Tag: WeWork

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Supplier Report: 5/15/2020


Photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash

Another sign that a recovery is starting… companies are starting to buy other companies again. Microsoft and Zoom are on the move. Intel announced an acquisition last week. But Covid-19 is also being used to rethink and get out of existing deals (see SoftBank).

Meanwhile, Amazon can’t get over their loss to Microsoft for the Pentagon’s JEDI contract… and they are going after each other on their own personal blogs (this is high school level drama).

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Buyers’ Remorse Is Catching in the Coronavirus Era

    Several multibillion-dollar deals have already been scuttled. SoftBank Group Corp. has pulled out of a $3 billion promise to buy stock from employees of WeWork, while Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. canceled the $5.8 billion purchase of 15 U.S. luxury hotels from Anbang Insurance Group Co. WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann and Dajia Insurance Group (which took over Anbang’s assets after it was seized by the Chinese government) both contend that the buyers have used legally faulty pretexts to justify their actions, and they are suing.

    Using the fine print to renege on a deal isn’t pretty, but it’s understandable in an environment where virus-related lockdowns have ravaged economies across the world. Forecasts and valuation estimates predating the pandemic have been rendered all but meaningless.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-05/m-a-deals-founder-as-coronavirus-fuels-buyer-s-remorse

  • Microsoft to Buy Israeli Cybersecurity Startup CyberX

    The U.S. software giant Microsoft is expected to announce in the next few days that it has signed a deal to acquire the Israeli industrial cybersecurity startup CyberX for what sources say will be $165 million.

    TheMarker revealed before the coronavirus crisis that the two sides were in negotiations. They are now in the midst of getting signatures on the deal from all of CyberX’s shareholders.

    CyberX has developed an internet of things cybersecurity platform for factories and industrial control systems, using machine learning to analyze real-time activities and identifying anomalies. The IoT segment is different in many respects from cybersecurity for computers and servers, where Microsoft is active.

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-microsoft-to-buy-israeli-cybersecurity-startup-cyberx-1.8823367

  • Zoom buys Keybase — its first acquisition — as part of 90-day plan to fix security flaws

    The acquisition of the 25-person start-up is the latest move in a 90-day plan that Zoom announced on April 1 to fix its security flaws. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan told CNBC the company needed a solution for users who are demanding the highest level of privacy and certainty that uninvited participants have no access to their conversations.

    When Keybase is implemented, the Zoom user who schedules a meeting will be able to choose end-to-end encryption. That setting will prevent anyone from calling in by phone, which is one way people can access meetings, and will disable cloud-based recording of the chat. Yuan said it’s critical that users know that the encryption key is not on Zoom’s servers, so the company has no access to the contents of the call.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/zoom-buys-keybase-in-first-deal-as-part-of-plan-to-fix-security.html

Cloud

  • IBM CEO Lays Out New Initiatives in Cloud, AI

    Mr. Krishna said the company believes the marketplace adoption of hybrid cloud technology is only about 20% complete, and that the adoption of AI is about 4% complete.

    The pandemic will “dramatically accelerate” the adoption of hybrid-cloud and AI, Mr. Krishna said, as companies turn to cloud services to help their employees work and serve customers remotely, as well as to AI to automate certain types of work.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-ceo-lays-out-new-initiatives-in-cloud-ai-11588651261

  • Bid high, lose, try again. Amazon continues to push for a JEDI re-do

    We received notice on Tuesday that Amazon has filed yet another protest – this time, out of view of the public and directly with the DoD – about their losing bid for the JEDI cloud contract. Amazon’s complaint is confidential, so we don’t know what it says. However, if their latest complaint mirrors the arguments Amazon made in court , it’s likely yet another attempt to force a re-do because they bid high and lost the first time.

    The only thing that’s certain about Amazon’s new complaint is that it will force American warfighters to wait even longer for the 21st-century technology they need – perpetuating Amazon’s record of putting its own interests ahead of theirs.

    This latest roadblock is disappointing but not surprising. As my colleague Jon Palmer made clear in a recent blog, Amazon wants a do-over on JEDI . As Jon wrote, “Amazon would have you believe that it lost the award because of bias at the highest levels of government. But Amazon, alone, is responsible for the pricing it offered. As the government explained in its brief: ‘AWS and Microsoft each had a fair chance to build pricing for the entire procurement, based on their overall business pricing.’ Amazon did build its pricing for the entire procurement, and it wasn’t good enough to win.”

    https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/05/07/amazon-jedi-re-do-dod/
    Amazon and Microsoft are trash talking each other over a DoD contract

    Drew Herdener, Amazon’s Vice President of Worldwide Communications responded in a blog post of his own today. It starts out level-headed: “Since we filed our protest, we’ve been clear in our intent: we don’t think the JEDI award was adjudicated fairly, we think political interference blatantly impacted the award decision, and we’re committed to ensuring the evaluation receives a fair, objective, and impartial review.”

    But then, things take a hard left turn. Herdener called Microsoft’s blog posts “self-righteous and pontificating,” and went on to state, “Nobody knowledgeable and objective believes they have the better offering. And, this has been further underscored by their spotty operational performance during the COVID-19 crisis (and in 2020 YTD).” Herdener even attacked the DoD: “This could have been easily avoided if [the DoD] had chosen to be responsive in any of the multiple requests we’ve made in the last two weeks.”

    https://www.engadget.com/amazon-microsoft-jedi-fight-154208730.html

Other

  • WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann accuses SoftBank of abusing its power in new lawsuit

    The lawsuit, filed in Delaware Court of Chancery, included a motion to consolidate his case with a lawsuit filed last month by a Special Committee of WeWork’s board. Both lawsuits focus on SoftBank Group and its Vision Fund’s decision to back out of a deal to buy shares of the co-working company.

    SoftBank Group pulled its $3 billion tender offer for WeWork shares April 1, citing COVID-19’s impact on the business but also closing conditions not being met. Specifically, it pointed to outstanding regulatory investigations, a growing body of litigation against the company and the failure to restructure a joint venture in China as reasons to torpedo the agreement.

    “SoftBank will vigorously defend itself against these meritless claims,” Rob Townsend, senior vice president and chief officer at SoftBank, said in a statement. “Under the terms of our agreement, which Adam Neumann signed, SoftBank had no obligation to complete the tender offer in which Mr. Neumann – the biggest beneficiary – sought to sell nearly $1 billion in stock.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/wework-co-founder-adam-neumann-accuses-softbank-of-abusing-its-power-in-new-lawsuit/

  • Uber lays off 14 percent of its workforce in COVID-19-related cost-cutting

    Uber will lay off 3,700 full-time employees, or around 14 percent of its global workforce, the company said in filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will forgo his salary for the rest of the year as the company continues to struggle in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The layoffs are expected to hit the company’s customer support and recruiting divisions. Uber says it will incur approximately $20 million in severance and other termination-related expenses. Last week, The Information reported that Uber’s top executives were considering laying off as many as 20 percent of the company’s workforce.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/6/21249131/uber-layoffs-coronavirus-pandemic-cost-cutting-ceo-salary

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Supplier Report: 4/17/2020


Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

The relationship between SoftBank and WeWorks is crumbling and it is extremely interesting to watch this situation implode.

As more information comes to light about how WeWork operated and their overall strategy of real estate manipulation, you can’t feel bad for either company’s failure (at least I don’t). Manipulate. Overvalue. Cash Out. I hope investors and reputable banks learn from this mess (hello Uber).

Meanwhile, Foxconn might actually use those manufacturing plants in Wisconsin for something useful… making respirators.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Friendship Ended With SoftBank, Now Lawsuits Are WeWork’s Best Friend

    SoftBank’s reasoning for backing out includes concern about regulatory probes into WeWork and more technical details concerning an exchange of shares that SoftBank sabotaged in order to prevent this deal. WeWork is suing SoftBank, claiming that concern over regulatory troubles are not grounds for backing out because WeWork has been controlled by SoftBank for nearly half a year now. In WeWork’s own words:

    “The investigations were not a surprise, given Neumann’s conduct and the Company’s loss of billions in value. SoftBank had complete knowledge of the facts underlying the investigations when it executed the [Master Transaction Agreement]. … All of the investigations were known to SoftBank at the time that it signed the December 27, 2019 amendment to the MTA. But SoftBank did not raise the investigations as a basis not to consummate the Tender Offer until recently, as the approaching April 1, 2020 closing date caused it to become increasingly desperate.”

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3m7gy/friendship-ended-with-softbank-now-lawsuits-are-weworks-best-friend

  • German security firm Avira has been acquired by Investcorp at a $180M valuation

    The financial terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed in the companies’ joint announcement, but the CEO of Avira, Travis Witteveen, and ITP’s MD, Gilbert Kamieniecky, both said it gives Avira a total valuation of $180 million. The deal will involve ITP taking a majority ownership in the company, with Avira founder Tjark Auerbach retaining a “significant” stake of the company in the deal, Kamieniecky added.

    Avira is not a tech startup in the typical sense. It was founded in 1986 and has been bootstrapped (in that it seems never to have taken any outside investment as it has grown). Witteveen said that it has “tens of millions” of users today of its own-branded products — its anti-virus software has been resold by the likes of Facebook (as part of its now-dormant antivirus marketplace) — and many more via the white-label deals it makes with big names. Strategic partners today include NTT, Deutsche Telekom, IBM, Canonical and more.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/08/german-security-firm-avira-has-been-acquired-by-investcorp-at-a-180m-valuation/

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics

I mentioned it a few weeks ago, but it is very strange how there has been almost no news about AI and automation for the last 6 weeks.

Once would assume with people being unable to work, there would be some talk of automation (even if it is an uncomfortable topic with people out of work), but… crickets.

Software/SaaS

  • Our Government Runs on a 60-Year-Old Coding Language, and Now It’s Falling Apart

    The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly warned about the use of legacy programming languages for critical systems. In 2019, the GAO issued a report summarizing 10 federal computing systems that were in desperate need of an overhaul. For instance, the Department of Education’s system for processing federal student aid applications was implemented in 1973. It takes 18 contractors to maintain the system, and since it’s written in COBOL, it requires specific hardware and is difficult to integrate with newer software languages.

    GAO considers COBOL a legacy language, which means agencies have trouble finding staff that knows how to write the code at all. And when they can, the specialist contractors charge a premium.

    It also means that when a system breaks, there might not be somebody there to fix it. And that’s where New Jersey finds itself now, with a sagging system and lack of qualified engineers.

    https://onezero.medium.com/our-government-runs-on-a-60-year-old-coding-language-and-now-its-falling-apart-61ec0bc8e121

  • SAP the first of the enterprise software vendors to pre-announce
    • FRS Cloud Revenue Up 29% €2.01 billion €2.01 billion
    • Non-IFRS Cloud Revenue Up 27% €2.01 billion
    • Software Licenses Revenue Down 31% to €0.45 billion
    • Total Revenue Up 7% to €6.52 billion
    • IFRS Operating Profit Up More Than 100% to €1.21 billion
    • Non-IFRS Operating Profit Up 1% to €1.48 billion

    The decline in software licenses is steep but not wholly unexpected. SAP has all but stopped selling licenses and is moving rapidly to a subscription model.

    The question of just how fragile the ERP market has become will be the subject of much commentary on the earnings call. For the moment, SAP believes decisions are being ‘postponed,’ anticipating that conditions will remain very difficult through Q2 with a gradual recovery in Q3-4.

    https://diginomica.com/sap-first-enterprise-software-vendors-pre-announce

  • Microsoft thinks coronavirus will forever change the way we work and learn

    While usage continues to rise, Microsoft is releasing a new remote work trend report to highlight how work habits are changing.

    Naturally, more people are using the video and meetings capabilities of Teams, and Microsoft has seen a new daily record of 2.7 billion meeting minutes in a single day. That’s up 200 percent from 900 million minutes in mid-March, around the time many businesses shifted toward remote working. Unsurprisingly, people are turning on video in Teams meetings two times more than before, with video calls usage in Teams growing by more than 1,000 percent in March. Microsoft found that people in Norway and the Netherlands are more likely to turn on video with around 60 percent of calls including video, compared to 38 percent in the US and 47 percent in the UK.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/9/21214314/microsoft-teams-usage-coronavirus-pandemic-work-habit-change

  • Google’s Hangouts Meet is now just Google Meet

    In an email to The Verge, Google confirmed that it has officially changed the service’s name. Google also confirmed that Meet is an independent part of G Suite, the portfolio of business services that also includes brands such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Drive. Hangouts Chat, the text-messaging arm of the Hangouts brand, is also part of the suite.

    The rebrand still appears to be a work in progress. As of this writing, the service is still called Hangouts Meet by Google in the iOS App Store, and its G Suite landing page also retains the old name. And while G Suite’s website lists “Meet” as an included service at the top of the page, “Hangouts Meet” is still referenced in a list lower down.

    The rebrand comes at a time when Google Meet has seen explosive growth as the COVID-19 pandemic forces workplaces to move their meetings online. Google Meet’s usage is currently 25 times what it was in January, Google revealed late last month, and the service is gaining more than 2 million new users a day.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/8/21214059/google-hangouts-meet-rebrand-video-chat-conferencing

    Ugh… Google’s message tool strategy frustrates me so much.

Other

  • Foxconn will produce ventilators at its controversial Wisconsin plant

    Medtronic’s CEO was unable to share the numbers of ventilators that Foxconn will produce during his interview with CBNC. However, in a statement provided to Reuters, Foxconn said that it’s hoping to speed up production time so that the ventilators can be produced as soon as possible, and that medical and technical personnel from the two companies were working closely together. The partnership came about after Medtronic open-sourced the design for its PB-560 ventilator, which has been downloaded 70,000 times, according to Ishrak.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/8/21213269/foxconn-ventilators-wisconsin-plant-medtronic-pb-560-open-source-design-covid-19

  • End of an Era: Microsoft Word Now Flagging Two Spaces After Period as an Error

    The change was received with mixed reactions by the user community, but many believe that using just one space after a period is something that makes total sense.

    “Consistency and efficiency won. Two spaces after a period is a relic of the typewriter world,” someone says. “There should always be two spaces unless you need to cut down to fit in the 280 limit. Readability improves with two spaces,” another Twitter user, who this time suggests we should all stick with two spaces after a period, explains.

    The new approach is without a doubt controversial, but while change is hard, it’s all just a matter of time until everyone adapts to the one-space rule.

    https://news.softpedia.com/news/end-of-an-era-microsoft-word-now-flagging-two-spaces-after-period-as-an-error-529706.shtml

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Supplier Report: 2/7/2020

It is the end of an era with IBM’s announcement that CEO Virginia Rometty is retiring. Rometty assumed the role in 2012 and has been attempting to transform the company into a cloud and AI powerhouse. This transformation has been bumpy with IBM losing 22% value during her tenure.

But her acquisitions and steady hand may position IBM for a Microsoft-like resurgence (or she may have led the company to its final stand).

Acquisitions/Investments

  • LSI acquires S2P Solutions to solidify its SAP portfolio

    The public services transformation company LSI announced today that it will acquire S2P Solutions Ariba Cloud-based business commerce business unit on February 3rd, pending shareholder approval. With the addition of S2P, LSI will continue its leadership in delivering full ERP Cloud solutions to Regulated Industries. The focus of S2P’s business is in procurement, spend management and supplier discovery, and it is considered a leading service provider for Ariba services.

    “S2P is a champion in the procurement services market – and they have been instrumental in our strategy to deliver Ariba solutions to our SAP client base”, explained Steve Roach – CEO & President of LSI. “The ERP market is moving to the Cloud and SAP continues to lead the charge. By weaving Ariba (procurement), SuccessFactors (human resources) to the S/4H (digital core) together we are able to meet the needs of State, Local Government, Education, Utilities, Non-for-profits and Healthcare institutions. This acquisition is the next step in our journey to build out the Intelligent Public Enterprise”.

    https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/508559866/lsi-acquires-s2p-solutions-to-solidify-its-sap-portfolio

Cloud

  • Microsoft Profit, Sales Beat as Cloud Demand Persists

    Revenue in the period ended Dec. 31 rose 14% to $36.9 billion, marking the software maker’s 10th straight quarter of double-digit sales growth. Analysts on average had predicted $35.7 billion. Fiscal second-quarter profit was $11.6 billion, or $1.51 a share, Microsoft said Wednesday in a statement. That compared with the $1.32 per-share estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg. Shares rose 4% in late trading.

    Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella has been trying to narrow the gap in cloud infrastructure with market leader Amazon.com Inc., in both technical capabilities and the caliber of customer it can attract for its Azure products and services. Microsoft’s recent wins include a massive contract with the Pentagon, for which it beat out front-runner Amazon, and a cloud deal with accounting giant KPMG LLP. Microsoft is also pulling in more revenue from Office 365, with companies such as KPMG and Ikea upgrading to the internet-based productivity software. Azure revenue in the recent period rose 62% and Office 365 sales to businesses increased 27%.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-29/microsoft-profit-sales-beat-as-cloud-demand-persists

Security/Privacy

  • FCC: Wireless carriers violated federal law by selling location data

    Back in 2018, it came to light that carriers sell their customers’ real-time location data to aggregators, which then resold it to other companies or even gave it away. Last year, a Motherboard report also revealed that bail bond companies and bounty hunters have been buying people’s location data for years, allowing them to use that information to track their targets.

    All four major US carriers promised to stop selling customer location data to aggregators after the information first came out. The companies made good on their word, though it took them a year to do so: They informed FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel that they had already halted sales to aggregators after she requested for an update in 2019.

    https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/31/fcc-carriers-violated-federal-law-selling-location-data/

  • Hackers are selling card info stolen in last year’s Wawa breach

    If you purchased anything at the East Coast gas station and convenience store chain Wawa between March and December last year, there’s a chance your credit and debit card info is being sold on the dark web. Earlier this week, fraud intelligence company Gemini Advisory discovered stolen payment card data being uploaded to Joker’s Stash, an online cybercrime marketplace. It seems the data was obtained during the Wawa breach discovered in December.

    As you may remember, last month, Wawa revealed that malware had been swiping customers’ payment card info, possibly since March. It’s believed that 850 stores may have been hit, exposing 30 million sets of payment records, making it one of the largest payment breaches of all time. Cardholders in the US, several Asian countries, Europe and Latin America may have had their data stolen.

    https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/30/wawa-breach-stolen-data-sold-online/

  • Antivirus company shuts down its data-harvesting arm after getting caught red-handed

    The reports, which were the result of a joint investigation between Motherboard and PCMag, detailed how Avast was collecting user browsing data via its antivirus software. This data included Google searches, location lookups, visited URLs along with precise time stamps, and in some cases even specific searches made on porn websites. Although Avast claimed that individual users could not be identified from this data, Motherboard spoke to experts who said that this could be possible in some cases.

    Jumpshot claimed to have data from as many as 100 million devices, and it listed some of the world’s largest companies among its clients, including Google, Yelp, Microsoft, and Pepsi. Jumpshot would package this data up into different products, one of which was its “All Click Feed,” which would allow its clients to see all user clicks on individual domains (such as Amazon.com). These clients reportedly paid millions of dollars for Jumpshot’s products, which often included precise browsing data.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/30/21115326/avast-jumpshot-subsidiary-suspended-data-collection-selling-ceo-blog-post

Other

  • IBM CEO Virginia Rometty is retiring

    IBM CEO Virginia Rometty, one of the most prominent female leaders in tech, is stepping down on April 6th, 2020. She will still serve as Executive Chairman of the Board through the end of the year, but she’s retiring completely after that. Rometty will be replaced as CEO by Arvind Krishna, who currently runs the company’s cloud business and who was a key figure in IBM’s Red Hat acquisition. She called Krishna “the right CEO for the next era at IBM.”

    https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/30/ibm-ceo-virginia-rometty-is-retiring/

  • WeWork Names Veteran Real Estate Executive as New Chief

    The naming of an experienced real estate executive is a clear indication that WeWork is moving on from Mr. Neumann’s strategy of building a sprawling company with lofty aims that included transforming how people work and live together. He had promoted WeWork as if it were a groundbreaking technology company set on upending its industry. The firm had also branched out well beyond office space, establishing sleek dormitories for working professionals and even a private school in Manhattan.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/business/wework-chief-executive.html

  • Apple is closing all mainland China stores due to coronavirus outbreak

    The coronavirus outbreak is having a tangible impact on the tech world, and Apple is serving as a textbook example of its effect. The company is closing all its retail stores and corporate offices in mainland China through February 9th out of an “abundance of caution” and in consultation from experts. Apple had initially closed three stores, but this shuts down a full 42 locations across the country.

    Key suppliers like Foxconn have said they don’t expect problems meeting production goals for companies like Apple. Caution is still the order of the day, however. Apple chief Tim Cook said that expectations for the start of the calendar year were unusually vague due to virus-related uncertainty. Sales at stores had dropped across China in recent days, even outside of the coronavirus epicenter of Wuhan.

    https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/01/apple-closes-china-stores-due-to-coronavirus/

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Supplier Report: 11/29/2019


Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Black Friday is upon us and consumers are not the only ones out shopping. Several acquisitions were announced this month such as Google buying yet another cloud company and PayPal snapping up Honey.

But just like Thanksgiving, families come together to celebrate (SalesForce and AWS are forming a tighter partnership) and they also fight (Google vs. their own employees).

As we start to wrap up 2019 and start to look towards the future, will 2020 be a boom year or will we see cuts and decline (WeWork announced 2,400 job cuts)?

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Google buys a small cloud partner to make it easier for customers to use VMware on its cloud

    Google has bought yet another small business to build its cloud-computing unit: CloudSimple, whose software enables companies to run computing workloads that are based on VMware’s widely used server virtualization technology. Terms were not disclosed.

    The deal follows the buys of data integration company Alooma, storage company Elastifile and cloud migration company Velostrata. Kurian’s biggest deal to date has been the $2.6 billion acquisition of privately held data analytics company Looker, which, like CloudSimple, had been a partner prior to the deal. The Looker deal hasn’t closed yet, however, and the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division moved to seek information from the two companies as part of a review, Bloomberg reported last month.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/18/google-buys-cloudsimple-which-helps-run-vmware-workloads.html

  • PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for $4B

    PayPal announced today it has agreed to acquire Honey Science Corporation, the makers of a deal-finding browser add-on and mobile application, for $4 billion, mostly cash. The acquisition, which is PayPal’s largest to date, will give the payments giant a foothold earlier in the customer’s shopping journey. Instead of only competing on the checkout page against credit cards or Apple Pay, for example, PayPal will leap ahead to become a part of the deal discovery process, as well.

    Currently, Honey’s 17 million monthly active users take advantage of its suite of money-saving tools to track prices, get alerts, make lists, browse offers and participate in an Ebates-like rewards program called Honey Gold. Its users tend to be younger, millennial shoppers, both male and female.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/20/paypal-to-acquire-shopping-and-rewards-platform-honey-for-4-billion/

  • HP Rejects Xerox Offer but Remains Open to a Deal

    HP Inc. rejected a $33 billion takeover offer from Xerox Holdings Corp. as too low, but the PC and printer maker made clear it is interested in discussing a deal to combine with its smaller rival.

    Xerox’s unsolicited offer of $22 a share significantly undervalues the company, HP’s board said in a public letter to Xerox Chief Executive John Visentin on Sunday. It also voiced concern about the debt a transaction would put on the combined company and said it needs more information about Xerox’s business, known as due diligence.

    Still, HP said it recognizes the benefits of consolidation and is “open to exploring a potential combination with Xerox.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/hp-rejects-xerox-offer-but-remains-open-to-a-deal-11574027722

  • Celonis, a leader in big data process mining for enterprises, nabs $290M on a $2.5B valuation

    Celonis was founded in 2011 in Munich — an industrial and economic center in Germany that you could say is a veritable Petri dish when it comes to large business in need of digital transformation — and has been cash-flow positive from the start. In fact, Celonis waited until it was nearly six years old to take its first outside funding (prior to this Series C it had picked up less than $80 million, see here and here).

    The size and timing of this latest equity injection is due to seizing the moment, and tapping networks of people to do so. It has already been growing at a triple-digit rate, with customers like Siemens, Cisco, L’Oréal, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone among them.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/21/celonis-a-leader-in-big-data-process-mining-for-enterprises-nabs-290m-on-a-2-5b-valuation/

  • Report: Charles Schwab in talks to buy TD Ameritrade

    Brokerage firm Charles Schwab is in talks to buy rival TD Ameritrade, reports CNBC. The organization cites a source who said the deal could be announced today. The two brokerage firms are the largest publicly traded houses, with Charles Schwab having a market cap of $57.5 billion and TD Ameritrade at $22.4 billion.

    The retail brokerage industry has gone through upheaval in recent months as all of the major brokers have moved, or are moving, to commission-free trades in order to lure customers. CNBC says Charles Schwab was the first to do so, followed by TD Ameritrade.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90434433/report-charles-schwab-in-talks-to-buy-td-ameritrade

Cloud

Security/Privacy

  • Facebook and Google’s pervasive surveillance poses an unprecedented danger to human rights

    “The internet is vital for people to enjoy many of their rights, yet billions of people have no meaningful choice but to access this public space on terms dictated by Facebook and Google,” said Kumi Naidoo.

    “To make it worse this isn’t the internet people signed up for when these platforms started out. Google and Facebook chipped away at our privacy over time. We are now trapped. Either we must submit to this pervasive surveillance machinery – where our data is easily weaponized to manipulate and influence us – or forego the benefits of the digital world. This can never be a legitimate choice. We must reclaim this essential public square, so we can participate without having our rights abused.”

    This extraction and analysis of people’s personal data on such an unprecedented scale is incompatible with every element of the right to privacy, including the freedom from intrusion into our private lives, the right to control information about ourselves, and the right to a space in which we can freely express our identities.

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/google-facebook-surveillance-privacy/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • HPE Dumps Recent Acquisitions Into Its Container Platform

    The turnkey platform taps into HPE’s acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data software vendor BlueData last year and MapR in August.

    BlueData makes a software platform that uses Docker containers to make it easier for companies to deploy large-scale machine learning and big data analytics environments. MapR, which HPE “rescued” from the brink of collapse, provides enterprise-grade file system and cloud-native storage services.

    HPE’s Container Platform uses BlueData software as the control plane for container management and the MapR distributed file system and object store for persistent data with containers. It then uses Kubernetes for container orchestration. This package supports the containerization of cloud-native, microservices-architected applications and on-premises applications with persistent data.

    https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/hpe-dumps-recent-acquisitions-into-its-container-platform/2019/11/

Other

  • Google Workers Protest Company’s ‘Brute Force Intimidation’

    Roughly 200 workers gathered about 11 a.m. local time Friday outside a Google office overlooking San Francisco bay.

    “Over the past two years, many of my coworkers have asked the company to take meaningful action to curtail sexual harassment and systemic racism, improve the working conditions of temps, vendors and contractors, and divest from harmful tech,” said Zora Tung, a Google software engineer. “Instead of listening to us, the company has chosen to silence us.”

    The Google workers who protested also said the company had unjustly put Laurence Berland and Rebecca Rivers on indefinite administrative leave without warning. They demanded that Google bring the employees back to work immediately.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-22/google-workers-protest-company-s-brute-force-intimidation

  • WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

    In a statement, a WeWork spokesperson said the cuts were being made as part of the company’s efforts to “create a more efficient organization” and refocus on the core office-sharing business. The job reductions represent 19% of WeWork’s total workforce, which amounted to 12,500 employees as of June 30, according to an SEC filing.

    “The process began weeks ago in regions around the world and continued this week in the U.S.,” the spokesperson said. “This workforce reduction affects approximately 2,400 employees globally, who will receive severance, continued benefits, and other forms of assistance to aid in their career transition. These are incredibly talented professionals and we are grateful for the important roles they have played in building WeWork over the last decade.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/wework-lays-off-2400-employees.html

  • When John Legere Leaves, Say Goodbye to the Old T-Mobile

    Make no mistake, the CEO transition will usher in a new T-Mobile. That’s not because the visions of the two men are so different — they aren’t, and Legere has been grooming Sievert, 50, for quite some time. But T-Mobile is no longer the industry upstart, and Legere’s departure suggests that he feels his work there is almost done. The last step is to complete the acquisition of Sprint Corp., which is being held up by a group of state attorneys general rightly concerned about the potential harm the transaction may cause consumers.

    Legere, 61, made clear that he isn’t retiring — nor is he turning his “Slow Cooker Sunday” Facebook Live series into a full-time gig. While he said the rumors of him joining WeWork aren’t true, he has fielded a “tremendous amount” of interest from companies seeking the expertise he’s demonstrated at turning around a troubled business and generating broad enthusiasm for a brand. “I’ve got 30 or 40 years and five or six good acts left in me,” Legere, the class clown of corporate events, said on Monday’s call.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/when-john-legere-leaves-say-goodbye-to-the-old-t-mobile/2019/11/18/a1a595ea-0a33-11ea-8054-289aef6e38a3_story.html

  • Amazon Is America’s CEO Factory

    There’s one element some ex-Amazonians are leaving behind: the harsher parts of Amazon’s culture, such as hiring practices that favor skills over collegiality.

    Amazon is known for disregarding social cohesion in interviewing candidates, former employees said, elevating other traits over an ability to work well with colleagues. Mr. Gordon of Latchel originally embraced that tenet.

    “We approached hiring this way and it was a big, big mistake,” he said. He had to fire one employee he had hired who was capable but couldn’t get along with the team. “We need social cohesion and to like each other because we have to put in lots of additional hours and time because it’s a startup,” Mr. Gordon said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazon-is-americas-ceo-factory/ar-BBX3hhE?li=BBnb7Kz

Posted on

Supplier Report: 10/4/2019


Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

September was the month of the failed CEO. Adam Neumann of WeWork has stepped down. Mark Hurd is out on sick leave. Devin Wenig of eBay quit. And Herbert Diess if Volkswagen is under investigation for fraud.

What is the takeaway? Nobody is perfect. And – the time of the unicorns is coming to a close (thankfully). A business has to have a profitable model and if they don’t… heads are going to roll.

With SoftBank coming under more scrutiny for these runaway business valuations, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the darlings of Silicon Valley.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Facebook has acquired Servicefriend, which builds ‘hybrid’ chatbots, for Calibra customer service

    As Facebook prepares to launch its new cryptocurrency Libra in 2020, it’s putting the pieces in place to help it run. In one of the latest developments, it has acquired Servicefriend, a startup that built bots — chat clients for messaging apps based on artificial intelligence — to help customer service teams, TechCrunch has confirmed.

    Although Facebook isn’t specifying what they will be working on, the most obvious area will be in building a bot — or more likely, a network of bots — for the customer service layer for the Calibra digital wallet that Facebook is developing.

    Facebook’s plan is to build a range of financial services for people to use Calibra to pay out and receive Libra — for example, to send money to contacts, pay bills, top up their phones, buy things and more.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/21/facebook-servicefriend/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Ex-Google worker fears ‘killer robots’ could cause mass atrocities

    Nolan, who has joined the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and has briefed UN diplomats in New York and Geneva over the dangers posed by autonomous weapons, said: “The likelihood of a disaster is in proportion to how many of these machines will be in a particular area at once. What you are looking at are possible atrocities and unlawful killings even under laws of warfare, especially if hundreds or thousands of these machines are deployed.

    “There could be large-scale accidents because these things will start to behave in unexpected ways. Which is why any advanced weapons systems should be subject to meaningful human control, otherwise they have to be banned because they are far too unpredictable and dangerous.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/15/ex-google-worker-fears-killer-robots-cause-mass-atrocities

  • Microsoft launches its AI presentation coach for PowerPoint

    The new PowerPoint Presentation Coach aims to take the hassle out of practicing. In its current version, the tool looks at three things: pace, slide reading and word choice. Pace is pretty self-explanatory and looks at how fast or slow somebody is speaking. The “slide reading” feature detects when you are simply reading the words from your slides word for word. Nobody wants to sit through that kind of presentation. The “word choice” tool doesn’t just detect how often you say “um,” “ah,” “actually” or “basically,” it also gives you feedback when you are using culturally insensitive phrases like “you guys” or “best man for the job.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/microsoft-launches-its-ai-presentation-coach-for-powerpoint/

Cloud

  • Oracle reportedly funding anti-Amazon lobbying group

    Oracle Vice President Kenneth Glueck, who runs the company’s lobbying efforts out of an office in Washington, D.C., confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that Oracle has backed Free and Fair Markets. Oracle declined to comment on the report to CRN.

    Glueck has been the chief architect of Oracle’s strategy to lobby the U.S. government against AWS winning the entirety of the looming JEDI contract—the centerpiece of the military’s potentially $10 billion cloud transformation initiative from which Oracle has been knocked out of contention. Only AWS and Microsoft remain on a short-list, but delivery of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure award has been delayed because of political factors.

    https://www.crn.com.au/news/oracle-reportedly-funding-anti-amazon-lobbying-group-531322
    Reminder: Oracle did the same thing against Google in Europe

  • Oracle speaking with Google’s antitrust investigators

    The House Judiciary Committee has asked for information from dozens of companies potentially harmed by anti-competitive actions of the tech giants. The committee will issue subpoenas based on how many voluntarily answer the requests.

    Oracle and Google have a long-standing legal battle over whether Google infringed on Oracle’s Java copyright to make the Android OS. The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to take up a Google appeal to the suit.

    https://seekingalpha.com/news/3502058-oracle-speaking-googles-antitrust-investigators

Security/Privacy

  • DoorDash confirms data breach affected 4.9 million customers, workers and merchants

    The breach happened on May 4, the company said, but added that customers who joined after April 5, 2018 are not affected by the breach.

    It’s not clear why it took almost five months for DoorDash to detect the breach.

    DoorDash spokesperson Mattie Magdovitz blamed the breach on “a third-party service provider,” but the third-party was not named. “We immediately launched an investigation and outside security experts were engaged to assess what occurred,” she said.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/26/doordash-data-breach/

  • Facebook’s Suspension of ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Apps Reveals Wider Privacy Issues

    The social network said in a blog post that an investigation it began in March 2018 — following revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a British consultancy, had retrieved and used people’s Facebook information without their permission — had resulted in the suspension of “tens of thousands” of apps that were associated with about 400 developers. That was far bigger than the last number that Facebook had disclosed, of 400 app suspensions in August 2018.

    https://news.yahoo.com/facebooks-suspension-tens-thousands-apps-140153504.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=2_11

Other

  • CEO of WeWork, Which Has Lost an Unfathomable Amount of Money, Is Stepping Down

    Adam Neumann, the eccentric co-founder of WeWork, is stepping down as CEO after a torrent of news cycles that read like pulp fiction, the New York Times reported. The Times reports that pressure came from investors and board members, and Neumann will stay on as the nonexecutive chairman of WeWork’s parent, the We Company.

    In a press release, Neumann said “While our business has never been stronger, in recent weeks, the scrutiny directed toward me has become a significant distraction, and I have decided that it is in the best interest of the company to step down as chief executive.”

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8dbw/ceo-of-wework-which-has-lost-an-unfathomable-amount-of-money-is-stepping-down

    The Week the C.E.O.s Got Smacked

    Adam Neumann stepped down as chief executive of WeWork after a botched attempt to take the company public. Devin Wenig left his role as chief of eBay after the company’s board grew impatient with poor performance. And Herbert Diess, the chief executive of Volkswagen, was charged with stock market manipulation and misleading investors. Mr. Diess remains in his job, but all week, smartphone push alerts seemed to ping with the news of executive heads rolling.

    Those three executives joined the recently departed chiefs of Juul, Nissan, comScore and HSBC as reminders that at the end of the trading day, corporate chieftains are there to make shareholders money.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/28/business/wework-juul-ebay-ceo.html

  • Poll: Two-thirds of Americans want to break up companies like Amazon and Google

    Across political party identification, Americans are pretty consistent about breaking up Big Tech. The poll shows that on the more extreme ends of both the left and the right, there is more enthusiasm on the matter.

    Forty-two percent of Americans who consider themselves very liberal and 40 percent of those who say they’re very conservative strongly support breaking up tech companies to foster competition, while about 30 percent of those who identify as liberal or conservative say the same. (Moderates and people unsure of their political affiliation showed the lowest support). On breaking up for content, 56 percent of people who say they’re very liberal and 47 percent of people who say they’re very conservative back breaking up Big Tech.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/18/20870938/break-up-big-tech-google-facebook-amazon-poll