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  • Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

    Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

    “Demand for space is actually increasing because ecommerce is growing much more rapidly than it was before,” says global logistics real estate company Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam. “We probably got three, four, or five years of growth in a quarter or two. Ecommerce is a big tailwind for our business. It’s a pretty good business otherwise but ecommerce just supercharges it.”

    Hamid Moghadam, chairman, and CEO of Prologis, the global leader in logistics real estate, while discussing their earnings release says the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the growth of ecommerce worldwide: 

    Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

    We started the year with a very optimistic outlook and of course, all of that was before COVID. When we got to the first-quarter results, they were strong, but we softened our outlook a bit because nobody really knew what we were facing. As the business has progressed in the second quarter we’re finding that demand for space is actually increasing because ecommerce is growing much more rapidly than it was before. 

    We probably got three, four, or five years of growth in a quarter or two. Ecommerce is a big tailwind for our business. It’s a pretty good business otherwise but ecommerce just supercharges it. 

    Our Business Is Vital To The Supply Chain

    We run a global business. If you look at our collections globally, the US is actually stronger than the global numbers. But if you look at the overall numbers they are actually running better than last year which was a record year. You might ask why in an environment like this that collections are running ahead of last year? The reason is pretty simple. Our business is vital to the supply chain. Even people whose businesses are not doing well have to keep their inventory somewhere and that’s usually in one of our buildings. 

    An interesting statistic is that 2.5 percent of global GDP goes through our billion square feet around the world. We’ve got pretty good visibility as to what’s going on in the global economy. Both on the good end and the soft end people need inventory and a place to store their goods.

    Houston Is The Softest Market In The US

    Houston is probably the softest market in the US. Globally, I would have to say France is probably one of the weaker markets. But generally, through this cycle, we’ve held up pretty well around the world. The primary reason is that unlike other cycles supply of space was very tight going into this downturn. Vacancies were under five percent and utilization rates were in the mid-80s. Both of those are records.

    I’ve been doing this for about 37 years and those are numbers that are unprecedented in our business. Unprecedented good.

    Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before, Says Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam
  • Google Introduces Confidential Computing, a New Way of Encrypting Cloud Data

    Google Introduces Confidential Computing, a New Way of Encrypting Cloud Data

    Google Cloud has introduced Confidential Computing in a bid to help secure data in the cloud.

    Google and Microsoft are both founding members of the Confidential Computing industry group. The goal of Confidential Computing is to encrypt and secure data while it is being used and processed. This is far different than current encryption methods, wherein data must be decrypted in order to access it. In its current incarnation, Google Cloud encrypts data in transit and at rest, but the data must be decrypted to work with.

    Confidential Computing is a game-changer since it keeps data encrypted at every step of the process, including when the data is being accessed.

    “Google Cloud encrypts data at-rest and in-transit, but customer data must be decrypted for processing,” write Nelly Porter, Senior Product Manager; Gilad Golan, Engineering Director, Confidential Computing; and Sam Lugani, Lead Security PMM, G Suite & GCP platform. “Confidential Computing is a breakthrough technology which encrypts data in-use—while it is being processed. Confidential Computing environments keep data encrypted in memory and elsewhere outside the central processing unit (CPU).

    “Confidential VMs, now in beta, is the first product in Google Cloud’s Confidential Computing portfolio. We already employ a variety of isolation and sandboxing techniques as part of our cloud infrastructure to help make our multi-tenant architecture secure. Confidential VMs take this to the next level by offering memory encryption so that you can further isolate your workloads in the cloud. Confidential VMs can help all our customers protect sensitive data, but we think it will be especially interesting to those in regulated industries.”

    This is an exciting development in the realm of cloud security, and specifically for Google Cloud. As the first major cloud provider to offer Confidential Computing, this is a big win for Google as it battles its larger rivals in the cloud space.

  • Google Vows Not to Use Fitbit Data For Advertising

    Google Vows Not to Use Fitbit Data For Advertising

    In an effort to prevent the EU from challenging its Fitbit deal, Google has committed to not using Fitbit data in its advertising.

    Google announced in November that it had entered a definitive agreement to purchase Fitbit to the tune of $2.1 billion. Almost immediately, the deal was scrutinized by lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. The DOJ announced in December it was opening an investigation into the deal, citing privacy concerns over the sensitive health information Fitbit has access to. Similarly, the EU launched its own investigation into the deal over similar concerns.

    In an effort to stave off any attempt to block the deal, Google has now committed to not using any Fitbit data to target its ads. In an emailed statement to Reuters, Google said the following:

    “This deal is about devices, not data. We appreciate the opportunity to work with the European Commission on an approach that safeguards consumers’ expectations that Fitbit device data won’t be used for advertising,” Google said in an emailed statement.

    Google’s statement emphasizes why it pursued the Fitbit deal to begin with, even outbidding Facebook for the wearable maker. Apple is currently the dominant wearables company, with Samsung making a respectable showing as well. Buying Fitbit gives Google a better chance of competing against the market leaders.

  • TSMC Flying High on Datacenter and Semiconductor Demand

    TSMC Flying High on Datacenter and Semiconductor Demand

    TSMC has reported its earnings and things are looking good for the semiconductor manufacturer.

    TSMC is currently benefiting from multiple industry trends. The global pandemic has increased demand for datacenters as companies are turning to the cloud to continue running.

    Similarly, US officials have placed greater emphasis on in-country semiconductor manufacturing, as the pandemic showed the dangers of relying solely on overseas manufacturing. Capitalizing on that, TSMC announced its plans to build a semiconductor factory in Arizona

    While not immediately benefiting TSMC, another factor that should help it in the long run is Apple’s decision to move Macs from Intel chips to custom silicon. TSMC already makes the custom silicon in Apple’s iPhones and iPads. It stands to reason TSMC will likely handle the chip manufacturing for Apple’s Macs as well.

    As a result of these various factors, according to Bloomberg, TSMC “reported sales of NT$120.88 billion ($4.1 billion) for June on Friday. That likely means TSMC’s revenue grew about 29% to NT$310.7 billion last quarter, based on previously reported figures, beating the NT$308.8 billion analysts expect on average.”

    It’s likely TSMC will continue to rise, both in the short and long-term. These various factors will also help offset lost business from Huawei, as the US has greatly restricted TSMC’s second-largest customer.

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

    12 Percent of Slack Employees Started After Pandemic, Says CEO

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

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

    12 Percent of Slack Employees Started After Pandemic

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

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

    Pandemic Causing Much Bigger Reliance On Software

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

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

    Rimeto Let’s Slack Users Connect Within Organizations

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

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

    12 Percent of Slack Employees Started After Pandemic, Says CEO Stewart Butterfield
  • MIT Removes AI Training Dataset Over Racist Concerns

    MIT Removes AI Training Dataset Over Racist Concerns

    MIT has removed a massive dataset after finding it contained racist, misogynistic terms and offensive images.

    Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems use datasets as training data. MIT created the Tiny Images dataset, which contained some 80 million images.

    In an open letter, Bill Freeman and Antonio Torralba, both professors at MIT, as well as NYU professor Rob Fergus, outlined issues they became aware of, and the steps they took to resolve them.

    “It has been brought to our attention that the Tiny Images dataset contains some derogatory terms as categories and offensive images,” write the professors. “This was a consequence of the automated data collection procedure that relied on nouns from WordNet. We are greatly concerned by this and apologize to those who may have been affected.

    “The dataset is too large (80 million images) and the images are so small (32 x 32 pixels) that it can be difficult for people to visually recognize its content. Therefore, manual inspection, even if feasible, will not guarantee that offensive images can be completely removed.

    “We therefore have decided to formally withdraw the dataset. It has been taken offline and it will not be put back online. We ask the community to refrain from using it in future and also delete any existing copies of the dataset that may have been downloaded.”

    This has been an ongoing issue with AI and ML training data, with some experts warning that it is far too easy for these systems to inadvertently develop biases based on the data. With their announcement, it appears MIT is certainly doing their share to try to rectify that issue.

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

    How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

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

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

    Helping Brands Create a Single View of Their Customers

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

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

    Machine Learning Helps Brands Get To Nirvana

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

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

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

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

  • Microsoft Scores Five-Year Coca-Cola Contract

    Microsoft Scores Five-Year Coca-Cola Contract

    Microsoft has announced a five-year contract with Coca-Cola to modernize and standardize the beverage company’s software.

    The contract covers Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 to provide an integrated solution, as opposed to the fragmented systems the company was using. An integration solution will also help Coca-Cola gain valuable insights from the data it collects. In particular, Dynamics 365 will apply artificial intelligence to drive insights.

    “At The Coca-Cola Company, innovation and growth are key pillars of our business,” said Barry Simpson, senior vice president and chief information and integrated services officer of The Coca-Cola Company. “This partnership with Microsoft allows us to really step change our employee experience through replacing previously disparate and fragmented systems. These platforms allow us to deliver relevant, personalized experiences as we network our organization.”

    “Coca-Cola is a pioneer and forward-thinking leader in its industry,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft. “Today, the company is taking its digital innovation a step further, leveraging Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 and Azure to better connect people and opportunities through breakthrough productivity and powerful information management that will drive continued business success over the next decade.”

    The contract is a big win for Microsoft as it continues to make headway in the cloud marketplace.

  • Without AI, Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    Without AI, Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    “How do we shorten the space between a signal that we get, say in behavioral data that we see show up either in an app or on a website, and then churn through all of the possibilities of what we could present, apply algorithms to determine what is the next best offer and next best experience?” asks Adam Justis, Director of Marketing at Adobe Experience Cloud. “Then how do we present that in a way that actually feels if not real-time pretty close to it? That would not be possible without artificial intelligence.”

    Adam Justis, Director of Marketing at Adobe Experience Cloud, discusses how AI and machine learning are enabling near real-time shopping personalization in an interview with theCUBE at Adobe Imagine 2019 in Las Vegas:

    Role of AI in Offering a Personalized Shopping Experience is Core

    You definitely have the data piece and then the content piece. I would also add how the complexity of all that has certainly exceeded the capacity to manage this in a singular sort of engagement with a customer, let alone at scale millions of times a day. So the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning now is so core. It’s sort of the gearbox that’s turning at the center of the data on one hand and the content and elements, the assets, the offers, on the other that allows for ultimately the coalescing of those things and then the delivery of an experience worth having.

    That’s the component pieces that we’re seeing at play and Adobe’s motivation in going into that space. At Adobe when we announced our intent to acquire Magento, we were talking about how does Adobe facilitate or help every experience become shoppable and every moment personal? Really that was a claim we couldn’t make without the Magento piece. It is absolutely a hand in glove relationship especially as we’ve all evolved as consumers.

    Advancements in AI Are Going From the Absurd to the Very Real

    To imagine that we would be subscribing to socks or that we could one-click purchase just about anything, you need the technology that can keep pace with the expectations. That’s what it’s all about. So many of those experiences that Adobe is intent on enabling our customers to present culminate in a transaction of some sort. Magento is absolutely not only the icing on the cake but it’s also so integral. It’s becoming a fundamental or elemental part of what we’re trying to accomplish.

    That (personalized experience) is one of the things that I absolutely love about customer experience management or CXM. In a way I kind of love the absurdity of it. When you think of the scale, to say something like we’re going to make every experience shoppable and every moment personal, to imagine that that’s possible is almost absurd. But when you introduce the advancements that we’re seeing in artificial intelligence and machine learning now it’s literally going from the absurd or the realm of science fiction into very real. That’s what Adobe is looking at.

    Without AI Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    How can we literally take some sort of statement like we’re going to personalize experiences across the customer journey and we’re going to do it at scale and in real-time? Really, unless you’re considering how we’re going to meet the needs of the customer in the moment that they’re expressing that need then it’s really moot. It is absolutely artificial intelligence and machine learning that we’re seeing expressed now across the Adobe Experience Cloud that is making that happen in multiple ways. One of the ways would be simply by shortening that span between the latent genius that marketers are walking around in their heads and actual execution. How can we take some of the friction out of the workflows that allow them to translate their ideas into offers?

    How do we shorten the space between a signal that we get, say in behavioral data that we see show up either in an app or on a website, and then churn through all of the possibilities of what we could present, apply algorithms to determine what is the next best offer and next best experience? Then how do we present that in a way that actually feels if not real-time pretty close to it? That would not be possible without artificial intelligence. At Adobe we do that through a product called Adobe Sensei.

    Adobe: Without AI Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible
  • SAP Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan Leaving Company

    SAP Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan Leaving Company

    SAP Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan is departing the company, leaving Christian Klein as sole CEO.

    Morgan has been with the company since 2004, and jointly held the role of CEO with Klein since October 2019. The company says that Morgan “mutually agreed with the Supervisory Board of SAP SE” to resign and depart, effective April 30. At the same time, the announcement makes clear that the current economic crisis was a driving factor, with the decision to get behind a single CEO being “taken earlier than planned to ensure strong, unambiguous steering in times of an unprecedented crisis.” A single CEO will give the company a clear, unified leadership structure.

    “I’d like to thank Jennifer for her partnership over many years,” said CEO Christian Klein. “Throughout SAP’s transformation, Jennifer has always been laser-focused on customers, partners, shareholders and employees. It’s thanks to her that we have established a strong position in experience management solutions. I know she will always be a champion of SAP.”

    “It has been a great privilege to drive SAP’s growth and innovation in so many areas and most recently as Co-CEO,” said Jennifer Morgan. “With unprecedented change within the world, it has become clear that now is the right time for the company to transition to a single CEO leading the business. I would like to thank Hasso Plattner for the opportunity to co-lead this great company, and I wish Christian, the Executive Board, and SAP’s talented team much success as they drive the company forward.”

    It will be interesting to watch SAP to see if the change has a noticeable impact on the company’s operations.

  • There Is No Aspect of Healthcare That Is Not Being Transformed Digitally, Says AMA Chief Experience Officer

    There Is No Aspect of Healthcare That Is Not Being Transformed Digitally, Says AMA Chief Experience Officer

    “A lot of times it’s better to think about (digital transformation) in retrospect after you’ve gotten something done, but the digital platform is essential in helping you achieve your business objectives, and that’s really what it boils down to,” says AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger. “Even though my purview here is mostly communicating between us and physicians, ultimately, I’m there to help them in what they care the most about, which is patient care. There is no aspect of healthcare right now that is not being transformed digitally.”

    Todd Unger, Chief Experience Officer for the American Medical Association, discusses how digital transformation is ultimately about improving patient care in a video interview (watch below) with industry analyst Michael Krigsman on CXOTALK:

    I Don’t Start Anything That I Do With Digital Blinders On

    I don’t start anything that I do with digital blinders on. The first thing is to figure out what the job that you’re trying to get done is. Inevitably, of course, these days, if you’re trying to meet people where they are, that does involve digital platforms. We are, in essence, like any other subscription business in that we have something that we’re trying to get people to belong to. If you’re going to communicate with people and build a subscription business, you do need to have that platform in place.

    I think, basically, today, most organizations or businesses, they have to act in three ways. They’ve got to have the consumer product focus of a company like Proctor & Gamble. They need to have the publishing experience and content management experience of a New York Times or Washington Post, and they need to have the data and analytics platform and skillset of like an Amazon. That’s a tough organization to build these days. But if you’re going to succeed in creating a member experience and really interacting with people, you’ve got to be able to do all three things.

    There Is No Aspect of Healthcare That Is Not Being Transformed Digitally

    I think digital transformation is a bizarre and scary term. I don’t walk in the door saying, “We need to have a digital transformation,” because that is really kind of meaningless to people. A lot of times I would say it’s better to think about that in retrospect after you’ve gotten something done, but the digital platform is essential in helping you achieve your business objectives, and that’s really what it boils down to. 

    Even though my purview here is mostly communicating between us and physicians, ultimately, I’m there to help them in what they care the most about, which is patient care. There is no aspect of healthcare right now that is not being transformed digitally. One of the most exciting places, and I think it probably has more relevance on the long-term care side, is remote patient monitoring. You look around at most systems and they’re equipping themselves to have people not come to the hospital, not come into the office, but to provide people with the technology to be able to do what they need to do from home and to be able to communicate with them from a remote place and have their progress monitored.

    Driving The Future of Medicine

    I’d say the final way that we (are an ally in patient care) is through something I don’t think a lot of people know about, which is driving the future of medicine. We are facilitating the changes that are happening in medicine right now. I talked about remote patient monitoring, but telemedicine is something that’s increasing in usage and all of the infrastructure that underlies that needs to get put into place to make sure that doctors have what they need to be able to do that and, from a technology payment standpoint, all of that kind of stuff.

    The other thing and this is affecting every aspect of business out there is data. One of the key things about data right now in healthcare is, it’s not necessarily hooked up in a way that can connect the input when a patient comes in the door and the outcomes. There are different systems that underly that data input and the portability of that. We are putting in place an infrastructure and what we would call an innovation ecosystem to facilitate the flow of that data so that it can actually deliver better patient care in the end.

    There Is No Aspect of Healthcare That Is Not Being Transformed Digitally – AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger
  • Verizon Using Vespa to Help Fight the Pandemic

    Verizon Using Vespa to Help Fight the Pandemic

    Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) has announced it is using its open source, big data serving engine to combat the coronavirus.

    The White Hose and research groups have released the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), “a resource of over 51,000 scholarly articles, including over 40,000 with full text, about COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and related coronaviruses.” Being able to access and use that gargantuan amount of data, however, can be a challenge of its own.

    To assist in the endeavor, Verizon has announced it has indexed the dataset, making it available to search via Vespa.

    “After being made aware of the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge (CORD-19), where AI experts have been asked to create text and data mining tools that can help the medical community, the Vespa team wanted to contribute,” writes Kristian Aune, Tech Product Manager, Verizon Media.

    “Given our experience with big data at Yahoo (now Verizon Media) and creating Vespa (open source big data serving engine), we thought the best way to help was to index the dataset, which includes over 44,000 scholarly articles, and to make it available for searching via Vespa Cloud.”

    Verizon’s announcement should be a boon to researchers and scientists trying to keep up with the latest research on the virus. The company promises daily updates to the documentation and query features. In the meantime, the dataset is live and ready for use.

    “Now live at https://cord19.vespa.ai, you can get started with a few of the sample queries or for more advanced queries, visit CORD-19 API Query” the announcement continues. “Feel free to tweet us @vespaengine or submit an issue, if you have any questions or suggestions.”

  • 5G is Delayed, But a Whole New World is Coming

    5G is Delayed, But a Whole New World is Coming

    “The fact is as much as 5G is going to be tremendous, and it’s going to bring an amazing architectural shift to our economy and to our markets and economy, it’s still not here,” says Skyworks Solutions CEO Liam Griffin. “It is here in certain areas but the rollout has been somewhat delayed due to the pandemic.”

    Liam Griffin, CEO of Skyworks Solutions, discusses on CNBC how the pandemic has temporarily delayed 5G but ultimately it will be a big part of a whole new world.

    It’s a Stay At Home World Right Now

    It’s a stay at home world right now (due to the pandemic). I talked about the digital traffic jam three or four years ago. At that time we talked about the networks being compressed and taxed and digitally clogged and we’re seeing this today. I mean it’s great that we’re seeing the network interfaces and the data traffic and the ability to do what we’re doing but we’re nowhere near where we’re headed. 

    We’ve got a long way to go in 5G. We’ve also got incredible Wi-Fi technologies coming. I think this pandemic situation is very difficult. It is a challenge and a big deal. But I think the technologies that we’re working on in our ecosystem with partners like Verizon and infrastructure players and even the Chinese⎯we’re all coming together to make this work. It’s a real indication of how necessary these applications are to the economy.

    5G Delayed Due To The Pandemic

    The fact is as much as 5G is going to be tremendous, and it’s going to bring an amazing architectural shift to our economy and to our markets and economy, it’s still not here. It is here in certain areas but the rollout has been somewhat delayed due to the pandemic. However, we’re going to see a bigger uptick in the second half. 

    We’re working with the marquee companies largely in the US, China, and Europe and we’re seeing some great technologies. They’re going to launch, it’s just delayed right now. That’s where we’re going to see the quality, the experience, the bandwidth upside that we’ve been talking about. That will happen.

    5G Is a Multi-Year Thematic Move

    5G is a multi-year thematic move. The interesting thing is that people today are clamoring to get the technology. The issue that we have and in what manifests in the demand weakness has really come about by a supply shock. It’s the supply chain in Asia and other parts of the world where folks couldn’t go to their factories and work. It creates a delay but we don’t think it’s perishable. 

    We think this 5G technology is absolutely going to launch. Some of that demand that did not get executed in our Q1 or Q2 will move forward into the back half of 2020 and certainly into 2021. We see this as a pause more than a complete deep dive. 

    Interesting Applications Are Really Emerging Through 5G

    I saw the Verizon CEO talking about a 20 percent upside in data traffic and Vodafone also just announced a 50 percent increase in data traffic. So if you look at how this works, the smartphone⎯that’s your quarterback. They’re doing a lot of the work. But think about the IOT space, machine to machine, autonomous driving, and security. All of these interesting applications are really emerging through 4G, 5G and higher speed Wi-Fi. It’s creating a new experience. 

    If we look at what we’re doing with the young people today, the Millennials, I got three kids, they’re all face-timing. It’s just a whole new world. In a way, I think there are some real positive thematic changes that we can capitalize on once we get through this challenge with the pandemic.

    5G is Delayed, But a Whole New World is Coming, Says Skyworks Solutions CEO Liam Griffin
  • Coronavirus: iFixit Creating Medical Device Repair Database

    Coronavirus: iFixit Creating Medical Device Repair Database

    iFixit is working to create a database of information on how to repair medical equipment.

    iFixit is well-known for their detailed and informative breakdowns of various phones, tablets, computers and other electronic devices. The company also publishes repair guides for individuals who want to brave repairs on their own.

    As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe, iFixit is endeavoring to bring their expertise to medical and hospital equipment. The company’s goal is to create a database to house repair information, information that can be used to help keep critical equipment running.

    “Biomedical technicians (biomeds for short) are the repair experts at hospitals, and in many regions they are stretched thin,” writes Kyle Wiens, iFixit Editor-in-Chief. “There are a wide variety of machines made by a number of different manufacturers at hospitals around the world, and there is no single resource for how to repair all of them. We don’t know how many machines will fail once hospitals are truly taxed. We don’t know which parts of those machines are most at risk.

    “Some manufacturers heroically host service manuals for their equipment on their website, and some make them more challenging to locate. There is no single source of information for biomeds to access. Biomed forums are frequently populated with requests for specific PDF service manuals. The closest thing to a central resource is Frank’s Hospital Workshop, a fantastic website run out of Tanzania with hundreds of manuals and very helpful how-to resources for maintaining medical equipment. But Frank’s site is a one-person operation, and a single point of failure, should overwhelming traffic come calling.

    “We’re going to change that. Our biomed technicians’ time is too precious to waste on internet Easter-egg hunts. iFixit is building a central resource for maintenance and repair of hospital equipment. We need help from fixers everywhere, medical professionals, and biomedical technicians to make sure this is as robust, relevant, and useful as possible.”

    iFixit is to be commended for their efforts to help overwhelmed hospitals keep their equipment running. Anyone who has knowledge that might be helpful is encouraged to add to iFixit’s database.

    Those who wish to participate are encouraged to “find or create a device page for the medical product” and “upload a photo of the device and attach the manual.” If someone does not have time to go through those steps, or needs to send documents in bulk, they can email the information to moderation@ifixit.com.

  • How To Track Your Customer Journeys in Real-Time to Empower Your Sales Team

    How To Track Your Customer Journeys in Real-Time to Empower Your Sales Team

    The four pillars of measuring marketing ROI are key to improving sales says Jonathan Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at nCino. “It’s really understanding your costs specific to the activities you are doing in marketing, tying those activities to your sales opportunities, and then measuring results.”

    Rowe says that taking in data on sales prospects and making it available to salespeople can drive results: “When you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering salespeople to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.”

    Jonathan Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at nCino, discusses how to use data to track and improve marketing ROI in an interview with James Carbary, the founder of Sweet Fish Media on the B2B Growth Podcast:

    The Four Pillars of Measuring Marketing ROI

    Knowing Your Costs

    There are four variables that we use to measure ROI that have proven very successful for us. It starts with your costs. Whether it’s headcount costs where you are investing in people, whether it’s the cost of investing in PR, whether you are doing webinars or podcasts, whether you are advertising, etc., it’s really making sure that you have a good understanding of here’s where I’m actually spending my money and how much. So it starts with your costs.

    Identifying Marketing Activities

    The next step from there is here are all the different activities that we are spending money on. It’s advertising, attending conferences, or doing podcasts. Here are the activities. You have your costs and you have your activities.

    Connecting Activities to Sales Opportunities

    Then the next big step is connecting those activities to actual sales opportunities. As a B2B marketing organization at nCino, we are selling and marketing to banks. Whenever we initiate a conversation with a financial institution it often takes us 9-12 months from that initial interaction to hopefully when they become a nCino customer.

    Over that 12 months, there are hopefully going to be a lot of different marketing activities where that bank and different individuals at the bank interact with nCino. We want to be able to capture that information. So we take the activities that we are doing and we actually connect them to a specific sales opportunity at the financial institution and the individual at the financial institution.

    ROI: Measuring Results

    The fourth pillar is the results, where we actually turn that prospect into a nCino customer. Then we can say that marketing played this role. At the end of the day, we are in a business where it’s more than marketing. We have sales groups and others involved.

    When we sign a financial institution to become a nCino customer I’m always very proud to say here are all the different marketing activities (that led to the sale). Whether it’s white papers and thought leadership or press releases or attending a conference in a booth, how all those activities played an influential role.

    It’s really understanding your costs specific to the activities you are doing in marketing, tying those activities to your sales opportunities, and then measuring results.

    You Have to Be Committed to Data Analytics

    One, you have to really be committed to data analytics. You want to have that marketing driven organization knowing it’s going to take time and costs to get there. Then two, you want to make smart decisions around the technology you use because connecting all of the dots around your data is probably the most important thing. I want to be able to go onto two or three systems which are what we have at nCino and be able to look and see all that data together.

    I can see, for example, that Mary who works at a financial institution that we are talking to was on our website yesterday, that she looked at all of these different pages, that she spent seven or eight minutes on each page, and she actually downloaded one of our whitepapers. Then I find out that we are going to see Mary at a banking conference that we are going to in a few weeks.

    With all of that automation, I know that the salesperson will log in and see all of that information on the financial institution and Mary.

    Track You Customer Journeys in Real-Time

    That sales rep will have literally on their phone before they have that face to face conversation at the conference all of Mary’s interactions. Some things you probably don’t want to tell Mary, which is hey, by the way, we’ve been tracking all of your website activity on the nCino website. But what you can have is a conversation around the fact that she downloaded our artificial intelligence whitepaper around banking and you can talk about that.

    When you have fewer systems and you’ve made the commitment and you’ve gotten to the place where you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering people to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.

    >> Listen to the complete B2B Growth podcast interview.

  • Cloud Business Powers Oracle’s Quarterly Results

    Cloud Business Powers Oracle’s Quarterly Results

    Oracle announced its quarterly results and its cloud business was the star of the show.

    The company reported total revenue of $9.8 billion for the 2020 Q3 results, up 2% year-over-year. Most notably, its Cloud Services and License Support revenue came in at $6.9 billion, a 4% increase year-over-year.

    “We had an extremely strong quarter with Total Revenues growing 3% in constant currency,” said Oracle CEO, Safra Catz. “Subscription revenues, made up of Cloud Services and License Support revenues, grew 5% in constant currency. These consistently growing and recurring subscription revenues now account for 71% of total company revenues, thus enabling a sequential increase in our operating margin, and double-digit non-GAAP Earnings Per Share growth in Q3.”

    “The Oracle Autonomous Database, the world’s only fully autonomous data management system, can automatically patch security vulnerabilities while running; it keeps your data safe,” said Oracle Chairman and CTO, Larry Ellison. “Oracle Autonomous Database is also both serverless and elastic. It’s the only database that can instantaneously scale itself to an optimal level of CPU and IO resources. You only pay for what you use. Security and economy are two fundamental reasons why thousands of customers are now using the revolutionary new Oracle Autonomous Database in our Generation 2 Public Cloud.”

    Oracle has been trying to gain ground against Amazon, Microsoft and Google, with mixed results. Recently, the company has faced an investor lawsuit claiming it bullied customers into accepting cloud contracts and has been inflating its cloud business. Documents were even unveiled wherein Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, who previously served as head of product development at Oracle, called Oracle Cloud “a disgrace” when he was with the company.

    Oracle’s quarterly results should go a long way toward helping the company answer critics.

  • Google Cloud Announces Unveils Machine Images, Simplifies Backups

    Google Cloud Announces Unveils Machine Images, Simplifies Backups

    Google Cloud has unveiled machine images, a new kind of Compute Engine resource that will make backup workflows much easier.

    Machine images have a number of significant advantages over standard images. A standard image only captures a single drive, with all its various apps and resources. While that works perfectly fine for duplicating a single disk, it can be an unwieldy solution for backing up entire machines.

    According to Google Cloud, machine images are far more comprehensive and can contain multiple disks, as well as everything required to create a new instance of that machine. A machine image would include instance properties, data for all attached disks, instance metadata and permissions.

    “Backing up an instance requires more than just disk data. To recreate an instance you need instance properties like the machine type, network tags, labels, and more,” writes Ari Liberman Product Manager, Google Compute Engine. “Capturing this information is easier with machine images. When you create a machine image from an instance, it stores the instance information and disk data into a single resource. When it comes time to restore the instance, all you need to do is provide the machine image and a new instance name. Machine images can be created whether the source instance is running or stopped.”

    Customers can begin working with machine images immediately via the “the Cloud Console, gcloud or the API.”

  • Google Cloud Opens Salt Lake City Cloud Region, Nets PayPal Contract

    Google Cloud Opens Salt Lake City Cloud Region, Nets PayPal Contract

    Google Cloud scored a major victory, signing a multi-year contract with PayPal, while also opening a new cloud region in Salt Lake City.

    The new cloud region is the company’s 22nd worldwide, and will help Google better serve companies in the Western U.S. Especially as the company strives to gain ground against Amazon and Microsoft, having a cloud region that better serves that area will be a critical factor in convincing West Coast companies to move to Google.

    “We’re committed to building the most secure, high-performance and scalable public cloud, and we continue to make critical infrastructure investments that deliver our cloud services closer to customers that need them the most,” said Jennifer Chason, Director, Google Cloud Enterprise – Western States & Southern California.

    Due in large part to the new cloud region, PayPal has signed a multi-year contract to move key portions of its payment infrastructure to Google Cloud. The new region will provide low latency to PayPal’s own data center, and will help pave the way for PayPal to be able to migrate additional resources to Google Cloud.

    “When it comes to processing a financial transaction, security and speed count. We are always looking for ways to better serve our customers, and we believe Google Cloud’s offering is the right fit when it comes to providing security, quality and velocity,” said PayPal Vice President, Employee Technology & Experiences and Data Centers, Dan Torunian. “Expanding our relationship with Google Cloud gives us access to new features and capabilities that help us manage seasonal surges in payment transactions and reduce regional expansion costs and complexities.”

  • Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time

    Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time

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

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

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

    Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time

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

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

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

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

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

    Digital Transformation is the Biggest Opportunity of Our Time, Says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott
  • It Was An Honor To Leave SAP At Maximum Strength, Says Former CEO Bill McDermott

    It Was An Honor To Leave SAP At Maximum Strength, Says Former CEO Bill McDermott

    • Left SAP at maximum strength.
    • Achieved HANA Database, ERP, Cloud, and business network.
    • The market cap of SAP over the last decade speaks for itself.

    “SAP  is in good shape,” says former SAP CEO Bill McDermott. “The HANA database, refactoring the ERP system on HANA, moving the company to the cloud, and the business network.”

    “When you look at the market cap of SAP over the last decade the record speaks for itself,” McDermott says. “It was an honor to leave it at maximum strength and also to see the new co-CEOs take over. I think every CEO dreams of handing the keys to the next generation in the succession plan.”

    McDermott became CEO of ServiceNow in November 2019.

    It Was An Honor To Leave SAP At Maximum Strength, Says Former CEO Bill McDermott

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    SAP CEO: It’s All About the Customer Experience

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  • Oracle Adds Five Cloud Regions In Bid to Take On Rivals

    Oracle Adds Five Cloud Regions In Bid to Take On Rivals

    Oracle has added five new cloud regions as it works to take on Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud market, according to a company press release.

    According to the announcement, Oracle has“added local regions in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah), Australia (Melbourne), Japan (Osaka), Canada (Montreal), and The Netherlands (Amsterdam). As of today, all of them are open for business and available in the Oracle Cloud Console.”

    The company has added 10 new regions in the last six months, making a total of 21 locations offering Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud. The company’s goal is to reach 36 by the end of 2020 and, with this announcement, it says it is on target to reach that goal.

    The company is also focused on redundancy to meet customers mission-critical needs.

    “To that end, four of these new regions—Osaka, Melbourne, Montreal, and Amsterdam—give customers a second site within the same country (or, in the case of Amsterdam in the EU, a second jurisdiction paired with Oracle’s existing Frankfurt region),” the press release reads. “The fifth region, in Saudi Arabia, will be joined by a second region later this year.

    “Oracle plans to put a minimum of two regions in almost every country where we operate, and these new regions mark a big step toward this goal. The United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, India, and Brazil will also have two regions live by the end of 2020.”

    It remains to be seen if Oracle can compete long-term with Amazon and Microsoft. Amazon currently dominates the cloud market, but Microsoft has been making significant headway, with some analysts predicting it could overtake Amazon. In the meantime, Oracle is one of the companies seen as most vulnerable to continued gains by Microsoft.