The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) has reviewed Microsoft’s JEDI win and found no interference by the Trump administration.
Microsoft stunned the industry when it won the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, worth some $10 billion. Amazon had widely been considered the likely candidate to win the contract, especially given the company’s history of working on sensitive government contracts in the past. In short order, Amazon launched legal challenges to try to have the Pentagon’s decision overturned. One of the alleged discrepancies was disparaging comments President Trump made that Amazon believed may have played a part in Microsoft winning.
With the DOJ watchdog’s report, however, those concerns seem to have been put to rest—albeit with a bit of a caveat. While acknowledging investigators did encounter some interference from the White House, they said: “However, we believe the evidence we received showed that the DoD personnel who evaluated the contract proposals and awarded Microsoft the JEDI Cloud contract were not pressured regarding their decision on the award of the contract by any DoD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House.”
At the same time, Microsoft has used the DOJ’s report to accuse Amazon of unfairly trying to gain an advantage in the bidding process. In a blog post following the DOJ’s report, Microsoft said the following:
“That brings us to where we are today. The DoD is seeking to be responsive to the issue the Court raised in issuing the preliminary injunction. But that’s not good enough for Amazon. Amazon doesn’t want a solution that addresses the Court’s concerns and sticks to the original pricing in the competitors’ bids. According to its brief, it wants no ‘constraint on the offerors’ ability to revise their pricing.’
“This, according to the government, is a ‘a transparent effort to undercut Microsoft on price, now that [Amazon] has a target at which to aim.’ Amazon dresses its argument in the language of fairness and level playing fields, but the government’s brief looks right through it: ‘That AWS now regrets its pricing strategy is no reason to allow AWS a do-over, after it gained significant information about its competitor’s pricing, enabling it to use the currently prevailing information asymmetry to underbid its competitor in an effort to secure the contract.’”
While not clearing Microsoft to move forward with the contract, the IG’s findings certainly lend weight to Microsoft’s win and undermine Amazon’s complaints.
Facebook is taking additional action to fight coronavirus misinformation, specifically with users who have interacted with it.
In a blog post, Guy Rosen, VP Integrity, said the company is working to connect users, who have interacted with misinformation, to accurate information from the World Health Organization (WHO).
“We’re going to start showing messages in News Feed to people who have liked, reacted or commented on harmful misinformation about COVID-19 that we have since removed,” writes Rosen. “These messages will connect people to COVID-19 myths debunked by the WHO including ones we’ve removed from our platform for leading to imminent physical harm. We want to connect people who may have interacted with harmful misinformation about the virus with the truth from authoritative sources in case they see or hear these claims again off of Facebook. People will start seeing these messages in the coming weeks.”
The company has also added a Get the Facts section to its CODID-19 Information Center in an effort to make it easier for individuals to quickly find accurate information. The measures are just the latest efforts by the social media giant to fight the kind of misinformation that has plagued multiple social platforms.
Google is working on its own ARM-based chips to power its Pixel line of smartphones and help it better compete with Apple.
ARM licenses its processor designs to companies for use in their products. Apple’s iPhones have long had a performance advantage over similar flagship Android phones, thanks to Apple’s customized A-series line of ARM chips. Apple also has an advantage of tight integration between their hardware and software. As a result, year after year, model after model, Apple’s iPhones and iPads continue to dominate the competition when it comes to speed and performance.
According to an Axios, however, Google is preparing to follow in Apple’s footsteps with its own line of chips for Pixel and Chromebook devices. Axios reports that “the chip, code-named Whitechapel, was designed in cooperation with Samsung, whose state-of-the-art 5-nanometer technology would be used to manufacture the chips, according to a source familiar with Google’s effort.”
If the report is true, it would be a big blow to Qualcomm, Google’s current chip supplier. The move would, however, finally give Apple’s devices some real competition for the performance crown.
Financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald has initiated coverage of Zoom and Slack, giving both an Overweight rating.
Zoom and Slack have been the darlings of the work from home era. Zoom is widely considered to have one of, if not the, best videoconferencing platforms that works equally well for large and small groups. Similarly, Slack is one of the most widely used chat platforms and has seen significant growth.
According to Barron’s, Cantor analyst Drew Kootman set price targets of $150 and $30 for Zoom and Slack, respectively.
“We believe the current Covid-19 environment presents significant upside potential not currently assumed in the stock,” Kootman wrote in a research note. “Zoom provides a superior communication platform in a time where video and connectivity is becoming more important for all industries and business sizes. We expect the virus to provide upside to estimates and for the platform and its products to drive increased market penetration and future cross-selling opportunities. We expect these impacts to continue to drive multiple expansion.”
The coverage should be a boost to both companies and further reaffirms their status as the pandemic changes how Americans work.
GitHub has announced that its core features, including private repositories with unlimited collaborators, are now free for all users.
GitHub provides one of the most popular platforms for software development version control, as well as collaboration and bug tracking features. Git is used by developers around the world, in companies and organizations of all size.
In a post on the company’s blog, CEO Nat Friedman made the announcement, saying that “until now, if your organization wanted to use GitHub for private development, you had to subscribe to one of our paid plans. But every developer on earth should have access to GitHub. Price shouldn’t be a barrier.
“This means teams can now manage their work together in one place: CI/CD, project management, code review, packages, and more. We want everyone to be able to ship great software on the platform developers love.”
The company is also lowering the price of its paid Team plan from $9/month per user to $4. The change goes into effect immediately.
Friedman’s announcement is good news for developers and organizations alike.
Beginning April 18, Zoom will allow paid subscribers to choose which region their data is routed through.
Zoom has experienced unprecedented growth, quickly becoming the option of choice for videoconferencing as millions of people work from home. Despite its popularity, and in part because of it, the company has faced withering criticism for lapses in its security and privacy measures, prompting it to put a 90-day moratorium on new features in an effort to focus on privacy and security improvements. One such criticism is that some calls, as well as the encryption keys used to protect them, were routed through China—despite originating in North America.
True to its promise to focus on beefing up security, Zoom has announced that paying customers will be able to choose where their calls and data are routed. The company began sending out emails to paid subscribers, notifying them of the change, on Monday.
In a blog post, Zoom CTO Brendan Ittelson explained further:
Beginning April 18, every paid Zoom customer can opt in or out of a specific data center region. This will determine the meeting servers and Zoom connectors that can be used to connect to Zoom meetings or webinars you are hosting and ensure the best-quality service.
Starting April 18, with respect to data in transit, Zoom admins and account owners of paid accounts can, at the account, group, or user level:
Opt out of specific data center regions
Opt in to specific data center regions
You will not be able to change or opt out of your default region, which will be locked. The default region is the region where a customer’s account is provisioned. For the majority of our customers, this is the United States.
This feature gives our customers more control over their data and their interaction with our global network when using Zoom’s industry-leading video communication services.
This is good news for paid subscribers, and further demonstrates the lengths to which Zoom is going to regain the trust they lost.
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.”
Senator Blumenthal has issued a call for the FTC to investigate Zoom’s security, illustrating a schism within the government over the issue of encryption.
Few issues have polarized politicians, scientists, researchers and citizens as much as end-to-end encryption. Many officials, including multiple FBI directors, have warned that strong encryption makes it nearly impossible to properly investigate cases and contributes to criminals “going dark.” Others, such as Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul, have been staunch proponents of strong encryption. Similarly, mathematicians and security experts have repeatedly made the case that strong encryption cannot have backdoors or built-in weaknesses and still offer the necessary protection.
Currently, the biggest threat to encryption in the U.S. is the upcoming EARN IT Act. The bill is designed to combat online sexual exploitation of children. While absolutely a worthwhile goal that should be a priority for companies, governments and individuals alike, the bill is a pandora’s box of uncertainty when it comes to encryption. The bill addresses protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, wherein companies are not held liable for things people say or do on their communications platforms.
Under the proposed EARN IT Act, in order to maintain their protected status under Section 230, companies would need to comply with vague “best practices” established by a committee. This committee, and the U.S. Attorney General, would have wide discretion to determine what those “best practices” are. So what happens if the Attorney General is William Barr, an individual who has voiced staunch opposition to end-to-end encryption? Might “best practices” include the requirement that companies build in backdoors? Very likely.
Backers of the bill, have said the bill is not an attack on encryption and that necessary safeguards are in place. However, nearly every expert who has reviewed the bill has arrived at a completely different conclusion, and believe the bill will absolutely lead to an all-out attack on encryption.
Should that happen, many companies will have to choose between weakening their encryption, and thereby endangering their users, or move their businesses outside the U.S. One example is the encrypted messaging app Signal, ussed by the U.S. military, as well as senators and their staff. Signal developer Joshua Lund made it clear (an excellent read) the app will likely no longer be available in the U.S. if EARN IT passes.
What makes this story all the more interesting is a recent tweet by Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the sponsors of the EARN IT Act:
I am calling on FTC to investigate @zoomus. Zoom’s pattern of security failures & privacy infringements should have drawn the FTC’s attention & scrutiny long ago. Advertising privacy features that do not exist is clearly a deceptive act.
The facts & practices unearthed by researchers in recent weeks are alarming—we should be concerned about what remains hidden. As Zoom becomes embedded in Americans’ daily lives, we urgently need a full & transparent investigation of its privacy & security.
One of the biggest privacy and security issues with Zoom is the fact that it advertised end-to-end encryption, but failed to deliver. Based on Senator Blumenthal’s tweet, the message is clear: end-to-end encryption is a wonderful thing for government officials, so long as said government officials can still spy on the average citizen.
In other words, the U.S. government is stuck in a strange dichotomy where it wants to punish companies for not supporting end-to-end encryption, while at the same time undermining and legislating backdoors in that very encryption.
Popular project management tool Trello has announced its Butler automation feature now integrates with Slack and Jira.
Butler allows users to automate actions based on a schedule, click of a button or rule-based triggers. The tool can be used on almost any Trello action, and provides a way for users to create automated workflows.
According to a post on the company’s blog, “with the addition of Butler integrations into Slack & Jira, that automated workflow can now extend even further beyond the boundaries of Trello to the tools where other teammates are working—bringing them into the process and keeping everyone informed as work moves forward.”
The new integrations will be a welcome addition to Slack, Jira and Trello users, giving users a powerful way make automation part of their routine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a memo in support of Zoom and the company’s efforts to improve its security.
According to Reuters, who gained access to the memo, DHS was addressing the recent issues Zoom has been facing regarding its security and privacy. The memo was “drafted by DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, which screens software used by government bodies,” and circulated among the government’s top cybersecurity officials.
Rather than calling for a moratorium on Zoom’s use, as some companies and governments have done, the DHS memo sought to put officials’ minds at ease by emphasizing that Zoom understood the seriousness of the concerns and was working hard to address them. The support is good news for Zoom and an indication its recent efforts to beef up privacy and security are beginning to yield much-needed fruit.
Zoom is taking drastic measures to improve its security and privacy amid criticism and scrutiny as it serves hundreds of millions of users.
As the pandemic sweeps the globe, individuals, corporations and organizations of all types are making drastic changes to their daily workflows and routines. Zoom has become an integral part of those routines, and hundreds of millions of users have begun to rely on the platform for school, work and socializing.
Unfortunately for the company, the increased usage has also brought increased scrutiny, especially in the realm of privacy and security. The company has been called to task for not using end-to-end encryption, as its marketing claims; for leaking email addresses; for sending data to Facebook without informing users, before finally removing the offending SDK; and for a rash of Zoom-bombing incidents where outside individuals gain access to a Zoom meeting and make a nuisance of themselves.
In view of these challenges, Zoom is taking drastic action to beef up its security and privacy. In a blog post on the company’s site, founder and CEO Eric Yuan said the company is enacting a freeze for 90 days in order to shift all “engineering resources to focus on our biggest trust, safety, and privacy issues.”
The company also plans to conduct a comprehensive review with third-party experts and release a transparency report. It will also enhance its bug bounty program, and engage in a number of white box penetration tests. Zoom has also improved its privacy policy, apologized for not handling its encryption issues clearly and tried to help individuals address Zoom-bombing.
In short, the company is pulling out all the stops in an effort to improve its privacy and security, no small task given how quickly the platform has grown.
“To put this growth in context, as of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million,” writes Yuan. “In March this year, we reached more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid.”
As we said in a previous article, “the increased scrutiny of Zoom is a good reminder to companies that privacy and security should never be an afterthought. Instead, they should be a core feature, built in to an app or service from day one.”
That statement remains true—security and privacy should never be an afterthought. At the same time, it’s time to give credit where credit is due: Zoom is stepping up to the plate and doing everything possible to provide its users with the privacy and security they expect and deserve.
Facebook plans to hire some 10,000 people for its product and engineering teams this year, according to COO Sheryl Sandberg.
In an interview with CNBC, Sandberg was asked if she would pledge not to layoff any employees, as many companies have done in the midst of the economic crisis. Sandberg took it a step further, indicating Facebook planned to keep their existing employees and hire thousands more.
“Our hiring is keeping at a very, very aggressive clip,” said Sandberg.
“We feel fortunate to be able to do that,” she continued. “We also have the responsibility to do that — to keep our own employees, but hopefully hire more because we need them.”
The new hires will no doubt be an asset to the company as it struggles to keep up with demand as people use the social media platform to stay connected during lockdowns, shelter in place orders and remote work.
The FCC is preparing to vote on making 1,200 megahertz of spectrum available for unlicensed use in the 6GHz band.
In a blog post on the FCC’s site, Chairman Ajit Pai laid out his plan:
“Specifically, I have proposed a set of rules to make 1,200 megahertz of spectrum available for unlicensed use in four segments of the 6 GHz band (5.925–7.125 GHz). This band is currently populated by, among others, microwave services that are used to support utilities, public safety, and wireless backhaul. So unlicensed devices will share this spectrum with incumbent licensed services under rules that are carefully crafted to protect those licensed services and to enable both unlicensed and licensed operations to thrive throughout the band. Ultimately, I expect that 6 GHz unlicensed devices will become a part of consumers’ everyday lives. For the rules we will vote on would play a major role in the growth of the Internet of Things, connecting appliances, machines, meters, wearables, and other consumer electronics, as well as industrial sensors for manufacturing.”
The newly available spectrum will be a boon for numerous industries, not the least of which is 5G. With the FCC voting in April, it shouldn’t be long before devices using the 6 GHz band start showing up.
Amazon has announced the release of Amazon Detective, a tool to automate the processing of investigating cloud security issues.
Dealing with cloud security issues can tax even the largest companies. As organizations move to the cloud, it can open a whole new world of threats, requiring a completely different approach to security. Unfortunately, while cloud services often provide ample data to investigate any issues that arise, the sheer amount of data can be overwhelming.
That’s where Amazon Detective come into play. “Amazon Detective is a fully managed service that empowers users to automate the heavy lifting involved in processing large quantities of AWS log data to determine the cause and impact of a security issue,” writes Sébastien Stormacq. “Once enabled, Detective automatically begins distilling and organizing data from AWS Guard Duty, AWS CloudTrail, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Flow Logs into a graph model that summarizes the resource behaviors and interactions observed across your entire AWS environment.”
Amazon Detective was originally previewed at re:invent 2019, but is now available to all AWS customers as of March 31.
SpaceX has banned its employees from using Zoom for communication, in the latest challenge the popular videoconferencing app is facing.
In a memo seen by Reuters, SpaceX cites “significant privacy and security concerns” as the reason behind the ban. The memo goes on to say: “We understand that many of us were using this tool for conferences and meeting support. Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication.”
Zoom has been facing increasing scrutiny for its security and privacy, just as the app has become one of the most popular options for individuals sheltering in place and working from home. In short order, the app has been accused of not using end-to-end encryption, despite its marketing claims, as well as exposing users’ email addresses and phone numbers. Researchers have also discovered a serious security flaw in the Windows version of the app. New York Attorney General Letitia James is even looking into the company’s privacy practices.
The increased scrutiny of Zoom is a good reminder to companies that privacy and security should never be an afterthought. Instead, they should be a core feature, built in to an app or service from day one.
Amid the current health and economic crisis, Xerox has announced it is calling off its attempt to merge with HP.
Xerox had been attempting to acquire HP since last year, putting in two separate offers. The first offer was unanimously rejected by HP’s board, leading Xerox to increase their offer in February. The company hoped the offer would enable “stockholders to accept Xerox’s compelling offer despite HP’s consistent refusal to pursue the opportunity.”
With the ongoing global crisis, however, Xerox has ended its hostile takeover attempt. According to a company press release, the current situation has “created an environment that is not conducive to Xerox continuing to pursue an acquisition of HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) (“HP”). Accordingly, we are withdrawing our tender offer to acquire HP and will no longer seek to nominate our slate of highly qualified candidates to HP’s Board of Directors.
“While it is disappointing to take this step, we are prioritizing the health, safety and well-being of our employees, customers, partners and other stakeholders, and our broader response to the pandemic, over and above all other considerations.
“There remain compelling long-term financial and strategic benefits from combining Xerox and HP. The refusal of HP’s Board to meaningfully engage over many months and its continued delay tactics have proven to be a great disservice to HP stockholders, who have shown tremendous support for the transaction.”
It remains to be seen what measures Xerox may take once the crisis is over.
The FBI is warning of ‘Zoom-bombing,’ where videoconferencing meetings are being hijacked by unwelcome participants.
Zoom has quickly become one of the most popular videoconferencing platforms as millions of individuals self-isolate and work from home. The software is being used by companies, schools and individuals looking to continue some semblance of normalcy.
Unfortunately, bad actors have been taking advantage of the platform and hijacking meetings. These disruptions have ranged from shouting profanities at the participants, to screen sharing pornography to the group. As a result, the FBI is recommending that Zoom users enable a number of settings to limit the risk, including:
Do not make meetings or classrooms public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private: require a meeting password or use the waiting room feature and control the admittance of guests.
Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people.
Manage screensharing options. In Zoom, change screensharing to “Host Only.”
Ensure users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.
Lastly, ensure that your organization’s telework policy or guide addresses requirements for physical and information security.
These are excellent suggestions that everyone using Zoom should put into practice immediately.
Adobe is urging Creative Cloud Desktop Application customers running Windows to upgrade immediately to prevent hackers from deleting their files.
According to a blog post, “Adobe has released security updates for Creative Cloud Desktop Application (APSB20-11) for Windows. This update address a critical vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary File Deletion in the context of the current user. Adobe recommends users update their product installations to the latest versions using the instructions referenced in the security bulletin.”
The vulnerability was discovered by “Jiadong Lu of South China University of Technology and Zhiniang Peng of Qihoo 360 Core Security.” According to Adobe’s bulletin, the vulnerability is a Time Of Check To Time Of Use (TOCTTOU) race condition.
According to CWE, with a TOCTTOU vulnerability, “the software checks the state of a resource before using that resource, but the resource’s state can change between the check and the use in a way that invalidates the results of the check. This can cause the software to perform invalid actions when the resource is in an unexpected state.
“This weakness can be security-relevant when an attacker can influence the state of the resource between check and use. This can happen with shared resources such as files, memory, or even variables in multithreaded programs.”
This is a major vulnerability and all impacted users should update immediately to ensure the security of their files.
It appears Apple is finally ready to begin making the move to ARM processors, with models expected to start showing up in late 2020 or early 2021.
AppleInsider saw a note to investors by TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo has a good track record when it comes to Apple predictions. In the note, Kuo says Apple is proceeding with an “aggressive processor replacement strategy,” with ARM-based desktops and laptops hitting the market in Q4 2020 or Q1 2021.
Apple has long been rumored to be working on ARM-based Macs, and there is a strong case for the company to make the transition. In recent years, Intel has struggled to keep up with processor development and demand, with even some of its staunchest allies looking to rival AMD. Intel’s processors have also been plagued with critical security flaws, the latest of which has been labeled “unfixable.” To make matters worse, Intel’s chips have struggled to deliver the performance mobile users demand, while still keeping heat low enough for the sleek designs Apple is known for.
In contrast, Apple’s line of ARM chips have established themselves as strong performers. The A12X and A12Z in the iPad Pros are more powerful than the majority of laptops on the market and, importantly, achieve that performance without a single cooling fan being needed. The iPad Pros are also able to deliver all-day battery life—thanks in large part to the efficiency of the ARM chips—a feat that very few laptops can match.
Moving to ARM-based Macs would allow Apple to duplicate the “whole widget” advantage it has with its iOS devices, controlling both the hardware and software, ensuring they work together as well as possible. In addition, because Apple has already went through several processor migrations in the past, the company has vast experience building in backward compatibility, as well as providing developers with the tools they need to swiftly (pun intended) and easily port their apps.
All in all, this is good news for the Mac community and will likely usher in a new era of performance for Mac users.
iFixit has done another of their in-depth teardowns of a new computer and the results are good news for owners of Apple’s most recent MacBook Air.
Apple released a significant refresh of the MacBook Air last week, improving the processor and storage, as well as replacing the much-maligned Butterfly keyboard with the new Magic Keyboard. The new keyboard is a return to the scissor mechanism that has been the basis of keyboards for decades, and has proven to be far more reliable.
iFixit’s teardown, however, reveals a number of other improvements under the hood. First and foremost, the new model is more repairable than previous generations. Significantly, re-routed trackpad cables make it possible to replace both the battery and trackpad. The speakers also gain screws, making it easier to replace them if needed.
Another significant improvement is a larger heatsink over the processor. Apple has said nothing about a larger heatsink, but it’s likely the addition will improve the Air’s sustained performance by helping to keep it cooler.
All-in-all, iFixit gave the new model 4 out of 10 on their repairability scale, up one point from the previous model. The upgrades are welcome improvements and demonstrate that Apple may finally be listening to customers wanting more control over their own repairs.
“We’re done with talking about if it is a good idea to digitally transform,” says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “Now the conversation has shifted to how quickly can you get me there. I have to get there really fast. My prediction is that companies that are digital, that can lead this digital transformation revolution, will prosper through this time because there are so many public sector and private sector entities that must change. I do believe we will be going into a totally new normal.”
Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, discusses how COVID-19 has forced CEOs to speed up digital transformation in order to compete and win. McDermott says that businesses have to have an all-weather workforce to win.”
We’re Done With Talking About If It’s a Good Idea
When we came out of the financial crisis in 2008 that is when cloud computing hit a new gear. That’s when it became the pervasive computing theme of the 21st century. The elasticity of the cloud, the ability to build applications very quickly on a platform like ServiceNow’s⎯so you can be in service, in service to employees, in service to customers, and in service to keeping the operation going, even through difficult times. if you think about digital transformation, it’s a $7.4 trillion addressable market in the next four years.
I talk to CEOs and heads of state every day. We’re done with talking about if it is a good idea to digitally transform. Now the conversation has shifted to how quickly can you get me there. I have to get there really fast. My prediction is that companies that are digital, that can lead this digital transformation revolution, will prosper through this time because there are so many public sector and private sector entities that must change. I do believe we will be going into a totally new normal. It’s not dissimilar to 2008. We’re going to have to figure out whether it’s three weeks from now or three months from now.
A Totally New Way To Work
How are you going to get back to work? Business continuity must contain. Think about all the processes that will have to change. I like to think of this as a physical distancing, not a social distancing because our processes on Zoom every day has us connected to the management team and the people throughout our company. So while we are physically distant we have socially kept the conversation going. We’re continuing to pursue our goals because that’s what the world needs from ServiceNow.
Customers right now are basically saying, how do I take care of my people? For example, I’ve heard from some very outstanding CEO saying we’re going to keep hiring or am certainly not going to lay people off. How do we get the tools for people to do the job remotely? How do we make that happen? How do we make sure we’re caring for the people? How do we align them with the goals and the orientations of the company? How do we keep compliance and security at a high level even as they work from places like home or studio environments where they’re not used to working? All of this has to be done utilizing a digital platform, a totally new way of working.
What About the Customer?
Here’s a really big thing. In the beginning, everybody was saying we’re going to work from home. We will close down operations and that was basically it. What about the customer? What we’re learning about the customer is right now they’re not really interested in you upselling them and cross-selling them in an engagement layer of CRM. What they are interested in is business continuity. How will you service me even as we’re in the midst of a crisis?
This idea of service management, of making sure you get the right assets in front of the right problems where you can resolve issues for customers⎯especially since they’re no longer working in their offices for the most part. It has really reoriented the workflow of companies all over the world and it’s happened really quickly.
Over 43 percent of the companies today actually don’t even have a work from home policy. Think about that. Now, after this crisis, I can assure you they’ll need one and the boards of directors will expect that they have one. If you remember the post 9/11 era, it was unbelievable to think that people would be standing in line to get x-rayed with their luggage before getting on a flight.
Digital Transformation Has To Go Faster
As they think about this new environment just think about the procedures and the protocols that we have to now impart on the workforce to make sure that they’re healthy when they come into these buildings and they actually go to work. We will actually have to have quick analysis. For example, you could do an ear temperature check to make sure someone’s temperature isn’t high when they’re coming into the workplace to keep people safe. That’s a protocol, that’s a new process, and I expect that things like that will definitely happen.
I also expect that workers will work more from home, that people will be more agile and flexible in how they work, and the tools and the platforms of digital have to be enabled to make that happen, So here it is, people that are digitally transforming now, you have got to go faster. People that haven’t actually embarked upon this journey, you need to do it now. Now is when your people will expect you to build a culture that enables them to prosper in any working environment. I have to believe we’re in a new norm. If it’s not COVID-19 it’s going to be something else. Workforces have to be prepared to handle anything. We have to be an all-weather workforce to win.
Digital Transformation: The Conversation Has Shifted – ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott
