Tag: Microsoft

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This Week in Enterprise Tech , Week 51

This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech news for the CIO office:

  1. Microsoft Quantum Takes a Majorana Step Forward
  2. Alibaba and Apple Both Commit $50B to AI
  3. Avaya Cuts Off Customers with <200 Seats
  4. Gitlab Being Sued For Providing Believable AI Hype
  5. TMobile Wins NYC 911 Contract with Network Slicing
  6. Ready for a Personalized AI Agent? PIN AI thinks so
  7. Codeium Raises at Near-$3 Billion Valuation to Assist Coders
  8. Is Your  Most Important Customer AI
  9. xAI Plays Fast and Loose with Grok 3 Benchmarks

Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2319034/episodes/16688357

Microsoft Quantum Takes a Majorana Step Forward

Microsoft made big news with its quantum announcement of the Majorana chip, which apparently is not marijuana. Charles and Hyoun discuss the quantum science behind this chip and what it could mean for the long-term feature of the CIO.

Source

Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-just-claimed-a-quantum-breakthrough-a-quantum-physicist-explains-what-it-means/ 

Alibaba Commits Over $50B to AI, while Apple Goes Further

Alibaba committed $52 billion to AI for the next three years. Although this is more than Alibaba has invested over the past decade in the space, is it enough? Hyoun and Charles discuss the increasingly heated global AI Cold War.

Sources

Morningstar: https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/20250224715/alibaba-to-spend-more-than-52-billion-in-ai-cloud-over-next-three-years 

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/23/asia_tech_news_roundup/ 

The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/news/618172/apple-500-billion-us-investment-tariffs-trump 

Avaya Cuts Off Customers with Fewer than 200 Seats

Avaya plans to cut off cloud-based contact center customers with less than 200 seats in an ongoing trend for large companies to focus more on the enterprise and abandon their smaller customers. Charles and Hyoun ponder what this means for CIOs in managing key business technologies. 

Source
Avaya: https://news.avaya.com/axp-evolution-update-partners 

Gitlab Being Sued For Providing Believable AI Hype

Gitlab is facing multiple lawsuits because they were apparently too optimistic about their AI capabilities. Charles and Hyoun ponder whether this is justified and if the CIO faces potential liability or due diligence concerns. 

Source

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/20/gitlab_thrice_sued/ 

T-Mobile Wins NYC 911 Contract with Network Slicing

T-Mobile has won the New York City contract for 911 services based on its ability to provide a capability called network slicing on its 5G network. This allows New York City to carve out a portion of the network for emergency services. Hyoun and Charles wonder if this is a precursor to network slicing used either by vendors or enterprises to gain preferential access to networks and Internet.

Source

Fierce Network: https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/t-mobile-pushes-network-slicing-major-nyc-deal-announced 

Ready for a Personalized AI Agent? PIN AI Thinks So

PIN AI has an interesting vision for a secure AI agent, including both a local app and large language model to become your personalized intelligence network. Charles and Hyoun discuss how this looks like the future of AI, not just at the personal level, but the enterprise as well.

Source

Fast Company: https://www.fastcompany.com/91278338/pin-ai-encrypted-assistant-app-launch-llm 

Codeium Raises at Near-$3 Billion Valuation to Assist Coders

Codeium, an AI code assistant, is raising money at a $2.85 billion evaluation, making it another new AI unicorn. But what makes Codeium so much more valuable than every other code assistant? Charles and Hyoun wrestle over what makes Codeium special when Anysphere, Microsoft, and Google have all made waves in this market. 

Source

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/19/ai-coding-startup-codeium-in-talks-to-raise-at-an-almost-3b-valuation-sources-say/ 

Your Most Important Customer May Be AI

Scott Mulligan of the MIT Technology Review takes on the interesting idea that our most important customer is now AI. Hyoun and Charles discuss why this is so difficult as every AI is starting to establish its own preferences, biases, and limits. 

Source

MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/19/1112076/your-most-important-customer-may-be-ai/ 

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TWIET 49 – Feb. 12, 2025

This Week in Enterprise Technology, Episode 49, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech news for the CIO Office:

  1. Good News:  Ransomware Down 35%!
  2. AWS S3 Bucket Registrations: A Sneaky Backdoor Threat
  3. Zoho Day and the Race to Agentic AI
  4. Fei Fei Li: “It Takes 50 Dollars to Distill A Reasoning Model”
  5. Will Semiconductor Tariffs Force CIOs to Close the Deal?
  6. Is the CIO a Policy Strategist or Rubber Stamp?
  7. Will the Windows 10 Sunset Force AI PCs into the Workplace?
  8. CIOs Bullish on AI, IT Employees Not So Much
  9. Where Salesforce AI’s Super Bowl Ad Missed the Mark

Good News: Ransomware Down 35%!

Some good news from 2024: Ransomware payments were down 35% last year, as no new large cartels got into the business and law enforcement was better at tracing down threats. Are we safe now, or is this the calm before the storm? Charles and Hyoun put on their strategy hats and explore the future of Ransomware. 

Chainalysis: https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/crypto-crime-ransomware-victim-extortion-2025/ 

AWS S3 Bucket Registrations: a Sneaky Backdoor Threat

Watchtowr Labs found a lot of examples of software update and binary requests associated with abandoned S3 buckets that could have been replaced with malware or backdoor access. Hyoun and Charles discuss how challenging it has become to manage cloud infrastructure.  

Watchtowr: https://labs.watchtowr.com/8-million-requests-later-we-made-the-solarwinds-supply-chain-attack-look-amateur/ 

Zoho Day and the Race to Agentic AI

Zoho has introduced Zia AI Agents to automate tasks across its products, while Sridhar Vembu has stepped down as CEO. As long-time observers, Hyoun and Charles discuss what this makes for Zoho’s 900,000 global customers. 


CX Today: https://www.cxtoday.com/crm/zoho-previews-ai-agents-commits-to-low-pricing-shares-more-on-its-ceo-transition/ 

Fei-Fei Li: “It Takes 50 Dollars to Distill A Reasoning Model”

Researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington developed an AI reasoning model for under $50, training the s1 model with Gemini and Alibaba Qwen 2.5. Charles and Hyoun raise questions about the future of AI innovation, as smaller teams can cheaply replicate advanced models. 

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/05/researchers-created-an-open-rival-to-openais-o1-reasoning-model-for-under-50/ 

Will Semiconductor Tariffs Force CIOs to Close the Deal?

Tariffs are now a strategic concern for the CIO. Get your timing wrong and your data center costs could spike unexpectedly. With potential tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductor chips on the horizon, Charles and Hyoun debate the strategy and timing for purchasing new compute or just outsourcing to the cloud.

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/04/nvidia_trump_tariffs/ 

Is the CIO a Policy Strategist or a Rubber Stamp?

The Trump administration wants to change the CIO position from a “career-reserved” or merit-based position to a political appointment with the logic that the CIO ends up defining how policy is deployed. Charles and Hyoun consider how important the CIO should be considered as a strategic executive for deploying policy, or if the CIO should be considered a rubber stamp for the CEO’s work.

CHCOC.gov: https://tinyurl.com/OPMCIOMemo  

Will the Windows 10 Sunset Force AI PCs into the Workplace?

Now that Microsoft has announced a sunset date for Windows 10, CIOs need to figure out their next PC refresh. Of course Microsoft will push for AI-ready Windows 11 devices, with room for small or distilled models in the OS. Charles and Hyoun discuss the Microsoft AI PC strategy for the enterprise.

Paula Rooney on CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3812887/will-the-end-of-windows-10-accelerate-cio-interest-in-ai-pcs.html 

CIOs Bullish on AI, IT Employees Not So Much

IT employees are not excited about AI, but CIOs and CTOs believe they will soon be essential in businesses. However, many IT professionals are skeptical due to concerns about deployment challenges and past AI project failures. Charles and Hyoun debate the real time frames for realistic AI success. 

Grant Gross on CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3815935/cios-are-bullish-on-ai-agents-it-employees-not-so-much.html  

Where Salesforce AI’s Super Bowl Ad Missed the Mark

Salesforce’s ad featuring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson highlights the confusing role of AI in everyday life. Instead of solving real problems, the ad portrays a bizarre scenario where AI is needed for basic tasks like dining and making reservations. Hyoun and Charles ponder why AI ads are spending so much just to miss the mark. 

Defector: https://defector.com/salesforce-is-using-a-hallucination-to-sell-ai 

Salesforce AI Super Bowl Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4JNLL7U8H8

Google Gemini Super Bowl Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7e6g11BJc0

ServiceNow AI Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IqR735mAo4