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The Morning Download: SAP Sees Pandemic Impacting Big IT Projects
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Good Morning, CIOs. The pandemic has proven to be a boon for cloud vendors. But there may be a limit, both for vendors and the businesses tapping the technology during these uncertain times. SAP SE this week, citing a resurgence in Covid-19 infections and the threat of new lockdowns, pointed to some potholes ahead.
Decelerating digital transformation? "Recovery is uneven and companies are facing more business uncertainty,” SAP said. “Consequently, there is greater scrutiny of larger projects." The company lowered its revenue and profit targets for the full year.
To be sure, the German software company, currently in the middle of shifting more of its business from software licenses to subscription-based cloud services, has its own challenges. For one, SAP is exposed to the drop in business travel through its Concur platform. But the underlying message nevertheless underscores how challenging the next year could be for CIOs as they lead higher-value, high-priority projects through a potentially slow(er), more gradual recovery.
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Ant Group to raise more than $34 billion. The firm is seeking to raise about $17.2 billion in Shanghai and Hong Kong what co-founder Jack Ma calls the largest IPO in "human history."
Don't let the name fool you. Ant processes trillions of dollars in payments annually, runs one of the world’s largest money-market funds, and facilitates small loans to hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses. (WSJ)
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Facebook is tightening its rules on content concerning the U.S. presidential election next month.
PHOTO: GABBY JONES/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Facebook prepares measures for possible election unrest. Emergency moves under discussion at Facebook includes an across-the-board slowing of the spread of posts as they start to go viral and tweaking the news feed to change what types of content users see. The company could also lower the threshold for detecting the types of content its software views as dangerous.
Remember when? The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that the company shuttered or watered down a series of efforts meant to reduce polarization in part because of fear that such initiatives would be perceived as biased. (WSJ)
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Lee Jae-yong arrives for the funeral of his father, the late Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, in Seoul on Sunday.
PHOTO: -/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Samsung heir takes reins. Lee Jae-yong has the challenge of transforming the South Korean conglomerate after it has failed to keep pace with rivals over the past six years, WSJ reports.
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Over the past six years, Samsung, unlike Apple Inc., has failed to create homegrown software or services that would drive loyalty for its array of products. It is still a successful, though vulnerable, maker of nearly every major electronics product on Earth, plus many of the core components required to assemble them, from smartphone displays to a computer’s gigabytes of storage.
Instead of a transformation under Lee Jae-yong, Samsung has struggled as Chinese rivals matched them on features and beat them on price. Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, with greater expertise in services than Samsung, have launched popular home speakers or smartphones.
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Elizabeth Koh, The Wall Street Journal
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Succession, Samsung style. His father, Lee Kun-hee, who was 78 when he died, was known for making massive bets, even imploring executives to “change everything except for your wife and children.” Lee Jae-yong—who goes by Jay Y. in the West—is 52, trilingual and Harvard-educated. He has cultivated relationships with Silicon Valley elite and even attended the Sun Valley conference in Idaho.
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The Google deal accounts for a big chunk of Apple’s so-called services business.
PHOTO: ANDREW MATTHEWS/ZUMA PRESS
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Apple caught up in Google antitrust battle. A multibillion-dollar deal in which Google pays to be the default search engine on Apple Inc.’s devices is at the heart of the case the U.S. government filed last week against Google “There’s a risk, if you play it out, that there actually could be more financial impact to Apple than there is for Google,” Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst for Bernstein, tells WSJ's Tim Higgins. He estimates that Apple’s stock could fall as much as 20% if the deal with Google were to be eliminated entirely.
Thoma Bravo Raises $22.8 billion in record tech-fundraising haul. The nine-month long fundraising process was “almost completely virtual,” Jennifer James, managing director and head of investor relations and marketing at Thoma Bravo, tells WSJ's Preeti Singh. Nearly all existing investors in Thoma Bravo’s previous funds committed capital in the latest fundraising.
Facebook moves into cloud gaming. As pandemic has fueled growth for the videogame industry, the social network announced plans to include its free-to-play gaming library to include more-complex and multiplayer titles.
Cloud gaming takes off. Within the past year, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have launched subscription-based cloud-gaming services. Because games need to support multiple players with minimal delay regardless of their locations, the technology is difficult for companies to execute smoothly, WSJ's Sarah E. Needleman reports. But the cloud focus means players can avoid downloading games to their devices and don’t need to invest in gaming hardware such as a console or a high-end computer.
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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Amy Coney Barrett took the first of two oaths to be sworn in to the Supreme Court Monday, elevating a disciple of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and establishing a broad conservative majority for the first time since the 1930s. (WSJ)
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to allow pandemic-related changes to voting rules in Wisconsin, a move that means mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day in a leading battleground state. (WSJ)
A housing crisis that is emerging in the U.S. threatens to send millions of renters into eviction and leave landlords short billions of dollars. (WSJ)
A growing number of countries are trimming the length of time people potentially exposed to the coronavirus need to self-quarantine to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19. Their reasoning: Shorter spells might help manage the pandemic by encouraging greater compliance. (WSJ)
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