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Category: CTOUpdate

CTOUpdate

  • Alteryx Acquires Feature Labs, An MIT-Born Machine Learning Startup

    Alteryx Acquires Feature Labs, An MIT-Born Machine Learning Startup

    Data science is one of the fastest growing segments of the tech industry, and Alteryx, Inc. is front and center in the data revolution. The Alteryx Platform provides a collaborative, governed platform to quickly and efficiently search, analyze and use pertinent data.

    To continue accelerating innovation, Alteryx announced it has purchased a startup with roots in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Feature Labs “automates feature engineering for machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.”

    Combining the two companies’ platforms and engineering will result in faster time-to-insight and time-to-value for data scientists and analysts. Feature Labs’ algorithms are designed to “optimize the manual, time-consuming and error-prone process required to build machine learning models.”

    Feature Labs makes its open-source libraries available to data scientists around the world. In what is no doubt welcome news, Alteryx has already committed to continued support of the open-source community.

    From the Press Release:

    “Feature Labs’ vision to help both data scientists and business analysts easily gain insight and understand the factors driving their business matches the Alteryx DNA. Together, we are helping customers address the skills gap by putting more powerful advanced analytic capabilities directly into the hands of those responsible for making faster decisions and accelerating results. We are excited to welcome the Feature Labs team and to add an engineering hub in Boston,” said Dean Stoecker, co-founder and CEO of Alteryx.

    “Alteryx maintains its leadership in the market by continuing to evolve its best-in-class, code-free and code-friendly platform to anticipate and meet the demands of the 54 million data workers worldwide2. With the addition of our unique capabilities, we expect to empower more businesses to build machine learning algorithms faster and operationalize data science,” said Max Kanter, co-founder and CEO of Feature Labs. “Feature engineering is often a time-consuming and manual process and we help companies automate this process and deploy impactful machine learning models.”

  • Oracle Reveals $40 Million Investment in Chip Start-Up Ampere

    Oracle Reveals $40 Million Investment in Chip Start-Up Ampere

    Oracle recently announced an investment in chip startup Ampere. Ampere is run by Renee James, a former Intel executive who served as president of the company from 2013 till her departure in 2016, and currently serves on Oracle’s board.

    Ampere Computing develops microprocessors for cloud servers. Their processors are based on the chips designed by ARM Holdings, a rival of Intel and AMD. ARM processors, widely used in tablets and phones, are known for delivering substantial speed with minimal heat and power consumption.

    Ampere hopes to harness those qualities and apply their benefits to cloud servers. The goal is to produce cloud servers that provide “higher density and higher bandwidth, and with a significant reduction in power consumption and operating costs.”

    Now, in Oracle’s proxy, they have outlined the extent of their investment:

    “In April 2019, Oracle invested $40 million in an equity fundraising round for Ampere Computing LLC (Ampere), a developer of high-performance microprocessors for cloud and edge servers. Renée J. James, an Oracle director, is the Chairman and CEO of Ampere. Oracle has appointed one director to Ampere’s board. Oracle holds less than 20% of the outstanding equity of Ampere.

    “In fiscal 2019, Oracle paid Ampere approximately $419,000 for hardware used for development and testing purposes.”

  • Government Officials Urge Facebook to Create Encryption Backdoor

    Government Officials Urge Facebook to Create Encryption Backdoor

    In most cases, two plus two equals four. It’s simple math. The same is true of encryption. Devices and services are either protected by strong encryption or they’re not. There is no in-between.

    In spite of that, the UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, joined U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton in an open letter urging Facebook to essentially create a backdoor in their end-to-end encryption.

    On the one hand, the government officials offer lip service to the need for strong encryption:

    “We support strong encryption, which is used by billions of people every day for services such as banking, commerce, and communications. We also respect promises made by technology companies to protect users’ data. Law abiding citizens have a legitimate expectation that their privacy will be protected.”

    However, those statements are undermined by what follows:

    “Companies should not deliberately design their systems to preclude any form of access to content, even for preventing or investigating the most serious crimes.”

    Unfortunately these statements, and others like them, demonstrate a dangerous lack of understanding about how encryption works or, for that matter, how basic math—the foundation of all encryption—works. Experts the world over have warned about the catastrophic dangers of creating backdoors in encryption here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here and here (PDF).

    The last one was an open letter to the White House by civil organizations, companies, trade associations and a myriad of security and policy experts. These are individuals from such varied backgrounds that they rarely agree on anything. Yet the one thing they all agree on is that there is simply no way to create backdoors in encryption without fundamentally weakening said encryption. It simply can’t be done. There is no way to create a backdoor for the “good guys” to get into the phones, computers and tablets of the “bad guys” without the “bad guys” using those same backdoors to get into the devices of the “good guys.”

    At this point in the debate, people who want backdoors usually fall back to complaining about how strong encryption is making it possible for bad actors to “go dark,” using encryption to protect their activities from prying eyes. Therefore, the argument goes, the tech companies should be forced to make a backdoor in the interest of the greater good.

    By that logic, however, safe makers should be required to create a backdoor to every safe they manufacture in the event that whoever purchases it tries using it for nefarious purposes. Similarly, paper shredder makers should be forced to make shredders that can take the strips of shredded paper and recombine them into their original form. Otherwise, someone might use a shredder to destroy documents to cover illegal activity.

    What’s interesting about both of those examples is that, even without the manufacturers’ assistance, it’s possible to crack into a safe, as well as sort through strips of shredded paper and reconstruct documents. Is it a pleasant experience? No—but it’s possible.

    Similarly, even without backdoors in encryption, with enough computing power it is possible to break encryption or find ways to circumvent it. In the wake of the San Bernardino case, after the FBI tried to force Apple to unlock the perpetrator’s iPhone, the FBI was able to find a company that succeeded in unlocking the phone. Was it pleasant? No—but it was possible.

    Sometimes convenience for a few—in this case law enforcement—must take a back seat to the safety of the many. In other words, two plus two must equal four, unless a person doesn’t believe in basic math principles. Then two plus two equals five, or 13, or 127,309 or…

  • Infosys & SAP Announce Alliance to Accelerate Clients’ Enterprise Digital Transformation

    Infosys & SAP Announce Alliance to Accelerate Clients’ Enterprise Digital Transformation

    SAP SE announced a collaboration program with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure at SAPPHIRE NOW 2019. The project, named “Embrace” will also include global strategic service partners (GSSP).

    At the same time, Infosys—“a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting”—has announced Innov8, a new program designed to help “clients transform their business model to one based on predictable OPEX-based costs.”

    According to a press release Infosys issued Tuesday, the two companies are planning a collaborative alliance, to bring the benefits of Embrace and Innov8 to customers “and offer flexible points of entry to the SAP environment for both existing and new cloud users, all within one comprehensive end-to-end business solution.”

    With more than 70 ready-to-deploy artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, analytics and Internet of Things use cases, Innov8 provides a way for companies to invest, innovate and build intelligent enterprises.

    From the Infosys Press Release:

    Dinesh Rao, Executive Vice President, Infosys, said, “Navigating the cloud ecosystem requires a structured strategy that provides a consolidated view into a company’s overall transformation journey. Through Innov8, we are focused on leveraging our industry knowledge and experience to accelerate the delivery of business solutions. Through this collaboration, we are focusing on ensuring that our clients are able to rapidly adopt tomorrow’s business models today.”

    David Robinson, Senior Vice President, SAP Cloud Business Group and Global Lead, Embrace program at SAP said, “SAP is excited about its plans to partner with Infosys to help clients invest in purposeful innovation to build their intelligent enterprise. Innov8 for Embrace leverages Infosys’ industry knowledge and expertise on SAP and cloud technologies. This is a platform that is delivered on a cloud hyperscale environment with SAP digital solutions delivering end-to-end business outcomes at accelerated pace. We couldn’t be more excited.”

    David McIntire, IT Services Research Director at NelsonHall, said “The value of SAP S/4HANA adoption extends beyond IT and into transforming how businesses operate. Innov8 for Embrace has the potential to combine industry-tailored intelligence, applications and processes with simplified OPEX pricing and cloud hosting into an integrated offering aimed at helping companies maximize the business value of adopting SAP S/4HANA.”

  • Blackberry Announces New Cybersecurity R&D Unit

    Blackberry Announces New Cybersecurity R&D Unit

    Blackberry, once the de facto standard among smartphones, has struggled to remain relevant in the iPhone and Android era. A new initiative may help change that. According to a press release, the company is going back to its roots and doubling down on security.

    Throughout its history, Blackberry’s security has been legendary, based on strong encryption algorithms that have given government agencies and hackers alike a run for their money. Now, Blackberry Limited has created the Blackberry Advanced Technology Development Labs (Blackberry Labs), a new business unit that will focus on cybersecurity R&D.

    Company CTO Charles Eagan will head up Blackberry Labs and oversee a team of more than 120 software developers, researchers, architects, security experts and product leads. The team will focus on developing new technologies to help the Blackberry platform stay on the forefront of cybersecurity.

    The team will use machine learning and data science to analyze threats companies face, especially at a time when the Internet of Things (IoT) has drastically changed the nature of cybersecurity and opened companies to entirely new risks.

    “The establishment of BlackBerry Labs is the latest in a series of strategic moves we’ve taken to ensure our customers are protected across all endpoints and verticals in the new IoT,” said Charles Eagan, BlackBerry CTO. “Today’s cybersecurity industry is rapidly advancing and BlackBerry Labs will operate as its own business unit solely focused on innovating and developing the technologies of tomorrow that will be necessary for our sustained competitive success, from A to Z; Artificial Intelligence to Zero-Trust environments. We believe this highly experienced team will allow us to remain nimble, engaged and, above all else, proactive in our efforts to be the most trusted security software leader in the market.”

    At a time when cybersecurity and privacy are at the forefront of the tech industry, with the latter increasingly being considered a fundamental human right, Blackberry Labs could help the company regain lost ground.

  • Oracle Unveils Free Cloud Services In Bid to Take On Rivals

    Oracle Unveils Free Cloud Services In Bid to Take On Rivals

    It’s no secret that Oracle has its sights set on the cloud infrastructure market, which is currently dominated by Microsoft and Amazon. Oracle’s latest attempt to pry open the market is their most ambitious yet.

    On September 16, Oracle announced a new, free tier of cloud services, paired with credits developers can use for additional options. Free plans come with two virtual machines with 1/8 OCPU and 1 GB of memory each, along with the choice of Autonomous Transaction Processing or Autonomous Data Warehouse. This gives developers two databases, each with 1 OCPU and 20 GB of storage.

    The Oracle Cloud Free Trial Credits, a $300 value, can be used on infrastructure, databases, application development, analytics, content, and experience, management and security or integration.

    Until now, Oracle has had little success convincing developers to jump ship from Microsoft or Amazon. These new plans, however, could be a game-changer. The goal is to provide a way for developers to try Oracle’s services risk-free, instead of being forced to choose between committing to an untested solution or going with one of the industry leaders.

    The Autonomous Database feature, in particular, is sure to drive growth. The feature has already been a solid hit with existing customers and offers companies with on-premise databases a clear path to the cloud.

    Even if Oracle’s free tier of services doesn’t unseat one of the established leaders, it should help the company carve out a healthy segment of the market.

  • Is WeWork Really a Tech Company?

    Is WeWork Really a Tech Company?

    “The We Company’s business model effectively is pretty simple,” says EquityZen CEO Atish Davda. “It leases buildings and then rents it out in smaller pieces. That’s not a new business model, that’s a real estate company. What’s new about The We Company is that it’s pitching itself as a technology firm. The way it says it’s going to do that is by using machine learning and a lot of other software. It’s going to help folks optimize how they build and operate offices. They’re trying to turn our offices into an Amazon warehouse in order to get the tech valuation.”

    Atish Davda, founder and CEO Of EquityZen, says that WeWork is just a real estate company positioning itself as a technology company in order to get a tech valuation, in an interview on CNBC:

    Turning Offices Into An Amazon Warehouse To Get Tech Valuation

    The We Company’s business model effectively is pretty simple. It leases buildings and then rents it out in smaller pieces. That’s not a new business model, that’s a real estate company. What’s new about The We Company is that it’s pitching itself as a technology firm. The way it says it’s going to do that is by using machine learning and a lot of other software. It’s going to help folks optimize how they build and operate offices. 

    The worst-case scenario is that it gets pegged as a real estate company in which case it would be about 20 times overvalued than its last private round of $47 billion. The best-case scenario, the way I at least hear what they’re saying, is we’re going to put all these gadgets and sensors and we’re going to track what everyone’s doing. It sounds to me like an Amazon warehouse. They’re trying to turn our offices into an Amazon warehouse in order to get the tech valuation. That’s the best-case scenario. I just I don’t buy it.

    Founders Have Already Taken $500 Million Off the Table

    Their valuation in the private markets has continued to go up. What’s interesting about this is something we hear about with WeWork that we didn’t hear about with Uber and Lyft is the amount of capital that the founders have allegedly taken off the table in secondary sales. With every one of these rounds, the founders can take a few chips off the table. This happened when Snap went public also. 

    The founders of Snap had taken tens of million dollars off the table. We’re talking about an order of magnitude more that has already gone in the pockets of the founders here, which is over $500 million dollars. That’s a lot of money that they are effectively just holding on to risk-free because they sold it on the ride up.

    I Don’t See How WeWork Can Turn Itself Into a Tech Firm

    I think they’re going to at least try and match that $47 million valuation in the IPO. We’ll see what the analysts today and Wall Street over the next three months actually decides to accept. You take a look at all of WeWork’s competitors, their price-to-sales multiples are between 0.5 and 1.3. The trailing 12-month multiple for the We Company is 26 times. You’re talking about something where its peers are being valued one way and this company is being valued 20 times greater. 

    For the sake of all the people I know that I’ve worked at WeWork in the past and still work there, I hope I’m wrong. I just don’t see how WeWork by acquiring a few tech companies here and there turn itself from what’s effectively is a real estate firm into a tech firm.

    Is WeWork Really a Tech Company? – EquityZen CEO Atish Davda Says No.

  • Intel CEO: I Was Blown Away By Mobileye’s Autonomous Driving Technology

    Intel CEO: I Was Blown Away By Mobileye’s Autonomous Driving Technology

    “I went back to Israel a few weeks ago and I was blown away by how fast and how quickly their autonomous driving technology has developed,” says Intel CEO Bob Swan in reference to Mobileye. “We went through the streets of Jerusalem. Their technology increasingly builds our confidence for our ability to go from L2, L 2+, to L3 and to deploy automobiles for robo-taxi’s with our partner Volkswagen and Champion Motors in early 2022.” 

    Bob Swan, CEO of Intel, discusses Mobileye autonomous driving technology and predicts that autonomous robo taxis will be hitting the roads by early 2022. Swan was interviewed on CNBC:

    I Was Blown Away By Mobileye Autonomous Driving Technology

    We’re approaching our two-year anniversary since the acquisition of Mobileye. We couldn’t feel better about them being part of the broader Intel family. First, I’ll go back six months ago. Six months ago I was over in Israel and I took the Mobileye drive on the highways of Jerusalem. It was a flawless experience. But it’s on the highway so it’s not as challenging. They said we’re developing the technology so we can drive through the streets of Jerusalem. You should come back and visit in six months. 

    The streets of Jerusalem, it’s high-impact driving. It’s intense. So I went back a few weeks ago and I was blown away by how fast and how quickly the technology has developed. We went through the streets of Jerusalem. Their technology increasingly builds our confidence for our ability to go from L2, L 2+, to L3 and to deploy automobiles for robo-taxi’s with our partner Volkswagen and Champion Motors in early 2022. 

    Robo Taxi’s Will Happen Before Broad Adoption of Autonomous Driving

    Our belief is that applications like robo-taxi will happen before broad-based adoption of L5 autonomous driving. The reason is really twofold. One we believe the acceleration of autonomous driving will be greatly enhanced by the deployment of 5G and that’s going to take a few more years to be deployed. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, in the absence of compute at the network, the cloud is a little too far away and therefore you’d have to put more and more compute in the vehicle itself. 

    Putting more compute in the vehicle itself to manage the intricacies of autonomous driving can be pretty expensive. To get broad-based adoption of vehicles for autonomous driving you can’t have extremely expensive compute in the vehicle. In a robo-taxi environment, you can because you get to monetize that vehicle 24 hours a day seven days a week.

    Intel CEO Bob Swan: I Was Blown Away By Mobileye Autonomous Driving Technology
  • Customers Accelerating Their Digital Transformation, Says HPE CEO

    Customers Accelerating Their Digital Transformation, Says HPE CEO

    “Customers continue to affirm the need to accelerate the digital transformation and take advantage of the explosion of data we see around us,” says HPE CEO Antonio Neri. “This ultimately is the core aspect of how they derive an improved business outcome. We have a very complete portfolio from the edge to the cloud. Digital transformation starts with secure connectivity. We have a phenomenal platform called Aruba that provides a mobile-first cloud-first approach.”

    Antonio Neri, President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, discusses on CNBC the companies latest earnings driven by customers continuing to accelerate their digital transformation:

    Customers Accelerating Their Digital Transformation

    Customers continue to affirm the need to accelerate the digital transformation and take advantage of the explosion of data we see around us. This ultimately is the core aspect of how they derive (an improved) business outcome. Obviously, the uncertainty (do to the China trade war) can create a little bit of a pause. It takes a little bit longer for them to make decisions, particularly with larger deals. That’s what we saw (this quarter), elongated sell cycles.

    We executed with incredible discipline both on the cost side and on the pricing side. We actually have done a remarkable job in the last seven quarters to continue to make our cost structure more competitive and to streamline everything across the company. When I became the CEO I established three key priorities for ourselves. One of them, at the core, was to start with our HP Next next program which was to rearchitect the company from the ground up. That included a cost-benefit but at the same time, a portfolio shift. We are seeing the benefit of the portfolio shift today in our margin profile. That gives us the ability to expand margins significantly. I believe we will deliver record levels of year-to-date free cash flow which gives us the confidence to raise the guidance again for seven consecutive quarters.

    Digital Transformation Starts With Secure Connectivity

    It (the Huawei issue) is an opportunity for us. We have a very complete portfolio from the edge to the cloud. Digital transformation starts with secure connectivity. We have a phenomenal platform called Aruba that provides a mobile-first cloud-first approach. At the same time, we are here to serve our customers in the countries where they participate. We have a very diverse global supply chain that allows us to navigate through these challenges. I take this as an opportunity for us to serve our customers better and continue to provide the value they’re looking for. Obviously, we need to navigate through this uncertainty, whether it is Huawei or others. At the end, we are really focused on our business and our customers.

    As our CFO Tarek Robbiati said we are focusing this year on stabilizing our business. We continue to shift our portfolio to higher value, higher margin and deliver everything we can as a service to our customers. You see the results of that in a portfolio mix in key strategic growth areas like high performance compute, which is the backbone for how analytics and AI will be run going forward. We are extremely excited about the completion almost of the acquisition of Craig which will be completed by the end of Q4. At the same time, in the core business, we have to continue to deliver what I call world load optimized hybrid cloud solutions delivered as a service. We are on that journey. We have made tremendous progress. We have a truly differentiated offer called HPE GreenLake, which is to deliver everything as a service.

    Customers Accelerating Their Digital Transformation, Says HPE CEO Antonio Neri
  • Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation, Says Salesforce CEO

    Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation, Says Salesforce CEO

    “There’s a huge wave of digital transformation,” says Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block. “A lot of these different technologies are coming together. I have the opportunity and Mark has the opportunity to go around the world and talk to a lot of other CEOs. There’s just this huge imperative around digital transformation. Everybody needs to get closer to the customer. Everybody’s trying to improve that customer experience. That’s where Salesforce really brings value to the table.”

    Keith Block, co-CEO of Salesforce, discusses the company’s blowout earnings announcement and how their growth is powered by a huge wave of digital transformation happening worldwide. Block was interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    There’s A Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation

    We are so very excited. We’ve had great execution and lots of customer success. A lot of this is really powered by this wave of digital transformation that we’re seeing all over the world. There’s a huge wave of digital transformation. A lot of these different technologies are coming together. I have the opportunity and Mark has the opportunity to go around the world and talk to a lot of other CEOs. There’s just this huge imperative around digital transformation. Everybody needs to get closer to the customer. Everybody’s trying to improve that customer experience. That’s where Salesforce really brings value to the table.

    There’s a huge TAM for CRM. We’re creating that TAM and we’re executing incredibly well and that’s really driven by customer success. There is this thing referred to as the 360-degree view of the customer. That is all about the walls of sales and service and marketing coming down. That is what our 360-degree platform is all about and our customers are looking for that. They’re looking for growth strategies. That’s why you see these great results.

    It’s About Bringing Companies Closer To Their Customers

    We have been recognized widely as one of the most innovative companies in the world. That takes two forms. One is obviously organic innovation and there’s been plenty of that in our history. That’s why we’ve been so successful and our customers keep coming back. But we also have acquisitions. We’ve got a fantastic history of execution. Whether it is the ExactTarget acquisition, or most recently, a year ago, the MuleSoft acquisition, those have all been wildly successful for our customers.

    I had the opportunity to go to Milan to meet with the CEO of Unicredit (in Italy). We’re glad to welcome them to the Salesforce family. They’re going through a transformation that every financial services institution is really going through. It’s all about improving the customer experience. It’s all about reinventing the business model. It’s all about transformation in the retail bank. Unicredit gets it and we’re thrilled to welcome them to the family. They’re doing some of the things that you see being done at Barclays Bank or Citibank or many of the other great financial services institutions. It’s about digital transformation. It’s about bringing companies closer to their customers and that’s what Salesforce is doing.

    Companies Are Investing In Their Growth

    FedEx is a storied brand. It’s a 50-year-old company, they revolutionized the package industry. Fred Smith is an iconic visionary CEO and now they’re taking it to the next level through customer experience. They’re leveraging Einstein to have predictions and make a better customer experience around knowledge. For example, if you had a challenge in some particular way, and FedEx is high quality, but if there were a challenge an agent can help you by bringing relevant information recommended by Einstein to drive a better experience. There were a million use cases of Einstein just like that in many many industries.

    What we’re seeing all over the world is this wave of digital transformation. That digital transformation begins and ends with a customer. We’re seeing CEOs invest. They’re investing in their future. They’re investing in their growth. They’re investing in customer experience across all industries, all geographies, and all segments. It has never been more important. That’s why you’re seeing this growth and you’re seeing these results (with Salesforce). We’re just co-innovating and co-creating with these customers, these companies. That’s why we’re having so much success on their behalf.

    There Is A Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation, Says Salesforce CEO Keith Block
  • Bitcoin is Bad, Blockchain Is Revolutionizing, Says VMware CEO

    Bitcoin is Bad, Blockchain Is Revolutionizing, Says VMware CEO

    “Bitcoin as its implemented and implementation of blockchain and distributed ledger I assert is bad,” says VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. “Its purpose is almost all illicit and it’s an environmental crisis. This is a terrible implementation of blockchain. I’m not saying that blockchain is bad. I think it is revolutionizing. This is breakthrough innovative technology and how you do distributed secured trust. That’s powerful. We are huge believers strongly committed to blockchain and distributed leverage technology.”

    Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, says that Bitcoin is bad, but blockchain, when done right, is revolutionizing in an interview with theCUBE at VMworld 2019 in San Francisco. 

    Bitcoin is Bad, Blockchain Is Revolutionizing

    The idea of distributed ledger technology, immutable distributed trust, I’ve said I think of that, and blockchain is the underlying technology, as almost like public-private key encryption. If we go back 40 years before RSA it’s that important. This is breakthrough innovative technology and how you do distributed secured trust. That’s powerful. We are huge believers strongly committed to blockchain and distributed leverage technology. Why do I make my comments like I do on Bitcoin? Bitcoin as its implemented and implementation of blockchain and distributed ledger I assert is bad. It’s bad for two reasons. 

    One is it’s an environmental crisis. A single ledger if you and I transacted a penny I would consume enough energy to power your house for half a day. It’s incredible. This is a terrible implementation of blockchain. Secondly, the way it’s also done as well in this totally unregulated environment, almost all of its uses are for illicit and criminal purposes. That’s who’s trading in Bitcoin. So its purpose is almost all illicit and it’s an environmental crisis. I say bad. I’m not saying that blockchain is bad. I think it is revolutionizing. Studies have shown that over 95 percent of the uses of Bitcoin is criminal. Let’s go make it good. Do good engineering and engineer for good.

    Partnership With Australian Stock Exchange and Digital Asset

    We just announced on Sunday a partnership with the Australian Stock Exchange and Digital Asset. They’re leveraging the VMWare distributed ledger technology as part of their go-forward strategy for the stock exchange in Australia. That’s good. We’re making it suitable for enterprises meeting the regulatory requirements and we’re order plus magnitude better in terms of performance and energy consumption and we’re just getting started.

    Bitcoin is Bad, Blockchain Is Revolutionizing, Says VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger
  • 5G Poses New Security Risks, Says Avast CEO

    5G Poses New Security Risks, Says Avast CEO

    “5G brings a couple of things,” says Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek. “One is the density of the network which is enabling things like IoT, the Internet of Things. That’s an exciting thing but also poses some new security risks. Second is speed of connectivity which we all want and which we all sort of are hoping to get better. But in terms of timing, it kind of differs geo by geo. East Asia is always ahead in that regard. In Europe, we can realistically expect something within two or three years.”

    Ondrej Vlcek, CEO of Avast, discusses new security risks with 5G and how privacy is becoming a big part of their business in a conversation on Bloomberg:

    5G Poses Some New Security Risks

    There were really two drivers (to our earnings results this quarter). The first one was our consumer direct segment, desktop direct, which grew 12.5 percent. The second was consumer indirect, which is actually powered by both the Jumpshot business that we have as well as the Secure Browser. These were kind of the two main things.

    5G brings a couple of things. One is the density of the network which is enabling things like IoT, the Internet of Things. That’s an exciting thing but also poses some new security risks. Second is speed of connectivity which we all want and which we all sort of are hoping to get better. But in terms of timing, it kind of differs geo by geo. East Asia is always ahead in that regard. In Europe, we can realistically expect something within two or three years.

    Privacy Is The Other Side Of The Security Coin

    I think privacy is a new category. We see it as the other side of the security coin. We are heavily investing in creating privacy-oriented solutions. So actually our portfolio today is not just security, antivirus protection is now actually less than half of our business. Now the second half is made of tools like privacy controls because we see a big opportunity. At the same time, the need is real. Consumers are more and more realizing there are privacy risks in what they are doing online and there is something that needs to be done about that.

    I got sort of inspired by the captains from the Silicon Valley such as Google and Facebook. So I gave up my salary and my bonus and I’m only getting compensated by stock which I think is the right thing for the CEO to do. Clearly, my objective is to keep the company growing. We’ve got a great runway and I’m very optimistic, being new in the role and seeing the opportunities. This is a good position to be in.

    5G Poses New Security Risks, Says Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek
  • Zebra Tech Tracking Technology Integrating Deep Into Sports and Business

    Zebra Tech Tracking Technology Integrating Deep Into Sports and Business

    “We’ve learned this past year that the tracking system we have with the NFL is actually considered to be the best by the broadcasters, coaches, and the fans,” says Zebra Technologies CEO Anders Gustafsson. “Our type of technology works particularly well with football but it would also work for basketball, ice hockey, and soccer. With ice hockey, the challenge is the puck. How do you track the puck and put the tag inside the puck? We can do it but it’s more costly. With basketball, they have been more focused on the ball than the players.”

    Anders Gustafsson, CEO of Zebra Technologies, discusses how their tracking technology is being integrated deeply within sports and business in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Our Tracking Technology Works Particularly Well With Football

    We’ve learned now this past year that the tracking system we have with the NFL is actually considered to be the best by the broadcasters, coaches, and the fans. The NFL owns the data so we can’t give (fantasy players) access to the data. I think they give access to some of the data but not all the data. Then you would have all the information you could possibly want to have about every player on all of the teams. 

    Our type of technology works particularly well with football but it would also work for basketball, ice hockey, and soccer. With ice hockey, the challenge is the puck. How do you track the puck and put the tag inside the puck? We can do it but it’s more costly. With basketball, they have been more focused on the ball than the players. 

    Zebra Tracking Technology Works Particularly Well With Football

    We Are Becoming An Essential Part of Retailers’ Strategies

    Savannah is our data platform. We can connect all sorts of devices or sensors on the south side and on the north side we can have APIs to all sorts of other applications. We can provide a lot of analytics around what’s happening there. We integrate with a lot of independent software vendors. If you look at large companies like Oracle, SAP, Manhattan, and JDA, they’re all partners of ours. We exchange data with them and we provide data that they use for their operations. We also have our own software capabilities. We bought a company called Profitect. It does any predictive analytics. This is a good example of this but we have other software capabilities also.

    We are now becoming an essential part of retailers’ strategies for building omnichannel and ecommerce capabilities. Historically, we were probably viewed a bit more as a tactical device supplier. Today we’re much more of an integral part of enabling them to execute on their strategy. We moved ourselves up the solution stack to be able to deliver more value to them.

    Companies are now tracking employees, patients, assets

    Today, more and more things are being tracked and there are more and more efficiencies out of this. Companies are now tracking employees, patients, assets, all of these things. We said we provide the performance edge to the front line of business by having every employee, device, and technical thing being connected and optimally utilized and visible to the network. 

    Tableau (a company recently bought by Salesforce) would more than likely integrate our data. We could be a source for data insight analytics for them. We aspire to get those kinds of valuations (and the higher multiples that Tableau got when they sold to Salesforce). We also overlap (with Honeywell) in a number of areas but we do quite a few different things also. We have our own strengths and we compete with them but not everywhere.

    Zebra Tech Tracking Technology Integrating Deep Into Sports and Business – CEO Anders Gustafsson
  • 50 Years Of Datacenter Shifting To Cloud, Says Dynatrace CEO

    50 Years Of Datacenter Shifting To Cloud, Says Dynatrace CEO

    “You have 50 years of datacenter that is shifting to the cloud in the next ten,” says Dynatrace CEO John Van Siclen. “We are early days. There’s a lot of room to go and I’m sure a lot of changes in front of us. The movement to the cloud and this whole move to software is a global phenomenon. Every enterprise around the world is moving and moving fast. It’s going to redefine how businesses work in the future. It is the new revenue streams, the new connective tissue with customers, providing a whole new environment.”

    John Van Siclen, CEO of Dynatrace, discusses the impact of 50 years of datacenter that will shift to the cloud over the next ten years, in an interview on CNBC:

    Software Is Now Eating the World

    Software is now eating the world as a lot of folks know. It’s how we bank, how we shop, how we do just about everything. These applications have gotten much more complex over the last five years as they have moved to cloud platforms. The spend in the traditional datacenter is declining quickly and the move is over to the cloud. It’s going to redefine how businesses work in the future. It is the new revenue streams, the new connective tissue with customers, providing a whole new environment. 

    For example, Carribean Cruise, one of our customers, is reinventing the travel experience for Millenials. They’re doing it all through software on their ships. They provide a little wrist band that interacts with software on ship and on shore to transform the experience. What we’re seeing is really still a continued focus on growth. New revenue streams, new opportunities, and taking in existing core application environments and rebuilding it to be cloud-native. That’s the shift that we see. Still growth, still attack market, still competitive advantage for most companies that are pushing forward aggressively. 

    50 Years Of Datacenter Shifting To Cloud

    We’ve always built the company around a direct sales approach. Our products are used by enterprises. Enterprises want to connect directly with the company that builds these products. We’ve really always gone to market that way and it has served us very well. It makes it a very predictable business and a very strategic platform for these enterprises. We run across all of the cloud platforms and then some. We target the global 15,000 enterprise companies. We expect to talk to the CIO, CTO, and sort of the executive level that are driving this shift within their organizations’ digital transformation projects. That’s our focus. 

    What’s happening now is that the cloud is moving from the early days where people would put applications in the cloud to where they really are taking their entire datacenter and shifting it to the cloud. That’s what’s driving these webscale multi-cloud environments that we do so well in. It’s still early days. There’s a lot of room to go in this marketplace. You have 50 years of datacenter that is shifting to the cloud in the next ten. We are early days. There’s a lot of room to go and I’m sure a lot of changes in front of us. The movement to the cloud and this whole move to software is a global phenomenon. Every enterprise around the world is moving and moving fast.

    Cloud Is So Much More Efficient and Economical For Companies

    This market is very large. We estimate it’s about $18 billion. Others have the estimates in the $20 billions. It’s plenty of room for a company like us to grow and actually probably multiple companies to grow in this space. We feel very secure and happy with our organic innovation. We’ve been able to reinvent the business several times now. It’s a very dynamic space, this application world. Organic innovation is our thrust going forward.

    The cloud is so much more efficient and economical for companies that as there is any kind of disruption anywhere in their markets they’re going to lean toward applications. The things that really drive connective tissue with their customers and their marketplaces that create more automation and more information that they gather when they go through digital channels.

    50 Years Of Datacenter Shifting To Cloud, Says Dynatrace CEO John Van Siclen
  • Rakuten Rolling Out Revolutionary 5G Mobile Network In Japan

    Rakuten Rolling Out Revolutionary 5G Mobile Network In Japan

    Building World’s First Fully Virtualized Cloud-Native Network

    With our new mobile network, all these network services are directly connected to the internet,” says Rakuten founder and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani. “Our firewall is probably much stronger than any other hardware-dependent mobile network. It is a pretty wrong idea that hardware is stronger in terms of security than software. It’s kind of a syndrome.”

    Rakuten is in taking a revolutionary approach to building out Japan’s fourth major mobile. Network. “The journey that we are embarking on in Japan will enable a complete transformation in the telecom infrastructure buildout,” explains Rakuten Mobile Network Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Tareq Amin. “We are building the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud-native network.” At the Rakuten Technology Conference, last October, Amin said that they are deploying a very different architecture and leveraging Rakuten IT skills.

    “The majority of the telecommunication companies in the world have been on this journey of transformation. And yet I would argue that very little progress has happened to deploy a true end-to-end cloud-native network,” says Amin. “In fact, there is not a single telco in the world that has moved all of its workloads to the cloud. I think Rakuten is going to be the only company in the world that’s going to enable this.”

    Rakuten Mobile Network Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Tareq Amin Announcing New Mobile Network for Japan.

    Last night on CNBC Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani discussed how the network is set to deploy 5G nationwide in Japan by June 2020:

    Rakuten Rolling Out Revolutionary 5G Mobile Network In Japan

    We are rolling out our 4G network before we launch 5G. We are going to deploy what we call mobile edge computing in Japan. We are going to have over 4,000 edge servers all over Japan. Therefore, we do not have to create a new network for 5G. What we need to do is modify our edge servers a little bit. Our core network throughput is really fast. What we have to do is just add a 5G antenna, which we already have developed together with Qualcomm as well as NEC. We will be rolling out 5G in June 2020.

    As 5G rolls out consumers will understand the benefits. The key is an edge computing. There is a very low latency between your device and edge. It’s just a millisecond latency, so it’s almost like you have artificial intelligence. You hold your own artificial intelligence in your hand. Definitely, the speed is going to be much faster, maybe 1,000 times faster than 4G. Of course, latency is going to be much shorter. So autonomous driving and other autonomous applications are going to be really becoming true.

    Rakuten Rolling Out Revolutionary 5G Mobile Network In Japan, Says Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani
  • Bad Guys Can Implant Malicious Functionality From Anywhere, Says Huawei Security Chief

    Bad Guys Can Implant Malicious Functionality From Anywhere, Says Huawei Security Chief

    “Hopefully, we as a nation can have a clear-eyed focus on what really matters,” says Andy Purdy, the Chief Security Officer of Huawei Technologies USA. “As a senior Qualcomm executive said the other day, you can talk about Huawei but we’ve got to make sure our communication networks are safe. The bad guys can implant malicious functionality in hardware and software from anywhere in the world. The US has to recognize that Senator Blackburn said something that was very important. Potential national security threats to communications are very real.”

    Andy Purdy, Chief Security Officer of Huawei Technologies USA, discusses security concerns that the US has with Huawei and they really should be focused on communication security threats that can come from anywhere. Purdy was interviewed on CNBC:

    Bad Guys Can Implant Malicious Functionality From Anywhere

    Senator Marsha Blackburn is appropriately focusing on the national security implications of our communication networks. Hopefully, we as a nation can have a clear-eyed focus on what really matters. As a senior Qualcomm executive said the other day, you can talk about Huawei but we’ve got to make sure our communication networks are safe. The bad guys can implant malicious functionality in hardware and software from anywhere in the world. As Mr. Sorkin said yesterday, the Senators comments were the first person who’s ever said what she said. In fact, when you hear about the classified briefing that our customers were given, the classified briefings that the United Kingdom and Germany were given, the US government gave no allegations that Huawei has committed any such conduct that the Senator talked about.

    I certainly think when that when the Prime Minister of the UK and the Chancellor of Germany came out and said that they’d been briefed by the US and there were no allegations of significant cybersecurity wrongdoing against Huawei (and that this supports that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Huawei). They said that they intended to use risk mitigation. This is the same kind of risk mitigation that the US government has that allows Ericsson and Nokia to do business in the United States despite their deep ties to China.

    Potential National Security Threats To Communications Are Very Real

    Absolutely, (Huawei does not implant or embed anything and its networks that would pose a national security risk to the United States). More importantly, the US has to recognize that Senator Blackburn said something that was very important. Potential national security threats to communications are very real. What she talked about was a report in a Bloomberg story not involving Huawei some months back that the bad guys can implant a small amount of code. That’s why we have to make sure that we have tested the products of all vendors to international standards so that there’s trust through verification. But right now tens of thousands of American jobs are at risk now that Huawei is in the crosshairs of these trade talks.

    There are companies in China that are government-owned. There are publicly traded companies in China that are majority government-owned. There are companies that are private. Huawei’s the largest privately owned company in China. We have about 80 or 90 thousand shareholders in China who vote to elect the governing board. Clearly, our founder Mr. Ren, who has less than two percent, he controls the company just as some of the founders and owners of other companies control with a minority interest. But we are completely privately owned. Again, we’ve got a look at the national security and the economic impact. Tens of thousands of jobs of those who supply Huawei, $11 million last year, and 40 to 50 thousand US jobs could go away if those companies can’t sell to Huawei. There’s no national security threat there.

    Our outside legal experts have said and that the Chinese government has confirmed that there is no such law that has that effect (of allowing Chinese government spying). The fact is the US government does not believe the law has any relevance whatsoever. The US government believes that China is not a rule of law nation so that the government will do whatever they want. That’s why there need to be programs like the risk mitigation programs overseen by the US government that allow Ericsson and Nokia to do business in the United States without limitation. We’re not talking about without limitation for Huawei. We’re talking about trying to continue to support our 40 rural tier-3 wireless and wireline customers serving rural America and the thousands of jobs there that are at risk.

    Nation-States Can Virtually Implant Hidden Functionality

    Absolutely, (the supply chain) should be a worry. That’s why when you look at the operations of Nokia, for example, in China, with the joint venture with Shanghai Bell, which is owned by the China government, the deep research and development manufacturing and assembly that takes place by Nokia, despite that they’re allowed to do business in the United States without limitation. This is because it’s a government monitored collection of agencies that monitor and test the products. At this point, the US government won’t even talk with us about those kinds of risk mitigation mechanisms that had been proven to be satisfactory to the US government despite those deep ties with China.

    What I’m saying is there are proven risk mitigation mechanisms, hardcore mechanisms, that are done. We do it in the UK, we do it in in Germany. In Brussels, we have a center where government and companies can come in and evaluate our products. Nokia and Ericsson products are evaluated very closely in the US. We’re just suggesting that our products and all other products need to be tested because there are five or six nation-states that can virtually implant hidden functionality in products. We as a nation can’t just be worried about Huawei, we’ve got to be worried about all the equipment. We believe those mechanisms are in place and we just want to talk with the government. We’d like to be able to show them that we can do that.

    Bad Guys Can Implan Malicious Functionality From Anywhere, Says Huawei Security Chief Andy Purdy
  • AT&T CEO On IBM Alliance: It’s Wide, It’s Deep, It’s Formidable

    AT&T CEO On IBM Alliance: It’s Wide, It’s Deep, It’s Formidable

    “Everything we do is laser-focused on growth opportunity out in the market, cost reduction internally, and transforming ourselves into a simpler operation which then transitions into both cost and customer effectiveness,” says AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan. “This meets that hurdle. It’s wide, it’s deep, it’s formidable. It meets all those criteria. It’s one of those rare things that affect revenue costs and then how you serve your customers. In that regard, we love it.”

    John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications, discusses their new long-term cloud alliance announced today with IBM in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    It’s Wide, It’s Deep, It’s Formidable

    If you think about the history we have with IBM, the risks of moving to the cloud in a really aggressive way, the kind that not only transforms your company internally and your cost structure but also how you address customers and therefore opportunities for growth, you worry about technology, you worry about how to transform your applications, and then you worry what happens if I get in trouble.

    We’ve had a 20-year relationship with IBM. They know us. So when you think about expanding Red Hat, with the experience that those guys have inside of our operations, and then the ability to go to market together, those things combined for us to form a low-risk and really high opportunity kind of situation.

    Everything we do is laser-focused on growth opportunity out in the market, cost reduction internally, and transforming ourselves into a simpler operation which then transitions into both cost and customer effectiveness. This meets that hurdle. It’s wide, it’s deep, it’s formidable. It meets all those criteria. It’s one of those rare things that affect revenue costs and then how you serve your customers. In that regard, we love it.

    5G Coming Out Of the Chute As an Enterprise First Network

    5G is the most important network that we’re going to launch in my career. We’ve been about 10 or 15 years in an architecture where everything was consumer first. This one’s coming out of the chute as an enterprise first network. It’s really about consumers seeing everything they do, whether it’s to shop or go to the hospital or new experiences with toys being statically different. Us getting the right enterprise relationships done early on 5G will be the foundation for how fast this thing scales.

    AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan On IBM Alliance: It’s Wide, It’s Deep, It’s Formidable
  • 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
  • Imagine If IT Had One Tool To Fix Anything

    Imagine If IT Had One Tool To Fix Anything

    “Imagine if IT had one tool to fix anything,” says the Chief Creatologist at Dell Technologies Joe Batista. “That’s nirvana. That’s not reality, because I have tool fatigue. I need to get to that simplicity. That’s public enemy number one for us. Now, today, with the influx of cash, the level of innovation cycle time and how the industry’s become more fragmented with lots of products, the complexity has increased exponentially. And the velocity around that complexity is even more accelerated. It hasn’t gotten easier, it’s gotten more difficult.”

    Joe Batista, Chief Creatologist at Dell Technologies, discusses the challenges companies face with the exponential pace of changes in technology and innovation in an interview with theCube at WTGtransform 2019:

    Helping IT Re-Image the Business

    Literally, it (Joe’s ‘Creatologist’ job) sits at the nexus of business and technology. My job, simply, is to help IT re-image the business because now every company’s a technology company. So what does that look like? I’m involved in all sorts of really cool problems, opportunities, that customers are facing by re-imaging IT.

    I’ve been around for a long time, and, in the old days, we had swim lanes. You thought about certain vendors, they were in swim lanes. Now, today, with the influx of cash, the level of innovation cycle time and how the industry’s become more fragmented with lots of products, the complexity has increased exponentially. And the velocity around that complexity is even more accelerated. It hasn’t gotten easier, it’s gotten more difficult.

    You Have To Rethink the Logic

    There’s a couple of thoughts (regarding keeping up with the competition as things constantly change). You have got to look at these vectors that impact a trajectory of the thinking. I love the Peter Drucker quote: If you’re using yesterday’s logic, you’re probably going to get in trouble. You have to rethink the logic, and the example I give was the high jumper and how we did high jumping before and after 1968. As in the Fosbury Flop. So the question becomes what are those vectors?

    At Dell Technologies, we have a huge portfolio of technology. But how do you think about the parameter about how those things change over a depreciation cycle? During a conference talk I got a lot of post questions afterward and a lot of engagement regarding this, so it seemed to resonate with the field. The thing that they liked the most was the business conversation of IT. They’re like, we don’t do that enough.

    Imagine If IT Had One Tool To Fix Anything

    Imagine if IT had one tool to fix anything. That’s nirvana. That’s not reality, because I have tool fatigue. I need to get to that simplicity. It’s Glass’s Law. Every 25% increase in function is 100% increase in complexity. That’s public enemy number one for us.

    I was absolutely amazed when I did my due diligence (before joining Dell) about all the innovation that happens in this company. Phenomenal. Not only about the hardware but the software. I think, actually, Jeff (Clarke) said it best. I think we have more software engineers now than we have hardware engineers. So the pivots there, we’re pivoting our talent to the software. But it’s the innovation that’s in this company. I think customers are amazed at that innovation.

    The supercharger on it is, how does the innovation apply to the business mechanics of the company, and what value do you extract from that? And that’s where the whole language and conversation usually happens with us. I will tell you, though, I’m really excited that Dell Technologies is doubling down on business outcomes. They’re really trying to change the culture in helping customers understand what the technology means.


    Imagine If IT Had One Tool To Fix Anything – Joe Batista, Chief Creatologist at Dell Technologies
  • New Launch Evolves the Dropbox Experience To a Living Team Workspace, Says CEO

    New Launch Evolves the Dropbox Experience To a Living Team Workspace, Says CEO

    “We’ve launched the biggest change we’ve ever made to our product, an all-new desktop app,: says Dropbox CEO Drew Houston. “It evolves the Dropbox experience from a folder full of files to a living team workspace. You can have not just files but any kind of cloud content. We saw so many of our customers, and frankly ourselves, struggling. There are all these new apps and they’re great but how do you stitch them all together? We see a big opportunity to make that a much more seamless experience.”

    Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox, discusses extensive new feature added to the Dropbox product from just a folder full of files to a living team workspace in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:

    Evolves the Dropbox Experience To a Living Team Workspace

    We’ve launched the biggest change we’ve ever made to our product, an all-new desktop app. It evolves the Dropbox experience from a folder full of files to a living team workspace. You can have not just files but any kind of cloud content. So G Suite, things like Google Docs, Sheets,  and Slides, really anything that you’re using. It also includes integrations with tools like Slack and Zoom. From within Dropbox, you can send people messages, you can start meetings, you can send things out for signature, or see your calendar. It’s a much more integrated workspace.

    We saw so many of our customers, and frankly ourselves, struggling. There are all these new apps and they’re great but how do you stitch them all together? We see a big opportunity to make that a much more seamless experience. We’re really excited about it and can’t wait to get it out there.

    The New Dropbox Experience Integrates Your Workspace

    New Dropbox Organizes and Simplifies Your Working Life

    Most, if not all companies, are going to have integrations. The opportunity we saw is to organize it, to really bring it into a well-designed coherent experience, and different from some of the messaging tools. What Dropbox allows you to do is within a native app you can have all your content in one place work across all these different ecosystems. Instead of the interface of just being a list of messages, you can see here’s what you’re working on. Here are our projects and here are the most important pieces of content. We think from a design standpoint it’s a pretty different approach.

    What we’re seeing is that users want choice. They are using all kinds of different apps for communication, for content, for coordination. What’s missing is a way to stitch it all together. That’s the role that we think we can play. It’s very similar to the role we played in the beginning with helping you get to your stuff from all these different platforms and operating systems. Now we’re thinking about how do we organize and simplify your working life and help stitch together all these different things.

    Second, I’d say a lot of what we’re doing is complimentary. You’re not going to stop using Slack or stop using these other tools. In fact, we’re making it easier for you to get to them. We find that a lot of our customers love using these different tools but they need a more integrated experience. Not having that means you’re always switching back and forth and there’s a lot of friction.

    New Launch Evolves the Dropbox Experience To a Living Team Workspace, Says CEO Drew Houston
  • There’s Been No Salesforce of Security, Says CrowdStrike CEO

    There’s Been No Salesforce of Security, Says CrowdStrike CEO

    “There really hasn’t been a foundational cloud company born from the ground up in the cloud,” says CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz. “There’s been no Salesforce of security. We think we’ve taken the right approach and created the right architecture to be that fourth pillar of cloud computing. That’s one of the areas that I think gets our customers most excited. It’s made their lives a lot easier. As I like to say, it just works for them and that’s what customers are looking for.”

    George Kurtz, Co-Founder and CEO of CrowdStrike, discusses their IPO (today) and CrowdStrike’s unique position as the first cloud platform for security in an interview on CNBC:

    We Built The First Cloud Platform For Security

    We’ll let the market dictate the (stock) pricing. What we’re focused on is really building long-term value for shareholders and obviously making sure that our customers are protected. That’s the way we built the business, focusing on preventing breaches for our customers. What is fundamentally different is that we really built the first cloud platform for security.

    When you think about Workday and ServiceNow and Salesforce, there really hasn’t been a foundational cloud platform for security. What is fundamentally different is that we really built the first cloud platform for security. That was one of our goals when Demetri Alperovitch and I started the company in 2011. This cloud platform has allowed us to stop breaches and to scale different modules that really hit a specific customer need. It’s been well received by our customers.

    A Big Part Of Our Platform Is Collecting Data At Scale

    CrowdStrike really runs on your endpoint or computer or your server or workload in the cloud. What we found with traditional antivirus, as an example, we do way more than that, is that signature-based technologies were just not capable of stopping breaches. So a big part of our platform is actually collecting data at scale. We collect a trillion events per week. We use that data to train our machine learning algorithms and we can identify attacks and breaches that have never been seen before at the speed of the network.

    This crowdsourcing aspect, which is the crowd in CrowdStrike, really has enabled us to identify these attacks that are causing the most damage to large and small organizations around the globe. They just haven’t been able to do that with traditional, I call fossilized, vendors that are in the market. This architecture has really changed the game for us.

    Obviously, security is an evolving area. Adversaries continue to change their tactics. The good part about AI is that you can evolve it to identify these sorts of threats no matter if it’s stealing intellectual property or credit card information or breaking in and destroying data on someone’s computer. What’s important to realize is that at cloud-scale, and the way we operate, we have the ability to take all this data, synthesize it, and provide the best protection and prevention methodologies for our customers.

    AI Is Great But It Is Not a Panacea

    It’s really all about the data. You hear a lot about AI and AI is great but it has to be used in the right ways. It’s not a panacea. So it’s easy to come up with an algorithm but it’s really hard to collect this data at scale and be able to train these AI algorithms. This is really one of the things that we spent a lot of time on, building a very scalable architecture to get this data in (into our Threat Graph), which is one of the most advanced security databases around.

    It really allows us to get better efficacy and lower false positive rates in detecting these breaches. In my view, it’s all about the data. We will continue to get more and more data. It’s that network effect. Our threat graph gets smarter the more data we actually consume.

    CrowdStrike Threat Graph

    We See The Tip of The Breach Being The Endpoint

    When we look at the threats, whether it’s a nation-state or whether it’s an e-crime group obviously, the threats are evolving and they’re rapid. There are hundreds of thousands of new pieces of malware that come out every day. It’s incumbent on companies to be able to protect themselves. It’s just been an area that’s been underserved because most of the existing technologies have focused on stopping malware instead of stopping breaches, which is again part of our core mission.

    If you look in the past, there’s been a lot of point product companies that have come out and try to solve a specific problem. But if you just step back, the problem that most companies are trying to solve is not being breached. Whether that’s network technology or endpoint technology, at the end of the day we see the tip of the breach being the endpoint. That’s where the data resides, the servers, the endpoints, the desktops, and that’s what we’re protecting.

    There’s Been No Salesforce of Security

    From that standpoint, if you look back in history there really hasn’t been a foundational cloud company born from the ground up in the cloud. There’s been no Salesforce of security. We think we’ve taken the right approach and created the right architecture to be that fourth pillar of cloud computing. That’s one of the areas that I think gets our customers most excited. It’s the ability to rapidly install our technology, just have it work, and be able to scale with us and use different modules with that single agent architecture. It’s made their lives a lot easier. As I like to say, it just works for them and that’s what customers are looking for.

    There’s Been No Salesforce of Security, Says CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz