WebProNews

Category: SoftwareEngineerNews

SoftwareEngineerNews

  • Microsoft Unlocks Power Of 5G For Telecommunications

    Microsoft Unlocks Power Of 5G For Telecommunications

    “Today starts a new chapter in our close collaboration with the telecommunications industry to unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever,” said Microsoft Azure Executive Vice President Jason Zander in a blog announcement. “We’re building a carrier-grade cloud and bringing more Microsoft technology to the operator’s edge. This, in combination with our developer ecosystem, will help operators to future proof their networks, drive down costs, and create new services and business models.”

    Jason Zander, Executive Vice President, Microsoft Azure, announces new collaborations with the telecommunications industry that will unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever:

    The increasing demand for always-on connectivity, immersive experiences, secure collaboration, and remote human relationships is pushing networks to their limits, while the market is driving down price. The network infrastructure must ensure operators are able to optimize costs and gain efficiencies, while enabling the development of personalized and differentiated services. To address the requirements of rolling out 5G, operators will face strong challenges, including high capital expenditure (CapEx) investments, an increased need for scale, automation, and secure management of the massive volume of data it will generate.

    Today starts a new chapter in our close collaboration with the telecommunications industry to unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever. We’re building a carrier-grade cloud and bringing more Microsoft technology to the operator’s edge. This, in combination with our developer ecosystem, will help operators to future proof their networks, drive down costs, and create new services and business models.

    In Microsoft, operators get a trusted partner who will empower them to unlock the potential of 5G. Enabling them to offer a range of new services such as ultra-reliable low-latency connectivity, mixed reality communications services, network slicing, and highly scalable IoT applications to transform entire industries and communities.

    By harnessing the power of Microsoft Azure, on their edge, or in the cloud, operators can transition to a more flexible and scalable model, drive down infrastructure cost, use AI and machine learning (ML) to automate operations and create service differentiation. Furthermore, a hybrid and hyper-scale infrastructure will provide operators with the agility they need to rapidly innovate and experiment with new 5G services on a programmable network.

    More specifically, we will further support operators as they evolve their infrastructure and operations using technologies such as software-defined networking, network function virtualization, and service-based architectures. We are bringing to market a carrier-grade platform for edge and cloud to support the operator’s goals to future proof their infrastructure with disaggregated, and containerized network architectures. Recognizing that not everything will move to the public cloud, we will meet operators where they are—whether at the enterprise edge, the network edge, or in the cloud.

    Our approach is built on the acquisitions of industry leaders in cloud-native network functions—Affirmed Networks and Metaswitch and on the development of Azure Edge Zones. By bringing together hundreds of engineers with deep experience in the telecommunications space, we are ensuring that our product development process is catering to the most relevant networking needs of the operators. We will leverage the strengths of Microsoft to extend and enhance the current capabilities of industry-leading products such as Affirmed’s 5G core and Metaswitch’s UC portfolio. These capabilities, combined with Microsoft’s broad developer ecosystem and deep business to business partnership programs, provide Microsoft with a unique ability to support the operators as they seek to monetize the capabilities of their networks.

    Your customer, your service, powered by our technology

    As we build out our partnerships with different operators, it is clear to us that there will be different approaches to technology adoption based on business needs. Some operators may choose to adopt the Azure platform and select a varied mix of virtualized or containerized network function providers. We also have operators that have requested complete end-to-end services as components for their offers. As a part of these discussions, many operators have identified points of control that are important to them, for example:

    • Control over where a slice, network API, or function is presented to the customer.
    • Definition of where and how traffic enters and exits their network.
    • Visibility and control over where key functions are executed for a given customer scenario.
    • Configuration and performance parameters of core network functions.

    As we build out Azure for Operators, we recognize the importance of ensuring operators have the control and visibility they require to manage their unique industry requirements. To that end, here is how our assets come together to provide operators with the platform they need.

    Communication Service Providers

    Interconnect

    It starts with the ability to interconnect deeply with the operator’s network around the globe. We have one of the largest networks that connect with operators at more than 170 points of presence and over 20,000 peering connections around the globe, putting direct connectivity within 25 miles of 85 percent of the world’s GDP. More than 200 operators have already chosen to integrate with the Azure network through our ExpressRoute service, enabling enterprises and partners to link their corporate networks privately and securely to Azure services. We also provide additional routes to connect to the service through options as varied as satellite connectivity and TV White Space spectrum.

    Edge platform

    This reach helps us to supply operators with cloud computing options that meet the customer wherever those capabilities are needed: at the enterprise edge, the network edge, the network core, or in the cloud. The various form factors, optimized to support the location in which they are deployed, are supported by the Azure platform—providing virtual machine and container services with a common management framework, DevOps support, and security control.

    Network functions

    We believe in an open platform that leverages the strengths of our partners. Our solutions are a combination of virtualized and containerized services as composable functions, developed by us and by our Network Equipment Provider partners, to support operators’ services such as the Radio Access Network, Mobile Packet Core, Voice and Interconnect services, and other network functions.

    Technology from Affirmed and Metaswitch Networks will provide services for Mobile Packet Core, Voice, and Interconnect services.

    Cloud solutions and Azure IoT for operators

    By exposing these services through the Azure platform, we can combine them with other Azure capabilities such as Azure Cognitive Services (used by more than 1 million developers processing more than 10 billion transaction per day), Azure Machine Learning, and Azure IoT, to bring the power of AI and automation to the delivery of network services. These capabilities, in concert with our partnerships with OSS and BSS providers, enables us to help operators streamline and simplify operations, create new services to monetize the network, and gain greater insights into customer behavior.

    In IoT our primary focus is simplifying our solutions to accelerate what we can do together from the edge to the cloud. We’ve done so by creating a platform that provides simple and secure provisioning of applications and devices to Azure cloud solutions through Azure IoT Central, which is the fastest and easiest way to build IoT solutions at scale. IoT Central enables customers to provision an IoT app in seconds, customize it in hours, and go to production the same day. IoT Plug and Play dramatically simplifies all aspects of IoT device support and provides devices that “just work” with any solution and is the perfect complement to achieve speed and simplicity through IoT Central. Azure IoT Central also gives the Mobile Operator the opportunity to monetize more of the IoT solution and puts them in a position to be a re-seller of the IoT Central application platform through their own solutions. Learn more about using Azure IoT for operators here.

    Cellular connectivity is increasingly important for IoT solutions and represents a vast and generational shift for mobile operators as the share of devices in market shifts towards the enterprise. We will continue our deep partnership with operators to enable fast and efficient app development and deployment, which is critical to success at the edge. This will help support scenarios such as asset tracking across industries, manufacturing and distribution of smart products, and responsive supply chains. It will also help support scenarios where things are geographically dispersed, such as smart city automation, utility monitoring, and precision agriculture.

    Where we go next

    Our early engagement with partners such as Telstra and Etisalat helped us shape this path. We joined the 5G Open Innovation Lab as the founding public cloud partner to accelerate enterprise startups and launch new innovations to foster new 5G use cases with even greater access to leading-edge networks. The Lab will create long-term, sustainable developer and commercial ecosystems that will accelerate the delivery of exciting new capabilities at the edge, including pervasive IoT intelligence and immersive mixed reality. And this is just the beginning. I invite you to learn more about our solutions and watch the series of videos we have curated for you.

  • AI Reshaping Wealth Management With Aiera

    AI Reshaping Wealth Management With Aiera

    Ken Sena, co-founder, and CEO at Aiera discusses how Aiera is revolutionizing the use of artificial intelligence by investment analysts:

    We started Aiera with the idea of just trying to help clients engage with the advances that were coming through tech. Our focus was really Amazon. Aiera spawned from an Amazon research report, where we’re trying to just advocate for clients that they have to start taking this seriously in terms of how industries will change. We thought one way to help them do that aside from just the stock price and what Amazon had been doing in the past was to help them look to how their own roles could change.

    Aiera stands for AI Equity Research Analysis. The AI is silent. Within Aiera we’re really trying to pay respect to the research analysts role. We’re trying to learn that the best we can in terms of the rules that they follow to understand markets that are constantly in flux, equities, and where their stories are constantly changing. We’ve been at this for about three years now.

    Analysts really want to understand the why. They want to understand the critical events within conferences, filings, and news. We want to make that as easy as possible. What we’re trying to help clients with the most is helping them be able to be updated on the 40,000 events that we are processing right now. We want to help them access those events easily. Ultimately, whether it’s through alerts, search, or comparisons, really be more informed than they’ve been in the past. That’s how we’re trying to revolutionize the more traditional sell-side models.

    A little bit is generational (in terms of the use of Aiera). When we started Aiera the business side was very focused in New York. All of our clients were in New York and there was a lot more face to face and a lot more in their offices showing them Aiera on a big screen. But inevitably we’d run into well how do we connect to the WiFi? Well, can you see what I’m trying to show you here? Whereas on a screen you can just follow the cursor. It’s easier to express to that other side exactly what it is trying to show them when selling software.

    My generation still very much values that face-to-face. But when I look at our devs and most of them have worked distributed from the beginning they don’t value that same kind of face-to-face. I can also look to the other generations particularly those who are in tech and say they don’t need it in the same way. They don’t even know maybe what they’re missing in the same way that I feel from what’s happened during COVID.

    Aiera is an event intelligence and insights platform founded by former Internet equity research analyst, Ken Sena (CEO), and Amazon Alexa engineering lead, Bryan Healey (CTO). Aiera began as a collaboration on how natural language processing could improve investment workflow. Aiera now covers over 40,000 live events per year, including earnings calls, analyst days, management conferences, and more, tying these events to millions of documents it is simultaneously processing and analyzing, and offering users the ability to set intelligent monitors to track what matters to them most.

  • Swift System Goes Open Source, Adds Linux Support

    Swift System Goes Open Source, Adds Linux Support

    Apple has open sourced Swift System and added support for Linux, according to Apple developer Michael Ilseman.

    Since Apple introduced Swift, it has quickly become one of the most important programming languages in use, largely supplanting its predecessor, Objective-C. Swift is the native language for creating macOS, iOS and iPadOS apps. In June, Apple released “Swift System, a new library for Apple platforms that provides idiomatic interfaces to system calls and low-level currency types.”

    Apple has now open sourced the library and made it available for Linux as well. Swift System helps address issues with imported C interfaces, providing a better way to handle system calls.

    Ilseman highlights the advantages of System being a multi-platform library, as opposed to a cross-platform one:

    “System is a multi-platform library, not a cross-platform one. It provides a separate set of APIs and behaviors on every supported platform, closely reflecting the underlying OS interfaces. A single import will pull in the native platform interfaces specific for the targeted OS.

    “Our immediate goal is to simplify building cross-platform libraries and applications such as SwiftNIO and the Swift Package Manager. System does not eliminate the need for #if os() conditionals to implement cross-platform abstractions, but it does make it safer and more expressive to fill out the platform-specific parts.”

    By the sounds of Ilseman’s post, it looks as though Apple has big plans for System.

  • NASA: America’s Space Agenda Is Really On Fire

    NASA: America’s Space Agenda Is Really On Fire

    “America’s space economy and America’s space agenda is really on fire right now,” says NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “That’s in large part because of President Trump and in fact bipartisan support in the House and Senate. What we are doing is inspiring the nation for American greatness to go out decades into the future. It really is starting right now with America’s and President Trump’s Moon to Mars program. Without him, this would not be happening.”

    NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine

    Jim Bridenstine, Administrator of NASA, discusses the NASA Economic Impact Report that was released today and says that under Trump America’s space agenda is on fire:

    America’s Space Agenda Is Really On Fire

    Today’s NASA Economic Impact Report is about direct economic output. What’s not in the report are all of the advancements that come from NASA that get commercialized over decades. For example, satellites and internet broadband. Then from there, we think about not just communications but navigation, how we produce food, and how we produce energy. Also, how we predict the weather, how we do disaster relief, and national security.

    President Trump is as focused as any president in history on America’s space agenda. That’s not just exploration. It’s also national security and defense. I used to say, President Trump is more supportive of space than any president since John F. Kennedy. But I will also tell you, John F. Kennedy didn’t create the Space Force. America’s space economy and America’s space agenda is really on fire right now. That’s in large part because of President Trump and in fact bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

    Economic Impact Of Artemis: 120,000 Jobs by 2021

    The economic impact of the Artemis Program alone is over 60,000 jobs in 2019. The agenda to get to the Moon is ramping up right now. By 2021, those numbers are going to double. These are not low paying jobs. These are high tech jobs employing highly qualified people. These are the kind of things that also inspire the next generation to go into the STEM fields to make sure that America remains preeminent in technology.

    If you just walk around NASA today and ask people why they work at the agency, they will tell you about how inspired they were when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. Then we did five Moon missions after that. What we are doing is inspiring the nation for American greatness to go out decades into the future. It really is starting right now with America’s and President Trump’s Moon to Mars program. Without him, this would not be happening.

  • Box CEO: We Have Been Thrust Into Remote Work

    Box CEO: We Have Been Thrust Into Remote Work

    “We have been thrust into remote work without a lot of the preparation and in some cases underlying infrastructure, data security, or underlying cloud platforms,” says Box CEO Aaron Levie. “What we’re finding, and certainly at least for the organizations that have had the ability to adapt successfully to this environment, is that there are better ways to get work done.”

    Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, discusses how the pandemic has thrust companies into remote work and this will move enterprises toward a hybrid workplace:

    We Have Been Thrust Into Remote Work

    We have been thrust into remote work without a lot of the preparation and in some cases underlying infrastructure, data security, or underlying cloud platforms. What we’re finding, and certainly at least for the organizations that have had the ability to adapt successfully to this environment, is that there are better ways to get work done. Now that we’ve moved to this virtual way of working there are a lot of situations where we used to have to do business travel. Being able to quickly hop on a Webex or a Skype call or a Zoom session is actually much more efficient to be able to have that conversation.

    We have a lot of situations that Box internally and with our customers where normally you might be collaborating with five or ten people in a meeting inside of a conference room. Now you can move that to a Slack channel and actually communicate with maybe 50 or 100 people on that same project. You’re actually building a much more inclusive organization with way more people that can be engaged and involved in your ultimate vision and what you’re executing on. We’re seeing actually some really positive ways of working in this environment.

    The Future Is A Hybrid Workplace

    Any tech company and any company globally really wants to get back to some version of normal. We certainly want offices to open up as quickly as possible. We want to make sure that we can see our colleagues in person. But I do think that there’s no going back from this new virtual way of being able to stay productive. The future is one of a hybrid workplace where you go into the office for some experiences and purposes and then you’re also going to be able to have much more flexibility and be able to work remotely. The digital workplace is what’s going to then bridge those two worlds together.

    By and large, cost savings is not the main factor of why you’ve seen so much excitement around remote work or more workplace flexibility. If you can be just as productive from your laptop on a Slack channel and over a Zoom call but you could then be in any place that you desire as opposed to being in a 60 or 90-minute commute each way and paying way too much for real estate. For those of us that live in Silicon Valley, this is a very expensive real estate market. So if you could have better flexibility and be able to have a little bit more space and you can stay just as productive, wouldn’t that be a better way of working?

    Lot’s Of Reasons Why Offices Will Still Exist

    What companies are realizing is as they want to actually give that choice out to their employees. They can still run very productive organizations. We at Box have been able to drive as much innovation in this environment as we have in an office environment. We want to make sure that we’re creating that type of flexibility for employees. That being said, there are a lot of benefits to being able to work in an office with your colleagues.

    For younger employees that are just integrating into the workplace for the first time you want to get to know your colleagues and you want to be able to be a part of maybe a more than just a business community. You may actually want to be able to build your business network through that experience. Also important is mentorship and being able to make sure that you’ve got more camaraderie. There are a lot of reasons why offices are still going to exist in the future. But digital technology is going to afford companies to have way greater flexibility no matter which route they choose.

  • Salesforce CEO: We Are In A New Digital World

    Salesforce CEO: We Are In A New Digital World

    “We are in a new digital world―in an ALL digital world,” says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “The past is gone and it’s not coming back. We are not in the future. We are in the present moment. We are now in this new digital future and we need to rebuild our companies and organizations. This is a moment where if we all decide that we are all going to be successful and that the past is gone, we can create the future that we want.”

    Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, discusses how we are not living in the past or the future, we are living in the present. He says that the present is a new digital world in an all digital world:

    This Is About Helping Our Customers Thrive

    We are, of course, in an unpredictable time. There’s never been greater uncertainty in the entire world because you have a global pandemic, you have a global economic crisis, you have a racial justice crisis, you have a global leadership crisis, and you have a global environmental crisis, and they are all happening simultaneously. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world. That’s why we all really have to focus and get really clear on what we want right now and how we are going to succeed through these times.

    This is a time that you can no longer do what you were doing six months ago. You have to do something totally new and if you can do something totally new you can have tremendous success. Salesforce is now an example of that success. We delivered a 29 percent growth quarter. It was amazing. That followed a 30 percent growth quarter. We also had record margins and we had record large deals. It was amazing how many very large transactions we were able to close during that time.

    Ultimately, this is about helping our customers succeed and helping them thrive during this time. It was a 63 percent increase in seven-figure deals for our quarter. It is really because the largest most important companies in this world are all making dramatic changes and we’re there to help them connect with their customers in a whole new way.

    We Are In A New Digital World… In An All Digital World

    We are in a new digital world―in an ALL digital world. The past is gone. It’s not coming back. We are not in the future. We are in the present moment. This is a be here now moment. Everyone needs to realize that the past is gone. We are now in this new digital future and we need to rebuild our companies and organizations. Ultimately, we need to rebuild ourselves to be successful in this new digital future.

    I just had a Board meeting last week. I had a Board member and they were talking about how great Zoom is and how we participated in this great IPO and successful it is. The Board members said that Zoom is really the future. I said, look, Zoom is not the future. Zoom is the present. This is our present reality. We are in a new world. This is our reality. We need to all make changes and we need to make them now because this is not going to shift anytime soon. If we’re going to succeed through this we need to realize that the past is gone.

    We Can Create The Future That We Want

    We are never going back to how it was. All of our employees are at home. Even in countries where we are open like Japan employees don’t want to even come in to the office because they have reskilled themselves. We have a whole reskilling engine called Trailhead.com. They use our tools. We have a tremendous salesforce automation tool that lets our employees sell to our customers remotely digitally. Our Sales Cloud is why we have tremendous sales, productivity, and success. Our Service Cloud is why we are having tremendous ability to service from anywhere and market from anywhere. The reason we’re the fastest growing top five software company in the world is because we use our own products.

    This is just a minute in time where I say, wow, I didn’t see this coming. Nobody did. But now that we’re here we have to rebuild ourselves. At the same time we have to also augment for our customers what we can do. We are doing now contact tracing for thousands of companies. We run pandemic response management for 35 states. We didn’t have a pandemic response capability six months ago. Now we have to have it.

    We have to be there for our customers to help them be successful whether they are public sector organizations or whether they are the world’s most important companies. This is a moment where if we all decide that we are all going to be successful and that the past is gone, we can create the future that we want.

    Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: We Are In A New Digital World
  • Microsoft Buys Game Maker ZeniMax for $7.5 Billion

    Microsoft Buys Game Maker ZeniMax for $7.5 Billion

    Microsoft on Monday announced plans to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, one of the largest, privately-held game developers and publishers in the world. The ZeniMax library includes game franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, and Rage, among many others, Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash.

    “Gaming is the most expansive category in the entertainment industry, as people everywhere turn to gaming to connect, socialize and play with their friends,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Quality differentiated content is the engine behind the growth and value of Xbox Game Pass—from Minecraft to Flight Simulator. As a proven game developer and publisher, Bethesda has seen success across every category of games, and together, we will further our ambition to empower the more than three billion gamers worldwide.”

    “This is an awesome time to be an Xbox fan. In the last 10 days alone, we’ve released details on our two new consoles which go on pre-order tomorrow, launched cloud gaming in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and now we’re making another investment in the most critical part of our strategy: the games,” said Phil Spencer, executive vice president, Gaming at Microsoft. “Generations of gamers have been captivated by the renowned franchises in the Bethesda portfolio and will continue to be so for years to come as part of Xbox.”

    Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media was founded in 1999 by Chairman and CEO Robert A. Altman; Bethesda’s structure and leadership will remain in place.

    “This is a thrilling day for this company, our employees, and our fans. We have enjoyed a close partnership with Microsoft for decades, and this deal is a natural progression of those years working together,” said Altman. “The big winners today are our fans. We are continuing to develop our slate of AAA games, but now with Microsoft’s scale and entire Game Stack, our games can only get better.”

    Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft, discusses the company’s acquisition of game maker ZeniMax and how this impacts gaming and the Xbox platform:

    Adding ZeniMax Games To Xbox Is Incredible

    Gamers love great games. The Xbox console is going on preorder tomorrow for the next generation. Just last week we added Game Pass cloud streaming so that people can play this Game Pass library across all of their Android phones. Then obviously Game Pass which is the largest game content subscription out there with 15 million subscribers and growing. So getting to work with ZeniMax to bring their amazing collection of games to GamePass is just an incredible opportunity for us.

    Our plan is to leave it alone. ZeniMax has an amazing track record of building great games. Our goal is to make ZeniMax the best ZeniMax they can be. ZeniMax will be working individually with their studios on the great platform technology that we have, getting their creators feedback into the things that we need to go build. That’s just a critical flywheel for us innovating, just the feedback from the world’s best creators on our platform.

    Committed To Bringing Game Pass To iPhones

    When you get large scale general compute platforms like mobile phones people should have access to the great content and services that are out there. We remain committed to that. There are over 3 billion people who play video games today and many of them play on phones. We’re committed to bringing Game Pass to all mobile phones out there including Apple phones. We will continue to have conversations and I’m sure we will be able to get to some resolution.

    Our biggest issue (with the Apple app store) isn’t a financial issue. Our biggest issue is that cloud game streaming apps are actually not allowed in the way that Game Pass is built for other platforms. For us, this is about gamers having great access to the content from the creators they love on the devices they own. Play the games that you want with the community that you want to play with the devices that you have. That’s our goal.

    COVID Impacted Game Production

    People with sheltering in place and work from home, we’ve seen incredible engagement in the gaming community over the last few months. We’re really proud with the way that gaming has been able to play such a pivotal role for people. Games today are hundreds of people coming together to build these massive games. It’s important that we’re conscious of the safety of our teams. COVID has had an impact on production and you’re seeing that out there.

    When you look at this launch and people’s appetite for gaming right now we are very bullish on how are preorders are going to go tomorrow. We have the most powerful console on the market. We have the most affordable console on the market. We’ve got things like Xbox All Access that allow people to join this next generation of gaming for $24.99 a month with no upfront costs. You get a console and Game Pass. In times like this, I think that accessibility of price point and offer is really important.

  • Proofpoint CEO: Working From Home Changes Face Of Work

    Proofpoint CEO: Working From Home Changes Face Of Work

    “There are huge benefits to collaboration,” says Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele. “However, I do believe fundamentally that this work from home economy that we’re living in is going to change the face of work. You’re going to see a blend. Security leaders and organizations are going to need to figure out how do you defend people when they are sitting at home working from their couch just doing their job and doing it well?”

    New AI/ML Innovations Block Bogus Emails

    One of the big investments for us in this people-centric framework is to help organizations protect the data that people create. We’re giving companies more visibility and more controls to ensure that when you’re sitting in front of your couch and working from home that you’re not treating data in a way that’s going to ultimately hurt the company. For those individuals that are doing something malicious, we’re going to help companies find those malicious individuals.

    We need to block (bogus emails that are supposedly from a trusted source) so that an individual doesn’t actually receive that message (in the first place). That is an impersonation. That’s how we’re applying new innovations in the AI/ML (artificial intelligence & machine learning) space to be able to identify those very sophisticated attacks and block them so that a poor user is not trying to figure out (if it is really) the CEO that asked me to do something that they shouldn’t do.

    Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele: Working From Home Changes Face Of Work
  • Box CEO: Digital Selling Helping Tech Firms Prosper

    Box CEO: Digital Selling Helping Tech Firms Prosper

    “We are firing on all cylinders right now even though it’s a very dynamic environment,” says Box CEO Aaron Levie. “One of the great ironies probably that we’ll look back on is that the industry that is focused on selling digital technology spent so much time in the physical world trying to sell that technology. You can do remote selling over a video conference, over Webex, or Zoom in many cases just as easily as you could in person.”

    Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, discusses how tech companies during the pandemic have discovered that it’s more effective for them to sell remotely using all of the technologies they have developed rather than relying so much on physical meetings:

    We Are Firing On All Cylinders Right Now

    We were super happy about the Q2 that we just announced a couple of weeks ago. We were able to beat on revenue estimates and the guidance we gave on revenue, on EPS, on operating margin, and we also delivered strong billings and cash flow performance. We also raised our guidance for the full year on revenue as well as our operating margin targets for the full year.

    We are firing on all cylinders right now even though it’s a very dynamic environment. Obviously, the broader macroeconomic environment still remains a challenge in many sectors. We are seeing growth at this time and we’re seeing a lot of our enterprise customers continue to expand with us as they go and drive broader digital transformation initiatives.

    Great Irony: Tech Industry Learns To Sell Digitally

    One of the great ironies probably that we’ll look back on is that the industry that is focused on selling digital technology spent so much time in the physical world trying to sell that technology. We’re seeing is that customers want really great products. They want those products to be delivered efficiently to them. You can do remote selling over a video conference, over Webex, or Zoom in many cases just as easily as you could in person. The other benefit is you can now reach more customers in a single day or in a single week.

    As an example, we have our customer conference happening tomorrow. We’ll have about 25 000 registered attendees to that event which is three or four times larger than what we would have in the physical world. We’re able to reach more customers and we’re able to have more conversations. We’re ultimately able to support our customers right now with our technology which is helping them move to the cloud and helping them secure their corporate data. It is also easier to collaborate securely across enterprises and then ultimately integrate with all of their applications.

    Box CEO Aaron Levie: Digital Selling Helping Tech Firms Prosper
  • Big Tech: IBM Deploys Face Mask Surveillance System

    Big Tech: IBM Deploys Face Mask Surveillance System

    This may or may not worry you depending on your point of view. IBM has deployed a super intelligent face mask surveillance system for businesses (or government) to discreetly track face mask usage by employees, customers, and anyone who enters a building where their system is installed. The platform will send alerts to the powers that be if anyone is either not wearing a face mask properly or not wearing one at all.

    Presumably, if the tech savvy eye in the sky notices an infraction it will quickly enable management and their enforcement teams to confront the individuals to rectify their face mask violation. How dare they! It will also monitor in real-time crowd density, social distancing, and elevated body temps of those who are entering an establishment.

    IBM Cloud released a video narrated by Ian Smalley (below) that explains how their technology works to enable any business or government to surveil and enforce mask usage:

    Here is a really cool way that Edge Computing is being used to help businesses reopen and operate safely. We know face masks can substantially reduce the transmission of aerosol borne viruses. But sometimes people forget to wear them properly or at all. IBM Edge Application Manager places analytical workloads with Edge enabled cameras that can recognize face masks and determine if they are being worn effectively.

    Since analysis is being performed at the camera the video data and individual privacy are protected. You also avoid the expense of transmitting, storing, or analyzing that image data any further. Alerts are sent every time the camera detects improperly worn or non-existent face masks. Then it sends the aggregated data back to the IBM Maximo Worker Insights platform allowing you to highlight face mask activity in your facilities.

    It’s pretty amazing stuff and that’s only scratching the surface. IBM Application Manager is also using Edge Computing to monitor crowd density, social distancing, and elevated body temps of those who are entering an establishment.

  • Intel CEO: Tiger Lake Will Deliver 20% More Performance

    Intel CEO: Tiger Lake Will Deliver 20% More Performance

    Intel launched their 10nm Tiger Lake CPU today increasing product performance by 20 percent. “Our 10-nanometer process that our Tiger Lake product will run on today is a step function improvement from the 10-nanometer process we launched just last year,” says Intel CEO Bob Swan. “Its process will deliver 15 to 20 percent more performance in the products that we are launching. At the end of the day, product performance is what matters most to our customers.”

    Bob Swan, CEO of Intel, discusses the launch of their 10nm Tiger Lake CPU which provides a significant improvement in product performance:

    Product Performance Is What Matters

    The PC is a more and more an essential ingredient of our everyday lives. Whether you are studying from home, working from home, and trying to stay connected from home, it’s just more important. The Tiger Lake product that we are launching today, in essence, addresses those activities that we are doing. Whether it’s content creation, inherent productivity, or connectivity, it addresses those key things that are becoming more relevant in terms of how we engage with our PC and how we engage with each other.

    At the end of the day, product performance is what matters most to our customers. Under that umbrella, there are multiple things that have evolved over time. Process continues to be very important. Packaging becomes more relevant as we pull different technologies together. Software plays an increasingly important role. The technologies required to build a computer today are much different than they used to be. With Tiger Lake, it’s not just about the CPU or the microprocessor, it’s about the WiFi. Connectivity is so important, upgrading WiFi, and upgrading graphics capabilities, The nature of the PC today and how it’s evolved incorporates more technology. Where process continues to be important, it’s not relatively as important as it once was.

    Tiger Lake Will Deliver 20 Percent More Performance

    The naming convention over time has lost its relevance. It’s become less of a technical articulation of capabilities and a little bit more of a marketing articulation. Our 10-nanometer process that our Tiger Lake product will run on today is a step function improvement from the 10-nanometer process we launched just last year. Its process will deliver 15 to 20 percent more performance in the products that we are launching. It’s a very exciting time not just because of the Tiger Lake product (the CPU) but how we’ve coupled it with other technologies to address the most top of mind experiences with advanced processing technology that we refer to as SuperFin.

    The relative importance of graphics and the role that it plays, not just in gaming but in communications today is so much higher. That’s why with this product launch the enhanced capabilities of our integrated graphics is a real big bump in overall performance. It’s also an increasingly relevant technology and capability in today’s PC. In essence, the use of the PC and what the graphics technology we’ve built into this product does is rising the role that the PC will play as it become more and more an essential ingredient in our everyday lives.

    There Will Be Significant Demand For Tiger Lake

    Over the last several years we’ve added $20 billion in revenue to the size of the company. From our PC, our internet of things, our communication, and from our cloud businesses, we’ve experienced dramatic growth. It was critical for us to keep pace in ensuring that we have the capacity and the supply to deal with that growth. We’ve made tremendous progress at the end of last year and through the first six months of this year getting that capacity in place.

    For both 14-nanometer, which today is the lion’s share of the products we are shipping, but increasingly we are adding capacity. We expect there will be significant demand for the new product that we announced today but also the new products that we have coming in the second half of this year, particularly in the server Xeon chip.

    https://youtu.be/PMAi5lXMkXA
    Intel CEO Bob Swan: Tiger Lake Will Deliver 20% More Performance
  • Ultimate Solution For Uber and Lyft Is Autonomy

    Ultimate Solution For Uber and Lyft Is Autonomy

    “The ultimate solution for Uber and Lyft is autonomy,” says Loup Ventures Managing Partner Gene Munster. “If this employee model simply doesn’t work you are going to see these companies push even harder into autonomous systems simply eliminating the drivers. However, this will attract more competition. I think the two best companies positioned within that would be Google and their Waymo initiatives and also Tesla and how they are going to vector into the ridesharing market.”

    Gene Munster, Managing Partner at Loup Ventures, discusses how California in forcing drivers to be employees may ultimately speed up the efforts of Uber and Lyft to go fully self-driving and thereby simply eliminate all human drivers:

    What Would The Drivers Want?

    Both Uber and Lyft are in a tight spot. There was reprieve today. But this topic is not over with this vote coming November 3rd and California’s influence that they can have with other states. If you put all of this together and think about if these changes to employees across the country, it could be a 15 percent increase (in costs). This is effectively their profit margins.

    I do want to caution the voters of California and also some of the lawmakers on one aspect. What would the drivers want? Most of these drivers use both apps, both Lyft and Uber. If they are employees they likely will be restricted from jumping from app to app. That would cut down some of their rides and cut down what they will be paid on an hourly basis. I don’t think that the right path here is as clear for the drivers in simply becoming an employee.

    Ultimate Solution For Uber and Lyft Is Autonomy

    The ultimate solution for Uber and Lyft is autonomy. If this employee model simply doesn’t work you are going to see these companies push even harder into autonomous systems simply eliminating the drivers. One of the unique things about Lyft and Uber is it is a two-sided marketplace. They have drivers and riders. In an autonomous world you don’t need drivers. Essentially, that would leave Lyft and Uber with their key asset, their brands around movement. I think that is an asset but I don’t know if it is worth $55 billion.

    What I really take away from this is that over the next few years there are going to be ups and downs related to this regulation. Longer term, we know where this is going. Cars should be autonomous for safety reasons and productivity reasons. Ultimately, ridesharing with Uber and Lyft is going to be fully self-driving. This topic we are discussing today is going to be largely irrelevant.

    Lyft is already testing self-driving rides in Las Vegas

    Google and Tesla Will Compete With Uber and Lyft

    There are some key nuances to an autonomous ridesharing business model. As I mentioned, there is a two-sided marketplace. That’s really what makes Lyft and Uber special today. One of the sides of the marketplace, the drivers side of this, is under some pressure right now. But if we eliminate the drivers side then you don’t even have a marketplace. You are just trying to get consumers to ride. That opens up new competitors. There are about six of them that are trying to get there.

    The autonomy option is a better option for Lyft and Uber than what they currently have with humans driving. For an investor it’s a more profitable option. However, ultimately it will attract more competition. I think the two best companies positioned within that would be Google and their Waymo initiatives and also Tesla and how they are going to vector into the ridesharing market.

    I Would Put My Money On Lyft

    Assuming their ballot initiative wins in November, I’m in the Lyft camp. This is partly because I like their focus just on the US and on ridesharing. I think that the Uber Eats business, while its had a tremendous tailwind, it will get progressively more competitive and it’s tougher to make money in that business.

    Ultimately, if I had my choice I would put my money on Lyft. There is another X factor here. There is something subtle about Lyft’s culture. It is a more investor friendly culture and that influences my view.

    Ultimate Solution For Uber and Lyft Is Autonomy, Says Loup Ventures Managing Partner Gene Munster
  • Walmart CEO: We Had To Become More Digital

    Walmart CEO: We Had To Become More Digital

    “We had to learn to work in different ways to become more digital and to put data to work in different ways,” says Walmart CEO Doug McMillon as he reflected on the release of their blowout financial results. “Basically, to create a seamless experience for customers. We don’t want them to sense any difference as it relates to our brand whether they are shopping inside a store, picking it up, or having it delivered. All of those differences and channels that we might have thought about in the past need to be erased and taken away.”

    Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, discusses how the company has changed to become more digital over the last couple of quarters in response to the pandemic:

    Ecommerce Was Very Strong

    I would like to say thank you to all of our associates around the world and here in the US. They did a great job. You can imagine how challenging it is in this environment to go to work everyday and serve customers and keep the supply chain moving. Whether it’s in our stores, our Sam’s Club’s, or our distribution centers they have done a great job.

    Customers have been responding in waves as we’ve gone through the first and second quarters. Not surprisingly, they got really focused on things they needed to stock up to be at home for a long time at first. Over time, as we got through the second quarter and stimulus checks came in to play and people were at home, we certainly saw them buy things like laptops and tablets and fishing equipment and bicycles. Things that were related to home decor as they were at home thinking about their environment inside and outside the house we certainly saw them respond with what they were buying. Ecommerce, in particular, was very strong.

    Technology Phenomena Happening Around the World

    I’ve been in retail for almost 30 years and it’s really exciting when so many things can be done using technology. We can save customers time and expose them to so much more choice than we could previously. Our ecommerce assortments are broader as retailers and that’s certainly true at Walmart. We sell first-party owned inventory as well as through our marketplace. Now they can pick up their phone or be at home and open up their laptop and shop in so many different ways and have access to so many different things. It’s a lot of fun to be able to try and serve them in that way. That phenomena is happening around the world.

    You can use your app to do pickup and our stores. You can use your app to have the product brought straight to your house. Obviously, you can come in the store and we are learning how to use technology inside the stores in different ways to save you time. It boils down to access to assortment and an ease of shopping here in the US and around the world that people haven’t experienced before. That’s happening in Mexico, Canada, China, India, and all over the world.

    We Had To Become More Digital

    There have been a lot of changes inside the company. We had to learn to work in different ways to become more digital and to put data to work in different ways. Basically, to create a seamless experience for customers. We don’t want them to sense any difference as it relates to our brand whether they are shopping inside a store, picking it up, or having it delivered. All of those differences and channels that we might have thought about in the past need to be erased and taken away. Our teams have been doing a great job doing that.

    The outcome of that is this ease of shopping that’s unique and different. In our case, we’ve got so many stores so close to customers around the country it gives us a big advantage especially in being able to deliver quickly. We’ve got an express delivery system here in the United States that commits to delivering orders from our stores in less than two hours. That’s now in more than 2,000 stores and coming to stores all over the country. We are actually delivering a lot faster than two hours so far. That’s a great experience.

    We believe that this is something that we can build on along with having great stores where you want to come in from time to time, stock up, and experience what’s new. Really, we think that this omni world of retail is what will end up being the winning strategy over time.

    Scale Can Sometimes Be A Disadvantage

    Scale can sometimes be an advantage and sometimes it’s a disadvantage. Speed also matters a lot. Creativity matters a lot. What I’m proud of is how our team is responding to create new solutions for customers. Ultimately, whether Walmart grows or not is all up to them. We are serving families, moms and dads, and customers that have a lot of different choices. Even during the pandemic period with ecommerce and all the chains that were open there was still a lot of choice.

    We’ve got to compete to earn their business everyday and that’s the approach we take. Our team has really stepped up during this period and even before the pandemic to drive change and to create more solutions for customers.

    Walmart CEO Doug McMillon: We Had To Become More Digital
  • Apple Needs Fortnite More Than Fortnite Needs Apple

    Apple Needs Fortnite More Than Fortnite Needs Apple

    “Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, feels that Fortnite is large enough and scaled enough and that Apple needs Fortnite more than Fortnite needs Apple… and Google too for that matter,” says Alex Kruglov, CEO of pop.in. “Tim very intentionally wanted to get kicked out of the store. There is no other way to explain what they did so that they can make this very public and so they can have a lawsuit.”

    Alex Kruglov, CEO and co-Founder at pop.in, says that Apple and Google should reduce the 30 percent tax they charge developers for existing in their respective ecosystems:

    Apple and Google Must Reduce The Tax On Developers

    I definitely like the idea of challenging both the Apple store and the Google store in getting them to reduce the tax that they charge all of the developers. There are two potential issues here. Issue number one is that the tax is decided by Apple and Google and can be changed at any time. There is nothing that developers can do because there is no other place we can go to. There is no other way to get on the devices and a person usually has only one device.

    Secondly, kind of similar to TicketMaster in the 90s, when Pearl Jam went against them, they control the entire ecosystem. This includes the ability to advertise within your store to get your app downloaded. I love Apple’s clean well-lit ecosystem. I love what they’ve built. But if there is a bigger player who has leverage who can help the rest of us run more successful and profitable businesses I am all for it.

    Apple Needs Fortnite More Than Fortnite Needs Apple

    Tim Sweeney (CEO of Epic Games) is doing this very deliberatively. There is no question about it. If you follow Tim on Twitter or just in general, you know that he has been on this campaign for quite some time, since before they started their own ecosystem. Epic has its own store and they let developers opt-in to their fee system where they charge 12 percent.

    He feels that Fortnite is large enough and scaled enough and that Apple needs Fortnite more than Fortnite needs Apple… and Google too for that matter. Tim very intentionally wanted to get kicked out of the store. There is no other way to explain what they did so that they can make this very public and so they can have a lawsuit.

    Apple Under Pressure To Reduce App Store Fees

    Apple has been perceived as the good guy. Then on the other side with Google where with Facebook they are monopolistic given that they control essentially the entirety of the advertising system. So where do I think this ends up given the scrutiny that Apple is facing? I think that there is a very good chance that they will come back and reduce the fees and also opt-in to something firm as opposed to the set of rules that are all over the place.

    This is a pretty inexpensive way for both Apple and Google to say they are listening (to developers). We’ve heard the developers and we are going to do the right thing. I’m predicting this but this is definitely not what they have done over the last decade.

    Apple Needs Fortnite More Than Fortnite Needs Apple says Alex Kruglov, CEO of pop.in
  • Apple Will Eventually Fall Apart If It Doesn’t Back Down

    Apple Will Eventually Fall Apart If It Doesn’t Back Down

    “I think taking 30 percent from app developers is egregious,” says Alex Kantrowitz, publisher of the Big Technology newsletter. “It feels like protection money to me. As long as the company continues to rely on other people’s money to make its bottom line it’s going to turn slodgy, slow, bureaucratic, and I think it will eventually fall apart. Apple should back down because rent collecting is bad for its business long term.”

    Alex Kantrowitz, founder and publisher of Big Technology, believes that Apple should back down in its battle with developers like Epic Games because it is bad for their brand and could lead to epic failure for Apple in the long term:

    Epic Had Public Relations Campaign Ready To Go

    I don’t think it’s any accident that Epic went right after Apple’s brand which Apple has worked very hard to cultivate. Apple is a luxury product. What Epic is doing is trying to make this a battle for Apple where it says, do you want 30 percent of our revenue in the app store? Now you have to go from a company that everybody looks up to to a company that owns what it does, which is rent collects on the app store and takes 30 percent of our revenue.

    That’s why Epic has had this public relations campaign ready to go. It’s why it spoke about Apple’s history in the lawsuit. It’s why this was so planned, one move after the other, to show the public that this is actually what Apple is. If Apple is going to take our money they better own what they’re doing.

    Apple Taking 30 Percent From Developers Is Egregious

    What do developers get from the 30 percent that they pay Apple in terms of the revenue that they hand over to stay on the app store? They get the right to exist, that’s one thing. They get quick payments, that’s another. What else are they getting and is that amount of money actually worth it? Would they be paying anybody else that amount of money unless that other person had a monopoly?

    I don’t think it is worth it. I think 30 percent is egregious. It feels like protection money to me. Maybe we get somewhere in the 10 -15 percent range, that seems like the right amount for a developer to pay to Apple because Apple does provide some value. But the number right now is just totally out of whack and it exists because Apple has a monopoly on that store. It’s good that we are seeing somebody challenge what Apple’s doing.

    Apple Is The Only Show In Town For Developers

    Apple is basically the only show in town. If you don’t like what’s going on inside Walmart you go to your neighborhood store. If you don’t like what’s going inside the Apple app store where are you going to go? Maybe you can go to Google but Google is doing the same exact thing. I do think that Apple should definitely charge developers for what they’re getting.

    The question is do developers have any wiggle room so that they can have an opportunity to negotiate with a company like Apple? What Epic is showing is that is not really the case. This is how markets (should) work. You want to have the ability for the supplier and the demander to figure out a price that makes sense versus the supplier just setting the price and your sort of out of the market otherwise.

    Apple Will Eventually Fall Apart If It Doesn’t Back Down

    Apple should back down because rent collecting is bad for its business long term. You have to decide as a business, do you want to make your money milking your asset or do you want to make your money innovating into the future? Right now Apple has decided that it wants to be a rent collector. It’s worked out fine under Tim Cook, I won’t deny that. If you think about Apples’ long term sustainability does it want to build a culture where it’s business is taking a fee off of other people’s businesses or does it want to force itself to invent its way into the future?

    If I’m Apple I’m thinking long term. I want to have a more inventive culture, not a more asset milking culture. As long as the company continues to rely on other people’s money to make its bottom line it’s going to turn slodgy, slow, bureaucratic, and I think it will eventually fall apart. If I’m Apple, the case right here is to back down and think about where I’m going in the long term and it should be in an inventive way and not a rent seeking way.

    Alex Kantrowitz of Big Technology: Apple Will Eventually Fall Apart If It Doesn’t Back Down
  • Dexcom CEO: COVID Has Really Validated Our Technology

    Dexcom CEO: COVID Has Really Validated Our Technology

    “COVID, while it’s hard and it’s been difficult, has really validated the importance of our technology,” says Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer. “What we’ve learned most interesting here is the effect of our device on telemedicine. Where patients can’t go to the clinic, because our device goes to the phone and into the cloud, they can have a session with their physician right at home because the doctor has the information right in front of them.”

    Kevin Sayer, CEO of the high flying continuous glucose monitoring company Dexcom, discusses how COVID as validated their technology:

    The Quick and Dirty of Dexcom Technology 

    Here’s the quick and dirty on how our device works. It is a small sensor, a small wire about the width of a human hair is inserted just under your skin. That’s inserted with the needle and the needle’s retracted very quickly. It’s attached to a base and that base remains on your skin. Then a transmitter is placed in there. That transmitter takes an electrochemical signal from that sensor and turns it into an estimated glucose value and then sends that value directly to a phone. The thing that is so fascinating about this company and this technology is we have every engineer of every kind to develop this. This includes electrical engineers, software engineers, mechanical engineers, everywhere across the board to give this technology to patients. 

    Then what happens with that glucose value when it goes to the phone, a patient can look at their phone and see where their blood sugar levels are, how fast they’re trending up or how fast they’re trending down. They will get alerts or alarms. On top of that, they can connect with others who might be concerned about their condition and other people can follow them. 

    The current device is a little bigger than a quarter on your skin. It’s not very big. Our device has a 10 day life so you put it on one side for 10 days, you take it off and then put another one on 10 days after that so you don’t have it all the time. You can also bathe or shower with the device. There are amazing stories of athletes who have run marathons with it on. One athlete who spoke to our company did seven marathons on seven continents in seven days wearing his Dexcom. Things of that nature happen all the time.

    COVID Has Really Validated Our Technology

    Access through the insurance companies is very widespread now. We’re covered by almost every major plan. We have Medicare coverage for Medicare patients and we’re covered in most of the Medicaid environment as well. With respect to the COVID environment, there has been an increased uptake as you can see by our financial results. I think what we’ve learned most interesting here is the effect of our device on telemedicine. Where patients can’t go to the clinic, because our device goes to the phone and into the cloud, they can have a session with their physician right at home because the doctor has the information right in front of them. 

    Add to that, we got an emergency exemption from the FDA to where our product can be used in the hospitals. Diabetes and COVID are very much comorbidities. Patients in the hospitals that have used the technology have seen significant decreases on the health care professionals. The PPE time they have to spend with the patients, better glucose outcomes, and they get to leave the hospital much faster. So COVID, while it’s hard and it’s been difficult, has really validated the importance of our technology.

    Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer: COVID Has Really Validated Our Technology
  • Apple CEO: Competition For Developers Is A ‘Street Fight’

    Apple CEO: Competition For Developers Is A ‘Street Fight’

    “There is a competition for developers just like there is a competition for customers,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook at today’s big tech congressional hearing. “With the competition for developers, they could write their apps for Android or Windows or Xbox or PlayStation. It is so competitive that I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business.”

    Apple CEO Tim Cook explains to a clueless congressman who tossed a barrage of leading questions at him how Apple is in a ‘street fight’ for both developers and customers:

    We Treat Every Developer The Same

    The App Store is a feature of the iPhone much like the camera is and the chip is. If it is a native app (Apple is the sole decision-maker as to whether an app is made available to app users through the Apple Store). If it is a web app … no. We treat every developer the same. We have open and transparent rules. It’s a rigorous process.

    Because we care so deeply about privacy, security, and quality, we do look at every app before it goes on. But those rules apply evenly to everyone. It is not correct (that some developers are favored over others).

    We Have Never Increased Our App Commission

    We do a lot of things with developers including looking at their beta test apps regardless of whether they are small or large. A (reduced app commission) is available to anyone meeting the conditions. Approximately, 84 percent of the apps are charged nothing. The remaining 16 percent either pay 15 or 30 percent (of subscription revenue). These payments are depending upon the specifics. If it is in the second year of a subscription, as an example, it only pays 15 percent.

    We have never increased commissions in the store since the first day it operated in 2008. I disagree strongly (with the suggestion that we would increase our commission to 50 percent at some point).

    Competition For Developers Is A ‘Street Fight’

    There is a competition for developers just like there is a competition for customers. With the competition for developers, they could write their apps for Android or Windows or Xbox or PlayStation. We have fierce competition on the developer side and on the customer side. It is so competitive that I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business.

    We do not retaliate or bully people (regardless if developers make their frustrations with the app store public). It is strongly against our company culture.

    Apple CEO Tim Cook: Competition For Developers Is A ‘Street Fight’
  • Apple’s Silicon Will Force Microsoft to Adopt ARM

    Apple’s Silicon Will Force Microsoft to Adopt ARM

    Jean-Louis Gassée, former Apple executive, has postulated that Apple’s move to custom silicon will force Microsoft to move to ARM.

    Jean-Louis Gassée worked at Apple from 1981 to 1990, taking over as head of Mac development following Steve Jobs’ ouster. After his own departure from Apple, Gassée founded Be, Inc., the creator of BeOS. With his background, Gassée has a unique insight into the industry.

    Gassée ultimately believes that Apple’s decision to abandon Intel chips in favor of its own custom silicon will have profound impacts on the industry at large. Specifically, he believes Microsoft will be forced to follow suit, and adopt ARM processors to keep up.

    After first pointing out the same advantages we have highlighted at WPN—such as heat dissipation, better battery life and faster performance—Gassée predicts Apple’s new Macs could have as much as a 25% throughput advantage over Intel machines when they debut. This will force Microsoft to make a decision to either adapt or cede the high-performance market to Apple.

    “This leaves Microsoft with a choice: Either forget Windows on ARM and cede modern PCs to Apple, or forge ahead, fix app compatibility problems and offer an ARM-based alternative to Apple’s new Macs,” writes Gassée. “It’s a false dilemma, of course. Microsoft will forge ahead…with repercussions for the rest of the Windows PC industry.

    “Specifically, what are Dell, HP, Asus, and others going to do if Apple offers materially better laptops and desktops and Microsoft continues to improve Windows on ARM Surface devices? In order to compete, PC manufacturers will have to follow suit, they’ll ‘go AR’ because, all defensive rhetoric aside, Apple and Microsoft will have made the x86 architecture feel like what it actually is: old.”

    Gassée’s take is a fascinating read, and one Intel and the PC community should take seriously. If his predictions are true, it looks like Apple may be upending the computer industry once again.

  • Facebook Issue Took Down High-Profile iOS Apps

    Facebook Issue Took Down High-Profile iOS Apps

    An issue with Facebook had far-reaching consequences, taking down some of the biggest names in iOS apps.

    Spotify, Pinterest, TikTok, Tinder and Call of Duty Mobile, along with many others, were all offline beginning Friday morning. The issue was tracked down to the Facebook iOS SDK that all of these apps rely on. The Facebook SDK helps integrate Facebook into an iOS app, and provides access to Facebook Analytics, Facebook Login, App Events, Graph API and sharing options.

    Facebook’s developers acknowledged the SDK was the source of the problem, and worked to quickly fix it.

    “We are aware and investigating an increase in errors on the iOS SDK which is causing some apps to crash.”

    Later that morning, Facebook’s developers had identified and fixed the issue.

    “Earlier today, a code change triggered crashes for some iOS apps using the Facebook SDK. We identified the issue quickly and resolved it. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

  • 12 Percent of Slack Employees Started After Pandemic, Says CEO

    12 Percent of Slack Employees Started After Pandemic, Says CEO

    “We’re already at the point where 12 percent of our employees started after the pandemic,” says Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. “They weren’t flown to headquarters for a week. They didn’t do the onboarding. They haven’t met casual acquaintances waiting for the elevator or at all hands. These kinds of weak social times and the cultural value that’s built up through those interactions are going to have to be realized in another way.”

    Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack, announces their acquisition of enterprise directory company Rimeto, which helps employees in large organizations connect with each other more efficiently:  

    12 Percent of Slack Employees Started After Pandemic

    This morning we’re announcing the acquisition of Rimeto. Their tagline is the enterprise directory reimagined which is a great way to think about it. Obviously, that’s also going to be especially important now. We’re already at the point where 12 percent of our employees started after the pandemic. They weren’t flown to headquarters for a week. They didn’t do the onboarding. They haven’t met casual acquaintances waiting for the elevator or at all hands. These kinds of weak social times and the cultural value that’s built up through those interactions are going to have to be realized in another way.

    We started talking (to Rimeto) just before the pandemic hit. I’ve actually never met any of the team face-to-face. No one on our side has met anyone on their side face-to-face. The whole thing was conducted using all of these technologies. We, of course, had a shared channel in Slack with them. It’s them, it’s us, it’s the lawyers, it’s the accountants, the whole kind of suite of entities that are required to pull off a deal like this. I think you’re going to see more and more of that. 

    Pandemic Causing Much Bigger Reliance On Software

    I don’t think we’re going to be back in the office for a while. But to the extent that people do end up going back to offices, let’s say later this year or really next year, it’s still going to cause a generational shift. There is still going to be a much bigger reliance on software. A couple of weeks ago we announced Slack Connect. The idea is to increase the efficacy of collaboration across organizational boundaries while also increasing the security. 

    Two Sack users in an organization can set up a share channel between them or you can have more than one. In fact, when we did our convertible debt offering a month and a half ago, we did that in a share channel with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Jay Wood, and Latham, and put the whole thing together in that way. It’s a great way to collaborate.

    Rimeto Let’s Slack Users Connect Within Organizations

    Companies, obviously, are not going to stop acquiring. They’re not going to stop doing offerings. You’re still going to see IPOs and we’re going to see roadshows conducted in that way. When you’re crossing organizational boundaries the profile information, the identity of the person is also important. Inside the company with Rimeto, we’re offering much richer search, much more detailed information about groups and things like skills and backgrounds, not just the phone number and desk location. 

    We also want the ability to have some of that cross organizational boundaries so partners, collaborators, professional services firms, customers, and vendors can have access to some of that information as well.

    12 Percent of Slack Employees Started After Pandemic, Says CEO Stewart Butterfield
  • Flutter Can Now Be Used to Create Ubuntu Linux Apps

    Flutter Can Now Be Used to Create Ubuntu Linux Apps

    Canonical and Google have partnered to add Linux as one of the target platforms for the Flutter framework.

    Flutter is a popular UI framework Google created to make it easier to develop cross-platform apps. Unlike some other cross-platform frameworks, such as React Native or NativeScript, Flutter does not use the target operating system’s (OS) native controls. Instead, it uses its own rendering engine to mimic native controls.

    Until now, Flutter primarily targeted Android, iOS, Fuchsia, macOS, Windows and web apps. While it could run on Linux and be used to develop Android and iOS apps, it did not target Linux. Still, for developers looking for a fast way to develop cross-platform apps, Flutter has been steadily gaining in popularity. Google’s latest move is sure to improve that popularity even more, as it has worked with Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu, to bring full Linux support to Flutter.

    “By enabling desktop Linux support in Flutter, Canonical is making it very easy for application developers to publish their apps for Linux users via the Snap Store, the app store for Linux,” write Google’s Chris Sells and Canonical’s Ken VanDine. “By making Linux a first class Flutter platform, Canonical is inviting application developers to publish their apps to millions of Linux users and broaden the availability of high quality applications available to them.”

    While this initial release is an alpha, both companies are dedicated to ensuring Flutter provides a top-level experience for Linux developers.

    “Canonical is making a significant investment in Flutter by dedicating a team of developers to work alongside Google’s developers to bring the best Flutter experience to the majority of Linux distributions,” continues Sells and VanDine. “Canonical will continue to collaborate with Google to further improve Linux support and maintain feature parity with the other supported platforms.”

    This is good news for all parties involved, as it will open up new opportunities for developers, as well as Google and Canonical.