Supplier Report: 11/8/2019


Photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash

For a company that is under investigation for monopoly behavior, Google doesn’t seem to be very concerned. Google announced its intention to purchase smartwatch company FitBit for $2.1B. Rumors are that Google will leverage the information collected by the watches for their health services division. They are also looking to expand their Wear OS platform.

Meanwhile the drama over the Pentagon’s JEDI contract continues. Reports emerged that President Donald Trump gave orders to “screw” Amazon out of the deal. Personally, I am more interested in Oracle’s next steps since they have been so vocal about Amazon’s perceived preference in the bidding process.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Google reportedly in talks to acquire Fitbit

    Reuters says the deal is still being negotiated and could still fall apart, but if it came together, it would surely strengthen Google’s position in the wearables space, an area where it has struggled despite its efforts around smartwatches and Wear OS.

    With Wear OS, Google only focused on the smartwatch market, though, and while many of these devices have fitness tracking built-in, either through third-party apps or Google’s own Fit app, there’s still a large market for dedicated (and cheaper) fitness trackers. Fitbit, meanwhile, has been stepping up its smartwatch features with its Versa line, which does not use Wear OS.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/28/google-reportedly-in-talks-to-acquire-fitbit/
    Google to Buy Fitbit, Amping Up Wearables Race

    Google reached a deal to buy wearable fitness products company Fitbit Inc. for roughly $2.1 billion, a move that intensifies the battle among technology giants to capture consumers through devices other than smartphones.

    For Google, the deal marks a further push into consumer electronics, an area where it has yet to gain significant traction to complement its massive internet-search and advertising business. It also puts Google in renewed and direct competition with Apple Inc., which this week said rising sales of wearables and related services were becoming a bigger driver of its earnings.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/fitbit-to-be-acquired-by-google-llc-11572613473

Artificial Intelligence

  • AI will not be job killer – IBM research

    The report acknowledges that AI has only just begun to transform work and that the rate of change is likely to accelerate. But, IBM – which is at the vanguard of AI – says that workers have time to adapt by learning or honing skills that require innovation, creative thinking, or deep insight and experience.

    “As new technologies continue to scale within businesses and across industries, it is our responsibility as innovators to understand not only the business process implications, but also the societal impact,” says Martin Fleming, chief economist, IBM. “To that end, this empirical research from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab sheds new light on how tasks are reorganizing between people and machines as a result of AI and new technologies.”

    https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/34680/ai-will-not-be-job-killer—ibm-research

Cloud

  • Trump Ordered Mattis to “Screw Amazon” Out of Pentagon Contract, Book Alleges

    Few thought Microsoft would beat out Amazon for the massive contract, and legal analysts said the president’s role in the procurement will almost certainly become the subject of litigation.

    “It’s crystal clear here that the President of the United States did not want this contract to be awarded to one of the competitors,” said Franklin Turner, an attorney with the law firm McCarter & English. “As a result it’s fairly likely that we will see a number of challenges that the procurement was not conducted on a level playing field.”

    https://www.motherjones.com/impeachment/2019/10/trump-ordered-mattis-to-screw-amazon-out-of-pentagon-contract-book-alleges/

  • Even after Microsoft wins, JEDI saga could drag on

    They went to court. The judge dismissed their claims that involved both the procurement process and that a former Amazon employee, who was hired by the DoD, was involved in the process of creating the RFP. They claimed that the former employee was proof that the deal was tilted toward Amazon. The judge disagreed and dismissed their complaints.

    What Oracle could never admit was that it simply didn’t have the same cloud chops as Microsoft and Amazon, the two finalists. It couldn’t be that they were late to the cloud or had a fraction of the market share that Amazon and Microsoft had. It had to be the process or that someone was boxing them out.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/28/even-after-microsoft-wins-jedi-saga-could-drag-on/

  • SAP Deepens Embrace of Microsoft Azure Cloud

    As part of an effort to make it simpler to deploy ERP applications in the cloud, SAP and Microsoft last week announced they have extended their existing alliance to provide tighter integrations between S/4 ERP applications running on the SAP HANA database deployed on the Microsoft Azure cloud.

    These integrations and reference architectures will reduce the amount of time and effort required to deploy S/4 on the Microsoft Azure cloud in addition to streamlining the support process, says David Robinson, senior vice president and managing director of SAP’s cloud business group.

    https://www.rtinsights.com/sap-deepens-embrace-of-microsoft-azure-cloud/

Security/Privacy

  • Maps Incognito is launching for Google Maps Android Users

    When Incognito mode is on, Maps will not:

    • Save your browse or search history, or send you notifications
    • Update your Location History or shared location, if any
    • Use your personal data to personalize Maps

    Turning on Incognito mode in Maps does not affect how your activity is used or saved by internet providers, other apps, voice search, and other Google services.

    https://support.google.com/maps/thread/18141335

Other

  • Google, in Rare Stumble, Posts 23% Decline in Profit

    Alphabet reported that its revenue rose 20 percent to $40.5 billion for the third quarter, but that profit dropped to $7.07 billion. Profit, which missed Wall Street forecasts, was hurt by rising costs for research and development and marketing, the company said.

    In after-hours trading, Alphabet’s stock declined 2 percent.

    The performance demonstrated the challenges of trying to maintain growth at the company and showed how Google must invest to keep that up. While advertising, rooted in the dominance of Google’s internet search engine, has sustained Alphabet’s bottom line in recent years, that business isn’t growing as fast as it once did. Google is also facing new competition for marketing dollars from Amazon and others.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/technology/google-alphabet-earnings.html

  • Don’t Look Now, But GE Is Getting Somewhere

    In releasing its third-quarter results on Wednesday, GE also raised its guidance for 2019 free cash flow and now anticipates its industrial businesses could bring in as much as $2 billion this year. That’s a $4 billion swing from GE’s worst-case scenario in its initial March forecast. There’s a fine line between setting a low bar and sandbagging the numbers, but GE’s rosier outlook is supported by signs of stabilization in its beleaguered power unit and there being less of a drag than anticipated from the transition of a supply-chain financing program to a third party. The aviation business was also able to largely offset the negative impact of the continued grounding of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max. Those were key worry points that ended up not being as worrisome.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/dont-look-now-butge-is-getting-somewhere/2019/10/30/6d0b12d6-fb35-11e9-9e02-1d45cb3dfa8f_story.html

  • SoftBank is turning to its Sprint leaders to bail out WeWork—they’ll need to do better this time

    There’s little reason to believe Son, Claure and Fisher can use their Sprint playbook to give WeWork investors and employees confidence in their future success, said Craig Moffett, a telecommunications analyst at MoffettNathanson.

    “Sprint has been an unmitigated disaster,” said Moffett. “Sprint has contracted steadily since SoftBank bought it, even in a growing wireless market. Their only hope for an exit is to pray their deal to sell it to T-Mobile is approved.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/26/softbank-taking-masayoshi-sons-sprint-playbook-to-wework.html

News You Can Use: 10/23/2019


Photo by sebastiaan stam on Unsplash

  • Warren Dares Facebook With Intentionally False Political Ad

    The Democratic presidential candidate bought a political ad on the social network this past week that purposefully includes false claims about Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and President Trump to goad the social network to remove misinformation in political ads ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

    The ad, placed widely on Facebook beginning on Thursday, starts with Ms. Warren announcing “Breaking news.” The ad then goes on to say that Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg are backing the re-election of Trump. Neither Mr. Zuckerberg nor the Silicon Valley company has announced their support of a candidate.

    “You’re probably shocked, and you might be thinking, ‘how could this possibly be true?’ Well, it’s not,” Ms. Warren said in the ad.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/technology/elizabeth-warren-facebook-ad.html

  • Trump’s old lawyers really, really love Comic Sans

    As absurd as it sounds to use such an intentionally juvenile font in relation to PRESIDENTIAL IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS, Trump’s former lawyers have a peculiar habit of using Comic Sans at the worst possible times—which, to be fair, is basically all the time for Trump.

    John Dowd also chose the goofy font in 2018 while representing Trump in a letter to Robert Mueller.

    And it’s not just Dowd! Back in 2017, Trump attorney Ty Cobb used Comic Sans to make a statement after Trump’s security adviser Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI regarding conversations with Russia. (Oh right, remember that?? Ukraine is only the 58,923rd scandal Trump has faced in office.)

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90414127/trumps-old-lawyers-really-really-love-comic-sans

  • Sink or swim: How to survive waves of change in a fast-paced industry
  • No-deal Brexit data – should firms worry?

    Right now data can flow freely across the EU as long as companies conform to its tough new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

    And as the GDPR is being incorporated wholesale into UK law, there should be no real change after Brexit – as long as we leave with a deal.

    But if there is no deal, we will be treated as an external country, needing what is called an adequacy ruling showing our data protection standards are up to scratch – and the European Commission has indicated that this would not happen in a hurry.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49980327

Supplier Report: 8/30/2019


Photo by Priya Berks on Unsplash

August was a hot month for M&A. There is even more purchasing activity by Microsoft, Splunk, and WordPress (reinforcing how inept Yahoo leadership was during their last few years of independence).

Oracle is facing a revolt from their shareholders over the 2016 acquisition of NetSuite (which Oracle founder Larry Ellison had a significant personal stake in). Oracle isn’t making the strides they need to in the cloud space and NetSuite has not yet become the sales driver it was promised to be.

President Trump (and the rest of the US) and China seem destined for a trade war.  Cisco and Apple have cited China as a cause for sales projections to drop.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Splunk acquires cloud monitoring service SignalFx for $1.05B

    SignalFx, which emerged from stealth in 2015, provides real-time cloud monitoring solutions, predictive analytics and more. Upon close, Splunk argues, this acquisition will allow it to become a leader “in observability and APM for organizations at every stage of their cloud journey, from cloud-native apps to homegrown on-premises applications.”

    Indeed, the acquisition will likely make Splunk a far stronger player in the cloud space as it expands its support for cloud-native applications and the modern infrastructures and architectures those rely on.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/21/splunk-acquires-cloud-monitoring-service-signalfx-for-1-05b/

  • Microsoft acquires jClarity, a Java performance tuning tool

    Microsoft announced this morning that it was acquiring jClarity, a service designed to tune the performance of Java applications. It will be doing that on Azure from now on. In addition, the company has been offering a flavor of Java called AdoptOpenJDK, which they bill as a free alternative to Oracle Java. The companies did not discuss the terms of the deal.

    As Microsoft pointed out in a blog post announcing the acquisition, they are seeing increasing use of large-scale Java installations on Azure, both internally with platforms like Minecraft and externally with large customers, including Daimler and Adobe.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/19/microsoft-acquires-jclarity-an-open-source-java-performance-tuning-tool/

  • Verizon to Sell Tumblr to WordPress.com Owner

    Verizon Communications Inc.  has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress.com, unloading for a nominal amount a site that once fetched a purchase price of more than $1 billion.

    Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 staffers, the companies said. Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been dwarfed by Facebook , Reddit and other services.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-sell-tumblr-to-wordpress-owner-11565640000

    Does anybody want to guess how much Automattic is actually paying? I would say less than $100M. Yahoo was insane to pay $1B for this platform, and Verizon was insane to ban the thing that made people use it.

    Update: Tumbler was reportedly purchased for $3M

  • Oracle is suing Larry Ellison and Safra Catz over the $9 billion

    The subject of the lawsuit is Oracle’s $9.3 billion acquisition of NetSuite in 2016, a deal in which a company that Ellison controls — Oracle — paid a premium price to buy a company that Ellison owned. Ellison was NetSuite’s founder and largest shareholder, with a roughly 40% stake.

    The lead lawyer for Firemen’s Retirement System, Joel Friedlander, also said in a hearing in June “We’re seeking multiple billions of dollars in damages.”

    While tossing a multi-billion figure around a hearing is sometimes just lawyerly bravado, in this case, there’s some meat to that number. The NetSuite deal put about $3.5 billion in cash from Oracle’s coffers into Ellison’s pocket.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-board-members-support-lawsuit-against-larry-ellison-safra-catz-2019-8

  • VMware says it’s looking to acquire Pivotal

    VMware today confirmed that it is in talks to acquire software development platform Pivotal Software, the service best known for commercializing the open-source Cloud Foundry platform. The proposed transaction would see VMware acquire all outstanding Pivotal Class A stock for $15 per share, a significant markup over Pivotal’s current share price (which unsurprisingly shot up right after the announcement).

    Pivotal’s shares have struggled since the company’s IPO in April 2018. The company was originally spun out of EMC Corporation (now DellEMC) and VMware in 2012 to focus on Cloud Foundry, an open-source software development platform that is currently in use by the majority of Fortune 500 companies.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/14/vmware-says-its-looking-to-acquire-pivotal/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Amazon’s AI Can Now Identify Fear

    For those who haven’t heard of the Big Brother-esque Rekognition software, it’s basically a system of neural nets trained on big data (i.e. a ton of photographs and videos) to identify and label objects such as text, activities, “inappropriate behavior,” people, and faces. And if you think Big Brother-esque is a bit of a stretch to describe Rekognition, keep in mind that it’s already being deployed by law enforcement to identify people’s faces. Which isn’t necessarily a bad application in itself, but let your imagination run wild and things could quickly evolve into a Philip K. Dick novel.

    While fear was specifically noted by Amazon as a new emotion that Rekognition can identify, it’s actually only one addition to a number of improvements the AI is making. Along with identifying emotions, Amazon says that Rekognition is now also better at spotting gender and age range. Combined with the aforementioned list of other objects that Rekognition can identify, it’s clear that Amazon wants this software to be able detect and label absolutely any type of image you throw at it.

    https://nerdist.com/article/amazon-rekognition-ai-identify-fear/

  • IBM joins Linux Foundation AI to promote open source trusted AI workflows

    As a Linux Foundation project, the LF AI Foundation provides a vendor-neutral space for the promotion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) open source projects. It’s backed by major organizations like AT&T, Baidu, Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei.

    IBM has a long history of supporting open source, and Moore explained why it’s the right way to quickly raise the bar when it comes to building trustworthy AI. “To get all of us working together, iterating quickly, can cover a lot more ground than any single company can,” he said.

    On top of that, supporting open source projects has the added benefit of expanding the market opportunity for AI vendors like IBM. The goal, Moore said, is to build tools that improve the credibility of AI — and “to do it together, in a way that everybody can inspect and contribute to.”

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-joins-linux-foundation-ai-to-promote-open-source-trusted-ai-workflows/

Cloud

  • IBM updates cloud-native software with Red Hat OpenShift

    Overall, IBM has unveiled more than 100 new and/or updated software products and services across its Red Hat OpenShift-optimized software portfolio. These new solutions will be delivered on IBM’s hybrid multicloud platform, which is built using open source technologies just like Red Hat OpenShift.

    Some of the new services that are optimized for this open source environment include Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud and Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z and LinuxONE. Additionally, IBM has unveiled new consulting and technology services delivered by Red Hat certified consultants and application services practitioners. These services are designed to help users better move, build, and manage their workloads in various cloud environments, while also providing a consistent and simplified experience across clouds.

    http://techgenix.com/red-hat-openshift/

Security/Privacy

  • Huawei employees reportedly aided African governments in spying

    The report cites unnamed senior surveillance officers. The paper adds that an investigation didn’t confirm a direct tie between the Chinese government or Huawei executives. It did, however, appear to confirm that employees for the tech giant played a part in intercepting communications.

    The list includes encrypted messages, the use of apps like WhatsApp and Skype and tracking opponents using cellular data.

    A representative for Zambia’s ruling party confirmed with the paper that Huawei technicians have helped in the fight against news sites with opposing stances in the country, stating, “Whenever we want to track down perpetrators of fake news, we ask Zicta, which is the lead agency. They work with Huawei to ensure that people don’t use our telecommunications space to spread fake news.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/14/huawei-employees-reportedly-aided-african-governments-in-spying/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Cisco drops on poor guidance, says China business dropped 25%

    “What we’ve seen is in the state on enterprises … we’re just being — we’re being uninvited to bid,” Robbins said. “We’re not being allowed to even participate anymore.” Sales to carriers declined more forcefully as well, he said.

    The majority of Cisco’s revenue comes from sales of data center networking products, including switches and routers. That business is represented by Cisco’s Infrastructure Platforms segment, which came up with quarterly revenue of $7.88 billion, above the $7.84 billion consensus among analyst polled by FactSet.

    The Applications segment had $1.49 billion in revenue, in line with the $1.49 billion FactSet analyst consensus. Cisco’s Security business contributed $714 million in revenue, less than $739.9 million FactSet consensus estimate.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/14/cisco-falls-on-soft-guidance.html

Other

  • How Facebook Is Changing to Deal With Scrutiny of Its Power

    Late last year, Facebook halted acquisition talks with Houseparty, a video-focused social network in Silicon Valley, for fear of inciting antitrust concerns, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Acquiring another social network after Facebook was already such a dominant player in that market was too risky, said the people, who spoke on the condition they not be identified because the discussions were confidential.

    Facebook has also begun internal changes that make itself harder to break up. The company has been knitting together the messaging systems of Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp and has reorganized the departments so that Facebook is more clearly in charge, said two people briefed on the matter. Executives have also worked on rebranding Instagram and WhatsApp to more prominently associate them with Facebook.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/technology/facebook-antitrust.html

  • Trump retaliates in trade war by escalating tariffs on Chinese imports and demanding companies cut ties with China

    Trump initially directed his ire at Powell in Friday tweets, painting the Fed’s lack of monetary easing as a greater threat to American workers and businesses. “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” he tweeted.

    Moments later, he demanded American companies cut ties with China.

    “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA,” Trump tweeted.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/23/china-hits-us-with-tariffs-billion-worth-goods-reinstates-auto-levies-state-media-report/

  • HP CEO steps down, citing ‘family health matter’

    HP Inc. announced this afternoon that Dion Weisler is stepping down as president and CEO. The executive cited a “family health matter” in his decision, noting that he will be returning home to Australia.

    The company already has a successor lined up, as its president of Imaging, Printing and Solutions, Enrique Lores, got unanimous approval from its board of directors. Lores will be assuming the top spot on November 1.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/22/hp-ceo-steps-down-citing-family-health-matter/

Supplier Report: 7/26/2019


Photo by Chris Hall on Unsplash

Microsoft has been performing very well in the cloud space, beating expectations and increasing profits. Other companies like IBM… not so much. In fact IBM’s performance (while growing) is causing some analysts to call Big Blue a “zombie company”.

The drama between the Pentagon, Amazon, and Oracle may not be over. The suppliers that were down-selected (Oracle and IBM) likely complained directly to President Trump (he is friendly with Safra Catz) and he has vowed to “look into it”.

And it looks like Broadcom isn’t so interested in buying Symantec. That deal is said to be dead.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • VMware acquires ML acceleration startup Bitfusion

    VMware today announced that it has acquired Bitfusion, a former participant in our Startup Battlefield competition. Bitfusion was one of the earliest companies to help businesses accelerate their complex computing workloads on GPUs, FPGAs and ASICs. In its earliest iteration, over four years ago, the company’s focus was less on AI and machine learning and more on other areas of high-performance computing, but, unsurprisingly, that shifted as the interested in AI and ML increased in recent years.

    VMware will use Bitfusion’s technology, which is vendor- and hardware-agnostic, to bring similar capabilities to its customers. Specifically, it plans to integrate Bitfusion into its vSphere platform.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/18/vmware-acquires-ml-acceleration-startup-bitfusion/

  • Symantec and Broadcom cease deal negotiations: Sources

    People familiar with the matter added that Broadcom indicated in early conversations that it would be willing to pay $28.25 per share for Symantec, but that following due diligence knocked that figure down below $28.

    Symantec had surged earlier this month after it was revealed that Broadcom was in advanced talks to acquire the security software vendor. Faber had reported the two sides were negotiating a price and had seen possible synergies of $1.5 billion.

    Symantec shares dropped 12.8% to $22.30 on Monday.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/symantec-and-broadcom-cease-deal-negotiations-sources.html

Cloud

  • Microsoft’s Cloud Business Drives Record Sales

    Revenue rose 12% to $33.72 billion from the year-earlier period, the company said Thursday, beating Wall Street estimates. Profit also topped expectations.

    The results for Microsoft’s fiscal fourth quarter ended in June reflected continued strength in corporate spending on the cloud services that have revolutionized business computing over the past decade. Companies increasingly are paying subscriptions for software and renting computer power, rather than buying applications that run on their own servers.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsofts-cloud-business-drives-record-sales-11563481232

  • IBM Revenue Lags as Cloud Pivot Remains a Challenge

    Revenue fell 4.2% from a year earlier to $19.16 billion. Profit rose 3.9% to $2.5 billion, as the company worked to scale back its exposure to businesses with smaller profit margins.

    IBM has trailed Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. as customers race to do more of their computing in the cloud—online services that free companies from the need to buy and maintain their own systems. As competitors report consistently strong revenue growth, buoyed by sales of their cloud services, IBM has absorbed a string of declines.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-revenue-lags-as-cloud-pivot-remains-a-challenge-11563395020

  • Trump says he’s looking into a Pentagon cloud contract for Amazon or Microsoft because ‘we’re getting tremendous complaints’

    “We’re getting tremendous complaints from other companies,” Trump said in a press pool at the White House during a meeting with the prime minister of The Netherlands. “Some of the greatest companies in the world are complaining about it.” He named Microsoft, Oracle and IBM.

    Since April, Microsoft and Amazon have been the only remaining competitors for the contract after IBM and Oracle were ruled out by the Defense Department. The contract, known as JEDI, is viewed as a marquee deal for the company that ultimately wins it, particularly as Microsoft and Amazon are aggressively pursuing government work for their expanding cloud units.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/trump-says-seriously-looking-into-amazons-pentagon-contract.html

    House Republicans to Trump: Stay Out of Pentagon Cloud Acquisition

    “We believe that it is essential for our national security to move forward as quickly as possible with the award and implementation of this contract,” said the Republican lawmakers, who sit on one of the two Congressional committees with Pentagon oversight responsibilities. “It meets only a portion of DOD’s needs for cloud, but it is an important first step. Moving to the cloud will help DOD operate faster, more efficiently and compete with adversaries, like China.

    “Our committee has conducted oversight of this contract from the beginning. As you know, the courts have upheld DOD’s handling of this competition. While it is understandable that some of the companies competing for the contract are disappointed at not being selected as one of the finalists, further unnecessary delays will only damage our security and increase the costs of the contract.”

    https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2019/07/house-republicans-trump-stay-out-pentagon-cloud-acquisition/158557/

  • Google officially closes ‘Dragonfly,’ its controversial Chinese search project

    Google’s controversial Project Dragonfly has officially been shelved. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week, Google’s vice president of public policy, Karan Bhatia, said that work on its censored Chinese search engine had been “terminated.” A spokesperson later confirmed that Google has no plans to launch Search in China, and that there is no work being undertaken on such a project.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/17/google-officially-closes-dragonfly-chinese-search/

Security/Privacy

  • Equifax to Pay Around $700 Million to Resolve Data-Breach Probes

    Under the agreement, the credit-reporting firm would pay around $700 million to settle with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and most state attorneys general, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal would also resolve a nationwide consumer class-action lawsuit, they said.

    The settlement could be announced as soon as Monday, the people said. The amount Equifax ultimately pays could shift based on the number of consumer claims that are eventually filed, they added.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/equifax-to-pay-around-700-million-to-resolve-data-breach-probes-11563577702

  • Hackers breach 62 US colleges by exploiting ERP vulnerability

    The vulnerability is in Ellucian Banner Web Tailor, a module of the Ellucian Banner ERP that lets universities customize their front-facing web applications. The vulnerability also impacts Ellucian Banner Enterprise Identity Services, a module for managing user accounts.

    Earlier this year, a security researcher named Joshua Mulliken discovered a vulnerability in the authentication mechanism used by the two modules that can allow remote attackers to hijack victims’ web sessions and gain access to their accounts.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-breach-62-us-colleges-by-exploiting-erp-vulnerability/

  • Florida DMV sells your personal information to private companies, marketing firms

    The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles told the I-Team under the law, it must provide driver information but said federal privacy laws and its own rules limit how outside companies can access Floridian’s personal information.

    One of the data brokers accessing Florida DMV information is Arkansas-based marketing firm Acxiom, which has an agreement with the state to buy driver and ID cardholder data for a penny a record.

    On its website, Acxiom claims it has collected information from almost every adult in the United States.

    https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/i-team-florida-dmv-sells-your-personal-information-to-private-companies-marketing-firms

Software/SaaS

  • IBM is a ‘zombie company’: Analyst

    Yes, IBM’s cloud business is growing, but it pales in comparison to the competition. Its second-quarter cloud revenue climbed 5%. Microsoft’s Azure enjoyed revenue growth of 64% in the company’s fourth quarter of its fiscal year, while AWS jumped more than 41% in its first quarter.

    Just this week AT&T inked a reported $2 billion deal with Microsoft to move most of its internal business applications used by its largest unit to Microsoft’s Azure cloud. As part of the agreement, AT&T’s (T) employees will use Azure’s productivity tools and services.

    The deal came one day after IBM said that AT&T would move internal applications used by its business services unit to IBM’s Cloud. The exact terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but an IBM spokesperson describes it as a “multi-billion dollar deal.”

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-is-a-zombie-company-analyst-122944734.html

Other

  • EU opens Amazon antitrust investigation

    The EU’s Competition Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon to investigate whether the company is using sales data to gain an unfair advantage over smaller sellers on the Marketplace platform. The Commission says it will look into Amazon’s agreements with marketplace sellers, as well as how Amazon uses data to choose which retailer to link to using the “Buy Box” on its site. The announcement comes on the same day that Amazon announced changes to its third-party seller service agreement in response to a separate antitrust investigation by German regulators.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/20696214/amazon-european-union-antitrust-investigation-third-party-seller-marketplace

News You Can Use: 5/22/2019

  • Trump declares national emergency over IT threats

    According to a White House statement, Mr Trump’s order aims to “protect America from foreign adversaries who are actively and increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology infrastructure and services”.

    It gives the secretary of commerce the power to “prohibit transactions posing an unacceptable risk to the national security”, the statement adds.

    The move was instantly welcomed by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, who called it “a significant step toward securing America’s networks”.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48289550
    Huawei responds to Trump’s national emergency ban on foreign telecoms makers

    In a statement to the Chinese state-run Global Times, Huawei said: “If the U.S. restricts Huawei, it will not make the U.S. safer, nor will it make the U.S. stronger. It will only force the U.S. to use inferior and expensive alternative equipment, lagging behind other countries . . . and ultimately harming U.S. companies and consumers.”

    The company also tried a bit of de-escalation diplomacy, saying it was willing to “communicate with the U.S. to ensure product security.” Where this goes from here is anyone’s guess, but it’s certain that the Trump administration will leverage all the power in its arsenal to try to rein in foreign companies it sees as a threat to U.S. interests.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90350980/huawei-responds-to-trumps-national-emergency-ban-on-foreign-telecoms-makers

  • Technology Is as Biased as Its Makers

    One possible response to this is that the algorithm is neutral, that it is just a vehicle for the ad, automatically responding to how people use it; algorithms aren’t racist, people are racist. But the algorithm is built in a way that also confirms implicit biases that exist in the real world, and it does so over and over again. The assumption that African American people are less trustworthy than white people is a commonly held form of implicit bias. It has real-world implications in a whole range of ways, from the success of job applicants to the split-second decisions made by police when pointing their guns at people. In Sweeney’s study, we see this attitude reproduced in the world of digital technology, intentionally or otherwise. This is not a mystery or an unfathomable outcome. Google is not entirely responsible for racism having an impact on automated advertising, but it cannot shirk responsibility for it. Ford was not solely responsible for hundreds, possibly thousands of cases of people being burned alive in their Pintos, but the court of public opinion rightly felt that it could have easily prevented them if it had designed the car differently.

    https://longreads.com/2019/05/14/technology-is-as-biased-as-its-makers/

  • How will Facebook and Google handle your death?
  • Sri Lanka Has Blocked Most Major Social Networks After A Facebook Post Sparked Anti-Muslim Riots

    The move comes three weeks after jihadist bombers killed at least 300 people in the country, sparking fears of sectarian violence against the country’s minority-Muslim population.

    On Twitter, Sri Lanka’s largest mobile carrier, Dialog Axiata, confirmed that it had restricted the websites and apps according to a directive from Sri Lanka’s telecom regulator. NetBlocks, a nonprofit organization that tracks internet outages, tweeted that this was the third time in weeks the country had banned social media in the wake of religious tension.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/sri-lanka-has-blocked-most-major-social-networks-after-a

  • “Zombies” who use their cellphones at crosswalks could be fined under proposed NY law

    Under the proposal, people crossing the street with their nose buried in their phone could face fines of between $25 to $250. The legislation targets people “using a portable electronic device while crossing a roadway,” and makes exceptions for emergency response and other medical personnel.

    “[The bill] does not say you can’t talk on the phone,” the bill’s sponsor, New York state senator John Liu, told the Guardian. “We’re talking about handheld devices … you can wait the five seconds to get to the other side.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90352008/ny-cellphone-users-could-be-fined-for-texting-at-crosswalks

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