Technology

Microsoft Edge Gets Business Upgrade

Posted on by Andy Miller

Billed as “the browser and search engine for business”, Microsoft’s new Chromium-powered version of Edge (and now more serious competitor to Google’s Chrome) is set to be released in January with new business-focused capabilities.

Chromium Source

Back in December 2018, Microsoft announced that it was adopting the Chromium open source project, which is the web rendering engine that powers Google Chrome.  This forms the basis for the new, upgraded version of Edge which many see as a serious attempt by Microsoft to make it more relevant, particularly to larger business customers, and compete more seriously with Google’s Chrome.

January 2020

The new business-focused version of Edge has only been released as ‘Beta version 79’ (the final Beta before it becomes a general “Release Candidate”), with the general release of the download of the stable version for Windows and macOS scheduled for 15 January 2020.

More Productive At Work

One of the key challenges that Microsoft says it’s trying to address with the improved version of Edge is difficulty in finding and accessing corporate information that is known to exist on company intranets.  With this in mind, Microsoft says that it has added “new experiences” to Microsoft Search in Bing such as enabling users to type in the address bar to search for people on the company Intranet, using natural language, such as by their title, team name and office location.

Also, users will be able to:

  • Search for office location and find answers that show floor plans for directions.
  • Get definitions for company acronyms.
  • Use a broad set of question and answers to find internal company information.

What Else?

Other business-focused features that the new version of Edge will offer are:

  • Expansion of Microsoft Graph connectors which expands the reach of Microsoft Search for 365 customers by adding over 100 connectors including Salesforce.com, ServiceNow, and Box. This will mean that business users can find more using Microsoft Search.
  • The ability to easily access Search in Bing on a mobile phone so that workers can search for company information on the go.
  • SmartScreen and Tracking prevention to protect users from phishing schemes, malicious software and new types of malware (crypto-jacking).
  • A new InPrivate mode for Microsoft Edge and Bing (for searching and browsing) to help improve privacy and security
  • A ‘Collections’ feature for Microsoft Edge to help users to collect web content, organise research and export that content into Word and Excel for analysis and collaborative working.

Extras For IT Professionals

The new version of Edge will also include some new features for IT professionals including the expansion of the Microsoft FastTrack deployment program to deploy the new Microsoft Edge in Q1 2020, the expansion of the App Assure program to cover Microsoft Edge in Q1 2020, and a new security baseline for the new Microsoft Edge.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The migration to Chromium last year was a clear sign that Microsoft was looking to make Edge browser a much more serious competitor to Google’s Chrome.  Microsoft has identified some key challenges that businesses (with Intranets and programs like Salesforce) have with accessing important company information through a browser search.  Microsoft has, therefore, incorporated some very business-focused, productivity-boosting solutions in this version of Edge that can help office and mobile/remote workers.  Focusing on the needs of business-users could help Microsoft maintain its position at the top of the business OS market as well as giving its Edge browser a long-overdue boost.

BBC Puts News On ‘Dark Web Browser’ To Avoid Censorship

Posted on by Andy Miller

The BBC has announced that it is making its International news website available via the ‘Tor’ browser (usually associated with the ‘dark web’), in order to get around censorship in other countries.

Blocking by Some Countries

The BBC is concerned that countries including China, Iran and Vietnam have tried to block access to its website or programmes in the past.

With this in mind, and with the BBC wanting to compete in the world broadcasting market and widen its audience, as well as wanting to maintain and extend the perception of its World Service as a trusted news source, the BBC has turned to the Tor browser as a way of stopping states from blocking/censoring its content.

Why Tor?

The ‘Tor’ browser, an acronym for ‘The Onion Router’ because of its many layers of encryption, is most well known as the browser that’s used to access the dark web. In these days of worries about privacy and the prying eyes of and rules imposed by states and their agencies, plus worries about cybercriminals and fraudsters, end-to-end encrypted communications channels have become more valuable and more widely available.

The Tor browser, which came out of a US Naval Research Laboratory (and which is partly funded by the US State Department) can hide a user’s location and identity due to its routing process through multiple node encryption points. Tor can, therefore, be used to browse the web (and dark web) anonymously, and to host hidden websites (with a .onion suffix).

International Edition On Tor

The BBC plans, therefore, to host a version of its international news website within Tor thereby evading restrictions imposed by others states and protecting the identity and quite possibly the safety of any viewers of that news who reside within a state where the BBC news online faces restrictions.

This version of the BBC’s international news website will not feature the BBC iPlayer service but will include foreign language services e.g. BBC Arabic, Persian and Russian.

Soft Power

The BBC’s World Service has been described by many as being part of the UK’s ‘soft power’ i.e. part of the UK’s ability to portray a certain image of itself overseas and to influence the thinking and action of others using the power of attraction as opposed to the power of coercion and threats.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

In western democracies and capitalist countries where certain freedoms of consumption are seen as good and necessary to maintain the market-based system, there is an interest in wishing to promote these values and beliefs around the world. This can lead to the widening of markets for goods, services and lifestyles as people in less open countries see them online or television, and this can be good news for businesses who are able to export.  Stable, open countries, with good diplomatic and trading relationships and freedom for communications, are good news for businesses who want to export or set up operations in those countries to gain access to bigger markets.

Sates that are seen to perhaps be more oppressive and authoritarian and which use censorship to maintain a certain power balance and message/perception of the outside world are likely to fear news reports and views which conflict with their own.  The BBC has found itself to be a global market media player as well as a national broadcaster with UK state interests and this, coupled with wider use of encrypted message and  web services have turned a browser that once had a dubious reputation (by association with the dark web) into a handy tool for accessing for expanding the corporation’s, the UK’s, and the democratised West’s reach into untapped market areas.  The hope would be that this would benefit the interests of all, including those citizens of censored states that are able to access a ‘trusted’ external news source for the first time in years.

Banking App Fraud On The Rise

Posted on by Andy Miller

A recent report from cyber-security company RSA has highlighted a significant rise in fraud via fake banking apps.

Number of Attacks Has Trebled

The Fraud and Risk Intelligence (FRI) team at RSA have noted a tripling of the number of fraud attacks via fake mobile banking apps in the first six months of this year with rogue mobile app fraud generally up by a staggering 191 per cent.

Fake Mobile Apps Exploit Digital Finance Trust

Not only did the 40,344 fraud attacks represent a 63 per cent rise, but 29 per cent of those attacks were recorded as coming from fake mobile apps.

In fact, the report identified an 80 per cent rise in the use of financial malware in the first half of this year, highlighting how cyber-criminals are using the transformation of finance to the digital world and the increasing trust of users in financial apps and digital financial transactions as a way in.

Changing

Tech and finance commentators have noted that as companies offer more convenient digitised financial initiatives to customers e.g. open banking, and as this has necessitated customers engaging in more digital touchpoints, it has led to a widening of the potential ‘attack surface’ that criminals can take advantage of.

Could Banks Do More?

An Immuniweb report from August this year noted that a massive 98 per cent of the world’s100 leading financial technology (fintech) startup companies are vulnerable to web and mobile app attacks, and that 97 of the 100 largest banks are also vulnerable to web and mobile attacks which could facilitate a breach of sensitive data.

The Immuniweb report also highlighted mobile financial apps as being a problem area with all mobile apps tested showing at least one ‘medium risk’ security vulnerability, and 97 per cent having at least two medium/high-risk vulnerabilities. The tests also showed that over 50 per cent of mobile app backends have serious SSL/TLS misconfigurations or privacy issues which could be traced to not having robust-enough web server security.

This has led to some speculation that banks and other financial organisations could be doing more to help close potential security loopholes in their apps, thereby offering better protection to customers.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Mobile apps offer banks and other financial organisations a way to offer convenience and added value to their customers who want to be able to manage their finances on the go. However, legitimate app security problems, a proliferation of fake/rogue financial apps and a widening of the potential attack plane that this brings to consumers who increasingly trust their finances to mobile digital transactions have increased the attack plane and the risks that businesses and consumers face.

As users of banking and other financial apps, we can help protect ourselves by sticking to some basic security procedures such as not clicking on links in unfamiliar messages or texts (to avoid loading malware), keeping a close eye on our bank transactions, and by being very cautious when downloading apps of any kind. For example, to minimise the risk of falling victim rogue/fake apps, you should check the publisher of an app, check which permissions the app requests when you install it, delete any apps from your phone that you no longer use, and contact your phone’s service provider or visit the high street store if you think you’ve downloaded a malicious/suspect app.

Dyson Scraps “Not Commercially Viable” Electric Car

Posted on by Andy Miller

Dyson has scrapped its £2.5 billion ‘N526’ electric car project with Sir James Dyson announcing that it was “not commercially viable”.

So Close

The project, which could be traced back to 1993 with the development of a cyclonic vehicle exhaust that could 95 cut per cent of harmful emissions, evolved into the full-blown development of Dyson’s own electric car.  The ‘N526’ project employed 500 UK workers (aimed to roll out the first vehicles for sale in 2021) had a driveable prototype, and was on the verge of kitting-out its production factory in Singapore before the plug was pulled on what some saw as the founder’s expensive “vanity project”.

Battery Work To Continue

Despite the project to build a whole car being scrapped, Dyson has announced that work will continue on improving the battery technology that would have been used in the car.  Dyson had originally planned to invest £1 billion in development of the car and invest another £1 billion in developing the electric battery technology, something that was closer to its existing business.

Even though there was great sadness among Dyson employees, and a question mark hangs over the future of those employed in the UK electric car division, Sir James Dyson said that his company had successfully built a “fantastic electric car”.

What Went Wrong?

Producing vehicles and competing in a car market where there are already well-established and experienced car companies such as Volkswagen that is spending £50 billion on its own electric vehicle requires massive amounts of money, capital investment, and the addition of different core skills and competencies to the ones that Dyson has.  Also, Singapore (compared to China or Malaysia) looked likely to be an expensive place to manufacture the vehicles.

Even though Dyson’s team was able to relatively quickly produce a working prototype, and convince some media commentators that it would become a serious challenger with a high-risk, high level of difficulty ‘new product in a new market’, it looks likely that the numbers didn’t add up and Dyson chose to ‘stick to the knitting’ (its core business) and not to risk the whole company and its brand on the expensive venture.

Harley Davidson Too

Just as Dyson announced that it was scrapping its electric car project, U.S. motorcycle giant Harley-Davidson announced that it was halting production of its first electric motorbike.  In Harley Davidson’s case though, the stopping of production was down to an issue with its charging system.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Sir James Dyson’s positive view of this being more of change of direction of a project (which is not likely to be the last change of direction) must mask some sadness that the company came so close to producing an electric car which may have been well received on the back of the company’s adventurous and innovative image.  The numbers, however, simply wouldn’t stack up, and the announcement of Dyson pulling the plug is unlikely to have come as a major surprise to the long-established automotive players who know just what it takes to produce, supply and compete successfully in the car market.  That said, relatively new car market players and likely of competitor of Dyson, Tesla has established itself as a real contender in the electric car market with its Model 3.

Digital ‘Pressure’ For Accountants

Posted on by Andy Miller

A report by IT company Prism Solutions has highlighted how traditional accountancy firms are having to change rapidly to meet challenges such as Cloud computing, GDPR and HMRC pressing quickly ahead with ‘Making Tax Digital’ (MTD).

MTD

According to the report, the whole accountancy profession is now on the verge of an evolutionary change and accountancy firms will need to develop into digital practices in order to compete and survive.

One of the key change drivers and challenges for accountancy firms is HMRC’s ongoing ‘Making Tax Digital’(MTD) initiative which has been designed to eradicate paper from the tax filing process and to make the UK tax system more effective, efficient and easier for taxpayers to use.

The fact that an estimated 1.2 million businesses are subject to the MTD VAT rules (for VAT periods starting on or after 1 April 2019 or 1 October 2019 for organisations which are more complex), must now keep VAT records in a digital format and submit their VAT returns to HMRC using MTD compatible software (yet can’t do so using HMRC’s website) means that they are turning to accountancy firms to submit the returns on their behalf.  This leaves accountancy firms with new challenges such as having to adapt quickly to a different type of interaction with their clients who are looking for accountants to be experts on the digital process and to provide instant service and issue resolution. Accountancy firms are also facing possible problems if HMRC doesn’t do enough to communicate MTD to relevant businesses.

Always On

The Prism Solutions report highlights how accountancy clients now expect technology to be ‘always on’ 24/7 and that the ability of an accountancy firms’ productivity to be able to connect with their clients in real-time, and offer access to real-time data that’s always on is an important way in which they can deliver an exceptional client experience.

Other Challenges

The Prism report also notes that, just as Cloud computing, GDPR, and MTD are already having an impact on accountancy, other emerging challenges to the profession include the development of AI technologies, blockchain and crypto-currencies.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Having to digitise accounts is providing challenges to both businesses and accountancy firms and looks set to change aspects of the relationship between the two.  Accountancy firms are realising that embracing all forms of ‘digital’ is a key enabler to enhancing productivity, and that becoming part of the digital revolution with their clients will enable them to not just offer a better service, but also to grow as they take advantage of new revenue-generating opportunities and position themselves as the go-to adviser for their clients.

As well as expecting ‘always-on’ service and digital expertise from accountancy firms, business customers will still want to use their accountants as a source of business advice for business planning, strategy, and market development (for example), and getting better at using digitisation to do this could be another way in which accountants could keep delivering value to businesses.

PayPal Drops Out of Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency

Posted on by Andy Miller

PayPal has announced that it is not going to be a part of the Switzerland-based Libra Association that is overseeing the introduction of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency.

What Is Libra?

Libra is a cryptocurrency, designed and coded by Facebook, that will enable payments to be made by a special phone app and by messaging services such as WhatsApp so that spending the new currency could be as easy and fast as texting.  Libra was announced as being targeted at the 1.7 billion adults worldwide who do not have a bank account (unbanked).

Unlike other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Libra will offer the security from massive value fluctuation by being asset-backed and pegged to other currencies and it will not have a traditional bank ‘middleman’, therefore enabling fast and frictionless transactions.

Units of Libra units can be purchased via Libra’s platforms and stored it in a digital wallet called “Calibra”.

Libra Association

The Libra Association, which PayPal has just left, is a 28-member (now 27) association of multinational companies and non-profits, hoping to grow to 100 or more members.  The Libra Association, based in Switzerland will be responsible for the management of Libra and members of the Association include Mastercard, eBay, Spotify, Uber, Vodafone, and a variety of charities such as Women’s World Banking.

Why Has PayPal Left?

PayPal has not given a clear reason why it has left the Libra Association, but there is speculation among some commentators that it may be due to PayPal wanting to distance its brand from the fact that regulators, particularly in Washington and Brussels, appear to be concerned that the Libra project could be seen as a means to bypass rules relating to money laundering and tax evasion.  There is also speculation that PayPal may have been concerned that Facebook executives haven’t paid attention to PR that could counter much of the initial criticism of Libra.

PayPal has said, however, that “We remain supportive of Libra’s aspirations and look forward to continued dialogue on ways to work together in the future”.

Others?

There are also press reports that other Association members such as Mastercard, Visa, and digital payment platform and processor Stripe may be considering leaving the Libra Association due to concerns about the suggestions that Libra could potentially be used for money laundering to tax evasion.

France Says No

In September, France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said that the development of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency will be blocked in Europe unless concerns over risks to consumers and to the monetary systems of countries can be addressed.

Warnings and Concerns

Back in July, finance chiefs from the Group of Seven democracies warned that cryptocurrencies like Libra would have to address “serious regulatory and systemic concerns” before they would be allowed.  Also, President Trump has said in a Tweet that he isn’t a fan of Libra, and central bank chiefs, including Mark Carney have also expressed concerns about Libra.

Some sceptical commentators have also noted that Libra may be less about money and blockchain anyway but more about gathering more information about the identity of clients.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Libra is now coming under increased scrutiny, and the mention of phrases like ‘money laundering’ or ‘tax evasion’ appear to be enough to scare some of the big financial brands away from the Libra project, at least until regulators’ questions have been answered and the heat has died down.  The fact that a big name like PayPal has pulled out, with other big names such as Mastercard and Visa looking likely to follow is undoubtedly going to be a big blow to the image and credibility of Libra, although the Libra Association still has 25+ other members and is hoping to grow this to include 100 or so other big names.

Countries and banks are clearly worried by the possible shift in control to big business that Libra could bring, and this shift in control could have a number of effects on the business environment and the economies of countries if Libra proves to be popular.

Even though Libra users are not intended to be businesses, if Libra does help the ‘unbanked’ this could have a knock-on effect in helping that segment of society to buy more goods and services, thereby helping businesses and the economy.

AI and the Fake News War

Posted on by Andy Miller

In a “post-truth” era, AI is one of the many protective tools and weapons involved in the battles that male up the current, ongoing “fake news” war.

Fake News

Fake news has become widespread in recent years, most prominently with the UK Brexit referendum, the 2017 UK general election, and the U.S. presidential election, all of which suffered interference in the form of so-called ‘fake news’ / misinformation spread via Facebook which appears to have affected the outcomes by influencing voters. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, where over 50 million Facebook profiles were illegally shared and harvested to build a software program to generate personalised political adverts led to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg appearing before the U.S. Congress to discuss how Facebook is tackling false reports. A video that was shared via Facebook, for example (which had 4 million views before being taken down), falsely suggested that smart meters emit radiation levels that are harmful to health. The information in the video was believed by many even though it was false.

Government Efforts

The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has published a report (in February) on Disinformation and ‘fake news’ highlighting how “Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms”.  The UK government has, therefore, been calling for a shift in the balance of power between “platforms and people” and for tech companies to adhere to a code of conduct written into law by Parliament and overseen by an independent regulator.

Fact-Checking

One way that social media companies have sought to tackle the concerns of governments and users is to buy-in fact-checking services to weed out fake news from their platforms.  For example, back in January London-based, registered charity ‘Full Fact’ announced that it would be working for Facebook, reviewing stories, images and videos to tackle misinformation that could “damage people’s health or safety or undermine democratic processes”.

Moderation

A moderator-led response to fake news is one option, but its reliance upon humans means that this approach has faced criticism over its vulnerability to personal biases and perspectives.

Automation and AI

Many now consider automation and AI to be an approach and a technology that are ‘intelligent’, fast, and scalable enough to start to tackle the vast amount of fake news that is being produced and circulated.  For example, Google and Microsoft have been using AI to automatically assess the truth of articles.  Also, initiatives like the Fake News Challenge (http://www.fakenewschallenge.org/) seeks to explore how AI technologies, particularly machine learning and natural language processing, can be leveraged to combat fake news, and supports the idea that AI technologies hold promise for significantly automating parts of the procedure human fact-checkers use to determine if a story is real or a hoax.

However, the human-written rules underpinning AI, and how AI is ‘trained’ can also lead to bias.

Deepfake Videos

Deepfake videos are an example of how AI can be used to create fake news in the first place.  Deepfake videos use deep learning technology and manipulated images of target individuals (found online), often celebrities, politicians, and other well-known people to create an embarrassing or scandalous video. Deepfake audio can also be manipulated in a similar way.  Deepfake videos aren’t just used to create fake news sources, but they can also be used by cyber-criminals for extortion.

AI Voice

There has also been a case in March this year, where a group of hackers were able to use AI software to mimic an energy company CEO’s voice in order to steal £201,000.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Fake news is a real and growing threat, as has been demonstrated in the use of Facebook to disseminate fake news during the UK referendum, the 2017 UK general election, and the U.S. presidential election. State-sponsored politically targeted campaigns can have a massive influence on an entire economy, whereas other fake news campaigns can affect public attitudes to ideas and people and can lead to many other complex problems.

Moderation and automated AI may both suffer from bias, but at least they are both ways in which fake news can be tackled, to an extent.  Through adding fact-checking services, other monitoring, and software-based approaches e.g. through browsers, social media and other tech companies can take responsibility for weeding out and guarding against fake news.

Governments can also help in the fight by putting pressure on social media companies and by collaborating with them to keep the momentum going and to help develop and monitor ways to keep tackling fake news.

That said, it’s still a big problem, no solution is infallible, and all of us as individuals would do well to remember that, especially today, you really can’t believe everything you read and an eye to source and bias of news coupled with a degree of scepticism can often be healthy.

AI and Facial Analysis Job Interviews

Posted on by Andy Miller

Reports of the first job interviews conducted in the UK using Artificial Intelligence and facial analysis technology have been met with mixed reactions.

The Software

The AI and facial analysis technology used for the interviews comes from US firm HireVue. The main products available from HireVue for interviewing are Pre-Employment Assessments and Video Interviewing.

For the Pre-Employment Assessments, the software uses AI, video game technology, and game-based and coding challenges to collect candidate insights related to work style, how the candidate works with people, and general cognitive ability. The Assessments are customisable to specific hiring objectives or ready to deploy based on pre-validated models. The data points are analysed by HireVue’s proprietary machine learning algorithms, and the insights gained are intended to enable businesses to save time and use recruitment resources more effectively by enabling businesses to quickly prioritise which candidates to shortlist for interviews.

The Video Interviewing product uses real-time evaluation tools and can assess around 25,000 data points in one interview.  During interviews, candidates are asked to answer pre-scripted questions with HireVue Live offering a real-time collaborative video interview that can involve a whole recruitment team. The benefits of on-demand video-based assessments, which can be conducted in less than 30 minutes, are that recruiters and managers don’t have to synchronize candidates and calendars, and can evaluate more candidates, thereby being able to spend their time deciding between the best candidates.

Who Is Using The Software?

According to HireVue, 700+ companies use the software (not all in the UK) including Vodafone, Urban Outfitters, Intel, Ikea, Hilton, Unilever, Singapore Airlines, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. It has been reported, however, that the technology has already been used for 100,000 interviews in the UK.

Concerns

Even though there are obvious on-demand expertise, time and cost savings for companies, and HireVue displays case studies from satisfied customers on its website, AI and facial analysis technology use in interviews has been met with criticism by privacy and rights groups.

For example, it has been reported that Big Brother Watch representatives have voiced concerns about the ethics of using this method, possible bias and discrimination (if the AI hasn’t been trained on a diverse-enough range of people), and that unconventional but still good potential candidates could fall foul of algorithms that can’t take account of the complexities of human speech, body language and expression.

Robot Interviewer

Back in March, it was reported that TNG and Furhat Robotics in Sweden have developed a social, unbiased recruitment robot called “Tengai” that can be used to conduct job interviews with human candidates. The basic robot was developed several years ago and looks like an internally projected human face on a white head sitting on top of a speaker (with camera and microphone built-in).  The robot is made with pre-built expressions and gestures as part of a pre-loaded OS which can be further customised to fit any character, and the HR-tech application software that Tengai uses means that it can conduct situation and skill-based interviews in a way that is as close as possible to a human interviewer. This includes using “hum”, nodding its head, and asking follow-up questions.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Like the Swedish Tengai robot Interviews, the HireVue Pre-Employment Assessment (and possibly the video) appear to be have been designed to be used at the early part of the recruitment process as a way of enabling big companies to quickly create a shortlist of candidates to focus on. As businesses become used to, and realise the value of outsourcing as a way of making better use of resources and buying in scalable and on-demand skills and resources, it appears that bigger companies are also willing to trust new technology to the point where they outsource expertise and human judgement in exchange for the promise of better, and more cost-effective recruitment management.

AI, facial recognition, and other related new technologies and algorithms are being trusted and adopted more by big businesses which also need to remember, for the benefit of themselves and their customers and job candidates that they need to make sure that bias is minimised, and that technology is unlikely to be able to pick up on every (potentially important) nuance of human behaviour and speech.  It should never be forgotten that we each have the most powerful, amazing and perceptive ‘computer’ available in the form of our own brain, and for vast amount of medium and small businesses that probably can’t afford or don’t want to use AI to choose recruits, experienced human interviewers can also make good recruitment decisions.

That said, as technology progresses, AI-based recruitment systems are likely to improve by gaining their own experience, and be augmented, and become more widely available and affordable to the point that they become a standard first challenge for job applicants in many situations.

Report Says Public Cloud May Double In Just Four Years

Posted on by Andy Miller

The new cloud market report from the Synergy Research Group shows that cloud-associated markets, such as the public cloud, are growing at rates ranging from 10% to over 40% and the annual spending on the cloud may double in four years.

IaaS & PaaS Biggest Growth

Synergy’s half-yearly report shows that, across the seven key cloud service and infrastructure market segments, revenues for operator and vendors in the first half of 2019 exceeded $150 billion, which is a rise in growth of 24% from the first half of 2018.

The biggest area of growth in the cloud infrastructure sector was in the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) market segments where there was a massive 44% growth rate.  IaaS is online, virtualised computing resources over the internet, and PaaS is where a provider hosts the hardware and software on its own infrastructure with PaaS products enabling developers to build custom applications online without having to worry about data serving, storage, and management.

The Synergy report also showed growth rates of enterprise SaaS at 27%, UCaaS at 23% and hosted private cloud infrastructure services at 20%.  The report also shows that spending on cloud services is now much greater than spending on supporting data centre infrastructure.

Infrastructure Investments

In the first half of 2019, cloud service provides spent $55 billion on the hardware and software used to build cloud infrastructure (evenly split between public and private clouds).  These infrastructure investments helped cloud service providers to generate over $90 billion in revenues from their cloud infrastructure services (IaaS, PaaS, hosted private cloud services) and enterprise SaaS.

Leaders

The Synergy report shows that the leaders in the IaaS and PaaS segments in the first half of 2019 are Microsoft, Amazon/AWS, Dell EMC, Cisco, HPE and Google.  Back in February, Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) reported a massive 45% growth in the revenue of the fourth quarter, mostly fuelled by big profits in its public cloud arm.

Other big names in that market segment include Salesforce, Adobe, VMware, IBM, Digital Realty, Equinix and Rackspace.

All these big players together account for over half of all cloud-related revenues.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The public cloud is being embraced by businesses as they seek to outsource and ditch traditional capital investment and maintenance problems and costs while reaping the benefits of having the pay-as-you-go scalability, security, and outsourced expertise that allows them to free up more of their own resources.  Cloud service providers are now investing heavily to win large slices of the cloud market with Amazon and Microsoft as market leaders, and as the Synergy report shows, this investment is delivering big revenues and impressive growth rates, particularly in the IaaS and PaaS market segments.

AI Destined For McDonald’s Drive-Throughs

Posted on by Andy Miller

The acquisition of AI voice recognition start-up Apprente by the McDonalds franchise gives the restaurant chain its own Silicon Valley technology division and promises an automated ordering system for drive-throughs, self-order interfaces and the mobile app.

Apprente

Apprente is a Silicon Valley-based start-up (founded 2017, Mountain View, California) that specialises in making customer service chatbots.  Its acquisition by McDonald’s gives the restaurant chain its own AI-powered voice-based conversational system that can handle human-level interactions, thereby helping improve the speed and accuracy of orders.

It is thought that the Apprente system will not completely replace the traditional front of house staff, but may be used in mobile ordering or kiosks i.e. added to drive-through kiosks or sited nearby (and added to the mobile app) so that that food can be ordered by the customer’s voice, and transcripts of the order can be given to staff to ensure that the order is correct.  The transcript may also be presented or read to the customer when they pick the order up minutes later.  The technology may, therefore, provide time-saving, accuracy, and convenience benefits to both customers and staff.

Why?

There are a few key reasons why McDonald’s has gone down the tech route with its order taking.  These include:

  1. Competition from home delivery companies.
  2. 70 per cent of the company’s orders come through its drive-throughs but some reports show that McDonald’s may be relatively slow in getting its drive-through food orders out.  For example, a recent report (Oches’ 2019) shows that while the average wait in a Burger King drive-through is over 193 seconds, the waiting time in McDonald’s is considerably longer at 273 seconds.  McDonald’s ranked the tenth and slowest fast-food company in that report, but the addition of the voice-based conversational system could help speed things up.
  3. To give McDonald’s a technology development centre, the McD Tech Labs in Silicon Valley so that the restaurant chain can keep adding value through new technology and stay ahead in the market.

Other Acquisitions

McDonald’s has also recently acquired customer services personalisation company and AI start-up ‘Dynamic Yield’. With this deal, worth more than £240 million, McDonald’s can use the decision-logic technology to create drive-through menus tailored to its customers based on the time of the day, trends, previous choices and other factors.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For customers, the deployment of the new voice-recognition technology in addition to the Dynamic Yield (already deployed in 8,000 US drive-throughs) should make ordering food a faster and better experience.

For McDonald’s, the addition of the new technology and of a tech base in Silicon Valley to develop more of the same should help it to compete in a market that’s getting busier with companies that are using technology to reach customers and satisfy the same need for fast gratification.  The value-adding technology (combined with the fact that McDonald’s have a restaurant in most towns with a standardised and trusted product and brand) means that McDonald’s is taking steps to ensure that it stays ahead in a future where technology is an important competitive advantage in fast food delivery.   The new technology may also help McDonald’s address its current need to get orders ready more quickly and accurately while adding a novelty factor, talking point, and perceived advantage among customers.