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Tag: Cloud

  • Adobe CEO: Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital

    Adobe CEO: Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital

    “What the pandemic and the current health situation has done is that it has created yet another inflection point for everything being digital,” says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “The importance of digital in the marketplace is going to be sustainable for decades. You’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle as it relates to engaging digitally and creating content digitally.”

    Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO of Adobe, discusses how the pandemic has created another “inflection point” in the move toward digital transformation:

    Digital Transformation Is A $120 Billion Opportunity

    It was a good quarter all around. All of our businesses performed exceedingly well. On the Creative Cloud and the Document Cloud, not only did we have a great acquisition. in other words, new customers adopting the platform, but we really focused on engagement and demonstrating the value of our products to our customers. Even our retention levels came back to pre-COVID levels which we believe is a really good sign.

    What’s happening in the world is the businesses that we’re in, namely creativity and enabling people to tell their story, what’s happening with documents and accelerating document productivity, and what’s happening associated with every single enterprise needing to engage with their customers digitally, when you add all of this up we think it’s over a $120 billion of an addressable market opportunity for Adobe.

    Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital

    What the pandemic and the current health situation has done is that it has created yet another inflection point for everything being digital. What we will have to continue to monitor is what happens in the spending environment. But as it relates to the overall need for the kinds of solutions that Adobe provides as well as the importance of digital in the marketplace I think that’s going to be sustainable for decades. You’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle as it relates to engaging digitally and creating content digitally.

    We believe that we’re in this third phase of what is happening in the enterprise. Traditionally, businesses first focused on automating the back office, and then they focused on automating the front office for knowledge workers. It’s absolutely clear that the biggest imperative that exists in the enterprise today is how do you engage with customers? This is a category that we call Customer Experience Management.

    Customer Insight Is Key To Your Digital Transformation

    If you’re an enterprise today and you’re thinking about digital transformation, what’s top of that stack in terms of where you have to invest is to make sure that you have insight into what your customers are doing. How are they engaging with you? What’s the profile? How do you deliver the personalized experience?

    We really believe that what you’re seeing in the enterprise spend environment is that the companies that are focused on this next generation of delivering customer engagement, the customer experiences, and the insight associated with how to take the most advantage of that data, they’re going to be the secular winners moving forward.

    Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen: Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital
  • Pentagon Pushes Cloud Contract Award to December

    Pentagon Pushes Cloud Contract Award to December

    The Pentagon has pushed back the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract award to December, adding to the saga of its cloud transition.

    The Pentagon initially awarded the $10 billion JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft, surprising industry experts who saw AWS as the front-runner. AWS immediately sued and tied up the contract award in court so long that the Pentagon finally canceled it and started over, replacing JEDI with JWCC.

    According to Reuters, the process to award a new contract is taking longer than expected, with the time-frame for an award pushed back to December, instead of April.

    “This is going to take us a little bit longer than we thought,” Pentagon Chief Information Officer John Sherman said.

    The same major players are being considered, including Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, and Google. Unlike JEDI, which was awarded to a single company, JWCC will likely be awarded to multiple companies, possibly all four. With a total of roughly $9 billion on the line, even a four-way split would still be a substantial contract for the cloud providers.

  • Why the Cloud Is an Integral Part of Fintech

    The cloud has revolutionized the way that people store information. The cloud is integral to Fintech because it offers a cost-effective and scalable platform for storing data, processing transactions, and running applications. It also helps ensure that your company’s security is safe from cyberattacks.

    Cloud computing enables businesses to focus on their core competencies while leveraging powerful new capabilities for managing information, processing transactions, analyzing data insights, securing sensitive data—all without incurring significant upfront investment or long-term commitments.

    This blog post will explore how the cloud is an integral part of Fintech.

    What is a Fintech application?

    A Fintech app is an app that provides financial services. More specifically, a Fintech application typically includes money transfers or payment processing tools. Therefore, more often than not, these apps are mobile-based and include functions such as account balances and transactions history tracking, bill paying by scanning checks with your smartphone’s camera – without the need to visit the bank branch or pay them online from anywhere -, etc.

    In addition, most fintech applications provide security features like two-factor authentication, making it harder for hackers to access sensitive information stored on your phone. In this way, users can feel safe when using their devices to carry out different tasks requiring high-level privacy protection.

    Why is Fintech Using the Cloud?

    The cloud is an integral part of Fintech because it can help businesses to reduce costs when implementing solutions. It also helps companies looking to expand their resources without having the high up front cost that would normally come along with this type of investment.

    Since you don’t need additional hardware for your cloud computing, you’ll be able to manage and maintain these services in a more efficient manner than if you were operating on-premise (in-house) servers or infrastructure. There’s no hardware required, which means there will be less maintenance involved as well since much of this work can take place remotely, allowing IT support staffs’ time to be better spent elsewhere instead of just sitting around waiting for something to go wrong with equipment at the office facility where everything is being hosted.

    Why is Cloud Technology Important in the Fintech Industry?

    Cloud technology allows for real-time updates and changes, which is important in the Fintech industry, where things can change rapidly. The cloud also allows for scalability, so businesses can grow as needed. And finally, the cloud provides security and compliance assurances essential in the financial sector. For all these reasons, it’s clear that the cloud is a key part of Fintech.

    The impact of cloud computing in Fintech

    The impact of cloud computing in Fintech is immense. It is the new way of doing things without being limited by infrastructure or resources.

    The cloud has enabled companies to quickly access computing power, storage space, and software on demand at a reasonable cost. Fintech companies use this resource extensively to manage their data centers with ease and computing needs required for business growth. Online payments have benefitted from the cloud in many ways, including scalability, security, transaction speed, etc. Cloud computing allows your company to focus on differentiating features instead of worrying about maintaining hardware and software requirements. This means you can use all your time developing innovative products rather than deploying them. The ultimate result? More revenue streams through faster online payment processing services go to the cloud.

    The cloud is playing an important role in developing new payment technologies and services. The cloud is also being used to develop new ways of processing faster, more reliable payments and provide a better customer experience. All this would not be possible without the cloud.

    What Type of Cloud is Best Suited for Fintech and Why?

    Public, private, or hybrid? The cloud is an integral part of Fintech, and the type of cloud you choose will depend on your specific needs. If you’re looking for scalability and flexibility, public clouds are a good option. Private clouds are better suited for companies that need more control over their data security. Hybrid clouds combine the best features of both public and private clouds. Whichever type of cloud you choose, make sure it’s able to handle the high-volume transactions typical of FinTech applications.

    Why are Fintech Organizations Embracing the Cloud?

    The cloud offers fintech organizations a number of advantages, including:

    Flexibility and scalability

    The cloud can easily scale to meet the needs of your organization. This is important for fintech organizations that are constantly growing and expanding their services.

    Cost savings

    Cloud-based solutions often cost less than traditional on-premises solutions. Fintech organizations can save money by taking advantage of the economies of scale offered by the cloud.

    Accessibility

    Cloud-based solutions are accessible from anywhere in the world. This means that your fintech organization can be available 24/365 around the globe, which is important when dealing with global customers and markets.

    Security features

    The security features built into modern cloud platforms protect data against attacks while still allowing users to access it remotely via a mobile device or computer.

    Better interoperability

    Cloud-based solutions are compatible with other systems and protocols, including Web services standards like XML and RESTful API calls. This makes them easier for developers to integrate than on-premises software products.

    What Has to Happen for Cloud Adoption to Increase In Fintech

    Several challenges need to be addressed before the cloud can become more widely adopted in the Fintech industry. These challenges include:

    -Security and privacy concerns

    -Lack of standardization

    -Data latency issues

    -Limited bandwidth and storage capacity

    These challenges need to be addressed if the cloud will play a larger role in Fintech. The good news is that many companies are already working on extended car warranty solutions to these issues, and we should see some significant progress over the next few years. Cloud adoption will continue to increase in Fintech as these issues are resolved.

    Conclusion

    It’s not just the tech giants who are building their services around cloud computing. Fintech companies have embraced this technology to provide better customer service and greater security for sensitive data. As more people turn away from banks in favor of these digital options, they must be able to trust vendors with their personal information. The best way to do so? Make sure you use a secure cloud provider like AWS or Azure

  • Microsoft Purchasing RiskIQ to Improve Hybrid Work Cybersecurity

    Microsoft Purchasing RiskIQ to Improve Hybrid Work Cybersecurity

    Microsoft has entered an agreement to purchase RiskIQ in an effort to improve hybrid work cybersecurity.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has forever altered the workforce, leading many companies to speed up their adoption of remote and hybrid work strategies. Despite the benefits of this approach, cybersecurity can pose additional challenges as people work remotely, often using personal computers and devices.

    Microsoft is acquiring RiskIQ to help address this shortcoming, as RiskIQ provides a cloud-based SaaS cybersecurity platform. The company helps companies provide security beyond the firewall, analyzing and assessing the overall attack surface of the entire organization. This includes a company’s cloud resources, on-premise resources and supply chains.

    “The vision and mission of RiskIQ is to provide unmatched internet visibility and insights to better protect and inform our customers and partners’ security programs,” said RiskIQ Cofounder and CEO Elias Manousos. “We’re thrilled to add RiskIQ’s Attack Surface and Threat Intelligence solutions to the Microsoft Security portfolio, extending and accelerating our impact. Our combined capabilities will enable best-in-class protection, investigations, and response against today’s threats.”

    The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

  • IBM Reports First Quarter Results, Beats Wall Street Expectations

    IBM Reports First Quarter Results, Beats Wall Street Expectations

    IBM has beat Wall Street expectations, returning to revenue growth after four quarters of declines.

    IBM has been in the process of reinventing itself as a hybrid cloud provider. The company plans to spin off its legacy operations, focusing primarily on its hybrid cloud business, and has been snapping up startups to help drives its transformation.

    The company’s strategy appears to be paying off as it reported revenue of $17.7 billion, up 1%. The company’s Cloud & Cognitive Software was up 4%. Cloud revenue accounted for $6.5 billion, up 21%. Over the past 12 months, cloud revenue accounted for $26.3 billion, an increase of 19%.

    “Strong performance this quarter in cloud, driven by increasing client adoption of our hybrid cloud platform, and growth in software and consulting enabled us to get off to a solid start for the year,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman and chief executive officer. “While we have more work to do, we are confident we can achieve full-year revenue growth and meet our adjusted free cash flow target in 2021.”

    “In the first quarter we continued to improve the fundamentals of our business model,” said James Kavanaugh, IBM senior vice president and chief financial officer. “With strong cash generation and disciplined financial management, we increased investments in our hybrid cloud and AI capabilities, while significantly deleveraging in the quarter and supporting our commitment to a secure and growing dividend.”

  • Microsoft Releases 64-Bit Version of OneDrive

    Microsoft Releases 64-Bit Version of OneDrive

    Microsoft has (finally) released a 64-bit version of the OneDrive sync client for Windows.

    OneDrive is Microsoft’s online cloud storage service, and serves as a critical part of Microsoft 365. Until now, the company only offered a 32-bit version. The move to 64-bit allows OneDrive to handle more and larger files.

    Ankita Kirti detailed some of the advantages in a company blog post:

    The 64-bit version is the right choice if you plan to use large files, if you have a lot of files, and if you have a computer that’s running a 64-bit version of Windows. Computers running 64-bit versions of Windows generally have more resources—such as processing power and memory—than their 32-bit predecessors. Also, 64-bit applications can access more memory than 32-bit applications (up to 18.4 million Petabytes).

    The release is currently in preview. Users can download it here.

  • Workday CEO: Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic

    Workday CEO: Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic

    “Digital transformation will come out as a faster trend out of the pandemic,” says Workday co-CEO Aneel Bhusri. “What’s been interesting about the pandemic is that for companies that were in the cloud they figured out how to how to thrive and adjust to the new world. Companies that weren’t in the cloud realized that they needed the flexibility, agility, and ability to plan instantaneously. They needed those capabilities.”

    Aneel Bhusri, co-CEO of Workday, discusses how the pandemic will drive digital transformation forward at an even faster pace:

    Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic

    The first three quarters during the pandemic were challenging. The vagaries of subscription accounting models are such that it is a lag indicator. We expect new bookings growth to accelerate this year and that is our primary indicator and the way we run the business. We’re very excited about where we’re headed. That acceleration will probably take at least a year to show up in subscription accounting numbers just because of the way the model works. 

    What’s been interesting about the pandemic is that for companies that were in the cloud they figured out how to how to thrive and adjust to the new world. Companies that weren’t in the cloud realized that they needed the flexibility, agility, and ability to plan instantaneously. They needed those capabilities. In many ways, companies like Nike that are just such great market-leading companies, recognize that they needed to move this capability to the cloud. So I think actually digital transformation will come out as a faster trend out of the pandemic. 

    Employee Engagement Rose To The Top Of The List

    It comes back to the flexibility and agility that that cloud solutions like Workday provide. We’ve been very fortunate. We’re so happy to have Laboratory Corporation of America become a customer. J&J is a customer. Visor’s a customer. AstraZeneca is a customer. I just feel honored to be able to support these companies who are doing the best they can to save our lives and are just doing amazing work with the vaccines and testing. We’ve always had a strength in the pharmaceuticals and diagnostics role. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that they’re successful because they’re taking care of all of us.

    Coming back to what we learned during the pandemic, employee engagement just rose to the top of every CEO’s list and every head of HR’s list. In a remote work orientation, it was harder to really understand how do employees think about the company they work at, their engagement level, their comfort with their manager, and if they are feeling fulfilled at work. We were already down the path at Workday with something called Pulse Surveys. We recognized that this emerging trend was going to be critical going forward. 

    We Fell In Love With Peakon So We Acquired Them

    We concluded that we had to get in this market now, the market’s happening now, and Peakon is the well-known leader in this category. Peakon is a UK-based company with an amazing management team. We fell in love with the product and the management team so we made them part of Workday. They’re one of the new generations of companies that’s machine learning first.

    They really use machine learning in the right way to guide decisions and really give you insight into how employees are thinking about the company that they’re working for and how engaged are they. That is a supercritical set of information that’s going to drive companies going forward.

    Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic, Says Worday co-CEO Aneel Bhusri
  • IBM Targets Hybrid Cloud Security With New Services

    IBM Targets Hybrid Cloud Security With New Services

    IBM has released new services, aimed at helping organizations manage and secure their hybrid cloud.

    Hybrid cloud solutions have become the option of choice for many companies, combining the benefits of the cloud with on-premise infrastructure. Combining the two and properly securing them, however, can present challenges.

    IBM has released an enhanced version of its IBM Security Services for Cloud in an effort to help companies tackle the challenge. The new services are designed to help companies maintain a consistent security policy across their hybrid environment. The services use artificial intelligence (AI) to help identify and prioritize potential risks and help administrators address them.

    “Cloud security can appear daunting, with defenders facing an expansive attack surface, shared responsibility models and rapidly evolving cloud platforms and tools,” said Vikram Chhabra, Global Director, Offering Management and Strategy, IBM Security Services. “We cannot assume that legacy approaches for security will work in this new operating model – instead, security should be modernized specifically for the hybrid cloud era, with a strategy based on zero trust principles that bring together context, collaboration and visibility across any cloud environment.”

    The enhanced tools are the latest example of IBM’s transition to a hybrid cloud provider. The company is planning on splitting in two, spinning off its traditional business, while the core company focuseson hybrid cloud.

  • Box Exploring Potential Sale Amid Shareholder Pressure

    Box Exploring Potential Sale Amid Shareholder Pressure

    Box, the popular file-sharing cloud service, is exploring a possible sale in response to pressure from an activist shareholder.

    Box is one of the premier file-sharing cloud services, and one of the main competitors to Dropbox. Unfortunately, Box has not capitalized on the remote work transformation currently underway to the same extent as its rivals. This has led hedge fund Starboard Value LP to threaten a challenge to the board.

    Now Reuters is reporting that Box is considering a sale to another company or private equity form. One of the issues Box has faced is the crowded field it competes in, with many of its services matched by larger rivals with more comprehensive offerings. For example, Microsoft 365 comes with a OneDrive account, featuring 1 TB of storage.

    Box did not comment on Reuter’s story, and it remains to be seen if a deal will happen. The sources indicated a sale is not certain.

  • ServiceNow CEO on “The Whole Point Of Digital Transformation”

    ServiceNow CEO on “The Whole Point Of Digital Transformation”

    “Business is really simple, and people are more productive, and they’re doing things that can lead to growth and opportunity,” says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “That’s the whole point of digital transformation. Right now, companies are hunkered down with systems that are absolutely wearing them out. It’s time to make the bold move, pivot to ServiceNow, and let’s get in there and fix the job.”

    Bill McDermott, CEO, and President of ServiceNow says that only one in four digital transformation projects actually deliver positive ROI due to lack of integration:

    Most Digital Transformation Projects Don’t Deliver

    We have a situation on our hands where digital transformation, cloud computing, and business model innovation, are all converging at once. ServiceNow is the platform, of all the enterprise platforms, that really makes business work. One of the big lessons that business has right now is trillions have been poured into digital transformation yet only one in four projects actually deliver positive ROI. The reason for that is lack of integration.

    Our system integrates with all the existing systems as well as all the collaborative tools in the enterprise. From day one, the customer gets it up and running swiftly because it’s in the cloud. They begin to derive value from it because you automate the way the work is done and ultimately, you’re now in a position to serve your customers the way they want to be served. It’s a speed game and ServiceNow is at the top of its game.

    Companies Have To Create New Business Models

    We’re an example. If you’re going to grow your company you’re going to take advantage of digital transformation. This is the only way out and it’s the only way forward. In the 20th Century companies put in big heavy on-premise systems. The issue is now they can’t, in a frictionless economy, immediately pivot those business models because they haven’t digitally transformed their business.

    About 25 percent of the opportunity of businesses out there today over the next three years will come from white space places they are not in today. They have to create new business models. They have to think about new partnerships and new routes to market. Without the baseline of a platform like ServiceNow they’re not going to get there. 

    That’s The Whole Point Of Digital Transformation

    I am very optimistic that the economies of the world not only are going to recover but actually going to do very well this year because people are going to be investing in digital transformation. We have seen that does not cost jobs. On the contrary, it frees people up to do things like go after new markets, derive new ideas, and so forth, because the AI revolution is also on.

    We have built-in machine learning and AI into our platform. So 80 percent of the soul-crushing work people don’t want to do is done by the Now platform. The 20 percent that involves a human immediately gets initiated through a workflow order from the Now platform. 

    Business is really simple, and people are more productive and they’re doing things that can lead to growth and opportunity. That’s the whole point of digital transformation. Right now, companies are hunkered down with systems that are absolutely wearing them out. It’s time to make the bold move, pivot to ServiceNow, and let’s get in there and fix the job.

    Fastest-Growing Pure-Play SASS Silicon Valley Company

    If you look at our actual earnings results, they were stunning and obviously achieved beyond expectations performance across the board. We also followed that through in the guide. We’ll continue to be the fastest-growing pure-play SASS Silicon Valley company. We will continue to have the best margin profile of all of them. Obviously, we’re going to continue to gain market share in industries around the world, in geographies around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia Pacific, and Japan. 

    We will also gain market share on personas. Lots of people are getting the memo now that ServiceNow obviously dominated the IT automation market but the same backbone platform has enabled us to change the employee experience, the customer experience. In these tough times with COVID we can write low-code onto our platform in minutes and roll out new applications to hundreds of thousands of people so companies can move super fast.

    We keep the guide consistent with the revenue that we generated in 2020. If there’s an upside to that… fantastic. That’s what good companies should do. They should go beyond expectations when they can but we stand by the guide and we’re looking forward to having a great year. 

    ServiceNow Was Born In The Cloud

    The whole idea of ServiceNow is so different than SAP which was a company that needed to pivot to the cloud in 2010. We did that and that was very successful. ServiceNow was born in the cloud. It’s a very young company with tremendous growth opportunity on the organic front. Having said that, (we would be in interested in an acquisition) if you have a situation where there is a partner out there that has a substantial TAM, that can be highly complementary and synergistic with ServiceNow on the revenue side. 

    It also would have to do great things for the customer, because we have a precious platform and we jealously protect the integration power of that platform. A lot of things would have to be right but I can tell you as responsible business people we always look at it. We don’t need it to make our goals but you always have to look at it. We do want to be the defining enterprise software company the 21st century. That’s our plan.

  • Snowflake CEO: Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off

    Snowflake CEO: Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off

    “Once you get to the cloud all of a sudden the lid is off,” says Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman. “People can just pursue their backlogs and whatever they can imagine. We’re now in a situation where technology is ahead of what people are capable of and imagining what they could actually do with it. That’s really a big part of what you see in Snowflake’s growth profile, a completely variable paradigm.”

    Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake, says that on-premise data centers can only accommodate a tiny fraction of what their real demand for data analytics really is:

    Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off

    The important thing to understand is that there’s a couple of long-term secular trends that are coinciding and driving the development of the market overall. One is, as everybody knows, the movement towards cloud. It’s really a modernization play. We’re moving from on-premise data centers and we’re taking workloads to the cloud because we get to take advantage of better economics and utility models. Then we no longer have to manage capacity, we pay by the drink and all that sort of thing.

    The other aspect that’s really important for our business is that we’ve had an extraordinary amount of pent up demand. The on-premise data centers could only accommodate a very tiny fraction of what their real demand for data analytics really is. Once you get to the cloud all of a sudden the lid is off. People can just pursue their backlogs and whatever they can imagine. We’re now in a situation where technology is ahead of what people are capable of and imagining what they could actually do with it. That’s really a big part of what you see in Snowflake’s growth profile, a completely variable paradigm.

    Notion Of Headquarters Is Evaporating

    We don’t have a yearning to go back to where we were. I can see why people would have that because of lockdowns and things of that sort. From a business standpoint, there’s a lot of positives to the shock to the system that we received. It’s almost like a wake-up call that is just opening our eyes to the opportunity. This whole notion that the office is your workday home we just realized that it’s nonsense. In other words, offices need to be there for specific purposes, for events, for training, for meetings specifically, but not a place to hang out nine to five. That’s definitely changing. It’s going to really reduce the real estate footprint that companies have.

    The other trend and you’ve seen it with companies leaving California, the likes of Oracle and HP and Tesla, and so on is that the whole notion of headquarters is pretty much evaporating in front of our eyes. We’re no longer operating with a physical center of the universe. We’re completely virtual. We’re connecting as needed. We’ve been operating for the better part of a whole year without a headquarters and it’s just fine. All of a sudden everybody’s staring at each other and saying like what is the headquarters anyway. You’ve seen companies like Pinterest and you’re writing up massive leeches in San Francisco and saying we’re going to be headquarter-less. It’s just a concept whose time has gone away… and that’s very profound.

    We Are Buying Talent And Technology, No M&A

    Usually, big M&A is a function of people running out of market and running out of a lot of opportunity. They’re trying to invade adjacent territories to give themselves new runway. That is obviously not the case for Snowflake. We’re in a tremendous marketplace and we are buying talent and technology. We sometimes refer to it as stem cells that we can use that we don’t have ourselves that we can build very specific technologies around that are very much built snowflake way. We can really enable our platform mission or footer. That’s really been our mode. If you looked at our history we don’t have a history of doing big acquisitions.

    Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman: Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off

  • Microsoft Trounces Earnings Forecast on Cloud, ‘Digital Transformation’

    Microsoft has trounced earnings estimates on strong cloud and PC results, in what CEO Satya Nadella called “a second wave of digital transformation.”

    Just a day after Wedbush raised its Microsoft target price, the company smashed expectations with its Q2 earnings. In particular, cloud performance and PC sales helped propel results.

    The company reported revenue of $43.1 billion, an increase of 17% and handily beating analysts’ estimates of $40.2 billion. Net income was $15.5 billion, an increase of 33%.

    The company’s Intelligent Cloud business accounted for $14.6 billion, a 23% increase. Similarly, the More Personal Computing division accounted for $15.1 billion, an increase of 14%.

    “What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Building their own digital capability is the new currency driving every organization’s resilience and growth. Microsoft is powering this shift with the world’s largest and most comprehensive cloud platform.”

    “Accelerating demand for our differentiated offerings drove commercial cloud revenue to $16.7 billion, up 34% year over year,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft. “We continue to benefit from our investments in strategic, high-growth areas.”

  • Datadog CEO: 2020 Was Big Win For The Cloud

    Datadog CEO: 2020 Was Big Win For The Cloud

    “This year we’ve seen fairly brutal changes in patterns of usage in the cloud,” says Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel. “As you can imagine, streaming (has increased). All of a sudden everybody’s kids are watching Disney+. Also, video conferencing, online gaming, and all of that spiked pretty quickly. The way we see that is it’s a big win for the cloud, in general.”

    Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel says 2020 was a big win for the cloud:

    This year we’ve seen fairly brutal changes in patterns of usage in the cloud. As you can imagine, streaming (has increased). All of a sudden everybody’s kids are watching Disney+. Also, video conferencing, online gaming, and all of that spiked pretty quickly. Even if you think of the domains that were negatively impacted by COVID such as travel when all of a sudden everybody had to cancel their travel, it actually meant a lot more activity for the online sites of the travel companies.

    So you see all these patterns of companies pointing up and spinning down. The way we see that is it’s a big win for the cloud, in general. Companies could change their minds they could actually scale up. They could decide to shift different services to have them delivered at different scales instead of having to spend three to six months trying to retool everything and ship that to the data centers. They could do that very quickly in the cloud. We see that as a big win for the cloud.

    Read: SolarWinds Hack Was Supply Chain Attack, Says Datadog CEO

    Next year we still see some scaling from those customers. We see some of the industries that were negatively impacted coming back online and getting back up. Across the board, we see more and more renewed urgency around digital transformation and migration to the clutches precisely because the cloud made it possible for companies to react so quickly. Those who are not on the cloud were more impacted than the others.

    Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel: 2020 Was Big Win For The Cloud
  • NSA Warning of On-Premise to Cloud Attacks

    NSA Warning of On-Premise to Cloud Attacks

    The National Security Agency is warning of attacks that target the local network and ultimately compromise organizations’ cloud resources.

    As companies migrate to the cloud, improved security is one of the top selling points. While that is generally true, many security processes need to be reworked to account for cloud computing. This is especially true as many cloud systems and platforms are designed to interoperate with each other.

    One security measure that has become popular is federated single sign-on (SSO). SSO is a way for an individual to use a single set of credentials to log into any number of authorized applications and services. Federated SSO advances that concept to allow a user to log into services across networks and platforms with the same trusted credentials.

    Unfortunately, hackers appear to be using federated SSOs to escalate attacks from compromised local networks to cloud resources.

    The NSA has documented two such type of attacks:

    In the first TTP, the actors compromise on-premises components of a federated SSO infrastructure and steal the credential or private key that is used to sign Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) tokens (TA00061, T1552, T1552.004). Using the private keys, the actors then forge trusted authentication tokens to access cloud resources. A recent NSA Cybersecurity Advisory warned of actors exploiting a vulnerability in VMware Access®2 and VMware Identity Manager®3 that allowed them to perform this TTP and abuse federated SSO infrastructure. While that example of this TTP may have previously been attributed to nation-state actors, a wealth of actors could be leveraging this TTP for their objectives. This SAML forgery technique has been known and used by cyber actors since at least 2017.

    In a variation of the first TTP, if the malicious cyber actors are unable to obtain an on-premises signing key, they would attempt to gain sufficient administrative privileges within the cloud tenant to add a malicious certificate trust relationship for forging SAML tokens.

    In the second TTP, the actors leverage a compromised global administrator account to assign credentials to cloud application service principals (identities for cloud applications that allow the applications to be invoked to access other cloud resources). The actors then invoke the application’s credentials for automated access to cloud resources (often email in particular) that would otherwise be difficult for the actors to access or would more easily be noticed as suspicious (T1114, T1114.002).

    The NSA’s document contains migration techniques and should be read immediately by all systems admins.

  • Microsoft and SAP Partner to Improve Supply Chain and Industry 4.0

    Microsoft and SAP Partner to Improve Supply Chain and Industry 4.0

    Microsoft has announced an expansion of its partnership with SAP to improve supply chain and Industry 4.0 solutions.

    SAP is one of the leading enterprise software providers, and the two companies are expanding their partnership “to help customers design and operate intelligent digital supply chain and Industry 4.0 solutions.” The two companies are also working together to promote interoperability in the industry.

    The partnership will allow customers to run SAP’s Digital Supply Chain solutions on Microsoft Azure. The solution will run as software-as-a-service (SaaS) on Azure, giving customers the ability to scale as needed and reap the benefits of the cloud.

    SAP is excited to bring our proven and innovative solutions to Microsoft Azure for our manufacturing and digital supply chain customers. This partnership gives our customers the ability to subscribe to our digital supply chain and manufacturing solutions in the cloud and enhances our offerings for Industry 4.0. Building on this, SAP solutions will soon be available at the edge in factories, plants, and automated warehouses in close proximity to sensors, machines, and control systems. —Franz Hero, SAP Senior Vice President for Digital Supply Chain Solutions.

    The partnership should be a big win for both Microsoft and SAP customers.

  • Financial Network, Inc. Leaves Oracle In Favor Of MariaDB SkySQL

    Financial Network, Inc. Leaves Oracle In Favor Of MariaDB SkySQL

    Financial services firm Financial Network, Inc. (FNI) is leaving Oracle’s platform in favor of MariaDB SkySQL.

    MariaDB was forked from MySQL when Oracle acquired the database engine in 2009. Developers were concerned about the future of MySQL under Oracle, and wanted a version of the database that would remain independent of Oracle, while at the same time maintaining full compatibility.

    MariaDB Corporation pairs the database with SkySQL for “the first and only database-as-a-service (DBaaS) to bring the full power of MariaDB Platform to the cloud, combining powerful enterprise features and world-class support with unrivaled ease of use and groundbreaking innovation.”

    SkySQL is offered as a DBaaS on Google Cloud Platform, and MariaDB is used by Google, Mozilla, Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens. Now, FNI is leaving Oracle in favor of MariaDB and SkySQL.

    “MariaDB has been a true collaborative partner for us in our journey to the cloud,” said Bryan Bancroft, lead database administrator at FNI. “With SkySQL, we don’t have to bother with containers or managing the database, that’s left to the database professionals at MariaDB. We also have the option of easily expanding our applications to leverage blended transactions and analytics when the time is right. Moving to MariaDB from Oracle was a key strategic business decision for us and has ultimately saved us up to 80% in database costs – allowing us to reinvest the savings into delivering new, critical solutions for our customers.”

    The announcement is a big win for MariaDB and a loss for Oracle, just as the company is doubling down in an effort to take on its bigger cloud rivals.

  • SAP Focuses on the Cloud Amid Disappointing Quarterly Results

    SAP Focuses on the Cloud Amid Disappointing Quarterly Results

    SAP turned in disappointing quarterly results, prompting the company to switch gears and focus on accelerating customers’ cloud adoption.

    SAP revealed its Q3 2020 results Sunday, reporting revenue of roughly €6.54 billion IFRS. This was a 4% decrease year-over-year, and was down from €6.74 billion in Q2.

    “COVID-19 has created an inflection point for our customers,” said Christian Klein, CEO. “The move to the cloud combined with a true business transformation has become a must for enterprises, to gain resiliency and position them to emerge stronger out of the crisis. Together with our customers and partners we will co-innovate and reinvent how businesses run in a digital world. SAP will accelerate growth in the cloud to more than €22 billion in 2025 and expand the share of more predictable revenue to approximately 85%.”

    The company emphasized the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on its performance, warning that some aspects of the business will likely not recover during 2020.

    “SAP’s previous full year 2020 outlook issued on April 8, 2020, reflected its best estimates concerning the timing and pace of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis,” the company said. “This outlook assumed economies would reopen and population lockdowns would ease, leading to a gradually improving demand environment in the third and fourth quarters.

    “While SAP continues to see robust interest in its solutions to drive digital transformation as customers look to emerge from the crisis with more resilience and agility, lockdowns have been recently re-introduced in some regions and demand recovery has been more muted than expected. Further and for the same reasons, SAP no longer anticipates a meaningful recovery in SAP Concur business travel-related revenues for the remainder of the year 2020.”

    As a result of these factors, the company is focusing on the cloud and helping customers transition to it. In its mid-term guidance, the company is planning on €22 billion non-IFRS cloud revenue by 2025, a goal that reflects its new focus. At the same time, because of its focus on the cloud, the company expects traditional software licensing revenue to decrease as it moves forward.

    SAP is just the latest company to pivot to the cloud. As the pandemic has changed how companies operate, the cloud has emerged as the single biggest factor in keeping companies and their employees operational.

  • Microsoft Launches Azure Space – Partners With SpaceX, SES

    Microsoft Launches Azure Space – Partners With SpaceX, SES

    Microsoft announced today that it is launching Azure Space to focus on the burgeoning space industry. Microsoft says that Azure Space will bring together Azure technology and an extensive network of expert partners offering solutions for the industry. Additionally, Microsoft announced a major collaboration with SpaceX to provide satellite-powered internet connectivity on Azure.

    “Today we’re launching Azure Space,” tweeted Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “A thriving ecosystem of satellite providers is essential to meet the world’s growing network needs, and we’re expanding our offerings to provide access to satellite data and connectivity from Azure.”

    “Microsoft is taking the next giant leap in cloud computing – to space,” tweeted Azure head Tom Keene. “With the enormous challenges #space presents, there also comes great opportunity. Today, I am sharing details about our strategy for Azure Space.”

    Tom Keene, Corporate Vice President of Azure Global, further discusses Azure Space:

    Today, Microsoft is taking the next giant leap in cloud computing… to space. At Microsoft, our approach to space is different. This difference is evident across our platform, product, partnerships, and people.

    We’re very excited about about the partnership between Microsoft and SpaceX and all of the incredible innovation that it brings for our customers and all of the possibilities that it offers to the future.

    By building on new and existing partnerships within the space community, learning and leaning in to our culture of innovation and investing in people we are extending the Azure Edge capabilities with worldwide satellite connectivity.”

    “If you think about Microsoft which is empowering people and organizations to achieve more and then you put that with SES which about doing the extraordinary in space to deliver amazing experiences anywhere on Earth and just look at the intersection of this,” says the CEO of SES Networks JP Hemingway. “I’ve got these fantastic cloud capabilities, this great intelligence, and we want to get to as many people as we can around the globe. Then you add that to what SES is doing. It’s providing that vehicle to get to everybody around the world whether they’re floating, flying, or in really hard to reach places.”

    “What’s changing for space is that technology is propelling us forward,” says Azure Space Senior Director Steve Kitay. “Microsoft Azure Space is focusing on developing partnerships. There are many companies in the space community that have tremendous capabilities. We’re looking at bringing new and unique value along side those companies to the customers.”

    Microsoft Launches Azure Space – Partners With SpaceX, SES
  • IBM: Strong Cloud Revenue Growth Powers Q3

    IBM: Strong Cloud Revenue Growth Powers Q3

    IBM today announced third-quarter 2020 earnings results. Although overall revenue was slightly down again cloud revenue was up big.

    “The strong performance of our cloud business, led by Red Hat, underscores the growing client adoption of our open hybrid cloud platform,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM chief executive officer. “Separating the managed infrastructure services business creates a market-leading standalone company and further sharpens our focus on IBM’s open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities. This will accelerate our growth strategy and better position IBM to seize the $1 trillion hybrid-cloud opportunity.”

    Highlights for the third quarter include:

    • GAAP EPS from continuing operations of $1.89
    • Operating (non-GAAP) EPS of $2.58
    • Revenue of $17.6 billion, down 2.6 percent (down 3.1 percent adjusting for divested businesses and currency)
      — Cloud & Cognitive Software revenue up 7 percent (up 6 percent adjusting for currency)
    • Total cloud revenue of $6.0 billion, up 19 percent
      — Total cloud revenue of $24.4 billion over the last 12 months, up 22 percent (up 25 percent adjusting for divested businesses and currency)
    • Red Hat revenue up 17 percent (up 16 percent adjusting for currency), normalized for historical comparability
    • GAAP gross profit margin of 48 percent, up 180 basis points; Operating (non-GAAP) gross profit margin of 49 percent, up 160 basis points
    • Net cash from operating activities of $15.8 billion and free cash flow of $10.8 billion, over the last 12 months

    “In the third quarter we continued to deliver strong gross profit margin expansion, generated solid free cash flow and maintained a sound capital structure with ample liquidity,” said James Kavanaugh, IBM senior vice president and chief financial officer. “We have the necessary financial flexibility to increase our investments in hybrid cloud and AI technology innovation and skills, while remaining committed to our long-standing dividend policy.”

    https://www.ibm.com/investor/att/pdf/IBM-3Q20-Earnings-Charts.pdf
  • Pandemic Has Driven Digital Transformation Into Every Corner of the Enterprise

    Pandemic Has Driven Digital Transformation Into Every Corner of the Enterprise

    SAP announced that a new IDC economic impact model predicts the revenue SAP partners generate will nearly double over the next four years.

    “The pandemic has driven digital transformation into every corner of the enterprise to allow businesses to adapt and continue operating as usual,” said Steve White, program vice president, channels and alliances, IDC. “As the economic situation continues to unfold and businesses move their focus from resiliency to recovery, those that leverage digital and cloud-based solutions will be more agile and future-proof, and we’re seeing that acknowledgment drive significant adoption.”

    SAP commissioned the research to explore the impact of the current economic landscape on the partner ecosystem. The data shows that due to the pandemic-driven increase in remote work, digital transformation efforts are advancing, and companies are expected to spend more on cloud-based solutions. This translates into a $204.4 billion cloud market opportunity for SAP partners from now until the end of 2024. This cloud revenue figure represents 68% of the total net-new opportunity for our partners over that period of time.

    “This research confirms the vast and continually growing market opportunity for SAP partners,” said Karl Fahrbach, chief partner officer, SAP. “SAP’s next-generation partnering movement drives partners’ sustained growth by establishing partner-centric sales and service and connecting with customers in new ways across their life cycle. This higher level of ecosystem engagement can increase customer satisfaction, lead to faster time to value and enhance customer lifetime value.”

    https://news.sap.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/SAP_IG_US46867020.pdf

  • The Software Decade Is Now

    The Software Decade Is Now

    “The next decade looking ahead is going to be the Software Decade,” says Snowflake board member and Altimeter Capital partner Kevin Wang. “Trends of moving more software to the cloud are just persisting. Cloud has completely changed the way that software is built and run. Software itself is being completely transformed. If what you saw over the past decade was exciting I’m even more excited about the next decade.”

    Kevin Wang, Snowflake board member and Altimeter Capital partner, says that the next decade looking ahead is going to be the Software Decade:

    The Software Decade Is Now

    The past decade has been a prolific time for technology companies. When you look at what we are set up for in the next decade it’s good to pause right now to see what has happened during the pandemic. We’ve seen that software is an integral part of the global economy. During the pandemic, we’ve found that we couldn’t go through the pandemic without the tools that we have.

    Stanford research shows that just during the month of May over two-thirds of US GDP was created in our homes alone. That’s just incredible. These trends of moving more software to the cloud are just persisting. The next decade looking ahead is going to be the Software Decade.

    Software Itself Is Being Completely Transformed

    When we take a step back we look at how these companies are set up for the next ten years. It’s easy to get focused on what might happen in the short run. These trends are so powerful that they are going to power these companies and adoption for several years. It’s true that the pandemic has accelerated and pulled forward a lot of that demand. But a lot of the trends and behaviors we see are going to persist. For example, people are talking over Zoom and that’s just changed the way we are going to work. We can give a lot of examples of how that’s going to persist over the long run.

    Software itself is being completely transformed. If what you saw over the past decade was exciting I’m even more excited about the next decade. What you have to understand is that cloud has completely changed the way that software is built and run. As we know, as business are digitally transforming they themselves are building and running more software. When you think about how to do that cloud has changed that.

    Historically, you always had to decide better, faster, cheaper. You could only pick one or two of them. Now you can do all three. When you look at Snowflake, for example, you used to have to manage a cloud data warehouse, and that was a lot of work for your database experts. You don’t have to do any of that anymore. Snowflake will manage all of that for you.

    The Software Decade Is Now – Altimeter Capital partner Kevin Wang