Tag: Microsoft

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Supplier Report: 3/29/2019

The tech industry is focused on playing games. Google has dedicated significant time and energy on a cloud-based gaming platform, and Apple is rumored to be announcing a service soon. Meanwhile, gaming veteran Microsoft is expected to have a major service update as well.

These companies are spending tons of money on retail, consumer-based services. Xbox shows it can be profitable, but is there money if the market keeps splintering?

Meanwhile Oracle is quietly going through a round of job eliminations and the President of the United States and his staff continue to struggle with technology.

Acquisitions

  • Apple Has Reportedly Acquired Italian Startup Stamplay

    Stamplay describes itself as a “low code workflow automation platform, empowering organizations to streamline manual work by integrating data and business applications used every day.” The “API-based development platform” enables developers to build and launch “full-featured cloud-based web apps.”

    https://www.macrumors.com/2019/03/21/apple-reportedly-acquired-stamplay/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Trump’s views about ‘crazy’ self-driving cars are at odds with his DOT

    Just last week during SXSW in Austin, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announced the creation of the Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) Council, an internal organization designed to resolve jurisdictional and regulatory gaps that may impede the deployment of new technology, such as tunneling, hyperloop, autonomous vehicles and other innovations.

    “New technologies increasingly straddle more than one mode of transportation, so I’ve signed an order creating a new internal Department council to better coordinate the review of innovation that have multi-modal applications,” Chao said in a prepared statement at the time.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/18/trumps-views-about-crazy-self-driving-cars-are-at-odds-with-his-dot/

  • Oracle adds more AI features to its suite of sales tools

    Rob Tarkoff, who had previous stints at EMC, Adobe and Lithium, and is now EVP of Oracle CX Cloud says that the company has found ways to increase efficiency in the sales and marketing process by using artificial intelligence to speed up previously manual workflows, while taking advantage of all the data that is part of modern sales and marketing.

    For starters, the company wants to help managers and salespeople understand the market better to identify the best prospects in the pipeline. To that end, Oracle is announcing integration with DataFox, the company it purchased last fall. The acquisition gave Oracle the ability to integrate highly detailed company profiles into their Customer Experience Cloud, including information such as SEC filings, job postings, news stories and other data about the company.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/19/oracle-adds-more-ai-features-to-its-suite-of-sales-tools/

  • What AI Is Still Far From Figuring Out

    The basic technique is to give the computer millions of examples of games, images or previous judgments and to provide feedback. Which moves led to a high score? Which pictures did people label as dogs? What did the curators or judges decide in particular cases? The computer can then use machine learning techniques to try to figure out how to achieve the same objectives. In fact, machines have gotten better and better at learning how to win games or match human judgments. They often detect subtle statistical cues in the data that humans can’t even understand.

    But people also can decide to change their objectives. A great judge can argue that slavery should be outlawed or that homosexuality should no longer be illegal. A great curator can make the case for an unprecedented new kind of art, like Cubism or Abstract Expressionism, that is very different from anything in the past.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-ai-is-still-far-from-figuring-out-11553112473

Cloud

  • Google is about to reveal its plan to take on the $140 billion gaming industry, but experts are skeptical it has a chance

    Google’s streaming service could change that model by letting users stream top games to the devices they already own, like a laptop, smartphone or streaming box connected to a TV.

    “Cloud gaming will enable publishers to broaden their reach even further by potentially taping into new audiences on any device and any screen,” Forrester vice president and principal analyst Thomas Husson told CNBC. “Beyond music or video, gaming represents another opportunity to offer recurring streaming revenues for companies in the gaming ecosystem. For cloud platforms like Amazon, Google or Microsoft, it will also become an opportunity to offer cloud storage and services to game publishers, who spend more and more in their IT infrastructure.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/17/google-yeti-gaming-announcement-expectations.html

    Apple might reveal its game subscription service at Monday’s event

    For the game bundle subscription, Bloomberg notes that Apple is “likely considering” paid games only. Any titles that depend on a freemium model — free-to-play but with in-app purchases — won’t be part of the deal. That would result in hits like Fortnite and PUBG Mobile being left out, but Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Heads Up!, Monument Valley 1 and 2, and NBA 2K19 are all the kind of paid games that could be eligible.

    Customers would be charged monthly to access a bundle of those premium games, and game developers would be paid based on how frequently members of the service play their title. “The company would collect these monthly fees, then divide up the revenue between developers based on how much time users spend playing their games,” Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/23/18278450/apple-gaming-subscription-service-iphone-ipad-march-25-rumor
    Microsoft’s Xbox boss responds to Google Stadia, promises ‘we will go big’ for E3

    Thurrott has published the full memo, and it reveals that Spencer feels validated by Google’s efforts. “Their announcement is validation of the path we embarked on two years ago,” says Spencer. Microsoft is also creating its own cloud gaming service, dubbed xCloud, that will rival Google and many others for streaming games to phones, tablets, PCs, and TVs. Microsoft recently demonstrated xCloud publicly for the first time, and it’s promising trials of the service later this year.

    “There were no big surprises in their announcement although I was impressed by their leveraging of YouTube, the use of Google Assistant and the new WiFi controller,” explains Spencer in his memo. Google is leveraging YouTube to allow people to view game clips and then instantly launch the game, or share an exact game save to the video service.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18273991/google-stadia-microsoft-xbox-phil-spencer-response-comments

  • Giant Military Contract Has a Hitch: A Little-Known Entrepreneur

    The software giant Oracle, which is widely considered ill equipped to land the deal, has aggressively criticized the one-vendor approach. As part of its opposition, the company is arguing in federal court that Mr. Ubhi’s ties to Amazon shaped the contract in the company’s favor

    Before the case was filed last year, the Pentagon found that Mr. Ubhi had no improper influence, and it continued evaluating the proposals despite Oracle’s lawsuit. But in late February, the government said it had received “new information” about Mr. Ubhi that it needed to investigate, essentially delaying the process.

    A Pentagon spokeswoman, Elissa Smith, declined to say what new information about Mr. Ubhi had been brought to the department’s attention. The Pentagon had said that the winner of the contract was projected to be announced in April. But Ms. Smith said the inquiry into Mr. Ubhi was “expected to impact the award date.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/technology/military-contract-deap-ubhi.html

Security

  • Facebook admits it stored ‘hundreds of millions’ of account passwords in plaintext

    Facebook confirmed Thursday in a blog post, prompted by a report by cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs, that it stored “hundreds of millions” of account passwords in plaintext for years.

    The discovery was made in January, said Facebook’s Pedro Canahuati, as part of a routine security review. None of the passwords were visible to anyone outside Facebook, he said. Facebook admitted the security lapse months later, after Krebs said logs were accessible to some 2,000 engineers and developers.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/21/facebook-plaintext-passwords/
    What a surprise, an article about Facebook not properly managing personal data…

  • Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Use Private Accounts for Official Business, Their Lawyer Says

    The chairman, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, said that a lawyer for Ms. Trump, President Trump’s daughter, and Mr. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, told the committee late last year that in addition to a private email account, Mr. Kushner uses an unofficial encrypted messaging service, WhatsApp, for official White House business, including with foreign contacts.

    Mr. Cummings said the lawyer, Abbe Lowell, also told lawmakers that Ms. Trump did not preserve some emails sent to her private account if she did not reply to them.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/us/politics/jared-kushner-whatsapp.html

Software/SaaS

  • IBM Launches A Blockchain-Based Global Payments Network

    IBM has now revealed a World Wire, which is a real-time global payments network for the regulated financial institutions, that is accessible in a growing number of markets.

    The payment system which is designed to simply optimize and accelerate the foreign exchange, remittances and cross border payments. World Wire is the first blockchain network as of now its kind to integrate the payment messaging, clearing and settlement on a single unified network, which even allows the participants to dynamically choose from a wide range of digital assets for settlement.

    World Wide has also enabled payment location in more than 70 countries, with 44 bank points and 47 currencies. Some of the local regulations will continue to guide the activation, and IBM is now actively growing the network with additional financial institutions across the globe.

    https://www.techiexpert.com/ibm-launches-a-blockchain-based-global-payments-network/

  • How Salesforce paved the way for the SaaS platform approach

    It turns out that Force.com was actually the culmination of a series of incremental steps after the launch of the first version of Salesforce in February, 2000, all of which were designed to make the software more flexible for customers. Company co-founder and CTO Parker Harris says they didn’t have this goal to be a platform early on. “We were a solution first, I would say. We didn’t say ‘let’s build a platform and then build sales-force automation on top of it.’ We wanted a solution that people could actually use,” Harris told TechCrunch.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/22/how-salesforce-paved-the-way-for-the-saas-platform-approach/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Microsoft Says the FCC ‘Overstates’ Broadband Availability in the US

    Microsoft this week was the latest to highlight the US government’s terrible broadband mapping in a filing with the FCC, first spotted by journalist Wendy Davis. In it, Microsoft accuses the FCC of over-stating actual broadband availability and urges the agency to do better.

    “For example, in some areas the Commission’s broadband availability data suggests that ISPs have reported significant broadband availability (25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up) while Microsoft’s usage data indicates that only a small percentage of consumers actually access the Internet at broadband speeds in those areas,” Microsoft said.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pan48b/microsoft-says-the-fcc-overstates-broadband-availability-in-the-us

  • Apple will let you add 256GB of RAM to an iMac Pro for $5,200

    You could buy a second iMac Pro for the cost of that single RAM upgrade. To put that in perspective compared to Apple’s other RAM upgrades, the iMac Pro comes with 32GB of RAM by default. Upgrading to 64GB costs an extra $400, and upgrading to 128GB costs an extra $2,000. Both of those prices are dwarfed by the new 256GB option.

    https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/3/19/18272523/apple-256gb-ram-imac-pro-5200-update-configure-build

  • How phones went from $200 to $2,000

    That’s in large part because phones are getting harder to sell. Far more people own a smartphone today than just a few years ago, and people are holding on to their phones for longer (perhaps because they’re so good, or perhaps because those two-year contracts are dead). That’s left smartphone makers with an option if they don’t want to see their revenues fall: sell more phones or sell more expensive phones. Obviously, they’ve chosen the latter.

    We’ve seen options for bigger screens and more storage push the price for flagship phones into the $1,500 range. Even the starting price for today’s flagships is closer to $1,000 than the $649 of just a few years ago.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/18/18263584/why-phones-are-so-expensive-price-apple-samsung-google

Other

  • Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe and Clear-cuts Teams of Engineers

    Rumors are flying, but the count appears to be heading into the thousands worldwide, with the lowest estimate at 500. One anonymous poster on theLayoff.com, a site that hosts discussion boards for people affected by layoffs, appeared to offer real numbers, indicating that the total target is 10 percent of Oracle’s global head count, which in 2018 was around 137,000. Cuts will be made in three phases this year, he indicated, with around 5000 employees cut in this first phase.

    Layoffs are nothing new for Oracle; in 2017 the company slashed nearly 1000 jobs in Silicon Valley, mostly from its SPARC and Solaris teams. But the sudden and secretive nature of this layoff operation came as a surprise to employees and observers. The lack of transparency and abruptness of the operation was reminiscent of IBM’s waves of layoffs in the past.

    https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/oracle-swings-the-layoff-axe-and-clearcuts-teams-of-engineers.amp.html

  • Google hit with another EU antitrust fine: The grand total now comes to €8.2B

    This morning, the European Union slapped Google with a €1.5 billion fine, which comes to a little over $1.7 billion. This latest fine was over its antitrust practices with its advertising business.

    Essentially, for years Google didn’t allow its AdSense customers to feature rival search engines on their sites. Over the years, the company eased up on these rules, but European officials still decided the practice amounted to illegal behavior. This may be an especially tough blow for Google, since AdSense’s contribution to the company’s overall revenue has been steadily decreasing over the last six-plus years, according to Bloomberg.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90322678/google-hit-with-another-eu-antitrust-fine-the-grand-total-now-comes-to-e8-2b

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

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Supplier Report: 3/15/2019

Elizabeth Warren is going after large IT companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon and stating her desire to break them up if elected President.

As IT establishes itself as one of the primary drivers of the US economy (and THE major competitive advantage over foreign countries), can a 70-year-old politician really understand what these proposed “monopoly busters” would do to the US innovation engine?

Meanwhile, Facebook is handing politicians like Warren a narrative to break up the company with their inability to get privacy under control (while continuing to make a profit) and as Amazon grows (unchecked) in almost every major market.

Acquisitions

Cloud

  • Microsoft Azure Is Catching Up to Amazon AWS

    Brad Zelnick referred to the RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report from Flexera, which is based on a survey of 786 technical professionals in a note to investors.

    The report said that overall Azure adoption grew from 45% to 52% to narrow the gap with AWS. As a result, the report said, Azure adoption has now reached 85% of AWS adoption, up from 70% last year.

    “Azure continues to catch up with AWS overall especially among enterprises, where Azure adoption increases slightly from 58% to 60%, while AWS adoption in this group is relatively flat at 67%. This puts Azure with 89% of the AWS adoption based on the overall number of respondents using each cloud,” the Cloud Report said, noting that Google maintains its third-place position, increasing slightly from 18% to 19% adoption.

    https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/azure-closing-the-gap-with-aws-14885053

  • Democrats to push to reinstate repealed ‘net neutrality’ rules

    Democrats in the U.S. Congress plan to unveil legislation on Wednesday to reinstate “net neutrality” rules that were repealed by the Trump administration in December 2017, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

    Pelosi told lawmakers in a letter that House Democrats, who won control of the chamber in the November 2018 elections, would work with their colleagues in the U.S. Senate to pass the “Save The Internet Act.”

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-idUSKCN1QL1W0

  • SAP’s restructuring – Hunger Games, Game of Thrones or both?

    It seems that SAP has determined that it cannot realistically compete with AWS, Google and Microsoft for cloud platform offerings and is, therefore, scaling those back. That’s one easy way to unload staff and should be of no surprise to anyone in particular. Even though SAP touts a cloud platform, it never figures in any of the surveys of runners and riders. And despite the obvious allure as evidenced by AWS numbers (and Microsoft’s recent rocketing performance) SAP isn’t going to fight battles it can’t win. However, that still leaves the problem of engineering for each of those choices. That’s BIG engineering work that requires a considerable resource for very little obvious payback other than protecting existing application investments.

    Also

    From what I can gather, SAP started its program in Germany, including at its Walldorf HQ, offering early retirement to some of the ABAP ‘greybeards.’ In addition, employees are being offered the opportunity to apply for one of the 3,000 openings elsewhere. This is where I get my Hunger Games metaphor. 4.5 down with 3 up is a competitive environment.

    https://diginomica.com/saps-restructuring-hunger-games-game-of-thrones-or-both/

    Looks like SAP is letting go of several Hana and development subject matter experts…not good.

Security

  • Do You Trust Your VPN? Are You Sure?

    The CEO of one top VPN company, Silicon Valley–based AnchorFree, told me in a phone interview that he suspects one of his top rivals is secretly based in China—which would raise a red flag for many privacy advocates because of the Chinese government’s aggressive surveillance regime. An executive for that rival, ExpressVPN, insisted that isn’t true, though he wouldn’t disclose where the owners are actually based or even who they are. (The company is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.) He argued the secrecy is actually a virtue because governments can’t apply pressure to ExpressVPN’s principals to give up user data if they don’t know who, or even where, those principals are. Indeed, many VPN users consider offshore providers preferable to U.S.-based firms.

    Also…

    How about the VPN that gets the best reviews? Ah, but there are dozens of review sites, their findings often conflict, and their criteria aren’t always transparent. Two of the more reputable tech sites that review VPNs, PCMag and CNET, both give Panama-based NordVPN the top spot, citing its speed, ease of use, and privacy features. But two others, Wirecutter and Tom’s Guide, found NordVPN slow and buggy. And, like ExpressVPN, NordVPN goes to great lengths to obscure its ownership. As Tom’s Guide notes, it’s a subsidiary of a Panama-based holding company called Tefincom S.A., which appears to be a shell company. (As with ExpressVPN, there are potential justifications for that anonymity.)

    https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/best-vpn-companies-trust-privacy.html

  • Facebook only cares about privacy because it has to

    Zuckerberg also talks about how ephemeral content (posts that don’t last forever) are key to Facebook’s evolution. That should come as no surprise given the rise of Instagram Stories, which now has over 500 million daily active users. That’s more than double of Snapchat — you know, the app Facebook essentially ripped off to create Stories. Zuckerberg says this doesn’t mean the News Feed is going away anytime soon, but it does raise the question: How does Facebook plan to turn its privacy-focused strategy into cash? Again, that’s a question that Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to have an answer for at the moment. Presumably, Facebook will still need to make money. And you have to wonder, if you’re not giving up your privacy, what will you have to give up for the company to turn a profit?

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/07/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-privacy-focused-strategy/
    Why Facebook’s pivot to privacy could backfire

    My view is that if you accept that Facebook’s News Feed and other feed-based products will eventually fade away, as they have already begun to do in North America, Facebook will need to transform its business completely. Rallying around privacy, encryption, and ephemeral messages — while buying time to build out new businesses around commerce and payments — seems to be as good an idea as any.

    Zuckerberg nods weakly to a belief in the continuing importance of the News Feed in his post. But over the past year, he also moved top News Feed talent to parts of the company that he needs to grow faster: Adam Mosseri to Instagram; designer Geoff Teehan to the blockchain division, and so on. These moves, coupled with the decline of original sharing in the News Feed in North America, lead me to believe that Zuckerberg — ever paranoid about the company’s long-term survival — feels pressure to start building lifeboats.

    https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/3/8/18255480/facebook-pivot-privacy-mark-zuckerberg-pr-stunt

Software/SaaS

  • Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon and Facebook

    The proposal — which comes on the same day Ms. Warren will hold a rally in Long Island City, the Queens neighborhood that was to be home to a major new Amazon campus — calls for the appointment of regulators who would “unwind tech mergers that illegally undermine competition,” as well as legislation that would prohibit platforms from both offering a marketplace for commerce and participating in that marketplace.

    Ms. Warren’s plan would also force the rollback of some acquisitions by technological giants, the campaign said, including Facebook’s deals for WhatsApp and Instagram, Amazon’s addition of Whole Foods, and Google’s purchase of Waze. Companies would be barred from transferring or sharing users’ data with third parties. Dual entities, such as Amazon Marketplace and AmazonBasics, would be split apart.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-amazon.html
    Elizabeth Warren Wants To Break Up Amazon, Google And Facebook; But Does Her Plan Make Any Sense?

    But I fear that nearly all of these plans to “break up” big tech actually make that harder. It doesn’t open up new opportunities for a protocol-based approach, and simply assumes that the world will always be managed by giant platform companies — just slightly smaller, and highly regulated, ones. And that might actually lead us to a much worse future, one that is still controlled by more centralized systems, rather than more decentralized, distributed protocols where the users have power.

    The internet is a constant challenge with lots of new upstarts hoping to disrupt the big guys. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. We should be wary of companies with too much power abusing that position to block competition. And I’m certainly open to looking at specific situations where it’s alleged that these companies are blocking competitors, but a general position that says breaking up the internet giants seems more opportunistic and headline-grabbing than realistic.

    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190308/10591041767/elizabeth-warren-wants-to-break-up-amazon-google-facebook-does-her-plan-make-any-sense.shtml

Other

  • Amazon’s joint healthcare organization is called ‘Haven’

    Haven, the website says, is a nonprofit that aims to make primary care easier to access, make prescription drugs more affordable and insurance benefits easier to understand. When the partners first announced the endeavor, they said they want to accomplish those goals with the help of technology. That hasn’t changed: they explained that they’re looking at new ways to use data and technology to better the healthcare system.

    The organization will start with addressing the healthcare needs of 1.2 million Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase workers in the US. Ultimately, the partners intend to use whatever they learn from that initial period and the solutions they come up with to improve the system for everyone.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/07/amazon-joint-healthcare-organization-haven/

  • Amazon to close all of its 87 pop-up stores in the US beginning in April

    “Across our Amazon network, we regularly evaluate our businesses to ensure we’re making thoughtful decisions around how we can best serve our customers,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. “After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program, and are instead expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star, where we provide a more comprehensive customer experience and broader selection.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/06/amazon-to-close-all-of-its-pop-up-stores-in-the-us.html

  • Amazon’s HQ2 deal isn’t looking great for Arlington County

    The contract doesn’t require Amazon to provide construction workers with a living wage, what would typically be called a project labor agreement, and it doesn’t ask Amazon to contribute to Arlington’s affordable housing trust fund. Housing fund requests are typically made after a company comes back to Arlington with more specific development plans.

    All Amazon needs to do in Arlington is hit office space requirements. It must occupy 64,000 square feet of office space by the end of July 2020, 252,800 square feet by 2021, and 5.576 million by 2034. As Amazon hits its office space goals, it will receive partial payment of the $23 million.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18252093/amazons-hq2-deal-arlington-county-living-wage-affordable-housing

Photo by Toby Yang 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

Supplier Report: 3/1/2019

Microsoft employees are pushing back on the company’s newest government contract. The $480m deal is to provide VR headsets to the military and despite the feedback the company does plan to move forward.

Speaking of government contracts, Amazon is still fighting to win the JEDI cloud deal with the DoD after new conflict of interest information coming to light.

Meanwhile, there is more information about how Facebook uses other phone applications to collect data on users, even if you don’t have a Facebook account.

Acquisitions

  • Palo Alto Networks to acquire Demisto for $560M

    The company sees a tool that can help enhance the Palo Alto security portfolio by adding a higher level of automation. “The addition of Demisto’s orchestration and automation technologies will accelerate Palo Alto Networks Application Framework strategy and serve as a critical step forward in the company’s aim to deliver immediate threat prevention and response for security teams,” the company explained in a statement.

    Palo Alto also hopes that Demisto’s automated solutions will help accelerate its AI and machine learning capabilities to bring intelligent automation across the platform. The company brings more than technology, of course. It also brings its 150 customers to Palo Alto, a quarter of which are in the Fortune 500.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/19/palo-alto-networks-to-acquire-demisto-for-560m/

  • Google acquires a small cloud start-up as it looks to catch up to Amazon and Microsoft

    Google is making another play in the cloud space with a new acquisition. The company announced Tuesday it plans to acquire cloud migration company Alooma, which helps other companies move their data from multiple sources into one data warehouse.

    Google did not disclose how much it will pay for Alooma, which is based in Israel and California, but it’s likely a relatively small acquisition. Alooma has raised about $15 million from investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequioa Capital Israel, according to Crunchbase.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/19/google-plans-to-acquire-cloud-migration-company-alooma.html

Artificial Intelligence

  • OpenAI built a text generator so good, it’s considered too dangerous to release

    OpenAI said its new natural language model, GPT-2, was trained to predict the next word in a sample of 40 gigabytes of internet text. The end result was the system generating text that “adapts to the style and content of the conditioning text,” allowing the user to “generate realistic and coherent continuations about a topic of their choosing.” The model is a vast improvement on the first version by producing longer text with greater coherence.

    But with every good application of the system, such as bots capable of better dialog and better speech recognition, the non-profit found several more, like generating fake news, impersonating people, or automating abusive or spam comments on social media.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/17/openai-text-generator-dangerous/

Cloud

  • Why Alphabet and Microsoft Are Better-Positioned Than You Think

    Each year, Stack Overflow polls over 100,000 professional developers to get a read on their favorite platforms — what they use most, what they love most, what they dread most, and what they want most. Linux was the winner, by far, which is really good news for both Alphabet and Microsoft.

    Why? Let’s start with Linux itself. The world’s most popular open-source operating system is available in a number of varieties commonly known as distributions. Red Hat has a very popular one that IBM is in the process of acquiring. In the cloud, Ubuntu is extremely popular. So are Fedora (a completely free version of Red Hat) and Arch Linux.

    Alphabet is far and away the biggest consumer of open-source software built for Linux and related technologies. Microsoft is the biggest overall contributor of open-source ideas to GitHub, the development community it acquired in August for about $7.5 billion in stock. Both companies are also making it easier to run Linux installations in their clouds (i.e., Azure and Google Cloud, respectively). As developers continue to up their intake of Linux — and last year usage doubled, according to Stack Overflow — they’re more likely to run into open-source offerings from Alphabet and Microsoft.

    https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/22/why-alphabet-and-microsoft-are-better-positioned-t.aspx

  • Pentagon Cloud-Computing Contract Sought by Amazon Faces New Hurdle

    The contract was expected to be awarded this spring. Rival Oracle Corp. sued to halt the process until the government thoroughly investigates Oracle’s claims of alleged conflicts, which center on a former government employee who worked at Amazon before and after playing a role in the Pentagon’s procurement process.

    The Defense Department largely dismissed conflict of interest claims earlier, making Tuesday’s motion to seek the stay a potential turning point.

    “DoD can confirm that new information not previously provided to DoD has emerged related to potential conflicts of interest,” Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said in a statement. “As a result of this new information, DoD is continuing to investigate these potential conflicts.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-cloud-computing-contract-sought-by-amazon-faces-new-hurdle-11550601359

Security

  • You Give Apps Sensitive Personal Information. Then They Tell Facebook.

    The social-media giant collects intensely personal information from many popular smartphone apps just seconds after users enter it, even if the user has no connection to Facebook, according to testing done by The Wall Street Journal. The apps often send the data without any prominent or specific disclosure, the testing showed.

    It is already known that many smartphone apps send information to Facebook about when users open them, and sometimes what they do inside. Previously unreported is how at least 11 popular apps, totaling tens of millions of downloads, have also been sharing sensitive data entered by users. The findings alarmed some privacy experts who reviewed the Journal’s testing.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-give-apps-sensitive-personal-information-then-they-tell-facebook-11550851636?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • The Hot, Lucrative Market in IT Security Talent

    “What you’ve been seeing for the last year or two is more demand than supply” in cybersecurity, says Ryan Sutton, district president at the Robert Half Technology staffing agency. “As demand stays high and supply more or less stays constant,” upward pressure on wages is likely to increase, he says.

    In addition to pushing up salaries, the competition for talent is forcing companies to snatch up candidates more quickly than they have in the past, Mr. Sutton says.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hot-lucrative-market-in-it-security-talent-11550763976

Software/SaaS

  • Snapchat is in the middle of an identity crisis

    There are many reasons why Snapchat hasn’t caught up to Facebook or Instagram, Keath said, but the lack of public profiles and embeddable content on the web are the main ones to blame for its growth troubles. Another big issue has been the app’s janky user interface, particularly on Android, which Snapchat has been vowing to fix for a couple of years now.

    Then there’s Snapchat’s dependence on ephemeral posts, though rumors suggest it may soon allow public Stories that don’t disappear. If Snapchat were to come up with a way to make Stories last longer or be permanent on someone’s account, it could help it better compete with Instagram and other social networks.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/22/snapchat-bhad-bhabie-nike-augmented-reality-identity-crisis/

Datacenter/Hardware

  • The Dirty Energy Powering Data Center Alley

    Despite significant new investment in renewable generation by utilities in other data center hot spots such as Iowa, the dramatic expansion of Virginia’s Data Center Alley continues to fuel and increase demand in coal and natural gas. At present, power generation in Virginia is dominated by fossil fuels, with less than 5 percent coming from renewable sources, lagging far behind other regions. Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest electricity provider and the primary electric utility for Data Center Alley, has strongly resisted any meaningful transition to renewable sources of electricity, currently representing only 4 percent of its generation mix, with plans to increase to only slightly over 10 percent by 2030.

    Dominion’s lack of renewable energy supply and insistence on making significant new investments in fossil fuels will both delay Virginia’s transition to cleaner sources of energy, and make it much more costly to do so. Yet many of the largest data center companies with commitments to 100 percent renewable energy have continued to rapidly expand their presence in Virginia, thus fueling even more demand for dirty electricity, with Amazon Web Services the biggest culprit. Amazon Web Services (AWS) already ranked as one of Dominion Energy’s largest electricity customers when it made its commitment to 100 percent renewable energy in late 2014, and Greenpeace‘s analysis shows AWS has tripled its data center operations in Virginia since that time. Even though AWS did add a sizable amount of renewable energy locally from 2015 to 2016, its dramatic growth in Virginia during this period continued to far exceed the additional electricity supply from its renewable projects.

    https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/click-clean-virginia/

    Amazon aims to make half of its shipments carbon neutral by 2030

    The company is calling this program “Shipment Zero.” Details on this long-term project weren’t yet available, but Amazon says it plans to share its company-wide carbon footprint “along with related goals and programs,” at a later date. That seems to indicate Amazon will offer an update on the progress of its other sustainability goals, as well.

    It’s important for Amazon to be transparent on these plans, as the size of its business means its impact to the environment, energy consumption and, ultimately climate change, is significant.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/18/amazon-aims-to-make-half-of-its-shipments-carbon-neutral-by-2030/

  • Apple’s move to ARM-based Macs creates uncertainty

    The move could give developers a way to reach a bigger market with a single app, although the transition could be bumpy. For Intel, of course, it would mean the loss of a significant customer, albeit probably not a huge hit to its bottom line.

    The key question is not the timeline but just how smoothly Apple is able to make the shift. For developers, it will likely mean an awkward period of time supporting new and classic Macs as well as new and old-style Mac apps.

    https://www.axios.com/apple-macbook-arm-chips-ea93c38a-d40a-4873-8de9-7727999c588c.html

  • Microsoft workers demand it drop $480 million U.S. Army contract

    Microsoft won a contract in November to supply the Army with at least 2,500 prototypes of augmented reality headsets, which digitally display contextual information in front of a user’s eyes. The government has said the devices would be used on the battlefield and in training to improve soldiers “lethality, mobility and situational awareness.”

    In the petition to Microsoft executives, posted on Twitter, the workers said they “did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used.” They called on the company to develop “a public-facing acceptable use policy” for its technology and an external review board to publicly enforce it.

    Microsoft said in a statement that it always appreciates employee feedback. It also referred to an October blog post by its president, Brad Smith, in which he said the company remained committed to assisting the military and would advocate for laws to ensure responsible use of new technologies.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-army/microsoft-workers-demand-it-drop-450-million-u-s-army-contract-idUSKCN1QB2LV

Other

  • Nestlé, McDonald’s, Others Pull Ads From YouTube

    The advertisers’ withdrawals come after video blogger Matt Watson posted a video on YouTube on Sunday that showed inappropriate user comments about videos featuring underage girls, including some that identified precise segments where children appear in compromising positions.

    The video, which had received over 1.7 million views as of Wednesday afternoon, said YouTube’s recommendation algorithm leads users to similar content.

    McDonald’s Corp. , which was among the several brands whose ads ran alongside the objectionable content, also paused spending on YouTube, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/nestle-mcdonalds-others-pull-ads-from-youtube-11550705643

  • Apple is reportedly closing two stores in a Texas district to avoid patent trolls

    As MacRumors notes, the Eastern District of Texas is known for its patent cases (an SMU Dedman School of Law paper backs up that claim), and per US law, patent lawsuits can be filed in places where the defendant “has a regular and established place of business.” By closing its two stores in the district, Apple reportedly hopes to shield itself from those suits.

    The Apple Willow Bend store in Plano and the Apple Stonebriar store in Frisco are both expected to close up shop on April 12th. Apple is planning to open a new store at the Galleria Dallas shopping mall just outside of the Eastern District border to continue to have a retail presence in the area.

    https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/22/18236424/apple-closing-stores-eastern-district-texas-avoid-patent-trolls

  • Two Former Cognizant Executives Charged in Bribery Probe

    Gordon Coburn, the company’s former president, and Steven Schwartz, its former chief legal officer, authorized a $2 million bribe to at least one government official in India to secure permits necessary for the construction of an office campus there to support roughly 17,000 employees, prosecutors said.

    To conceal Cognizant’s role in the bribery scheme, Messrs. Coburn and Schwartz, and others, agreed to use a construction company to secure the permit, prosecutors said. The construction company would pay the bribe, and Cognizant would later reimburse the firm through disguised cost overruns on the project, located in Chennai, India, prosecutors said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/cognizant-to-pay-25-million-to-settle-bribery-claims-11550252878

  • IBM is the top choice for Gen Z employees in tech: Glassdoor

    Glassdoor economics research analyst Amanda Stansell attributed Gen Zers’ top choice to a number of factors, including a good work-life balance at IBM and IBM employees’ ability to work from home.

    Another factor that may play a role in IBM being the top choice? Lack of controversy.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-glassdoor-gen-z-193615566.html

    But they are cutting back from work at home options, cutting staff, and are still in transition…

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