Tag: Yahoo

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Supplier Report: 6/9/2017

This is starting to get repetitive… IBM had another rough week.

There are rumors that Facebook-owned Whatsapp is moving from their current IBM-hosted infrastructure to an in-house Facebook solution.  Lululemon is also considering moving away from IBM cloud due to a recent outage.

As always, it wasn’t all bad news, IBM did score a 10-year outsourcing deal with Lloyds and they introduced a new transistor type for 5nm silicon chips (there was an insane amount of coverage on this).

Google is betting big on AI, and it might backfire due to their “lack of enterprise focus”.  Meanwhile Verizon is finalizing their acquisition of Yahoo and is expected to reduce their workforce by 20%.

Acquisitions

Artificial Intelligence

  • Why Google is betting big on AI

    Google may not be the leader of cloud computing, but novel developments have spurred Sundar Pichai, the company’s CEO, to openly recognise this as an economic opportunity and possibly a challenge. The release of second generation cloud tensor processing units (TPU) is making cloud computing and machine learning faster and more efficient.

    Google’s TPUs deliver an open source machine learning framework allowing massive scaling and dissemination of applications through the cloud. This innovation will expedite the process of intake, normalization, model training and deployment by essentially using machine learning to automate algorithms. In effect, this is automating deep learning by using machine learning. Google is calling this creation AutoML, and it is the breakthrough of the company’s AI research group, Google Brain.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3198635/artificial-intelligence/why-google-is-betting-big-on-ai.html

  • Why Google might lose the enterprise AI wars

    Two major obstacles stand in Google’s way to cloud AI dominance: data gravity and lack of backwards compatibility. To illustrate the issue of data gravity, look no further than Amazon’s Snowball device. This chair-sized flash drive, capable of storing 80 TB of precious enterprise data, is physically shipped to a customer’s on-premise data centers to load petabytes of data and then shipped back to Amazon for upload to AWS servers. Ironically, manual transfer is significantly faster and cheaper for large data sets than any internet method. Enterprises with data-hungry AI applications will have an easier time running algorithms on-prem or on AWS and Azure, where their data already lives.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3200184/it-industry/why-google-might-lose-the-enterprise-ai-wars.html

Cloud

  • Lululemon CEO blames IBM for site outage, says it’s looking at other options

    Some of Lululemon’s sales happen via its website, which is hosted on IBM’s public cloud. The site went down midday on May 22 and came back online about 20 hours later.

    “I talked to Ginni [Rometty, IBM’s CEO]; our team was up 36 hours straight,” Potdevin told CNBC. “We’re not satisfied with what happened. We’re looking at our options.”

    Other public clouds include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform. Lululemon could also opt to set up its own data center infrastructure and reduce its dependency on third-party cloud-computing resources. IBM’s other cloud customers include Citi, the U.S. Interior Department, Macy’s and Whirlpool.

    http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/lululemon-ceo-blames-ibm-for-site-outage.html

  • Facebook is planning to move WhatsApp off IBM’s public cloud, source says

    The WhatsApp move, which could begin later this year, would result in IBM losing a high profile customer for its public cloud. A source claims that WhatsApp has been one of IBM’s top five public cloud customers in terms of revenue, and was at one point spending $2 million a month with IBM. (IBM says WhatsApp is not currently one of its top five public cloud customers.)

    http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/07/facebook-planning-to-move-whatsapp-off-ibms-public-cloud.html

  • Microsoft restructures cloud, data, AI organizations

    As part of a reorganization announced internally within the company on June 7th, Microsoft has chosen to restructure its cloud, data, and AI organizations. The changes reportedly take effect immediately and were reportedly announced by Scott Guthrie, and Harry Shum (via ZDNet.)

    Part of the changes include a new Cloud AI Platform organization, led by Corporate Vice President Joseph Sirosh. This division will be responsible for Azure Search, Azure Machine Learning, the Microsoft Bot Framework, R Server and the Algorithms and Data Science Solution team. Since Joseph Sirosh previously handled the Data Platform group at Microsoft, it now will be led by Corporate Vice President of Azure, Jason Zander, and be part of a new Azure + Data Platform Group.

    https://www.onmsft.com/news/microsoft-restructures-cloud-data-ai-organizations

Datacenter/Hardware

Other

  • Lloyds finally inks mega 10-year cloudy outsourcing deal with IBM

    Those talks concluded today, with Lloyds announcing to staff it has “signed one of the largest cloud transformation deals” within the financial sector. The shift to IBM’s private cloud will take three years.

    “Most colleagues working in Infrastructure Technology Services supporting these systems and delivering change will transition to IBM, with a number retained in Lloyds Banking Group to manage the relationship, service and governance of IBM,” said the memo.

    As a result, around 500 staff will transfer to IBM on 1 September 2017. Some 1,000 contractors who currently support Lloyds Banking Group will also move to support IBM.

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/

  • Amazon Wins the Race to $1,000

    Soaring gains among tech and internet stocks have concerned some investors, particularly those who remember the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. But others expect these stocks to continue to advance. Thomas Lee, a U.S. portfolio strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors, on Friday forecast that Facebook, Amazon, Netflix Inc. and Alphabet—a group collectively known by the acronym FANG—could climb another 20% to 40% by the end of the year. These companies, he said, represent a dense concentration of earnings and sales growth that is hard to find elsewhere in the market.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-wins-the-race-to-1-000-1496440170

  • As the merger is completed, layoffs of up to 1,000 jobs at the combined AOL and Yahoo are expected

    According to sources, layoffs are expected to take place across AOL and Yahoo that could number up to 1,000 jobs. That is less than 20 percent of the combined company, according to sources.

    This action is not unexpected, given that both companies have a lot of redundancies, including in human resources, finance, marketing and general administration.

    https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15759274/merger-completed-layoffs-combined-aol-yahoo-could-reach-1000

  • IBM Community College Partnerships Support Next-Gen IT Training

    The technology company will collaborate with the participating institutions on curriculum design for next-generation IT skills; offer community college students opportunities for internships and apprenticeships; and hire students for IBM careers. The partnership will include schools in or near Columbia, MO, Rocket Center, WV, Dubuque, IA, Boulder, CO, Poughkeepsie, NY, Raleigh, NC, Austin, TX, Dallas and Houston — areas which the company notes have traditionally been underserved by high-tech employers.

    https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/06/07/ibm-community-college-partnerships-support-next-gen-it-training.aspx?admgarea=news

Photo: Dawid Zawiła

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Supplier Report: 3/18/2017

Oracle had a big week with their stock rallying thanks to cloud growth driven by the acquisition of NetSuite. This put Mr. Ellison in a bragging mood which led to some shots against Microsoft and Amazon (both companies are currently beating Oracle in cloud revenue and customers).

On the topic of Microsoft, there are rumors that they may purchase Citrix. Citrix quietly put word to the market that they would entertain a sale.  There is some logic to Microsoft owning Citrix, but is the price right?

IBM is looking to stay on President Trump’s good side by committing to hire 2000 veterans over the next 4 years, but do the vets want to work for big blue?

Acquisitions

  • Could and should Microsoft buy Citrix?

    Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, reported on March 13 that Citrix is working with Goldman Sachs to seek potential suitors for the company.

    Microsoft and Citrix have worked closely for years on remote desktop services. The pair have been working on delivering the promised Windows 10 desktop on Azure offering, as well as a replacement for Microsoft’s Azure RemoteApp.

    There have been many industry watchers who’ve been advocating for and expecting Microsoft to buy Citrix for nearly a decade, if not longer.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/could-and-should-microsoft-buy-citrix/

  • Intel buys Mobileye in $15.3B deal, moves its automotive unit to Israel

    Specifically, “Under the terms of the agreement, a subsidiary of Intel will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye for $63.54 per share in cash, representing a fully-diluted equity value of approximately $15.3 billion and an enterprise value of $14.7 billion,” the company noted in a statement. The deal is expected to close in about nine months, Intel said.

    Mobileye today covers a range of technology and services, including sensor fusion, mapping, front- and rear-facing camera tech and, beginning in 2018, crowdsourcing data for high-definition maps, as well as driving policy intelligence underlying driving decisions. This deal will bring under Intel’s umbrella not only a much bigger range of the different pieces that go into autonomous driving systems, but also a number of relationships with automakers. In the call today, Mobileye’s CTO and co-founder Amnon Shashua said the company is working with 27 car manufacturers, including 10 production programs with Audi, BMW and others going into 2017.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/13/reports-intel-buying-mobileye-for-up-to-16b-to-expand-in-self-driving-tech/?ncid=rss

Artificial Intelligence

  • Microsoft Applies AI in the Healthcare Industry to Realize Care Anywhere

    As the aging population, has become more active in the society, Microsoft Taiwan has also devoted itself to developing a more comprehensive medical ecosystem. With the aid of technology such as AI, natural speech, and robots, time spent on waiting to receive medical care, diagnosis, prescribing, and applying for healthcare coverage is decreased and the processes are optimized. These types of technology can effective assist medical personnel in monitoring the patient’s condition after appointments, which leads to more effective home healthcare, a decrease in the number of hospital visits or examinations, and an overall reduction in wasted medical resources. Furthermore, patients are able to enjoy remote healthcare in the comfort of their homes. For both service providers and users of the healthcare system, the application of new technologies paves the way to achieving equal and efficient medical resource allocation.”

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-applies-ai-healthcare-industry-140700837.html

Cloud

  • Amazon Chime – Did AWS Buy the Wrong Company?

    So, how is AWS being disruptive? It’s not the offering — a Brady Bunch-style format for viewing who’s on a call is not at all cutting edge. Amazon Chime is perfectly fine for small-scale, cloud-based meetings, but doesn’t have enough differentiation or hooks to seriously challenge the established enterprise players. Rather, what’s disruptive is AWS’s go-to-market strategy. Cloud lowers the barriers to entry, especially when you run a massive public cloud. All AWS has to do is just drop Chime into the market and see what happens.

    http://www.nojitter.com/post/240172487/amazon-chime–did-aws-buy-the-wrong-company

  • Cloud computing growth lifts Oracle’s profits, and its shares

    As in previous quarters, Oracle showed particular strength in two cloud categories: online applications known as software as a service, or SaaS, and platform as a service, or PaaS, a collection of technologies for creating and deploying those applications. In those two areas, Oracle’s revenues shot up 73 percent, to $1 billion, the first time they’ve topped that milestone. The growth was likely helped by Oracle’s $9.3 billion NetSuite acquisition last year, since this is the first quarter after the closing of the deal.

    http://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/03/15/cloud-computing-growth-lifts-oracles-profits-shares/
    Oracle’s Larry Ellison Belittles Amazon and Microsoft

    On an earnings phone call with analysts, Ellison said that Oracle now has “a huge technology lead” over Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service. Several times, he bragged that Oracle’s revamped cloud computing service is both cheaper and faster than the competition, and that it will eventually become Oracle’s crown jewel.

    The Oracle co-founder is known for his grandiose statements and prodding of his business adversaries. But his comments on Wednesday entirely glossed over the fact that both Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud businesses are growing rapidly—and inconveniently to Oracle, exponentially bigger.

    http://fortune.com/2017/03/15/oracle-larry-ellison-amazon-microsoft/

Datacenter

  • Quantum computers are here — but what are they good for?

    Quantum computers can be significantly faster and could eventually replace today’s PCs and servers. Quantum computing is one way to advance computing as today’s systems reach their physical and structural limits.

    Progress has been slow, but researchers are discovering uses for existing quantum computers like D-Wave’s 2000Q, which has 2,000 qubits, and IBM’s 5-qubit systems. Both are based on different technologies, with IBM’s system being complex and more advanced in terms of technology. D-Wave’s quantum annealing system is a more practical and quick way to quantum computing but is much faster than today’s PCs.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/3180194/hardware/with-quantum-computers-here-developers-seek-uses.html

Software/SaaS

  • IBM pledge: Not only does Notes/Domino live, there’s no end in sight

    “Notes/Domino 9.0 shipped in 2013, and IBM’s normal five-year support model meant that mainstream support could have ended in 2018. However, we know how important these products are to your business, and we are continuing to invest in new functionality. For IBM Notes/Domino 9.0, we have announced that product support will be extended through at least 2021, and extended support through at least 2024. There is no end of life planned for Notes and Domino, and we will continue to update the timeline for support as appropriate based on future releases and market requirements.”

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/3179611/software/ibm-pledge-not-only-does-notes-domino-live-there-s-no-end-in-sight.html
    If I walked into a company that is still rocking Lotus for their email (not some archaic forms system), I honestly might just walk right out.

  • Seeking Alpha recommends avoiding Workday

    If you follow the enterprise software space, you’ll notice one thing: Oracle talks much more often about Workday than Salesforce. The reason is simple–the size of the prize is much bigger for ERP cloud applications, where WDAY competes and Salesforce doesn’t. IDC estimates that the ERP and HCM markets are almost 4x larger than the sales and service segments of enterprise software (and Salesforce currently controls the sales and service segments). Our worry is that Oracle is way ahead of the game in the ERP segment relative to Workday. Oracle has rewritten all of its ERP applications for the cloud. It did the same for its HCM and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) applications, which are all now a part of its integrated SaaS suite. WDAY started with HCM, and it now offers some elements of ERP in the cloud, such as financial and payroll applications, though it doesn’t offer manufacturing or supply chain. And with the acquisition of NetSuite, Oracle is much more able to effectively address the SMB market segment.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/4054166-workday-avoid

Other

Photo: Evan Kirby

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Supplier Report: 1/14/2017

AI, speech recognition, and cognitive computing are emerging as the hot terms in 2017 for both enterprise and the public. As these technologies truly become common, how do IT departments keep up when buying IT is becoming simultaneously easier and more complicated at the same time?

What happens to the companies this new technology is displacing? Dell/EMC announced another round of (expected) job eliminations and more are expected to follow.  Fitbit snapped up another smartwatch company to retire.  The remaining scraps of Yahoo are renaming and becoming a holding company.

Acquisitions

  • Atlassian acquires Trello for $425M

    Trello launched in the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in 2011 and in 2014, it was spun out of Fog Creek Software as a stand-alone company. With Trello, Atlassian is acquiring one of the fastest growing project management services. It now has about 19 million users and just under 100 employees, all of which will join Atlassian. After it was spun out of Fog Creek, Trello raised $10.3 million from BoxGroup, Index Ventures, Spark Capital and others.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/09/atlassian-acquires-trello/?ncid=rss

  • Amazon quietly acquired AI security startup harvest.ai for around $20M

    The San Diego-based startup, co-founded by a team that includes two former NSA employees, uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze user behavior around a company’s key IP to try to identify and stop targeted attacks before valuable customer data can be swiped.

    We were alerted to the acquisition by a tipster, who said the purchase price for harvest.ai was $19 million — a good return, considering that the startup only raised $2.3 million. The tipster also said the team’s 12 employees are relocating to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/09/amazon-aws-harvest-ai/?ncid=rss

  • Fitbit just bought another smartwatch startup

    Fitbit can confirm it has acquired specific assets from Vector Watch, a highly respected wearables company based in Europe and known for its innovative and cross-functional approach to design and development. The deal excludes Vector Watch’s hardware products. As with our recently announced acquisition of Pebble assets, Vector brings valuable industry expertise that will help accelerate the development of new products, features and functionality. With the addition of the Vector Watch team, we are establishing a cutting-edge development center in Bucharest, Romania, further building our global engineering capabilities and expanding our presence in EMEA.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/10/fitbit-just-bought-another-smartwatch-startup/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Amazon Is Building the Fourth Pillar of Its Business

    Nowhere is this emerging technology more evident than in the areas of voice recognition and natural language processing. Amazon’s contribution to the field is Alexa, its AI-driven, cloud-based, voice-activated assistant. Alexa controls a variety of Amazons products including the popular Echo smart speaker and its sibling the Echo Dot. Alexa acts as the software to the Echo hardware. This product ecosystem has a dedicated team of over 1,000 working on its development. Alexa’s home in the cloud allows it to learn continuously from all the devices it controls. The Echo and Echo Dot were among the most popular products on the Amazon website this holiday season.  Some estimates put sales of Echo products at over 5 million since their debut two years ago, and they were sold out on the website in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

    http://host.madison.com/business/investment/markets-and-stocks/amazon-is-building-the-fourth-pillar-of-its-business/article_3377eafd-ef72-5953-9961-72cabe3e0d3f.html

    AWS is the only one of its pillars that doesn’t have parallel connections with the retail part of Amazon’s business, and will probably be the last such silo Amazon builds. All of their current efforts for the future…Alexa integrations, Amazon Go physical stores, drone deliveries with a massive “mothership” fulfillment center hovering 45,000 feet above you…all of that is designed to eventually make Amazon the largest retailer in the world by any yardstick – sales volume, number of products, earnings, profitability, memberships, etc.

    http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/08/amazon-echo-alexa-follow-prime-aws-footsteps/

  • IBM Watson: The Growth Story Finally Unfolding

    I expect that IBM’s deal with Siemens will be a game-changer for Watson. Siemens has an enviable track record of introducing new innovations to OEMs and application developers. Its MindSphere platform, which is basically a PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) for the industrial sector, is the leading platform in the world. MindSphere offers cost-effective apps to the manufacturing industries across the world to allow them to benefit from the advantages of big data and analytics. The platform consists of a variety of tool for developers for enabling them to create specialized apps for industrial use. To put it into perspective, an app can allow a company to minimize manufacturing cost by adjusting output according to current input price in an automated manner.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/4034857-ibm-watson-growth-story-finally-unfolding

  • IBM’s Watson Health, Illumina team up on genomics sequencing, cancer research

    Under the partnership, Watson Genomics will be integrated into Illumina’s BaseSpace and Tumor Sequencing Process. Specifically, Watson Genomics will be available to interpret data produced by Illumina’s TruSight Tumor 170, which is a solid tumor profiling panel. The system aims to detect variants across 170 genes and looks at both RNA and DNA.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibms-watson-health-illumina-team-up-on-genomics-sequencing-cancer-research/

Cloud

  • Big Healthcare Players Store Big Data in the Cloud

    These benefits are moot points if privacy and security are not achieved. The security of personal health information is among the biggest concern with decision-makers when it comes to adopting cloud technologies. Most large cloud vendors, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), are HIPAA compliant and understand the complexities of healthcare. They have large and talented security teams that understand the impact a breach would have on their business.

    http://insidebigdata.com/2017/01/11/big-healthcare-players-store-big-data-in-the-cloud/

  • Unsanctioned cloud use remains a problem for enterprises

    The results show that half of all users of officially sanctioned cloud storage services like Box and Dropbox also have a personal instance of the same service. This can make detection of unauthorized copying of data more difficult.

    “Until very recently, organizations had to take an all-or-nothing approach to allowing cloud services. If they sanctioned a cloud storage service for corporate use, they also needed to accept any additional personal instances of that cloud storage service or block the service entirely,” says Sanjay Beri, founder and CEO of Netskope. “As our customers make cloud services a strategic advantage for their businesses, when it comes to governing and securing those services, they are realizing granular policies can ensure that sensitive data does not leak from the sanctioned instance of a corporate cloud service to an unsanctioned one”.

    http://betanews.com/2017/01/11/unsanctioned-cloud-problem/

  • Microsoft drops a pay-as-you-go Azure cloud option

    Geared to organizations with at least 250 users, MPSA is Microsoft’s simplified agreement consolidating purchase of cloud services and software. The move detailed today follows on Microsoft’s decision to not proceed with its proposed Enterprise Advantage program, which was meant to allow customers to buy organization-wide on the MPSA.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3156032/cloud-computing/microsoft-drops-a-pay-as-you-go-azure-cloud-option.html

  • Apple, Facebook, Google Rank Highest In Greenpeace Report

    Apple’s rating earned the company a clean energy index score of 83%, followed by Facebook at 67% and Google at 56%.

    Specific to search, company scorecards show that Google received a final grade of A, followed by Bing and Yahoo with a B rating. Daum.net received a C rating, followed by Naver with a C rating and Baidu, Nate, and Zum with a rating of F.

    To earn an A rating, Google received an A in renewable energy committing and siting policy, energy efficiency and mitigation, renewable procurement, and advocacy. The company earned a B rating in energy transparency.

    http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/292606/apple-facebook-google-rank-highest-in-greenpeace.html

Datacenter

  • All-flash storage startup Kaminario snares $75 million investment

    Kaminario made a couple of big bets when it launched back in 2010 that look pretty good today. First of all, the company decided to go with all-flash storage arrays when, Golan says, flash was running around a thousand dollars a gigabyte.

    It also made a deliberate play for the cloud market, particularly SaaS vendors, who need the kind of performance flash storage can provide. This was contrary to most storage vendors’ approach at the time, who were targeting enterprise IT.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/10/all-flash-storage-startup-kaminario-snares-75-million-investment/?ncid=rss

  • Dell EMC lifts the post-acquisition axe: Swwwwwing

    Dell Technologies’ 140,000 staffers have been wincing in anticipation for the expected 2,000-3,000 layoffs after the $67bn EMC acquisition completed, and now the wait is over. The axe is swinging and heads have begun to roll.

    A person close to the events told us: “Almost 80 people have been terminated from the Hopkinton location and there is more to come.”

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/12/emc_layoffs/

  • IBM: Cognitive computing needs flash arrays, mark our words (of course it does)

    IBM is putting its latest “cognitive” marketing spin on these systems, saying the microcode “is ideal for cognitive workloads requiring the highest availability and system reliability possible for mainframe and Power Systems.”

    It tells us that the arrrays are integrated with z System mainframe products through patented software that provides data protection, remote replication and optimisation for midrange and large enterprises.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/12/flash_arrays_for_cognitive_computing/

Software/SaaS

Other

  • IBM Sets New World Record With Over 8,000 Patents Granted In Just One Year

    IBM’s record setting year breaks down to more than 22 patents being granted per day in 2016. No other company was in contention to beat IBM for the most patents this year, as its nearest competitor, Samsung, earned a second place finish with 5,518 patents. After that the top 10 list is comprised of Canon (3,665), Qualcomm (2,897), Google (2,835), Intel (2,784), LG Electronics (2,428), Microsoft (2,398), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (2,288), and Sony (2,181).

    http://hothardware.com/news/ibm-sets-world-record-with-over-8000-patents-granted-in-one-year

  • Marissa Mayer resigning from Yahoo board as remaining company renames itself Altaba

    Only five board members will remain at Altaba: Tor Braham, Eric Brandt, Catherine Friedman, Thomas McInerney and Jeffrey Smith. The rest of Yahoo’s board, including CEO Marissa Mayer, will step down from the newly-formed company. Mayer may be tapped for a role in Yahoo’s integration at Verizon, but her position has yet to be announced.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/09/marissa-mayer-resigning-from-yahoo-board-as-company-renames-itself-altaba/?ncid=rss

  • Trump set to restrict program for foreign tech workers used by Microsoft

    Microsoft and other companies say the visa program is necessary, because there is not enough tech talent in the U.S. to fill jobs. Trump calls the H-1B visas “a cheap labor program.” His allies in Congress say they will introduce the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act to scrap the program, according to the Post.

    Trump’s stances on trade, foreign jobs, clean energy and immigration could present problems for the U.S. tech industry.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/01/09/trump-foreign-tech-h-1b-microsoft-jeff-sessions.html

  • LinkedIn may move its 10,000 employees off Google Apps – and not because of Microsoft

    According to someone close to the company, this change is not being driven by demands from Microsoft that LinkedIn switch to Office 365. We hear that Google is the one that isn’t thrilled to have such a large G Suite customer owned by Microsoft. Google doesn’t want to be put in a position where it’s sharing product road map and other tidbits with a company its biggest rival, this person tells us. (Google declined to comment)

    http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-may-move-its-10000-employees-off-google-apps-2017-1

  • Ex-Autonomy CFO Pleads Not Guilty in Case Over HP Buyout

    After Sushovan Hussain entered his plea Thursday, the San Francisco federal judge overseeing the case said he wants to move toward a trial without delay. The executive traveled voluntarily from England for Thursday’s hearing and his lawyer has said he’s eager to prove his innocence.

    Prosecutors charged Hussain in November, five years after Hewlett-Packard admitted that its 2011 acquisition of Autonomy was a bust. He and Autonomy co-founder Michael Lynch face a lawsuit by Hewlett-Packard in a London court seeking $5.1 billion over allegations they made false claims about Autonomy’s performance and financial condition to boost the company’s value. Lynch wasn’t charged in the December indictment.

    http://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/2017/01/12/ex-autonomy-cfo-pleads-not-guilty-in-hp-accounting-fraud-case

Photo: Kristopher Roller