yet to be assigned new positions, which means they could ultimately be laid off. And of those that have been reassigned, some may only be moved to “short term” positions, said one unnamed employee.

    https://siliconangle.com/blog/2018/01/11/ibm-reassign-30000-staff-gts-division-10000-jobs-lost/

  • Amazon could be leaning toward Boston for new HQ2

    Boston has already been floated as a prime candidate for the new HQ2 because it is one of the U.S. cities where Amazon has research and development operations. Amazon, according to The Business Journals, has almost 1,000 workers in Boston who focus on Amazon Web Services, Audible, Alexa and speech-recognition software. Later this year, the opening of its Fort Point office will add 900 employees to the company’s Boston ranks.

    https://www.constructiondive.com/news/amazon-could-be-leaning-toward-boston-for-new-hq2/514674/

Photo: Robert Szadkowski