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  • Are Big Conferences Going Virtual?

    Are Big Conferences Going Virtual?

    Tech giants reel in millions per year through big conferences, but COVID-19 has dramatically changed the global business event industry. As a result, business gatherings are going virtual. While industry experts are unsure whether or not the era of big conferences has ended, many have begun to embrace the concept of virtual summits. In fact, experts predict that video – including web conferencing – will account for over 80% of all Internet traffic by 2021. The remaining question is: what will the future of business gatherings look like post-COVID?

    The global event industry is worth $1.5 billion; and businesses typically generate more than $1 trillion in direct spending each year. This includes airfare, hotel stays, dining, and transportation. However, canceled and rescheduled conferences are causing businesses to lose heaping amounts of cash. The lost attendance fees for those who haven’t gone virtual is one thing to take into account, but businesses are also losing money they’ve spent to put on their events.

    For example, a business event’s budget is typically broken down into 4 categories. On average, businesses allocate 20% of their budget for venue coverage, 20% of their budget for catering, another 20% for equipment, and less than 5% for speaker fees and program creation. All of this money goes down the drain when a conference is canceled. Here’s how that looks on a financial level.

    When Google canceled its annual Mountain View, CA I/O conference, they lost $20 million of current assets. The I/0 conference is streamed to 530 events worldwide, and welcomed 7,000 in-person guests in 2019. When the 2020 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was canceled because of COVID-19, the Entertainment Software Association lost $75 million in direct assets. In 2019, the gaming organization welcomed 66,100 attendees, and the exhibition typically takes place in Los Angeles, CA.

    On a larger scale, South by Southwest (SXSW) lost $350 million in sitting reserves. The annual conglomeration is held in Austin, Texas, and met with a crowd of 280,000 in 2019. By the same token, $480 million was lost after the Mobile World Congress  (MWC) was canceled out of protection from COVID-19. The annual trade show welcomed 109,700 in 2019 and is held in Barcelona, Spain.

    On a smaller scale, ILostMyGig.com has verified $4,285,037 in losses across local businesses as a result of canceled conferences and events. The website began tracking local business losses after SXSW’s massive loss went viral. The services fueling these numbers include caterers, photographers, musicians, film crews, and more. However, these numbers don’t include losses related to: profits for the business’ hosting each event, attendees’ spending at local shops and attractions, or business generated from networking at events.

    Even when the massive losses are taken into account, organizations have an alternative with virtual conferences. In fact, attendees are seeming to enjoy virtual conferences. 40% of Americans were unable to cover an unexpected charge of $400, so traveling to conferences and events is often challenging for attendees. Virtual summits eliminate travel costs, lodging, and the price of admission.

    Saying this, it’s still unknown if virtual summits will thrive after the pandemic is over. Local conferences could provide a better alternative. For more information on the future of virtual conferences, read more below.

  • Bing Webmaster Tools Provides Backlink Data On Similar Sites

    Bing Webmaster Tools Provides Backlink Data On Similar Sites

    Bing has unveiled a new feature that gives users competitive backlink data for similar and recommended sites.

    The announcement was made via the Bing Webmaster Team Twitter account:

    Backlinks is back in the new Bing Webmaster Tools https://bing.com/webmasters/backlinks… ! Backlinks not only for your site but also for other sites (tab Similar sites), including for sites we suggest. Have a look and give us feedback on this beta tool.

    Bing Webmaster Team (@BingWMC) June 1, 2020

    The feature will be a big hit with webmasters, as it will give them valuable competitive insight into other websites, while also giving Bing a significant competitive advantage over Google.

  • Senators Will Introduce Coronavirus Data Privacy Bill

    Senators Will Introduce Coronavirus Data Privacy Bill

    A group of senators will introduce legislation to help protect consumer privacy as companies focus on using data to help combat COVID-19.

    Governments and companies around the world have turned to big data in an effort to map the spread of the coronavirus, and try to get ahead of it. One of the most publicized efforts is being undertaken by Apple and Google, as the two companies work on a contact tracing API. The API, and subsequent apps, will use anonymous Bluetooth keys to keep track of the phones an individual has been in close proximity with. If a person tests positive, each person that has been in contact with them over the previous 14 days will be notified they have been exposed and need to quarantine.

    Needless to say, many individuals have expressed concern over the privacy implications and, as a result, half of Americans have no intention of installing any contact tracing app.

    To help ease concerns, and protect the privacy of Americans, Senators Roger Wicker, John Thune, Jerry Moran and Marsha Blackburn have announced their intention to introduce a data privacy bill. The goal is to provide much-needed transparency and give consumers a measure of control over how their data will be used, as well as hold businesses accountable for how they use it.

    “While the severity of the COVID-19 health crisis cannot be overstated, individual privacy, even during times of crisis, remains critically important,” said Thune. “This bill strikes the right balance between innovation – allowing technology companies to continue their work toward developing platforms that could trace the virus and help flatten the curve and stop the spread – and maintaining privacy protections for U.S. citizens.”

    Here’s to hoping the legislation will help prevent abuses of consumer data.

  • How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    “Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together,” says Matthew Biboud-Lubeck of Amperity. “We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer.”

    Matthew Biboud-Lubeck, VP of Strategic Services at Amperity, discusses how their platform helps brands create a complete view of their customers in an interview on the B2B Growth podcast:

    Helping Brands Create a Single View of Their Customers

    We are a CDP (customer data platform) based in Seattle that is helping brands create a single view of their customers and to unlock personalized experiences from that data. If you look back to the founding of Amperity about three years ago our founders were canvassing the marketplace. What you saw was a marketplace using a lot of buzzwords but having a lot of trouble executing them. You heard about personalization, customer 360, and a 360 view of the customer. Marketers across major consumer brands were super frustrated.

    They spent a fortune trying to cobble some view of their customer. They invested in technology to help them send better emails, to make their media more targeted, and to unveil better analytics. All of those tools that they have invested in talked about the notion of a single view of the customer because they fundamentally needed that to operate. The reality was that nobody was getting to the solution. We came in to say maybe there is a better way.

    Machine Learning Helps Brands Get To Nirvana

    There were two things that changed in the marketplace that we capitalized on. First of all, it was that cloud computing got a lot cheaper. It used to be that if you were a big brand and got hundreds of millions of customer interactions, it’s just a lot of data. Part of the reason that no one was able to create an easy solution to putting that all together was because it was cost prohibitive.

    The second really interesting evolution in the market is that machine learning has become much more mature. What we found was that everyone in the marketplace was using machine learning to make that last mile to the marketer a little bit better. It was used to decide which products to show a customer or to decide which offer to show a customer or to create a customer care solution that’s automated. You go online and type toward a solution and some bot talks back to you. Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together.

    We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer. That’s how we were born. What’s interesting is that the customer data platform space is a little bit confusing. You have a lot of companies that started as something else that rebranded as a CDP. We were purpose-built from the ground up as a customer data platform designed to bring all of a brands data, reconcile that data to create a notion of identity on it and then to unleash that data back to the brand anywhere that they want to use that data.

    >>> Listen to the full B2B Growth podcast here.

  • Twitter Disables User Control of Advertising Data

    Twitter Disables User Control of Advertising Data

    Twitter took a big step backward in its efforts to protect user privacy, eliminating user control over data used for advertising.

    In an announcement that started showing up when users logged on, Twitter said the goal of the change was to help it continue as a free service. The announcement read:

    An update to your data-sharing settings

    The control you have over what information Twitter shares with its business partners has changed. Specifically, your ability to control mobile app advertising measurements has been removed, but you can control whether to share some non-public data to improve Twitter’s marketing activities on other sites and apps. These changes, which help Twitter to continue operating as a free service, are reflected now in your settings.

    The move is disappointing for users who value their privacy, although users in the European Union are unaffected by the change. Thanks to the EU’s GDPR, companies are required by law to give users control over their own data and how it is used.

    After Twitter’s announcement, it won’t be surprising if there are renewed calls for GDPR-style legislation in the U.S.

  • The Hidden Threat Of Physical Data Theft

    The Hidden Threat Of Physical Data Theft

    One of the costliest forms of data theft isn’t what you think. We all know by now to cover the PIN pad when we input our PINs on gas pumps and other credit card machines because of the threat of card skimmers. For the most part Chip and PIN technology has taken care of that threat. Many of us have also been cautioned about the threat of “juice-jacking” in which cybercriminals can gain access to our valuable information through the use of cell phone chargers. But the biggest threat the physical security of our data faces is the loss and theft of laptops and mobile devices, and businesses pay a hefty price for this pervasive yet unrecognized form of physical data theft.

    Basic security measures often lull us into a false sense of security. Passwords will protect a laptop or a smartphone to a certain point, but unless there is high-tech encryption of the data contained on these devices a simple password alone is not enough. Likewise, being in the secure environment of an airport or locking our car doors makes us feel more secure than we really are. In reality, a determined thief is not deterred by any of these steps.

    On average, 25% of laptops are stolen from a car or an office, and 14% are lost or stolen in airports or on airplanes. Only a quarter of these lost and stolen devices are ever recovered. Does car insurance cover theft? Unfortunately, only comprehensive coverage will cover the loss of stolen items. Most laptops and smartphones contain easily accessible data that can be used to gain access to more sensitive data. Things like passwords and account numbers are easy to retrieve, and if you stay signed in to your email account a seasoned hacker can gain access to every account you have associated with that email address.

    In 2006 a major data loss occurred when a Department of Veterans Affairs employee’s house was broken into and a laptop and hard drive were stolen. Those devices contained unencrypted private data from millions of former and current soldiers and their families. Information lost included 26.5 million names, social security numbers, and dates of birth, a full set of information from which thieves can easily steal an identity. It also included the disability rating of 2.6 million former soldiers, including the very personal and private information about their medical conditions.

    Because of these vulnerabilities, the actual cost of replacing a lost or stolen device is eight times on average the cost of the device itself. The administrative time it takes to reset and secure any points of vulnerability adds up quickly, and the cost can be exponentially more for legally protected personal information like medical and health information.

    In order to protect your physical data, never leave devices unattended and either secure them in a locked office or use a cable lock to prevent them from being taken. Use passwords and lock screens on all your devices and don’t store sensitive data directly on your devices if it can be avoided. Turn off your Bluetooth and WiFi when you aren’t using them, and don’t make your device discoverable on strange networks.
    Learn more about physical data theft below.

  • China Using Big Data and AI to Fight Coronavirus

    China Using Big Data and AI to Fight Coronavirus

    In an effort to get ahead of the corona virus, China is turning to big data and artificial intelligence to help identify those infected.

    According to the International Business Times (IBT), “several Chinese tech firms have developed apps to help people check if they have taken the same flight or train as confirmed virus patients, scraping data from lists published by state media.” The data is also giving officials the ability to track down individuals who may have been exposed, screen them and forecast how the disease will spread.

    Baidu developed a system that uses infrared and AI-powered facial recognition to screen people at the railway station for a possible fever. Anyone with a temperature 99 degrees Fahrenheit or above is flagged for further checks. IBT reports that the “system can check more than 200 people a minute, far faster than the thermal scanners used at airports.”

    Companies are also developing ways to both prevent the spread of the disease, as well as help those already infected. Some cities are using robots to scold people who are not wearing masks in public, while other companies are working on using drones to deliver medical supplies to the sick.

    As China continues to struggle with the deadly outbreak, technology may well be the key to turning the tide.

  • Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time

    Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time

    “Digital transformation is the biggest opportunity of our time,” says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. McDermott says there are three things that any c-suite executives will tell you:

    1. We have to create great customer experiences to attain fierce customer loyalty.
    2. Employee engagement and really getting employees inspired about working for their company is essential to win the talent war.
    3. Step function productivity improvement generated from digitization is necessary to get cost down where it should be and revenue up where it has to be to win.

    Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, discusses how digital transformation is the biggest opportunity of our time in an interview on CNBC:

    Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time

    Now I’m at ServiceNow and I’m so excited about this cloud future and digital transformation. I have been all over the world and met hundreds of customers in the last three months. Digital transformation is the biggest opportunity of our time. There are basically three things that any c-suite executives will tell you. One, we have to create great customer experiences to attain fierce customer loyalty. Two, employee engagement and really getting employees inspired about working for their company is essential to win the talent war. And three, step function productivity improvement generated from digitization is necessary to get cost down where it should be and revenue up where it has to be to win.

    ServiceNow is the platform that essentially is the platform of all platforms. Every environment in the enterprise today is a heterogeneous environment. We are that cross-platform integration engine of the 21st-century economy which is why ServiceNow is growing faster than all of the companies in the cloud.

    You’ve Got To Move Everything To a Modern Cloud Architecture

    Here’s the root cause of the problem (of executives hesitating on digitization). It took 50 years to build the chaos, the complexity that exists in these enterprises. When you’re talking to these executives they don’t know what to do. That’s because they don’t know how to dig their way out of the mess. The fact is they’re not going to dig their way out of the mess. The fact is they are not going to did their way out of this mess. These systems of record will stay there for long periods of time. 

    A system of innovation, a system of action, over these systems of record (is what is needed), where you can integrate the data into a new generation workflow in the cloud. Workflow designed experiences can take the mess and move it into a modern cloud architecture so they can execute their mission. The light bulbs go on when they see the solution. Unfortunately, and sadly, the vendors who got them there in the first place are telling them to buy new messes and add it on to the old mess. You have got to leave that old mess alone, put a tourniquet on it, and move everything to a modern cloud architecture, a modern workflow.

    Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time, Says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott
  • Toyota Tackles Unintended Acceleration With Big Data

    Toyota Tackles Unintended Acceleration With Big Data

    According to Reuters, Toyota is applying big data in an effort to prevent unintended acceleration, especially that caused by driver error.

    It happens every decade or so: A major auto manufacturer is sued for unintended acceleration, only to have studies show that many cases are the result of driver error. It happened in the 1980s with Audi, and more recently in the 2000’s with Toyota. In each case, investigations showed that many unintended acceleration cases were caused by drivers accidentally activating the gas pedal.

    Now, Toyota has “unveiled an emergency safety system on Monday that uses big data to ignore the accelerator if it determines the driver steps on the pedal unintentionally.” Toyota is calling the feature it’s “accelerator suppression function,” and it will roll out first in Japan.

    While the company’s first-generation Safety Sense package was implemented in 2015, this new version was developed using data from its connected vehicles already on the road. Unlike Safety Sense, this version does need to encounter an obstacle to engage and activate breaking.

    Toyota’s move comes as auto makers are building increasingly intelligent vehicles that significantly improve driver safety.

  • Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Open NRF 2020 Vision: Retail’s Big Show

    Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Open NRF 2020 Vision: Retail’s Big Show

    In a press release issued today, the National Retail Federation (NRF) announced that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is scheduled to deliver the opening keynote at the federation’s 109th annual convention.

    Microsoft has supported the NRF’s annual convention for over 20 years, leveraging their IoT, cloud, data, AI, modern workplace and mixed reality solutions to help retailers digitally transform and embrace intelligent retail.

    “At NRF 2020, we’re bringing together the brightest and most influential leaders from around the world who have a clear vision for the retail industry’s future,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “Satya Nadella will kick us off with an inspiring session on how Microsoft’s success is built around a purpose-led culture and business model.”

    Other notable speakers include:

    Mastercard President and CEO Ajay Banga

    Hudson’s Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes

    Sam’s Club President and CEO John Furner

    Crate and Barrel CEO Neela Montgomery

    Nordstrom Co-President Erik Nordstrom

    Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2015-2019) Paul Ryan

    Additional details for sessions and speakers at NRF 2020 Vision: Retail’s Big Show can be accessed here.

    Complimentary registration is available to editorial members of the news media and discounted registration is available to accredited retail analysts. For more information, visit the NRF 2020: Retail’s Big Show media registration page.

    About NRF
    The National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association, passionately advocates for the people, brands, policies and ideas that help retail thrive. From its headquarters in Washington, D.C., NRF empowers the industry that powers the economy. Retail is the nation’s largest private-sector employer, contributing $2.6 trillion to annual GDP and supporting one in four U.S. jobs — 42 million working Americans. For over a century, NRF has been a voice for every retailer and every retail job, educating, inspiring and communicating the powerful impact retail has on local communities and global economies.

  • Toyota and Weathernew Partner to Use IoT and Big Data to Increase Driver Safety

    Toyota and Weathernew Partner to Use IoT and Big Data to Increase Driver Safety

    Toyota and Weathernews have announced a partnership to improve weather forecast accuracy and driver safety.

    The two companies will use data derived from Toyota’s connected vehicles, such as windshield wiper operations. The data will then be visualized as a map, showing where there are pockets of vehicles with running wipers. These areas of activity can be compared with data provided by Weathernews. Since precipitation does not always show up on radar, this will help Weathernews improve the accuracy of the data it has.

    “It is said that the rate of accidents during rainy weather is four times that of sunny days, so the presence of precipitation has a large effect on safe driving for vehicles. However, raincloud radar, which is often used to detect and predict rainy areas, has the disadvantage of being unable to detect rain resulting from rainclouds in the lower layer of the troposphere (an altitude of 2 km or below) or small raindrops such as those that form during drizzles. In such cases, it has been difficult to accurately determine areas where it is raining.

    “In the verification test that begins on November 1, as part of Toyota’s and Weathernews’ joint research initiatives, the wiper operating status of Toyota’s connected vehicles being driven in the designated regions is visualized as a map and compared with actual weather data. In past cases where low rainclouds produced rain that did not show up on raincloud radar in the Kanto area, rain was instead reported by users of the ‘Weathernews’ app. The user reports received matched closely with the areas where wipers were being operated, showing that wiper data can detect rain that cannot be detected using raincloud radar. We will also perform a detailed analysis of the relationship between the wiper data and weather data, and in addition to accurate detection of rainy areas, we plan to make efforts to estimate the strength of the precipitation based on the power at which the wipers are being operated, and consider using wiper data for weather forecasting.

    “By using wiper data to accurately ascertain the conditions of roads and their surroundings, such as precipitation and actual precipitation strength, undetectable using radar, we aim to contribute to driver safety by issuing warnings to drivers according to the situation.”

  • iOS 13’s Privacy Changes Have Big Repercussions For Businesses

    iOS 13’s Privacy Changes Have Big Repercussions For Businesses

    On September 10, Apple held their “By Invitation Only” event, unveiling new iPhones, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+ and iOS 13. While many of the event’s announcements were aimed squarely at the consumer market, there were a number of things surrounding the iOS update that impact businesses, especially when it comes to marketing and development.

    For years, despite Apple working to protect customers’ privacy, companies have found ways to continue tracking iPhone users, often without their permission. Recent news articles have highlighted how companies are using Bluetooth to track individuals. Similarly, some apps try to use GPS to track people even when not using the app. Facebook is one such company that was recently busted for using precise location data to track users without their knowledge or consent.

    As a result, in addition to iOS 13’s general facelift and improvements, there are a number of privacy-related features that will likely have a significant impact on marketing and development teams who have previously relied on these tracking methods.

    Bluetooth Tracking

    One of the biggest changes to iOS 13 is how Bluetooth connections are handled. Prior to this update, apps could access the iPhone’s Bluetooth functionality to track a user’s whereabouts thanks to tracking beacons. Customers in a store could be tracked as they walked around to different sections, giving the store information about what displays and product categories were driving the most foot traffic. Similarly, shopping malls can use beacons to track individuals and determine movement patterns, store popularity and more.

    That’s not to say that all apps requesting Bluetooth access are using it for tracking. Smartwatches, health monitors and the like will need to connect to their corresponding apps via Bluetooth. But it’s clear that many apps don’t need access. For example, Dominoes and Macy’s are two apps that request access for the purpose of tracking users’ whereabouts.

    Bluetooth Privacy
    Bluetooth Privacy

    For marketing firms and departments who have relied on this technology, iOS 13 represents the end of an era. Instead of using Bluetooth to track individuals without their consent, marketing departments will need to find other ways to engage with customers. In some cases, this may involve adding an incentive for the customer to allow tracking. In other cases, it may require adding a check-in option instead of automatic tracking.

    iOS 13’s change has significant implications for development teams as well. In many cases, Bluetooth tracking functionality was included in various software development kits (SDK) as a bundled benefit of using that particular SDK. With more and more customers choosing not to be tracked, developers will need to find other ways to make their SDKs stand out and provide value to their customers.

    GPS Tracking

    GPS tracking is another area where some companies have abused consumer trust. Facebook and others have been accused of using precise location data to track users, even when the app is not active.

    GPS Privacy
    GPS Privacy

    iOS 13 offers an updated option to GPS permissions. In addition to “Don’t Allow” and “Allow While Using App,” iOS 13 includes an “Allow Once” option. When a user chooses this, the app is granted a one-time access to GPS functionality and the user will be prompted to give it access again the next time they open that app.

    Again, for companies whose apps rely on GPS functionality, it will be increasingly important to ensure their app is using GPS for a specific reason, to offer their customers an improved experience. Otherwise, if an app’s request for GPS access is suspect or without a clear reason, customers may switch to an app that respects their privacy.

    Wrapping Up

    As with many iOS updates, iOS 13 brings a number of significant changes, not the least of which is improved customer privacy. This will undoubtably present a challenge to some businesses, not only those who may have been abusing these features in the past, but also businesses whose apps will simply be collateral damage in the battle to protect user privacy.

    On the other hand, companies who are quick to adapt, work to protect user privacy and look for new ways to engage their customers will likely find new opportunities open to them.

  • VMware COO: We Have a Bigger Plan For Security

    VMware COO: We Have a Bigger Plan For Security

    “Fundamentally, we have a bigger plan for security,” says VMware COO Sanjay Poonen. “We felt it was the perfect time for us to come up with a disruptive play that was based on big data, was AI, and was cloud-based. There were only two companies doing it, CrowdStrike and Carbon Black. We felt Carbon Black was better integrated to us, had as good a product or better. We have a plan to integrate Carbon Black and make it intrinsic in a way that nobody else will do. We think this will transform the security industry that’s been broken today.”

    Sanjay Poonen, COO of VMware, elaborates on how they plan to transform security and lead the containers movement currently going on in digital transformation. Poonen was interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Containers Are A Movement Going On In Digital Transformation 

    When you look at these types of transformational moments going on in digital transformation, these happen once every 10 to 20 years. VMware is the company that invented the virtual machine and for the last 20 years, we’ve created a million jobs in that part of infrastructure. There is a movement going on in digital transformation right now called containers. We believe it’s our birthright to own that movement. There will be potentially tens of millions of jobs among developers created on top of this virtual machine. 

    Think of the virtual machine sort of like the ship and containers like the things on top of it. In the 1950s containers completely transformed ships and VMware created the ship. These containers are going to allow apps to be fundamentally transformed. We found as we thought about this that this was the right time to do it and it was our birthright to do it better than anybody else. Why not take those three thousand people in Pivotal and $750 million in revenue and turbocharge the next ten years of VMware, not just in virtual machines and virtualization in the path to the cloud, which is the first C, but the other C is containers. We think that’s a big part.

    We’re A Go-To-Market Machine

    Pivotal (is more valuable than the market initially believed) for two reasons. They’ve refactored their product which now sits completely on Kubernetes. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a sort of the big open-source container movement. And their go-to-market engine probably stuttered a little bit. But that’s what VMware does well. We’re a go-to-market machine. We’ll bring them in and accelerate this to our 500,000 customers. We feel good when we get a good product in the hands of our good go-to-market machine. I think we can accelerate it. 

    At VMware, no one person does it, it takes a village but also our partners like Dell and the ecosystem also. VMware has 75,000 partners who love us. We’re going to take this to those ecosystem partners. We have a big tent of system integrators and they’re excited about this. We branded the entire thing, that’s the other thing we’ve done pretty well. Tenzo, which is the Japanese word for containers, we’re doing big ads in New York, San Francisco, and London Airports. This is a play on the word VMware that says ContainerWare. We’re not changing the name of the company but we’re going big in containers and that’s the key message.

    We Have a Bigger Plan For Security

    Fundamentally, we have a bigger plan for security.  Let me just walk you through a quick understanding of the strategy. There are a lot of parallels with security and healthcare. My mom’s a doctor. Imagine you went to a doctor and you asked her how do you get well and she said you have to eat 5,000 tablets. Eating one every 30 seconds would take you a couple of weeks to do. That’s what the security industry is today. It’s 5,000 vendors, broken, with lots of different agents bloated on people’s laptops, lots of alerts showing up, and manual labor.

    We look at this and say there’s a fundamentally new way to do it, which is to make security intrinsic to your diet. You eat your vegetables, your fruit, you drink your water, brush your teeth, and that’s what we’re doing with security. We are making it part of our platform. 

    A Disruptive Play Based On Big Data, AI, and Cloud-Based

    We’ve been doing very well in network security around the NSX product but endpoint security and workload security we didn’t have much there. We had Workspace ONE, our AirWatch related product, and we found that many of these endpoint security players were kind of in a little internal turmoil. Symantec got bought by Broadcom. McAfee got bought by Intel and then was spun out again. We felt it was the perfect time for us to come up with a disruptive play that was based on big data, was AI, and was cloud-based.

    There were only two companies doing it, CrowdStrike and Carbon Black. We felt Carbon Black was better integrated to us, had as good a product or better, and we intend to acquire them. The acquisition hasn’t yet closed. We have a plan to integrate this and make it intrinsic in a way that nobody else will do. We laid that out at VMworld. We think this will transform the security industry that’s been broken today.

    VMware COO Sanjay Poonen: We Have a Bigger Plan For Security
  • We Built the Data Platform For AI To Enable Safe Self-Driving Cars, Says Scale AI CEO

    We Built the Data Platform For AI To Enable Safe Self-Driving Cars, Says Scale AI CEO

    “What we’ve done at Scale is built the data platform for AI,” says Scale AI’s 22-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang. “AI is really built on top of data and these algorithms require billions and billions of examples of labeled data to be able to perform in a safe or reliable way. What we’ve done is built a platform that allows these companies to get the data they need to be able to build these algorithms in a safe and reliable way. Then they use the data to build their self-driving cars.”

    Alexandr Wang, Scale AI co-founder and CEO, discusses how his company has built the data platform for AI that enables safe and reliable autonomous vehicles. Wang was interviewed on Bloomberg Technology.

    We Built the Data Platform For AI To Enable Safe Autonomous Vehicles

    What we’ve done at Scale is built the data platform for AI. AI is really built on top of data and these algorithms require billions and billions of examples of labeled data to be able to perform in a safe or reliable way. What we’ve done is built a platform that allows these companies to get the data they need to be able to build these algorithms in a safe and reliable way. Then they use the data to build their self-driving cars. I think it’s very exciting that all these companies have really incredible technology and it’s getting better and better every single year. We’re really getting closer and closer to solving the problem. 

    One of the big problems in machine learning is perception, being able to fully understand the environment around you using machine learning. So we process a lot of image data, LIDAR data, radar data, map data, etc. for some of these companies. Then for other companies, we process tax data or tabular data or speech data. The work we do is critical to building safe autonomous vehicles, for example, because without the data that we’re able to provide to these companies they actually wouldn’t even be able to build algorithms that could perform in any manner that is safe and reliable. 

    AI Is Really About Augmenting Humans With Technology

    AI is really about augmenting humans with technology and making them more effective and more efficient using technology. In particular, I think for a lot of the problems that we work on where AI plays a really critical role in self-driving or medical imagery, etc., you really want to make sure that humans are a part of the process to ensure that these systems are performing very safely and reliably. 

    One view that we really take in is, how do we solve this in the most tech-enabled way as possible? How do we use as much machine learning and technology on our side to make the process as efficient and high quality as possible? That’s a very differentiated view actually. Many of these other efforts are much more human-powered than technology powered.

    You Don’t Need a Degree To Be Able To Accomplish Your Goals

    I was really lucky I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, but after high school, I was lucky to be able to come out here to the Valley to work as a software engineer. That really exposed me to a lot of these problems where AI and machine learning are really core. I went back to school for a year and then after that year at school, I dropped out and started this company.

    I think if you know what you want to do, more and more these days, you don’t need a degree to be able to accomplish what you need to do. I think people care a lot more about what can you accomplish and what are your skills.

    We Built the Data Platform For AI To Enable Safe Self-Driving Cars, Says Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang
  • We Enable Small Sellers To Compete With the Big Guys, Says Etsy CEO

    We Enable Small Sellers To Compete With the Big Guys, Says Etsy CEO

    “We allow small sellers to be able to compete head-to-head with the big guys,” says Etsy CEO Josh Silverman. “We do that by giving them a super simple and easy way to build a business online and market themselves while we do all the business work for them. They can just focus on making great products and serving their customers. We really are (trying to equalize and level the playing field for small sellers). Most importantly, we bring them customers and we bring them buyers. We’re not just a way to put a shop on the web. We’re a way to actually have people come and buy. That’s really powerful.”

    Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy, discusses how they are focused on driving customers and buyers to their base of 2.3 million sellers on the Etsy platform, in an interview with Jim Cramer of CNBC:

    We Enable Small Sellers To Compete With the Big Guys

    Free shipping is now an expectation in the market. Too often buyers on Etsy have said that they think shipping prices are too high. What we announced in the second quarter is that we’re going to make free shipping the standard that people expect when they come to Etsy. So we announced a number of initiatives to make that easy for sellers to adopt. Obviously, to help sellers, the most important thing is that we can do is drive traffic to Etsy. But our sellers are hungry to invest in their own success. So we also announced just the other day the launch of Etsy Ads, which is a new platform that allows our sellers to invest to grow and buy traffic off of Etsy and bring it on to their Etsy shop.

    We allow small sellers to be able to compete head-to-head with the big guys. We do that by giving them a super simple and easy way to build a business online and market themselves while we do all the business work for them. They can just focus on making great products and serving their customers. We really are (trying to equalize and level the playing field for small sellers). We give them that kind of data. We also make it really easy for them to understand by giving them tools that make it super easy for them to understand. Most importantly, we bring them customers and we bring them buyers. We’re not just a way to put a shop on the web. We’re a way to actually have people come and buy. That’s really powerful.

    To get a two-sided marketplace where you’ve got 43 million buyers and 2.3 million sellers at scale, that’s incredibly hard to do and incredibly hard to replicate. Once you’ve got it it’s durable. Just look at our growth rate. We’re incredibly excited about our opportunity here.

    We Enable Small Sellers To Compete With the Big Guys, Says Etsy CEO Josh Silverman
  • The Confluence of These 3 Things is Bringing Us To a Data-Centric World

    The Confluence of These 3 Things is Bringing Us To a Data-Centric World

    “What Fungible is set to do is to revolutionize the economics, the reliability, and the performance, of data centers at all scales and in all geographies,” says Fungible CEO Pradeep Sindhu. “The reason that it is time to do this is because of some of the really important trends that have been happening over the last 15 to 20 years. There is, of course, the flattening of Moore’s Law. There is the hyper-connectivity that the internet has brought. Then there’s big data. The confluence of these three things is bringing us to a data-centric world.”

    Pradeep Sindhu, CEO of Fungible, discusses how technology trends are driving us towards a data-centric world in an interview on CNBC:

    The Confluence of These 3 Things is Bringing Us To a Data-Centric World

    What Fungible is set to do is to revolutionize the economics, the reliability, and the performance, of data centers at all scales and in all geographies. The reason that it is time to do this is because of some of the really important trends that have been happening over the last 15 to 20 years. There is, of course, the flattening of Moore’s Law. There is the hyper-connectivity that the internet has brought. Then there’s big data. 

    The confluence of these three things is bringing us to a data-centric world. It is time now to invent a new kind of microprocessor and this is exactly what we are doing. We’re inventing something called the DPU to improve the economics and reliability and performance of data centers. That’s what Fungible is doing.

    In Five Years 90 Percent of All Servers Will Have DPUs Inside

    Many, if not most, new applications are data-centric in that the amount of data that they ingest and they process is very large. As a result of this change in application, there’s a new workload that we call data-centric. In fact, the change that we see happening in data centers will happen in the redefinition of what we call a server. In five years we expect 90 plus percent of all servers to have DPU’s inside. 

    It will reflect in the way in which the networks are put together inside datacenter buildings. They’ll be much flatter, much faster, much lower latency, and with much more predictable latency. The DPU will enable that. Finally, the global architecture of the way data centers are built in the future will include Edge Datacenters in addition to these massively scalable data centers. The DPU is said to play a very important role in all three areas.

    It’s not a zero-sum game because of the emergence of this new kind of workload, which has been building now for 30 years. There’s been some 600 X change increase in the ratio of I/O to compute. This demands the invention of a new kind of microprocessor. We don’t have any direct head-to-head competition. We will work in a manner which is completely complementary to the existing two kinds of microprocessors which is Intel x86 and GPUs built by Nvidia. The DPU will be the third kind of microprocessor inside data centers.

    The Confluence of These 3 Things is Bringing Us To a Data-Centric World, Says Fungible CEO Pradeep Sindhu
  • How McDonald’s Is Using Data, Machine Learning, and AI to Accelerate Growth

    How McDonald’s Is Using Data, Machine Learning, and AI to Accelerate Growth

    “Our acquisition of Dynamic Yield has brought us a lot of excitement,” says McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook. “Very simply put, in the online world when we’re shopping and we pick an item and put it into our shopping basket, any website will automatically suggest two or three things to go along with it. We’re the first business that we’re aware of that can bring that into the physical world. It’s really just taking data and machine learning and AI, all these sorts of technical capabilities.”

    Steve Easterbrook, CEO of McDonald’s, discusses how the company is using technology to elevate the customer experience and accelerate growth in an interview on CNBC:

    Continue To See How We Can Elevate the Customer Experience

    As we’ve executed the growth plan we’ve spent the first two years, three or four years ago, turning the business around. Now we’ve had a couple of years of growth. We’re confident now that we’re beginning to identify further opportunities to further accelerate growth. That takes a little bit of research and development cost. It means you’ve got to bring some expertise into the business to help us do that. We’re still managing to effectively run the business. G&A is staying the same and we’re putting a little bit more into innovation.

    We continue to see how can we help continue to elevate the experience for customers. With this pace of change in the world and with different technology and different innovations, whether it’s around food, technology, or design, we’re seeing opportunities that we think can either make the experience more fun and enjoyable or smoother for customers. If we can find that we’re going to go hard at it.

    We need to continue growing. If where we are investing that money is helping drive growth across 38,000 restaurants then I think the shareholders and investors would be satisfied. We want to bring our owner-operators along with us as well. They’re investing their hard-earned dollars so that always means we got a business case. The owner-operators will want to see a return on their investment just the same as a shareholder would. We’ve got a wonderful check and balance in the system to help us make sure we spend that innovative money in the right way.

    Using Data, Machine Learning, and AI to Accelerate Growth

    Our acquisition of Dynamic Yield has brought us a lot of excitement. It was our first acquisition for 20 years. It was an acquisition in a way that was different from the past. It wasn’t looking at different restaurant businesses to try and expand our footprint. It’s bringing a capability, an IP and some talent, into our business that can help us accelerate the growth model. We completed the deal mid-April and within two weeks we had that technical capability in 800 drive-throughs here in the U.S. It’s a very rapid execution and implementation.

    Very simply put, in the online world when we’re shopping and we pick an item and put it into our shopping basket, any website we’re on these days will automatically suggest two or three things to go along with it. People who buy that tend to like these things as well. We’re the first business that we’re aware of that can bring that into the physical world. As customers are at the menu board, maybe they’re ordering a coffee and we can suggest a dessert or they’re ordering a quarter pounder with cheese and we can suggest making that into a meal. It’s really just taking data and machine learning and AI, all these sorts of technical capabilities.

    Mining All of the Data Will Improve the Business

    The best benefit for customers is we’re more likely to suggest things they do want and less likely to suggest things they don’t. It’ll just be a nicer experience for the customer. But yes, for the restaurant itself, because we can put our drive-thru service lines in there, for example, the technical capability by mining all of the data will be to suggest items are easier to make at our busier times. That’ll help smooth the operation as well. The immediate result will be some ticket (increases). But frankly, if the overall experience is better customers come back more often. That’s ultimately where the success will be, driving repeat visits and getting people back more often.

    Across the entire sector, traffic is tight right now and people are eating out less. They have been progressively eating out less for a number of years. Whether it’s the advent of home delivery, for example, which is something we participate in, but at the moment it’s just a little bit tight out there. It’s a fight for market share. Anyone who is getting growth, typically it’s because they’re adding new units. People are finding it hard to (increase) guest count growth. It’s something that we have stated as an ambition of ours. We think that’s a measure of the true health of the business. Last quarter, we did grow traffic and we’ve grown traffic for the last couple of years, but only modestly. We want to be stronger than that.

    How McDonald’s Is Using Data, Machine Learning, and AI to Accelerate Growth
  • Disruption Caused By Technology Certainly Is a Big Issue, Says Disney CEO

    Disruption Caused By Technology Certainly Is a Big Issue, Says Disney CEO

    “When I think about what is going on in our businesses and our world today disruption caused by technology certainly is a big issue,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger while sitting within the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland. “It’s one that I don’t necessarily get anxious about but one that I spend a lot of time on and am deeply focused on it. What we’ve tried to do is build a company that is capable of adjusting.”

    Tour of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland

    Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, discusses the launch of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland (see video below) as well as how technological disruption is impacting media and advertising in an interview on Fox Business:

    Disruption Caused By Technology Certainly Is a Big Issue

    When I think about what is going on in our businesses and our world today disruption caused by technology certainly is a big issue. It’s one that I don’t necessarily get anxious about but one that I spend a lot of time on and am deeply focused on it. I happen to believe that because of the kinds of stories that we tell and the products that we have including Pixar, Marvel, National Geographic, Disney, Star Wars, FX, Avatar, to name a few, that we have products that are not necessarily bulletproof or invulnerable to change but are more likely to withstand that kind of disruption we’re seeing.

    What we’ve tried to do is build a company that is capable of adjusting. This is not just in terms of our culture and the wherewithal, but capable of adjusting in terms of the kind of products we have to new forms of monetization and new forms of delivery. What Disney Plus and ESPN Plus and Hulu are designed to do is not only to grow as businesses to themselves but to be there for us as major alternatives in terms of business models should disruption get so acute that the current business model ends up being less viable.

    We Priced Disney Plus To Be Very Accessible

    We priced Disney Plus to be very accessible. What we are putting on are incredibly popular products such as Disney animated movies going all the way back to Snow White, the Star Wars films, the Marvel films, and on and on. Also on Disney Plus will be all the new things we are making. We wanted as many people across the world to be able to afford what they love which is all these properties.

    I actually don’t believe that price is going to be much of an issue for us given what’s available in the marketplace. For people who maybe can’t afford to spend another $7 a month is it possible they will give something else up for it? Sure. Is it possible they will wait to subscribe? Of course. We purposely kept the price down so that it would be more affordable to more people.

    Most Focused Initially on Net Subscribers

    I think in terms of the metrics that we will be most focused on initially (with Disney Plus) it would be net adds or net subscribers. That’s probably the most important metric for the foreseeable future. Another metric will be just how much people are watching programs or movies that we put on. We are making a lot of original product including Star Wars product with a series called The Mandalorian.

    We’ll watch carefully in terms of what’s being consumed. We don’t have any worries about it. We bought a technology platform called BAMTECH. It’s going to be a great means of delivering a good experience to consumers. We certainly have an ample library of products through television and movies and we have a lot of original content being produced.

    Advertising Will Find Its Way To the Consumer

    I think there will be channel consolidation (in the future). I don’t know about companies. We are a little spent right now I should say. We’ve got a lot to digest still. I think you will see some more consolidation. More importantly, I think there will be consolidation in the types of products that are brought out, particularly channels. There will be fewer channels globally in five years than there are today.

    Advertising will find its way to the consumer. Hulu sells advertising and more than the majority of people who sign up for Hulu are watching Hulu programs with advertising in it. We know there is advertising on Facebook and advertising on a variety of new platforms. It’s not on Netflix and won’t be on Disney Plus. I think the advertiser, given the technology that’s available and given the data that will be available, will find its way to the consumer, a way of delivering their messages.

    Disruption Caused By Technology Certainly Is a Big Issue, Says Disney CEO Bob Iger
  • HPE CEO: Reason For Acquiring Cray – The Data Around Us is Exploding

    HPE CEO: Reason For Acquiring Cray – The Data Around Us is Exploding

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cray have announced that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement under which HPE will acquire Cray for $35.00 per share in cash, in a transaction valued at approximately $1.3 billion, net of cash. “The main reason why we decided to pursue this acquisition is that the data around us is exploding,” Says HPE CEO Antonio Neri. “That data has value and the need to process that data faster continues to grow.”

    Antonio Neri, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, discusses the company’s intent to acquire  global supercomputer leader Cray, in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:

    Reason For Acquiring Cray – Data Around Us is Exploding

    I’m super excited about the announcement today. The main reason why we decided to pursue this acquisition is that the data around us is exploding. That data has value and the need to process that data faster continues to grow. The need for high-performance computing is one element of processing that data faster. The combination of great technologies with Hewlett Packard Enterprise portfolio, which include both HPE Apollo and SGI, give us a unique set of capabilities to get us to the right business outcome from the data. What we are talking about is (improved outcomes) for machine learning, AI, as well as big data and intensive workloads. Cray brings these capabilities.

    Cray has two-thirds of its business coming from the government side and one-third from the commercial side. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the opposite with two-thirds from the commercial side and one-third from the government side. Obviously, the government has already requested for Cray to build Exascale computing. That’s on the basis of the foundation technologies that Cray has developed for some time which is what we call the interconnect fabric. For us, that level of innovation is important to scale our portfolio and continue to enter new markets like oil and gas, manufacturing, as well as academia.

    Thirteen Acquisitions Under CEO – All Very Successful

    I have done now thirteen acquisitions with this one. We have had an incredible discipline based on return on invested capital where we have acquired (important) intellectual property as well as bringing talent to the organization. Each of them has been very successful including Aruba Networks as well as what I call the SGI acquisition, Nimble Storage, and so forth. They have all been very successful.

    When you think about the type of business it has obviously been a little bit lumpy on the Cray side but that’s because it takes time to build the systems with CAPEX upfront and then acceptance for the backend to recognize revenue. We believe the combinational of Cray added to our scale which is significantly larger will smooth the transition from the revenue profit perspective. It will also limit the CAPEX investment because both companies have similar capabilities and now we can use both in a scalable way that we couldn’t do before.

    HPE CEO Antonio Neri: Reason For Acquiring Cray – Data Around Us is Exploding

    Also Read:

    Next Frontier: Edge Centric, Cloud-Enabled, Data-Driven, Says HPE CEO
    Extracting Value From Data is a Massive Opportunity, Says Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO
  • Michael Dell Predicts in 10 Years More Computed Data on the Edge Than Cloud

    Michael Dell Predicts in 10 Years More Computed Data on the Edge Than Cloud

    “The surprise outcome ten years from now is there’ll be something much bigger than the private cloud and the public cloud,” says Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell. “It’s the edge. I actually think there will be way more computed data on the edge in ten years than any of the derivatives of cloud that we want to talk about. That’s the ten-year prediction.”

    Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, discusses how it has become a critical technology platform for its customers in an interview with theCUBE at Dell Technology World 2019 in Las Vegas:

    Data Has Always Been at the Center of How the Technology Industry Works

    We feel great. Our business has really grown tremendously. All the things we’ve been doing have been resonating with customers. We’ve been able to restore the origins of the entrepreneurial dream and success of the company and reintroduce innovation and risk-taking into a now $91 billion company growing at double digits last year. Certainly, the set of capabilities that we’ve been able to build organically and inorganically, with the set of alliances we have, the trust that customers have given us, we are super happy about the position that we’re in and the opportunities going forward. I think all this is really just a pregame show to what’s ahead for our industry and for the role that technology is going to play in the world.

    Data has always been at the center of how the technology industry works. Now we just have a tsunami, an explosion of data. Of course, now we have this new computer science that allows us to reason over the data in real time and create much better results and outcomes. That combined with the computing power all organizations have to reimagine themselves given all these technologies. Certainly, the infrastructure requirements in terms of the network, the storage, that compute, the build-out on the edge, tons of new requirements, we’re super well-positioned to go address all that.

    Predicts in 10 Years More Computed Data on the Edge Than Cloud

    The surprise outcome ten years from now is there’ll be something much bigger than the private cloud and the public cloud. It’s the edge. I actually think there will be way more computed data on the edge in ten years than any of the derivatives of cloud that we want to talk about. That’s the ten-year prediction. That’s what I see. Maybe nobody’s predicting that just yet, but let’s come back in ten years and see what it looks like.

    Really what we’re doing is we’re bringing to customers all the resources they need to operate in the hybrid multi-cloud world. First, you have to recognize that the workloads want to move around. To say that they’re all going to be here or there is in some sense missing the point because they’re going to move back and forth. You’ve got regulation, cost, security, performance, latency, all sorts of new requirements that are coming at you and they’re not going to just sit in one place.

    This is All Super Important As We Enter This AI Enabled Age

    Now with the VMware cloud foundation, we have the ability to move these workloads seamlessly across now essentially all the public clouds. We have 4,200 partners out there, infrastructure on-premise built and tuned specifically for the VMware platform and empowered also for the edge. All of this together is the Dell Technologies cloud. We have obviously great capabilities from our Dell UMC infrastructure solutions and all the great innovations at VMware coming together.

    Inside the business, the first priority was to get each of the individual pieces working well. But then we saw that the real opportunity was in the seams and how we could more deeply integrate all the aspects of what we’re doing together. You saw that on stage you know in vivid form yesterday with Pat and Jeff and Satya and even more today. Of course, there’s more to do. There’s always more to do. We’re working on how we build a data platform bringing together all of our capabilities with Boomi and Data Protection and VMware. This is all going to be super important as we enter this AI enabled age of the future.

    We’ve Created an Incredible Business

    I think investors are increasingly understanding that we’ve created an incredible business here. Certainly, if we look at the additional coverage that we have as they’re understanding the business, some of the analysts are starting to say hey this doesn’t really feel like a conglomerate. It’s a direct quote. If you think about what we demonstrated today and yesterday and will demonstrate in the future we’re not like Berkshire Hathaway. This is not a railroad that owns a chain of restaurants. This is one integrated business that fits together incredibly well and it’s generating substantial cash flows.

    I think investors over time are figuring out the value that’s intrinsic to the overall Dell Technologies family. We’ve got lots of ways to invest, we got VMware, SecureWorks, Pivotal, and of course the overall Dell Technologies.

    Michael Dell Predicts in 10 Years More Computed Data on the Edge Than Cloud


  • How Palo Alto Networks Blocks 30,000 New Pieces of Malware Daily Via AI, Machine Learning, and Big Data

    How Palo Alto Networks Blocks 30,000 New Pieces of Malware Daily Via AI, Machine Learning, and Big Data

    “The platform we have uses big data analytics and machine learning in the cloud to process and find all of the unknown malware, make it known and be able to block it,” says Scott Stevens, SVP, Global  Systems Engineering at Palo Alto Networks. “We find 20-30 thousand brand new pieces of malware every day. We’re analyzing millions and millions of files every day to figure out which ones are malicious. Once we know, within five minutes we’re updating the security posture for all of our connected security devices globally.”

    Scott Stevens, SVP, Global  Systems Engineering at Palo Alto Networks, discusses how the company uses AI, machine learning, and big data to find and block malware for its customers in an interview with Jeff Frick of theCUBE which is covering RSA Conference 2019 in San Francisco:

    We Find 20-30 Thousand New Pieces of Malware Every Day

    There are two ways to think about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analytics. The first is if we’re looking at how are we dealing with malware and finding unknown malware and blocking it, we’ve been doing that for years. The platform we have uses big data analytics and machine learning in the cloud to process and find all of the unknown malware, make it known and be able to block it.

    We find 20-30 thousand brand new pieces of malware every day. We’re analyzing millions and millions of files every day to figure out which ones are malicious. Once we know, within five minutes we’re updating the security posture for all of our connected security devices globally.

    Whether it’s endpoint software or it’s our inline next gen firewalls we’re updating all of our signatures so that the unknown is now known and the known can be blocked. That’s whether we’re watching to block the malware coming in or the command-and-control that’s using via DNS and URL to communicate and start whatever it’s going to do. You mentioned crypto lockers and there are all kinds of things that can happen. That’s one vector of using AI NML to prevent the ability for these attacks to succeed.

    Machine Learning Uses Data Lake to Discover Malware

    The other side of it is how do we then take some of the knowledge and the lessons we’ve learned for what we’ve been doing now for many years in discovering malware and apply that same AI NML locally to that customer so that they can detect very creative attacks very and evasive attacks or that insider threat that employee who’s behaving inappropriately but quietly.

    We’ve announced over the last week what we call the cortex XDR set of offerings. That involves allowing the customer to build an aggregated data lake which uses the Zero Trust framework which tells us how to segment and also puts sensors in all the places of the network. This includes both network sensors an endpoint as we look at security the endpoint as well as the network links. Using those together we’re able to stitch those logs together in a data lake that machine learning can now be applied to on a customer by customer basis.

    Maybe somebody was able to evade because they’re very creative or that insider threat again who isn’t breaking security rules but they’re being evasive. We can now find them through machine learning. The cool thing about Zero Trust is the prevention architecture that we needed for Zero Trust becomes the sensor architecture for this machine learning engine. You get dual purpose use out of the architecture of Zero Trust to solve both the in-line prevention and the response architecture that you need.

    How Palo Alto Networks Blocks 30,000 New Pieces of Malware Daily

    >> Read a companion piece to this article here:

    Zero Trust Focuses On the Data That’s Key to Your Business