Microsoft announces its first Azure data center region in Taiwan

After announcing its latest data center region in Austria earlier this month and an expansion of its footprint in Brazil, Microsoft today unveiled its plans to open a new region in Taiwan. This new region will augment its existing presence in East Asia, where the company already runs data centers in China (operated by 21Vianet), Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. This new region will bring Microsoft’s total presence around the world to 66 cloud regions.

Similar to its recent expansion in Brazil, Microsoft also pledged to provide digital skilling for over 200,000 people in Taiwan by 2024 and it is growing its Taiwan Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure engineering group, too. That’s in addition to investments in its IoT and AI research efforts in Taiwan and the startup accelerator it runs there.

“Our new investment in Taiwan reflects our faith in its strong heritage of hardware and software integration,” said Jean-Phillippe Courtois, Executive Vice President and President, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations. “With Taiwan’s expertise in hardware manufacturing and the new datacenter region, we look forward to greater transformation, advancing what is possible with 5G, AI and IoT capabilities spanning the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge.”

Image Credits: Microsoft

The new region will offer access to the core Microsoft Azure services. Support for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. That’s pretty much Microsoft’s playbook for launching all of its new regions these days. Like virtually all of Microsoft’s new data center region, this one will also offer multiple availability zones.

Microsoft Azure announces its first region in Austria

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/28/microsoft-announces-its-first-azure-data-center-region-in-taiwan/

Pulumi raises $37.5M Series B for its cloud engineering platform

Seattle-based Pulumi, one of the newer startups in the ”infrastructure-as-code” space, today announced that it has raised a $37.5 million Series B funding round led by NEA. Previous investors Madrona Venture Group and Tola Capital also participated in this round, which brings the total investment in the company to $57.5 million.

The new investment follows the launch of Pulumi 2.0, which got the company closer to its vision of becoming what the team calls a ‘cloud engineering platform’ and impressive growth over the last, with a 10x growth in adoption in the last twelve months.

“We started with infrastructure as code, because we felt like that was a foundational piece that gave us the programming model, along with the cloud resource model,” Pulumi co-founder and CEO Joe Duffy told me. “That was an important place to start. With [Pulumi] 2.0,  we launched support for testing, for policy as code — so that you could actually apply governance and compliance as part of your infrastructure management — and really helping more of the team work together.”

Indeed, after starting with a focus on infrastructure teams, Pulumi is now looking to expand across teams.

“The infrastructure team is becoming the nucleus that pulls the whole team together. We’re actually calling this cloud engineering,” Duffy explained. “What we’re calling cloud engineering is developers using the cloud in a first-class way, infrastructure teams helping them do that and increasingly pulling in security engineers to make sure that governance is part of the story as well. The 2.0 release was our first time exploring those adjacencies and trying to paint a path to realizing the full Pulumi vision.”

Infrastructure as code isn’t necessarily new, of course. The promise of Pulumi is that it isn’t hobbled by any legacy products but that the team designed it as a cloud-native product from the ground up. That’s something NEA’s Aaron Jacobson, who will join the company’s board, also stressed.

“If you think about how fast the cloud has evolved just in 10 years, Pulumi is built in a place of multi-cloud, of Kubernetes, of serverless, Jacobson said. “And much of the original infrastructure-as-code constructs didn’t even have those in mind. Since Pulumi is newer to market and has come after all those constructs, it just has better integration, it’s just is a more delightful experience to developers.”

NEA’s Scott Sandell is actually taking this a bit further. “Venture capitalists are in the business of pattern recognition,” he said. “And the pattern that I recognized actually goes all the way back to when I was a product manager in the windows group. And I saw that developers don’t want to have to deal with complexity — they want to have the complexity managed for them.” That, he argues, is what Pulumi does for developers — and it surely helped the both Duffy and his co-founder and Pulumi executive chairman Eric Rudder left successful careers at Microsoft to build this company.

In addition to the new funding, Pulumi also today announced that it brought in a number of new executives, including industry veterans Jay Wampold as CMO, Lindsay Marolich as senior director of demand generation, Kevin Kotecki as VP of sales and Lee-Ming Zen as VP of engineering.

Pulumi raises $15M for its infrastructure as code platform

Pulumi wants to let you manage your infrastructure with code

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/28/pulumi-raises-37-5m-series-b-for-its-cloud-engineering-platform/

Audible further expands into podcasts

Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook company, is further expanding into podcasts with the addition of approximately 100,000 of podcasts, totaling 5 million episodes to its service. The shows will be offered for free streaming to Audible members and non-subscribers alike, Audible says.

Included in the new lineup are top podcasts like Pod Save America, You’re Wrong About, This American Life, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and FiveThirtyEight Politics, to name a few.

The company told TechCrunch the additions did not come by way of any recent partnerships or new deals with podcast providers, but are instead a part of Audible’s ongoing efforts to become known as a provide of “premium audio storytelling and entertainment.”

It seems that Audible will use the free programming to entice users to subscribe to its paid service, where they’ll gain access to Audible’s collection of exclusive programs, Audible Originals.

Image Credits: Audible

Audible has actually had its eye on podcasts for some time. Back in 2016, it announced a new service then called “Audible Channels.” that featured bite-sized original audio content from publishers that had included the NYT, WSJ, The Washington Post, and others.

Today, the company has grown its collection of original spoken word content to include documentaries, theater, and sleep programs, and more. It also features a number of exclusive podcasts for members only.

This summer, Audible introduced a new, cheaper subscription plan, Audible Plus, to connect users to its growing collection of originals. The $7.95 per month membership now offers over 11,000 pieces of content from names like Common, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Morello, Blake Griffin, André Aciman, Tayari Jones, Jesse Eisenberg, St. Vincent, Kevin Bacon, Kate Mara, Maria Bamford, Alanis Morissette, Harvey Fierstein, and more.

The Plus plan, however, doesn’t include credits to download audiobooks, as on the $14.95 per month Audible Premium Plus plan. (Audible consolidated its Gold and Platinum plans and rebranded it). It’s just focused on other audio content.

With the addition of free, third-party podcasts, Audible has the chance to capture users’ attention in its app, then try to upsell them to paid memberships, including the new Plus plan.

Audible announced its plans for the expanded podcast selection on Tuesday, but the new section itself didn’t launch until today.

On the refreshed website, Audible arranges the podcasts in horizontal rows as “Top Free” podcasts and “Popular,” the latter which allows it to feature its originals. It also offers thematic grouping, like true crime, comedy, business and management, news, fiction, science and technology, self development and many others.

Image Credits: Audible, screenshot via TechCrunch

Those exclusive to Audible are also labeled with a yellow banner on the image thumbnail, in another push to upgrade.

The new additions can also be found in the Audible mobile app, under the “Podcasts” section, where you can follow shows, rate them, and stream episodes, much like any other podcast client app.

Podcasts are a significant source of investment for streaming services these days, with Spotify having snapped up studios and podcast startups to increase its output of audio programming and original content. Pandora parent SiriusXM, meanwhile, just completed its acquisition of Stitcher, which included its podcast service, ad network and content network Earwolf. Even Apple has begun to more seriously dabble in the format.

Audible says more shows and podcasts will be added in the weeks and months ahead.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/28/audible-further-expands-into-podcasts/

Microsoft says Iranian hackers targeted ‘high profile’ conference attendees

Microsoft says hackers backed by the Iranian government targeted over 100 high-profile potential attendees of two international security and policy conferences.

The group, known as Phosphorus (or APT35), sent spoofed emails masquerading as organizers of the Munich Security Conference, one of the main global security and policy conferences attended by heads of state, and the Think 20 Summit in Saudi Arabia, scheduled for later this month. Microsoft said the spoofed emails were sent to former government officials, academics and policy makers to steal passwords and other sensitive data, like email inboxes.

Microsoft did not comment, when asked, what the goal of the operation was, but the company’s customer security and trust chief Tom Burt said that the attacks were carried out for “intelligence collection purposes.”

“The attacks were successful in compromising several victims, including former ambassadors and other senior policy experts who help shape global agendas and foreign policies in their respective countries,” said Burt. “We’ve already worked with conference organizers who have and will continue to warn their attendees, and we’re disclosing what we’ve seen so that everyone can remain vigilant to this approach being used in connection with other conferences or events.”

Microsoft said the attackers would write emails written in “perfect English” to their target requesting an invitation to the conference. After the target accepted the invitation, the attackers would try to trick the victim into entering their email password on a fake login page. The attackers then later log in to the mailbox to steal the victim’s emails and contacts.

The group’s previous hacking campaigns have also tried to steal passwords from high-profile victims.

Iran’s consulate in New York could not be reached for comment as its website was down.

Phosphorus is known to target high-profile individuals, like politicians and presidential hopefuls. But Microsoft said that this latest attack was not related to the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Last year, Microsoft said it had stopped over 10,000 victims of state-sponsored hacking, including Phosphorus and another Iran-backed group, Holmium, also known as APT 33. In March, the tech giant secured a court order to take control of domains used by Phosphorus, which were used to steal credentials using fake Google and Yahoo login pages.

Google says Iranian, Chinese hackers targeted Trump, Biden campaigns

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/28/microsoft-iran-hackers/

Hej! Amazon opens Amazon.se in Sweden to expand in Europe

Amazon is the biggest online retailer in Europe, and today it took the next step in making that effort more localized. The company has launched a dedicated portal for Sweden at Amazon.se — giving Swedish shoppers, third-party merchants, and itself, a local URL — and a local logistics system, and a local marketing push — for buying and selling goods and services online.

Sweden, as the world’s 10th biggest economy by GDP, is a key market for Amazon and its growth strategy.

But the news comes at a time when large tech companies, and Amazon in particular, continue to be scrutinized in Europe over issues of competition and tax payments — or more specifically, the lack of tax payments. On the former, the European Commission earlier this year opened an investigation into antitrust practices of the company. And on the latter point, Amazon is currently contesting a €250 million tax bill from the EU that goes back several years to when the company was much smaller, but potentially has wider implications for how Amazon is taxed today.

Amazon said that the local storefront will launch with 150 million+ products in 30 categories — examples of the popular Swedish brands that it will feature include Electrolux, Lagerhaus, OBH Nordica, Ellos, BRIO, Bonnierförlagen and Ifö — and it will provide free delivery on eligible orders above SEK229 ($26) that are fulfilled by Amazon.

It becomes Amazon’s 17th local portal, alongside Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United States.

Amazon had already been doing a lot of retail business in Sweden.

It has long had a system in Europe where shoppers from individual countries where it didn’t offer direct operations were redirected to those closest to them. Amazon URLs localized to Denmark, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Poland, for example, all default to Amazon’s German site (Amazon.de) but see the text and some specialized content presented in each respective language. (And this is also where Amazon.se pointed until today.)

But this latest move is about doubling down on the potential of the country, both as a place to tap merchants and shoppers, and compete potentially more aggressively against homegrown merchants like Ikea and H&M.

“We are thrilled to launch Amazon.se and to be able to offer Swedish customers a selection of more than 150 million products, including tens of thousands of products from local Swedish businesses,” said Alex Ootes, Vice President, European Expansion for Amazon, in a statement  “Today is only the start of Amazon.se. We will continue to work hard to earn the trust of Swedish customers by growing our product range, ensuring low prices, and providing a convenient and trusted shopping experience.”

Considering that Sweden is the 10th-biggest economy in terms of GDP, it’s perhaps a surprise that it took so long. Amazon, however, has been known for taking a slow approach to global rollouts of certain products (the Kindle, for example, took years to break out of its home market of the US).

All that is not to say that Amazon hasn’t been operating other direct businesses in the country. It has an extensive set up in Sweden for its AWS cloud business, and just earlier this month it turned on its first European wind farm to produce clean energy, which was built in Sweden to power its Swedish AWS data centers.

For local merchants, it will give them another more direct online marketplace to sell goods to local customers who already know their brands, but have until now getting most of their business through Amazon in other countries.

“The opportunities on Amazon are enormous. Amazon has grown to become our most important channel for exports, and within the first months of working with Amazon we were cash flow positive,” said Pierre Magnusson, head of e-commerce at N!CK’S, a Swedish healthy snack business, in a statement. “N!CK’S continues to grow and has become one of the best-selling brands within our category, and we are still seeing 50% year-on-year growth in the EU Amazon stores alone.”

Elisabet Sandström, CEO of Miss Mary of Sweden AB, a manufacturer of high quality lingerie, added: “Amazon is an important channel for our expansion in Europe and the US, and we now look forward to selling through the Swedish Store when Amazon opens in our home country. Our sales on Amazon have increased steadily by over 50% per year, and Amazon is our fastest growing channel. Germany is currently Miss Mary’s largest customer base, and when we entered Amazon.de we noticed an immediate sales increase. We now appreciate the opportunity to reach new Swedish customers and make them happy.”

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/28/hej-amazon-opens-amazon-se-in-sweden-to-expand-in-europe/

“All anecdote and no data”

That’s a criticism, of course. A report, study or testimony that’s all anecdote with no data carries little in the way of actionable information.

On the other hand, if you want to change people’s minds, “all data and no anecdote” isn’t going to get you very far.

We act on what we understand, we understand what fits into our worldview and we remember what we act on.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/637806776/0/sethsblog~All-anecdote-and-no-data/

Microsoft stock flat despite better-than-expected earnings, strong Azure growth

Today after the bell, Microsoft reported its calendar Q3 2020 earnings, the period of that time corresponds to its Q1 fiscal 2021 period. In the three months ending September 30, Microsoft had revenues of $37.2 billion and per-share profit of $1.82.

Analysts had anticipated the company to report $1.54 in earnings per share, generated from $35.72 billion in revenue.

In the aftermath of the beat, shares of the company are effectively flat, gaining only a fraction of a point in after-hours trading. Microsoft was up by nearly 2% in afternoon trading, despite somewhat uneven markets.

Helping drive the movement in Microsoft share price was the all-important Azure update. Here’s what Microsoft had to say:

Server products and cloud services revenue increased 22% (up 21% in constant currency) driven by Azure revenue growth of 48% (up 47% in constant currency)

Parsing investor sentiment, it appears that a number closer in the low-40s was anticipated by most, making the Azure result a strong number.

The broader category that Azure sits inside of, called “Intelligent Cloud,” reported $13.0 billion in revenue, up 20% from the year-ago quarter. That was the best performing of Microsoft’s three units, which also include the Office-and-LinkedIn heavy “Productivity and Business Processes” group that posted $12.3 billion in revenue — up 11% — and the Windows-and-Xbox heavy “More Personal Computing” which had revenues of $11.8 billion, up a smaller 6% compared to the year-ago quarter.

For the financial dorks in the audience, I snagged the following for your enjoyment:

Other standouts from a first-read of the company’s earnings report include:

• Strong Surface revenue, rising 37% compared to the year-ago period
• Bing revenue declines, with the company saying that “[s]earch advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs decreased 10%”
• Commercial cloud revenues of $15.2 billion, up 31% from the year-ago period
• LinkedIn manage 16% revenue gains in the quarter
• Gaming revenue gains of 22% year-over-year
• Consumer PC demand — seen in PC sales numbers — boosted non-Pro Windows OEM revenues by 31% compared to the year-ago quarter, though Pro-focused Windows OEM top line fell 22%

Looking ahead, analysts expect Microsoft to record $1.60 in per-share profit in the current quarter, off $40.4 billion in total revenue. The company will announce its own projections on its earnings call.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/microsoft-stock-flat-despite-better-than-expected-earnings-strong-azure-growth/