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Category: CTOUpdate

CTOUpdate

  • Business Prioritizing Digital Transformation For Competitive Advantage, Says Equinix CEO

    Business Prioritizing Digital Transformation For Competitive Advantage, Says Equinix CEO

    “We’re seeing right now continued strength across our business because people are prioritizing digital transformation as a way to gain competitive advantage,” says Equinix CEO Charles Meyers. “The reality is people who are responding well to that are thriving and people that are not are being left behind. What companies (like Walmart) are doing essentially is using a hybrid and multi-cloud strategy. They have private infrastructure that they may house in a significant caged environment at Equinix but they interface it then with the public clouds.”

    Charles Meyers, CEO of Equinix, discusses their huge under the radar role in facilitating the massive digital transformation in progress with companies worldwide. Meyers was interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    There’s A Very Deep Demand Pool For Data Centers

    We continue to see a really strong set of underlying secular demand drivers for the business. We’re seeing real strength in the business globally right now. Broadly, we’ve seen the sector respond very well. We think there’s a very deep demand pool for data centers. I do think that Equinix plays a very unique role in the market and our differentiated position is allowing us to even outperform relative to our peers. Public cloud adoption is a major catalyst for our business. As enterprises are adopting public cloud and looking at hybrid and multi-cloud as their architecture of choice we’re seeing really strong demand.

    We may not be a household name but I think it’s pretty safe to say we’re probably impacting the lives of millions of consumers on a day to day basis working with (many big-name companies such as Salesforce and Netflix). We play a very important role in terms of interconnecting our customers sometimes to public cloud providers, sometimes to SAAS providers like Salesforce, sometimes to other members of their supply chain, and sometimes to networks. A really big part of our legacy and history has been interconnecting people to networks. The interconnection story is a really central piece of the Equinix story.

    Equinix Is The Best Representation Of The Digital Edge

    Equinix is in fact the best representation of the digital edge today. That is the point at which people are interconnecting their private infrastructure with public cloud infrastructure, with networks, and with other members of their supply chain. When you hear about edge, oftentimes that edge is in fact within an Equinix facility and being interconnected over private interconnection facilities that are facilitated by Equinix.

    Typically, when inside one of our facilities, we’re unlike some wholesalers which might have one or a very small number of customers, we tend to have a larger number of customers in any individual facility. They are distributed across the site typically in private cages or sometimes in shared caged environments or shared rack environments and they have their equipment. They’re all obviously very secured and something that’s available just for them to access. But they’re all across the facility. You typically wouldn’t be able to see who the customer is because they are very sensitive about that from a security standpoint.

    Firms Prioritizing Digital Transformation For Competitive Advantage

    We’re seeing right now continued strength across our business because people are prioritizing digital transformation as a way to gain competitive advantage. The reality is people who are responding well to that are thriving and people that are not are being left behind. So we’re seeing strong demand. I think the trade tensions, etc. probably affects some level of sentiment but we have not seen that impact the demand profile for our business.

    What companies (like Walmart) are doing essentially is using a hybrid and multi-cloud strategy. They have private infrastructure that they may house in a significant caged environment at Equinix but they interface it then with the public clouds. They’re using a variety of public clouds to house some of their workloads. So that hybrid multi-cloud environment is really the architecture of choice for enterprise customers of all sorts. Retail is actually an incredibly strong segment for us. That architecture of choice, hybrid and multi-cloud, is a major driver for Equinix’s business.

    Business Prioritizing Digital Transformation For Competitive Advantage – Equinix CEO Charles Meyers
  • Mobile Is Finally Coming To the Enterprise, Says ServiceNow CEO

    Mobile Is Finally Coming To the Enterprise, Says ServiceNow CEO

    “Mobile is coming to the enterprise, finally,” says ServiceNow CEO John Donahoe. “It’s been a long time coming. Our release in Q3 will have native out of the box consumer-grade mobile capability. So now any ServiceNow customer can have a brilliant mobile onboarding app so that their new employees can get up to speed quickly and seamlessly. We are very excited about the mobile capabilities coming in Q3, native out of the box so every one of our customers can build them in a low-code or no-code way.”

    John Donahoe, CEO of ServiceNow, discusses their earnings announcement and their major progress in bringing mobile to the enterprise, in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Mobile Is Coming To the Enterprise, Finally

    Our customers are very excited about mobile coming to the enterprise. It’s been a long time coming. Our release in Q3 will have native out of the box consumer-grade mobile capability. So now any ServiceNow customer can have a brilliant mobile onboarding app so that their new employees can get up to speed quickly and seamlessly. You can show a young new employee, a millennial, that you are in fact a modern company that helps get them onboard and productive quickly. 

    Also, the Now Mobile app which will allow employees to get their questions answered, problems reported and then dealt with, and get information. All my approvals are now in one place where I can check them. We are very excited about the mobile capabilities coming in Q3, native out of the box so every one of our customers can build them in a low-code or no-code way. Mobile is coming to the enterprise, finally.

    We feel very good about our growth. We feel very good about our customer and very good about our prospects. We are just focusing and executing so our customers get those great experiences.

    We Feel Very Good About the Relations We Are Building

    We now have 766 customers that are a million dollars and greater. We signed 14 customers that are a million dollars and greater in the quarter. That’s just symptomatic of the fact that we now work with 75 percent of the global 500. We are increasingly a strategic partner with those customers. Of our top 20 deals, 17 had three or more products. We feel very good about the relationships that we are building with our largest customers, which are the world’s largest companies and governments. 

    Our relationship with Microsoft is a very good one. We are initially focusing on US federal business where Microsoft has a strong presence as do we. We have a huge federal business and our datacenters have a certain security clearance. Microsoft Azure has the highest security clearance. Rather than us trying to replicate that, we are going to partner with them to take advantage of that Azure capability and jointly call on US federal customers.

    We are doing the same with federal customers in Australia and increasingly we will look at other government markets. We have 20 different product integrations with Microsoft and a long history with them. We think there is a lot of shared opportunity together. 

    RPO Is the Best Forward-Looking Indication of Our Business

    We do think RPO is a very good indication and probably the best forward-looking indication of our business because it demonstrates what kind of revenue you can expect going forward. Our current RPO grew 35 percent in the quarter. We feel very good about the outlook and future of our business. We raised guidance for the full year, both on revenue and billings. We see a lot of opportunity and we have a lot of strong momentum. We are focused on building those customer relationships that drive that growth.

    Mobile Is Finally Coming To the Enterprise, Says ServiceNow CEO John Donahoe
  • Cisco: How To Be An Engineer Of The Future

    Cisco: How To Be An Engineer Of The Future

    “We’re seeing an increased interest in how people take teams, work with their engineers, build towards these automation and software skill sets, and create the engineer of the future,” says Mandy Whaley, Sr. Director, DevNet & Certifications at Cisco. “What we see at Cisco is that the most successful teams and the most successful companies are building teams with this combined skill set of infrastructure skills and software and automation skills.”

    “I lead our DevNet and technical community and certifications team for Cisco,” says Whaley. “This includes everything about helping developers use our APIs. We do a lot of work on the paths that you can take to build the skills to learn about Cisco technology, to learn about software skills, to learn about automation, and then prove and test those skills by earning some certifications.”

    Mandy Whaley, Sr. Director, DevNet & Certifications at Cisco, says that the engineer of the future combines infrastructure, software, and automation skills:

    How To Be An Engineer Of The Future

    I come from a software development background. I’m working with a lot of DevOps, network engineering teams, infrastructure engineering teams, and we’re really looking at how all these skill sets have been evolving over time. What we see at Cisco is that the most successful teams and the most successful companies are building teams with this combined skill set of infrastructure skills and software and automation skills. Whether those skill sets are combined in one person or combined within a team of engineers who have specialties, that’s what it really takes to succeed with the scale, the speed, the agility, and the distributed nature of applications that we’re seeing today.

    We’ve really seen this come into effect with COVID and the way that companies have had to respond really quickly. Automation came to the forefront as being very important. Companies that had at least a start on those skill sets have been able to respond more quickly. Now we’re seeing an increased interest in how people take teams, work with their engineers, build towards these automation and software skill sets, and create the engineer of the future.

    New Job Roles Are Emerging

    Part of that has a lot to do with new job roles that are coming out of that. These business drivers of speed and agility and scale are driving things like the need for CI/CD pipeline for more than just your software, even for your networks, for your infrastructure. Out of that are these new job roles emerging, things like a Network Automation Engineer or DevSecOps Engineer, bringing security strongly into your DevOps flow.

    That’s part of what we’re learning from the DevNet community and what we’re working with the DevNet community on is how people are building the skills to go after those new job roles. There are a lot of opportunities and a lot of fun stuff to learn.

    Cisco’s Mandy Whaley Explains How To Be An Engineer Of The Future
  • Cars Will Be The Most Relevant Internet Devices, Says Volkswagen CEO

    Cars Will Be The Most Relevant Internet Devices, Says Volkswagen CEO

    “My view is that cars are becoming the most relevant units on the internet, says Volkswagen CEO Herber Diess. “Cars are becoming devices. They are fully connected. Data streams into the car and out of the car will be much higher than with smartphones. So the car gets a new role in the internet ecosystem. We have to adapt to that.”

    Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen, discusses how cars will be the most relevant devices on the internet in an interview with CNBC International at Davos 2020:

    Cars Are Becoming Internet Devices

    My view is that cars are becoming the most relevant units on the internet. Cars are becoming devices. They are fully connected. Data streams into the car and out of the car will be much higher than with smartphones. So the car gets a new role in the internet ecosystem. We have to adapt to that. From a traditional car manufacturer to become a tech company, it’s quite a long way to go but we are on the way.  It will be a huge transition.

    I think it’s great to have a good competition (regarding Tesla building a plant in Germany). We think that Tesla plays a very important role in the transition because they are paving the way. They’re probably running higher risks than we can from the traditional industry but they’re paving the way. They show that electric vehicles are working and that the fully connected car is the right solution. So we appreciate Tesla’s success.

    Cars Will Be The Most Relevant Internet Devices, Says Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess
  • Rockwell Automation Taking Manufacturing To Whole New Level

    Rockwell Automation Taking Manufacturing To Whole New Level

    “The acquisition today of Fiix is a really exciting one,” says Rockwell Automation CEO Blake Moret. “It spans the gap that’s traditionally existed between manually entered keystroke data and real-time data that’s coming from the equipment itself. This helps take maintenance and automation really to a whole new level.”

    Fiix Inc. is a privately-held, AI-enabled computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) company. Fiix, founded in 2008, is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

    “We’re really taking manufacturing to a whole new level,” added Moret. “We’re taking the traditional operational technology and know-how that’s existed on the plant floor for so many years and we’re marrying that with IT technology and bringing those together. It’s really unlocking a whole new level of productivity across all the industries that we serve.”

    Fiix’s cloud-native CMMS creates workflows for the scheduling, organizing, and tracking of equipment maintenance. It connects seamlessly to business systems and drives data-driven decisions. The company’s revenue grew 70% in 2019 with more than 85% recurring revenue.

    “We believe that the future of industrial asset management is performance-based,” said Tessa Myers, vice president, product management, Software & Control, for Rockwell Automation. “With the addition of the Fiix platform and expertise, our customers will benefit from a 360-degree view of integrated data across automation, production, and maintenance, helping them to monitor and improve the performance of their assets and optimize how maintenance work is done.”

    James Novak, Fiix CEO, said, “From the beginning, Fiix has been on a mission to connect maintenance and operations teams to the tools, resources, and technology they need to modernize and join the future of maintenance. Joining Rockwell Automation will allow us to help even more companies modernize maintenance and increase asset performance by connecting to industry-leading data, automation, and production systems.”

    The company says that the addition of Fiix directly aligns with Rockwell Automation’s software strategy.

    Rockwell Automation CEO Blake Moret also discussed their involvement with COVID treatments and the vaccine:

    “We’re involved with virtually all of the manufacturers who are working on the treatments and the tests and the vaccines around the world for the COVID virus. We’re really helping them and helping the world to recover. So we’re involved in the formulation, the packaging, the tracing, and you obviously have to do this at unbelievable scale to be able to meet the need.”

    Rockwell Automation Taking Manufacturing To Whole New Level
  • At Honeywell Innovation is Always the Key, Says CEO

    At Honeywell Innovation is Always the Key, Says CEO

    “Innovation is the key,” says Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk. “Anything we do in Honeywell, innovation is always the key. Whether it’s expanding into Europe, driving more robotics, a connected  warehouse offering which we are bringing to customers and having a broader play, are the key technology levers for that business.”

    Darius Adamczyk, CEO and Chairman at Honeywell, discusses how the company is using innovation and technology to drive growth in an interview on Bloomberg:

    Honeywell Digital Makes Us a More Contemporary Digital Company

    As we always said my number one priority as CEO was to drive organic growth, but we never say we’re going to give up on our margin expansion. We do it through a combination, both commercial levers, which is managing our mix, and always introducing new products, which bring more value to customers. But also not forgetting our roots, which is driving productivity. With the number of ERPs we have and the kind of complexity we have in our supply chain, Honeywell Digital, which is going to make us a much more contemporary digital company, we have plenty of levers for productivity as well.

    Honeywell Digital really has three primary elements. First is data governance, which is standard across all our various businesses. We’ve done over 80 acquisitions in the last 15 years so we have a lot of disparity. Then there are common processes, which is we want to run our businesses the same way in a very consistent manner. We have some pockets of excellence, but those have some inconsistency. Finally, all integrated into a common IT platform. Just to give an example, we had well over 1,500 different software applications before we started. We had over 150 ERP systems. It’s just very difficult to run a company efficiently and enable us to really make good data-based decisions. Honeywell digital is really all about enabling that.

    Anything We Do In Honeywell, Innovation is Always the Key

    Warehouse automation, which we started in 2016 with our Intelligrated acquisition. It’s been just a terrific business growing strong double-digit. We also made another acquisition called Transnorm which added to that technology in Europe in Q4 last year. We were planning on growing it organically, but also we’re looking to enhance our offerings, so we’re looking for inorganic opportunities as well. Innovation is the key. Anything we do in Honeywell, innovation is always the key. Whether it’s expanding into Europe, driving more robotics, a connected warehouse offering which we are bringing to customers and having a broader play, are the key technology levers for that business.

    Amazon is a big customer but we have a lot of big customers. I wouldn’t say it’s a predominant customer in that business. Just about everybody is looking into ecommerce because with a lot today’s retail you really have basically two options. One option is to enhance the in-store experience which a lot of retailers are doing. The other one is to drive ecommerce. We think that this trend is going to continue. Although I would say it’s in the middle innings in the US, it’s just beginning in Europe. We think we have a huge opportunity in Europe, India, and some of the other overseas markets.

    We have a very active venture capital fund and we’ve made about six investments in the last six months which is augmenting our technology plays. So although we haven’t made any big acquisitions, other than Transnorm in Q4, we are continuing to invest through our venture fund and we’re deploying capital that way. It’s been a terrific story for us in 3D printing for instance, particularly for our aerospace business. For a lot of the slow-moving parts we’re trying to basically get a new part certified and three printing per day. That’s our objective. Our aerospace businesses have made tremendous progress in achieving that and it’s really helping both for our inventory and on-time delivery for a lot of our aftermarket customers.

    It’s Important For Teachers To Be More Effective in STEM Education

    Regarding the workforce, education is the key and particularly STEM education. Honeywell is a big believer in that. Not only do we develop a lot of our young people that we bring into the company but we also spend a lot of money and time on developing teachers. It’s important for teachers to be more effective in STEM education. It’s something that we’re going to be supporting going forward even on a broader scale because that’s the way to differentiate our company.

    We’re always going to be differentiated by technology and we want to bring the brightest and the best. We want to make sure that it’s a competitive issue, not just here in the US, but everywhere we hire people, and we hire people just about everywhere. We have engineers in the US, China, India, everywhere around the globe. I would say lately we’ve actually been very much on the hiring string. When you grow 8% that creates a lot of opportunities to hire a lot of people particularly in the area of technology and engineering and software.

    At Honeywell Innovation is Always the Key, Says CEO


  • Darktrace CEO: People Are Going To Give a Hard Look At Cloud Security

    Darktrace CEO: People Are Going To Give a Hard Look At Cloud Security

    “People are going to really give a hard look at cloud security,” says Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan. “At the end of the day, it also says when you have something of this scale why not use some artificial intelligence or something that could have spotted this. Actually what was done was pretty blatant. It was 30 gigabytes of data moving to unusual storage locations. So there were a lot of ways that something like an AI system could have detected this and also prevented it from becoming an issue.”

    Nicole Eagan, CEO of Darktrace, discusses how the Capital One cyber attack happened and how it could have been prevented, in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:

    People Are Going To Really Give a Hard Look At Cloud Security

    There is so much positive momentum around cloud and so many benefits that I don’t anticipate seeing a pendulum swing back to on-prem data centers (because of the Capital One cyber hack). What I do think it means is people are going to really give a hard look at cloud security. This attack was a result of a vulnerability known as a configuration error in a Web Application Firewall that was specific to Capital One. What it does show is these configuration errors are actually really very commonplace. They’re commonplace in on-prem data centers and in cloud.

    This does highlight a few things. It does highlight insider threats, someone who had some insider knowledge. It also highlights supply chain level security. At the end of the day, it also says when you have something of this scale why not use some artificial intelligence or something that could have spotted this. Actually what was done was pretty blatant. It was 30 gigabytes of data moving to unusual storage locations. So there were a lot of ways that something like an AI system could have detected this and also prevented it from becoming an issue.

    Capital One Attack Was Human Error

    Configuration errors are basically a human error. Somebody somewhere made a human error, a mistake. We have to expect that humans are fallible and we’re going to see those type of errors. What’s so strange about this one is how public the disclosure was by the attacker on Twitter and GitHub and other places. That was what made it so unusual but also meant that the investigation moved very quickly. It seems like there’s been quite a bit of transparency as well.

    It’s interesting timing because we’re actually going into Back Hat and DEF CON, which is often known as a summer camp for hackers. There will be literally tens of thousands of people in Las Vegas next week. All of this is going to change the conversation. We’re going to see a lot about cloud security, about 5G security, about encryption and decrypting data, and of course, the evolution towards AI-based attacks. 

    What’s interesting is that people want to kind of say let’s make sure we prevent the kind of attacks we saw in 2016 (regarding the election).  The reality is the way the cybersecurity industry works the attackers keep moving on. They keep changing what’s called threat vectors. I do think we’ll see plenty of threats for 2020 but they may not look anything like the ones we saw in 2016.

    People Are Going To Give a Hard Look At Cloud Security – Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan
  • It Is a Multi-Cloud World, Says VMWare COO

    It Is a Multi-Cloud World, Says VMWare COO

    “VMWare allows the datacenter to act like a public cloud,” says VMWare COO Sanjay Poonen. “It is a multicloud world. While AWS will be first and preferred for us, we want every customer that has VMWare in the private cloud but AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, and Alibaba, those are the top five hyperscalers, and all of them have embraced VMWare.”

    Sanjay Poonen, COO of VMWare, discusses the incredible growth of VMWare which is driven by their ability to connect companies to any and every cloud in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Software Is Defining Everything

    We had a great quarter. You have to put the bigger picture in perspective. We’re in the golden age of software where software is defining everything. Software companies, in general, are doing well. What we have done as a company is focus on making the datacenter software-driven and we think there is a bright future there. We showed some examples of that in hyperconverged  (HCI) and in software-defined networking (SDN). 

    We also showed some incredible momentum with our partnerships in the hybrid-cloud. Amazon is obviously first and preferred there. We announced a partnership with Azure. There is also the digital workspace which is all of the devices. We think our future is bright and we just have to keep executing. Our view is always the long-run. 

    In This Software Future We Are Not Tethered To One Company

    I think there is a little bit of a misperception that we should nip in the bud (regarding correlating Dell’s earnings with VMWare). First off, VMWare’s business with Dell in these areas like hyperconverged, we’ve now surpassed companies like Nutanix who are number one in hyper-converged infrastructure, and in the digital workspace where we are partnering with Dell Laptops, those are going very well. We want Dell and VMWare to do well together. In the datacenter we work with Dell, HPE, Cisco, Lenovo, etc. There is no one hardware player that is the majority of our business. 

    In cloud we work with AWS, Azure, Google, Alibaba, and IBM. You won’t find another company that has got as many hybrid-cloud partners. In the digital workspace, we work with Apple, Google, and Microsoft. In this software future, we are not tethered to one company. We are optimized to Dell, we are not tethered to them. You need a software-based solution for any of these areas, the datacenter, the cloud, or the digital workspace during tough times and in good times. 

    It Is a Multi-Cloud World

    You should think about applications like mobile homes. They’re going to move from the datacenter to the cloud on this freeway called VMWare. The mobile home could go to one cloud and may come back. VMWare allows the datacenter to act like a public cloud. We make the hardware datacenter look like Amazon. Now if you are an Amazon customer, and they have 30-35 percent market share, number one in the market for cloud, they are our preferred cloud partner, we can help customers. We have many customers who are adopting VMWare cloud in AWS. 

    For those customers who said we are not an Amazon shop, for example, we quoted Walmart in our earnings announcement, they are using Azure. They have an option now because we announced a partnership with Azure. There are some customers that are going to have some other clouds. It is a multicloud world. While AWS will be first and preferred for us, we want every customer that has VMWare in the private cloud but AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, and Alibaba, those are the top five hyperscalers, and all of them have embraced VMWare. 

    IBM is a great partner of VMWare. We love their services business. IBM Cloud has 2,000+ customers. We are going to partner really well with Ginni Rometty and the team. We compete with a small part of Red Hat’s business in containers. Over 80 percent of Red Hat’s business is Linux, a good part of their business which is OpenShift and JBoss, is not doing so well. The future of containers is a small part of the business. We can walk and chew gum. We can partner with IBM and compete with that small part of Red Hat and that’s our focus. We want a big tent at VMWare. We want to partner with as many people as possible and compete with as few people as possible. 

    Make Your Story Sesame Street Simple

    First off, if you want to serve your customers well start by serving your employees. One of my professors at the Harvard Business School, Len Schlesinger, wrote an article and book on service profit chain. What he talked about is if you want to create shareholder value focus not just on customer satisfaction but satisfied employees. Hug your start. Take care of the best and brightest who come in there. 

    The second one is something that all of us can do which is make your story Sesame Street simple. All too often, I see product managers and account executives blabbering on with PowerPoints. Let’s tell the story just like you are telling the story to your mother or to your kids. Ironically, when you make things simple you’re going back to the basic principals of Steven Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, or Dale Carnegie, How To Win Friends and Influence People. It’s not that complicated. Have customer empathy.

    It Is a Multi-Cloud World, Says VMWare COO Sanjay Poonen
  • Microsoft Makes Desktop Analytics Available Commercially

    Microsoft Makes Desktop Analytics Available Commercially

    Microsoft has announced the commercial release of Desktop Analytics, a “cloud-connected service that integrates with System Center Configuration Manager.”

    The software helps organizations “view into the endpoints, applications, and drivers” being managed. It also provides a way to “assess application and driver compatibility with the latest Windows feature updates and receive mitigation recommendations for known issues, as well as advanced insights for line of business apps.”

    Desktop Analytics replaces Windows Analytics, which Microsoft has slated for end-of-life on January 31, 2020.

    Microsoft says the commercial release of Desktop Analytics has the following new features and improvements:

    “Since announcing the public preview of Desktop Analytics, we made a point to deliver new features on a regular basis. For example, in August we helped streamline the workflow by eliminating the need to manually evaluate applications (such as system components published by Microsoft) that are known to be compatible with new feature updates. Then, in September, we delivered on one of our most requested features: The ability for customers to migrate existing data from Windows Analytics Upgrade Readiness to Desktop Analytics during the onboarding process.

    “In addition to these updates, the 1906 release of System Center Configuration Manager further integrated Desktop Analytics with phased deployments, which means you can automate your pilot and production deployments with the health insights from Desktop Analytics. Looking ahead, we’ll soon enable customers who have already onboarded to migrate their administrator data. And we’re constantly investing in longer-running service enhancements like performance and reliability improvements.”

  • SAP and Verizon Partnering to Develop Next-Gen IoT Analytics Solution

    SAP and Verizon Partnering to Develop Next-Gen IoT Analytics Solution

    SAP and Verizon have announced a collaboration to help applications process data where it is generated, thanks to Verizon’s network and SAP’s edge computing platform.

    Edge computing allows companies to reduce data processing time by processing the data collected by Internet of Things (IoT) devices at or near the data collection point, rather than sending it to a data center.

    Verizon’s 5G network, paired with SAP’s Leonardo Internet of Things and Edge Services and analytics, will give customers in the supply chain, field service management, assembly line and retail industries real-time data processing.

    “We are unleashing the next generation of cloud capabilities through global data centers, across the edge of the network,” said Eric Stine, Chief Customer Innovation Officer, SAP North America. “With data volumes growing exponentially and the capabilities of new wireless technologies like 5G to further expand the reach of IoT and enterprise computing, SAP and Verizon are uniquely positioned to drive a new class of data analytics, management and services at scale to help the world’s great companies create amazing customer
    experiences, and unlock new business models and monetization strategies.”

    “Our ability to integrate our ThingSpace platform into the SAP Cloud portfolio provides a secure and agile way to deliver instantaneous, end-to-end operational analytics at the edge while lowering the cost of IoT management,” said George Fischer, president, Global Enterprise, Verizon Business Group. “This combined solution is not just about massive IoT. We are also enabling computer vision, augmented reality, blockchain and machine learning using Verizon’s network. These are a truly comprehensive set of capabilities to help our customers better manage critical functions including asset lifecycles, supply chains, customer experiences, human capital and plant operations.”

  • Apple Predicted To Take 5G Crown With iPhone In 2020

    Apple Predicted To Take 5G Crown With iPhone In 2020

    Strategy Analytics is predicting that Apple will take the top spot among 5G smartphone manufacturers in 2020.

    Despite being late to the 5G field, Strategy Analytics believes Apple will leap-frog the competition, chiefly in the form of Samsung and Huawei. Apple is widely believed to be releasing multiple 5G iPhones in 2020 and Strategy Analytics believes that, as long as Apple maintains the current upgrade price, those new iPhones will quickly take the lead.

    “Currently Samsung is the undisputed market leader in 5G smartphones,” said Ville-Petteri Ukonaho, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics. “But with the two largest 5G markets in 2020, China and the USA, dominated by Huawei and Apple respectively, these two vendors are set to lead in 5G next year.”

    Ultimately, as 5G matures and becomes more widespread, Samsung is expected to retake the crown.

    “Despite the strong showing that is expected for Apple in 5G in 2020,” adds Ken Hyers, Director at Strategy Analytics. “In the longer term Samsung will regain the 5G crown. As more markets cut over to 5G, Samsung will capture the majority of that share by virtue of its dominance of the overall smartphone market and a broader portfolio of 5G devices across more price-bands.”

    Meanwhile, while Huawei will likely remain a dominant force in China, the bans and restrictions it faces in other parts of the world will limit its ability to compete effectively on the global market.

    As a result, in the short-term at least, “2020 will be Apple’s time to grab bragging rights in 5G.”

  • Wayve Raises $20 Million To Improve Autonomous Vehicle AI

    Wayve Raises $20 Million To Improve Autonomous Vehicle AI

    VentureBeat is reporting that U.K.-based startup Wayve has raised $20 million in Series A funding to improve AI for autonomous vehicles.

    Wayve takes a different approach to autonomous vehicles than many other companies. Rather than hand-coded rules, or throwing more sensors at the problem, Wayve is trying to improve the AI behind autonomous vehicles to better emulate human-style adaptability and decision-making.

    “The company said that it trains its autonomous driving system using simulated environments and then transfers that knowledge into the real world, where it emulates how humans adapt to conditions in real time. Wayve’s systems learn from each safety driver intervention to understand why the driver had to intervene, bypassing HD maps, lidar, and other sensors that have become synonymous with the burgeoning autonomous vehicle movement.”

    Wayve’s machine learning algorithms are hardware and sensor-agnostic, meaning they can be used with any hardware or sensors, provided the manufacturer wants to. However, the real strength of Wayve’s approach is that their algorithms can learn and adapt to new situations.

    Alex Kendall, Wayve confounder and CTO told VentureBeat: “Our algorithms are learning to become super-human drivers. We learn from attentive human driving, which already eliminates the 98.3% of human road errors due to inattention / ineffective driving. We then further improve beyond what humans are capable of with reinforcement learning, by providing feedback to our system.”

    If Wayve can deliver on its premise, it’s a safe bet their tech will soon make its way into self-driving vehicles.

  • Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain, Says Anduril Founder

    Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain, Says Anduril Founder

    “I don’t think that Microsoft, Amazon, or any of these big tech companies are going to go all-in and say we are going to build products that are going to be controversial, part of the kill chain, and designed specifically for DoD,” says the founder of Oculus VR and Anduril, Palmer Luckey. “Because if it reduces their consumer enterprise sales by one percent or increases controversy by one percent it’s likely not worth doing.”

    Luckey added, “I don’t think that the United States leads in the technologies that are going to be relevant to the warfare of the future. I think that the US is falling behind in areas like autonomy and artificial intelligence.”

    Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and Anduril, discusses how Anduril can compete and win against behemoth defense contractors and big tech in an interview on CNBC:

    Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain

    No, (I don’t think Microsoft is a rival to Anduril). Actually, I think that we’re going to be doing a lot of work with Microsoft on a lot of this stuff. You’re not going to have one company owning everything anyway. I’m glad that Microsoft and Amazon are vigorously competing for this Jedi contract. Contrast that with Google that dropped out because they said they couldn’t be sure the government was going to abide to their internal corporate ethics principles. I think that there’s a big difference though between what Amazon and Microsoft are doing with Jedi and what we’re doing. Microsoft has said that the military will always have access to their best technology and that’s true. But they also are selling to everyone. They’re building a product that’s for everyone.

    Everything that we’re building is specifically for the Department of Defense. We’re not going out there and saying, let’s resell the thing where we make 90 percent of our money in the consumer or the enterprise space. We’re going to say what do they need and what is the absolute perfect thing? I don’t think that Microsoft, Amazon, or any of these big tech companies are going to go all-in and say we are going to build products that are going to be controversial, part of the kill chain, and designed specifically for DoD. Because if it reduces their consumer enterprise sales by one percent or increases controversy by one percent it’s likely not worth doing.

    US Is Falling Behind In Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence

    In China, you have lots of new companies doing defense work and lots of consumer technology companies doing really strong defense. China has a very strong pipeline from new tech to military deployment. I think the United States knows that they can learn a little bit from that and that they’re going to have to if they’re going to keep up with our adversaries who are honestly much better at that innovation pipeline than we are right now.

    I think that we lead right now especially when it comes to conventional military force and when it comes to conventional military operations. I don’t think that the United States leads in the technologies that are going to be relevant to the warfare of the future. I think that the US is falling behind in areas like autonomy and artificial intelligence. I think that China has structural advantages over the United States because they’re willing to surveil their entire population and use it as a training system for their artificial intelligence models. I’m not saying that we should do that. I’m very much against that in fact. But we do have to realize that China has certain structural advantages.

    In China, the government by law is able to take any technology they want from the private sector and use it for military purposes. In the United States, we’re lucky that our companies are even able to say I don’t want to work with the government. I don’t agree with Google’s decision to pull out of the Jedi contract, for example, but I am very supportive of their right to do so. Again, I’m not saying we need to be more like China on this. I think that would be terrible. But we do have to recognize that there are structural advantages in what they’re doing and so we have to not just do the same thing they’re doing. We have to try new things, better things, and alternate routes where they don’t really have such a strong advantage.

    Lockheed, Raytheon Do Not Have The Best New Tech Talent

    I think our (smaller) size actually works in our favor. If it was a big landscape of smaller highly competitive players I think we actually would have a harder time raising money. As it is investors look and they say, hey, the whole field is dominated by a handful of players that make all of the money. They’re old, they’re very slow-moving, they don’t have all the best talent. That type of market is the one where you can believe the most that somebody can come in and disrupt it.

    We’re a defense technology company first. We’re not a consumer technology company dabbling in defense work. We from day one said what can we develop that really helps the US Department of Defense and that helps keep America and our allies safe. That’s why we’re building artificial intelligence powered hardware and software. I think that we have a few big competitive advantages. The first thing is that we have a really strong team that comes from areas where the experts in autonomy, computer vision, machine learning, networking, those types of things, actually are. 

    Lockheed, Raytheon, the traditional defense primes, they’re good at building aircraft carriers and good at building fighter interceptors but they do not have the world’s best talent when it comes to artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning. That’s why our company is focusing on that. We think we can add a lot of value there that other people cannot necessarily add.

    Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain, Says Anduril Founder Palmer Luckey


  • John Carmack Stepping Down As Oculus CTO To Focus On AI Research

    John Carmack Stepping Down As Oculus CTO To Focus On AI Research

    John Carmack is a legend in the video game community, having co-founded id Software and taken the lead on ground-breaking games such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Rage and others. More recently, he has held the role of CTO at Oculus VR.

    Now, in a Facebook post, Carmack has announced he is resigning his position to pursue AI research. He plans on being a “consulting CTO” for Oculus, but only in a modest role.

    “Starting this week, I’m moving to a ‘Consulting CTO’ position with Oculus.

    “I will still have a voice in the development work, but it will only be consuming a modest slice of my time.

    “As for what I am going to be doing with the rest of my time: When I think back over everything I have done across games, aerospace, and VR, I have always felt that I had at least a vague ‘line of sight’ to the solutions, even if they were unconventional or unproven. I have sometimes wondered how I would fare with a problem where the solution really isn’t in sight. I decided that I should give it a try before I get too old.

    “I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI).

    “I think it is possible, enormously valuable, and that I have a non-negligible chance of making a difference there, so by a Pascal’s Mugging sort of logic, I should be working on it.

    “For the time being at least, I am going to be going about it ‘Victorian Gentleman Scientist’ style, pursuing my inquiries from home, and drafting my son into the work.

    Runner up for next project was cost effective nuclear fission reactors, which wouldn’t have been as suitable for that style of work. 😊”

    If Carmack’s new focus has even a fraction of the success he’s enjoyed in the gaming industry, the AI field will likely reap significant benefits from his participation.

  • I Want Every American To See The Transformative Impact Of 5G, Says Verizon CEO

    I Want Every American To See The Transformative Impact Of 5G, Says Verizon CEO

    “We pride ourselves with the best network,” says Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg. “We have had that all the time in 4G and we’re going to have it on 5G. We’ve invested very prudently with our network, but network is our strategy and it has been that since the inception of the company. At Verizon, we’re proud of it. I just want every American to have a 5G phone in their hands and see the huge impact it will have in a transformative way that 5G will make in this country.”

    Hans Vestberg, CEO of Verizon, discusses his desire for every American to soon experience the huge transformative impact that 5G will have in an interview on CNBC at The Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference:

    I Want Every American To See The Transformative Impact Of 5G

    We have been on to 5G for seven years now. We were first in the world to launch 5G Home broadband. We were first in the world with 5G mobility. We now have four cities up and we’re going to have 30 cities this year. We have three 5G phones already out. So we, of course, are ahead of the game but we respect all the competition. We pride ourselves with the best network. We have had that all the time in 4G and we’re going to have it on 5G. 

    We’ve invested very prudently with our network, but network is our strategy and it has been that since the inception of the company. At Verizon, we’re proud of it. That’s important to us. I just want every American to have a 5G phone in their hands and see the huge impact it will have in a transformative way that 5G will make in this country.

    We’re In the Middle Of a Very Big Transformation

    It’s always been a competitive market. I mean the wireless market in the US is extremely competitive. It’s nothing new to us and we are prepared. We’re in the middle of a very big transformation of the company. We have changed the network, we have a new go-to-market, and we have a voluntary offering where almost 10,400 people are leaving us. So we are prepared. Whatever comes up Verizon will respond quickly and we will manage our shareholders or customers or employees and society in general. That’s our work.

    It’s a very exciting market to be in with mobility and broadband and 5G and all of that. Of course, there is a lot of hype and discussion about it and the US is in the lead with it. It’s an exciting time to be here and work. We will compete. I think that we already have the best 4G network and we’re ready with being first in word with 5G. We will just hammer on and execute. I have a great team that is doing that every day. Our main focus is really to execute right now and then a lot of things will happen around us.

    Regulation Of Tech Is Difficult

    First of all, we understand the concerns (around big tech) and all of that. Ultimately, we need to remember that mobility, broadband, and cloud, that combination is a 21st-century infrastructure. If you can scale that you can actually solve problems in the rest of the world that you have never thought about. If we start to chop that up by regulation we cannot give the same opportunities for everyone in this world. So that’s very important. 

    Secondly, I think the technology is moving so fast that if you do regulation, it’s just moving so fast that it’s hard. I think it’s up to responsible leaders and ultimately the customer will be after you if you do stupid things. We’re building our brand on trust and innovation. We know that we need to fight every day to get that trust and one thing you do wrong you lose the trust. That has to regulate and that’s more important in the end.

    I think that regulation is difficult in the tech sector and customers will ultimately judge them. I’m worried that if you’re going to have different regulations all around the world for platforms, for example, which means that the officials that were getting from them today, that people can get digital health care and digital educational platforms, we’re going to lose that. With the sustainable goals that we have in the world, we want everybody to have the same chance. I think that would be bad.

    I Want Every American To See The Transformative Impact Of 5G, Says Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg
  • Intel Just Had Its Best Quarter In History, Says CEO

    Intel Just Had Its Best Quarter In History, Says CEO

    “It was the best quarter in the company’s 51-year history,” says Intel CEO Bob Swan. “Everything was stronger than we expected this quarter. If you think about where we were simply 90 days ago we had a view that the quarter would be roughly $18 billion but we closed at $19.2 billion. That’s $1.2 billion higher than we expected.”

    Bob Swan, CEO of Intel, discusses in an interview on CNBC how the company was able to end the third quarter better than any other quarter in its 51-year history:

    Best Quarter In the Company’s 51-Year History

    Everything was stronger than we expected this quarter. If you think about where we were simply 90 days ago we had a view that the quarter would be roughly $18 billion but we closed at $19.2 billion. That’s $1.2 billion higher than we expected. We saw strength across the board. It was the best quarter in the company’s 51-year history. 

    The data-centric collection of businesses, which is a very important part of our growth story, set records. DCG was a record quarter. Our memory business had a record quarter. Our IoT business had a record quarter. Our Mobileye business had a record quarter. We really saw very strong growth across the board as we went from Q2 to Q3.

    Because of that, we raised our full-year outlook by $1.2 billion. We took earnings up and we raised our cashflow outlook by a billion dollars as well. We’re on pace for our fourth record year in a row. We feel good momentum going to the second half of the year.

    Intel Just Had Its Best Quarter In History, Says Intel CEO Bob Swan
  • Digital Transformation Is A Strategic Priority For Every Company, Says ServiceNow CEO

    Digital Transformation Is A Strategic Priority For Every Company, Says ServiceNow CEO

    “What’s happening is that digital transformation is a strategic priority for every company,” says  ServiceNow CEO John Donahoe. “If you can’t compete digitally you can’t succeed. ServiceNow is one of the core strategic digital transformation partners for increasingly virtually every company around. Companies are focusing on how can they deliver better experiences to their customers, better experiences for their employees, and drive real productivity growth.”

    John Donahoe, CEO of ServiceNow, discusses how digital transformation has become the key strategic priority for every company in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Digital Transformation Is A Strategic Priority For Every Company

    What’s happening is that digital transformation is a strategic priority for every company. If you can’t compete digitally you can’t succeed. ServiceNow is one of the core strategic digital transformation partners for increasingly virtually every company around. I was in Europe and met with several customers and some of our big partners and they aren’t focusing on macroeconomics they aren’t focusing on Brexit. 

    They’re focusing on how can they deliver better experiences to their customers, better experiences for their employees, and drive real productivity growth. ServiceNow is one of their core platforms that enable all three.

    Cross-Functional Workflow Is the Wave Of the Future

    I inherited a wonderful company from Frank Slootman, a company that had enormous potential. My role over the last three years has been to try and bring us up into the C-Suite and begin to pull us outside of IT. The reason for that is employees don’t really care if their issues are IT or HR or finance. Historically, software has been very siloed. Cross-functional workflow is the wave of the future. That’s what digitization enables. I’ve gotten us started to do that.

    However, with our next CEO, Bill McDermott, there is no one in the world who was operated more across all the major buying centers in the enterprise. He knows all the functional software and all seams that exist. There’s no one in the world that has greater C-Suite relationships than Bill McDermott. He’s going to take this even to the next level.

    Digital Transformation Is A Strategic Priority For Every Company – ServiceNow CEO John Donahoe
  • Huawei In Talks to License 5G Tech to U.S. Companies

    Huawei In Talks to License 5G Tech to U.S. Companies

    Huawei may have found a way around a ban on exporting its equipment to the U.S. that went into effect in May 2019. According to Reuters, the telecommunications equipment company is in talks to license its 5G tech to U.S. firms.

    The company has repeatedly been accused of having backdoors in its equipment and software—backdoors the Chinese government allegedly uses for spying. Huawei has denied the allegations, but that has not saved it from being on a U.S. blacklist. Although the U.S. has not been successful in persuading all of its allies to similarly ban Huawei, the equipment company is still looked suspiciously by many Western powers.

    Vincent Pang, senior vice president and board director, told Reuters “there are some companies talking to us, but it would take a long journey to really finalize everything. They have shown interest,” he added, although the conversations are in the very early stages.

    Although the State Department has previously voiced skepticism about carriers being willing to license 5G tech and assume the cost of bringing it to market, the option may prove more desirable than the alternatives. European companies, such as Nokia and Ericsson, are more expensive than Huawei. There is also no U.S. 5G provider for carriers to fall back on. Licensing Huawei’s tech could give carriers an advantage by giving them more complete control over their network equipment, allowing them to fully optimize it for their needs.

    As Zak Doffman at Forbes points out, Huawei may have another motive making its tech available for licensing.

    “In offering to open its code to U.S. diligence, Huawei would make it impossible for security hawks to allege such hidden backdoors,” writes Doffman. “This then became the twist—Huawei isn’t embarking on an exercise in friendly bridge building to Trump or others in Washington. This is a major game of “call my bluff,” an attempt to call out a situation Huawei believes is politically motivated and not rooted in facts. If the U.S. believes what it says, the hypothesis runs, then it will take up the offer and prove its point. If it doesn’t, then the accusations that have been made have nothing to do with security or technology.”

    In what seems like a never-ending battle between Washington and Huawei, it will be interesting to see if these talks lead to an easing of restrictions.

  • OPPO Plans to Release the First Dual-Mode 5G Phone

    OPPO Plans to Release the First Dual-Mode 5G Phone

    OPPO has announced plans to release the world’s first dual-mode 5G phone before year’s end. The phone was announced at the Qualcomm 5G Summit 2019 in Barcelona, a fitting location as it will be powered by Qualcomm’s chipset.

    Dual-mode phones will be compatible with both SA and NSA networks. SA stands for standalone mode, where only 5G is used for data and signaling. NSA, in contrast, stands for non-standalone and uses LTE for some of the process, such as cell tower communication.

    In making the announcement, Henry Tang, OPPO’s Chief 5G Scientist said:

    “The unrelenting efforts from OPPO and other industry peers have paved the way for the rapid adoption of 5G, with users in select countries and regions already becoming early adopters of OPPO’s 5G smartphones. We hope our next-generation dual-mode 5G offerings will deliver a superior experience to more consumers in more markets globally, making 5G readily available to a wider consumer base worldwide.”

    According to Tang, OPPO is working with over a dozen global operators to accelerate 5G commercialization worldwide. The company plans to consistently introduce more 5G products globally.

  • Apple to Use Its Own 5G Modems in 2022

    Apple to Use Its Own 5G Modems in 2022

    According to Fast Company, Apple may have its own 5G modems ready for production as early as 2022, ending its reliance on Qualcomm.

    Apple has been trying to end its dependence on Qualcomm for some time now. Initially, the company switched to using Intel, while at the same time fighting a legal battle with Qualcomm over what it perceived to be unfair pricing. Ultimately, the two companies settled in April, followed by Apple promptly buying Intel’s 5G modem business.

    Apple is likely looking to leverage its purchase to create its own modems where it would have full control. As Fast Company reports, Apple initially worked with Intel in the hopes of producing a “system on a chip,” where a modem would be integrated into a single chip along with the other processors Apple uses in iPhones and iPads. Doing so would provide significant power and energy benefits. Ultimately, that partnership ended because of Intel’s inability to deliver.

    Now that Apple owns Intel’s modem business, the company will be free to continue its aspirations, without relying on other partners. Traditionally, Apple has always preferred developing its own chips. Prior to the switch to Intel, Apple partnered with IBM and Motorola to develop the PowerPC line of chips. More recently, the company has licensed ARM processors to create its A-series chips used in iPhones and iPads.

    Despite Apple’s expertise in chip design, sources told Fast Company that 2022 is an optimistic launch window. Once the chips are fabricated, they must still be rigorously tested to ensure they work with carriers’ networks. One factor in Apple’s favor is the individual likely leading their modem efforts. According to FactCompany’s source, Esin Terzioglu, Qualcomm’s former VP of Engineering, is probably in charge of the 5G team.

    Whether Mr. Terzioglu’s experience is enough to help Apple meet its goal remains to be seen.

  • Arm Holdings Opens Its CPU Cores to Allow Custom Instructions

    Arm Holdings Opens Its CPU Cores to Allow Custom Instructions

    Forbes is reporting that Arm Holdings has taken a major step toward helping its processors compete even better and make them more appealing to customers.

    Arm designs processors and then licenses those designs to companies for use in their products. ARM CPUs are used across the entire computing spectrum, although they are most widely used in mobile devices, such as phones and tablets.

    According to Forbes’ report, Arm announced that it is opening its CPU cores to allow licensees to add custom instructions via a special block that’s integrated into the CPU’s cores. This will allow licensees to optimize chips for power, energy, differentiation and reduced costs. Best of all, thanks to how Arm is implementing the custom instructions, the reliability, security and predictability of the processors is unaffected.

    This will be a boon to companies who want the benefits of utilizing an existing design—rather than starting from scratch—but need more customization than is offered by standard, third-party chips.

    The first chip with the new capability, the Cortex M33, is due out in 2020.