News Precis#8 – 18 September 2020

News Precis#8 – 18 September 2020

Chris EvansNews

All the news that’s fit to print and probably lots that isn’t! Stuff that’s caught my attention over the last few weeks but hasn’t made it into a full-scale blog post.

Vendors

  • AWS Outposts Ready Designation. The world and his/her grandmother have been claiming certification or “designation” for AWS Outposts, the version of AWS hardware that runs in your data centre. So far I spy Clumio, Qumulo, CTERA, AppDynamics, Nasuni, Commvault, Citrix and more. Congratulations to the PR folks who managed to align their press releases for within 30 minutes of each other.

Business

  • Snowflake, JFrog and Sumo Logic IPOs. In case you missed it (which I doubt) we saw three new IPOs, including Snowflake via legendary CEO Frank Slootman (Data Domain & ServiceNow fame). At one point, the company was worth $71 billion, more than Dell and HPE combined. While I know the market is pricing future value, there does seem to be a lot of hype around a company with revenue less than $500 million. It seems that the Sumo Logic IPO is a more modest affair, with pricing to match. Let’s see where all of these companies are in 12 months’ time.
  • TikTok may be acquired by Oracle. Yes, you read that right, Oracle Corporation of reassuringly expensive relational database fame. I cannot begin to understand this transaction, either from the rationale, the involvement of a US President to broker a deal or the point of TikTok in the first place.
  • Apple’s Epic FortnightFortnite. Apple created the App Store, without which there would be no market for so many apps. If Epic doesn’t like that, I guess they could create their own hardware technology company, sack the founder, bring him back, create a unique set of mobile devices and application delivery mechanism, and see if that solves the problem for them.

Technology

  • Microsoft’s data centre no longer underwater. Microsoft has surfaced (pun intended) their data centre in a submarine after two years. Very few servers failed, however I guess that would have been similar in a sealed shipping container. I see the environmental benefits, but wouldn’t it just be easier to pipe seawater through a land-based container? You decide.

And Finally….

Who would have thought wireless earbuds would be so hard to identify? Seems US law enforcement, that’s who, when they seized OnePlus earbuds at JFK airport. I wonder if their ears are burning now we’re talking about them…..


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