Tag: Slack

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Supplier Report: 6/12/2020


Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

This has been a sad couple of weeks. Actually, this has been a sad year

Between COVID-19 and the recent protests on police brutality – companies, leaders, and governments have to rethink (everything). It would be weird not to mention what has been happening on this post. The news is rightfully focused on other topics.

And yet… even with all of this… business continues. If one thing is a constant, it is Elon Musk talking trash. The Telsa CEO took umbrage with Amazon over the availability of a book and called for the company to be split apart. I suppose we can at least appreciate the distractions he provides the public.

Donate: Black Lives Matter
Donate: Color of Change

Acquisitions/Investments

  • VMware acquires network security firm Lastline, said to lay off 40% of staff

    Since its launch in 2012, Lastline raised about $52.2 million, according to Crunchbase. Investors include Thomvest Ventures, which led the company’s $28.5 million Series C round in 2017; Redpoint and e.ventures, which led the company’s 2013 funding round; and Barracuda Networks, NTT Finance and Dell Technologies Capital.

    A source tells us that VMware will let go some 40% of Lastline’s employees — about 50 staffers — as part of the acquisition. We asked a Lastline spokesperson for comment prior to publication but did not hear back. A spokesperson for VMware also did not respond to a request for comment

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/vmware-lastline-staff-cuts/

  • Accenture Completes Acquisition of Gekko

    Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has completed its acquisition of Gekko, a leading French Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services company. Terms of the transaction, which was announced on April 20 [link to original news release], were not disclosed.

    Gekko has more than 100 trained cloud professionals, 100 AWS certifications and a deep relationship with AWS.

    The acquisition strengthens Accenture’s leadership position in cloud and artificial intelligence; extends its ongoing relationships with key technology providers, including ecosystem partners such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft; and complements the cloud migration expertise and strategic objectives of the Accenture AWS Business Group (AABG) in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

    https://www.oleantimesherald.com/business/accenture-completes-acquisition-of-gekko/article_d1f22e62-6e3e-5d57-8955-7be0220ada24.html

Cloud

  • Who Will Acquire Zoom: Amazon, Oracle, or IBM?

    Larry Ellison and crew have been quiet on the M&A front for quite some time and that’s not normal for Oracle. With Oracle’s massive suite of SaaS apps, it could create some unique tie-ins with Zoom’s rapidly growing set of capabilities, and give Zoom immediate distribution and presence in every corner of the world.

    Plus, Ellison’s able to envision the full potential of the Zoom phenomenon better than just about anyone, and he always likes to be on offense. And at a time when Ellison is looking to sharply differentiate his company from AWS, the addition of Zoom would certainly help the cause.

    https://cloudwars.co/amazon/who-will-acquire-zoom-amazon-oracle-ibm-cloud-wars/

Software/SaaS

  • DocuSign posts strong Q1, enters remote work, digital transformation winner’s circle

    DocuSign’s e-signature and Agreement Cloud are among the first quarter winners as companies aim to go more digital and perform more work remotely.

    The company reported a first quarter net loss of 26 cents a share on revenue of $297 million, up 39% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings for the quarter were 12 cents a share.

    Wall Street was expecting DocuSign to report first quarter non-GAAP earnings of 10 cents a share on revenue of $281.1 million. CEO Dan Springer said the COVID-19 pandemic spurred enterprises to accelerate digital transformation efforts and driving demand.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/docusign-posts-strong-q1-enters-remote-work-digital-transformation-winners-circle/

  • Slack is teaming up with Amazon

    Slack added a record 12,000 new paying customers in the three months ending April 30, and more than 90,000 new organizations on paid or free subscription plans, it said in an earnings report Thursday. It also reported $201.7 million in revenue for the quarter, a 50% increase from the same period a year earlier.

    But neither those numbers, nor the Amazon deal, were enough to cheer investors — the company’s stock plunged around 16% in after-hours trading following the results.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/tech/slack-amazon-deal-earnings/index.html

Other

  • Elon Musk Calls for Amazon Breakup in Latest Spat With Jeff Bezos

    The criticism from Mr. Musk, chief executive of Tesla Inc., came in response to a tweet by Alex Berenson. The author said that Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon’s outlet for self-published e-books, had rejected his submission for a book called “Unreported Truths about Covid-19 and Lockdowns.” It questions whether the virus is as deadly as public health experts say.

    “This is insane @JeffBezos,” Mr. Musk initially tweeted, criticizing Amazon’s decision. He has repeatedly questioned the severity of the pandemic and criticized parts of the government response as overzealous. “Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!” Mr. Musk added in an intensifying battle between two business titans who both seek to dominate key markets on Earth and in outer space.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-calls-for-amazon-breakup-in-latest-spat-with-jeff-bezos-11591305297?mod=rss_Technology

  • Google Search a Target of U.S. Antitrust Probes, Rival Says

    U.S. federal and state authorities are asking detailed questions about how to limit Google’s power in the online search market as part of their antitrust investigations into the tech giant, according to rival DuckDuckGo Inc.

    Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive officer of the privacy-focused search engine, said the company has spoken with state regulators, and talked with the U.S. Justice Department as recently as a few weeks ago.

    Justice Department officials and state attorneys general asked the company about requiring Google to give consumers alternatives to its search engine on Android devices and in Google’s Chrome web browser, Weinberg said in an interview.

    “We’ve been talking to all of them about search and all of them have asked us detailed search questions,” he added.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/google-search-is-a-target-of-u-s-antitrust-probes-rival-says

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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/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 11/15/2019


Photo by Andres Urena on Unsplash

Xerox is looking to combine with HP Inc, which brings me back to the early days of this blog. There were rumors that HP Inc and Xerox were going to merge way back in 2015 but then Xerox got involved with Fuji Film and then they were no longer involved with Fuji Film. I am not sure how this deal would work considering Xerox wants to acquire HP which has the bigger market cap.

Google’s growing pains continue as critics ponder why the company is pushing so hard to get into hardware while the Government investigates them.

After years of fending off Microsoft, Slack is looking vulnerable due to poor paid growth projections. Everybody seems to be loving Microsoft at the moment, but they know how to be aggressive when they want to be, and they seem to want Slack out of the way.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • HP confirms it has received a proposal from Xerox about being acquired

    The Wall Street Journal got things rolling earlier today when it published a report that Xerox was interested in the printer company, reporting the offer could be for more than $27 billion. That’s a lot of money and the company has to at least consider it (assuming it’s accurate).

    HP acknowledged there are ongoing discussions between the two companies and that it received an offer letter from Xerox yesterday. What’s odd about this particular deal is that HP is the company with a much larger market cap of $29 billion, while Xerox is just a tad over $8 billion. The canary is eating the cat here.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/06/hp-confirms-it-is-having-discussions-with-xerox-about-being-acquired/
    Xerox to Sell Stake in Joint Venture to Fujifilm for About $2.3 Billion

    Xerox has agreed to sell its 25% stake in the venture, Fuji Xerox, to Fujifilm as part of a deal that will bring Xerox total proceeds of $2.3 billion, the companies said.

    Xerox has also agreed to sell a majority stake in a smaller joint venture to an affiliate of Fuji Xerox and extended the timeline of an agreement allowing Fujifilm to be a major supplier to Xerox, the companies said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/xerox-to-sell-stake-in-joint-venture-to-fujifilm-for-2-2-billion-11572931801

  • Workday to acquire online procurement platform Scout RFP for $540M

    The acquisition builds on top of Workday’s existing procurement solutions, Workday Procurement and Workday Inventory, but Workday chief product product officer Petros Dermetzis wrote in a blog post announcing the deal that Scout gives the company a more complete solution for customers.

    “With increased importance around the supplier as a strategic asset, the acquisition of Scout RFP will help accelerate Workday’s ability to deliver a comprehensive source-to-pay solution with a best-in-class strategic sourcing offering, elevating the office of procurement in strategic importance and transforming the procurement function,” he wrote.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/04/workday-to-acquire-online-procurement-platform-scout-rfp-for-540m/

  • T-Mobile’s latest merger gambit isn’t subtle

    The three programs T-Mobile announced are contingent on the merger. The company will only provide these services if it is able to complete its merger with Sprint. These programs are each cleverly designed to give T-Mobile instant rebuttals to potential criticisms of the merger. They’re so well-crafted that I can’t help but applaud how genius they are as pieces of propaganda. Even calling them “propaganda” makes me the asshole!

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/8/20954479/t-mobiles-5g-publicity-stunt-firefighters-merger-sprint

Artificial Intelligence

  • OpenAI has published the text-generating AI it said was too dangerous to share

    GPT-2 is part of a new breed of text-generation systems that have impressed experts with their ability to generate coherent text from minimal prompts. The system was trained on eight million text documents scraped from the web and responds to text snippets supplied by users. Feed it a fake headline, for example, and it will write a news story; give it the first line of a poem and it’ll supply a whole verse.

    It’s tricky to convey exactly how good GPT-2’s output is but the model frequently produces eerily cogent writing that can often give the appearance of intelligence (though that’s not to say what GPT-2 is doing involves anything we’d recognize as cognition.) But play around with the system long enough and its limitations become clear. It particularly suffers with the challenge of long-term coherence; for example, consistently using the names and attributes of characters in a story, or sticking to a single subject in a news article.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/7/20953040/openai-text-generation-ai-gpt-2-full-model-release-1-5b-parameters

  • Google’s AI education tool makes it easy to train models for your projects

    Google’s Teachable Machine is no longer just a handy lesson in AI — you can now put it to work. The tech giant has launched Teachable Machine 2.0 with the ability to use your machine learning model in apps, websites and other projects. You can upload your model if you need it to work online, or save it if you’d rather have it on-device. You could create your own Not Hotdog app without having to craft an AI system by hand.

    Teachable Machine can also accept more than just images. You can train AI models based on sound and poses in addition to the usual image data (including photos, not just webcam images). Want to determine whether or not your music is metal enough? Now you can. The system also lets you upload your own data sets if you have some on hand, and can train more than three classes per model if necessary.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/07/google-teachable-machine-2/

Cloud

  • Indeed says Deloitte, IBM, Accenture top hirers for blockchain staff

    The report observed that software roles make up the highest percentage of crypto and blockchain jobs. Deloitte, IBM, Accenture, Cisco and Collins Aerospace are the top five companies hiring for crypto and blockchain roles. Another consultancy, EY, comes in at number six. But the proliferation of blockchain technology is not limited to one industry and startups are popping up everywhere.

    The data covered both blockchain and cryptocurrencies, and the top six appear to be firmly in the enterprise blockchain camp. One startup – ConsenSys – falls into both sectors. Earlier in the year it was in the top ten but has now fallen to number 13 on the list of top hirers.

    https://www.ledgerinsights.com/indeed-says-deloitte-ibm-accenture-top-hirers-for-blockchain-staff/

Security/Privacy

  • With a Laser, Researchers Say They Can Hack Alexa, Google Home or Siri

    Researchers in Japan and at the University of Michigan said Monday that they had found a way to take over Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri devices from hundreds of feet away by shining laser pointers, and even flashlights, at the devices’ microphones.

    In one case, they said, they opened a garage door by shining a laser beam at a voice assistant that was connected to it. They also climbed 140 feet to the top of a bell tower at the University of Michigan and successfully controlled a Google Home device on the fourth floor of an office building 230 feet away. And by focusing their lasers using a telephoto lens, they said, they were able to hijack a voice assistant more than 350 feet away.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/technology/digital-assistant-laser-hack.html

  • Google’s cybersecurity project ‘Chronicle’ is in trouble

    The employees Motherboard talked to said people have been leaving the company due to “a distant CEO” and “a lack of clarity about Chronicle’s future.” A former employee called Gillett a figurehead who didn’t care what everyone did outside of money matters. Sales and engineering people have apparently been finding other roles in Google or leaving the company entirely, because they have no product roadmap.

    Gillett himself already left for another role inside Google, while co-founder and chief security Mike Wiacek exited the tech giant. “Chronicle had one of the most healthy and vibrant corporate cultures I could imagine. Things were never perfect, but that’s important,” Wiacek wrote in his farewell note. Motherboard says Will Robinson, the Chief Technology Officer, also announced internally that he’s leaving the company.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/09/google-chronicle-trouble/

Software/SaaS

  • Microsoft reveals the future of OneNote and it’s all about Fluid and desktop

    So what does this mean for the separate OneNote for Windows 10 app? Hodes didn’t reveal exactly what Microsoft is planning, but Mike Tholfsen, a Microsoft product manager, says “there will still be a Desktop and separate Windows 10 app.” It’s hard to imagine that two OneNote apps will exist to confuse Windows 10 users, but Microsoft does still have two Skype apps. It’s far more likely that at some point Microsoft will put development of this dedicated version on hold, as the company will start installing OneNote 2016 by default with Office 365 installs in March.

    Microsoft experimented with universal Office apps for Windows 10, but the company put these apps on hold last year. “We are currently prioritizing development for the iOS and Android versions of our apps; and on Windows, we are prioritizing Win32 and web versions of our apps,” explained a Microsoft spokesperson at the time.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/7/20953691/microsoft-onenote-to-do-integration-fluid-framework-future-features-ignite-2019

  • Slack continues to sink as analysts worry Microsoft will kill it

    The Microsoft threat is a big reason why Slack’s stock, which debuted in late June through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, has plunged in the past few months. It’s a classic David vs. Goliath story — except that most investors don’t believe Slack has a big enough rock to slay the giant from Redmond, Washington.

    Slack shares fell 2% Friday and dipped below $20, hitting an all-time low that is 25% below the stock’s reference price of $24 on the day of its Wall Street debut. The stock has plummeted more than 50% from its peak of $42, which it reached on its first day of trading.

    The company reported a big loss and slowing sales growth in September, news that spooked investors.

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/08/investing/slack-stock-microsoft-teams/index.html

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Why Google, a software giant, is spending billions to get into gadgets

    Despite the billions Google has spent to get into hardware, the tech giant is still a small player in gadgets. Its Android smartphone operating software is in more than three times the number of global devices as Apple’s, but Google continues pushing its Pixel-brand phones, a laggard in market share. Advances in hardware like GPS and radar mean gadget makers are increasingly the gatekeepers for companies that make software for mobile phones. In terms of data collection, having customers using both the device and the operating system is akin to owning the mall rather than just the department store in it.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/04/googles-hardware-dreams-havent-yet-yielded-home-run/

 

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News You Can Use: 5/15/2019

  • Google walkout organizers demand company investigate HR department

    In a Medium post from the official walkout account, the employees released a series of demands. On the list: meeting previous demands made during the November walkout, having Alphabet CEO Larry Page address those demands, reversing alleged retaliation against organizers, and opening an investigation into the company’s “abysmal handling of employee complaints.”

    “Google seems to have lost its mooring, and trust between workers and the company is deeply broken,” the post reads. “As the company progresses from crisis to crisis, it is clear Google management is failing, along with HR.” The post demands that an investigation be conducted by a third party and that the results be released publicly.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/8/18536996/google-walkout-organizers-hr-retaliation

  • New study shows human development is destroying the planet at an unprecedented rate

    In the most comprehensive effort undertaken to date, some 145 expert authors from 50 countries working with another 310 contributing authors spent the last three years compiling and assessing changes in global biodiversity over a 50-year period for a study conducted under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

    They found there are now 1 million species that are threatened with extinction; that more than one-third of the world’s land surface and 75% of all freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production; that 60 billion tons of renewable and non-renewable resources are extracted globally every year; that land degradation has reduced the productivity of global land surface area by 23% and roughly $577 billion worth of crops are at risk from pollinator loss annually; and, finally, that up to 300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of the loss of coastal habitats.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/new-study-shows-human-development-is-destroying-the-planet-at-an-unprecedented-rate/

  • We’re Running Out of Water
  • Slack’s head of workplace design thinks open floor plans “suuuck”

    At Slack we’ve done a lot of different things. We do have open offices—we’re actually making them smaller, the desk per square foot smaller, and swatches of open office much smaller. We also have a variety of privacy phone booth options, small quad and double rooms, and one-person rooms. Some of them are bookable, some are not bookable, so people can really drop in and book them.

    We also have the luxury of having a human right now. Her role is space and room planning, so if you need a space you can air a complaint. And we have a human being who has purview into all your rooms and spaces and is able to help you.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90341688/slacks-head-of-workplace-design-thinks-open-floor-plans-suuuck

  • Why AT&T Was Right About HBO. In a Word, We’re Talking … ‘Silos.’

    Now, consider the impact of silos on a startup. Whatever their cause, silos of all types — to my way of thinking — end up encouraging stagnation and stunting growth. When each department looks out for itself, employees come to fear outside opinions and new ideas because they threaten the security of the walled-off group.

    Silos are part of the reason Microsoft lagged behind when the world went mobile. They also played a part in some of Google’s big stumbles, such as the demise of Google Plus.

    Now, think again about startups: It’s not enough for a startup to grow; it has to be able to handle that growth. Silos tend to spring up when management fails to recognize that a company is no longer a handful of scrappy entrepreneurs but an increasingly large, successful organization. To ensure that growth doesn’t kill your startup, it’s important that you be proactive when it comes to breaking down these walls –before it becomes too late.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/333544

Photo by WestBoundary Photography chris gill on Unsplash

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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