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ENTBusinessNews

  • Robert Irvine: New App Makes It Possible For Restaurants To Reopen Safely

    Robert Irvine: New App Makes It Possible For Restaurants To Reopen Safely

    “We’ve partnered with the National Restaurant Association for a restaurant safety app called VirusSAFE Pro,” says Restaurant Impossible host Robert Irvine. “When you say you’ve done something, say you’re cleaning the refrigerator, and you’re actually outside smoking a cigarette, I know because of geotagging that you didn’t clean that when you said you did. It’s really about accountability of duty of care. What we’re trying to do is put back the consumer of customer confidence through transparency.”

    Robert Irvine, celebrity chef and host of Restaurant Impossible, discusses the launch of his new app VirusSAFE Pro which helps restaurants and consumers monitor the implementation of safety protocols. Irvine says the key is restoring “consumer confidence” in restaurant dining:

    VirusSAFE Pro App Helps Restaurants Stay Healthy

    We’ve actually partnered with the National Restaurant Association for a (restaurant safety app) called VirusSAFE Pro. It enables checklist reminders on your phone so that COVID-19 safety protocols are done in a timely manner and all the protocols are completed. You think about standing operating procedures for restaurants especially in the COVID-19 times where we’re looking at masks and gloves and everything that’s clean. 

    We’ve all been to airports and restaurants where people say that things have been done and they actually haven’t. VirusSAFE Pro is an app for phones that also has a desktop which helps with mitigation. When you say you’ve done something, say you’re cleaning the refrigerator, and you’re actually outside smoking a cigarette, I know because of geotagging that you didn’t clean that when you said you did. It’s really about accountability of duty of care. What we’re trying to do is put back the consumer of customer confidence through transparency. That’s the biggest part. It’s simple. It’s easy to use. It provides verification of stuff done in real-time.

    Right Now The Problem Is Consumer Confidence

    It’s 99 percent fail-safe as opposed to a pen and a piece of paper. I can actually tell you where you are and what you are doing. This is the only consumer-facing app that when you’re verified and you’re using that system you can put a check and verified sticker in your window. A consumer can then take their smartphone use it on the QR code and find out exactly what’s been done for the last 24 hours or 48 hours of your protocols. That allows a guest who has two kids that are below three years old or an 89-year-old grandmother to feel safe to go back into your restaurant. Right now the problem is consumer confidence. 

    It’s tracking everything that we’ve done for two years or more. You know what it’s like right now, everybody’s saying I got sick in your restaurant. Now I’ve got this mitigation tool to say we have done our best practices and protocols and our duty of care to make sure you are your safest. There is no system that’s 100 percent clear but this is 99 percent that we can follow what you’ve done, how you’ve done it, and make you want to get back to a restaurant. If you don’t do this and this is a big don’t, we already are at 30 to 40 percent of failure with the restaurants that will not be able to come past this pandemic. That is a huge amount when we’ve got 11 million folks out of work. 

    Restaurant Impossible Reopen

    I’ve just reopened six restaurants in three weeks in four states following COVID-19 closures putting in new practices and protocols to make sure that consumers are safe. You will hear more from me regarding this on my TV show Restaurant Impossible Reopen which you’ll see very soon. It’s really important that we take these protocols seriously.

    Robert Irvine: New App Makes It Possible For Restaurants To Reopen Safely
  • Tech And The Economic Recovery

    Tech And The Economic Recovery

    After the COVID-19 pandemic brought the global economy to a grinding halt, technology allowed it to start crawling forward again. This was by way of delivery apps for things like food and household goods as well as remote work, which has kept the economy moving, albeit more slowly than we would like. Without this technology our economy would already be destroyed, and it’s precisely this type of technology that is going to lead the way to the economic recovery.

    In some states as many as one in four people are out of work. These are mostly people whose jobs require in-person attendance in situations that local governments have deemed too unsafe. The restaurant industry has been hit especially hard as have bars and small retail shops as people choose larger big-box stores for their safe once weekly runs for necessary items.

    Fortunately, two in three Americans are still able to work remotely during the pandemic. For the most part, office jobs have migrated online anyway, and offices are full of people who are all sitting at computers all day. Almost all of this can be done remotely.

    The move to remote work is likely to be permanent, too. Three in five of the people who are currently working remotely wish to continue doing so after the pandemic passes, and before the pandemic just 29% of college graduates were working from home at least part of the time.

    Workers have been clamoring for remote work opportunities for years, though. Disability advocates say it gives disabled people the reasonable accommodations guaranteed them by the Americans with Disabilities Act in that they already have accessibility in their own homes that many offices do not offer. Remote work opportunities will also give more parents access to jobs that have flexibility when it comes to being around for the bus stop, eliminating the need for before and after school care.

    With more people gaining access to work opportunities that fit their lifestyles, the economy will make a better recovery. This is all fueled by technology and the internet, and the first thing to look at to spur this revolution is universal broadband access.

    Universal broadband has been on the radar for years already, but the pandemic has made it apparent how crucial this is to the basic functioning of our modern society. Currently around 21 million students in the United States lack access to high speed internet in their homes, and those students live in communities where businesses are also lacking the access needed to conduct normal business.

    Working toward universal broadband access could be this generation’s WPA, which could spur economic growth for decades to come.

    This economic downturn is an opportunity to build things stronger and better not only to withstand the next major economic crisis, but also to provide opportunity for the economy to grow and prosper. With advances in broadband access and work-from-home opportunities, the economy will be poised to make a recovery and go on to reach new heights.

    Learn more about the role tech will play in the economic recovery from the infographic below.

  • Slack Files Complaint Against Microsoft With EU

    Slack Files Complaint Against Microsoft With EU

    Slack has filed a complaint against Microsoft with the EU, claiming the company is engaging in anti-competitive practices with Teams.

    Slack and Teams have been locked in a bitter battle over the corporate messaging market. While Microsoft’s app has far surpassed Slack, in terms of users, Slack has continued to rack up some impressive contracts. In particular, Slack has become a popular choice among companies that compete with Microsoft and don’t want to rely on one of their competitors for their communication.

    Now Slack has upped the ante even more, filing a complaint with the EU. In particular, Slack is claiming that Microsoft is unfairly tying Teams to Office.

    “We’re confident that we win on the merits of our product, but we can’t ignore illegal behavior that deprives customers of access to the tools and solutions they want,” said Jonathan Prince, Vice President of Communications and Policy at Slack. “Slack threatens Microsoft’s hold on business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means Slack threatens Microsoft’s lock on enterprise software.”

    Microsoft should be concerned by this complaint, as it is similar to the complaint that was successfully used in Microsoft’s antitrust case in 2001. To make matters worse for the company, the EU is currently scrutinizing numerous US companies for anti-competitive practices. All of this means that Microsoft may find itself in an unfavorable climate should Slack’s complaint move forward.

  • EU Court Upholds Apple’s Irish Tax Deal

    EU Court Upholds Apple’s Irish Tax Deal

    Apple scored a big win in European courts, with the General Court of the European Union ruling Apple’s tax deal with Ireland was legal.

    The issue began when the European Commission (EC) ruled that Apple’s tax deal with Ireland was illegal, and improperly granted Apple an extraordinarily low tax rate. As a result, the EC said Apple owed some €13 billion in back taxes. Needless to say, Apple contested the ruling and vowed to fight it. Likewise, Ireland had a vested interest in the deal remaining in effect.

    Ireland has developed a reputation for having very favorable tax laws, especially for big corporations. This has led many companies to move part of their business to the country, creating jobs and more than offsetting the benefits that would be gained from higher taxes. Despite Apple and Ireland vehemently defending their arrangement, the EC had ruled it was illegal, prompting the €13 billion tax bill.

    The decision by the General Court of the European Union, the EU’s second-highest court, is a big win for Apple, Ireland and every other company that uses Ireland to get a lower tax rate.

    Meanwhile, Margrethe Vestager, the regulator who has made a reputation going after big companies, made the following statement:

    “We will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.”

  • Elected Officials Are Not Worried About The Little People, Says Landry’s CEO

    Elected Officials Are Not Worried About The Little People, Says Landry’s CEO

    Billionaire restaurant entrepreneur and Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta has had it with governors and mayors and their inconsistent “yo-yo” shutdown orders on his restaurants and the economy. He notes that despite news reports, hospitals are not even close to being overrun. “We’re not about to run out of hospital beds where we’re going to have people laying on the curve of the hospital.” 

    Fertitta is exasperated at the apparent lack of compassion that governors and mayors around the country have for the “poor working people of America” right now. “You cannot shut down the economy,” says Fertitta. “You cannot do this to employees. They did it to us again yesterday in California where they shut us down. There is no consideration at all for the poor working people of America right now the way they’re doing the yo-yo.”

    Fertitta adds: “The problem is I’ve yet to see an elected official miss a paycheck. Until an elected official misses a paycheck and feels some pain this is going to continue to happen.”

    Tilman Fertitta, CEO of Landry’s, and author of the book, “Shut Up and Listen!: Hard Business Truths that Will Help You Succeed” discusses how incompetent and disconnected urban governors and mayors have been in their response to COVID and their yo-yo shutdowns and how little they seem to care about poor working people in America:

    We Are Not About To Run Out Of Hospital Beds

    We went through this shutdown a couple of weeks ago and the people were back out this weekend. But remember, restaurants can only operate at 50 percent capacity. There are no bars or clubs and everybody’s being careful and everybody’s wearing face masks. We kind of leveled off at around negative 50 right now. But it’s tough out there. 

    We hear all these stories about the hospitals in Texas. Let me just give you Texas Medical Center in Houston which is one of the largest in the world. I think it is the largest. They’re in phase two at nine percent (capacity). This is phase two out of three phases. We’re not about to run out of hospital beds where we’re going to have people laying on the curve of the hospital. You got to remember there are 350 million people, only one percent or 340,000 people have had it. That’s less than one percent. This has got to work itself through the community and we’ve got to protect the people that can get it. 

    Elected Officials Are Not Worried About The Little People 

    At the same, you cannot shut down the economy. You cannot do this to employees. They did it to us again yesterday in California where they shut us down. There is no consideration at all for the poor working people of America right now the way they’re doing the yo-yo. The problem is I’ve yet to see an elected official miss a paycheck. Until an elected official misses a paycheck and feels some pain this is going to continue to happen. 

    They’re not worried about all the little people out there that are such hardworking people that make America thrive. They get their paychecks. Get them to give up 50 percent of their paychecks and feel some pain and then they’ll make better decisions for all the working people out there.

    We Cannot Continue To Have The Rules Change On Us

    The problem is that we’ve got mayors, governors, city, and county judges trying to make decisions. I think it is time for the government to come in and if it’s signing the War Act or whatever and doing something across the board. Remember, how you can be fair is you use percentages. If your county or city or state has this percentage of cases these are the rules you follow. This is what has to be shut down. I do think it should be federally mandated to treat everybody the same. 

    We cannot continue to have governors and mayors change the rules on us every other week. That is what’s happening right now. It’s totally unfair. Less than one percent of America has gotten COVID and it’s not going away. If you think your kids are going back to school and if you think all these sports are going to be played in a normal season, it’s not going to happen. Somebody’s got to take control of this situation and mandate what we all do.

    You Cannot Keep Your Employees At Work Down 54 Percent

    Vegas is struggling because you’re not getting all the flights in. Vegas is so built on the convention business and so vegas is struggling. In Atlantic City, there’s nothing open in the restaurant. You can’t take a drink of water and take your mask off unless it’s a health issue where you’re dehydrated and about to pass out. But Lake Charles, Laughlin, Biloxi, all your regional casinos around the country, are doing okay. They really are. But Vegas is struggling and Atlantic City is struggling.

    Let’s get into the restaurants. Your higher-end restaurants are doing better right now because you’re in July. Your waterfront restaurants are doing okay. But remember, you get back into your urban areas, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and there is nobody there. Most of them are just shut down or barely doing delivery to go. Overall, when you look at all my 600 restaurants in the month of July, I’m down 54 percent. You cannot operate at negative 54 percent. You cannot keep your employees at work at 54 percent.

    Elected Officials Are Not Worried About The Little People, Says Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta
  • Ecommerce Exploded When Everybody Got Their Stimulus Checks

    Ecommerce Exploded When Everybody Got Their Stimulus Checks

    “Ecommerce exploded when everybody got their stimulus checks,” says marketing superstar Gary Vaynerchuk. “It reminded me how much of a materialistic capitalistic country we are. The numbers are through the roof on food and beverage and things of that nature. Obviously, apparel has been hit in certain ways also. But net-net this is a capitalistic materialistic country and people want to buy things so you’re seeing a ton of activity.”

    Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia and host of his own “GaryVee” channel on YouTube with 2.6 million subscribers, discusses how ecommerce is booming in spite of the current pandemic:

    Ecommerce Exploded With The Stimulus Checks

    Ecommerce exploded when everybody got their stimulus checks. It reminded me how much of a materialistic capitalistic country we are. A lot of my businesses are in ecommerce and I was “micro happy.” But I was macro disappointed because I’m hoping that people learn how to save money during this time. With VaynerMedia, my marketing firm, we sit with a lot of Fortune 500 companies that have consumer brands and we’re very involved in a lot of their e-commerce businesses. 

    The numbers are through the roof on food and beverage and things of that nature. Obviously, apparel has been hit in certain ways also. But net-net this is a capitalistic materialistic country and people want to buy things so you’re seeing a ton of activity. Sports cards are a space I pay attention to. I can’t believe how well it’s doing. 

    People Still Think Another Stimulus Check Is Coming

    I actually think the macro conversation is the way this is all playing out. It’s disguising some of the economic vulnerabilities because we’re still in this cocoon. People still think there may be another stimulus check coming for me. As soon as this is over I’m gonna get a job.

    I think the most interesting part of this from a kind of thoughtful economic standpoint it’s kind of that first month to three months or four months after it gets back to normal-ish. I’m really eyeing February, March, and April of next year where I think that you could see a dip because people will say wait a minute we’re in something bad. Right now I think it’s fake to some people.

    Ecommerce Exploded When Everybody Got Their Stimulus Checks
  • If People Can Ride the Subway We Can Open Factories, Says Jason Calacanis

    If People Can Ride the Subway We Can Open Factories, Says Jason Calacanis

    “If people can ride the subway and if people can go to Trader Joe’s and pack into all these different places we can start to open factories,” says legendary tech entrepreneur Jason Calacanis during an interview on CNBC:

    When we look at the issues around reopening it’s very confusing for people running businesses today and I think for Americans generally. We’re not allowed to go to the beach and we’re not allowed to play golf but we can take the subway. This is the incredible failure of our government from the federal level down to the local level to not be able to give basic instructions and to have a clear voice.

    Somehow this has turned into a political issue which is the worst of all outcomes. You’re a Republican right-wing person if you want to go back to work. On the left if you let people go back to work you’re committing murder. It’s ridiculous. We have to take a much more measured thoughtful approach to let people go back to work who want to. I understand people are scared people and they can opt-out of this.

    We’ve got a lot of people who work behind keyboards, some of them in the media, who really want to tell people they can’t go back to work when they have a six-figure job clicking keys on a keyboard. It’s not very realistic. Certainly, if people can ride the subway and if people can go to Trader Joe’s and pack into all these different places we can start to open factories.

    If People Can Ride the Subway We Can Open Factories, Says Jason Calacanis
  • SAP Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan Leaving Company

    SAP Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan Leaving Company

    SAP Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan is departing the company, leaving Christian Klein as sole CEO.

    Morgan has been with the company since 2004, and jointly held the role of CEO with Klein since October 2019. The company says that Morgan “mutually agreed with the Supervisory Board of SAP SE” to resign and depart, effective April 30. At the same time, the announcement makes clear that the current economic crisis was a driving factor, with the decision to get behind a single CEO being “taken earlier than planned to ensure strong, unambiguous steering in times of an unprecedented crisis.” A single CEO will give the company a clear, unified leadership structure.

    “I’d like to thank Jennifer for her partnership over many years,” said CEO Christian Klein. “Throughout SAP’s transformation, Jennifer has always been laser-focused on customers, partners, shareholders and employees. It’s thanks to her that we have established a strong position in experience management solutions. I know she will always be a champion of SAP.”

    “It has been a great privilege to drive SAP’s growth and innovation in so many areas and most recently as Co-CEO,” said Jennifer Morgan. “With unprecedented change within the world, it has become clear that now is the right time for the company to transition to a single CEO leading the business. I would like to thank Hasso Plattner for the opportunity to co-lead this great company, and I wish Christian, the Executive Board, and SAP’s talented team much success as they drive the company forward.”

    It will be interesting to watch SAP to see if the change has a noticeable impact on the company’s operations.

  • Mark Cuban: Some Banks Actively Not Taking PPP Loan Applications

    Mark Cuban: Some Banks Actively Not Taking PPP Loan Applications

    “There are some banks who are actively trying not to take applications and to minimize the number of loans they make through the program,” says investor Mark Cuban. “This is despite the fact that it pays a five percent commission for the loans made on the small businesses. It might take the Treasury Department really pushing some banks who were unwilling participants to start to push some loans out there.”

    Mega entrepreneur Mark Cuban discusses the difficulties with the launch of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) designed to help small businesses in an interview on CNBC:

    Some Banks Actively Not Taking PPP Loan Applications

    You have got to execute on what you’ve already promised obviously. Small businesses have been told that this (PPP forgivable loan) was coming since the legislation was passed more than almost two weeks ago. The rush was more than the banks were able to handle. The banks have just got to do their job. 

    Part two to that is I think there are some banks who are actively trying not to take applications and to minimize the number of loans they make through the program. This is despite the fact that it pays a five percent commission for the loans made on the small businesses. It might take the Treasury Department really pushing some banks who were unwilling participants to start to push some loans out there.

    Surprising That Banks Not Taking Advantage Of Opportunity

    It’s kind of surprising to me because the reality is that the Fed has said that they’ll buy back all the loans. Plus on top of that, they’ll pay that five percent origination fee slash commission for smaller loans. So banks have an incentive and it’s a unique opportunity for banks to pick up new clients. Never in the history of banking has a bank been able to say to a small business, I’ll loan you money and if you increase or maintain your employment you don’t have to pay it back. 

    I really truly expected that forward-thinking banks would use this as a way to attract new customers because it’s a unique opportunity. But they just haven’t. It’s going to take some prodding, unfortunately, to really get the stimulus in the hands of those who need it. Also, unfortunately, even more so, it’s a race against time because a lot of these companies are looking at going out of business if they don’t get that money in their hands.

    Mark Cuban: Some Banks Actively Not Taking PPP Loan Applications
  • This Crisis Is Going To Change Retail, Says Caruso CEO

    This Crisis Is Going To Change Retail, Says Caruso CEO

    “The important thing to think about is that the biggest threat to brick-and-mortar retail is really the current version of themselves,” says Caruso CEO Rick Caruso. Caruso is one of the most successful retail developers in the United States. “Many of them have to evolve and many of them have to change because the consumer is going to change. This crisis, I believe, is going to change consumer culture, their expectations, and what they want from retailers in a really significant way.”

    Rick Caruso, founder, and CEO of the Caruso real-estate empire discusses how retail will be forever changed even after the current crisis is over:

    This Crisis Is Going To Change Retail

    I hope (retail jobs) come back I think some are going to be lost. The retail environment is tough out there right now. The important thing to think about is that the biggest threat to brick-and-mortar retail is really the current version of themselves. Many of them have to evolve and many of them have to change because the consumer is going to change. This crisis, I believe, is going to change consumer culture, their expectations, and what they want from retailers in a really significant way. 

    They’re going to be winners and they’re going to be losers. I think the winners are going to be very connected. They’re going to be curated and feel more local. They’re going to feel more personalized and they’re going to have a better value proposition. There are many out there that we’re doing that before this crisis began and they’ll continue to do it. I think they will be rewarded with great success and hopefully, they will drive a lot of hiring. There will be more retail jobs coming back into the current economy.

    People Are Going To Want More Physical Space

    I do think that people are going to want to have more physical space (after this crisis is over). I think they’re going to operate differently. Listen, 9/11 fundamentally changed our habits as human beings. But the one thing that is always crystal clear is we’re human souls that want to have a sense of connection and community and our properties provide that. The challenge for retailers inside their four walls is going to be to meet the customer where the customer wants them to be. 

    The very innovative and very smart retailers are going to do very well. When you get to crowded restaurants and things like that I think they’re going to have to change how they operate. Movie theatres may have to change how they operate for a while. There’s certainly going to be a shift. What we have seen is the isolation gets very tiring very quickly. So I think people are going to want to come out and they’re going to want to celebrate life and they want to connect with their community.

    Economy Is Built On The Back Of The Entrepreneur

    Some (of our retail tenants) are and some aren’t (paying rent right now). The ones that I worry about the most and I care about a lot are the smaller ones. These are the entrepreneurs and the people that have started a small business or a small restaurant. We’re leaning in with all of those to support them. I’m a big believer that the economy is built off the back of the individual entrepreneur.

    We’re going to support them to get them reopened so they can rehire and move forward. The tenants that are more creditworthy, which is a big chunk of our portfolio, they have been paying. My expectation is that they should, given these times, so that we can put more resources into the smaller businesses which clearly will need our help.

    We’re Giving Smaller Tenants Concessions On Rent

    We’re meeting with each of (our small business tenants) individually. It depends on certain circumstances but we’re going to give them concessions on rent. We certainly may give them concessions and investment in terms of TI’s and maybe upgrading their stores. Whatever they need to do. Our properties are very popular for a number of reasons but one of them is the small retailers, the entrepreneurs, the restaurant tourism. They’re the soul of the properties and they’re the fabric of the properties. We need those to survive.

    What we don’t want to do is have successful properties that are just full of national retailers. National retailers could be great but they don’t have the same connection to the community and the same soul that a local entrepreneur has. Those are the ones we’re very focused on supporting and working with.

    This Crisis Is Going To Change Retail, Says Caruso CEO Rick Caruso
  • Grubhub Rolls Out $30 Million Stimulus To Restaurants

    Grubhub Rolls Out $30 Million Stimulus To Restaurants

    “A $250 payment per restaurant (from Grubhub) doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s going to be a huge difference,” says Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney. “We’re looking at it as a stimulus almost because the way we’re rolling it out is a consumer gets $10 if they spend $30. So our $30 million dollars is going to transform into over $100 million dollars of food sales to restaurants across the country.”

    Matt Maloney, CEO of Grubhub, announces a $30 million stimulus to restaurants in a discussion on CNBC:

    Grubhub Rolls Out $30 Million Stimulus To Restaurants 

    A $250 payment per restaurant (from Grubhub) doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s going to be a huge difference. We’re looking at it as a stimulus almost because the way we’re rolling it out is a consumer gets $10 if they spend $30. So our $30 million dollars is going to transform into over $100 million dollars of food sales to restaurants across the country. That’s a big slug when everyone’s working really hard to try to put money in the hands of small businesses.

    It depends on the market (in terms of how many restaurants are still open). In early COVID West Coast markets, we saw a dramatic dip in restaurants that went off the platform. Now they’re starting to come back on. You have New York and Detroit that are in the throes of the crisis right now and so you’re they’re peaking with about 30 percent of the restaurants off. But remember, we’re having thousands and thousands of restaurants coming on the platform for the first time so we’re seeing about the same number in terms of net. It’s just a transition.

    Grubhub Triples Highest Restaurant Onboarding Month Ever

    Our teams are working around the clock. We tripled our most onboarding month ever of restaurants. We had 15,000 restaurants go live in March. We’re probably going to do more in April. It’s just an incredible intensity of need right now for restaurants. We’re doing everything we can to help them. With drivers, we launched contact-free pickup or drop-off. We also just launched, just last week, curbside pickup for the drivers to make sure there are two layers of protection.

    There’s plenty of work on Grub and I know there’s lots of work on other delivery platforms as well. We have our own stimulus for our drivers too. If they get impacted directly by COVID we’re paying them. I know other platforms are also. And, of course, the CARES Act just came through with a lot of relief for gig workers also. Everyone right now is all hands on deck trying to help the restaurants, the drivers, and everyone impacted through this economic and health care crisis. 

    Fundamental Economics Are Still Intact

    I am hoping for the best. I think that the fundamental economics of our society is still intact. There is a lot of demand right now for restaurants. If we can help restaurants get through the next few weeks or months, depending on how bad this is, they will come back, they will be there for our communities. If they can’t, then that’s going to be a real problem.

    What we’re seeing right now is as the crisis bottoms out in the market growth does start to come back in that local area. We’re seeing the crises (at different levels) around the country in different markets at different times so we’re trying to dynamically manage that situation on the ground.

    Grubhub Rolls Out $30 Million Stimulus To Restaurants, Says Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney

  • Slack CEO: We’ve Seen an Enormous Surge

    Slack CEO: We’ve Seen an Enormous Surge

    “In the first 60th percent of this quarter added 9,000 new paid customers,” says Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. “That’s a net number. This is compared to 5,000 for the previous quarter and 5,000 for the quarter before that. That’s an enormous surge. We’ve also seen the number of messages sent per user up 25 percent. Suddenly people are discovering a lot of techniques that were available to them before that suddenly become mandatory.”

    Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack, discusses via Zoom on CNBC how the pandemic has doubled their pace of growth:

    Customers Added Has Nearly Doubled

    You think about what people hope to accomplish out of having a meeting. It’s often to get a decision made. It’s to update people on the status of projects. There’s a whole bunch of reasons to have a meeting. There’s an immediate obvious switch that goes off in people’s heads, hey we used to sit in the same room and now we’re at home, we need to have a videoconference. But the best way to support that work in getting the decision made, getting people on the same page, and knowing where you can ask the question is often better served by other methods. In the case of Slack, that’s channels. 

    In the first 60th percent of this quarter added 9,000 new paid customers. That’s a net number. This is compared to 5,000 for the previous quarter and 5,000 for the quarter before that. That’s an enormous surge. We’ve also seen the number of messages sent per user up 25 percent. Suddenly people are discovering a lot of techniques that were available to them before that suddenly become mandatory. When the only tools you have to get work done are meetings and email and meetings suddenly become a lot harder to pull off you begin to look for alternatives.

    Right Now It Looks Great For Us

    We look at what might happen on the small business side (on whether we will see sustained growth). There could be millions of bankruptcies and that will obviously affect us. We have a very healthy small business part of Slack. Enterprises can shut down spending. On the other hand, we’ve seen the surge in sign-ups so obviously people are seeing the need. We also see expansion in existing enterprise customers. It’s very hard to know how those two forces balance each other out. 

    There are other things to consider too. I’ve been talking to other software CEOs. What do you do when you’re not doing field marketing events to drive new customers? What do you do when your salespeople can’t travel? What do you do when your executive briefing centers are shut? How is that going to manifest in pipeline and growth in 3, 6, 9, 12 months? Right now it looks great for us but it’s impossible to say how this takes out over the year.

    Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield: We’ve Seen an Enormous Surge
  • Waves of Job Losses For 2.2 Million Startup Employees, Says VC Group

    Waves of Job Losses For 2.2 Million Startup Employees, Says VC Group

    According to a report on CNBC, startups may not get government money from the coronavirus relief bill if they have already taken venture capital or private equity money.

    “So-called affiliation rules from the Small Business Administration could prevent startups from getting loans as part of that stimulus package,” says CNBC report Kate Rooney. “According to SBA rules, a startup should be affiliated with their investors. For example, if a VC backed company has 30 employees, it is grouped in with thousands of other employees at fellow portfolio companies.

    “The head of the National Venture Capital Association tells me that startups don’t have access to emergency capital in the meantime and there could be waves of job losses for the countries 2.2 million startup employees,” says Rooney.

  • Will the Coronavirus Spark a New Era for Business?

    Will the Coronavirus Spark a New Era for Business?

    Andy Kessler, a technology writer for the Wall Street Journal, suggests that similar to other world crises events, the coronavirus could spark a new era for business and the world. Notably, will the advent of millions of new people suddenly working remotely from home and being educated online become the norm once the fear and facts of the virus fade?

    “Eras change, sometimes overnight,” writes Kessler. “Classes will be online-only until further notice. Smart. But at some point parents will surely ask, “Why again are we paying 78 grand a year?” Is the end of universities far behind?”

    Kessler adds, “Similarly, lots of companies are telling employees to work at home. Will an era of telecommuting and no rush-hour traffic finally arrive?”

    If people and businesses experience how easy and less expensive it is to work from home using Slack, Zoom, and countless office productivity tools, then why not keep doing it after the crisis subsides?

    Slack CEO, Stuart Butterfield, recently noted how the coronavirus is impacting the growth of new executives finally embracing online conversation:

    “There are a lot of people who are moving to a remote work or work-from-home situation for the first time. A lot of executives who are struggling to figure out how to manage and maintain operational performance in this kind of environment. They have a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty. We’ve seen a surge in new teams created and people checking out Slack for the first time.”

    It will be interesting to see how this develops and if the coronavirus will change work and education as we know it.

  • Bill Gates Leaves Microsoft Board

    Bill Gates Leaves Microsoft Board

    Microsoft has announced that co-founder Bill Gates has stepped down from the company’s Board of Directors.

    Gates has not had a day-to-day role in the company since 2008, when he transitioned away to spend more time with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Even following today’s announcement, he will continue on as Technology Advisor to CEO Satya Nadella.

    “It’s been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years. Bill founded our company with a belief in the democratizing force of software and a passion to solve society’s most pressing challenges. And Microsoft and the world are better for it. The board has benefited from Bill’s leadership and vision. And Microsoft will continue to benefit from Bill’s ongoing technical passion and advice to drive our products and services forward. I am grateful for Bill’s friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him to realize our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

    “On behalf of our shareholders and the Board, I want to express my deep appreciation to Bill for all his contributions to Microsoft. As a member of the Board, he challenged us to think big and then think even bigger. He leaves an enduring legacy of curiosity and insight that serves as an inspiration for us all,” said John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent board chair.

    Even though Gates will continue to have input in his role as Technology Advisor, there’s no denying this is the end of an era for Microsoft.

  • Amazon Wins Temporary JEDI Injunction

    Amazon Wins Temporary JEDI Injunction

    A federal judge has sided with Amazon imposing a temporary injunction preventing Microsoft from working on the Pentagon’s JEDI contract.

    Microsoft won the Pentagon’s coveted Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract in October 2019, pulling off what was seen as an upset against rival Amazon. Industry experts had believed Amazon was all but guaranteed to win the contract, given its long history of working with classified government data. In fact, it wasn’t until after Microsoft won the award that it was granted the Impact Level 6 clearance, allowing it to store sensitive data in the cloud, rather than air-gapped computers.

    Following Microsoft’s win, Amazon immediately decried what it saw as bias and interference from President Trump. According to former Defense Secretary James Mattis’ biography, President Trump called him in 2018 and told him to “screw Amazon” over the JEDI contract.

    Amazon almost immediately filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. In the meantime, it also filed for a temporary injunction to prevent Microsoft from working on the contract until the matter could be settled. With a judge now granting the injunction, it appears the JEDI saga is far from over.

  • IBM Goes All-In On Slack, Deploys App To All 350,000 Employees

    IBM Goes All-In On Slack, Deploys App To All 350,000 Employees

    In a big win for Slack, Business Insider (BI) is reporting that IBM is deploying the messaging app to all of its 350,000 employees.

    Slack is locked in a rivalry with Microsoft Teams, with the two companies battling for the corporate messaging market. Microsoft Teams recently doubled Slack’s user base, and has kept the pressure up with TV ads. In spite of Microsoft’s momentum, however, IBM has chosen Slack as its messaging app of choice. This, in turn, helps Slack make the case that it can compete with Microsoft on the largest scale, in the most mission-critical environments.

    “Going wall to wall in IBM — it’s basically the maximum scale that there is, so we now know that Slack will work for literally the largest organizations in the world,” Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield told BI.

    Konrad Lagarde, director of IBM Toolbox, told BI that one of the reasons IBM went with Slack was their willingness to meet IBM’s needs. When Lagarde first starting using the app, teams were limited to 2,000 individuals. With some departments larger than that, IBM needed an app that could scale better and Slack was willing to add the necessary features.

    IBM also likely chose Slack over Microsoft Teams as a result of increasing competition between the two computing giants. Microsoft is second in the U.S. cloud market, and IBM has increasingly staked its future on moving into the cloud. In fact, IBM’s recent earnings were buoyed by its cloud business. Just as many retail companies are turning to Microsoft rather than relying their prime competitor Amazon, IBM probably wants to avoid relying on a company it directly competes with.

    Either way, today’s announcement is good news for Slack and will likely help the company continue to attract business, both large and small.

  • Analyst Believes Microsoft Could Buy Salesforce

    Analyst Believes Microsoft Could Buy Salesforce

    According to Business Insider (BI), Piper Sandler analyst Brent Bracelin is predicting Microsoft could buy Salesforce if it became available.

    Earlier reports by RBC Capital Markets predicted that Google may buy Salesforce in an effort to leapfrog Microsoft in the cloud market. Google is a distant third among U.S. cloud providers, and RBC did not see an organic way for the company to meet CEO Thomas Kurian’s goal of becoming the No. 2 provider within five years.

    Bracelin, however, believes Microsoft would be the buyer, not Google. Specifically, the purchase could help Microsoft gain market share in the front-office application space, “the market term for software that helps salespeople and service reps keep track of their customers, which is an area where Salesforce specializes,” according to BI.

    At this time, there is no evidence Salesforce is interested in selling. Even if it were, RBC believes a Salesforce acquisition could be valued as high as $250 billion, almost 10 times what Microsoft paid for LinkedIn, its largest acquisition to date.

    One thing is certain: If Salesforce ever does go up for sale, there could be a major bidding war for the company.

  • DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify, Says COO

    DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify, Says COO

    Direct to consumer brands are doing incredible numbers on Shopify, says Shopify COO Harley Finkelstein. He says that Kylie Jenner has generated almost a billion dollars in sales on the platform and many other influencers such as Kanye West, Drake, and most recently Tom Brady are also doing very well.

    “Even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind,” says Finklestein. “Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience.”

    Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, talks about the incredible numbers DTC brands are doing on Shopify, the huge success of Shopify Capital, and their quick acceptance of cannabis stores in Canada and potentially the rest of the world, in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify

    We’re really happy with how we ended the year and certainly, the quarter was great and we’re really excited about our future. We’ve been at this now for almost 14 years. We’ve grown to 820,000 merchants up from 600,000 merchants a year ago. We have a big top of funnel with brand new entrepreneurs getting started on Shopify for the very first time. We also have some very large brands like the big CPGs and some big direct to consumer (DTC) companies all using Shopify to scale their businesses. We’ve got a really great business model and we’re having a lot of fun.

    It’s amazing. I think the Kylie story ($1 billion in sales) was surprising to a lot of people, not for us because we see so many stories like that all the time. Whether it’s Kanye West launching his Yeezy store on Shopify or Drake’s store or Tom Brady’s new store, we see all of these major brands and huge influencers using Shopify to create authentic products and sell it to the audience. I always sort of think back to if DTC and direct-to-consumer were around when Michael Jordan was creating the Jordan brand with Nike I think Nike would be a supplier and Michael Jordan would be the brand. He would own the entirety of his business as opposed to getting a licensing fee.

    We’re really excited about this. But even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind. Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience. We really do bend the learning curve to make it really easy to get started.

    Shopify Helping Democratize the Entire Business Process

    The ones that succeed, not all of them do, but the ones that do succeed they grow really large with us and over time we want to provide them with more services and more solutions. For example, we launched Shopify Payments a couple of years ago. We went to the payments companies and negotiated rates on their behalf. We launched Shopify Shipping and went to the shipping company and negotiated shipping costs on their behalf. We always are trying to find economies of scale to help democratize the entire business process for these small businesses.

    More recently we realized that a lot of these small businesses also need capital. Because we have so much information on them we’re able to make really quick and very effective underwriting decisions so we were able to go and offer them capital cash advances. We’ve given out hundreds of millions of dollars of cash advances to a lot of these small businesses who if it wasn’t for Shopify would not be able to get this money on their own.

    Entrepreneurs Want to Own Their Audience

    Etsy fundamentally is a marketplace. Etsy is a place where someone who makes a product can go to find an audience. But our feeling is that you know for an entrepreneur they don’t always want to rent the audience. They want to own the audience. They want to have a direct relationship with their customers. They want to own the entire to profit margin. They want to be able to sell and have long-term relations with the people that are buying their products.

    So companies like Etsy do a really good job of curating a bunch of products and renting those customers to those makers. We think the marketplaces are really great but we think ultimately makers and entrepreneurs and merchants want to have a direct relationship with the people buying their products. One of the things that is not well known about Shopify but one way to think about what we do is really this retail operating system. Merchants can start a store with us very easily and they can build a beautiful online store but they can also cross-sell to different marketplaces like eBay or Amazon.

    The idea is that it feeds all feeds back in one centralized back office which is Shopify. That’s where they can run the entirety of their business. Really the idea is let’s become the most important piece of software they use on a daily basis. The first thing they open every morning, the last thing they close every night. So obviously marketplace will play a role there but ultimately merchants want to find customers wherever those customers exist and more and more they want to sell direct to those customers.

    Shopify Facilitating Cannabis Sales in Canada

    The reason we started with Canada was there was clarity in Canada. The Canadian government, the legislature, they were very clear with how they were going to roll out the commercialization and the legalization of cannabis sales on the consumer side. We felt it was really important for us to act quickly and effectively to not only win as much of the Canadian market as we possibly could but also to show the rest of the world as they begin to think about cannabis sales that we are the first phone call that they should be making.

    Whether it’s the province of Ontario or British Columbia or most of the largest licensed producers like Canopy in Canada, Shopify is what’s powering those retail sales. We think that we can do a great job helping other countries and other regions do the same thing.

  • Oracle Adds Five Cloud Regions In Bid to Take On Rivals

    Oracle Adds Five Cloud Regions In Bid to Take On Rivals

    Oracle has added five new cloud regions as it works to take on Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud market, according to a company press release.

    According to the announcement, Oracle has“added local regions in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah), Australia (Melbourne), Japan (Osaka), Canada (Montreal), and The Netherlands (Amsterdam). As of today, all of them are open for business and available in the Oracle Cloud Console.”

    The company has added 10 new regions in the last six months, making a total of 21 locations offering Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud. The company’s goal is to reach 36 by the end of 2020 and, with this announcement, it says it is on target to reach that goal.

    The company is also focused on redundancy to meet customers mission-critical needs.

    “To that end, four of these new regions—Osaka, Melbourne, Montreal, and Amsterdam—give customers a second site within the same country (or, in the case of Amsterdam in the EU, a second jurisdiction paired with Oracle’s existing Frankfurt region),” the press release reads. “The fifth region, in Saudi Arabia, will be joined by a second region later this year.

    “Oracle plans to put a minimum of two regions in almost every country where we operate, and these new regions mark a big step toward this goal. The United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, India, and Brazil will also have two regions live by the end of 2020.”

    It remains to be seen if Oracle can compete long-term with Amazon and Microsoft. Amazon currently dominates the cloud market, but Microsoft has been making significant headway, with some analysts predicting it could overtake Amazon. In the meantime, Oracle is one of the companies seen as most vulnerable to continued gains by Microsoft.

  • No More BlackBerry Phones From TCL

    No More BlackBerry Phones From TCL

    TCL Communication has lost its license to design and manufacture Blackberry phones, according to Digital Trends.

    In late 2016, BlackBerry stopped making its own phones, in favor of licensing manufacturing rights to other companies. TCL Communication was chosen as the global licensee, manufacturing and marketing phones under the name “BlackBerry Mobile.”

    According to a tweet on the official BlackBerry Mobile account, “as of August 31, 2020, TCL Communication will no longer be selling BlackBerry-branded mobile devices. TCL Communication has no further rights to design, manufacture or sell any new BlackBerry mobile devices.”

    As Digital Trends points out, it’s uncertain what has prompted the move. It’s possible the license simply expired. It’s also possible TCL may want to branch out on its own, using the experience it’s gained manufacturing BlackBerry phones to design and create its own line.

    Whatever the reason, it leaves the BlackBerry brand in unknown territory. It remains to be seen if another company will buy up the global license, or if BlackBerry will focus exclusively on software from this point forward.