We hope everyone had a great week!
This week, I will be attending Salesforce Dreamforce in San Franciso. Will will attend the Fortinet Championship PGA Event in Napa and a Circuit of the Americas Private 5G Tour in Austin.
Next week is a busy one. Several of us will attend Oracle Cloud World in Las Vegas (myself, Matt, and Robert) and Intel Innovation 2023 in San Jose (myself, Anshel, and Paul). Will will be attending Connected Britain in London. Paul will attend the IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing & Engineering in Washington and the AI Summit in Austin. Then Mel and I will be attending Microsoft’s special event in New York City.
Our MI&S team published 25 deliverables:
- 4 Forbes Insight columns
- 15 MI&S blogs
- 6 podcasts
- 0 research papers
Over the past week, the press quoted us with 12 citations. They wanted to hear about Broadcom, Intuit, Lenovo, and Meta.
MIS Quick Insights:
A.I./Machine Learning (Paul Smith-Goodson)
- As part of AI, IBM Research has developed two new language models, Granite. 13b.instruct and Granite.13b.chat. These models use a decoder architecture to predict the next word in a sequence. They have 13 billion parameters, making them more efficient and easier to train than larger models. They can fit on a single GPU and perform well on various business-domain tasks, such as summarization, question-answering, classification, content generation, and insight extraction. It can be useful for different industries and applications.
AR/VR (Anshel Sag)
- On the verge of the Quest 3 launch, rumors are swirling around that Meta may be working on an Apple Vision Pro competitor with LG, which will likely be the Quest Pro 2 or Quest Pro 3. I don’t think it matters much because Meta needs to work on its enterprise software and partnerships more than it needs to build enterprise-specific high-end hardware. The original Quest Pro was a development device for the Quest 3, and I expect subsequent Quest Pro devices will be development devices for the next-generation Quest mainstream devices, too.
- Enterprise VR headset and platform company Varjo signed a multi-million-dollar deal with the US Army to provide training systems, including headsets, through integrator Cole Engineering using its XR-3 headset. Considering that Varjo is already used in military applications in Europe, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
Carrier/Wireless (Will Townsend)
- Rumors abound that T-Mobile might consider acquiring USc It’s an exciting proposition that would undoubtedly be scrutinized by both the FCC and FTC. It’s no secret that UScellular has struggled to keep pace with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon in both LTE and 5G connectivity deployment and adjacent services. With that said, T-Mobile would likely be the best suitor, given its focus on rural connectivity, representing the bedrock of UScellular’s subscriber base.
Datacenter:
Networking– (Will Townsend)
- Google announced its Cross-Cloud Network platform at its Cloud Next event recently. The company aims to tie multi-cloud and on-premises domain connectivity together in an easy-to-manage platform. I like the security integration and partner ecosystem approach that supports distributed applications, emerging AI workloads, and hybrid work scenarios. Google may be late to the party relative to VMware, AWS, and Azure, but it is a compelling offering on the surface.
Compute/Storage (Matt Kimball)
- What to make of the Cisco – Nutanix partnership recently announced? If it seems like an odd sort of coupling, it is. Cisco compute has played in the large enterprise space, while Nutanix has been squarely positioned just a little downstream. Additionally, Cisco has positioned its HyperFlex solution to drive down market momentum. With this said, I think this partnership has much potential for success. And both companies will win. Cisco has a go-to-market partner with a very enthusiastic customer base with great potential. And a marketing team (behind the portfolio) that is edgy and on the leading edge. On the other side of the equation, Nutanix has a partner with credibility in a market segment that its chief competitor has a lot of success penetrating. And a solid server portfolio that can accelerate the Nutanix value play. I hope to see a lot of cross-company collaboration in GTM – from positioning to selling to channel enablement. If so, the sky’s the limit.
- Both Dell and HPE performed well in what I expected to be a down market. Each company’s hold on the enterprise IT market segment was on display as each company saw growth in strategic initiatives. I’m especially impressed with HPE’s growth in GreenLake ($12B TCV) and the growth of Intelligent Edge. Amazingly, Intelligent edge is now the second largest topline contributor for HPE (20%). On the Dell front, AI was the darling of the quarter. The company estimates that AI servers accounted for 20% of its server mix 1H2023. With a forecasted 19% CAGR for the AI market, many margin-rich servers are being sold over the next few years. Given the sequential growth seen from these vendors, I think the second half of 2023 will be strong.
- In light of the quarterly results from all of the server vendors, I have to say that I’m even further impressed with how much Pure Storage has done in the market. While most have seen flat-to-down quarters in the storage space, Pure’s numbers were strong and remarkable relative to the competition. Six percent Y/Y growth, doubling subscriptions of its as-a-service offering, record sales for FlashBlade, and an 81.4 NPS (customer satisfaction rating). Finally, the company made a major splash at VMware Explore with its Azure VMware Service offering. There’s nothing better than watching an innovator and challenger in the market continuing to drive disruption.
ESG (Melody Brue)
- Formula 1 has partnered with Lenovo’s Asset Recovery Services in the organization’s efforts to improve sustainability in motorsports. Lenovo ARS helps F1 develop and implement a sustainable disposition strategy for technology hardware that the organization cycles through. F1 says that Lenovo ARS has enabled it to offset the costs of technology refreshes and guarantee secure data destruction while recycling its technology assets in a more socially and environmentally responsible way. I don’t consider auto racing an exceptionally environmentally friendly sport but seeing that the F1 organization has more sustainable goals is nice.
Enterprise Data (Robert Kramer)
- IBM has unveiled two major enhancements to Watsonx.data (a main component of the watsonx platform) to roll out in 4Q. The platform will incorporate generative AI from watsonx.ai, offering users a natural language self-service experience for data AI tasks. Additionally, Watsonx.data will integrate vector database features to bolster watsonx.ai’s data retrieval functions. Built on an open lakehouse design, Watsonx.data augments analytics and AI for businesses, facilitates rapid data access, ensures reliable insights, and curtails data warehouse costs. It also champions querying, governance, and open data formats. This service is now available on IBM Cloud, AWS, and as containerized software. I’ve consistently tracked IBM’s progress throughout my professional journey. The watsonx platform is undoubtedly garnering attention. Watch for my upcoming article as I discuss it with IBM’s product specialists.
- Couchbase released its second quarter fiscal 2024 highlights. Revenue $43M with $41M being subscription. Other highlights were 24% ARR growth at $180.7M. Couchbase continues to grow in a competitive industry and brings new features and capabilities. Coming soon (next week) will be my latest Couchbase announcement on AI-assisted coding with Capella iQ and their AI Accelerate Partner Program.
- SAP SE announced this week an agreement to acquire LeanIX GmbH. They are an enterprise architecture management (EAM) software leader offering data-driven AI/ML features to enhance your workspace by delivering insights/recommendations from external data sources. Headquartered in Bonn, Germany, LeanIX serves over 1,000 companies globally across various industries, including over 10% of the Fortune 500 and half of the German DAX 40. More to come on this, as the transaction should close by the end of the year. SAP plans to extend its transformation suite with another data tool complementing its SAP Signavio (journey to process analytics). I will have more details on SAP in the coming months.
- Cloudera and AWS inked a Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA). With this move, Cloudera aims to employ AWS services to bring forth innovative solutions while reducing costs for its users through its open data lakehouse on AWS, which is tailored for enterprise generative AI. AWS will run CDP critical components, including data movement, lakehouse, data warehousing, AI/machine learning, and end-to-end security. Time will tell, but this collaboration is to provide customers with a smooth transition to CDP on the cloud and augments support for hybrid setups without requiring alterations to existing applications. Stay tuned for an upcoming detailed piece where I discuss the AWS data team’s vision.
- Exciting new asset from HYCU. ‘Averting the SaaS Data Apocalypse’ written by HYCU CEO and Founder Simon Taylor. This book discusses the insightful journey into the SaaS data protection and recovery world. I’m anxious to read the book and talk more with HYCU about its future visions as they target SaaS protection.
Financial Tech (Melody Brue)
- N/A
IIoT and IoT (Bill Curtis)
- N/A
Modern Work (Melody Brue)
- Zoho announced this week that it has reached over 100 million users through its 55+ business apps. Zoho is the first to grow to this level without external funding, making it the first bootstrapped SaaS company to do so. This number is with roughly 700K customers, which highlights the size of businesses the company serves – mainly SMBs. However, Zoho plans to go up and down market with solutions for solo entrepreneurs and enterprise customers. The company also hit $1 billion in annual revenue last year. Zoho’s user base has grown steadily over 15 years. When I attended Zoho’s Zoholics conference in May, I heard many stories from customers about how the company has stayed true to its values and served customers, fueling this independent growth in more than 150 countries globally. Much of the company’s growth comes from word of mouth, and it doesn’t spend much on marketing. Zoho users are very loyal – hence the conference name “Zoholics,” which I found to be accurate amongst its users– and the company has much to offer its 100 million customers. With so many options in the market, Zoho is doing something right to have such a loyal following. Zoho announced its three-phase GAI strategy in May, which started with third-party functions omitted by default but available as extensions. Its mid-phase includes open-source tooling with all data centralized in Zoho’s data center for customer data security. The final phase involves Zoho creating its own LLMs and GAI tools. With a platform where businesses can consolidate their applications and now utilize GAI for productivity, I am not surprised to see this level of growth for Zoho.
- Zoom introduced new GAI capabilities for Meetings, Team Chat, Phone, Email, and Whiteboard called AI Companion. The company plans to infuse AI Companion across the Zoom platform, similar to Microsoft’s Copilot and Google Duet AI. The difference is that Zoom is offering it for free to paid subscribers. This allows companies to provide it to all users while having control from an admin portal for security. After facing some scrutiny over its terms of service in August, Zoom is taking a very cautious approach to the AI Companion rollout. The default is that it is disabled, and an administrator must enable it from the master account. Users and admins have complete visibility into any GAI use, similar to how someone is notified if a meeting is being recorded, and they can either accept or leave it. After changing its TOS in August, the company committed not to train its AI models using customer data.
- Zoom also rebranded its AI-enhanced Zoom Sales IQ tool to Revenue Accelerator. Zoom built Revenue Accelerator conversational intelligence on the same platform as Zoom Meetings and Zoom Phone, so most users are likely already familiar with the interface. It has out-of-the-box integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Hubspot, and Monday.com CRMs. Zoom is wise to add new capabilities to an already sticky platform, showing it can successfully move well beyond being (at least known for) only a video conferencing tool.
- Grammarly has introduced new AI-powered features to help students in their writing journey, promoting responsible AI use and academic integrity. These features are designed to be transparent and include generating citations for Grammarly’s and users’ prompts. Many schools initially banned ChatGPT and other GAI but have started to pull back on those decisions in many cases. I feel that this initial decision to ban ChatGPT and other GAI tools in school came from an uninformed opinion or misunderstood standpoint that any GAI would lead to cheating or plagiarism. I have long said that schools should teach kids to use AI responsibly in school because they will need to know how to use it when they enter the workforce. Particularly in education, proper citation helps ease fears when using AI tools. Grammarly offers two types of citation prompts available in the browser extension: one to acknowledge the use of Grammarly GAI and another to generate correctly formatted citations based on style guidelines. The company says it will highlight the prompts for users who indicate they’re using Grammarly for “school” when signing up. I’d like to see the traditional citation generator for research available in other versions of Grammarly as the company adds compatibility with more websites. Still, until then, it has a standalone free citation generator for APA, MLA, and Chicago-style citations, which is very user-friendly but does require data entry and toggling away from what you’re working on.
Personal Computing (Anshel Sag)
- The Senate has finally appointed a 5th member of the FCC’s board, which governs spectrum policy and regulations, which will help to make that agency more capable of making decisions and getting things done more quickly. Unfortunately, Congress still has not reauthorized its authority to manage and auction spectrum, which is a problem for operators like T-Mobile, who have already paid for spectrum but cannot use it legally without that FCC authority.
- Qualcomm and Samsung Networks have demonstrated a new record for 2x UL and 4xDL carrier aggregation on the FDD bands, which will help OEMs and operators easily aggregate smaller spectrum blocks to maximize performance in 5G.
- Apple is rumored to once again be pushing back the implementation of its 5G modems back to 2025. This would mean that Apple’s efforts will have taken six years to come to market rather than the initially expected four years in 2023, which it has already stated will not happen.
- MediaTek has stated that its next-generation Flagship SoC will use TSMC’s 3nm process node, bringing considerable performance or power improvements and added density. This will allow it to compete in 2024 using the most advanced process nodes.
- The new Pixel Watch will sport a unique array of sensors and an IP68 rating, making it much friendlier for swimmers. It is expected to have considerably better battery life and performance thanks to the rumored Qualcomm Snapdragon W5Plus processor inside. I was a huge fan of the Pixel Watch but found its battery life and screen size to be huge dealbreakers. This watch will likely launch in concert with the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro at Google’s launch event in October.
Quantum Computing (Paul Smith-Goodson)
- Zapata Computing is becoming Zapata AI under a SPAC deal, merging it with Andretti Acquisition Corp. Zapata AI will be publicly on the NYSE under the ticker ZPTA. Zapata AI’s products include Zapata AI Prose for LLM generative AI and Zapata AI Sense for analytics solutions to complex industry problems. The technology will run on Zapata’s full-stack Quantum AI software platform, Orquestra, which works with various cloud providers and hardware platforms. Zapata AI has over 100 global patents and patent applications and works with partners across multiple industries. Andretti Acquisition Corp. is familiar with Zapata AI through its commercial partnership with Andretti Autosport. The merger will give Zapata AI access to capital markets. We will likely hear more companies using quantum to create generative AI solutions. With its main now on AI, how much of its focus on quantum will fade into the background?
- IBM Research is working to reduce the number of physical qubits needed for error correction by more than 10X. They use LDPC codes, which can encode more information and work well at low error rates. They also propose using special couplers connecting qubits far apart on a 2D lattice. This makes the code more efficient than the surface code, which only connects qubits next to each other. However, the current quantum computing processors do not yet have enough qubits or couplers to implement this code.
Security (Will Townsend)
- Apple recently released an urgent security update to prevent the placement of Pegasus spyware in iPhones. Deemed a zero-day exploit, it points to a growing sophistication by bad actors to catch companies with deep technical expertise like Apple off-guard. I suspect that zero-day exploits will continue to gain momentum, and organizations will seek solutions to combat the growing threat.
Columns Published
- Lenovo Enters The Handheld Gaming Sector, Adds New High-End Gaming PCs At IFA 2023, by Anshel Sag
- LoRaWAN And Its Global Sustainability Mission, by Will Townsend
- Zoom Unveils New AI Companion Features, by Melody Brue
- Qualcomm Upgrades And Expands Its Handheld Gaming Chip Lineup, by Anshel Sag
Blogs Published (MI&S)
- Frore Systems: Winning Awards, Kicking Heat And Taking Names, by Patrick Moorhead
- AFRY — An Integrated Single Source Of Truth Across IT, OT And ET, by Patrick Moorhead
- LogicMonitor’s Summer 2023 Release: Peak Monitoring, by Robert Kramer
- Google Cloud Next 2023 Simplifies Data, by Robert Kramer
- VMware Scales Up Its Ransomware Recovery Solution, by Robert Kramer
- Enterprise Data Technology, Part 1: Internal And External Data Sources, Robert Kramer
- The Art Of Connectivity: What Art Can Teach Us About Data, by Robert Kramer
- Arm’s Hot Chip Reveal: Faster Silicon Development, Performance Uplifts, by Matt Kimball
- VMware Explore 2023 Recap: It’s All About Your Data, by Matt Kimball
- HPE Aruba Networking Leaders Discuss Its Opportunities For Growth, by Will Townsend
- VMware Explore 2023 Extends Into Cloud Networking And Security, by Will Townsend
- Pure Storage And VMware On Azure: Easy, Performant, Cost-Effective, by Matt Kimball
- Siggraph 2023 Highlights New Graphics Technologies — And Missed Opportunities, by Anshel Sag
- The Graphics Industry Came Together At Siggraph 2023 — Dominated By NVIDIA, by Anshel Sag
- Intel’s Q3 Graphics Update Brings New Uplift To DX11 Gamers And Performance Tools, by Anshel Sag
Research Paper(s):
- N/A
Podcasts:
The G2 on 5G by Moor Insights & Strategy, with Anshel Sag and Will Townsend
- The G2 on 5G Podcast – Senate Confirms Anna Gomez to FCC, Apple 5G Modem Delayed to 2025 & More!
- The G2 on 5G Podcast – Vodafone UK’s Open RAN, Fairphone 5, Nokia Drone Network, NATO 5G Tests
The Six-Five Podcast by Moor Insights & Strategy and Futurum Research, with Patrick Moorhead and Daniel Newman
Moor Insights & Strategy Podcasts, with Patrick Moorhead, Melody Brue, CP Smith-Goodson, Matt Kimball, and Will Townsend.
- Ep11: MI&S Datacenter Podcast: Talking Intel and Arm Hot Chips, Google Next, HPE, Cisco, IBM, Gaudi2
- MI&S Insider with Wells Fargo CIO Chintan Mehta on Evolving an AI Ecosystem
Other Podcasts
- Apple Vision Pro’s Impact on the XR Market, with Anshel Sag
Citations:
- Broadcom / Pricing / Patrick Moorhead / https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/broadcom-has-done-a-really-good-job-with-its-pricing-power-strategy-analyst/vi-AA1g4yfJ
- Intuit / AI / Patrick Moorhead / https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230906246525/en/Introducing-Intuit-Assist-The-Generative-AI-Powered-Financial-Assistant-for-Small-Businesses-and-Consumers
- Intuit / AI / Patrick Moorhead / https://www.financialexpress.com/business/sme-intuit-launches-generative-ai-powered-financial-assistant-intuit-assist-for-small-businesses-3235789/
- Intuit / AI / Patrick Moorhead / https://intuitiveaccountant.com/in-the-news/people-and-business/meet-intuit-assist/
- Intuit / AI / Patrick Moorhead / https://siliconangle.com/2023/09/06/intuit-unveils-generative-ai-assistant-expert-businesses-consumers/
- Lenovo / XaaS / Matt Kimball / https://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2023/sep/07/why-lenovos-xaas-play-is-gaining-strength-keys-for-digital-transformation-success/
- Lenovo / XaaS / Moor Insights & Strategy / https://isp.page/news/why-lenovos-xaas-play-is-gaining-strength-keys-for-digital-transformation-success/
- Meta / Mixed Reality / Anshel Sag / https://gameishard.gg/news/meta-has-a-secret-vr-headset-that-may-have-a-key-advantage-over-apples-vision-pro/79728/
- Meta / Mixed Reality / Anshel Sag / https://ts2.space/en/metas-flamera-cracking-the-code-for-passthrough-in-mixed-reality/
- Meta / VR / Anshel Sag / https://gettotext.com/meta-a-secret-vr-headset-that-could-surpass-apples-vision-pro/
- Meta / VR / Anshel Sag / https://ustoday.news/meta-has-a-secret-vr-headset-that-may-have-a-distinct-advantage-over-apples-vision-pro/
- Meta / VR / Anshel Sag / https://www.zdnet.com/article/meta-has-a-secret-vr-headset-that-may-have-a-key-advantage-over-apples-vision-pro/
New Gear or Software We are Using and Testing that is Public Knowledge
- XReal Beam AR glasses
- XReal Glasses
- Varjo Aero VR headset
Events MI&S Plans on Attending In-Person or Virtually (New)
- September
- Salesforce Dreamforce, San Francisco, September 11-13 (Patrick Moorhead)
- Fortinet Championship PGA Event – Napa Valley, September 11-13 (Will Townsend)
- Circuit of the Americas Private 5G Tour – Austin, September 15 (Will Townsend)
- IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing & Engineering, Bellevue WA, September 17-22 (Paul Smith-Goodson)
- Oracle Cloud World, Las Vegas, September 18-21 (Patrick Moorhead, Matt Kimball & Robert Kramer)
- Intel Innovation 2023, San Jose, September 19-20 (Anshel Sag, Patrick Moorhead, Paul Smith-Goodson)
- AI Summit, Austin, Sept 20-21 (Paul Smith-Goodson)
- Connected Britain – London, September 20-21 (Will Townsend)
- Fastly Altitude – NYC, September 25-26 (Will Townsend)
- MWC Las Vegas – September 27-28 (Will Townsend)
- October
- RingCentral Analyst Event, Las Vegas, Oct. 1-4 (Melody Brue)
- Ceridian Analyst Summit and Insights User Conference, Las Vegas, October 1-4 (Melody Brue)
- LogicMonitor Analyst Summit – Austin Oct 2-3 (Robert Kramer)
- Zoomtopia, San Jose, October 3-4 (Melody Brue)
- HP Imagine, Palo Alto, October 5 (Melody Brue)
- Huawei Mobile Broadband Forum – Dubai, October 10-11 (Will Townsend)
- Adobe MAX, Los Angeles, October 10-12 (Melody Brue)
- Honeywell Connect, Oct 10-12 (Bill Curtis)
- Box Works October 11, (virtual) (Melody Brue)
- 5G Americas, Dallas, October 11-12 (Anshel Sag)
- OpenText, Las Vegas, October 11 (Patrick Moorhead)
- Lenovo Industry Analyst Event, Raleigh, October 16-18 (Patrick Moorhead, Matt Kimball)
- GITEX Global, Dubai, October 16-20 (Melody Brue)
- com Analyst-Only Executive Q&A October 19 (virtual) (Melody Brue)
- 5G Techritory – Riga, October 18-19 (Will Townsend)
- com Analyst-Only Executive Q&A October 19 (virtual) (Melody Brue)
- WebexOne, Anaheim, October 23-26 (Melody Brue)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, Maui October 24-26 (Patrick Moorhead)
- SAP TechEd Virtual Analyst Summit, October 30 (Melody Brue)
- November
- Dell Analyst Summit, November 1, Austin (Matt Kimball)
- Cloudera Evolve, New York, November 2 (Patrick Moorhead)
- Cisco Partner Summit – Miami, November 6-8 (Will Townsend)
- IBM Research Analyst Day, Yorktown, Nov 9 (Paul Smith-Goodson)
- NTT Field Event – Tokyo, November 10-18 (Will Townsend)
- SC 23, November 13-15 (Patrick Moorhead)
- Veeam Analyst Summit – Seattle November 13-15 (Robert Kramer)
- Microsoft Ignite – Seattle, November 14-17 (virtual) (Will Townsend)
- AWS re:Invent, November 27-30 (Patrick Moorhead, Robert Kramer, Will Townsend)
- December
- RingCentral Analyst Summit, Napa, Dec 4-6 (Melody Brue)
- Marvell IA Day, December 5 (Patrick Moorhead, Will Townsend)
- January 2024
- CES 2024, January 7-11th (Bill Curtis, Patrick Moorhead)
- February 2024
- ZohoDay2024, Texas, February 6-8 (Melody Brue)
- Mobile World Congress, February 24-29th (Patrick Moorhead)
Subscribe
- Sign up here to get specific AI/ML/GAI, Datacenter, Cloud Services, Client Computing, IIoT, and Semiconductor content.
The Team
Analysts
- Patrick Moorhead, Founder, CEO, Chief Analyst; Broad technology coverage plus deep insights into Cloud & Enterprise SaaS, Semiconductors, Automotive, Personal Computing Devices
- Melody Brue, Principal Analyst, Modern Work and ESG
- Bill Curtis, Analyst In-Residence, IIoT, and Deep IoT Technology
- Jacob Freyman, Junior Analyst
- Matt Kimball, Principal Analyst, Datacenter Servers, Storage, CI, and HCI
- Robert Kramer, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Data Technologies
- Anshel Sag, Principal Analyst; VR, PC Gaming, Mobile Platforms
- Paul Smith-Goodson, Principal Analyst; Machine Learning, A.I. and Quantum Computing
- Will Townsend, Principal Analyst; Security, Carrier Services, Networking
Operations
- Dan Pickens, Business Director
- Paula Moorhead, Marketing Director, Website and Social Media
- Christian Babcock, Office Manager, AP & AR
- Lee LeClercq Williams, Business Associate
- Nigel Church, Business Associate, Writer, Editor
- Connor Kenyon, Six Five Sales & Business Development