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  • Carbon Black Uses AI to Analyze 500 Billion Daily Security Events, Says CEO

    Carbon Black Uses AI to Analyze 500 Billion Daily Security Events, Says CEO

    “Carbon Black is analyzing 500 billion security events across the globe every single day,” says Carbon Black CEO Patrick Morley. “Of course, you can’t do that with people. You have to do that with a number of techniques. We certainly leverage the compute capability of the cloud. Then we apply AI and machine learning models to that. It allows us to see patterns across the globe that help many many companies stop the bad guys.”

    Patrick Morley, CEO of Carbon Black, discusses how their company uses AI and machine learning to analyze in real-time 500 billion security events daily in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:

    China is the Number One Nation Driving Cyber Attacks

    As a cybersecurity company, we have an interesting relationship with certain nations around the world. This is particularly true with those that are very active from a cyber standpoint. China, in particular, has statistically been shown to be the number one nation across the globe that is driving cyber attacks. So our relationship with China is a different relationship than many other public companies across the globe. We don’t actively sell into the market because we are helping many companies actually protect themselves from attacks that are generated out of China.

    As I tell all of our employees we are building a company for the long term. Our stock is going to be impacted by things we control and many things we don’t control. When I look at my app and I see red everywhere it’s certainly disturbing. Obviously, that will impact companies that are going to buy my product eventually. If that has an impact on other public companies and private companies, it will impact us eventually.

    Cyber is One of the Most Interesting Spaces in Tech

    We gave (investors) a consistent outlook in Q2. Analysts reacted positively which is good. Again, we are building for the long term a company that matters in cyber. I think cyber is one of the most interesting spaces in tech right now because of everything around us. We come back to cyber again and again.

    If you look at all the news about Facebook cyber is in it. If you look at some of the geopolitical issues in Europe and in the U.S., cyber comes in. It’s an important area and we are a new guard of companies helping to change it and make it better and more effective for companies. We are building value around the company.

    Uses AI to Analyze 500 Billion Security Events Per Day

    Some of those (competing) providers (such as Cisco and Fortinet) work in a different part of the market than we do. It’s a big market. It’s a $100 billion market that’s going through fundamental change. We do provide a platform that does compete (directly) with some of the traditional players such as Semantic and others. The way we compete is we are based on one core principle. If you look at where the long term trend of where the world is going you need to leverage the power of data in order to figure out what’s happening. We leverage data in a way that allows us to see and to stop the adversary in ways that traditional products can’t.

    Carbon Black is analyzing 500 billion security events across the globe every single day. Of course, you can’t do that with people. You have to do that with a number of techniques. We certainly leverage the compute capability of the cloud. Then we apply AI and machine learning models to that. It allows us to see patterns across the globe that help many many companies stop the bad guys.

    Carbon Black Uses AI to Analyze 500 Billion Daily Security Events
  • Michael Dell Predicts in 10 Years More Computed Data on the Edge Than Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    We’ve Created an Incredible Business

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

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

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


  • How IBM is Using AI to Improve Hiring and to Retain and Retrain Employees

    How IBM is Using AI to Improve Hiring and to Retain and Retrain Employees

    “We are the number one destination for Gen Z on Glassdoor,” says IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. “I get 8,000 resumes a day. I don’t make them go hunt for jobs. The AI talks to them and we ask very nicely and get permission, share this with me, share that with me, share this LinkedIn review with me, share this resume, and instead of you looking for jobs I’ll serve up jobs to you that actually match you. Our match rate of applying is 30 percent. With anybody else, it’s about nine percent.”

    Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, discusses how they are using AI to improve hiring and to retain and retrain employees in an interview on CNBC:

    AI Will Change 100 Percent of Jobs

    The original genesis of this was a belief that AI will change 100 percent of jobs. But if you’re going to really get the benefit of it you have to change how the work is done. We chose to make HR, my HR leader chose to make HR, really the role model example of that. She has done a fantastic job putting AI in end to end. She tracks (the value of this AI approach) and we have now just from the AI alone, my HR function has saved $300 million from just doing that piece of it. In part, it helps the employees, because it completely makes HR employee centric. You don’t do things to people, you do it for them. It’s consumer-centric because of how we apply the AI. The other part of it is there’s productivity on the other side. Both are important right now.

    Our experience has been and I’ll just use HR as an example. On the one hand, we were able to replace a lot of routine work. In the case of HR, our HR staffing went down by 30 percent. However, the people then doing the job of HR, they do far more non-routine work, their salaries all went up or their skills went up with it. You’re going to have this trade-off where technology will drive productivity but then it will also drive you and me to do our job different. It sits at that intersection.

    Good for the Employee and Really Good for Business

    This includes how we recruit today. We are the number one destination for Gen Z on Glassdoor. I get 8,000 resumes a day. I don’t make them go hunt for jobs. The AI talks to them and we ask very nicely and get permission, share this with me, share that with me, share this LinkedIn review with me, share this resume, and instead of you looking for jobs I’ll serve up jobs to you that actually match you. Our match rate of applying is 30 percent. With anybody else, it’s about nine percent.

    It just shows this effectiveness for using the AI for things like a manager who says I’m doing salary. We do something to be sure salaries are fair, no unconscious biases that are in there, and then as well, proactive retention. That is the ability to use many pieces of data to say this person is likely to quit in the next six months, so do something now so that never enters their mind. We’re 95 percent accurate and have saved $300 million in replacement costs from that. These are both good for the employee and it’s really good for business.

    We’ve Got to Make This Era of Technology More Inclusive

    It’s not just driven by that (job demand driven by booming economy). I think you’ve got married here this idea that technology is going to change everyone’s job. It means reskilling of your current population. This is also so they’ve got the skills that apply for the future. I think this point of the word transparency, being clear with every employee, is their skill in the market hot or not so needed (based on) demand? Also, for your strategy, is it needed or won’t be needed for the future? We update that every quarter, that matrix, and we share it with employees. They know where they are and they say yes, I’ve got to move here and we use AI to help them move to a new area.

    What’s happening in the market, whether or not there were IPOs, this would be happening anyways, this remake of skills. It means reskilling your current population. It means a strong belief that we’ve got to make this era of technology more inclusive. Six-year high schools where community colleges and high schools are combined together. We’ve been working with 500 other companies and with those schools and there’s a pipeline of 125,000 kids coming through. Now, 15 percent of our hiring was of less than 4-year college graduates. If you’re going to make this era inclusive, the technology is moving so fast, you’ve got to make it so more people can have a job in this world.

    I just shared with the CHROs, one of the number one issues we see is we as employers over-spec the jobs that we go to hire for. We write down so many credentials they should have and it’s not true. If you’re your cyber analyst, which there’s going to be two million open jobs, let me tell you how many people can actually fill that that don’t have to have all those credentials. If I just talked about making this era for this country inclusive it’s that. It’s 15 percent and particularly the middle of the country is where we’ve done that hiring.

    How IBM is Using AI to Improve Hiring and to Retain and Retrain Employees


  • All of Our Customers Will Move to the Cloud, Says Oracle CEO

    All of Our Customers Will Move to the Cloud, Says Oracle CEO

    “We have a big existing on-premise user base and I believe all of them will move (to the cloud),” said Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. “In fact, I was with a large group of our users just last night and they’re all going to move on their time frame. We don’t put a time frame on it, but this thing is moving at a pretty good speed. It will not move linearly, it will move geometrically. When we get to a certain point you will start to see a geometric move in the market and it will be significant.”

    Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle, discussed the huge growth in the cloud applications market and he expects Oracle to lead that market in an interview on Bloomberg:

    Cloud Applications Will Become a $400 Billion Market

    The apps market is about a $125 billion market. It has two pieces to it. First is back office, which is what we call ERP. This is basically your financial systems, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain, and HR. That is really 70 percent of the applications market or around $85 billion. Second is the front office market which includes marketing, sales automation, service, etc. add up to $40 billion. A very interesting phenomenon is that as the on-premise applications market moves into SAAS it actually grows exponentially. Now the applications market is doing all of the server work, all the operating systems, and all the database work. It’s the data center, it’s the people. So the market will actually grow from $125 billion and probably triple just as it moves to SAAS because it’s taking share from the other parts of the IT market. The applications market I predict will actually become more like $400 billion as it goes forward.

    We think it is an amazing opportunity. We are growing our applications market over the last 8-12 quarters more than double-digit. The market itself is growing and we are gaining substantive share. We are the leader in ERP. If you go back to Gartner, IDC, and the analysts we are leading in HR now as well. These are very attractive and robust markets. Our customers want to modernize, want to spend less, want someone else doing the work, and they want someone else assuming the risk. We are extremely bullish about our position in the market.

    All of Our Customers Will Move to the Cloud

    We have rewritten our application base for the cloud, for SAAS. We have been doing this for years and we’ve invested a lot of capital. We are deploying our capabilities all across the globe. We are extremely excited and bullish about not just our current position. There is going to be a leader in this market and there is no one today with more than 50 percent market share. In fact, the highest application percentage of any company in any segment is sort of mid-20s. This generation will see a leader that is much more material than that and I volunteer us to do it. In most segments, the leader has 50 percent plus.

    We have a big existing on-premise user base and I believe all of them will move to the cloud. In fact, I was with a large group of our users just last night and they’re all going to move. They are all going to move on their time frame. We don’t actually put an end of life. We have a competitor that does that, but we don’t do that. We want them to move at their pace and we want them to feel good about it. We don’t put a time frame on it, but this thing is moving at a pretty good speed. It will not move linearly, it will move geometrically. When we get to a certain point you will start to see a geometric move in the market and it will be significant.

    >> Watch the full Bloomberg interview with Oracle CEO Mark Hurd.

  • Apple Search Advertising: Their Next Multi-Billion Dollar Business?

    Apple Search Advertising: Their Next Multi-Billion Dollar Business?

    Senior Analyst at Berstein, Toni Sacconaghi, released a note today predicting that Apple’s advertising business will be worth billions by 2020. Similar to Amazon, Apple is incrementally focusing on expanding adverting opportunities, especially within the App Store.

    Toni Sacconaghi, Analyst at Bernstein, recently predicted that Apple would increasingly focus on and expand its advertising business:

    Obviously, advertising is a very attractive business because it has 80 percent gross margins. If you think about Amazon, the conversation around Amazon has increasingly moved towards advertising which is now a four to five billion dollar business, very high margins. That’s all just happened in the last two years and now we’re starting to see Apple do very analogous things to what Amazon does.

    Apple’s Ad Business is at $1 Billion Today With Big Potential

    Apple’s principal advertising foray today is in the App Store when you search for an app, ads pop up based on what you search for. This is very analogous to what Amazon is doing with Amazon sponsored product ads where an ad will pop up when you search for an item. We think this business today is maybe a $500 million to $1 billion dollars, but it’s only in 13 countries.

    Apple Ads Are Not in China Yet

    They’ve just actually rolled it out to six more,  that’s including six recently rolled out to. It’s not in China yet. We’re not seeing very high ad load, so you only get one ad when you do a search, whereas on Google or Amazon you might get four or five. The potential for this business to really inflect is significant and again it’s a very high margin business.

    Apple Has Big Potential for Increased Ad Load

    If you go to Amazon or Google you literally have to scroll down an entire page before you get non-advertised based hits and Apple today is only one, so it’s certainly possible that you could do more ads. Moreover, what Apple doesn’t do is once you’ve once you’ve done your search and you go to the next page there’s no advertising and that also occurs at Amazon and Google.

    There certainly may not be the potential for the same ad load going forward but Apple’s is so low relative to what we’re seeing elsewhere that we think there’s a potential for increased ad load.

    Apple’s Privacy Stance is a Limitation in Its Efforts to Advertise

    I think Apple’s privacy stance has really been a limitation in its efforts to advertise. Obviously, targeted advertising is worth much much more than general advertising, so Apple will continue to try and do both while preserving privacy. The ads are really based on very limited data. They’re based on whether you’re on an iPhone or an iPad, they’re based on your geographic location, age, and gender, and that’s it.

  • Veeva CEO: Reinvention Makes a Great Company

    Veeva CEO: Reinvention Makes a Great Company

    Veeva Systems offers pharmaceutical and other highly regulated chemical manufacturers a cloud-based solution to make their employees and companies be more efficient and in compliance with the vast array of regulations these industries face. Veeva Systems CEO Peter Gassner modestly says that “we are just helping people to be more efficient.”

    Peter Gassner, CEO and co-founder of Veeva Systems recently discussed how the company is growing by “reinventing” itself:

    Veeva On Target To Be a Billion Dollar Company

    We laid out a goal to be a billion dollar revenue company in 2015, saying we will get there in 2020 sometime. In our recent analyst day, we let people know we are actually a year ahead of schedule. I’m really proud of our Veeva team that executed so well on our long-term plan.

    Reinvention Makes a Great Company

    If you step back to when we went public about five years ago and if you look at our progress we’ve almost tripled the number of products we have, revenue is up four times, and profits are up six times. What makes a great company is people that can reinvent themselves, a team that can create new products, keep customers happy, and uses success to grow the business. Veeva has done that.  Certainly, Adobe and Salesforce have done that as well.

    Life science is a serious business. It’s a big business, a $1.6 trillion business. It’s doing some amazing things to improve and extend human life and we are proud to be part of that. When you are dealing with human lives, there are certain regulations and process and procedures mainly to do with safety for the patient.

    We Are Just Helping People to Be More Efficient

    You have to follow those things and some of those procedures, unfortunately, have been on paper until Veeva got in there with the right cloud software. We are just helping people be more efficient. The people inside those life sciences companies I think are doing their jobs slightly better because they get to use this modern software technology to help them do what they love to do which is making medicine for patients.

    This Veeva team can accomplish so much. We started out in the commercial side of life sciences and then we moved into the R&D, the clinical trial area. That was our second big act with our Veeva Vault and has been huge for Veeva. Now we are going outside of life sciences with a product called Quality One.

    A New Big Frontier for Veeva

    You have to be careful when you are manufacturing and distributing a chemical, cosmetics, consumer packaged goods, and laundry detergent. You have to be very careful about that type of stuff and they have been burdened with client-server processes and paper processes. We want to come in and modernize that and help people do better work in those industries. That is a big frontier for Veeva.

    Sometimes in these industries, you will be doing a very complex manufacturing process and you when you want to change that process, a lot of that is done on paper and spreadsheets still. They haven’t automated it because there hasn’t been a good cloud-based system so that’s what we are helping them with.

  • Analyst Says that Google Already Dominates the Media Business

    Analyst Says that Google Already Dominates the Media Business

    When does Google dominate the media business? “They already do,” says Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal Research. “The reality is from a time consumption perspective, from an ad spending perspective, there’s nothing like Google, and unlike Facebook, they are reasonably well run.” Wieser adds “If Google wants to be a big player in traditional TV they will be. They haven’t invested yet in any meaningful way.”

    Pivotal Research Senior Analysist Brian Wieser discussed Google and technology in the media business this morning on Bloomberg:

    When Does Google Dominate the Media Business?

    They already do. The reality is from a time consumption perspective, from an ad spending perspective, there’s nothing like Google, and unlike Facebook, they are reasonably well run.

    At the end of the day if you are CBS you have to focus on building up the content library by selling content directly to consumers and selling it through other channels. You can argue that CBS has been a little further ahead than the others. They were more thoughtful in not participating in Hulu years ago, which was not necessarily a good idea for the partners. They invested heavily in All Access which is doing reasonably well, so that’s good. They are actually building up their properties in a direct to consumer model. The business won’t be as good as the old business but it’s durable.

    If Google Wants to Be a Big Player in TV They Will Be

    If Google wants to be a big player in traditional TV they will be. They haven’t invested yet in any meaningful way. I think it’s fascinating when we think about sports rights, which is one of the anchors to building out a business going forward, Facebook has hired the former head of Eurosport, Amazon has actually hired the former head of negotiations for Fox Sports. They are going to be big players when it comes to bidding for sports rights domestically in the next couple of years when big rights come up. That is a potential source of competition. Google could very well if they choose to be.

    But as a practical matter, the TV business has more players that are trying to use it. Amazon wants to make money from streaming video because they know that they get a better Prime customer, so that’s a totally different set of economics, so they’ll invest on an ongoing basis. For CBS if they keep building good content, keep delivering direct to consumer, they leverage regulation to favor retransmission consent rules or take advantage of them rather the business is durable. It’s just a melting iceberg.

  • The Case for Amazon Hitting $2 Trillion First

    The Case for Amazon Hitting $2 Trillion First

    Keith Fitz-Gerald, an experienced trader, and analyst for Money Map Press was asked by Stuart Varney on Fox Business today to explain his rationale for Amazon hitting a $2 trillion valuation before Apple:

    “There are four key businesses here, artificial intelligence, entering your home, big data, and distribution into advertising. That’s the four business segments that are going to move Amazon faster and farther than Apple, which is now under Tim Cook’s leadership falling behind in the home market.

    I’m still working on the math, it varies with each earning season, but I’m saying 24 months, possibly less.”

    “Unbelievably, many investors still think of Amazon as a “shopping” company,” noted Fitz-Gerald in his investor report. “I get it – my family and I seem to single-handedly support the company’s shopping revenues. And, like many people, I’m saying that only halfway in jest! But Team Bezos is much more than that, and the fact that most investors can’t see beyond the packing tape is a huge opportunity for you to jump in… before the markets recognize the profit potential we’re about to discuss.”

    He says that many analysts believe that the single biggest driver will be Amazon Web Services (AWS), but he believes the real value creator is artificial intelligence (AI) led by Alexa:

    “Voice-driven technology is going to be an $18 billion market in under five years, according to Markets and Markets, but I think that is far too conservative. $30 billion is probably far more likely. That’s because Alexa learns from everything it hears.”

    Fitz-Gerald added: “Imagine telling Alexa… “I want a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday morning and my test results slated for midday. Oh… and I’d like my medicine delivered to my home that afternoon – all at 10% or less of what I’ve paid in the past.””

    Read his full investor report on how Amazon will hit a $2 trillion market cap first here.

  • Cybersecurity is Rapidly Changing

    Cybersecurity is Rapidly Changing

    “We cannot control our adversary,” says Rick McElroy, Security Strategist for CarbonBlack, a leading next-generation cybersecurity firm. “Although we can choose to control them once in our environment. We have little to no control over when the “big attack” happens. For too long I think we have focused so hard on finding the adversary that our internal threat intelligence has suffered as a result”. Sharing threat intelligence has gotten easier. Vendors have done a ton to allow teams to cultivate and exchange threat intel and while there is always more work we have abandoned the one thing we have a hope of controlling. The home field advantage.”

    Editor Note: CarbonBlack is offering a free webinar on why companies are moving toward next-generation security here:

    Free Webinar: Why Companies are Replacing AV with Advanced Endpoint Protection

    McElroy adds, “I have heard major CISOs sit in a room and say “asset management is impossible, so why try?” How is this what a leader would say? Yes, this thing we do isn’t easy but giving up is a sure fire way to never achieve a strategic goal.”

    “It’s time we bring this to all defenders, not just customers of a certain organization. Carbon Black is on a mission to make the world safe from cyber attacks. To achieve this mission, we need every one of us sharing and helping quiet the noise. We need application developers and threat hunters on the same page. We need to unite as a community.”

    Traditional AV is Falling Short

    Just about every enterprise company is feverishly working on implementing next-generation solutions to protect against internet threats. The primary reason is that traditional AV software is no longer effective enough:

    First, let’s look at why traditional AV is falling short against the cyber-attacks organizations face today. Traditional AV technologies still rely on a signature-based approach that can only identify known threats. Attackers can run circles around this approach by making small tweaks to their malware in between signature updates; this allows them to operate with impunity while organizations scramble to deploy new updates.

    In short, traditional AV leaves organizations one step behind the attacker. Making matters worse, a signature-based approach cannot detect modern attacks that do not write files to disk (so-called file-less attacks) or techniques that use trusted system tools like PowerShell to perform malicious actions. In order to combat the shortcomings of traditional AV, organizations must ensure that they have AV technology that takes a proactive approach to cybersecurity. – Dan Larson, Vice President Product Marketing at CrowdStrike via Security Ledger.

    The Security Fight Has Escalated

    “Nearly 20 years ago, viruses such as the Melissa virus and Love Bug worm were causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage, hijacking email servers, corrupting corporate and government documents, and forcing systems to shut down,” stated Martin Borrett, IBM Distinguished Engineer and CTO IBM Security Europe. “Today, cybercrime is a global plague that will cost the world economy $6 trillion annually by 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.”

    Borrett added, “As cybercriminals, nation-state attackers and hacktivist groups have become more sophisticated, the security industry has grown up to defend our national security as well as the vital interests of businesses and consumers. Gradually, the battle between attackers and defenders has become something akin to an arms race: New types of attacks lead to new defenses to block them. Security innovations become outdated as soon as attackers find ways around them. Meanwhile, cyberattackers continue to rely on social engineering tricks that are hard to defend against.”

    New Cybersecurity Approaches Are Clearly Needed

    According to Dr. Kirk Borne, Principal Data Scientist at Booz Allen, what’s needed is for companies to modernize their current cybersecurity defenses:

    For modern cybersecurity operations to be effective, it’s necessary for organizations to monitor diverse data streams to identify strong activity signals. This includes monitoring network traffic data to find well-known patterns of common adversary activities, such as data exfiltration or beaconing. While these detection techniques are critical to cybersecurity operations, it is imperative to leverage such signals to predict future activities. Further capabilities could even be created to modify the behavior of the actor (or analyst) to the benefit of the organization and mission. This could include systems on networks that are trained to autonomously take action, such as blocking access to resources or redirecting traffic, based on a predicted behavior.

    Modern attackers are too agile and creative for organizations to rely on passive descriptive analytics or reactive diagnostics techniques for protection. Rather, building an ability to forecast future outcomes through predictive analytics that utilize prior knowledge of events, particularly the precursor signals evident before an attack, are proactive measures. – Dr. Kirk Borne via a recent post on O’Reilly Media.

  • eBay’s Stock Takes Massive Tumble, Company Axes 300 Employees

    eBay’s Stock Takes Massive Tumble, Company Axes 300 Employees

    This is not a good week for eBay. The company’s stocks took a massive tumble a day after revealing that it was slashing about 300 jobs in the Bay Area.

    eBay informed the Employment Development Department of California of its move to cut about 300 jobs in the area by Friday, July 20. The affected employees were reportedly notified last month that they were being laid off.

    The retail giant later reported its second-quarter earnings to its investors. The company secured a net profit of 64 cents per share, which was above what analysts projected. However, its warning that the present quarter’s revenue would go down resulted in a selloff that saw eBay’s stocks fall by 10 percent, ending in $34.11 per share.

    eBay also reported that its expected full-year profit will be around $10.75 billion to $10.85 billion, down from its previous estimate of about $10.9 billion to $11.1 billion. The company also lowered its expectations regarding its third-quarter earnings per share to somewhere between $0.54 and $0.56.

    News of the layoffs and the drop in stock prices is typically something to be worried about. Conventional wisdom dictates that cutting jobs should lead to a boost in share prices. After all, reduced cost means better profits. eBay certainly looks at it that way, as the company stated that the savings it made the previous quarter will provide them with additional funds to spend on marketing.

    eBay has been relatively quiet the past few years, particularly when compared to rival Amazon. But despite losing its luster, the company has been performing steadily. Its stock prices even reached a high $36 per share last January. This capped a 139 percent gain of the past five years. Unfortunately, shares have dropped 27 percent since then.

    Some Wall Street analysts have said that this drop in shares is puzzling, as the company continues to make progress with its key initiatives. They noted that the company is still “losing market share at a time when eCommerce, in general, is thriving.” One analyst even said that this could be due to eBay customers not bringing in new buyers to the platform.

  • Businesses Struggle to Fill Open Positions as US Workers Quit Their Jobs in Record Numbers

    Businesses Struggle to Fill Open Positions as US Workers Quit Their Jobs in Record Numbers

    According to the latest statistics from the Bureau of Labor, a large number of US workers have been quitting their jobs recently. In May, US workers said goodbye to their jobs in record numbers. The statistics showed that 2.4 percent of employees left their companies that month, a higher number than the previous high reached in April 2001.

    Some analysts see this as a positive indication of how strong the job market is these days. After all, employees usually only quit their jobs for greener pastures. People who switch employment often receive higher pay and greater benefits than those that stay put.

    Government data also revealed that there were fewer jobs advertised in May than in April. The numbers showed that there were 6.84 million jobs in April and only 6.64 million the following month. The 3 percent drop was the highest in the almost twenty years that records have been saved.

    However, the number of open positions were higher than that of the unemployed for the second time in as many years. A look at the available jobs in May, factored in with the number of unemployed workers, shows that there are 0.91 out-of-work individuals for every available job.

    The figures mirror a solid job market pushed by employers who are moving to expand their employee base. The recent job report also indicated that the hiring rate was good and that unemployment numbers remained at a low 4 percent.

    The current shortage in the labor pool and the competition for jobs should prompt businesses to increase salaries in order to secure workers. However, wage hikes remain at modest levels. Hourly earnings increased to 2.7 percent in June but aren’t commensurate with the 4 percent yearly gains that are typical in a healthy economy.

    The large discrepancy between unfilled job positions and unemployed workers is forcing companies to become more flexible with their hiring. Where businesses used to employ people with specific skills, now they’re more open to choosing applicants who could thrive in the company’s culture and are willing to learn required skills.

    However, companies are still cautious and are embracing change much slower than they did in the 1990s, the last time the country enjoyed a solid job market. Staffing experts say that the hiring process has become more thorough in the last twenty years, as background checks intensified and more screening steps were introduced. This is also why it’s taking longer to fill many open positions.

    [Featured image via Pexels.com]

  • Microsoft Surpasses Google’s Alphabet to Become World’s Third Biggest Company

    Microsoft Surpasses Google’s Alphabet to Become World’s Third Biggest Company

    Microsoft gained a lead over Google parent Alphabet for the first time in three years, becoming the third most valuable company following market close on Tuesday.

    Over the past 12 months, Microsoft’s stock price continued its rally and surged by 40 percent to $98 per share. Valued at $753 billion, it finally surpassed Alphabet’s $739 billion market capitalization. It is still behind online retailer Amazon’s market value of $782 billion and Apple’s $924 billion as the largest publicly traded US companies.

    More investors were willing to bet on Microsoft’s cloud-first strategy under current CEO Satya Nadella. When he assumed the top post in 2014, the tech company focused on cloud computing instead of manufacturing phones. Since then, its stock price has been on an uptrend but continued to trail Google’s after the latter’s restructuring in 2015.

    Microsoft and Google continue to be direct competitors in several technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Second only to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s public cloud business under the Azure platform and Office 365 subscription remains relatively bigger than Google’s.

    Although the tech giant has always been associated with the Windows operating system, Microsoft announced a reorganization of its legacy Windows and Devices Group back in March. This prompted the company to reallocate resources from Windows to its cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence businesses.

    It looked like the gamble paid off as third-quarter revenue increased by 16 percent to $26.8 billion compared to prior year, largely driven by the Microsoft Cloud segment. Net income amounted to $7.4 billion, 35 percent higher than 2017’s third fiscal quarter.  

    Back in March, investment bank Morgan Stanley gave a bullish outlook on Microsoft’s growth forecasts, underscoring the increasing preference of several businesses for cloud computing over local network services. According to the analysts, the software company is on track to reach the $1 trillion market cap within a year’s time if it maintains its dominant position on the public cloud market. Furthermore, its stock price was expected to reach $130 from the previous forecast of $110.

  • Walmart’s eCommerce is Booming, Sales Grow 33% in First Quarter

    Walmart’s eCommerce is Booming, Sales Grow 33% in First Quarter

    Walmart delivered on the online sales growth it hinted at after its less than stellar performance during the last holiday season. With its eCommerce sales seemingly ready to bounce back, the retail giant’s stocks traded higher on Thursday. Business analysts also believe that Walmart is in a position to take advantage of a cyclical boom that will hit discount retail in the next few years.

    Walmart recently reported its first quarter earnings and the numbers are positive. Earnings have reached $1.14 per share and on revenue of $122.69 billion. The numbers have exceeded estimates of $1.12 in EPS and $120.51 in profits. What’s more, profits are up 4.4 percent compared to last years. Same-store sales received a 2.1 percent boost, a bit ahead of Wall Street’s projection of 2 percent while WMT stock grew by almost 2 percent in pre-market trading on May 17.

    More importantly, online sales growth have increased to 33 percent this first quarter. It’s a massive improvement after falling 50 percent and 23 percent in the third and fourth quarter respectively. The numbers have undoubtedly caused investors to breathe a sigh of relief.

    Walmart’s Sam’s Club performed admirably in the first quarter, with the company reporting same-store sales boost of 3.8 percent and a commensurate 5.6 percent increase in traffic.

    International sales were also robust, rising up to 11.7 percent to $30.3 billion. It’s not so surprising though, as the company has been aggressively trying to stake claims on high-growth regions like China and India through acquisitions and partnerships. Just this month, Walmart revealed that it’s taking majority ownership of Flipkart, a leading eCommerce company in India.

    In a statement, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said that the company has shown a solid start to the fiscal year and that they’re encouraged by the momentum Walmart has.

    “ We are changing from within to be faster and more digital, while shaping our portfolio of businesses for the future,” McMillon added.

    That’s clear from the improvements Walmart has been making. The company has recently revamped its website, acquired online brands like Bonobos and added known brands like Lord & Taylor. Walmart has also equipped more of its branches to handle grocery pickup for online orders and made changes to its app. The company is also using more sophisticated software to better manage their inventory. This has allowed Walmart to prevent stock shortages while also avoiding having a glut of merchandise in stores that could lead to a slow down of new stocks.

  • Would You Stop Advertising on Facebook if It Offered Users an Ad-Free Subscription?

    Would You Stop Advertising on Facebook if It Offered Users an Ad-Free Subscription?

    The idea of having a paid but ad-free Facebook account has been floating around for a long time now. While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was usually adamant that it wasn’t going to happen, the Cambridge Analytica issue appears to be swaying his thoughts. The question now is— “how much would an add-free Facebook cost?”

    Zuckerberg had previously stated that people, in general, do not like paying for a service. He also emphasized that Facebook doesn’t “offer an option today for people to pay to not show ads.” However, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be an ad-free service in the future.

    Some sectors have pegged the cost of an ad-free Facebook to be somewhere between $11 to $14 per month. The amount is based on the social media giant’s recent financial reports. The company earned $84 per user last year in its most lucrative markets, the US, and Canada. If the company’s expected 35% growth rate holds in 2018, then it could earn as much as $113 per user. But, if you take into consideration that subscribers would likely have more disposable income than free users, thus making them more attractive to marketers, then it would make sense that an $11 monthly fee would be needed to make up for the revenue Facebook would lose.

    Analysts have speculated that even if 10 percent of users subscribed to the proposed ad-free version of Facebook, there would be no drop in revenue for the company. In fact, Facebook could see a boost in revenue because it would bring in earnings from the subscription fees and advertising budgets would’nt change much.

    However, if the subscription fee is low enough to be broadly accepted by users, advertising on Facebook would be less effective and brands and businesses would advertise elsewhere.

    For now, most advertisers don’t seem to be put off by Facebook’s proposed ad-free subscription. The social media giant’s two billion active users mean that every other person you know has an account on the platform. And unless ad-free subscriptions cause a big decline in Facebook’s user base, advertisers are not likely to jump ship.

  • 5 Slackbots to Improve Your Business Operations in 2018

    5 Slackbots to Improve Your Business Operations in 2018

    Slack has become one of the most widely used team collaboration tools on the market due in large part to its flexibility. More than just a messaging platform, Slack offers a variety of customizable tools and apps to its over six million daily active users, two million of which are paid.  Among the tools that make Slack flexible and easy to use are chatbots.

    Called Slackbots, these chatbot assistants are integrated into Slack conversations. And contrary to what their name suggests, these bots do not slack off. They are designed to sort through messages, monitor assigned tasks, track performance, and even integrate with your email to monitor urgent correspondence, all within the platform. Virtual assistants like Slackbots efficiently handle tedious and time-consuming work, allowing you and your team to focus more on revenue-generating activities.

    Whether it’s for productivity, marketing or anything else, there is a Slackbot for just about every business need. Here are some that can make a difference in your daily operations in 2018.  

    1. BusyBot

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    Busybot is a productivity-focused Slackbot that manages tasks for everyone on the team. Users can ask the bot to schedule meetings, assign tasks, and set automated reminders for deadlines—all based in your Slack conversations. With this bot, you don’t need separate software for project management and communication. You also have the option to monitor all assignments on the Busybot website to ensure you stay on track.

    2. Astrobot

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    Another productivity-geared bot, Astrobot manages your email in the comforts of your chat environment. Astrobot is known for its email app and which seamlessly integrates with the Slack platform. Its powerful AI flags high priority messages and sorts them into a separate inbox for easy access. You can also respond to these important emails directly on Slack without switching back to your inbox. Send quick messages by using the slash command/email. Take actions on emails, such as unsubscribe from mailing lists, move emails from specific senders, and empty trash or junk mail by typing ‘Zap.’

    3. Workbot

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    Workbot by Workato is a bot that executes approval workflows – from social media posts to sales estimates and budgets – within the Slack platform. You don’t need another software or spreadsheet to keep track of approvals and rejections. This bot also has integrations with platforms like Workday, Zendesk, and JIRA, among others to quickly resolve issues within Slack. You can communicate with multiple teams across your company. This seamless experience reduces time for resolution and response, thus improving customer experience.

    4. Statsbot

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    Performance metrics is important to every business owner, and Statsbot offers this data conveniently. Its integration with Google Analytics, Salesforce, SQL, Mixpanel, and other platforms allows you to get insights, such as performance summary. This bot analyzes raw data from various sources to deliver reports for easier understanding, right from Slack. It also alerts you of any unusual spikes on your metrics. Thanks to its machine learning features, Statsbot can generate data about customers and their buying patterns. Marketing teams can then tweak their strategies based on available information.  

    5. Dbot by Demisto

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    Sharing makes Slack a great collaborative tool. However, it’s difficult to know which shared content is safe or malicious and the last thing you want is a cyber attack. Demisto’s DBot is a Slackbot that scans every URL, file, and IP address shared on the platform. Its multiple security threat feeds and malware analysis engines to protect and warn Slack users real-time. The bot is updated with the latest cybersecurity threats and provides detailed reports for security analysts. And if it notices any suspicious activity, it will notify your team immediately.

    There are numerous Slackbots in the market and some might seem repetitive in their offerings. No single bot can handle your specific needs since every business is different. Try several bots to find the right match in automating some of your tasks. Doing so allows you to prioritize in improving your bottomline and save on expenses.

  • Donald Trump Attacks Amazon on Twitter for Not Paying Enough Taxes

    Donald Trump Attacks Amazon on Twitter for Not Paying Enough Taxes

    Donald Trump once again used social media to attack Amazon. This time, Trump accused the online retailer of being a threat to small businesses as well as “paying little or no taxes.”

    By now, everyone is probably aware that Trump is not really friends with Amazon as well as its CEO Jeff Bezos. So, it came as no surprise when the president decided to tweet his concern against the eCommerce giant last Thursday. Aside from accusing the company of not paying enough taxes, Trump also asserted that the government actually suffered losses due to Amazon’s use of the US Postal Service in its deliveries.

    However, Trump’s statement about Amazon’s tax practice is a bit misleading. While the retailer previously collected sales taxes only in a few states, the company has since corrected its operations and is now collecting in 45 states or all states that impose the collection of sales taxes.

    Trump is a known critic of Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. In fact, Trump had attacked both Bezos and his company via Twitter more than a dozen times since 2015. Some of his vitriol no doubt comes from unfavorable stories printed about him by The Washington Post, which is also owned by Bezos.

    Regardless of his intentions, many business analysts agree with Trump’s view that Amazon’s size has strangled competitors, particularly the brick and mortar retailers. This concern first surfaced way back in the 90s when the company started out as an online bookstore. These days as a retailer of all things, Amazon’s has a far bigger presence in the world of eCommerce, accounting for a staggering 40 percent of all online sales.

    “The Trump administration should rein in giants like Amazon because they have an unfair stranglehold on the competition, not because the president has a personal feud with a company’s CEO,” Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison said in a statement, which echoed Trump’s concern.

    Of course, Amazon is aware that its ballooning size is bound to raise some antitrust issues soon. Eyeing the storm that is yet to come, the company wants its bases covered and has reportedly hired numerous antitrust consultants over the past year.

    Amazon’s tax history is not entirely blemish-free either. The company recently ran into problems in its international operations and settled a tax dispute with French authorities for an undisclosed amount. However, the EU ruled Amazon to have an “illegal tax advantage” and ordering the company to pay $294 million to Luxembourg.

  • Microsoft on Track to Reach $1 Trillion Market Cap in a Year, Says Morgan Stanley Report

    Microsoft on Track to Reach $1 Trillion Market Cap in a Year, Says Morgan Stanley Report

    Investors have been anticipating the close race to the $1 trillion market cap between Apple and Amazon, but analysts at Morgan Stanley are also counting on Microsoft to hit the mark within a year.

    The investment bank hiked its stock price target for Microsoft to $130 from $110 in a detailed report released to clients on Monday. It was 49 percent higher than Friday’s close of around $87 and on track to reach the $1 trillion market value target.

    Following the Morgan Stanley report, Microsoft shares rose 5 percent in midday trading on Monday. With a midday market value of $707 billion, Microsoft was right behind Amazon at $733 billion and Apple at $849 billion.

    Morgan Stanley’s bullish outlook is attributed to the software company’s growing cloud services under the Office 365 subscription and Azure platform for businesses. Microsoft is expected to grow its share of the cloud market because of its large customer base and distribution channel, unlike cloud giants Amazon and Google. After becoming Microsoft’s CEO in 2014, Satya Nadella’s push for cloud computing, instead of making phones, has translated into surging stock prices for the company.

    “With Public Cloud adoption expected to grow from 21% of workloads today to 44% in the next three years, Microsoft looks poised to maintain a dominant position in a public cloud market we expect to more than double in size to (more than) $250 billion dollars,” analysts Keith Weiss and Melissa Franchi wrote.

    Morgan Stanley analysts cited results from a recent survey of chief information officers that highlighted preference to cloud services versus local servers. Large companies are predicted to channel more of their tech budgets to cloud computing with Microsoft, Amazon, and Cisco in the next few years.

    Microsoft still has other business lines, like the Xbox gaming segment and social networking through LinkedIn, that can contribute to its robust growth. However, investors are still betting on Microsoft’s cloud business to primarily drive sales and profit surge of nearly 10 percent in the following years.

    [Featured image via Microsoft]

  • Amazon is Now the World’s Second Largest Company, Surpasses Alphabet

    Amazon is Now the World’s Second Largest Company, Surpasses Alphabet

    Amazon became the second most valuable company as it overtook Google parent Alphabet for the first time amidst Tuesday’s trading.

    The eCommerce giant’s shares surged by 2.7 percent, pulling up its stock market value to $768 billion. Over the past 12 months, the online retailer has added around $350 billion to its market capitalization, surging by 85 percent. This was attributed to Amazon’s aggressive expansion into other markets, such as cloud computing and brick-and-mortar stores.

    More investors are betting on Amazon’s profitable and fast-growing cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, to fund the company’s new ventures like original content, physical stores, and building data centers and warehouses.

    Amazon is still behind Apple, the largest publicly traded US company with market value of $889 billion. But analysts think the eCommerce giant can close the gap. “They could have Apple in their sights at some point,” Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York, said.

    On the other hand, Alphabet’s stock tumbled by 0.4 percent, trimming its market cap to $762 billion. The Wall Street ranking shake-up was traced to Monday’s tech sell-off following the political backlash over reports that a consulting firm leaked the personal data of 50 million Facebook users. Similar to the social media company, Alphabet also relies on obtaining massive amounts of personal data to target online advertising.

    Although Amazon also collects data from site users, some analysts believe that the online retailer will not be affected by concerns about the new regulation on online advertising, unlike Facebook and other tech companies.

    Fred Weiss, a managing director at CIBC Atlantic Trust, pointed out to Financial Times, “It is clearly companies that have proprietary personal data that they are able to market to advertisers. Those are the ones that are vulnerable, not so much Amazon. It does very little on advertising and is not being impacted the same as Google and Facebook.”

    [Featured image via Amazon blog]

  • After 12 Years of Losses, Twitter Finally Turns a Profit

    After 12 Years of Losses, Twitter Finally Turns a Profit

    Even seasoned Wall Street analysts were a bit surprised by Twitter’s latest financial report for the fourth quarter of 2017. No, the surprise was not really in the amount of profit it made for that quarter but on the fact that the company made a profit at all—a first in its 12-year existence.

    In an announcement, the San Francisco-based social media company revealed that it earned a profit of $91 million for the fourth quarter of 2017. This is a very big improvement for the firm which announced a huge $167 million loss for the same period during the previous year. In addition, its quarterly revenue was reported to be $732 million or a 2 percent increase from 2016’s fourth quarter level.

    However, the company still posted a net loss of $108 million for its entire 2017 financial performance. But the figure is still viewed as a favorable development considering that the company posted an even bigger annual loss of $457 million in 2016.

    “We’re pleased with our performance in 2017 and our return to revenue growth in the fourth quarter,” Twitter CFO Ned Segal explained. Aside from the 2 percent increase in the fourth quarter total revenue, he also highlighted that advertising revenue rose by 7 percent. He attributed the growth to improved user engagement and revenue products as well as better sales execution and higher advertiser ROI.

    As expected, the market reacted positively to the company’s announcement. Twitter’s shares rose by more than 20 percent following the announcement.

    While Twitter announced that its monthly active users grew to 330 million, up 4 percent from the previous year, there are still many issues that could hamper the company’s future growth. For one, it’s facing increased scrutiny after an exposé by The New York Times revealed that the social media website is populated with millions of fake accounts created for users who are willing pay to artificially boost their number of followers.

  • Snapchat’s Q4 Shows Better Than Expected Revenue and User Growth

    Snapchat’s Q4 Shows Better Than Expected Revenue and User Growth

    In a surprising, but welcomed, development, Snapchat finally pulled out of its slump to post a boost in revenue and new user growth. The increase beat investor expectations and invigorated the company, with stocks going up by as much as 25 percent.

    Snap’s mother company, Snap Inc., reported on Tuesday a revenue of $285.7 million for Q4. It also indicated that it also had a 13 cents loss per share in the same quarter. That was a marked improvement to what analysts had previously predicted—revenue around $252.9 million and a loss of 16 cents per share.

    Snapchat also defied expectations regarding its user numbers. The photo-sharing company saw a surge of 9 million new users, pushing its daily users to 187 million. Wall Street analysts had pegged Snapchat to add at most just 6 million new users during the last quarter of 2017.

    This led to a major demand for the company’s shares during after-hours trading. Stocks of Snap Inc. went up 25 percent to around $17.60 per share, which was more than its IPO price.

    The new development has certainly given investors and Snap’s stakeholders room to breathe. The company has been laboring with uninspired sales and slow user growth in the past three quarters since it went public. But now it seems Snapchat has bounced back.

    The question now is whether the company can sustain this growth. Snap has already made massive changes since its initial public offering. Its software was fixed and updated, and a new auction-based advertising scheme was launched. Snapchat’s design has also been revamped in a bid to make it more user-friendly and to appeal to older users. At the moment, the app is more popular among the teenage crowd and millennials.

    Snapchat’s new look is currently being tested in Australia and the UK. However, reviews about its new design have been less than enthusiastic. The new and improved Snapchat is expected to be released globally by the end of this year’s first quarter.

    [Featured image via Snapchat] 

  • Amazon Exceeds Analyst Predictions, Posts its Highest Q4 Profits Ever

    Amazon Exceeds Analyst Predictions, Posts its Highest Q4 Profits Ever

    Buoyed by strong holiday sales and the robust performance of its cloud computing division, Amazon exceeded previous expectations set by analysts for its fourth quarter performance. The eCommerce giant posted a staggering $60.5 billion in revenue, surpassing Wall Street estimates which projected its revenues for the period to only reach $59.83 billion.

    For the fourth quarter last year, Amazon posted a net profit of $1.9 billion, which is a record for the company. By comparison, the 2017 Q4 profit is more than double its net profit for the same period the previous year.

    However, Amazon’s profits got a big boost from a tax benefit. The company received a provisional $789 million boost from a new tax law passed in December.

    In addition, the strong performance of its cloud computing business Amazon Web Services (AWS) is also a contributory factor to its record performance. AWS’s $5.11 billion revenue for the same period likewise defied analysts’ expectations, which was only anticipated to reach $4.97 billion.

    The biggest factor to Amazon’s stratospheric Q4 performance still comes from holiday shopping especially during the period starting on the Thanksgiving holiday until New Year. Pushed by the holiday shopping rush, Amazon’s sales rose to $60.5 billion or a 38 percent increase from the year-ago level.

    According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the company’s success is, in large part, a result of its AI-powered digital assistant Alexa. In fact, there are indications that Amazon could be investing more in the technology given its initial success.

    “Our 2017 projections for Alexa were very optimistic, and we far exceeded them. We don’t see positive surprises of this magnitude very often—expect us to double down,” Bezos said in a statement.

    For its 2017 full year performance, Amazon posted a 31 percent rise in sales with its 2017 full year revenue of $177.9 billion, as compared to its 2016 sales of only $136 billion. However, its operating profit is only $4.1 billion, a 2 percent decrease from the previous year due to reinvestments.

    Wall Street still remains overwhelmingly positive on Amazon’s future prospects. Recently, its stock rose by 70 percent which resulted in Jeff Bezos overthrowing Bill Gates as the world’s richest man.