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/

Ubisoft’s subscription service comes to Stadia and Luna

Ubisoft originally announced its subscription service back in June. Today, the company is rebranding the service from UPlay+ to Ubisoft+. The service is also on its way to Amazon’s Luna and Google’s Stadia. Ubisoft is betting on a multi-platform subscription, which means that you’ll be able to subscribe once and play Ubisoft+ games on PC, Amazon Luna and Stadia.

Ubisoft+ is already available on PC. For $14.99 a month, you can download and play more than 100 games — the service includes both classics and newly released titles, such as games in the Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia franchises as well as the company’s upcoming releases. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion and Immortals Fenyx Rising will be available in the Ubisoft+ library on their respective launch days.

Ubisoft is trying to include premium editions of the games so that you don’t have to pay for game passes to access additional content. For instance, you can play the ultimate editions of Rainbow Six Siege, The Division 2, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, etc.

On November 10, you’ll be able to access Ubisoft+ games on Amazon Luna is you’re beta testing Amazon’s cloud gaming service. And Google will also let you connect your Ubisoft+ account with Stadia by the end of the year. Interestingly, you don’t need to pay for Stadia Pro to access Ubisoft+ titles.

Ubisoft is working on cross-platform progression, starting with upcoming titles. It’s a subscription focused on content, not platforms.

As you can see, Microsoft and Sony don’t support Ubisoft+. It means that you won’t be able to subscribe and play on your Xbox or PlayStation. Console manufacturers take a cut on game purchases. That’s why negotiations between third-party game studios and console manufacturers are more complicated.

Image Credits: Ubisoft

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/ubisofts-subscription-service-comes-to-stadia-and-luna/

Upstream aims to be the new home for your professional social life

Last fall, social analytics startup SocialRank sold its product and business to Trufan, allowing the team to focus on something new: a professional social network. Today, they’re officially unveiling Upstream to the public.

To be clear, CEO Alex Taub told me that he’s not trying to replace LinkedIn — he acknowledged that thanks to network effects,”If you want to go and try to take down LinkedIn, you’re not going to be able to take them down.”

Instead, the goal is to create something that fulfills a different need. Where LinkedIn works primarily as an online résumé and rolodex, Upstream aims to help users build the connections and relationships that are important to their careers — something that’s sorely needed at a time when large-scale meetups and conferences aren’t really possible (though we’re certainly trying to create the virtual equivalent at TechCrunch).

“This is the place for your professional social life,” Taub said.

Upstream’s first product focused on professional groups and communities, allowing users to post what the company called Professional Asks, like if they’re looking to hire someone for a certain position or need an introduction at another company.

Taub suggested that things really took off with Upstream’s next product, Upstream Events, where Upstream would host a guest speaker, then attendees were matched up for five-minute, one-on-one video chats with the other people at the event.

Image Credits: Upstream

Upstream says it’s already hosted more than 100 events, with 72% of people who who attend one event subsequently attending another.

While the team has built multiple products (and we’ve covered some of them already), they’re outlining the broader vision today and launching some new features at the same time.

For one thing, while communities were previously shared via a private, unlisted link, you can now browse all the different communities in a Discovery section. At the same time, community organizers will be still be able to control who joins by approving or rejecting new members.

There’s also a new spin on Events called Office Hours, allowing users to set aside structured time for virtual one-on-one sessions with anyone who’s interested in speaking to them. These sessions can be listed publicly, or they can be unlisted, so that you only share them via email or within a certain community.

Image Credits: Upstream

In a blog post, Taub noted that he met his SocialRank/Upstream co-founder and CTO Michael Schonfeld via Ohours.org, and they’re trying to replicate that experience here:

Let’s say you are the CMO of a large company and you want to give your people the opportunity to meet 1:1. The thought of coordinating the individual scheduling of ten minute blocks using your Outlook calendar and email is not attractive. But with Upstream, you are able to choose the 30min block you want to offer and how long you want the sessions to be. You decide you want to run your office hours every other Friday at 2pm ET for the rest of the year. The event is built and able to be shared seamlessly to whoever you choose to offer the Office Hours to.

In fact, Taub’s post lists more than 30 different people who are already offering office hours on Upstream, including New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz, Foursquare co-founder/Expa partner Naveen Selvadurai and Amazon Photo Head of Product Nate Westheiemer.

Upstream is also announcing that it has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from 8-Bit Capital, Human Ventures, Basement Fund, NYVP and various angel investors.

Looking ahead, Taub said that the next big priority is launching a web version of Upstream (which is currently available via mobile app), and to continue building live experiences, asynchronous experiences and features that provide real utility.

“We imagine a future when professionals come to Upstream for an event or Ask, and stay for the compelling opportunities that make Upstream an energizing and beneficial experience for them,” he wrote.

SocialRank sells biz to Trufan, pivots to a mobile LinkedIn

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/upstream/

SpaceX launches Starlink app and provides pricing and service info to early beta testers

SpaceX has debuted an official app for its Starlink satellite broadband internet service, for both iOS and Android devices. The Starlink app allows users to manage their connection – but to take part you’ll have to be part of the official beta program, and the initial public rollout of that is only just about to begin, according to emails SpaceX sent to potential beta testers this week.

The Starlink app provides guidance on how to install the Starlink receiver dish, as well as connection status (including signal quality), a device overview for seeing what’s connected to your network, and a speed test tool. It’s similar to other mobile apps for managing home wifi connections and routers. Meanwhile, the emails to potential testers that CNBC obtained detail what users can expect in terms of pricing, speeds and latency.

The initial Starlink public beta test is called the “Better than Nothing Beta Program,” SpaceX confirms in their app description, and will be rolled out across the U.S. and Canada before the end of the year – which matches up with earlier stated timelines. As per the name, SpaceX is hoping to set expectations for early customers, with speeds users can expect ranging from between 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s, and latency of 20ms to 40ms according to the customer emails, with some periods including no connectivity at all. Even with expectations set low, if those values prove accurate, it should be a big improvement for users in some hard-to-reach areas where service is currently costly, unreliable and operating at roughly dial-up equivalent speeds.

Image Credits: SpaceX

In terms of pricing, SpaceX says in the emails that the cost for participants in this beta program will be $99 per moth, plus a one-time cost of $499 initially to pay for the hardware, which includes the mounting kit and receiver dish, as well as a router with wifi networking capabilities.

The goal eventually is offer reliably, low-latency broadband that provides consistent connection by handing off connectivity between a large constellation of small satellites circling the globe in low Earth orbit. Already, SpaceX has nearly 1,000 of those launched, but it hopes to launch many thousands more before it reaches global coverage and offers general availability of its services.

SpaceX confirms Starlink internet private beta underway, showing low latency and speeds over 100Mbps

SpaceX has already announced some initial commercial partnerships and pilot programs for Starlink, too, including a team-up with Microsoft to connect that company’s mobile Azure data centers, and a project with an East Texas school board to connect the local community.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/spacex-launches-starlink-app-and-provides-pricing-and-service-info-to-early-beta-testers/

Amazon adds device dashboard in bid to make Fire tablets a smart home control center

It’s been a busy few weeks for the smart home race. Amazon, Google and Apple have all announced new smart speakers aimed at — among other things — cementing their respective positions at the center of users’ connected households.

Adding onto the introduction of a whole bunch of new Echo devices, Amazon is also improving what its famously inexpensive Fire Tablets can do. Today the company will be rolling out a free software update to select slates that brings a smart home device dashboard. The system essentially serves as a one-stop shop for connected devices that work with Alexa.

Amazon Echo review: Well-rounded sound

It’s similar to the sorts of control centers Google and Apple offer with their respective Home apps, with access to things like smart lights, plugs, cameras, thermostats, you name it. Similar functionality can also be found on the Echo Show devices. Fire tablets offer a pretty cheap way in to that functionality (so, too, might Fire TVs, going forward). And, of course, Amazon has also made efforts to improve Alexa functionality on the devices, essentially letting them double as inexpensive smart displays.

Perhaps the biggest piece of the puzzle, however, is the addition of smart home hub functionality on the new Echo. The fact was a bit under reported (Amazon, after all, started adding this functionality with previous Echo Plus models), but adding zigbee functionality for the $99 device should go a ways toward lowering that barrier of entry.

This is the newer, rounder $100 Amazon Echo

 

 

 

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/amazon-adds-device-dashboard-in-bid-to-make-fire-tablets-a-smart-home-control-center/

Panoply raises $10M for its cloud data platform

Panoply, a platform that makes it easier for businesses to set up a data warehouse and analyze that data with standard SQL queries, today announced that it has raised an additional $10 million in funding from Ibex Investors and C5 Capital. This brings the total funding in the San Francisco- and Tel Aviv-based company to $24 million.

The company, which launched back in 2015, has mostly stuck to its original vision, which was always about democratizing access to data warehousing and the analytics capabilities that go hand-in-hand with that. Over the last few years, it also built more code-free data integrations into the platform that make it easier for businesses to pull in data from a wide variety of sources, including the likes of Salesforce, HubSpot, NetSuite, Xero, Quickbooks, Freshworks and others. It also integrates with other data warehousing services like Google’s BigQuery and Amazon’s Redshift and all of the major BI and analytics tools.

The company says it will use the new funding to expand its sales and marketing efforts.

“We aspire to make analysts’ lives simpler and more productive by making it easier for them to sync, store, and access their data, and this funding will go a long way toward that mission,” says CEO and co-founder Yaniv Leven in today’s announcement.

In some ways, Panoply was maybe just a bit early to the market. Today, though, there can be little doubt that we’re in a booming market for data warehousing and analytics services. There’s nary a business left, after all, that isn’t looking to gain more insights from the copious amounts of data they gather every single day now. That market is now more competitive than ever, too, with incumbents like Snowflake, Databricks and others (including all of the hyper clouds) all aiming for their slice of the market. Panoply and its investors clearly believe that the company’s all-in-one platform gives it a competitive edge, though.

Panoply.io Raises $1.3M Seed Round For Its Data Warehousing Platform

Panoply.io raises $7M Series A for its data analytics and warehousing platform

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/panoply-raises-10m-for-its-cloud-data-platform/

Lightspeed Venture Partners backs Theta Lake’s video conferencing security tech with $12.7 million

Theta Lake, a provider of compliance and security tools for conferencing software like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, RingCentral, Zoom and others, said it has raised $12.7 million in a new round of funding.

Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round with commitments from Cisco Investments, angel investors from the collaboration and security space, and previous investors, Neotribe Ventures, Firebolt Ventures and WestWave Capital, the company said.

The company’s financing comes as the COVID-19 pandemic has created a surge of demand for remote work conferencing technologies — and services that can ensure the security of those communications.

Citing a Research and Markets report, the company estimates that the market will grow from $8.9 billion in 2019 to $23 billion by the end of this year.

Theta Lake said that the funding would be used to increase its sales and marketing capabilities and for research and development on new product features, according to a statement. 

The company’s tech already uses machine learning to detect security risks in video, visual, voice, chat and document content shared over video and collaboration tools.

As a result of its investment, Arif Janmohamed, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, will join the Theta Lake Board of Directors, the company said. 

“The need for security and compliance solutions that fully cover modern collaboration tools should be obvious to everyone,” said Devin Redmond, Theta Lake’s co-founder and chief executive, in a statement. “That need pre-existed the pandemic, but now is more pressing than ever. The shift from physical work sites and employer-owned networks with tightly managed devices and applications, to a distributed workplace that lives inside your collaboration tools means organizations need new security and compliance coverage that lives inside that new workplace.” 

 

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/lightspeed-venture-partners-backs-theta-lakes-video-conferencing-security-tech-with-12-7-million/