Tag: SalesForce

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Big Tech’s Job Eliminations

Over the last six months, several technology companies announced job eliminations. Recently, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) companies were hit hard…

Pegasystems, a software company that specializes in CRM, announced a 4% reduction of its workforce. The company cited the need to “streamline its operations” and focus on key growth areas such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

CRM giant Salesforce announced the elimination of about 8,000 jobs worldwide as well as closing some offices. The reductions seemingly focused Tableau employees and there are rumors of more reductions in Salesforce sales teams.

Additional job eliminations in the last 6 months:

As companies reduce their workforce and thus their redundancy, how does that impact their ability to support their customers?

According to Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, layoffs don’t work to improve company performance. Academic studies have shown that time and time again, workplace reductions don’t do much to reduce costs:

  • Severance packages cost money
  • Layoffs increase unemployment insurance rates
  • Cuts reduce workplace morale and productivity as remaining employees are left wondering, “Could I be fired too?”

The trend of recent tech layoffs highlights the post-pandemic economic reality of labor shortages and the disappearance of cheap money. As organizations focus on streamlining their operations and redirecting resources towards key growth areas like automation, digital, and AI – layoffs and cost reductions will continue to be the reality.

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Supplier Report: 4/3/2020


Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

Having done this blog for the last 7 years, I tend to notice patterns with the technology press.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, articles mentioning artificial intelligence technology and automation have completely dropped off. Unfortunately, this makes sense as the global workforce is scared, and any talk of job-eliminating technology will add to our collective anxiety.

Only 25% of all Americans have the ability to work remotely. As shops close down and reduce their output, many are questioning how long some businesses can survive. It is getting to the point where certain IT firms (like Saleforce) are pledging not to make “substantial job eliminations” for the next 90 days – which is so classy considering Saleforce is a company that could operate almost entirely online and still produce products and sales with limited impact.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is quietly upping their game with more Azure capacity, pushing their Team’s software, and still making acquisitions.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Microsoft acquires 5G specialist Affirmed Networks

    With its focus on 5G and edge computing, Affirmed looks like the ideal acquisition target for a large cloud provider looking to get deeper into the telco business. According to Crunchbase, Affirmed raised a total of $155 million before this acquisition, and the company’s more than 100 enterprise customers include the likes of AT&T, Orange, Vodafone, Telus, Turkcell and STC.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/26/microsoft-acquires-5g-specialist-affirmed-networks/

  • Deloitte acquires Microsoft, IBM partner Bistech

    Bistech will join Deloitte’s data analytics team in Brisbane, with Bistech co-owners Shane Morgan, Justin Hoareau and Brad Culbert in leadership roles. All 17 consultants will also join Deloitte.

    “We’re incredibly excited and pleased to be joining Deloitte’s Analytics & Cognitive team, which shares the same people values and customer focus we’ve built over the last 19 years in business,” Bistech founder Shane Morgan said in a statement.

    Founded in 2000, Bistech provides data analytics, data science, data management and financial performance management services in the form of consulting, technical implementation, support and training.

    https://www.crn.com.au/news/deloitte-acquires-microsoft-ibm-partner-bistech-539759

Cloud

  • Microsoft reveals 775 percent Azure surge, quotas on some resources and ‘significant new capacity’ coming ASAP

    “We are expediting the addition of significant new capacity that will be available in the weeks ahead,” the post continues. “Concurrently, we monitor support requests and, if needed, encourage customers to consider alternative regions or alternative resource types, depending on their timeline and requirements. If the implementation of these efforts to alleviate demand is not sufficient, customers may experience intermittent deployment related issues. When this does happen, impacted customers will be informed via Azure Service Health.”

    The post seems very much designed to reassure customers that Microsoft is not going to run out of cloud anytime soon, but also reveals “a few temporary restrictions designed to balance the best possible experience for all of our customers.”

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/29/microsoft_reveals_775_percent_azure_usage_surge_in_coronavirus_lockdown_zones/
    Microsoft needs to invest heavily in its own infrastructure now if it wants to keep up with the popularity of its remote work tools, analyst warns

    A survey of chief information officers, human resources professionals and others this week suggested Microsoft could weather the crisis because of its cloud and collaboration software products including Skype for Business and the Microsoft Teams chat app.

    The survey, conducted by RBC Capital Markets, suggested companies are likely to accelerate moves from on-premises computing resources into the public and private cloud – benefiting cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services – and increase budgets for Microsoft collaboration products.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-coronavirus-crisis-new-customers-2020-3

Security/Privacy

  • Google’s security measures failed to find Android malware in Play Store

    The malware, named “Tekya”, imitated the user’s actions in order to click ads and banners from agencies suh as AdMob, AppLovin’, Facebook and Unity. The affected apps included utility apps such as cooking apps and calculators, and apps aimed at kids, such as puzzles and racing games.

    Tekya was able to go undetected for so long because it hid in Android’s native code — code that’s designed to run only on Android processors. As such, the malware avoided detection by Google Play Protect, the system designed to keep Android safe. The malware was removed by Google in early March, after Check Point disclosed its findings to the company.

    Considering the Play Store is home to more than two million apps, 56 being affected in this way represents a very small sample. However, it does demonstrate that Google’s security efforts aren’t fool-proof.

    https://www.engadget.com/2020-03-24-google-security-android-malware-play-store.html

  • What Is the Most Secure Video Conferencing Software?

    While Zoom offers end-to-end encrypted chat—meaning only the participants in the exchange have access to the contents of the messages—its video calls are not encrypted in the same way by default. Hosts, however, can enable end-to-end encryption in video calls too, according to the company.

    The app has a troubled record when it comes to security and privacy. Thanks to a creepy feature, hosts can track whether you are paying attention to the meeting, and the company’s privacy policy allows it to collect all sorts of personal data.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7qwgx/what-is-the-most-secure-video-conferencing-software
    So they are not even going to mention Cisco’s Webex?

Software/SaaS

  • Slack working on Microsoft Teams “calling features” integrations via Public APIs, what does that mean?

    There is no simple open signalling standard/API for another system to directly call a Microsoft Teams user.

    Microsoft enables 1:1 calling between Skype for Business (Server and Online) and Microsoft Teams, so in theory, Slack could route calls via the own run Skype for Business Server infrastructure or emulate a Skype for Business Federation. This would allow 1:1 voice, video and chat if all the right codecs and signalling were supported. In Microsoft language, this is called “federation”.

    Microsoft is also rolling out Teams to Skype consumer connectivity, again 1:1, user to user, so Slack could emulate this to do peer to peer calling, video and chat.

    Note these are direct private chat, not team chat in a multi-person team workspace in either product.

    https://tomtalks.blog/2020/03/slack-working-on-microsoft-teams-calling-features-integrations-via-public-apis-what-does-that-mean/

Other

  • Apple’s Siri voice assistant now provides coronavirus advice

    When you first ask Siri about the virus, the voice assistant will ask whether you are experiencing related symptoms, which include a fever, dry cough, or shortness of breath. People with extreme or life-threatening illnesses are advised to call 911, while anyone who’s not sure is informed of the diseases symptoms and told to self-isolate if they appear. Links to telehealth apps on the App Store are provided for anyone who can’t currently reach a healthcare provider.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/23/21190600/apple-siri-coronavirus-covid-19-symptoms-healthcare-advice-information

  • Salesforce’s Benioff pledges no ‘significant’ layoffs for 90 days

    It sounds like Benioff’s second tweet, which also asked employees to consider paying their own hourly workers like housekeepers and dog walkers throughout the layoff period, whether they were working or not, was designed to give the CEO some wiggle room for at least some layoffs.

    Salesforce has almost 50,000 employees worldwide. Even if the company were to lay off just 1% of employees it would equal 500 people without jobs, though it’s not clear if that would count as “significant.” Perhaps more likely, the company might make some cuts to staff for performance or HR-related reasons, but not broad cuts, and thus make both of its CEO’s claims essentially true.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/26/salesforces-benioff-pledges-no-significant-layoffs-for-90s-days/

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Supplier Report: 3/6/2020


Photo by Jérémy Stenuit on Unsplash

The COVID-19 virus – which is rapidly earning pandemic status – has already caused massive disruption to the IT industry. As the virus spreads globally, companies are cutting back travel and pulling out of conferences.

The physical supply chain continues to be impacted with no timeline or solutions emerging other than “wait until after April”.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • DocuSign acquires Seal Software for $188M to enhance its AI chops

    DocuSign says it will continue to sell Seal’s analytics tools. What’s surely more important to DocuSign, though, is that it will also leverage the company’s AI tools to bolster its DocuSign CLM offering. CLM is DocuSign’s service for automating the full contract life cycle, with a graphical interface for creating workflows and collaboration tools for reviewing and tracking changes, among other things. And integration with Seal’s tools, DocuSign argues, will allow it to provide its customers with a “faster, more efficient agreement process,” while Seal’s customers will benefit from deeper integrations with the DocuSign Agreement Cloud.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/27/docusign-acquires-seal-software-for-188m-to-enhance-its-ai-chops/

  • Xerox Edges Closer to Fixing Its HP Printer Jam

    Were HP to become the acquirer, the new firm would emerge with significantly less debt. The Xerox offer as it stands would likely load the new entity with debt representing at least five times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. In the unlikely event that HP were to pay cash for Xerox (there would almost certainly be a stock component), then it would have debt of less than four times Ebitda.

    That includes the impact of a $15 billion buyback that HP announced today. The biggest risk for Xerox was that HP would essentially become the counterbidder for itself. By using his own balance sheet to boost shareholder value, Lores is doing just that. A $15 billion repurchase might buy back 50% of the shares, based on HP’s valuation before Xerox’s first bid. That could lift the share price well above the $24 a share of Xerox’s most recent offer.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/xerox-edges-closer-to-fixing-its-hp-printer-jam/2020/02/25/b1c61f82-57e8-11ea-8efd-0f904bdd8057_story.html

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics

  • IBM and Microsoft support the Vatican’s guidelines for ethical AI

    The pledge, presented to Pope Francis today, calls for AI that safeguards the rights of all humans, especially the underprivileged, and for new regulations in areas like facial recognition. It asks tech leaders to “humanise technology and not ‘technologise’ humanity,” Novena News reports.

    “The Vatican is not an expert on the technology but on values,” Francesca Rossi, IBM’s global AI ethics leader, said in a statement. “The collaboration is to make the Vatican and the whole society understand how to use this technology with these values.”

    The pledge is part of a larger workshop on ethical AI led by the Pontifical Academy for Life in the Vatican this week. The Academy hopes governments, NGOs, industry leaders and other associations will join the “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” along with tech companies like IBM and Microsoft.

    https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/28/ibm-microsoft-vatican-ai-ethics-pledge/

Cloud

  • Oracle has been outed as a donor for the Internet Accountability Project

    Database software giant Oracle Corp. has been outed as one of the donors of the Internet Accountability Project, which is a conservative organization that’s been throwing its weight behind a growing call for tougher privacy rules and stronger regulation of big tech companies.

    The IAP had always refused to say who was funding it, but it revealed in a disclosure on its website that Oracle donated between $25,000 and $99,000 last year, according to a Bloomberg report Tuesday.

    Oracle has been funding the IAP as part of its long-running campaigns against tech rivals such as Amazon Web Services Inc. and Google LLC. Oracle has been gunning for Amazon and its cloud business for years, while it’s also involved in a lengthy legal battle with Google regarding the use of patents relating to the Java programming language it owns.

    https://siliconangle.com/2020/02/26/oracle-outed-donor-internet-accountability-project/

Security/Privacy

  • ICE has run facial-recognition searches on millions of Maryland drivers

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been permitted to run facial-recognition searches on millions of Maryland driver’s license photos without first seeking state or court approval, state officials said — access that goes far beyond what other states allow and that alarms immigration activists in a state that grants special driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

    More than 275,000 such licenses have been issued statewide since 2013, when the state became the first on the East Coast to defy federal guidelines and allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a license without having to provide proof of legal status. The technology now under scrutiny could let an ICE official run a photograph of an unknown person through the system and see if any potentially undocumented immigrants are returned as a match.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/26/ice-has-run-facial-recognition-searches-millions-maryland-drivers/

Software/SaaS

  • Oracle to pay $12 million to settle ERISA suit

    Oracle Corp. agreed to pay $12 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against the firm for allegedly breaching its fiduciary duties in managing its $16.5 billion 401(k) plan.

    The suit, filed in 2016, alleged that Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle caused participants of its 401(k) savings and investment plan “to pay unreasonable record-keeping and administrative fees” to its record keeper, Fidelity Management Trust Co.

    https://www.pionline.com/courts/oracle-pay-12-million-settle-erisa-suit

  • Expedia cuts 3,000 jobs, including 500 at new Seattle HQ

    Expedia said at the time that it was targeting $300 to $500 million of annual cost savings, but hadn’t previously announced explicit plans for job cuts.

    The layoffs come across the company and globe. About 500 people will be let go in Seattle, where Expedia recently moved to a new 40-acre waterfront campus and employs more than 4,000 people. Expedia said it will eliminate certain projects and activities, and reduce the use of vendors and contractors. It will provide impacted workers with severance packages that include extended healthcare.

    “Moving forward, we will exert more discipline in setting priorities and allocating resources, simplify our business processes and inter-dependencies, raise the bar on performance standards, and demonstrate and demand accountability for results,”

    https://www.geekwire.com/2020/expedia-cuts-3000-jobs-including-500-new-seattle-hq-read-internal-email-employees/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Apple Loses Pair of Key Operations, Supply Chain Executives

    Nick Forlenza, a vice president of manufacturing design, has retired from Apple, while Duco Pasmooij, another vice president who worked on operations, is discussing an exit in the near future, according to people familiar with the moves. Pasmooij left the operations team over a year ago, moving into a role reporting to the company’s head of augmented reality efforts, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing personnel.

    Apple has about a hundred vice presidents across the company who help Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and the senior executive team run one of the world’s most profitable companies. An Apple spokesman declined to comment. Forlenza and Pasmooij didn’t respond to requests for comment.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-27/apple-loses-pair-of-key-operations-supply-chain-executives

Other

  • Disney’s Iger Is Now in a Rare Role: Executive Chairman

    Such arrangements work when an executive chairman cedes enough control to give the new CEO autonomy, while remaining present as a sounding board, says Anthony Abbatiello, who heads the leadership and succession-planning practice at Russell Reynolds Associates, an executive-search firm. Transitions can crumble if the newly installed chairman insists on micromanaging operations, he said.

    When Jim McCann, the founder and longtime CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com Inc., became executive chairman in 2016 and handed the reins to his brother, Chris McCann, he says he tried to clearly separate the roles. He stopped attending some meetings and quarterly gatherings of managers, and refrained from participating in corporate earnings calls. Instead, he took on projects focused on innovation and better serving customers, leaving his brother to handle day-to-day operations.

    A mentor advised the two executives to never let others drive a wedge between them. “That’s rung in our ears,” Jim McCann said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/disneys-iger-is-now-in-a-rare-role-executive-chairman-11582840014

  • Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block steps down

    Block stepped into the co-CEO role in 2018, after a long career at the company that saw him become vice chairman, president and director before he took this position. Block spent the early years of his career at Oracle . He left there in 2012 after the release of a number of documents in which he criticized then-Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, who passed away last year.

    Industry pundits saw his elevation to the co-CEO role as a sign that Block was next in line as the company’s sole CEO in the future (assuming Benioff would ever step down). After this short tenure as co-CEO, it doesn’t look like that will be the case, but for the time being, Block will stay on as an advisor to Benioff.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/25/salesforce-co-ceo-keith-block-steps-down/

  • Amazon tells employees to pause nonessential travel in U.S. due to coronavirus

    Amazon sent the notification to employees on Friday. In a separate internal communication, Dave Clark, who runs Amazon’s retail operations, told employees to hold off on planning group or team meetings that require travel until at least the end of April, when he estimated that the company will have a better sense of the virus, its spread and its impact.

    In January, Amazon said it was restricting employee travel to China “until further notice” amid the coronavirus outbreak. The company also recommended that employees who are expected to travel back from one of the affected provinces of China work from home for two weeks. Amazon urged employees who experienced any symptoms to seek medical attention before returning to the office.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/amazon-pauses-non-essential-travel-in-us-due-to-coronavirus.html
    Coronavirus concerns prompt cancellation of Facebook F8 developer conference

    “This was a tough call to make — F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and it’s one of our favorite ways to celebrate all of you from around the world — but we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on,” Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook’s director of developer platforms and programs, said in a statement.

    https://www.cnet.com/news/coronavirus-concerns-prompt-cancellation-of-facebook-f8-developer-conference/
    GDC 2020 has been canceled

    In recent days, nearly all of the event’s top corporate sponsors announced that they would not be sending employees to the event due to concerns surrounding coronavirus. Microsoft, Unity, Epic, Amazon, Facebook and Sony had all bowed out of the event. GDC’s statement did not reference the virus.

    The company behind GDC detailed that they will be refunding conference and expo attendees in full, though a blog post details that the group hopes to host a GDC event later in the summer, noting, “We will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/28/gdc-has-been-postponed/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 1/17/2020


Photo by inbal marilli on Unsplash

Privacy will continue to be a major issue for technology companies in 2020.  We are a few weeks into the new year and Amazon already suffered a breach, but at least they weren’t hacked… employees just gave the data away.

Facebook got their collective teeth kicked in last year, but Mark Zuckerberg’s tone during his “2030 statement” makes me think has hasn’t learned from the experience and he thinks perhaps this will all blow over. Meanwhile there is a sentiment of “techlash” growing with students at college campuses.

Finally… the rumors of Google buying SalesForce continue.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • On CRM: This Is What Google Should Consider Before Buying Salesforce

    It’s no secret that Google’s cloud division – which is trailing far behind its rivals Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) – is looking to make a big acquisition in order to play catch-up ball. Now a new report from Business Insider claims that the company may be considering a purchase of Salesforce.com to fulfill this ambition.

    Also:

    Does Google understand that, like the fans of a baseball team that come to watch great players, swallowing up Salesforce and prioritizing cloud over CRM would – over time – ultimately sabotage the very reason that attracted them? How long would it take for Google to start watering down Salesforce’s brand and neglecting CRM as it brings other, unrelated applications and its own search and advertising tools to the cloud platform it acquires? If this happens Benioff, an iconic entrepreneur and philanthropist, would likely not stick around very long under a Google regime. Neither would the passionate community that he built which underscores the success of Salesforce’s cloud platform.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2020/01/09/on-crm-this-is-what-google-should-consider-before-buying-salesforce/#29aa04b4ff7f

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics

  • The “Robot Tax” Debate Heats Up

    Bill Gates has called for a robot tax, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio detailed a plan for one in his short-lived presidential campaign. If the future means far fewer workers and far more machines, tax revenue could drop and the daily rhythms of steady employment could become erratic.

    A robot tax could serve multiple purposes, slowing job-destroying automation while raising revenue to supplement shrinking taxes paid by human workers. It could take a few different forms. Lawmakers could limit or slow down deductions for businesses that replace humans with robots, or they could hit businesses with levies equivalent to the payroll taxes paid by employers and employees.

    For the moment, massive job losses from automation and artificial intelligence are a largely theoretical worry. But tax economists and lawyers are thinking through the economic circumstances in which robot taxes might make sense and the tricky legal decisions and definitions needed to implement them.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-robot-tax-debate-heats-up-11578495608

  • Medical Robotics Company Names Former Google Cloud COO As CEO

    Bryant joins Neural Analytics after six months as Google Cloud’s chief operating officer, where she focused on scaling its Cloud platform against fierce competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. She worked at chip giant Intel for over thirty years, departing the company as a president of the company’s data center group.

    Neural Analytics has developed a robotically assisted ultrasound system for the assessment of brain health, which is designed to measure and display information about brain blood flow, under the guidance of a healthcare professional.

    In an email, Bryant said she had received three offers to serve as the CEO of companies in different industries, but was ultimately intrigued by the promise of Neural Analytics’ technology.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2020/01/10/medical-robotics-company-names-former-google-cloud-coo-as-ceo/#6126a20a50cf

    That headline should be less about her time at Google and more about her time at Intel

Security/Privacy

  • Amazon fires employees for leaking customer email addresses and phone numbers

    The email to customers sent Friday afternoon, seen by TechCrunch, said an employee was “terminated” for sharing the data, and that the company is supporting law enforcement in their prosecution.

    Amazon confirmed the incident in an email to TechCrunch. A spokesperson said a number of employees were fired. But little else is known about the employees, when the information was shared and with whom, and how many customers are affected.

    “No other information related to your account was shared. This is not a result of anything you have done, and there is no need for you to take any action,” the email read to customers.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/10/amazon-employees-email-address/

Software/SaaS

  • If you thought Zuckerberg would ever rein in rightwing demagogues, think again

    Three of the five areas of focus are simply to continue working on Facebook’s major business aims (private messaging, e-commerce, and VR/AR); the personal challenge version of deciding that, screw the diet-book industrial complex, you’re beautiful just as you are. A fourth, entitled “New forms of governance” is to continue working on the “supreme court” of Facebook content moderation, another project already long in the works.

    The fifth, which Zuckerberg entitled “generational change”, appears to encapsulate his desire to see more millennials take positions of power in institutions over the next decade. Considering that many millennials will be approaching their mid-40s by 2030, this is the equivalent of resolving to experience the passage of time.

    So no, if you thought that Zuckerberg was going to spend the next decade grappling with the question of what Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Rodrigo Duterte have in common, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Please join me instead in imagining Zuck in his bathroom, crooning to himself in the mirror: “You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, it’s true.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/2020-fixing-facebook-zuckerberg-election

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • For Memory-Chip Makers, the Worst Appears to Be Over

    The latest positive sign came from Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest memory-chip maker, which this week issued financial guidance that topped analysts’ estimates. That followed a declaration from rival producer Micron Technology Co. in December that its business was passing through a ”cyclical bottom.”

    A big accelerant is the rollout of 5G mobile networks. The global deployment of the next-generation technology should re-energize smartphone sales and juice corporate investments in artificial intelligence, computing and data storage—all areas requiring significant memory capacity.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-memory-chip-makers-the-worst-appears-to-be-over-11578487758

  • HP Wins $439 Million As Judge Triples Jury Price-Fix Award

    HP Inc. was awarded $439 million in damages against Quanta Storage Inc. and its U.S. subsidiary after a federal judge tripled a jury’s 2019 award for damages caused by a widespread scheme to inflate the price of optical disk drives.

    In October, a Houston jury ordered Quanta to pay HP $176 million in damages. U.S. District Judge David Hittner said Friday that Quanta hadn’t shown any reason why the jury’s findings should be set aside. He tripled the damages award, as authorized under antitrust law, to $528 million before deducting the $89 million in settlements paid by the other companies HP accused of participating in the price-fixing scheme.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-03/hp-wins-438-million-after-judge-triples-jury-price-fixing-award

Other

  • With immigration under fire, visa uncertainty and wait times for foreign-born advertising employees

    I was job hunting and talked to a bunch of really great creative shops. One that I really wanted to work at told me the visa is a really big hurdle for them because I’m mid-level and that they weren’t sure if it was worth it to sponsor someone who isn’t super senior. There’s no right time to bring up the visa. We typically don’t bring it up until after the interview and when there’s a follow up. There’s a sense that you’ll wow them so much in the interview that they’ll want to hire you even if you have the visa. Most people wait.

    Also:

    I’ve talked to multiple people and recruiters are telling me that it’s harder to get approval now. Timelines are getting extended, it’s taking longer and there’s more scrutiny. [Overall, the immigration and visa approval process] completely messes with how agencies are today with project-work. No one is anticipating work needs eight months in advance so it’s hard to get those timelines to mesh with each other. Visas just don’t jibe well with flexible work models or project-work.

    https://outline.com/4NxuWE

  • Lime is laying off about 100 people and ceasing operations in 12 markets

    “Financial independence is our goal for 2020, and we are confident that Lime will be the first next-generation mobility company to reach profitability,” Lime CEO Brad Bao said in a statement to TechCrunch. “We are immensely grateful for our team members, riders, Juicers and cities who supported us, and we hope to reintroduce Lime back into these communities when the time is right.”

    That means Lime is shutting down in Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, San Antonio, Linz, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Lima, Puerto Vallarta, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/09/lime-is-laying-off-about-100-people-and-ceasing-operations-in-12-markets/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 12/20/2019


Photo by Jose Rago on Unsplash

Oracle has been having an interesting year.  Between trying to sue the Government over the JEDI cloud contract procurement process and losing one of their CEOs, it is not the most stellar time for the company.

Normally Oracle has less press than their peers but this week they kept showing up in articles. From a financial perspective, the company published mixed Q2 results. Sole CEO Safra Catz stated she expects much better performance next quarter (but how?).

Oracle also made headlines due to a former employee saying the company is cheating their customers by selling software that does not do what it claims to do. This does link up with stories about Oracle’s early days in the book Softwar.

Finally Oracle is moving their big annual conference “OpenWorld” from San Francisco to Las Vegas. This move is costing San Fran over $60M annual, but that city is too damn expensive.

Artificial Intelligence

Cloud

  • Oracle Posts Mixed 2nd-Quarter Results

    The database giant registered second-quarter earnings per share of 90 cents, up 12% year-over-year. Wall Street had projected earnings of 88 cents per share. Revenue during the same period stood at $9.61 billion. Revenue grew 1% year-over-year but did not live up to Wall Street’s expectation of $9.65 billion. Reflecting on the quarter’s performance, Oracle’s CEO Safra Catz commented:

    “We had another strong quarter in our Fusion and NetSuite cloud applications businesses with Fusion ERP revenues growing 37% and NetSuite ERP revenues growing 29%. This consistent rapid growth in the now multibillion dollar ERP segment of our cloud applications business has enabled Oracle to deliver a double-digit EPS growth rate year-after-year. I fully expect we will do that again this year.”

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oracle-posts-mixed-2nd-quarter-161331753.html

Security/Privacy

  • New Orleans declares state of emergency following cyberattack

    Officials are running many services on pen and paper until it’s deemed safe for computers to come back online, although the Orleans Parish Communication District (which handles both 311 and 991 lines) and courts weren’t affected. The city added that emergency services’ communications were still active, and that it could still obtain footage from public safety cameras if there was an incident.

    It’s unclear when computers will go back online, when the state of emergency will be lifted, or who the culprits were. City-scale ransomware attacks like those using SamSam have frequently been the work of extortionists hoping only for a windfall profit, although there are concerns hostile countries might use malware to bankroll programs. Louisiana’s government faced its own ransomware attack in November and had to shut its Office of Motor Vehicles for days, although the state got back online without caving in to the attackers’ demands.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/14/new-orleans-cyberattack/

  • Microsoft details the most clever phishing techniques it saw in 2019

    Microsoft said that phishing attempts grew from under 0.2% in January 2018 to around 0.6% in October 2019, where 0.6% represented the percentage of phishing emails detected out of the total volume of emails the company analyzed.

    While phishing attacks increased, the number of ransomware, crypto-mining, and other malware infections went down, the company said at the time.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-details-the-most-clever-phishing-techniques-it-saw-in-2019/

  • FBI secretly demands a ton of consumer data from credit agencies. Now lawmakers want answers

    The FBI regularly uses these legal powers — known as national security letters — to compel credit giants to turn over non-content information, such as records of purchases and locations, that the agency deems necessary in national security investigations. But these letters have no judicial oversight and are typically filed with a gag order, preventing the recipient from disclosing the demand to anyone else — including the target of the letter.

    Only a few tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, have disclosed that they have ever received one or more national security letters. Since the law changed in 2015 in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures that revealed the scope of the U.S. government’s surveillance operations, recipients have been allowed to petition the FBI to be cut loose from the gag provisions and publish the letters with redactions.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/14/fbi-national-security-letter-credit-agencies/

Software/SaaS

  • A former employee is suing Oracle, alleging the company sold customers phantom products and forced him out when he complained

    A former Oracle product manager has sued the tech giant, claiming it sold phantom or broken products as part of a cloud service geared to universities.

    Tayo Daramola said the company retaliated against him “reporting what was in fact a pattern of criminal acts,” the suit said.

    He said he resisted participating in what he described as “misrepresentation and likely fraud,” and subsequently filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the suit said.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-manager-lawsuit-university-education-practices-2019-12

Other

  • How consulting companies like McKinsey optimized American inequality

    Broadly speaking, management consulting firms advise other organizations how to do their jobs better. They are hired, as CNBC’s Abigail Hess notes, “to assess and address problems, such as downsizing, acquisition or restructuring.”

    The key to management consulting firms’ function is in the word management. Management consultants work for a company’s executives, not its employees, and the hiring of one is often a sign that layoffs are imminent. Wendell Potter, a former vice president at a health insurer, says “it was clear that when [a management consulting firm] was brought in there would be layoffs. In my own department, there were times when I had to lay people off because off because of McKinsey’s work.”

    As Duff McDonald, author of “The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business,” once put it: “McKinsey might be the single greatest legitimizer of mass layoffs in history.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/13/how-consulting-companies-like-mckinsey-optimized-american-inequality/

  • Oracle Won’t Return to Dual-CEO Structure

    Oracle Corp. ORCL -3.47% said it won’t replace its late co-CEO, Mark Hurd, leaving Safra Catz as the sole top executive leading the software giant after years of operating with an unusual, two-chief structure.

    In the company’s first earnings report since Mr. Hurd’s death in October, Oracle founder and Chairman Larry Ellison said it is working to strengthen its management team, to develop a group of executives who are “potential CEOs when both Safra and I retire, which is not anytime soon.” But he described the two-CEO setup as unusual and not something Oracle is looking to repeat.

    Ms. Catz now leads Oracle as sole CEO. Mr. Ellison, who ceded the CEO post to Mr. Hurd and Ms. Catz in 2014, remains active as chairman and chief technology officer.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-reports-higher-profit-11576186408

  • Salesforce promotes Bret Taylor to president and COO

    Salesforce announced today that it has named Bret Taylor as president and chief operating officer of the company. Prior to today’s promotion, Taylor held the position of president and chief product officer.

    In his new position, Taylor will be responsible for a number of activities, including leading Salesforce’s global product vision, engineering, security, marketing and communications. That’s a big job, and as such he will report directly to chairman Marc Benioff.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/12/salesforce-promotes-bret-taylor-to-president-and-coo/

  • SoftBank’s China strategy wobbles as key bets disappoint

    In fairness to SoftBank, many China IPOs have stumbled, hurt by a sharp slowdown in economic growth and trade tensions with the United States.

    But investors and some bankers looking at China-related deals say SoftBank’s involvement, once a sign of promising prospects, was now viewed as a red flag that a company was likely overvalued.

    “SoftBank has become a signal that the market has peaked,” said one person involved in the OneConnect IPO.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-softbank-group-china-analysis/softbanks-china-strategy-wobbles-as-key-bets-disappoint-idUSKBN1YH28R

  • The Money Men Who Enabled Adam Neumann and the WeWork Debacle

    Little of WeWork’s trajectory would have been possible were it not for the collection of veteran executives and financiers from the upper echelons of Wall Street and Silicon Valley who enabled Mr. Neumann, a charismatic 40-year-old with little prior business experience.

    Mr. Neumann mesmerized them with his pitch, which offered a vision for the property-leasing company as a tech startup with limitless potential to transform how people work and live.

    Investors poured capital onto Mr. Neumann’s business bonfire and ceded control, rarely pushing back with any force despite mounting problems and year after year of missed projections.

    Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., who helped inflate WeWork’s valuation to $47 billion, pushed an already wild-spending Mr. Neumann to act bigger and crazier. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO James Dimon and other bankers, instead of injecting a dose of reality, spent years championing Mr. Neumann and the company as they battled for the coveted IPO assignment.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-money-men-who-enabled-adam-neumann-and-the-wework-debacle-11576299616

  • For Tech Jobs, the Rich Cities Are Getting Richer

    Researchers from the Brookings Institution and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech-industry-backed think tank, arrived at their conclusion by looking at a fairly narrow slice of jobs—13 industries that involve the highest rate of research and development spending and STEM degrees per worker. That includes much of the software industry, as well as jobs in areas like pharmaceuticals and aerospace. The researchers found that, between 2005 and 2017, five metro areas—San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, and Boston— not only added lots of jobs, they were also becoming more dominant in those industries overall.

    https://www.wired.com/story/tech-jobs-rich-cities-getting-richer/

  • Oracle will move its annual OpenWorld conference to Las Vegas because San Francisco is too expensive

    According to an email that the San Francisco Travel Association (SFTA) sent to its members on Monday, Oracle has signed a three-year agreement to bring its flagship event to the Caesars Forum in Las Vegas.

    “Oracle stated that their attendee feedback was that San Francisco hotel rates are too high,” the email, which was viewed by CNBC, said. “Poor street conditions was another reason why they made this difficult decision.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/10/oracle-moving-openworld-from-san-francisco-to-las-vegas-caesars-forum.html

    Oracle is right to move the conference away from San Fran (although I do not like Las Vegas). San Francisco needs to change.