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The Morning Download: SAP CEO McDermott Steps Down
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Good morning CIOs. German software maker SAP SE announced Thursday that Bill McDermott, chief executive since 2014, is being replaced. The company named two executives, Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein, to serve as co-CEOs. Below are some highlights from the story by The Wall Street Journal's Asa Fitch.
Restructuring and revenue. The announcement comes as SAP pursues a nearly $1 billion restructuring program--an effort aimed at accelerating its ongoing shift towards cloud computing as well as opportunies in AI and analytics. The program includes plans to cut about 4,000 jobs. SAP’s second-quarter earnings, announced in July, missed analysts’ profit expectations, the Journal reports.
Enter the activist investor. Meanwhile hedge-fund manager Elliott Management Corp. in April said it had taken a stake worth $1.32 billion in SAP, calling the business-software company undervalued, according to the Journal.
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Race to the cloud. The Journal says the company has struggled to keep pace with rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc. To bolster its cloud operations, SAP under Mr. McDermott looked to acquisitions like its 2011 $3.4 billion SuccessFactors deal as well as its IT-data platform SAP Hana. SAP Chairman Hasso Plattner in comments Thursday credited Mr. McDermott with being the “main driver" of SAP’s transition to the cloud transition. “We’ve only just scratched the surface,” Mr. McDermott told CIO Journal in July.
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The new system helps people reserve campsites, including spots at Yosemite National Park in California. PHOTO: SCOTT SMITH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Happy camping with containers. People love their devices. People love the outdoors. With attendance at the top national parks at all time highs, the federal government revamped its travel portal, Recreation.gov, in part by incorporating tools and practices found in the commercial sector. CIO Journal's Agam Shah has more.
Containers. To help meet growing online demand, the Recreation.gov revamp used container technology, cordoning off packages of code for discrete functions, like booking.
Happy campers. Containers allowed for a constant stream of updates, personalization, and an overall faster system. For example, the containers used for the booking system were replicated in servers across different regions of the country, meaning every would-be camper would get an equal shot at a coveted camping spot.
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Maxime Beauchemin, Preset Inc.'s founder and chief executive PHOTO: PRESET INC.
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Visual-analytics startup Preset receives VC blessing. Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz said this week that earlier this year it led a funding round of $12.5 million in nine-month-old Silicon Valley startup Preset Inc., which makes a visual-analytics platform. Built on Apache Superset, an open-source analytics application, Preset provides more than 50 types of data visualization including charts and maps, Maxime Beauchemin, the company’s founder and chief executive, tells CIO Journal's Agam Shah.
Andreessen Horowitz leads $300 million investment in RigUp. What's RigUp? It's a marketplace for contract workers in the energy sector. David George, a general partner at Andreessen, tells The Wall Street Journal's Yuliya Chernova that he initially came across the Austin, Texas-based startup when looking for companies that could compete with LinkedIn. “We feel the way to go attack LinkedIn is through deep vertical specialization,” Mr. George said.
AI editor valued at more than $1 billion. Startup Grammarly, which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to help improve people’s writing, closed a $90 million round of funding led by General Catalyst. (TechCrunch)
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Hockey checks big data. This season, the National Hockey League is debuting a puck and player tracking system that promises to unleash a tsunami of data about player speed and execution. The Wall Street Journal's Laine Higgins examines the system developed by SMT, the sports technology company behind football broadcasts’ glowing yellow first-down line
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Infrared and radio frequency sensors are embedded in the pucks and sewn into the collars of skaters’ sweaters.
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Processing devices mounted in the rafters and on the upper tier of the arena record the x, y, z coordinates of each sensor on the ice hundreds of times per second.
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SMT artificial intelligence software then collates the millions of coordinate data points and spits out statistics, like a player’s top speed or total time of possession, accessible on a computer system called Oasis.
Food companies add AI to their recipes. When it comes to developing new products, a number of food giants, including McCormick & Co., Conagra Brands Inc. and PepsiCo Inc., are turning to artificial intelligence's ability to sift through huge numbers of ingredient combinations.
How we got to Cumin pizza. Spice-maker McCormick, through a partnership with International Business Machines Corp., is applying AI to make new combinations from some 10,000 ingredients, colorings and preservatives across its product line. Developers check their own ideas against suggestions from the AI, to look for useful concepts. So far the AI assistance has led to Tuscan chicken, bourbon pork tenderloin and also .... cumin pizza. The Wall Street Journal's Jaewon Kang has more.
Pinterest uses AI to monitor content. Pinterest Inc. says it is using machine learning to identify and hide content linked to self-injury. The company said it has also removed 4,600 terms related to the topic. (Pinterest)
More on Pinterest's AI efforts. CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos talked recently with Pinterest CTO Jeremy King.
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Personal-computer makers Lenovo Group, HP Inc. and Dell Technologies grabbed more than half of the market share. PHOTO: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
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PC shipments rose on software upgrades, looming tariffs. PC shipments rose to 70.9 million units in the September quarter, which was the best third-quarter performance since 2015, according to preliminary data from Canalys. However the upgrade cycle—prompted by new software not designed to run on some older machines—is expected to wane in the fourth quarter. (WSJ)
How big tech was spared by the PG&E blackout. As the California power outage rolls into its third day, rest assured that Silicon Valley is safe. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. induced the blackout, currently effecting upwards of 1 million Californians, to avoid a repeat of last year's disaster in Paradise, Calif. where the failure of a century-old transmission line sparked a wildfire that killed 85.
Why? The bulky, high-voltage transmission wires used to feed large industrial users remain on. They are safer than power lines used in residential areas. Also Silicon Valley, increasingly a concrete and glass sprawl, is not as fire-prone as surrounding areas swathed in forest or dry grass. (Wired)
Porsche now even more unattainable. Boeing Co. is working Volkswagen AG's sports car maker on a concept electric flying vehicle. (Reuters)
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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Two donors to a pro- Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to investigate Democrat Joe Biden were arrested late Wednesday on criminal charges stemming from their alleged efforts to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections and influence U.S. politics on behalf of at least one Ukrainian politician. (WSJ)
Explosions hit an Iranian tanker near the Saudi Arabian port of Jeddah, sending oil prices higher amid already heightened concerns over the security of oil infrastructure in the Middle East. (WSJ)
U.S. manufacturing is in recession, two-thirds of economic forecasters said in a survey, and overall growth in the second half of 2019 is expected to further slow. (WSJ)
The White House gave a politically appointed official the authority to keep aid to Ukraine on hold after career budget staff questioned the legality of delaying the funds. (WSJ)
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