Exhort Tech Headlines & Highlights for: 10/24/2023
Dan Lausted
A technology strategist focused on creating innovative solutions that drive revenue growth and customer satisfaction!
Thoughts from this weeks headlines ...
Hope everyone is having a good week!? There is always something new in the cloud, AI and Productivity world to consider!
Microsoft is in the tech limelight with some new updates. They've rolled out an AuthorizationResources table to help clean up Azure role-based access control permissions, a handy tool for simplifying cloud management. Azure DevOps engineers are getting some attention too, with an article that dives into their costs, skills, and benefits for businesses. And, Microsoft's come up with Radius, an open-source app platform that works with both Azure and AWS. It streamlines cloud-native app development, making life easier for developers who can switch infrastructure without messing with app code.
AWS has been busy too. They're launching the Cloud Institute, a virtual program that'll help folks become cloud developers. You'll find over a hundred interactive labs, projects, and a portfolio to flaunt your newfound skills. AWS's CEO is boasting about their victory against a brand-new DDoS attack, and their Marketplace Partner Report reveals some partners are raking in hefty professional services margins.?
Google Cloud (GCP) isn't sitting back either. Their Q3 earnings report is due, with potential news of a new CFO and profitability. They're also democratising AI with Vertex AI, which is set to empower non-expert app creators. GCP's generative AI search engines are making waves and could potentially challenge the SEO industry. And look at that, Google is releasing a new Pixel 8 smartphone with AI tools that can tweak photos, stirring up ethical debates.
There continues to be movement in the Modern Workplace world too.
Microsoft is shaking things up by putting a halt to testing services interoperability for Office 2016 and 2019 products, hinting at a shift towards Microsoft 365 cloud productivity tools. Plus, they've introduced Security Copilot, an AI-powered tool to bolster security against threats.?
AWS and Amazon are making headlines with a whopping $1 billion 'megadeal' for cloud productivity tools (with Microsoft), marking a significant move from on-premise software to the cloud.
Google Meet is getting a fresh look too. They're rolling out a portrait touch-up feature that'll brighten up your appearance during video meetings. It's going to be a game-changer for those early morning video calls!
Lastly, in the realm of the Future and Beyond:
Wearable technology is turning the world of football on its head, with players sporting GPS vests and AI tracker straps on their boots. These gadgets are giving players, coaches, and teams real-time insights into performance, strategy, and injury prevention. Plus, personal devices like Apple Watches and Fitbits are becoming must-haves for professional footballers, helping them monitor health, recovery, and sleep.
So whether you're a cloud enthusiast, AI aficionado, or just curious about the future of sports tech, there's plenty of exciting stuff happening in the tech world!?
Let's get to work!
Topic: Public Cloud
Microsoft
Microsoft has announced a new tool, AuthorizationResources table, to help IT departments clean up their Azure role-based access control (RBAC) permissions. It can help organizations determine the number of roles issued and people assigned to a role, as well as to convert Classic Admins to Role Assignments before August 2024 when Azure Cloud Services Classic will be deprecated. Microsoft recommends organizations to switch to Azure Cloud Services (extended support) for new applications.
This article discusses the cost of hiring Azure DevOps engineers, the competencies and skills they possess, and the benefits of hiring them. Azure DevOps is a SaaS platform that provides a toolchain to assist with software development, testing, delivery, and monitoring. It offers features such as version control, project management, automated builds, release management, and integration with other DevOps tools. Hiring Azure DevOps engineers requires considering experience level, skill set, location-specific factors, and hidden expenses.
Microsoft has launched an open source application platform called Radius that works with Azure and AWS cloud. It simplifies and standardizes cloud-native application development, provides infrastructure Recipes and introduces an application graph to gain visibility into resources and relationships. It also allows developers to quickly switch backing infrastructure for an app without changing app code or configuration. Radius is being discussed on Discord and community meetings.
AWS
AWS is releasing a new virtual program, Cloud Institute, to reduce the scarcity of trained cloud developers. It includes more than 100 interactive labs, two capstone projects, and the creation of a portfolio illustrating the aspiring developer’s technical knowledge. The courses cover topics such as business foundations, cloud fundamentals, developer fundamentals, and getting hired. Upon graduation, aspiring developers will receive an AWS Cloud Institute program certificate and guidance for exam preparation. The program costs $7,560 plus taxes and is currently available only in the US.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently thwarted a new type of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack called the HTTP/2 Rapid Reset attack, which was driving more than 155 million requests per second. AWS CEO Adam Selipsky said the attack was mitigated thanks to the efforts of AWS engineers, and the company is working with other tech companies to develop further countermeasures. AWS also has a MadPot threat intelligence tool to trace attacks back to the true sources or servers of the cybercrime.
Some of these partners are seeing up to 45 percent professional services gross margins, while also increasing deal sizes as customers seek to spend their cloud commitments via the AWS Marketplace, according to a new report by IT research firm Forrester.
GCP
Google Cloud is set to report its Q3 2023 earnings on Tuesday, with potential announcements of a new CFO, generative AI, and profitability. Google Cloud reported a 28% year-over-year increase in revenue in Q2 2023, and launched a number of new products and strategic partnerships in Q3. Partners, investors, and customers should watch for five important areas during the earnings report.
When moving financial services to the cloud, it is important to consider cloud governance, applying appropriate policies and oversight, and compliance and regulatory requirements. This requires an organizational, operational, and technological approach, as well as collaboration between different teams and trusted third parties. Executives must effectively communicate the cloud strategy and ensure continuous compliance and risk monitoring.
Topic: Artificial Intelligence (AI / AGI)
Microsoft
Microsoft has invested $13 billion in a partnership with OpenAI and Azure is proving to be a key growth driver as the world continues to migrate to the cloud. Analysts estimate Azure revenue growth in the fiscal first quarter expanded 27% year-over-year in constant currency terms. Microsoft's stock has soared 36.5% year-to-date and the company's AI offerings should bring in a recurring revenue stream and cut down on labor costs. Investors will be looking to see how Microsoft's AI initiatives are reflected in the bottom line and whether its new product 365 Copilot will be a success.
领英推荐
Microsoft has recently announced Security Copilot, an AI-powered tool designed to help users identify and counter security threats. It leverages global threat intelligence, large language models, and Microsoft's security expertise. It is currently available to a limited number of users in the Early Access Program, providing them with free access to Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence data and other capabilities such as incident summaries, guided responses, and more.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has expressed strong enthusiasm for AI in the company's annual report, citing it as the biggest advance in computing in over a decade. Microsoft has been investing heavily in AI, partnering with OpenAI, and is incorporating AI into many of its business units and products. Nadella has expressed confidence in AI, but ethicists have warned of the risks of overconfident and uninformed applications of the technology. Microsoft must invest in AI at a pace that puts them ahead of their competitors, but not so far that they face risks.
AWS
IBM Consulting and Amazon Web Services have announced a partnership to re-engineer their joint solutions with generative AI for enterprise clients in three areas: contact centers, cloud value chain, and supply chain. The companies are providing AI-powered services such as Amazon SageMaker, CodeWhisperer, and Bedrock, as well as training 10,000 IBM consultants on AWS generative AI services. Watsonx.data, watsonx.ai, and watsonx.governance will also be available on AWS Marketplace.
Generative AI is great at handling tedium and finding errors, but the expertise and intuition of programmers will always be essential.
Subscribe AWS Bedrock is a fully-managed service for generative AI apps that is now generally available. It includes several foundation models developed at AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Stability AI, and Amazon that can be used to create generative AI applications. It also includes Amazon Titan Embeddings, a large language model that converts text into numerical representations, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation, a technique that connects the model to an external knowledge source. Bedrock also provides agents to perform specific tasks and CodeWhisperer coding AI to leverage customer’s internal codebase and resources.
GCP
Search engines are increasingly incorporating generative AI, which has the potential to make search engine optimization obsolete. This could have an adverse impact on the US$68 billion SEO industry, as well as search engine's revenue from search engine marketing. Generative AI search engines are still in their infancy and must address certain challenges before they take over online search. Search engines are increasingly incorporating generative AI, which has the potential to make search engine optimization obsolete and adversely impact the US$68 billion SEO industry. Generative AI search engines are in their infancy and must address certain challenges before they become dominant.
Google has released new Pixel 8 and 8 Pro smartphones with AI-powered tools to alter people's expressions and elements in photos, raising ethical considerations about what is and isn't reality. The tech has been described variously as "icky", "creepy" and potentially posing threats to trust in online content. Google's Isaac Reynolds, who leads the team developing the camera systems, said the company takes the ethical consideration of its consumer technology seriously.
Google has developed Vertex AI, a machine learning platform to enable businesses to build and deploy AI-powered applications tailored to their specific needs. Google's senior director of product, Yariv Adan, believes the platform will "democratise AI" and make it accessible to non-experts. Adan also discussed the potential benefits and risks of AI for humanity and Google's approach to responsible development.
Topic: Modern Work
Microsoft
Microsoft has stopped testing services interoperability for Office 2016 and Office 2019 products and will not actively block connections to Microsoft 365 services as long as they are kept up to date. Moving to Microsoft 365 requires users to use OneDrive for files and is not supported by Configuration Manager. Office 2019 for Mac has also reached the end of its support, meaning it no longer receives patches from Microsoft.
Microsoft recently unveiled Security Copilot, an AI-powered tool designed to help users identify and counter security threats. It provides capabilities such as incident summaries, guided responses, natural language queries, and more. It integrates with Microsoft's 365 Defender Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platform and users who sign up for the Early Access Program will have free access to Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence data.
, Actionable Card-Based Loop Components Microsoft has announced a new Outlook feature, Feature ID 122238, that will allow users to insert links to supported Microsoft 365 apps into their email messages with the option of an embedded card or a standard link. This feature will streamline the email experience and improve productivity and communication effectiveness. It will be available on the web platform and the rollout is scheduled to start in November 2023.
AWS
Microsoft and Amazon are reportedly in the process of signing a $1 billion 'megadeal' for cloud productivity tools, with Amazon acquiring one million Microsoft 365 licenses for its corporate employees. The transition from traditional, on-premise Microsoft Office software to Microsoft 365 cloud productivity tools is expected to begin in November and be completed in early 2021. This would be a major win for Microsoft, as the deal is expected to be a five-year agreement.
GCP
Google Meet now offers a portrait touch-up feature that provides users with two levels of tooth whitening, skin smoothing, and under-eye lightening. It is available to all mobile users and will be available on desktop by the end of the year. It is not available to those using personal Google accounts.
Google announced that it will protect customers using its generative AI tools against intellectual property claims made on the data used or output served by the company. It will provide indemnity against IP rights claims for training data and generated output, covering all its services such as Duet AI and Vertex AI. This protection comes as a response to the growing adoption of generative AI and the challenges it poses over privacy, security, and intellectual property.
Topic: Future / Out There
Wearable technology has transformed the way football is played and monitored. Players now wear GPS vests to measure physical metrics and AI wearable tracker straps on football boots to provide performance data. Companies such as STATSports, Catapult, Playermaker, and Soccerment provide players and coaches with real-time performance data and video analysis to inform tactical strategy, injury prevention, and team shape. Additionally, personal devices such as Apple Watches, Fitbits, and Whoop are being used by professional footballers to monitor health, recovery, and sleep.