I hope you all had a great week!  

This week, Steve and I will be attending VMware Analyst Summit.  Will will be attending Verizon Investor Day, T-Mobile Analyst Day, and AT&T Analyst Day.

Last week, I attended Samsung V.X. Live and Microsoft Ignite (with Anshel).  Anshel attended Qualcomm Science of Sound.  Melody attended MIT FinTech Conference 2021.  

Our MI&S team published 14 deliverables last week: 

• 5 Forbes columns 
• 5 MI&S blogs
• 3 podcasts   
• 1 research paper

The press quoted us with 19 citations. Journalists wanted to hear about AMD, Broadcom, Chips, Dell, 5G, Intel, Microsoft, Plaid, Pure Storage, and Samsung.

Quick Insights:

AR/VR (Anshel Sag)

• N/A

 Carrier/Wireless (Will Townsend)

• Marvell made two key announcements this week supporting distributed unit (D.U.) platforms with Fujitsu and Facebook Connectivity. From my perspective, these announcements are proof points that the company is facilitating the adoption of 5G Open RAN through its silicon leadership.

Datacenter: 

• Storage- (Steve McDowell) 
  • Is the storage market rebounding? We've been waiting for HPE, the last of the big storage players, to announce, to see what's what.  While HPE was slightly off year/year (as was Dell), tallying up the total revenue shared between them, Pure Storage, and NetApp shows a market that's flat-to-slightly-up year/year. A huge difference from the earlier quarters.  Every one of these providers highlighted strength in the mid-tier all-flash storage market, with solid predictions for 1H 2021.  We won't see the total-market analysis from the quantitative analysts who count such things for another few weeks, but the indicators are solid. This is a great way to start the year. 
  • Equinix stepped up its bare-metal offerings when it acquired bare metal server as-a-service leader Packet about a year ago. Packet's offerings have since been rebranded as Equinix Metal.  This week, Equinix Metal juiced its storage offerings when it announced a partnership with Pure Storage.  The two companies now jointly offer Pure's entire as-a-service portfolio, including its Portworx container solution, through Equinix Metal.  This is an excellent offering for Equinix's customers.  Before this partnership with Pure Storage, the storage offerings in Equinix Metal were very limited. 
  • It seems that we've been remiss in thinking that HPE's HCI solution, SimpliVity, was being neglected.  HPE this week enhanced SImpliVity's feature set with both container-storage integration and new data protection capabilities.  HPE is targeting SimpliVIty at the enterprise edge, which is an excellent market for this technology.  HCI makes tremendous sense at the edge. It's nice where the usually-dominant Vmware and Nutanix don't have the near-duopoly they share in more datacenter-focused HCI deployments.         
• Networking- (Will Townsend) 
  • I attended a Cisco virtual session this week that spoke to the company's networking academy program. I'm impressed with the program's mission to facilitate technology and cybersecurity reskilling, emphasizing diversity. Covid-19 has affected many economic sectors, and the company's no-fee program is a game-changer from my perspective.
• Server- (Matt Kimball) 
  • N/A

FinTech (Melody Brue)

• Twitter and Square Inc CEO and cofounder Jack Dorsey announced Square Financial Services, classed as an industrial bank. Dorsey spearheaded the initiative, which launched following the charter approval process with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. The new facility enables Square to "operate more nimbly in an increasingly crowded fintech market." It offers limited financial products, beginning with underwriting and originating business loans for Square Capital's existing lending product previously facilitated through a third-party banking partnership. Adding broader financial services positions the company to compete more formidably with leaders like PayPal. 
• Since March 2020 and the start of the pandemic, Fintech has grown in customer usage, service adoption, and new startups. Fintech companies, including digital asset exchanges, payments, savings, and wealth management, reported growth in transaction numbers and volumes of 13% and 11%, respectively, according to a December 2020 study by The World Bank. The same study noted: "Fintech services are instrumental in relieving poverty and boosting economic growth in areas that have a greater proportion of underserved populations. Fintech innovations are helping reduce the cost of providing services, making it possible to reach more people, and reducing the need for face-to-face interactions, essential for keeping up economic activity during the pandemic."
• One of the biggest trends on Wall Street at the moment is the SPAC or special purpose acquisition company - a "blank check" shell company set up by investors with the sole purpose to eventually acquire another company via raising money through an IPO, and the hot asset class has found its way to the fintech market, creating a new breed of public companies in Fintech. Notable Fintechs are in the SPAC or de-SPAC phase at the moment, with astronomical valuations. Examples include Katapult & FinServ Acquisition Corp.($993mn), Paysafe & Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II (PSFE (NYSE) $9bn), and SoFi & Social Capital Hedosophia Corp V ($8.65bn). SPACs can operate like venture capital in the public markets for Fintech, is likely to create a new breed of public companies in the industry, raise the space profile, and produce an increasing number of household Fintech names.

Home Automation/ Smart Home (Mark Vena) 

• Apple's Find My app might get a welcome new safety feature to help prevent someone from using the kinds of devices tracked in the app to stalk you instead. "Item Safety Alerts," spotted in the iOS 14.5 beta, will notify you if an unknown device being tracked on Find My is "moving with you" so you can remove it or disable it, according to news reports. The feature seems designed to counteract a scenario where a Find My-compatible device is hidden in a pocket or bag and then used to track someone's movements.
• OS 14.5 is in beta right now, and the first beta appeared to have a long-awaited feature: it seemed you would be able to set Spotify and other music services as the default for Siri requests. But Apple has clarified that the feature doesn't work that way. Instead, selecting a music service for Siri requests is intended to improve Siri's smarts so that it can better know your audio-listening preferences.
• In the "are you kidding me" department: Porsche is the latest automaker to try its hand at making and selling electric bikes. The result looks very interesting and very expensive. The Sport is a road bike intended for everyday use, with a full-suspension carbon fiber frame, integrated front and rear lights, Shimano mid-drive motor, and a price tag that would make Jeff Bezos blush. The Sport, which weighs a little less than 48 pounds, will set you back about $10,700, which is just an excellent price for an e-bike.
• Sonos, following a blow-out financial results quarter, is about to jump into the portable speaker market. Set to be priced at $169, the new device called the Sonos Roam — is much smaller than the Sonos Move, which was the company's first foray into portable speakers. This product has a much closer resemblance to popular, take-anywhere Bluetooth speakers like the U.E. Boom.

 IIoT and IoT (Bill Curtis)

• Microsoft Ignite announcements dominated the industrial IoT landscape this week. 
• Percept, a new AI-powered family of hardware edge devices and software services, stole the show. Essentially a logic layer on top of Azure IoT, Precept simplifies A.I. model deployment for small, low-power devices that use cameras and microphones. Precept Studio, the heart of the offering, integrates Azure AI, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure IoT management services. Studio software works right out of the box with the Azure Percept Development Kit. The D.K. consists of an edge computer platform (NXP iMX8m, quad A57) plus a Precept Vision camera SOM (Movidus Myriad X MA2025 VPU, 0.7 TOPS). The Vision module is also available separately, as is the Percept Audio module with a four-microphone linear array. Microsoft says customers can be up and running in as little as 10 minutes and have a functional prototype in under 30 minutes. Unlike other IoT development kits, Percept hardware is built on an 80/20 1010 series form factor, making it possible to deploy prototypes in real-world industrial environments for proof-of-concept or production situations.
• Other Azure IoT announcements included Device Update for Azure IoT Hub, now in preview. This long-awaited feature simplifies the operation and maintenance of IoT edge platforms, particularly in enterprise environments.

Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence (Paul Smith-Goodson) 

• BBVA has partnered with Google to develop an A.I. platform that can predict and prevent cyberattacks. This appears to be in response to a recent breach in credit card fraud reported by many customers. BBVA and Google are collaborating on Chronicle, a platform that uses A.I. and machine learning to detect security threats. BBVA has reported that the fraud has probably occurred at an entity not affiliated with the bank.

Personal Computing/ Collaboration (Anshel Sag) 

• N/A

Quantum Computing (Paul Smith-Goodson)

• CQC conducted an impressive demonstration of QNLP on an IBM Quantum Computer. It published the results on an arXiv.org preprint - "QNLP in Practice: Running Compositional Models of Meaning on a Quantum Computer." It is a big step as it is proof of concept it can be done. CQC used sentences >100 words on quantum circuits. It's nothing that can't be done on a classical computer, but this is a big step for QNLP on quantum. 
• I'm surprised it has taken Israel this long to get into quantum since the country is a tech powerhouse. The Israeli Ministry of Defense has begun soliciting bids to develop a 30 to 40 qubit quantum computer.  The project is worth $60 million and will start sometime this year. No details are available on the specifications, but there must be something unique because you can build several quantum computers for that amount of money. This is something I will follow-up on.

Columns Published (Forbes, UPLOAD VR, and others)        

1. Microsoft's Most Impactful Announcements At Ignite 2021, by Patrick Moorhead
2. Amazon And Bernie Sanders Now Have One Big Thing In Common, by Patrick Moorhead
3. T-Mobile Goes After Businesses And AT&T And Verizon Should Be Concerned, by Anshel Sag
4. Microsoft's Mesh Platform For Mixed Reality Puts Microsoft At The Forefront Of X.R. Collaboration, by Anshel Sag
5. Marvell Furthers Its 5G Push With Fujitsu And Facebook Connectivity, by Will Townsend

Blogs Published (MI&S)                                                              

1. NVIDIA Attempts To Improve Gaming Card Supply With Two Big Actions, by Patrick Moorhead
2. What I Still Wish The M1-Based MacBooks Could Do, by Patrick Moorhead
3. Surprise! The Samsung S21 Ultra Is Great For The Enterprise, Too, by Patrick Moorhead
4. Spring Forward With These Smart Home Gift Ideas, by Mark Vena
5. IBM Adds Future Developer And Software Details To Its Quantum Roadmap, by Paul Smith-Goodson

Research Paper

• RESEARCH PAPER: Anuta Networks ATOM, by Will Townsend

Podcasts:

The G2 on 5G by Moor Insights & Strategy, with Anshel Sag and Will Townsend

• Episode 41 – March 5, 2021
  • Marvell 5G announcements with Fujitsu and Facebook Connectivity
  • New T-Mobile Business Plans, Home Office Internet gateway, new collaboration solutions
  • Verizon Business Analyst Event recap
  • U.S. Air Force Exploring 5G for Communications, inc MmWave, Massive MIMO & Satellite
  • Celona and Inseego partner to extend the reach of private 5G networking   
  • Indian Spectrum Auction Yields $10 billion, lots of unsold spectrum likely due to reserve prices being too high (the auction was expected to generate $55B+)

DataCentric Podcast by Moor Insights & Strategy, with Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell

• Is the Enterprise Infrastructure Market Rebounding?
  • Earning's season for 4Q has come to a close, with Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), NetApp, and Pure Storage all announcing over the past two weeks. This is enough to giving us an idea of how healthy the enterprise storage & server markets are as we leave 2020. The news is pretty good.

SmartTechCheck Podcast by Moor Insights & Strategy, with Mark Vena

• N/A

The Six-Five Podcast by Moor Insights & Strategy and Futurum Research, with Patrick Moorhead and Daniel Newman

• We Have Ignition
  • M.S. Ignite - M.R. and Azure
  • Zoho Days
  • CEO Shridar Vembu  Integrated platform
  • Zoom Earnings
  • HPE Earnings
  • Marvell Earnings
  • MS Ignite - Teams and Dynamics 365

Moor Insights & Strategy Podcast

• N/A 

 Press Citations: 

1. AMD, Chips / Venturebeat https://venturebeat.com/2021/03/03/amd-launches-radeon-rx-6700-xt-graphics-card-that-hopefully-we-can-buy/ 
2. Huawei / APNews https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/technology-17b43c57923382437d5d19147a990744 (Will Townsend) 
3. Broadcom, Earnings / Siliconangle https://siliconangle.com/2021/03/04/semiconductor-giant-broadcom-posts-solid-q1-earnings-beat/ 
4. Chips / Fierceelectronics https://www.fierceelectronics.com/electronics/chipmakers-are-hustling-and-say-it-s-not-a-hustle 
5. Chips / Hexus.net https://hexus.net/tech/news/industry/147502-tsmc-aims-double-5nm-production-capacity-year/ (Anshel Sag) 
6. Chips / Marketplace https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/the-chip-shortage-is-a-manufacturing-problem-that-wont-be-easy-to-solve-intel-biden-supply-chain-executive-order/ (Anshel Sag) 
7. Cloud, 5G / Global Digital Economy https://partners.wsj.com/huawei/the-global-innovation-engine/propelling-transformation-through-the-cloud/ (Will Townsend) 
8. Dell, Earnings /Austin American Statesman  https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2021/02/26/covid-19-remote-work-drives-record-sales-year-dell-technologies/6824001002/ 
9. Huawei, 5G / Martechseries https://martechseries.com/technology/experts-to-discuss-leveraging-5gs-full-capabilities-for-enterprise-digital-transformation/ (Will Townsend) 
10. Huawei, 5G / Yahoo https://autos.yahoo.com/experts-discuss-leveraging-5gs-full-150000560.html (Will Townsend) 
11. 5G / Discover https://www.dhl.com/discover/business/productivity/5g-and-logistics 
12. 5G / PRNewswire https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/experts-to-discuss-leveraging-5gs-full-capabilities-for-enterprise-digital-transformation-301239711.html (Will Townsend) 
13. Intel / Siliconangle https://siliconangle.com/2021/03/02/intel-ordered-pay-2-18-billion-patent-infringement/ 
14. Microsoft, V.R.,MR / BusinessInsider https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-teams-mesh-chat-app-slack-2021-3 
15. Microsoft, Mesh / Computer World https://www.computerworld.com/article/3610236/microsofts-mesh-aims-for-mixed-reality-meetings-of-the-future.html 
16. Plaid / Protocol https://www.protocol.com/fintech/plaid-coo-eric-sager (Melody Brue) 
17. Pure Storage, Cloud / TechTarget https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/252497226/Pure-Storage-cloud-deployments-include-dedicated-bare-metal (Steve McDowell) 
18. Samsung / Extremetech https://www.extremetech.com/computing/320511-samsungs-austin-foundry-is-still-offline-more-than-two-weeks-later 
19. Samsung, Semiconductor /Tomshardware https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-s2-fab-still-offline 

Other/Video 

• N/A

New Gear or Software We are Using and Testing that is Public Knowledge 

• Apple MacBook Pro 13" M1, MacBook Air M1, MacBook Mini M1, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro Max 
• Cash App's Crypto Boost
• Dell XPS 13 EVO laptop
• EK-Quantum Power Kit RX 6800/6900 D-RGB P360 - AMD Edition
• HP Spectre EVO 13 laptop
• Huawei P40 Pro 
• IBM Qiskit software
• Intel ATX12VO motherboard & PSU
• Oura Ring
• Razer EVO laptop
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2, S21, and S21 Ultra, Tab S7 + 5G
• Sony blogger camera
• TCL 10 5G U.W.
• Xbox Series X 

 Events MI&S Plans on Attending In-Person or Virtually (New) 

• March 2021
  • VMware Analyst Summit, March 8 (Patrick Moorhead, Steve McDowell)
  • Verizon Investor Day, March 10 (Will Townsend)
  • HPE Greenlake Day, March 10 (Patrick Moorhead)
  • T-Mobile Analyst Day, March 11 (Will Townsend, Patrick Moorhead)
  • AT&T Analyst Day, March 12 (Will Townsend)
  • Oracle Live, March 24 (Patrick Moorhead)
  • Cisco LIVE, March 30 (Patrick Moorhead, Steve McDowell, Will Townsend)
  • CCA Mobile Carriers Show, March 30-31 (Will Townsend)
• April 2021
  • Quantum Tech, April 12-14 (Paul Smith-Goodson)
  • NVIDIA GTC, April 12-16 (Steve McDowell, Patrick Moorhead)
  • SNIA Persistent Memory + Computational Storage Summit, April 21-22 (Steve McDowell)
  • RedHat Analyst Event, April 27-29 (Steve McDowell)
• May 2021
  • IBM Think, May 11-12 (Steve McDowell, Patrick Moorhead)
  • Spark + A.I. Summit,  May 24-28 (Steve McDowell)
• June 2021
  • NetApp Analyst Summit, June 8-9 (Steve McDowell)
  • HPE Discover, June 22 (Patrick Moorghead)
• July 2021
• August 2021
• September 2021
  • Storage Develop Conference, Sept 28-29 (Steve McDowell)
• October 2021
  • VMWorld, October 5-7 (Steve McDowell)
  • NAB 2021, October 10-13, Las Vegas, in-person (Steve McDowell) 
  • Nutanix .NEXT,  October 12-14 (Steve McDowell)

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The Team 

Analysts, Analysts In-Residence, Contributors

1. Patrick Moorhead, Founder, President, Principal Analyst; Broad technology coverage and deep insights into Cloud & SaaS, IoT, Personal Computing, Semiconductors, Automotive 
2. Bill Curtis, Analyst In-Residence, IIoT, and Deep IoT Technology 
3. Matt Kimball, Senior Analyst, Datacenter Servers, CI, and HCI 
4. Melody Brue, Senior Analyst, Financial Tech
5. Steve McDowell, Senior Analyst, Datacenter Storage, and Storage Technologies 
6. Anshel Sag, Senior Analyst; V.R., P.C. Gaming, Mobile Platforms 
7. Paul Smith-Goodson, Senior Analyst; Machine Learning, A.I. and Quantum Computing 
8. Will Townsend, Senior Analyst; Security, Carrier Services, Networking 
9. Chris Wilder, Contributor, Security 
10. Mark Vena, Senior Analyst, Smart Home, and Home Security 

Operations 

1. Dan Pickens, Business Director 
2. Paula Moorhead, Marketing Director, Website, and Social Media 
3. Walker Pickens, Media Relations, and Writer 
4. Zane Pickett, Office Manager, A.P., AR, travel, writer 
5. Lee LeClercq Williams, Business Associate