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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-2b3602a5
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Shares of big tech companies have coasted through this year on AI euphoria, but as Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. prepare to report results this week, some investors are starting to ask how much those AI advancements might actually cost.
Those questions have surfaced after several months during simply saying “AI” on earnings calls appeared to be enough for investors. If the economy sours though — as some expect in the second half of this year or next year — big tech’s AI ambitions could go with it.
“Given the exorbitant costs associated with the development, hosting and serving of AI products, many investors are concerned about the potential for [fiscal 2024] commentary regarding a material increase,” Jefferies analyst Brent Thill wrote, according to a MarketWatch earnings preview for Microsoft’s
MSFT,
results.
Microsoft and Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
GOOG,
which both report on Tuesday, have been in heated competition in the world of online search and digital advertisements, as Microsoft leans more on its massive investments in research lab OpenAI to muscle up its own search capabilities. But a Deutsche Bank analyst said that so far, Google appears to have the upper hand in that battle.
Still, for Microsoft, after a broader pullback in IT spending earlier this year, analysts have found more to like about its cloud-computing business — namely market-share gains, generally-sturdy demand, and whatever ways AI can fit into the equation. Wolfe Research analyst Alex Zukin, in a recent note, said he believed “the focus will turn from what is good enough, to how good can it be,” as Microsoft moves deeper into AI.
“How good can it be?” might also be a question for Meta
META,
which reports second-quarter results on Wednesday.
Shares of the social-media company have more than doubled in value so far this year. JMP analyst Andrew Boone, in a recent note, cited likely improvements in Meta’s digital ad segment, better engagement, and a broader advertising backdrop that “appears to be stable” after a slowdown in spending, Still, there are signs that the initial user attraction to Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, has fizzled.
For the week ahead, 166 companies in the S&P 500 index report results, including 12 from the Dow, according to FactSet. Among them are Domino’s Pizza Inc.
DPZ,
which now plans to deliver pizza via Uber Eats after years of chafing at third-party delivery apps. Industrials General Electric Co.
GE,
and 3M Co.
MMM,
also report, after 3M agreed to pay $10.3 billion to settle accusations it was responsible for so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
Quick-service restaurant chains Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.
CMG,
and McDonald’s Corp.
MCD,
also report, with BofA analysts expecting an “almost normal” quarter for the industry, after spending at chain restaurants grew last month and costs for some ingredients started to ease following two years of supply disruptions. Auto makers General Motors Co.
GM,
and Ford Motor Co.
F,
also report, and while parts shortages that have constrained vehicle production have shown signs of fading, so has electric-vehicle “euphoria.”
Visa, Mastercard: Earlier this month executives from the big banks said U.S. consumers are generally doing OK despite still-rampant inflation, although perhaps less OK than in prior months. This week credit-card giants Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. report results on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. The profit, sales and credit-card volume figures from Visa
V,
and Mastercard
MA,
will offer more specifics on consumer spending, as vacations and concerts compete with more expensive and more pressing needs, like groceries and other bills.
Shares of Visa and Mastercard are up so far this year, but some analysts said there could be more room investors to step in. SVB MoffettNathanson analyst Lisa Ellis recently said shares of both companies were hovering at “unusually attractive” levels.
Mattel outlook, and anything ‘Barbie’-related: The “Barbie” movie hit theaters nationwide on Friday. And after an epic marketing campaign, Mattel Inc.’s investors, banking on the film to drive a rebound for the toy maker during the second half of this year, will be zeroed in on the box-office results following the film’s debut on Friday.
Expectations for the film are huge. And when Mattel
MAT,
reports second-quarter results on Wednesday, executives could offer the first answers to some big questions: Has the film helped revive toy sales? Sales for anything else? Will the “Barbenheimer” effect help or hurt financials?
The film — directed by Greta Gerwig, written Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling — brings together two writers with indie bona fides and two actors with mainstream starpower. Reviews so far have been favorable, and Barbie is already Mattel’s most profitable franchise. But the movie isn’t directly geared toward children, movie theaters have struggled to get back on track after pandemic lockdowns, and toy demand through this year has been weak after ballooning during the pandemic. And some analysts don’t expect “Barbie” to do much for Mattel’s stock.
Emily Bary and Jon Swartz contributed reporting to this story.
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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., July 20, 2023 (Newswire.com)
–
BrainGu, a technology company driving innovation through platforms that deliver resilience, scalability, reliability, and security, has been awarded a transformative five-year sole-source IDIQ with a contract ceiling of $125 million to provide cutting-edge Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) capabilities to support the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).
The IDIQ is a Small Business Innovation Research Phase III award that includes the deployment of a cloud-based command and control environment, bolstering the ABMS capabilities for enhanced operational effectiveness. BrainGu will leverage its expertise in DevSecOps and cloud-native software through its DevSecOps platform StructsureTM, on-premises, in the cloud, and at the edge, across various security classification levels.
As part of this landmark contract, BrainGu will provide a comprehensive suite of products, and support services, including Structsure with Platform One Big Bang at its core, Mission Application Development, DevSecOps Advisory, and Special Projects, all productized and offered through firm fixed-price items. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has initially awarded a task order worth $25 million in research, development, test, and evaluation funds for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, underscoring the strategic significance of this partnership for JADC2 initiatives.
“America faces a unique, global challenge as it works to stand up a vast and complex network to connect users in the field with mission-critical data from sensors on the other side of the world,” said BrainGu CEO John “Spence” Spencer-Taylor. “The Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contract signals a clear desire by DoD to establish an innovative platform where new information and leading-edge technologies can be rapidly integrated and utilized. BrainGu’s work in support of Platform One and WIDOW did just that by showcasing how our Structsure platform can transform performance, security, and usability challenges into opportunities. I’m thrilled with the partnership that the Air Force has developed with BrainGu through AFWERX and ABMS. I’m really excited to see how we can take this to the next level by getting these capabilities into the hands of more teams in both government and industry as the JADC2 ecosystem continues to evolve.”
BrainGu continues to establish itself as an industry leader in software innovation, driving further commercialization of key rugged technologies for DevSecOps in mission-critical environments. The company’s unwavering commitment to bringing innovation to regulation-heavy industries and its proven track record have positioned BrainGu as a trusted partner for government and commercial entities alike.
About BrainGu:
BrainGu is a technology company specializing in developer-centric DevSecOps platforms and operator-driven mission applications. We solve complex challenges by taking a human approach to incubating and scaling technologies that solve real-world problems in the hands of operators and mission owners. BrainGu’s platforms deliver resilient, scalable, repeatable, and secure solutions at the speed of relevance. We deliver results in weeks, not years.
Source: BrainGu
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and major consumer technology players on Tuesday launched an effort to put a nationwide cybersecurity certification and labeling program in place to help consumers choose smart devices that are less vulnerable to hacking.
Officials likened the new U.S. Cyber Trust Mark initiative — to be overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, with industry participation voluntary — to the Energy Star program, which rates appliances’ energy efficiency.
“It will allow Americans to confidently identify which internet- and Bluetooth-connected devices are cybersecure,” deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters in a pre-announcement briefing.
Amazon, Best Buy, Google, LG Electronics USA, Logitech and Samsung as among industry participants.
Devices including baby monitors, home security cameras, fitness trackers, TVs, refrigerators and smart climate control systems that meet the U.S. government’s cybersecurity requirements will bear the “Cyber Trust” label, a shield logo, as early as next year, officials said.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the mark will give consumers “peace of mind” and benefit manufacturers, whose products would need to adhere to criteria set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to qualify.
The FCC was launching a rule-making process to set the standards and seek public comment. Besides carrying logos, participating devices would have QR codes that could be scanned for updated security information.
In a statement, the Consumer Technology Association said consumers could expect to see certification-ready products at the industry’s annual January show, CES 2024, once the FCC adopts final rules. A senior Biden administration official said it was expected that products that qualify for the logo would undergo an annual re-certification.
The Cyber Trust initiative was first announced in October following a meeting between White House and tech industry representatives.
The proliferation of so-called smart — or Internet of Things — devices has coincided with growing cybercrime in which one insecure IoT device can often give a cyberintruder a dangerous foothold on a home network.
An April report from the cybersecurity firm Bitdefender and networking equipment company NetGear, based on their monitoring of smart homes, found that the most vulnerable IoT devices in 2022 were, far and away, smart TVs, followed by smart plugs, routers and digital video recorders.
Providers of numerous smart home devices often don’t update and patch software fast enough to thwart newly emerging malware threats. The Cyber Mark standards are expected to make clear which devices patch vulnerable software in a timely fashion and secure their communications to preserve privacy, officials said. Also important will be informing consumers which devices are equipped to detect intrusions.
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Funds associated with Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment continued to cull shares of Coinbase Global Inc. and Tesla Inc. on Monday, according to recent trade disclosures.
The ARK Fintech Innovation ETF
ARKF,
dumped 76,788 Coinbase shares
COIN,
on the day, while the ARK Innovation ETF
ARKK,
sold 127,266 and the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF
ARKW,
sold 44,784 shares.
Those were worth $26.3 million based on Coinbase’s Monday closing price of $105.55, and the sales follow ARK’s move to dump about $50 million in Coinbase’s stock Friday.
Coinbase represents 0.78% of the Fintech Innovation ETF, along with 0.15% of the Innovation ETF and 0.30% of the Next Generation Internet ETF. ARK disclosed the transactions and weightings in the daily trade notifications it posts to its website.
Read: Coinbase’s spectacular stock surge after Ripple ruling sparks fierce debate
Meanwhile, the ARK Innovation ETF shed 38,329 Tesla shares
TSLA,
on Monday, while the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF sold 6,855. Those shares were worth $13.1 million based on Tesla’s Monday closing level of $290.38. Tesla represents about 0.12% of both funds as they continue to unload shares.
Don’t miss: Tesla is looking at its best sales quarter ever
ARK scooped up 455 shares of Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
within its Next Generation Internet ETF and bought up 3,729 shares within the ARK Innovation ETF. That amounted to $1.3 million worth of stock based on Meta’s $310.62 Monday close.
Two ARK funds bought a combined $790 million in Robinhood Markets Inc.’s stock
HOOD,
with the fintech fund scooping up 25,641 shares and the Next Generation Internet ETF buying 37,630 shares. ARK added 4,608 shares of SoFi Technologies Inc.
SOFI,
to the fintech fund, worth $43,683 based on Monday’s close.
See also: SoFi’s stock catches another downgrade as analyst says it ‘needs to be valued more like a bank’
ARK was also active in shares of Twilio Inc.
TWLO,
buying 15,702 within the Fintech Innovation ETF, 133,499 within the Innovation ETF and 22,748 within the Next Generation Internet ETF. That amounted to $11.4 million in Twilio’s stock based on Monday’s $66.47 closing price.
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Elon Musk says Twitter is losing cash because advertising is still down sharply and the social media company is carrying heavy debt
FILE – A Twitter app icon on a mobile phone is displayed April 26, 2017, in Philadelphia. Meta is poised to launch a new app that appears to mimic Twitter, marking a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk. A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple’s App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday, July 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
The Associated Press
Elon Musk says Twitter is still losing cash because advertising has dropped by half.
In a reply to a tweet offering business advice, Musk tweeted Saturday, “We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”
“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he concluded.
Ever since he took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal last fall, Musk has tried to reassure advertisers who were concerned about the ouster of top executives, widespread layoffs and a different approach to content moderation. Some high-profile users who had been banned were allowed back on the site.
In April, Musk said most of the advertisers who left had returned and that the company might become cash-flow positive in the second quarter.
In May, he hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal executive with deep ties to the advertising industry.
But since then, Twitter has upset some users by imposing new limits on how many tweets they can view in a day, and some users complained that they were locked out of the site. Musk said the restrictions were needed to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.
Twitter got a new competitor this month when Facebook owner Meta launched a text-focused app, Threads, and gained tens of millions of sign-ups in a few days. Twitter responded by threatening legal action.
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Elon Musk says Twitter is losing cash because advertising is still down sharply and the social media company is carrying heavy debt
FILE – A Twitter app icon on a mobile phone is displayed April 26, 2017, in Philadelphia. Meta is poised to launch a new app that appears to mimic Twitter, marking a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk. A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple’s App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday, July 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
The Associated Press
Elon Musk says Twitter is still losing cash because advertising has dropped by half.
In a reply to a tweet offering business advice, Musk tweeted Saturday, “We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”
“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he concluded.
Ever since he took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal last fall, Musk has tried to reassure advertisers who were concerned about the ouster of top executives, widespread layoffs and a different approach to content moderation. Some high-profile users who had been banned were allowed back on the site.
In April, Musk said most of the advertisers who left had returned and that the company might become cash-flow positive in the second quarter.
In May, he hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal executive with deep ties to the advertising industry.
But since then, Twitter has upset some users by imposing new limits on how many tweets they can view in a day, and some users complained that they were locked out of the site. Musk said the restrictions were needed to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.
Twitter got a new competitor this month when Facebook owner Meta launched a text-focused app, Threads, and gained tens of millions of sign-ups in a few days. Twitter responded by threatening legal action.
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Elon Musk says Twitter is losing cash because advertising is still down sharply and the social media company is carrying heavy debt
FILE – A Twitter app icon on a mobile phone is displayed April 26, 2017, in Philadelphia. Meta is poised to launch a new app that appears to mimic Twitter, marking a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk. A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple’s App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday, July 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
The Associated Press
Elon Musk says Twitter is still losing cash because advertising has dropped by half.
In a reply to a tweet offering business advice, Musk tweeted Saturday, “We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”
“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he concluded.
Ever since he took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal last fall, Musk has tried to reassure advertisers who were concerned about the ouster of top executives, widespread layoffs and a different approach to content moderation. Some high-profile users who had been banned were allowed back on the site.
In April, Musk said most of the advertisers who left had returned and that the company might become cash-flow positive in the second quarter.
In May, he hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal executive with deep ties to the advertising industry.
But since then, Twitter has upset some users by imposing new limits on how many tweets they can view in a day, and some users complained that they were locked out of the site. Musk said the restrictions were needed to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.
Twitter got a new competitor this month when Facebook owner Meta launched a text-focused app, Threads, and gained tens of millions of sign-ups in a few days. Twitter responded by threatening legal action.
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These reports, excerpted and edited by Barron’s, were issued recently by investment and research firms. The reports are a sampling of analysts’ thinking; they should not be considered the views or recommendations of Barron’s. Some of the reports’ issuers have provided, or hope to provide, investment-banking or other services to the companies being analyzed.
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The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday asked an appeals court to temporarily block Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. while it challenges a ruling earlier this week green-lighting the deal.
The FTC on Thursday asked U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley to postpone her ruling — which she promptly denied — and also appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to pause the acquisition “to preserve the status quo” while the case is reviewed, claiming it is likely to succeed in its appeal.
According to the filing, the FTC claims the judge applied the wrong legal standard to its request for a preliminary injunction, and erred in a number of other matters.
The deal is set to close in the coming days, and letting it happen will “irreparably harm the public interest and the FTC,” regulators said.
Also see: GOP blasts FTC Chair Khan as a ‘bully’ after agency’s loss in Microsoft case
In a response filed with the court, Microsoft said the FTC “failed to carry its burden on independent, fact-based grounds” and “dragged its heels” before appealing.
“The court has already found that it would be inequitable” to order an injunction that could lead to “the potential scuttling of the merger,” Microsoft said, in asking for the FTC’s request to be denied.
The FTC has claimed the tie-up of a major videogame platform — Microsoft’s
MSFT,
Xbox — with a major videogame publisher — Activision
ATVI,
makes the wildly popular “Call of Duty,” among other titles — would be harmful to the videogame industry and consumers.
Microsoft has pledged to keep “Call of Duty” available to Sony’s
SONY,
PlayStation console for 10 years, and will make it available for Nintendo’s
7974,
Switch and some cloud-gaming platforms.
In her ruling clearing the deal Tuesday, Corley said the FTC did not show “this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition.”
Bloomberg News reported late Thursday that Microsoft and Activision are considering giving up some control of their cloud-gaming business in the U.K. to win approval of British regulators, who — if the U.S. appeals court does not act — are the final hurdle to the deal closing on time.
FTC Chair Lina Khan testified on Capitol Hill on Thursday, where Republican lawmakers assailed her actions and sharply criticized her agency’s court losses in trying to block the Microsoft-Activision deal and Meta’s
META,
acquisition of a virtual-reality gaming company earlier this year.
Read more: After Microsoft defeat, ‘toothless’ FTC needs to pick better battles if it wants to rein in Big Tech
Also: FTC’s probe of OpenAI marks key moment in Khan’s push to rein in Big Tech
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The Federal Trade Commission late Wednesday filed notice that it will appeal a judge’s ruling this week that gave Microsoft Corp. the green light to proceed with its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc.
In a filing with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the FTC is seeking to overturn U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s ruling Tuesday, which said the deal would not hurt competition.
“The District Court’s ruling makes crystal clear that this acquisition is good for both competition and consumers,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, said in a statement.” We’re disappointed that the FTC is continuing to pursue what has become a demonstrably weak case, and we will oppose further efforts to delay the ability to move forward.”
The FTC has claimed the tie-up of a major videogame platform — Microsoft’s
MSFT,
Xbox — with a major videogame publisher — Activision
ATVI,
makes the wildly popular “Call of Duty,” among other titles — would be harmful to the videogame industry and consumers.
“The facts haven’t changed,” an Activision spokesperson said Wednesday. “We’re confident the U.S. will remain among the 39 countries where the merger can close. We look forward to reinforcing the strength of our case in court, again.”
Microsoft has pledged to keep “Call of Duty” available to Sony’s
SONY,
PlayStation console for 10 years, and will make it available for Nintendo’s
7974,
Switch and some cloud-gaming platforms.
The deal faces a July 18 deadline, and still must gain regulatory approval in the U.K.
Tuesday’s ruling was yet another antitrust setback for the FTC, which has failed to do much to rein in Big Tech, and one analyst told MarketWatch on Tuesday that the regulators need to do ” a much better job of picking their battles,”
Read more: After Microsoft defeat, ‘toothless’ FTC needs to pick better battles if it wants to rein in Big Tech
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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Tech and social media giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google bear responsibility for radicalizing the Buffalo supermarket shooter, who was fueled by racist conspiracy theories he encountered online, the victim’s relatives said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
“They were the conspirators, even if they don’t want to admit it,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at a news conference announcing a 171-page lawsuit, which seeks unspecified financial damages as well as changes in how the companies operate.
The suit names several online platforms including Facebook’s parent company Meta, Instagram, Google, Discord and Amazon — which owns Twitch, the livestreaming platform the shooter used to broadcast last year’s shooting. The suit also names RMA Armament, the maker of the gunman’s body armor, as well as the firearms retailers that sold him weapons.
Ten Black people were killed and three others were wounded in May 2022 when Payton Gendron opened fire at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, which he targeted after conducting research online. Gendron, who was 18 years old at the time, had driven 200 miles (322 kilometers) from his home in Conklin, New York.
He is serving a prison sentence of life without parole after pleading guilty to crimes including murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate.
The lawsuit says Gendron admits he became addicted to social media and was “lured, unsuspectingly, into a psychological vortex by defective social media applications and fed a steady stream of racist and white supremacist propaganda and falsehoods.”
The mother of Zaire Goodman, who was shot in the neck and survived, described being “tagged” in a video that circulated widely online after Gendron livestreamed his rampage using a camera attached to the helmet he wore.
“No one should be looking at that,” Goodman’s mother, Zeneta Everhart, said.
Twenty-two users watched the violence in real-time on Gendron’s Twitch account, which was simultaneously broadcast on his Discord account, according to the lawsuit.
Just before the shooting, the gunman also made public 700 pages of an online diary detailing his plans, and linked to a Google document containing a self-described “manifesto” describing his racist motivations, the lawsuit said.
In response to the lawsuit, a spokesman for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said the company has invested in technology and policies to identify and remove extremist content.
“We regularly work with law enforcement, other platforms, and civil society to share intelligence and best practices,” José Castañeda said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.
Kimberly Salter, whose husband, Aaron Salter, was the store’s security guard, said at a news conference Wednesday that “These are human beings’ lives that were taken by a murderer.”
Aaron Salter, a retired police officer, was fatally shot after a bullet he fired struck Gendron but was deflected by body armor, authorities said.
The body armor’s manufacturer, RMA Armament, said the lawsuit comes as a surprise and that its “products are intended for the protection of law-abiding private citizens, police departments and government partners.”
Other companies named in the suit did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
Buffalo attorney Terrence Connors, who along with Crump represents the families, said the legal team has thoroughly examined “the entire line of the gun distribution, the manufacturers of the body armor, the high capacity magazines that are plainly illegal,” as well as not social media platforms.
“What we found was downright scary,” he said.
The suit also names Gendron’s parents, Paul and Pamela Gendron, who the lawsuit claims armed their son despite warning signs that he was dangerous.
The Gendrons’ lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is similar to one filed in May by other victims’ of the shooting. Attorneys said the lawsuits may be combined.
“There were many people who helped him load that gun,” Crump said. “And it is our objective to make sure that everybody that loaded that gun is held to account.”
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The European Commission has approved Broadcom Inc.’s
AVGO,
acquisition of VMware Inc.
VMW,
sending VMware’s stock up 2.3% premarket. Broadcom, which makes chip and infrastructure software, announced the $61 billion deal to buy VMware in May 2022, but the deal has been the subject of regulatory scrutiny ever since. It has now been granted legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and Taiwan, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions, the company said Wednesday. Broadcom “looks forward to continuing to work constructively with regulators around the world. Broadcom is confident that when regulators conclude their review, they too will see that the combination of Broadcom and VMware will enhance competition in the cloud and benefit enterprise customers by giving them more choice and control over where they locate their workloads,” said the company. It still expects to close the deal in fiscal 2023. Broadcom’s stock was up 0.6% premarket.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s defeat as it sought to block Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition of videogame maker Activision Blizzard is yet another setback for an increasingly toothless regulator that needs to pick better battles with Big Tech.
On Tuesday morning, a federal judge denied the FTC’s injunction that was seeking to block the software giant’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision
ATVI,
best known for its hit videogame “Call of Duty.” The FTC argued that Microsoft
MSFT,
could withhold “Call of Duty” and other Activision games from rival console platforms such as Sony’s PlayStation, and keep the games on its Xbox only.
Microsoft, in a show of faith, committed in writing to keep “Call of Duty” on PlayStation on parity with Xbox for 10 years, agreed with Nintendo
7974,
to bring “Call of Duty” to Switch and entered into several pacts to bring Activision content to several cloud gaming services, U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley noted in her decision.
“With these 10-year contracts that Microsoft made across the board with so many vendors, Nvidia
NVDA,
Nintendo and others, 10 years is a really long time, in my opinion,” said Sarah Hindlian-Bowler, an analyst at Macquarie Equity Research, in an interview Tuesday. “It is long enough to cover the arrival and maturity of the cloud gaming market….She understands that 10 years is a very long long time to make a guarantee of this kind.”
Also read: Regulators face an antitrust dilemma after Meta launches Threads
Hindlian-Bowler said that she had been in the minority of Wall Street analysts in not believing the U.S. government would be able to block this deal.
“The assumption that this somehow decreases the market is going to prove to be wildly incorrect,” she said, adding that she does not believe that the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority will be able to block the deal either.
The latest upset at the FTC was also not too surprising to other Capitol Hill watchers, especially in the light of other high-profile setbacks by the agency and its once-heralded commissioner, Lina Khan. When she was sworn in as chair of the FTC in mid-2021, Khan was hailed as the sheriff who would rein in Big Tech.
“It’s hard to say I am surprised by the ruling because Khan has had a fairly unsuccessful track record,” said Owen Tedford, a senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors. “The regulators are pushing the boundaries, deals that previously would have gone unchallenged have now gone challenged. And they are breaking precedent because Khan and company have expressed a dislike of settlements.”
The FTC’s attempts to sue Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
have had some defeats so far. In February, a California judge denied the FTC’s attempts to block Meta from buying a virtual-reality startup called Within Unlimited. The FTC’s suit to reverse Meta’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, filed in 2021, is still plodding along.
Additionally, the FTC recently filed a suit against Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
alleging that it is too difficult for consumers to cancel their Prime accounts, and the agency is reportedly also mulling another far-reaching suit against Amazon alleging that the e-commerce giant punishes merchants who do not use its logistics services. One analyst has already made a case that the FTC will lose that fight too.
“I think that the FTC is in need of some change, in need of some refreshing and in need of doing a much better job of picking their battles,” said Hindlian-Bowler. “This does feel toothless, a lot of the fights they are picking are toothless. And unfortunately, they are missing the real battle. They are missing TikTok, they are missing the real fights where we actually have national security at risk.”
In February, one of the Republican commissioners on the FTC resigned, and wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal accusing Khan of disregarding the rule of law and due process.
Compared to the European Union, which has had far more success implementing regulation to rein in Big Tech, the U.S. is still much weaker. “The EU seems to be having somewhat more success, levying big fines, getting these companies to change,” said Beacon’s Tedford. “The EU has passed these bills, but the U.S., despite these efforts, has not gotten there and is not going to get there for the next two years.”
Money spent by Big Tech to lobby Congress in a huge part of the problem, whereas in Europe, “those lawmakers feel less beholden,” he added.
More than a century ago, President Teddy Roosevelt, known for his “speak softly and carry a big stick” foreign policy, also used his bully pulpit to bust industrial monopolies.
If Khan and her staff want to follow his lead and rein in Big Tech, they need to start picking their future battles more carefully — and carry bigger sticks.
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FTC Loses First Bid to Block Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The Focus Turns to U.K. Regulators.
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One of the challenges of building software systems and algorithms is that oftentimes you don’t have the real-world data you need to actually test before you go into production or before customers start using it. It’s all too common to design a product interface or algorithm on paper, only to discover that once put into production with real data, the look of the output isn’t what you expected. GPTs like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude can be a game changer in these instances.
We ran into this issue at Nomad Data while building a new product, Data Relationship Manager, which is similar to a CRM for data. The product helps firms keep track of their data vendors, datasets, purchases, interactions, meetings, tests and more. After we had a working version of the application, we realized it was a challenge to visualize what the screens would actually look like in a real-world setting. We had no actual user data, and most screens sat empty. This was a challenge from a UI validation standpoint and also made it a challenge to demo the product. We pondered where we could get a meaningful amount of test data when we realized that generative AI was the obvious solution.
Generative AI allowed us to do something that hadn’t been previously possible — generate all the usage data we needed. New generative AI models do an incredible job with text. The key is to give them the context about what you need created.
Nomad’s product is used by a variety of different user types across business functions. They all perform specific activities. We needed to generate data to simulate a multitude of user types using our product to get their jobs done. These activities range in time and need to happen in a logical order. We accomplished this in a few steps.
You are a system that is designed to generate useful testing data for a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product. Here are the steps:
First, you will make up a fictitious management consulting firm with a need for data to use on client projects ranging from market sizing to competitive analysis to pricing studies. Make up a very specific storyline of what specific data they are looking for and why across a number of projects.
Second, make up 10 users that work in this company. Assign random job roles and titles based on the definitions below.
Here is an example of one such user type we teach it about in the prompt:
Data Sourcer: The employee who searches for data after receiving a request from a consultant.
Role: A data sourcer specializes in finding and gathering relevant data based on what consultants ask them for in response to a consulting project. They search for data vendors, initiate communication with them, ensure data quality and accuracy meet the project requirements, coordinate with the consultant and then ultimately pass the vendor off to procurement if the consultant agrees to purchase. They log all early engagements with a data vendor such as that they filled out a contact form, exchanged an email, had a meeting, received test data, ran a data test or initiated a purchase discussion with their internal procurement people.
Job Titles: Data Sourcer, Data Researcher, Data Acquisition Specialist
We ultimately taught it about five different roles but could have just as easily done this for dozens.
Related: Why Entrepreneurs Should Embrace Generative AI
This company is logging their activities around data vendors that they work and evaluate into our CRM to keep track of everything that has happened. Any work they do with the data or data vendor is logged so that their colleagues are aware of what is happening surrounding a data vendor and its products.
Create a set of activities between two years ago and today for each, to tell a story/dialogue of how these users communicate and work with the data from specific vendors. Create activities for between five and 10 people for each data vendor. Each user is to create three to five activities for each data vendor they are working with.
Make sure there are activities that mention experiences actually using the data. How well did it work? Was there missing data? Was it a problem?
The output should be in a CSV format. Each row should be in the format:
Date (mm/dd/YYYY), User Full Name, Data Vendor Name, Data Vendor ID, Activity Text
Examples:
9/10/2021, Sarah Chang, AI Global Insights, Sent an introductory email to AI Global Insights expressing the need for AI market data.
9/15/2021, Lisa Martin, SSC, Discussed SSC’s requirements with Sarah Chang and shared a high-level overview of AI Global Insights’ data capabilities.
9/16/2021, Michael Johnson, TechIntel, Requested a subset of AI industry data from TechIntel for preliminary analysis.
After we ran this, we noticed areas where we needed to be more specific. Within less than an hour, GPT-4 was producing highly realistic test data:
“06/24/2021,” “Emma Smith,” “AgriDataCorp,” “Reached out to AgriDataCorp for initial discussion on South American organic farming data needs.”
“06/28/2021,” “John Davis,” “AgriDataCorp,” “Received AgriDataCorp’s data product catalogue. Initiated discussions on cost and licensing agreement.”
“06/30/2021,” “Alice Williams,” “AgriDataCorp,” “Received initial data sample from AgriDataCorp. Started cleaning and integration with our system.”
We were quickly able to generate an endless amount of test data —something that would have been either incredibly expensive or time-consuming only a few months ago.
Whether it’s producing better products or algorithms, using GPT-powered models to generate test and demo data is a must. In seconds, you can breathe life into an empty product demo. You can just as easily see what your products will look like in the hands of real users and companies.
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Brad Schneider
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Just how similar is Instagram’s chatty new app, Threads, to Twitter?
In a cease-and-desist letter earlier this week, Twitter threatened legal action against Instagram parent company Meta over the new text-based app Threads, which it called a “copycat.”
Threads has drawn tens of millions of users since launching as the latest rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.
Threads creators pushed back on the accusations, and legal experts note that much is still unknown. For now, “it’s sort of a big question mark,” Jacob Noti-Victor, an associate professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School who specializes in intellectual property, told The Associated Press.
The people starting to explore Threads, however, are already making their own observations.
“People are calling it a Twitter clone but I think there are some key product differences,” said Alexandra Popken, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety operations.
One difference, she thinks, will likely be the people who use it. At Threads, “you’re essentially taking your audience from Instagram and putting this into a new text-based app, whereas Twitter is a kind of a niche audience for politicians, celebrities and news junkies,” she said.
Yet even though Threads makers have said they aren’t particularly interested in making it a politics forum, it’s likely to attract journalists and politicians, among others, looking for a Twitter alternative.
Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, said Threads isn’t aiming to replace Twitter.
“The goal is to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations, but not all of Twitter,” he said.
Politics and hard news will inevitably show up on Threads, he acknowledged, “but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals.”
In a Wednesday letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.
In a reply to a tweet about the possibility of legal action against Meta, Musk wrote: “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded in a Threads post Thursday that “no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee.”
From Spiro’s letter, which was first obtained by news outlet Semafor on Thursday, Noti-Victor said it’s hard to tell what the trade secrets referred to might be.
Spiro says ex-Twitter employees “improperly retained” company documents and electronic devices — pointing to ongoing confidentiality obligations. There was no explicit reference, however, to a breach of any binding agreement in the letter, and most noncompete clauses, for example, are prohibited in California.
In addition, despite Threads’ similarities to Twitter, “just the idea of creating a social media platform involving text (is) certainly not something that would be a trade secret,” Noti-Victor added.
He is skeptical of intellectual property violations for similar reasons, noting that companies “can’t patent something that’s obvious” or copyright a general idea for a social media platform. Copyright can protect source code and the text of a website, but Noti-Victor said he doesn’t see that reproduced in Threads.
Experts add that companies in Silicon Valley are constantly making products or services inspired by competitors’ versions.
“The industry has a storied past of borrowing ideas from each other,” said Popken, adding that Threads and other platforms such as Mastodon and Bluesky are “trying to capitalize on what is demand for a suitable, safer alternative to Twitter.”
Meta has a track record of starting standalone apps that mirror competitors, although many later shut down.
Beyond trade secret and intellectual property allegations, Spiro also wrote that Meta is prohibited from “engaging in any crawling or scraping of Twitter’s followers or following data.” He said the letter marked a “formal notice” for Meta to preserve documents relevant for a potential dispute between the companies.
Any letter of this kind should be taken seriously, said Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond’s School of Law — but he, too, added that much is still unknown. More specific allegations and documents could come forward if litigation is pursued.
Tobias speculated that Twitter’s move could be partly about publicity, as well as a strategic response both legally and business-wise. Musk’s legal team has made similar moves before, such as a May letter to Microsoft objecting to alleged misuse of Twitter data to train artificial intelligence systems.
Among those elevating the clone-or-not question this week was Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, who has championed Bluesky, and joked in a tweet: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 7 Twitter clones.”
For Popken, who now works at content moderation startup WebPurify, what most stands out about Threads so far is how much fun she’s having using it.
“I see brands like Slim Jim trying to be funny. I see influencers who I follow on Instagram and people who I care about in my life,” she said. “There’s like this period of time where the bad actors haven’t found it yet. It’s like this non-toxic, happy corner of the internet.”
But “make no mistake,” she added, those content moderation problems that have plagued other platforms “will certainly strike Threads over time.”
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
A timeless quote from a well-known literary work captures the essence of how businesses strive to navigate through uncertain times. It says:
“… we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere, you must run twice as fast as that.”
While companies reduce IT departments and seek ways to improve budget allocation, the work scope is decreasing along with the need for expertise in software engineering. This has made partnerships with external software development companies so popular these days as it helps to fill in such gaps. These numbers speak for themselves:
In this article, I’m sharing three of the most effective approaches to partnering with software solutions providers and explaining the cases where each of them works the best for ROI optimization.
Related: 5 Things to Consider When You’re Hiring A Software Outsourcing Partner
A dedicated development team works on a long-term basis intending to include all client’s requirements in software solutions and align them with the company’s strategic objectives. It consists of experts needed to create a project from scratch. In this case, the client transfers responsibility for administrative, HR, tax and social benefits matters to its tech partner.
Let’s imagine you plan to upgrade IT infrastructure in the company. Your goal is to make it smooth and minimize any problems or disruptions that might occur. It’ll take time to find a talented IT Infrastructure architect, and there is no guarantee that the person found is right for the project. On the other hand, partnering with a dedicated development team with such expertise will ensure faster change implementation.
To develop the Experimentation Platform and help drivers make wise parking and traffic-related decisions, Ford involved experts from IBM. Leveraging IBM Analytics delivered through the IBM Cloud, this partnership facilitated the continuous flow of data. As a result, Ford introduced a groundbreaking tech solution that also finds application in other companies’ projects.
The areas in which partnering with a dedicated development team brings the most business outcomes are:
When a business chooses to collaborate with a software development company on the team augmentation model, this means enhancing the existing group of engineers with new professionals. The terms of this cooperative agreement specify that the involved professionals are required to allocate their efforts to specific tasks, and compensation is based on the number of hours worked.
Here’s how team augmentation works within the company: Suppose a growing ecommerce business wants to develop a mobile application with a specific 3D functionality. The in-house team is already working on this project, but they lack experience in creating some 3D features. Rather than waiting for the team to acquire these skills, the company finds a software engineer from a third-party vendor.
Cases when the tech team augmentation for businesses works the best:
Related: 4 Mistakes Not to Make When Choosing A Software Development Company
Managed services is the practice of transferring responsibility for specific functions within the software development department to third-party service providers. Namely, they monitor, maintain and optimize the systems, acting as a trusted advisor.
Imagine you plan to create or restore data backup. This requires a group of cybersecurity specialists and back-end engineers who will regularly maintain the company’s digital file storage and look for solutions to facilitate search and collaboration. By partnering with a managed services provider and getting access to experts, businesses minimize the risks of file damage, loss or unauthorized access.
Managed services is a great option when a business needs services like:
Hosting/cloud operations
Infrastructure support
Cybersecurity services
In the face of skill shortages and budget constraints, partnering with external software solution providers is a workable way for businesses. Although dedicated development team, team augmentation and managed services offer companies exclusive expertise and economically justified conditions of cooperation, they fit different business goals.
The outlined specifics and differences between these partnership models will help you to choose the right approach to address skills gaps and optimize the whole operations’ efficiency.
Related: Why Outsourcing Software Development Services Is Gaining Traction With Non-Technical Leaders
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Slava Podmurnyi
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NEW YORK — Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over its new text-based app called Threads, which has drawn tens of millions of users since launching this week as a rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.
In a letter Wednesday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.
The move ramps up the tensions between the social media giants after Threads debuted Wednesday, targeting those who are seeking out alternatives to Twitter amid unpopular changes Musk has made to the platform since buying it last year for $44 billion.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote Thursday on Threads: “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
In the letter, which news website Semafor first reported Thursday, Spiro said Twitter “intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights” and noted the company’s right to seek civil remedies or a court injunction.
He said the letter marked a “formal notice” for Meta to preserve documents relevant for a potential dispute between the companies.
In a reply to a tweet about the possibility of legal action against Meta, Musk wrote: “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
The Associated Press reached out to Spiro on Thursday for further information. Twitter responded to an email seeking comment with a crude automated reply, its standard response to journalists.
New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has not publicly commented on the letter but appeared to address Threads’ launch.
“We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated,” Yaccarino tweeted.
Some analysts say Meta’s new offering, billed as a text-based version of the photo-sharing app Instagram, could be a significant headache for Twitter — pointing to the excitement surrounding Threads’ launch and impressive download numbers so far.
But success isn’t guaranteed. Industry watchers point to Meta’s track record of starting standalone apps that were later shut down and note that Threads is still in its early days.
Besides some glitches and gripes about missing features, Meta’s new app also has raised data privacy concerns. While Threads launched in more than 100 countries, it is notably unavailable in the European Union, which has strict data privacy rules.
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