I hope you all had a great week!  

Last week, MIS analysts attended CES 2021.  This week, Melody will be attending NRF 2021 Retail's Big Show and I will attend Cloudera’s Winter Analyst Spotlight.

Our MI&S team published 30 deliverables last week: 

• 15 Forbes columns 
• 8 MI&S blogs
• 7 podcasts   

The press quoted us with 34 citations. Journalists wanted to hear about AMD, Google, Horizon Robotics, Intel, Lenovo, Mobileye, NVIDIA, PC market, Qualcomm, Ring, and Samsung.

Quick Insights:

AR/VR (Anshel Sag)

• N/A

 Carrier/Wireless (Will Townsend) 

• I expect private networking, Open RAN, and widespread 5G discrete services to gain tremendous momentum in 2021. I penned a Forbes article this week with my insights and which infrastructure providers and carriers are poised to reap the benefits.

Cloud Services (Rhett Dillingham) 

• N/A

Datacenter: 

• Storage- (Steve McDowell) 
  • N/A       
• Networking- (Will Townsend) 
  • Versa Networks posted its strongest financial results to date, buoyed by its focus on SD-WAN and SASE that aligns tight integration of security into its infrastructure stack. Versa is emerging as one of the handfuls of leaders among Cisco/ Meraki and HPE/ Silver Peak in a crowded SD-WAN space. I expect further consolidation among the 70+ vendors vying for market share. From my perspective, SD-WAN is a critical tool to facilitate secure access in a post-pandemic era with the need to support hybrid work from campus and home.
• Server- (Matt Kimball) 
  • N/A

FinTech (Melody Brue)

• At CES this week, the CEO of Mastercard said that years of digital acceleration had been compressed into months during Covid. E-commerce went from 13 to 20% in the last year because people were forced to stay home, increasing every month. An Accenture poll shows that 2/3 of people will stick with e-commerce and digital payments solutions, some will return to shops once the pandemic is over, but for repeatable purchases, people will likely continue with e-commerce. As many as 60 percent of people have said it doesn't ever want to go back into a store. The increase in online shopping and cashless payments provides significantly more data about consumer spending, which will force more adoption of A.I. and machine learning into the retail sector. 
• Covid 19 has caused "compressed disruption" across the board in FinTech. To do everything, companies need to stay alive; it has to do it all at once instead of building on each other, as a traditional roadmap. This has scrutinized privacy and security and the need for trusted networks and digital identity. 
• The DOJ Antitrust lawsuit put an end to the proposed merger between Visa and Plaid, the FinTech startup that connects apps to banking information. The CEO of Visa says it believes it could have prevailed in court but decided to instead invest in the company. Plaid's customer base has grown 600 percent in the past year. Unfortunately, one of the downsides to a virtual CES was that many of the sessions were pre-recorded. This was a disappointment as the Visa/Plaid deal was axed the day of a session with Plaid and Stripe, so we didn't get to hear any real-time information about the deal's squashing. What I did hear was that in a recent study, Plaid found that since Covid, 80 percent of Americans think it can manage its entire financial portfolio without having to go into a branch. The company is now looking to permission things beyond bank information, such as payroll data, IRS, and other tax information. 
• There has been a real shift in the customer experience, from delight and convenience to protection and safety in FinTech. Millennials in particular previously used FinTech applications like Venmo, CashApp, and Door Dash socially, and these apps catered to a fun, engaging experience. It is now going from "how do I split the bill?" (with a cute emoji) to how do I protect myself from the virus while getting the goods and services I need? 

Home Automation/ Smart Home (Mark Vena) 

• The earbuds "wars" escalates Samsung announced the $199.99 Galaxy Buds Pro today, its most premium set of true wireless earbuds yet.  It features an in-ear design similar to the Galaxy Buds Plus. The Galaxy Buds Live aesthetically inspires it.  The Buds Pro aren't bean-shaped, but they've got the same metallic-looking style and a similar charging case.  The tweaked design "reduces the contact area between your ear and the bud, improving comfort and minimizing any clogged-up feeling," according to Samsung.
• One big trend at CES 2021 is "smart baby" technology that makes the childbearing experience easier.  For pregnant women, it provides data to help predict if things have a chance of going wrong and provide surveillance of the health of the pregnancy that makes it possible to make raising a newborn easier.
• Something I've noticed over the holidays: for years, computer makers have tried to sell PCs built on Arm processors, a power-efficient family that powers smartphones.  Compared with models running on X86 chips from Intel and AMD, ARM-based PCs have suffered from performance and software compatibility shortcomings.  Now Apple's M1 processors, the Apple-designed member of the Arm family that powers new MacBooks, are changing views of Arm PCs.  The M1 chips offer not just good battery life, like Qualcomm's Arm chips in some Windows laptops, but also good (and even superior in some cases) performance.  At the same time, X86 PCs have improved only gradually.
• The dream of using your phone to unlock your car door (instead of carrying around a bulging key fob) may be one step closer today: Samsung has announced partnerships with Audi, BMW, Ford, and Genesis to do just that, saying the feature may be available as soon as August 2021.  And excitingly, those digital car keys should work with Apple iPhones and across other Android brands, too.

 IIoT and IoT (Bill Curtis)

• N/A

Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence (Karl Freund) 

• N/A

Personal Computing/ Collaboration (Anshel Sag) 

• The C-Band Auction looks like it will close around $81 billion, which means that estimates put Verizon and AT&T bids around $30 to $35 billion each, and each company is going to need to find a way to get its return on investment, and I believe that will translate to higher prices and more aggressive business offerings
• The New Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the first Wi-Fi 6E device and the first phone with a 10x optical zoom lens, which means that Samsung can finally deliver on the promise of the 100x Space Zoom, which previously did not look great at 100X
• The new Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro is Samsung's first real competition with Apple's AirPods Pro, and I believe that Apple will probably release something this year to continue to move the goalposts
• CES saw a slew of new CPU and GPU announcements from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA, with Intel and AMD duking it out on CPU in laptops, mostly, and NVIDIA announced a full line of Ampere RTX 30 Series GPUs for laptops as well as the new RTX 3060 for $329
• Ericsson and Nokia both signed long term 5G deals with T-Mobile as the company continues to aggressively roll out its 600 MHz and 2.5 GHz 5G networks
• Verizon talked about 5G at the company's CES 2021 keynote, but I believe it failed to acknowledge that the company's strategy needs to change to be competitive with AT&T and T-Mobile
• I believe that Verizon and AT&T are going to run into significant hurdles attempting to roll out its $70 billion in spectrum.  It will need to get permits and spend tens of billions to realize the full value of that spectrum.
• The Samsung Galaxy S21 does away with MST, which, while novel and useful, has not proven necessary now that NFC is available at most payment terminals
• Qualcomm announced a mmWave FWA trial that reached 7km, which is the furthest mmWave 5G has ever reached and shows how mmWave can be used beneficially for fixed wireless broadband

Quantum Computing (Paul Smith-Goodson)

• Pharmaceuticals is one of the major domains where quantum computing will have a major impact. It will enable the creation of new drugs at a much lower cost, and rather than many years of research, drugs can be targeted and created much faster. 
• Boehringer Ingelheim, a global research-driven pharmaceutical company, has formed a three-year partnership with Google to begin its quantum program. It specializes in medicine for humans and animals. Boehringer Ingelheim more than 51,000 employees, and it is the first pharmaceutical to partner with Google. 
• IBM led the U.S. technology companies again in the number of 2020 patents, with 9,130. It included 2,300 patents in A.I., 3,000 in the cloud, and an unspecified number in quantum and cybersecurity. It has led in the number of patents every year since 1992 - pretty impressive.
• In 2021 I will be following the DoD work as it reports on the national security threat posed by quantum computing. This is part of the new annual defense policy law. The DoD must provide a "comprehensive assessment of the current and potential threats and risks posed by quantum computing technologies to critical national security systems." A large part of the report will examine China's quantum program for military applications.  The assessment must be completed by December 31, 2021.

Security (Chris Wilder)

• N/A

Columns Published (Forbes, UPLOAD VR, and others)        

1. AMD Expands Zen 3 Into Laptops At CES 2021, by Patrick Moorhead
2. NVIDIA Turns Up The Ampere At CES 2021, by Patrick Moorhead
3. Intel Cranks CES 2021 To 11 With Massive Slew Of 11th Gen Core Processors, by Patrick Moorhead
4. Lenovo Launches A Plethora Of Innovative Consumer And Enterprise Devices At CES 2021, by Patrick Moorhead
5. HP Launches Premium Business Devices To Enhance Collaboration Experience, by Patrick Moorhead
6. Dell's New Enterprise P.C.'s, Displays, And Software Shows Commitment To Collaboration, by Patrick Moorhead
7. Intel's Mobileye Presents Plan For Worldwide A.V. Rollout At CES 2021, by Patrick Moorhead
8. Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2021 Brings Style And Performance To S21 Smartphones And Buds Pro Earbuds, by Patrick Moorhead
9. Qualcomm Acquires NUVIA To Accelerate Its Future CPUs With Support From 18 Partners, by Patrick Moorhead
10. Amazon Bankrolls Housing Equity In Its Corporate Home Communities With $2B Fund, by Patrick Moorhead
11. Dell Elevates The Work From Home Experience At CES 2021, by Anshel Sag
12. Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin: Transforming FinTech, Healthcare, And More, by Melody Brue
13. Broadcom And IBM Deliver New Levels Of Cyber-Resilient Storage, by Steve McDowell
14. Three Cellular Networking Predictions For 2021, by Will Townsend
15. Quantum Computing's New Dynamic Duo: John Martinis And Michelle Simmons, by Paul Smith-Goodson

Blogs Published (MI&S)                                                              

1. Poly Sync 20 Review: Smart Speakerphone For Hybrid Work, by Patrick Moorhead
2. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Is Growing Up And Gaining Customers, by Patrick Moorhead
3. Apple MacBook Pro 13" M1 AAA Gaming Experience: Good Performance For Thin And Lite, But Rough Experience For Some Games, by Patrick Moorhead
4. AI Is More Than A Buzzword And Being Deployed Now On Ships And Golf Carts, by Patrick Moorhead
5. The Dell XPS 17: The Content Creator's Dream Laptop, by Anshel Sag
6. Great Post-Holiday Smart Tech Gifts For Your Home, by Mark Vena
7. Graphcore Raises Yet Another Round, by Karl Freund
8. Varjo Sets A New Standard For Enterprise X.R. And V.R., by Anshel Sag

Research Paper

• RESEARCH PAPER: Overcoming The Risks & Complexities Of Legacy Data Migration, by Steve McDowell

Podcasts:

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

• The G2 on 5G - Episode 35 - January 15, 2021
  • Will's recent top three predictions for cellular networking in 2021 Forbes article recap
  • Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2021 - Samsung Galaxy S21 5G, S21+, and S21 Ultra
  • T-Mobile signs new multi-billion-dollar 5G deals with Ericsson and Nokia - what does it mean for the "Uncarrier"?
  • Verizon 5G CES 2021 Keynote with Hans Vestberg
  • Verizon embraces Open RAN - or do they?
  • T-Mobile and Nokia Sign 5-year Deal Extension for 2.5 GHz 5G Massive MIMO
• The G2 on 5G Podcast - Episode 34 January 8, 2021
  • Private 5G networking ramps in 2021
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G Chipset & New CEO
  • SK Telecom and AWS partner to deliver edge cloud services with Wavelength to supercharge 5G services  
  • 5G Chip in COVID Vaccine - Actually A Guitar Pedal
  • FCC C-Band Auction Breaks $80 billion - what are the implications?
  • T-Mobile is preparing for 5G FWA after testing with 4G Pilot

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

• Weekly News Round-Up: January 11, 2021

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

• HP's Personal Systems President Alex Cho Talks CES 2021
  • How H.P. approached a "remote" CES for the first time in history 
  • The three C's Dragonfly, Envy, and Elite Folio announcements 
  • H.P. earbuds Working from "x" for 2021 
• Qualcomm acquires NUVIA to accelerate its CPUs
  • Qualcomm's $1.4B acquisition of NUVIA
• Intel Names Pat Gelsinger new CEO
  • Intel's appointment of VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger as its CEO
• CES 2021 coverage
  •  CES 2021 announcements by HP, Dell, Lenovo, Intel, AMD and NVIDIA

Moor Insights & Strategy Podcast

• Samsung Galaxy S21 questions? We take your questions live #Unpacked2021
  • Have S21 questions? Patrick Moorhead and Anshel Sag will take your questions 

 Press Citations: 

1. Amazon Ring/ HelpNetSecurity https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/01/15/ring-video-end-to-end-encryption/ 
2. Amazon Ring / Valdosta Daily Times https://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/business/ring-launches-video-end-to-end-encryption/article_25152f57-558f-54f0-bace-77c0e355e68e.html 
3. Amazon Ring/ Security Watch https://www.securityinfowatch.com/ces/news/21205832/ring-unveils-endtoend-video-encryption
4. AMD, Chips / MarketWatch https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amd-stock-rises-after-announcement-of-new-laptop-chip-11610469274 
5. AMD, Chip / ReportDoor https://www.reportdoor.com/amd-announces-new-laptop-and-data-center-chips-at-ces/ 
6. Google, Fitbit /SiliconAngle https://siliconangle.com/2021/01/14/despite-antitrust-investigation-google-completes-acquisition-fitbit/ 
7. Horizon Robotics / EnterpriseAI https://www.enterpriseai.news/2021/01/11/400m-in-c2-funding-raised-by-automotive-ai-chip-vendor-horizon-robotics/ (Karl Freund) 
8. Intel/ CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/01/13/new-ceo-pat-gelsinger-to-focus-on-execution-at-intel-moor-insights-moorhead.html
9. Intel/ ZDNet https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-ceo-swan-to-be-replaced-by-vmware-ceo-gelsinger/
10. Intel/ TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/13/pat-gelsinger-stepping-down-as-vmware-ceo-to-replace-bob-swan-at-intel/
11. Intel, VMWare / New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/technology/intel-ceo-swan-gelsinger.html 
12. Intel/ VentureBeat https://venturebeat.com/2021/01/13/pat-gelsinger-will-take-over-as-new-intel-ceo-on-february-15/
13. Intel/ Barron’s https://www.barrons.com/articles/pat-gelsinger-is-the-right-ceo-for-intel-hes-got-many-problems-to-address-51610563584
14. Intel / SDXCentral  https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/can-favorite-son-pat-gelsinger-save-intel/2021/01/ 
15. Intel, Chips / SiliconAngle https://siliconangle.com/2021/01/11/intel-debuts-four-new-processor-families-ces/ 
16. Intel/ C-Net https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-former-tech-chief-pat-gelsinger-to-replace-ceo-bob-swan/
17. Intel/ FT https://www.ft.com/content/51f63b07-aeb8-4961-9ce9-c1f7a4e326f0
18. Intel/ Oregonian https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2021/01/intel-is-replacing-ceo-bob-swan-with-vmwares-pat-gelsinger.html
19. Intel, VMware / Yahoo Finance https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-ceo-bob-swan-reportedly-set-to-depart-in-february-to-be-replaced-with-vm-wares-pat-gelsinger-142520631.html?
20. Intel/ Portland Biz Journal https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2021/01/13/the-right-guy-for-intel.html
21. Intel/ Oregonian https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2021/01/intel-is-replacing-ceo-bob-swan-with-vmwares-pat-gelsinger.html
22. Intel, VMWare / PCWorld https://www.pcworld.com/article/3603134/intel-unexpectedly-names-former-cto-pat-gelsinger-as-its-new-ceo.html 
23. Intel, Interview, Bob Swan / AnandTech https://www.anandtech.com/show/16360/an-interview-with-intel-ceo-bob-swan-roundtable-qa-on-fabs-and-future 
24. Intel, VMWare / TechCrunch... https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/13/pat-gelsinger-stepping-down-as-vmware-ceo-to-replace-bob-swan-at-intel/ 
25. Intel, TSMC, Samsung / SDXCentral https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/intel-slaughters-sacred-cow-may-move-production-to-tsmc-samsung/2021/01/ 
26. Intel, VMWare / U.S.Newschant https://us.newschant.com/technology/intel-under-pressure-to-rethink-its-business-ousts-its-chief-executive/ 
27. Intel Mobileye, Chip / https://www.wired.com/story/mobileye-lidar-on-a-chip-intel/ 
28. Lenovo / Newsopener https://newsopener.com/product-reviews/the-future-of-phone-design-flexible-screens-that-roll-up/ 
29. NVIDIA / MarketWatch https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-reveals-cheaper-chip-for-desktops-new-gaming-laptops-that-could-avoid-supply-crunch-11610472725 
30. NVIDIA, Chips /Morningstar https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20210112423/nvidia-reveals-cheaper-chip-for-desktops-new-gaming-laptops-that-could-avoid-supply-crunch 
31. PC, Market / TechNews World https://www.technewsworld.com/story/86978.html 
32. Qualcomm, Nuvia / TechTarget  https://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/news/252494842/Qualcomm-to-buy-Nuvia-for-14-billion 
33. Spectrum, 5G / https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/08/mobile-media-giants-submit-record-bids-as-5g-spectrum-auction-tops-78-billion/ (Will Townsend) 
34. Samsung, Smartphone / Channel Futures  https://www.channelfutures.com/mobility/samsung-boosts-smartphone-security-with-new-galaxy-s21-line

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 
• Dell XPS 13 EVO laptop
• HP Spectre EVO 13 laptop
• Huawei P40 Pro 
• IBM Qiskit software
• Intel ATX12VO motherboard & PSU
• Razer EVO laptop
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2
• Sony blogger camera
• TCL 10 5G U.W.
• Xbox Series X 

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

• January 2020
  • NRF 2021 Retail's Big Show, January 18 (Melody Brue)
  • Cloudera Winter Analyst Brief, January 22 (Patrick Moorhead)
  • 24th Annual Conference on Quantum Information Processing, January 29 -February 5 (Paul Smith-Goodson)
• February 2020
  • 24th Annual Conference on Quantum Information Processing, January 29 - February 5 (Paul Smith-Goodson)

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The Team 

Analysts and Analysts In-Residence

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. Rhett Dillingham, Senior Analyst, Cloud Services 
4. Karl Freund, Senior Analyst, HPC, and Deep Learning 
5. Matt Kimball, Senior Analyst, Datacenter Servers, CI, and HCI 
6. Melody Brue, Senior Analyst, Financial Tech
7. Steve McDowell, Senior Analyst, Datacenter Storage, and Storage Technologies 
8. Anshel Sag, Senior Analyst; V.R., P.C. Gaming, Mobile Platforms 
9. Paul Smith-Goodson, Senior Analyst; Quantum Computing 
10. Will Townsend, Senior Analyst; Carrier Equipment and Services, DC Networking 
11. Chris Wilder, Senior Analyst, Security 
12. 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