There has been a lot of talk about SD-WAN these days, and a lot of questions about what to do. I have been working with a lot of clients on these questions and so I wanted to present my thoughts on the market.
The Pace Of Change
This is a really interesting visualization produced by Tarry Singh, CEO, founder & AI Researcher at deepkapha.ai. Tarry has kindly released this on to the Interwebs for the greater good.
What Tarry is trying to demonstrate here is that No matter how big you are, failure to continuously innovate can cause your demise. While this is definitely true, I would like to add to that.
On The Power Of Editing
This morning, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who produces music scores for TV and Movies. He was lamenting how the industry has declined because people have turned to free or low cost alternatives produced by amateurs or professionals with limited experience.
CB Insights Picks Their 2019 Unicorns list
For those not familiar with the term, Unicorn is used to describe a Venture Backed company that has achieved a pre-IPO valuation over a billion dollars. While this is something that was very rare in the past, it seems like there are unicorns everywhere now.
Apple Event To Be Held March 25th
Apple’s first big event of 2019 will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple Campus on March 25th. The rumors are that there will be a big announcements around Apple’s subscription services offerings. There have been talks in the works for a long time around Apple offering a streaming video subscriptions service in addition to magazine subscriptions. While there have been initial complaints about the oversized cut that Apple intends to take, it still remains to be seen wha the model will be.
So Much For Drinking The Blood Of The Young, Try Sucking The Marrow From Their Bones
Well, for those of you chasing the fountain of youth by getting transfusions of the blood of the young, the FDA has just shut you down. Ambrosia the clinic that has been topping up the elderly, was shut down by the FDA who labeled it a “dangerous scam.”
But don’t despair! If you are looking to find ways to satisfy your gruesome quest for youth, there is bone marrow. Hannah Osborne over at Newsweek is reporting:
The Real Fake News
Meet Xin Xiaomeng, Xinhua’s newest news anchor.
Xinhua, has just debuted their latest AI news reporter to complement the previous two they introduced in November.
Google Ends Forced Arbitration
Forced arbitration has been a sticking point with me for some time. It is an increasingly common practice in many companies to force their workers to sign binding arbitration agreements.
Companies say that this is to reduce the overwhelming costs of litigation (what the heck are you doing to get sued that much), but the real reason is that it tips things heavily in favor of the company who chooses the arbitrator and manages the process.
Palo Alto to Buy RedLock for $173M
CRN is reporting that Palo Alto Networks is in the process of acquiring Cloud Security company RedLock for $173M.
Palo Alto has been making moves to expand its portfolio and this fits in with their desire to grow their Cloud based capabilities.
3 Cheers for Allstate
I just wanted to give a shoutout to Allstate for jumping in to help fight the good fight for the right to repair movement. Recently, Allstate purchased iCracked, one of the largest phone repair companies in the country.
Lacework Demo from Re:Invent
Lacework is a company that has been on our radar since Mike Speiser at Sutter Hill Ventures introduced us to them. They have some very strong backing from the VCs community, and they offer some interesting insights into the flow of data across your environment. They have some handy tools to do forensic analysis on events.
FUTR Video Briefing: 2018 Re:Invent
OK, this one is from November, but better late than never. As you should be well aware, Re:Invent is one of the key shows to attend. This is a rapidly expanding market, and AWS is the leader. If you are missing the grandeur of the shows of the dot com era, this will bring back some fond memories.
SpaceX To Deploy 1 Million Satellite Uplinks
SpaceX has been talking about their desire to build a space-based array of satellites to bring affordable broadband to the planet. This array of low-earth orbit satellites would orbit as low as 208 miles to provide for reduced latency (pesky physics y’all). Now their subsidiary company, SpaceX Services has reached out to the FCC to get approval to deploy up to a million of earth-based uplinks. Always working at break-neck pace, SpaceX says they could have this service up and running by 2020. Check out more at extremetech.com
Rubrik Launches New Open Source Community
Rubrik launched a new Open Source initiative today called Rubrik Build. The idea is to extend their API-First architecture to developers so they can create applications, automation, and integrations that don’t exist today. Rubrik has entrusted this effort to Rebecca Fitzhugh who has released a great blog post about it.