Tag: Microsoft

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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

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Supplier Report: 4/19/2019

IBM and Oracle have been eliminated from the Pentagon’s “Project JEDI” RFP, after almost a year of complaints and public accusations that the bidding event was rigged in Amazon’s favor.

Meanwhile Google, who bowed out of Project JEDI bidding early, made several cloud-based announcements this week to differentiate themselves from AWS and Microsoft. Thomas Kurian is wasting no time.

Foxconn is getting blasted in the press this week due to their (lack of) plans at their Wisconsin manufacturing plant. There are reports that rented office buildings are almost completely empty and the overall strategy for the new plant make absolutely no sense.

Acquisitions

  • Accenture announces intent to buy French cloud consulting firm

    Accenture says that Cirruseo’s strength and deep experience in Google’s cloud-based artificial intelligence solutions should help as Accenture expands its own AI practice. Google TensorFlow and other intelligence solutions are a popular approach to AI and machine learning, and the purchase should help give Accenture a leg up in this area, especially in the French market.

    “The addition of Cirruseo would be a significant step forward in our growth strategy in France, bringing a strong team of Google Cloud specialists to Accenture,” Olivier Girard, Accenture’s geographic unit managing director for France and Benelux said in a statement.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/09/accenture-announces-intent-to-buy-french-cloud-consulting-firm/

Artificial Intelligence

  • A Google Brain Program Is Learning How to Program

    In a new paper, Google Brain researchers propose using neural networks to model human source code editing. Effectively this means treating code editing as a sequence and having a machine learn how to “write code” like in a natural language model — by analysing a short paragraph of editing, the model can extract intent and leverage that to generate subsequent edits.

    To understand the intent behind developers’ source code editing actions, the main challenge was how to learn from earlier editing sequences in order to predict upcoming edits. Researchers explain the AI models needed to understand “the relationship of the change to the state” rather than “the content of the edits” or “the result of the edit.”

    https://medium.com/syncedreview/a-google-brain-program-is-learning-how-to-program-27533d5056e3
    (Thanks JD!)

Cloud

  • Google’s hybrid cloud platform is coming to AWS and Azure

    So with Anthos, Google will offer a single managed service that will let you manage and deploy workloads across clouds, all without having to worry about the different environments and APIs. That’s a big deal and one that clearly delineates Google’s approach from its competitors’. This is Google, after all, managing your applications for you on AWS and Azure.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/09/googles-anthos-hybrid-cloud-platform-is-coming-to-aws-and-azure/

  • What’s Been Lacking at Google’s Cloud? Enough Humans

    Google Cloud had prioritized developing technology over sales and support, said Gene Reznik, strategy chief at the consulting firm Accenture PLC, which helps clients deploy tech from major cloud services including Google’s.

    “There is a lot of hand-holding required” with big corporate customers, Mr. Reznik said. But Google often had product engineers rather than account managers handle customer calls. “It really wasn’t their day job,” he said, adding that Mr. Kurian brings a corporate credibility to Google’s “consumer-centric culture.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-been-lacking-at-googles-cloud-enough-humans-11554724802

  • Amazon and Microsoft Are 2 Finalists for $10 Billion Pentagon Contract

    The Pentagon said Wednesday that Amazon and Microsoft were the final candidates for a hotly contested $10 billion contract to bring modern cloud computing to the Defense Department.

    IBM and Oracle had also bid for the project, known as the joint enterprise defense infrastructure, or JEDI. But the Defense Department concluded that they did not meet the minimum requirements for the program.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/technology/amazon-microsoft-jedi-pentagon.html

  • Why IBM Is Leaving The Marketing Cloud Business

    Rather than scrabbling over marketshare in the marketing cloud space, where Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle have been dropping billions, IBM is focusing on core technologies and infrastructure, AI, blockchain, global services, consulting and creating a cloud environment to compete with Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

    “That’s the big game IBM is hunting,” Stanhope said.

    But even back when IBM seemed like it was ramping up its focus on marketing technology, there wasn’t necessarily buy in from the big wigs at the top. IBM also lost one of its marketing product cheerleaders when David Kenny, who led efforts at IBM Watson, left to take on the CEO role at Nielsen in November 2018.

    https://adexchanger.com/platforms/why-ibm-is-leaving-the-marketing-cloud-business/

Security

  • Amazon’s Alexa isn’t just AI — thousands of humans are listening

    What the company doesn’t tell you explicitly, as highlighted by an in-depth investigation from Bloomberg published this evening, is that one of the only, and often the best, ways Alexa improves over time is by having human beings listen to recordings of your voice requests. Of course, this is all buried in product and service terms few consumers will ever read, and Amazon has often downplayed the privacy implications of having cameras and microphones in millions of homes around the globe. But concerns about how AI is trained as it becomes an ever more pervasive force in our daily lives will only continue to raise alarms, especially as most of how this technology works remains beyond closed doors and improves using methods Amazon is loathe to ever disclose.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18305378/amazon-alexa-ai-voice-assistant-annotation-listen-private-recordings

  • Nearly 70 percent of hotel websites leak personal data, Symantec study finds

    The main issue involved booking confirmation emails, according to Symantec principal threat researcher Candid Wueest. Many of the messages include an active link that directs to a separate website where guests can access their reservation having to log in again. The booking code and the guest email are often in the URL itself, which in and of itself isn’t a big deal.

    But, like many businesses, hotels share your personal data with third parties, meaning that your booking code and email are visible to them as well. The attacker would only need access to your booking code and email in order to find your address, full name, cell phone number, passport number and other highly sensitive information. Symantec also found that a smaller number of hotels didn’t encrypt the links sent in confirmation emails, giving attackers another window of opportunity.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/10/nearly-70-percent-of-hotel-websites-leak-personal-data-symantec/

  • Hackers publish personal data on thousands of US police officers and federal agents

    TechCrunch spoke to one of the hackers, who didn’t identify his or her name, through an encrypted chat late Friday.

    “We hacked more than 1,000 sites,” said the hacker. “Now we are structuring all the data, and soon they will be sold. I think something else will publish from the list of hacked government sites.” We asked if the hacker was worried that the files they put up for download would put federal agents and law enforcement at risk. “Probably, yes,” the hacker said.

    The hacker claimed to have “over a million data” [sic] on employees across several U.S. federal agencies and public service organizations.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/12/police-data-hack/

Software/SaaS

  • Google’s new AI tools scan documents, take phone calls, and search for products

    Google today launched Document Understanding AI in beta, a serverless platform that automatically classifies, extracts, and structures data within contained within scanned physical and digital documents. It integrates with existing products from Iron Mountain, ​Box​, DocuSign, ​Egnyte​, ​Taulia​, UiPath, ​Accenture, and others, and Google says that customers who’ve tapped it for custom document classification have seen up to 96% accuracy.

    “Most companies have billions of documents — and moving that information into digital or cloud-native solutions where it can be easily accessed and analyzed can involve many hours of manual entry,” Besik said. “Document Understanding AI can help automate document processing workflows. This means you can … start making data-driven business decisions faster and more accurately.”

    https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/10/googles-new-ai-tools-scan-documents-take-phone-calls-and-search-for-products/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Microsoft says its data shows FCC reports massively overstate broadband adoption

    Part of the issue is that internet providers essentially just report their own coverage via a form, and the FCC reports it more or less as fact. That’s a problem not just when a mistake on a form adds tens of millions of subscribers that don’t actually exist, but when large ISPs overstate their coverage so they don’t have to pay to fill in the gaps.

    Microsoft’s suggestions, which it has made to Members of Congress and the FCC (though it won’t, as I originally wrote here, testify in the Senate on Wednesday) would make it far more difficult to fib on the Form 477, which as written seems to provide enormous leeway for a company to imply coverage that isn’t actually there.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/08/microsoft-says-its-data-shows-fcc-reports-massively-overstate-broadband-adoption/

Other

  • Thousands of Amazon employees ask the company to adopt a climate change plan

    Employees, citing Amazon’s work for oil and gas companies and what they describe as insufficient plans for action on climate change, are asking the company to commit to several goals. Among them, they ask the company to make “a complete transition away from fossil fuels,” and to advocate politically for climate-friendly policies. They also ask the company to adopt a shareholder resolution calling for a climate change plan.

    In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson highlighted company initiatives, like work to reduce the carbon footprint of shipments, and described Amazon’s commitment to environmental issues as “unwavering.”

    “Amazon’s sustainability team is using a science-based approach to develop data and strategies to ensure a rigorous approach to our sustainability work,” the spokesperson said. “We have launched several major and impactful programs and are working hard to integrate this approach fully across Amazon.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18304800/amazon-employees-open-letter-climate-change-plan

  • Foxconn is confusing the hell out of Wisconsin

    In February, a Foxconn executive cheerfully likened the company’s vague, morphing plans to designing and building an airplane midflight.

    Such statements have not been particularly reassuring to residents of Wisconsin, where state and local governments have already taken very concrete actions to prepare the way for what was supposed to be an enormous manufacturing facility. Taxpayers have already spent more than $300 million on roadwork, infrastructure, and land acquisition related to the project. In August, Moody’s downgraded Mount Pleasant’s credit rating over the extreme levels of debt it took on for the area’s $763 million incentive package, costs that have since grown closer to a billion, in part because it had to take out higher interest long-term loans after Foxconn’s plans changed. Dozens of residents have been relocated, some under threat of eminent domain.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18296793/foxconn-wisconsin-location-factory-innovation-centers-technology-hub-no-news

  • Google Sued Over Abuse of Search Power, Opening Path for More Claims

    In the suit filed in a Berlin court Friday, Idealo internet GmbH, a leading price-comparison service that is majority-owned by publisher Axel Springer SPR 2.61% SE, alleged that Google made it harder for users of its search engine to find links to Idealo after the U.S. company started promoting its own price-comparison offering, now called Google Shopping. Alphabet’s European entity, Google Ireland Ltd., is also targeted by the suit.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/suit-could-raise-googles-liabilities-in-price-comparison-case-11555056397

  • Net Neutrality Vote Passes House, Fulfilling Promise by Democrats

    But the legislation, the Save the Internet Act, faces long odds in the Republican-led Senate. The Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, said this week that the legislation would be “dead on arrival.” Earlier this week, the Office of Management and Budget advised the White House to veto the law if it reached the president’s desk. The office said in a letter that since the law had been overturned, the broadband industry had thrived, a good sign of how deregulation helped the economy.

    The legislation would prohibit blocking and throttling web traffic and would categorize broadband as a service open to heavy regulation. Supporters say the regulation would prevent companies from blocking or slowing the delivery of content like videos. Opponents say it would strap broadband providers like Verizon and Comcast with heavy-handed restrictions, and could lead to price controls.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/technology/net-neutrality-vote.html

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash

Posted on

Supplier Report: 3/8/2019

Amazon was all over the news this week. There is still fall out from the company’s decision to pull back from NYC, there are grumblings about Bezos’ divorce impacting operations (and ownership), and they announced they are opening grocery stores… separate from the Whole Foods brand.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is introducing some very cool Excel scanning technology and Google is optimizing wind energy in their data-centers.

Acquisitions

  • Web Content-Recommendation Firm Outbrain to Acquire Native-Ad Specialist

    New York-based Outbrain has agreed to purchase the Cologne, Germany-based firm, in an all-stock transaction. The deal’s financial terms weren’t disclosed.

    The acquisition, which Outbrain says is its largest ever, is meant to help the company capture more of the market for native advertising, or ads that mimic the look and feel of the content around them. Ligatus operates a so-called supply-side platform that helps publishers sell native ads.

    Companies like Outbrain, whose recommendations often appear at the bottom of news articles, have faced criticism for promoting low-quality content.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/web-content-recommendation-firm-outbrain-to-acquire-native-ad-specialist-11551177120

Artificial Intelligence

  • Machine learning can boost the value of wind energy

    Using a neural network trained on widely available weather forecasts and historical turbine data, we configured the DeepMind system to predict wind power output 36 hours ahead of actual generation. Based on these predictions, our model recommends how to make optimal hourly delivery commitments to the power grid a full day in advance. This is important, because energy sources that can be scheduled (i.e. can deliver a set amount of electricity at a set time) are often more valuable to the grid.

    Although we continue to refine our algorithm, our use of machine learning across our wind farms has produced positive results. To date, machine learning has boosted the value of our wind energy by roughly 20 percent, compared to the baseline scenario of no time-based commitments to the grid.

    https://www.blog.google/technology/ai/machine-learning-can-boost-value-wind-energy/

Cloud

  • Lyft has to pay Amazon’s cloud at least $8 million a month until the end of 2021

    Buried in there is the revelation that Lyft is contractually obligated to pay at least $300 million to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s market-leading cloud-computing business, between January 2019 and December 2021. Some quick napkin math shows that — depending on when exactly the contract began in January 2019 and ends in December 2021 — Lyft is committed to spending between $8.33 million and $8.57 million a month on AWS, which hosts its entire app and platform.

    Notably, Lyft said that if its usage of Amazon’s cloud doesn’t hit or exceed that $300 million threshold, it’ll have to pay the difference. Lyft committed to spending at least $80 million in each of the three years of the deal, with the stipulation that it will spend $300 million in aggregate overall.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/lyft-ipo-amazon-web-services-2019-3

  • AWS chief Andy Jassy says it’s ‘really easy to cut prices’

    “It’s actually really easy to lower prices,” Jassy told Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Thursday. “It’s much harder to be able to afford to lower prices.” In the past decade, AWS has cut prices 70 times, he said.

    Other key areas where Amazon tries to stay ahead of the competition include geographic reach and the variety of tools that are available.

    “We’re much more focused on the long term than most companies,” Jassy said. “We are trying to build a business and a set of customer relationships that outlasts all of us. And as such, we think if we help our customers get more done and are successful on their own, even if it means lower margin percentages, over time we’ll drive more absolute margin dollars, and they’ll be more successful, and we’ll ultimately be more relevant.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/aws-ceo-andy-jassy-its-really-easy-to-lower-prices.html

    Hey Andy – tell that to Lyft

Software/SaaS

  • Microsoft Excel will now let you snap a picture of a spreadsheet and import it

    Microsoft is adding a very useful feature to its Excel mobile apps for iOS and Android. It allows Excel users to take a photo of a printed data table and convert it into a fully editable table in the app. This feature is rolling out initially in the Android Excel app, before making its way to iOS soon. Microsoft is using artificial intelligence to implement this feature, with image recognition so that Excel users don’t have to manually input hardcopy data. The feature will be available to Microsoft 365 users.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/1/18246429/microsoft-excel-covert-photos-data-tables-editable-table-ai-feature

  • Warren Buffett says he ditched his stake in Oracle because of his experience getting burned by IBM

    “[Cofounder and CTO] Larry Ellison’s done a fantastic job with Oracle. I mean I’ve followed it from the standpoint of reading about it. But I felt like I didn’t understand the business,”

    “Then, after I started buying it, I felt I still didn’t understand the business. I actually changed my mind in terms of understand and not in terms of evaluating it. I think, I mean, Oracle is a great business. But I don’t think, particularly after my experience with IBM, I don’t think I understand exactly where the cloud is going.

    “You know, I’ve been amazed at what Amazon has done there. And now Microsoft is doing it as well. So I don’t know where that game is going.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-oracle-ibm-2019-2

  • Accenture Works With Mastercard, Amazon to Boost Circular Supply Chain Using DLT

    Within the announced initiative, Accenture is collaborating with major global companies including cloud computing firm Amazon Web Services, blockchain supply chain firm Everledger, international development organization Mercy Corps and multinational financial services corporation Mastercard.

    According to the release, the new blockchain-enabled circular supply chain capability will allow customers to identify small-scale suppliers and growers on the supply chain and make rewards by using direct payments.

    Additionally, the new capability is designed to provide better management of inventory and waste elimination, transparency across the supply chain and authenticity of products.

    https://cointelegraph.com/news/accenture-works-with-mastercard-amazon-to-boost-circular-supply-chain-using-dlt

Datacenter/Hardware

  • HP Sales Rise, but Fall Short of Estimates

    HP Inc.’s sales missed Wall Street targets in the most recent quarter, weighed down by the weaker-than-expected sales of printing supplies to commercial customers. Revenue from the printing segment, which includes the supplies business, fell to $5.06 billion from $5.08 billion a year earlier.

    Meanwhile, sales in the personal-systems segment, which includes its PC business, rose 2.3% to $9.66 billion, also missing analysts’ expectations. Total units sold fell 3% from the year earlier, as notebook units sold declined 1% and sales of desktops fell 8%, HP said.

    Overall, HP reported a first-quarter profit of $803 million, or 51 cents a share, down 59% from the year earlier, when the Palo Alto, Calif., company got a boost from the U.S. tax overhaul. Excluding restructuring charges and other items, profit was in line with analysts’ estimates at 52 cents a share, up from 48 cents a share a year earlier.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/hp-sales-rise-but-fall-short-of-estimates-11551301659

Other

  • WeWork confirms it has laid off 300 employees

    Headquartered in New York, the layoffs were performance-related, part of the company’s routine process of shedding underperformers. Among the departments impacted by the cuts were WeWork’s engineering team, product and user experience design.

    “Over the past nine years, WeWork has grown into one of the largest global physical networks thanks to the hard work and dedication of our team,” the company said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “WeWork recently conducted a standard annual performance review process. Our global workforce is now more than 10,000 strong, and we remain committed to continuing to grow and scale in 2019, including hiring an additional 6,000 employees.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/wework-confirms-it-has-let-go-of-300-employees/

  • Amazon to Launch New Grocery-Store Business

    The new stores aren’t intended to compete directly with the more upscale Whole Foods stores and will offer a different variety of products, at a lower price point, these people said. Whole Foods doesn’t sell products with artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and sweeteners, among other quality standards.

    Suppliers with big brands have hoped to have inroads into Whole Foods since Amazon bought the chain nearly two years ago. While Whole Foods has gradually expanded the big brands it carries—such as Honey-Nut Cheerios and Michelob beer—a conventional grocer can carry a much larger assortment of items.

    Amazon has had mixed results with its food-delivery business, and it wants to better understand how it can cater to grocery shoppers, according to people briefed on the company’s strategy.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-launch-new-grocery-store-business-sources-say-11551461887?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

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Posted on

News You Can Use: 3/6/2019

  • When the Bully Is the Boss

    By nature, any study of group dynamics in a real-world setting is plagued by design limitations, including the lack of a control group and the hidden personal grievances of the employees. But the vast majority of findings point to the same conclusion: Bullying bosses tend to undermine their own teams. Morale and company loyalty plunge, tardiness increases and sick days are more frequent.

    “Productivity may rise in the short term,” Dr. Greenbaum said. “But over time the performance of the staff or team deteriorates, and people quit.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/health/boss-bullies-workplace-management.html
    How to Deal With Jerks at Work

    Remember that even the jerkiest colleagues rarely want to be jerks. Sometimes finding a way to work around their apparently clueless behavior can be easier than trying to get them to change their ways.

    https://lifehacker.com/how-to-deal-with-jerks-at-work-1832819304

  • China banned millions of people with poor social credit from transportation in 2018

    The government rolled out the travel ban on people with low social credit scores last May. According to a report from China’s National Public Credit Information Center from last week, people have been blocked 17.5 million times from purchasing airplane tickets, and 5.5 million times from buying high-speed train tickets. These people had become “discredited” for unspecified behavioral crimes. That’s up from only 6.15 million citizens being blocked from taking flights as of 2017, according to China’s supreme court.

    As part of the system, the Chinese government also employs a public blacklist of those who have been found guilty of crimes in court and punishes them partly by limiting their ability to buy plane and train tickets.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/1/18246297/china-transportation-people-banned-poor-social-credit-planes-trains-2018

  • Why the school-college-job pathway is about to go extinct
  • To Stop Worrying So Much, Deflate Your Own Ego

    Look for any subtle entitlement or self-absorption hidden in your ruminations. Do you expect things to always go your way? Do you tend to believe people are scrutinizing you when, in reality, they’re probably thinking about themselves? Do you spend time comparing yourself to business superstars or celebrities?

    In other words, if you’re being too hard on yourself, maybe it’s because you think way too highly of yourself. You don’t even have to think you’re wonderful to fall into this trap, you just have to think you’re important. Because you think everything you do has grave consequences, and that everyone is paying attention to you, you mentally magnify even your smallest mistakes into national emergencies.

    https://lifehacker.com/to-stop-worrying-so-much-deflate-your-own-ego-1832941435

  • These Microsoft Employees Think They’re Brilliant Heroes, But They’re Really Quite Foolish. Here’s the Brutal Truth They Simply Refuse to See

    But, those of who have actually served in the military, or have seen war firsthand and actually had to make hard decisions, know that the ability to “cause harm and violence,” is far more complicated than a Tweet would suggest.

    Fortunately, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella quickly rejected the MSW4G petition.

    “We made a principled decision that we’re not going to withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies to protect the freedoms we enjoy,” Nadella told CNN Business. “We were very transparent about that decision and we’ll continue to have that dialogue.”

    In other words, if the MSW4G crew don’t like working on HoloLens and benefiting the IVAS contract, they can find other projects within the company. Or, they can go work for another company.

    https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/these-microsoft-employees-think-theyre-brilliant-heres-brutal-truth-they-simply-refuse-to-see.html

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Posted on

News You Can Use: 1/23/2019

  • We Are Living in the Begging Economy

    In this new paradigm, workers still have to work, but they don’t get paid at all. Instead, they beg for money on social media. It’s like replying to your viral Tweet with a link to your Soundcloud, only if you don’t go viral you have to ration your insulin (one third of GoFundMe’s campaigns are already for medical costs). This has been the case for many government employees for the entire duration of the shutdown, including the TSA employees who are supposedly there to prevent the next 9/11. It’ll be the case for the thousands more starting soon, so the Interior Department can continue to sell oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3m59p/we-are-living-in-the-begging-economy

  • Microsoft pledges $500M to create affordable housing around Seattle

    The money will be used in three ways: $225 million will be loaned at below-market interest rates to developers building units for households making between $62,000 to $124,000 a year; $250 million will be used for market-rate loans to support the construction of affordable housing for people making up to 60 percent of the local median income, or about $48,150 for a two-person household; and the rest of the money, $25 million, will be donated to services for low-income and homeless people. Loans will be made over a period of three years and any profit will be put back in the fund.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/16/microsoft-pledges-500m-to-create-affordable-housing-around-seattle/

  • How tax brackets actually work
  • Sorry I Forgot Your Birthday, I’ve Stopped Checking Facebook

    Michael Haber had been at his cousin Jasmine’s house for nearly two hours—chatting, playing with her children—when she brought out a fluffy chocolate sponge cake with a whipped-cream filling. “What is this for?” asked Mr. Haber, 26, a web designer in Beirut, Lebanon.

    Jasmine explained that it was for her. It was her birthday.

    “It was pretty awkward. But how would I have known?” said Mr. Haber. “I quit Facebook . ”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-quit-facebook-now-you-dont-know-anyones-birthday-11547652709

  • Receipts are secretly really bad–why are we still using them?

    “We started looking into this idea of receipts and whether we should move people towards electronic receipts,” says Phil Ting, a California assembly member from San Francisco. His staff calculated the amount of paper and water wasted to create receipts that often end up in the trash seconds later, and then learned about the health issues that receipts also pose. “As we did more research, we found out the receipts aren’t just printed with regular inkjet ink, which is recyclable. It’s [coated] with BPA which is not recyclable, and actually toxic.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90292886/receipts-are-secretly-really-bad-why-are-we-still-using-them

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