Tag: Samsung

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Supplier Report: 10/25/2019


Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

The ongoing saga of the T-Mobile/Sprint continues with positive news for T-Mobile… the FCC approved the merger. There are still more hurdles for the companies to clear, but for now they are moving forward.

Speaking of Sprint ownership… current Sprint owner SoftBank is mulling over the idea of taking over WeWork. SoftBank has invested almost $10B in WeWork, which is currently estimated to be worth $15B (down from $45B). SoftBank has made some dubious investments in the last few years, should they double down on WeWork?

Meanwhile, there are rumors that Jeff Bezos is mulling over splitting Amazon and AWS to get in front of government momentum that might force the company to split apart in the future. Would a split even matter?

Acquisitions/Investments

  • The FCC has voted to approve the T-Mobile-Sprint merger

    Now, the T-Mobile-Sprint merger faces one more battle before they plan to close the deal. The FCC and DOJ are the only two federal agencies required to approve telecom deals before they can close, and the DOJ already gave the companies the thumbs-up in July. However, a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general are still trying to block the deal through a multistate lawsuit, and representatives from the two companies said that they won’t close the merger until that is resolved.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/16/20917162/fcc-tmobile-sprint-merger-justice-department-ajit-pai-geoffrey-starks-jessica-rosenworel

Artificial Intelligence

  • Google and Ambient Computing

    Frankly, it’s a compelling vision on multiple dimensions:

    • First, it is a vision for the future that actually seems larger than the smartphone reality we live in. Alternatives like augmented reality or wearables feel smaller.
    • Second, it is a vision that does not compete with the smartphone, but rather leverages it. The smartphone is so useful for so many things that any directly competitive technology would have to cover an impossible number of use cases to displace it; ambient computing, though, simply conceives of the smart phone as one of several means to deliver on its promise.
    • Third, it is a vision that Google is uniquely suited to pursue. The company is a services company incentivized to serve the maximum number of customers no matter the means (i.e. device), and it already has a head start in providing services that contain and accumulate essential information about people’s lives.

    https://stratechery.com/2019/google-and-ambient-computing/

Cloud

  • Workday Casts a Large Cloud

    Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri answered a question about the state of the market by saying “we’re definitely seeing some delays.” He also said companies were still moving ahead with “transformation projects”—meaning an overall shift to cloud-based software—and that Workday isn’t seeing anything “drastically different” in the marketplace.

    The company maintained its previous projections for the fiscal year ending in January, but investors in the richly valued cloud computing software business tend to react badly to signs of sales deceleration. Workday’s stock price slid 11% Wednesday—its worst decline in nearly three years.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/workday-casts-a-large-cloud-11571252400

  • Amazon Could Be Open To Splitting

    CNBC ran an interview with writer Franklin Foer, who said breaking off the service “would be the obvious thing for [Bezos] to do in the face of this.”

    “I think that eventually Bezos, who is seeing around corners, is going to break up his own company,” Foer said. “AWS exists as its own fantastically profitable business. There’s no reason that it needs to be connected to Amazon the e-retailer. And as he looks at what’s happening in politics, where there’s this increasing bipartisan consensus that Big Tech is a problem, I’m pretty sure he’s going to say, ‘okay, fine.’”

    In a June interview, Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, said the company would listen to regulators if it was ordered to split off, but that he saw no upside to doing it just yet. As for revenue, AWS made up 13 percent of Amazon’s total in Q2, but more than half of its $3.1 billion in operating income for the same time period.

    https://www.pymnts.com/amazon/2019/could-jeff-bezos-spin-off-amazon-web-services/

Security/Privacy

  • Samsung will fix bug that lets any fingerprint unlock a Galaxy S10

    “Samsung Electronics is aware of the case of the S10’s malfunctioning fingerprint recognition and will soon issue a software patch,” the company told Reuters in a statement. The problem has been deemed serious enough that an online bank in South Korea, KaKaobank, has advised owners to switch off fingerprint recognition until it’s resolved.

    It’s not clear what’s causing the problem, but the Galaxy S10 uses an ultrasonic sensor to detect fingerprint ridges. Plastic or silicone screen protectors can stymie it, so Samsung has been recommending that buyers used approved protective devices. That doesn’t explain why the system is allowing access to non-registered fingerprints, however. Engadget has reached out to Samsung for more information.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/17/samsung-patch-fingerprint-reader/?guccounter=1

Software/SaaS

  • Andrew Yang at Democratic debate: No one uses Bing. ‘Sorry, Microsoft, it’s true.’

    Yang, who has worked as a tech entrepreneur, referenced Bing while answering a question during the CNN and New York Times debate about the proper level of oversight for tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter.

    “We also have to be realistic that competition doesn’t solve all of the problems,” said Yang, 44. “It’s not like any of us wants to use the fourth best navigation app, that would be like cruel and unusual punishment. There’s a reason why no one is using Bing today.”

    A slow “ooh” began to rise up from the audience.

    “Sorry, Microsoft, it’s true,” he said.

    https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2019/10/andrew-yang-at-debate-no-one-uses-bing-sorry-microsoft-its-true.html

  • Amazon’s consumer business says bye bye to Oracle databases, moves to AWS

    But let’s get real. AWS will get more marketing returns out of this Amazon consumer migration than ever. More than 100 teams in Amazon’s consumer business contributed and the AWS move gives it a purpose built approach to databases. Again, Oracle would argue that leads to database sprawl. It is also worth noting that Amazon still has some Oracle databases. AWS explained: “Some third-party applications are tightly bound to Oracle and were not migrated.”

    But generally speaking, Amazon’s consumer unit moved most systems to AWS databases such as Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Aurora, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), and Amazon Redshift. The migration covered 100% of Amazon’s proprietary systems.

    As for returns, Amazon is claiming that it reduced database costs by more than 60% with latency reductions of 40% and database admin overhead by 70%.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazons-consumer-business-says-bye-bye-to-oracle-databases-moves-to-aws/

Other

  • Former Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd has passed away

    Mark Hurd, who until last month was one of two CEOs leading the database software giant Oracle, has passed away at age 62, one month after telling employees in a letter that he was taking a leave of absence owing to health reasons.

    Hurd joined Oracle nine years ago, after spending five years with Hewlett-Packard, where he was CEO, president and, ultimately, board chairman, all roles from which he was pressured to resign in 2010 after submitting inaccurate expense reports that concealed his personal relationship with an outside consultant to the company.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/18/former-oracle-co-ceo-mark-hurd-has-passed-away/

  • IBM Earnings Fall in Prolonged Sales Slump

    IBM on Wednesday reported sales of $18.03 billion, below analysts expectations and trailing the $18.76 billion it posted in the year-prior period. Shares slumped 6% in after-hours trading.

    The revenue decline was IBM’s 27th overall under Ms. Rometty, who has struggled to adapt the more than century-old company to a changing global IT landscape since taking the reins in 2012.

    The company’s closely watched adjusted earnings per share fell to $2.68, but came in slightly higher than analysts’ forecasts of $2.66.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-earnings-fall-in-prolonged-sales-slump-11571258768

  • Son, SoftBank Risk Too Much With WeWork Takeover

    Son’s desire to be a savior may be strong. His 2012 takeover of U.S. telecommunications company Sprint Corp. is one of the most notable examples. But Vision Fund investors may also take it as a warning: Sprint remains unprofitable. It has also taken up a lot of management time as SoftBank executives worked to find a buyer — Sprint now plans to merge with T-Mobile USA — and then regulators to allow the deal to go through.

    As big as WeWork is, that investment is just 10% of the Vision Fund. Yet VC investing returns aren’t measured in percentage points, but multiples. The Vision Fund should be able to write off WeWork in its entirety and still post solid profits. It also means that expending an inordinate amount of time, and reputation, on one investee is not in the best interests of the Vision Fund’s other 82 portfolio companies, nor its investors.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/son-softbankrisktoo-much-with-wework-takeover/2019/10/14/f3b46fd8-ee4e-11e9-bb7e-d2026ee0c199_story.html

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Supplier Report: 5/3/2019

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

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

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

Acquisitions

  • A $603 Million Deal Sheds Light on Cybersecurity Space

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

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

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

Artificial Intelligence

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

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

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

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

  • The growing backlash against facial recognition tech

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

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

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

Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Apple Is Heavily Reliant on Amazon Web Services

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

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

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

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

Security

  • Managing Risk in Light of the Wipro Data Breach

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

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

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

Software/SaaS

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

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

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

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Samsung reportedly pushes back Galaxy Fold release

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

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

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

  • Turnover Hits Apple’s Famed Industrial Design Team

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

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

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

  • Comcast Is Surviving Big Media’s Horror Flick

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

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

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

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

Other

  • Google Walkout Organizers Say They’re Facing Retaliation

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

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

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

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

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

  • Elon Musk, SEC agree to guidelines on Twitter use

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

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

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

Photo by Sašo Tušar on Unsplash

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Supplier Report: 12/28/2018

Phone companies are taking over my report this week for a variety of reasons: T-mobile’s acquisition of Sprint is happening, AT&T is lying about 5G access (which is nothing new apparently), and Samsung is making chips for IBM.

And while these companies try to grow from their core businesses, Oracle is struggling with their big shift to cloud… but they have options.

Acquisitions

  • T-Mobile Takeover of Sprint Clears U.S. National Security Panel

    Neither Deutsche Telekom nor SoftBank is required to significantly change its own business or operations as a result of Cfius’s demands, according to the terms of the merger. Any potential changes are limited to T-Mobile, Sprint and their respective subsidiaries, deal documents show.

    Still, the global campaign by the other U.S. national security officials outside of Cfius was bearing some fruit. Deutsche Telekom on Friday said it was reviewing its procurement strategy for vendor equipment given “the global discussion about the security of network elements from Chinese manufacturers.” SoftBank last week made similar comments about its network in Japan.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/t-mobile-takeover-of-sprint-clears-u-s-national-security-panel-11545076651

Artificial Intelligence

  • This Health Startup Won Big Government Deals—But Inside, Doctors Flagged Problems

    To prove their point, the doctors had spent about a day carrying out an audit on their own initiative, according to one current and one former staff member, who asked not to be named for fear of legal repercussions. They found that around 10% to 15% of the chatbot’s 100 most frequently suggested outcomes, such as a chest infection, either missed warning signs of a more serious condition like cancer or sepsis or were just flat-out wrong, according to one insider. The clinicians had gone directly to Parsa that Friday in the hope of stalling the new release. They made their case, and after some negotiation he agreed to delay the rollout.

    But the doctors were still troubled. Interviews with current and former Babylon staff and outside doctors reveal broad concerns that the company has rushed to deploy software that has not been carefully vetted, then exaggerated its effectiveness.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/12/17/this-health-startup-won-big-government-dealsbut-inside-doctors-flagged-problems/#724a98c2eabb

Cloud

  • Oracle Revenue Flat as Push to Bolster Cloud Business Continues

    Oracle officials sought to reassure investors about the cloud business during a Monday conference call with analysts, highlighting strong software-as-a-service bookings in the latest period and Oracle’s competitive edge from its autonomous database.

    “We need more than just a great database,” said Larry Ellison, the company’s co-founder, chairman and chief technology officer. “We also need first-class infrastructure to run the database on, and we know finally have that.”

    Overall, Oracle reported second-quarter profit rose 5% to $2.33 billion, or 61 cents a share. Excluding stock-based compensation and other items, profit rose to 80 cents a share from 69 cents a share.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-revenue-flat-as-push-to-bolster-cloud-business-continues-11545084073

Security

  • China appears to have breached HPE and IBM, hacked into clients’ computers

    The attacks were part of a Chinese campaign known as Cloudhopper, which the United States and Britain on Thursday said infected technology service providers in order to steal secrets from their clients.

    While cybersecurity firms and government agencies have issued multiple warnings about the Cloudhopper threat since 2017, they have not disclosed the identity of technology companies whose networks were compromised.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/china-hacked-hpe-and-ibm-and-then-went-after-their-clients-reports-2018-12
    IBM says no evidence that ‘sensitive’ data was hacked by China

    “IBM has been aware of the reported attacks and already has taken extensive counter-measures worldwide as part of our continuous efforts to protect the company and our clients against constantly evolving threats,” Ed Barbini, vice-president for external relations and spokesman for New York-headquartered IBM, said in a text message.

    “We take responsible stewardship of client data very seriously, and have no evidence that sensitive IBM or client data has been compromised by this threat,” stated Mr Barbini.

    https://www.thenational.ae/business/technology/ibm-says-no-evidence-that-sensitive-data-was-hacked-by-china-1.804980

Software/SaaS

  • There’s ‘no way’ customers would migrate from Oracle to Amazon database software, Ellison says

    Amazon made its database technology available on the cloud long before Oracle did, Ellison said, but now Oracle is making its database technology readily available to customers in the cloud. The move lessens the chance customers will opt to move off Oracle technology. Such migrations are “just incredibly expensive and complicated and you’ve got to be willing to give up tons of reliability, tons of security, tons of performance to go ahead and do it,” Ellison said.

    https://www.ciodive.com/news/theres-no-way-customers-would-migrate-from-oracle-to-amazon-database-sof/544639/

  • Red Hat Flat as IBM’s $34B Purchase Nears

    Red Hat’s total revenues increased 13.2 percent year over year to $847 million for the third quarter of its fiscal 2019. That was lower than the 21.5 percent surge the company posted for the same quarter last year, and just shy of forecasts.

    The company closed 100 deals during the quarter valued in excess of $1 million. Red Hat CFO Eric Shander added that, “Strong renewals of our largest deals also helped drive these results with all of our top 25 deals renewing at an upsell rate above 120 percent.”

    Red Hat CEO and President Jim Whitehurst said that the company added more than 100 new customers to both its OpenShift and Ansible platforms during the quarter. OpenShift is Red Hat’s Kubernetes-focused enterprise container product while Ansible is its DevOps automation platform.

    https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/red-hat-flat-as-ibms-34b-purchase-nears/2018/12/

Datacenter/Hardware

  • Samsung to Manufacture IBM’s 7nm Power CPUs

    IBM’s announcement noted that it has had a strong alliance in developing new process technologies with Samsung for the past 15 years. Back in 2015, IBM announced that its IBM Research Alliance, which includes Samsung, was able to produce the first 7nm EUV test chip. IBM will soon be able to take advantage of this node, too, although it doesn’t look like it will be among the first to use it.

    “This collaboration is an important milestone for Samsung’s foundry business as it signifies confidence in Samsung’s cutting-edge high performance EUV process technology,” Ryan Lee, Vice President of Foundry Marketing at Samsung Electronics, said in a statement.

    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-ibm-7nm-power-cpu-hpc,38278.html

Other

  • AT&T will put a fake 5G logo on its 4G LTE phones

    According to FierceWireless, AT&T will display an icon reading “5G E” on newer phones that are connected to LTE in markets where the carrier has deployed a handful of speed boosting — but still definitively 4G — technologies. The “E,” displayed smaller than the rest of the logo, refers to “5G Evolution,” the carrier’s term for networks that aren’t quite 5G but are still faster than traditional LTE.

    If this sounds sadly familiar, it’s because AT&T pulled this exact same stunt during the transition to LTE. The company rolled out a speed-boosting 3G tech called HSPA+, then got all of its phone partners — even Apple! — to show a “4G” logo when on that kind of connection.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolution-logo-rollout-fake-network

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

Posted on

Supplier Report: 11/2/2018

Companies are trying to find a way to make money in a world where customers are shrinking and costs continue to rise.

IBM’s purchase of Red Hat shows the company has to focus less on their AI goals and get back to software and services.

As people hold on to their phones and computers longer, Apple is raising prices to ensure the cash flow increases. The laws of supply and demand ring true as phone prices rise, demand has dropped. Is this a chicken and egg situation?  Only time will tell.

Acquisitions

  • IBM to Acquire Red Hat for About $33 Billion

    IBM plans to pay $190 a share for Red Hat in what IBM said would be its largest acquisition ever. IBM plans to use cash and debt to make the acquisition. At the end of the third quarter, it held $14.7 billion in cash.

    IBM is paying an unusually large premium in the deal, at 63% above Red Hat’s closing stock price of $116.68 on Friday. IBM said that the deal, including debt, is worth $34 billion. Using Red Hat’s most recently disclosed number for shares outstanding, the equity value of the deal is just under that.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-in-advanced-talks-to-buy-red-hat-1540751279?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

Cloud

  • Microsoft’s Cloud Strategy Pays Off

    The cloud-computing business, called Azure, grew 76%–still healthy but the slowest pace of growth since Microsoft began regularly disclosing the percentage gains about three years ago. Microsoft doesn’t disclose revenue figures for the business, but Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Brad Reback estimated Azure revenue totaled $2.69 billion for the quarter.

    Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment, which includes Azure and server products, grew 24% to $8.57 billion, about $300 million above analysts’ expectations. “This absolutely shows Microsoft’s hybrid-cloud strength,” Mr. Reback said.

    Overall, revenue rose 19% to $29.08 billion.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsofts-profit-revenue-rise-even-as-cloud-business-growth-slows-1540413172

Security

  • Private messages from 81,000 hacked Facebook accounts for sale

    The perpetrators told the BBC Russian Service that they had details from a total of 120 million accounts, which they were attempting to sell, although there are reasons to be skeptical about that figure.

    Facebook said its security had not been compromised.

    And the data had probably been obtained through malicious browser extensions.

    Facebook added it had taken steps to prevent further accounts being affected.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46065796

  • Sen. Ron Wyden Introduces Bill That Would Send CEOs to Jail for Violating Consumer Privacy

    Wyden’s bill proposes that companies whose revenue exceeds $1 billion per year—or warehouse data on more than 50 million consumers or consumer devices—submit “annual data protection reports” to the government detailing all steps taken to protect the security and privacy of consumers’ personal information.

    The proposed legislation would also levy penalties up to 20 years in prison and $5 million in fines for executives who knowingly mislead the FTC in these reports. The FTC’s authority over such matters is currently limited—one of the reasons telecom giants have been eager to move oversight of their industry from the Federal Communications Commission to the FTC.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xjwjz/sen-ron-wyden-introduces-bill-that-would-send-ceos-to-jail-for-violating-consumer-privacy

Software/SaaS

  • IBM is betting the farm on Red Hat, and it better not mess up

    As Jon Shieber pointed out yesterday, it was a tacit acknowledgement that company was not going to get the results it was hoping for with emerging technologies like Watson artificial intelligence. It needed something that translated more directly into sales.

    Red Hat can be that enterprise sales engine. It already is a company on a $3 billion revenue run rate, and it has a goal of hitting $5 billion. While that’s somewhat small potatoes for a company like IBM that generates $19 billion a quarter, it represents a crucial addition.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/29/ibm-is-betting-the-farm-on-red-hat-and-it-better-not-mess-up/

  • Box takes on OpenText, Microsoft as enterprise content hub

    “The next five years in content management will be completely different from the last 20,” said Jeetu Patel, chief product officer at Box. Gone are the days of self-contained repositories that simply store, produce and archive business documents. The key to success entails knowing where your content resides, how to best access it and weaving the content into high-value experiences that solve business problems. The enterprise content hub is where that all begins, and Box is positioning itself to become that focus.

    https://searchcontentmanagement.techtarget.com/feature/Box-takes-on-OpenText-Microsoft-as-enterprise-content-hub

  • Linus Torvalds is back at Linux while GNU’s Stallman unveils a “kindness” policy

    Torvalds’s apparent speedy return and Stallman’s not-explicitly-pro-diversity not-quite-a-code-of-conduct seem to show the open source and free software movements are intent on taking their own approaches to diversity and gender relations. There’s no doubt this side of computing, which has historically been male and white and somewhat insular, is feeling the impact of external critiques. But so far, the projects have made relatively bland moves toward change that may not be enough to satisfy their critics or make would-be contributors who’ve felt excluded see themselves as welcome.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90254836/linus-torvalds-is-back-at-linux-while-gnus-stallman-unveils-a-kindness-policy

Datacenter/Hardware

  • Apple Raises Prices, and Profits Keep Booming

    Apple said Thursday that it sold about as many iPhones in the latest quarter as it did a year earlier but that iPhone revenue rose 29 percent. That was because customers paid nearly 29 percent more for the devices. (The average selling price is now $793.)

    The price increase helped propel Apple’s profits 32 percent higher, to $14.13 billion.

    But after those figures were reported, Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer, said in a conference call that the company would no longer disclose how many iPhones, iPads or Mac computers it sold. As a result, journalists and analysts will no longer be able to track how Apple’s swelling prices are improving its profits.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/technology/apple-quarterly-results.html

Other

  • Google Walkout: Employees Stage Protest Over Handling of Sexual Harassment

    But employees’ discontent continued to simmer. Many said Google had treated female workers inequitably over time. Others were outraged that Google had paid Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile software, a $90 million exit package even after the company concluded that a harassment claim against him was credible.

    That led some Google employees to call for a walkout. The organizers also produced a list of demands for changing how Google handles sexual harassment, including ending its use of private arbitration in such cases. They also asked for the publication of a transparency report on instances of sexual harassment, further disclosures of salaries and compensation, an employee representative on the company board, and a chief diversity officer who could speak directly to the board.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/technology/google-walkout-sexual-harassment.html

Photo by Taylor Grote on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 10/31/2018

  • A groundbreaking study reveals how we want machines to treat us

    In a new study published in Nature, they show that when it comes to how machines treat us, our sense of right and wrong is informed by the economic and cultural norms of where we live. They discovered three general geographic areas with distinct ethical ideas about how autonomous vehicles should behave: West (which includes North America and Christian European countries), East (which includes Far East countries and Islamic countries), and South (which includes much of South America and countries with French influences). These groups also have their own subclusters, like Scandinavia within the West and Latin American countries within the South. As the study’s interactive graphic shows, Brazilians tend to prefer sparing passengers over pedestrians; Iranians are much more likely to spare pedestrians; Australians are more likely to spare the physically fit than the average.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90259513/a-groundbreaking-study-reveals-how-we-want-machines-to-treat-us

  • Upgrade? No Thanks. Americans Are Sticking With Their Old Phones

    Pricier devices, fewer subsidies from carriers and the demise of the two-year cellphone contract have led consumers to wait an average of 2.83 years to upgrade their smartphones, according to data for the third quarter from HYLA Mobile Inc., a mobile-device trade-in company that works with carriers and big-box stores. That is up from 2.39 years two years earlier.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/upgrade-no-thanks-americans-are-sticking-with-their-old-phones-1540818000?ns=prod/accounts-wsj
    Samsung Chalks Up Another Record Profit, but Phones Are a Worry

    In an earnings release, Samsung said smartphone shipments were flat and the profit drop was attributable to “increased promotional costs and a negative currency impact.”

    Consumers are balking at $1,000 phones and holding on to their devices longer than ever. But the South Korean technology giant was surprised this year by poor sales for its flagship Galaxy S9 handsets, a device marketed around its animated human emojis. To rejuvenate sales, Samsung moved up the release of its large-size Galaxy Note 9 to Aug. 24, weeks earlier than the prior-year model.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/chips-displays-drive-samsung-to-another-record-profit-1540946737

  • Why whistleblowing is the loneliest and most courageous act in the world
  • Wisconsin’s $4.1 billion Foxconn factory boondoggle

    But what seemed so simple on a napkin has turned out to be far more complicated and messy in real life. As the size of the subsidy has steadily increased to a jaw-dropping $4.1 billion, Foxconn has repeatedly changed what it plans to do, raising doubts about the number of jobs it will create. Instead of the promised Generation 10.5 plant, Foxconn now says it will build a much smaller Gen 6 plant, which would require one-third of the promised investment, although the company insists it will eventually hit the $10 billion investment target. And instead of a factory of workers building panels for 75-inch TVs, Foxconn executives now say the goal is to build “ecosystem” of buzzwords called “AI 8K+5G” with most of the manufacturing done by robots.

    Polls now show most Wisconsin voters don’t believe the subsidy will pay off for taxpayers, and Walker didn’t even mention the deal in a November 2017 speech announcing his run for re-election.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027032/foxconn-wisconsin-plant-jobs-deal-subsidy-governor-scott-walker

  • FCC Falsely Claims Community Broadband an ‘Ominous Threat to The First Amendment’

    More than 750 such networks have been built in the United States in direct response to a lack of meaningful broadband competition and availability plaguing America. Studies have routinely shown that these networks provide cheaper and better broadband service, in large part because these ISPs have a vested interest in the communities they serve.

    In his speech, O’Rielly highlighted efforts by the last FCC, led by former boss Tom Wheeler, to encourage such community-run broadband networks as a creative solution to private sector failure. O’Rielly subsequently tried to claim, without evidence, that encouraging such networks would somehow result in government attempts to censor public opinion.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bj49j8/fcc-falsely-claims-community-broadband-an-ominous-threat-to-the-first-amendment

Photo by Yucel Moran on Unsplash