SDxCentral Weekly News Roundup — October 7, 2016

IBM and AT&T are teaming to help businesses manage their networking services more effectively.

Sand Castle

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Juniper NXTWORK2016 – Quick Review

What to say about NXTWORK2016, Juniper’s second customer conference? In short, I’m impressed.

The San Jose Marriot was once again the venue for the two-day NXTWORK conference, but this year things were clearly scaled up a little. Food tables which last year took up around 1/3 of the main ballroom this year moved to a large marquee which had been built just outside the hotel (it’s much better than it might sound at first).

Replacing last year’s food tables was a Social Media lounge which confused me slightly only because it didn’t seem to be much of an actual lounge, although it did seem to have a couple of classic PacMan machines to amuse anybody sitting there.

The middle section of the ballroom was occupied mainly by sponsor stands in what I think Juniper was once again calling a ‘midway’, and there was some comfortable seating as well.

The remainder of the ballroom had been divided off and was set up for general sessions and keynotes. Just down the hallway were a number of other rooms set up for technical breakout sessions and, as last year, a testing center where attendees could take Juniper exams.

NXTWORK2016 Keynotes / General Sessions

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Court reinstates $120M patent award for Apple in Samsung case

A U.S. appeals court has reinstated a US$119.6 million award for Apple in a long-running smartphone design patent dispute with rival Samsung.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Friday that two Apple smartphone design patents, one related to a slide-to-unlock feature, are valid and Samsung infringed a third patent related to helping smartphone users find phone numbers.The case goes back five years, when Apple first filed a series of patent lawsuits against Samsung, alleging infringement of several Apple's iPhone design patents.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nadella points to machine learning as battleground in cloud computing

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has identified machine learning as the firm's key focus as cloud computing usage becomes more widespread. It is an area that is fast becoming the battleground for the big cloud providers. Google and Amazon Web Services both offer a range of tools that make it easier for developers to create "intelligent' applications, while the likes of Salesforce are keen to incorporate artificial intelligence into their software services. Speaking at an event in London's Canary Wharf financial district, Nadella's sales pitch placed emphasis on the role of machine learning across Microsoft's range of cloud products - from infrastructure and platform as a service offering in Azure, to its Dynamics and Office365 cloud software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Comcast’s 1TB data cap starts rolling out across the U.S.

Comcast said bandwidth caps would be back before 2019, and now the company's living up to its promise.The cable provider recently announced that its 1 terabyte bandwidth cap for Xfinity Internet subscribers would start rolling out more broadly. Comcast’s data caps are currently in effect in 16 regions with another 18 regions getting the bandwidth cap on November 1. You'll find the complete list of current and upcoming bandwidth cap regions at the bottom of this post.The company settled on the 1TB cap limit after experimenting with various caps for several years in select areas. During that time, Comcast appeared to be favoring a 300GB cap, but never rolled it out nationwide. Then in April, Comcast bumped up the cap in its test markets to 1 terabyte.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

​Mobility revenues ramp up with software spending high

Mobility revenues are forecast to grow from US$1.5 trillion in 2016 to more than $U1.7 trillion in 2020, representing an increase of 2.2 per cent, or roughly $U40 billion in annual revenue gains.IDC findings report that mobility revenues will primarily come from consumer and enterprise purchases of hardware (smartphones, portable PCs, and tablets) and services (connectivity services).However, software revenues will experience double-digit growth over the forecast period as developers race to deliver applications that meet the mobility needs of both groups.The strongest growth within the software category will come from investments in mobile application development platforms, mobile enterprise applications, and mobile enterprise security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Comcast’s 1TB data cap starts rolling out across the U.S.

Comcast said bandwidth caps would be back before 2019, and now the company's living up to its promise.The cable provider recently announced that its 1 terabyte bandwidth cap for Xfinity Internet subscribers would start rolling out more broadly. Comcast’s data caps are currently in effect in 16 regions with another 18 regions getting the bandwidth cap on November 1. You'll find the complete list of current and upcoming bandwidth cap regions at the bottom of this post.The company settled on the 1TB cap limit after experimenting with various caps for several years in select areas. During that time, Comcast appeared to be favoring a 300GB cap, but never rolled it out nationwide. Then in April, Comcast bumped up the cap in its test markets to 1 terabyte.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why sentient tools will be catastrophic to the job market

My old friend Brian David Johnson, one of the leading futurists in the world, just published a frightening paper on Sentient Tools for Frost & Sullivan. This paper has similar themes to a recent massive GAO report suggesting that the rapid rise of sentient tools is going to have a profound impact on the job market.This impact indicates that many folks across a wide spectrum of jobs are not only going to be displaced, but that they may be unemployable. In addition, we may be looking at the near total elimination of many, if not most, of the entry jobs that kids first get when coming out of school.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

White House slates $80M for city tech innovations

The White House last week announced $80 million in new federal funds for its ongoing Smart Cities Initiative while doubling the number of participating U.S. cities to more than 70. The funding is meant to spur development of technologies and programs in four primary areas: to reduce energy usage; improve urban transportation with connected and autonomous vehicles; beef up public safety and disaster response; and transform city services such as outreach to the homeless. The funding is partly a response to a comprehensive report from presidential advisors in February recommending ways to maximize technology innovation in cities. Dozens of experts worked on the report, including Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, and Eric Lander, president of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Verizon on firm footing to push for discount in Yahoo deal, analysts say

Verizon should push for a big discount off its pending $4.8 billion deal to buy Yahoo, given Yahoo’s recent data breach and reported questionable security practices, several analysts said Friday.“Verizon should certainly pay less for Yahoo at this point,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “Unfortunately, the property is damaged goods, particularly after the acknowledged security breach.”A report on Thursday in the New York Post, quoting unnamed sources, said Verizon pushed Yahoo for a $1 billion discount on the purchase deal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Verizon on firm footing to push for discount in Yahoo deal, analysts say

Verizon should push for a big discount off its pending $4.8 billion deal to buy Yahoo, given Yahoo’s recent data breach and reported questionable security practices, several analysts said Friday.“Verizon should certainly pay less for Yahoo at this point,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “Unfortunately, the property is damaged goods, particularly after the acknowledged security breach.”A report on Thursday in the New York Post, quoting unnamed sources, said Verizon pushed Yahoo for a $1 billion discount on the purchase deal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

French software developer sues Apple, seeking improvements in iOS browser

Software developer Nexedi is so keen to see Apple improve the rendering engine in its iPhone browser that it's filed suit against the company in a French court.Nexedi develops cross-platform business apps in HTML5 that can run unchanged on Windows, Linux, and Android.On Apple's iOS, however, it runs into a problem: The browser rendering engine on iOS, WebKit, doesn't have the same HTML5 capabilities as the rendering engines used on other platforms.Among the HTML5 capabilities missing in the iOS version of WebKit are access to APIs for vibration, ambient light detection, battery status, notifications, filesystem access and the WebRTC videoconferencing protocol, according to a copy of Nexedi's lawsuit seen by the IDG News Service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Perspica Uses Machine Learning for Root Cause Analysis

Perspica customers include advertising companies, government agencies, and small businesses.

Worth Reading: Modernizing business services through the CPE

In a previous blog, I discussed how equipment providers are facing a lucrative but pitfall-laden path in deciding how to invest in NFV to displace dedicated appliances. CSPs have similar NFV investment decisions to make on the user side of the equation. They need to answer the question: “Where should I start implementing an NFV strategy to deliver network functions and customer services as a means of improving my bottom line and business success?” One strong candidate for this starting point is Universal Customer Premises Equipment. —ECI

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SD-WAN Manifesto: Eight Critical Characteristics for Building an SD-WAN

More than a mere trend, SD-WAN is the way of the future.

4 ways Cognizant customers can protect themselves amid corruption probe

Following Cognizant’s announcement late last week that it had launched an internal investigation into possible anti-corruption violations, there have been more questions than answers about what may have occurred at the Teaneck, N.J.-headquartered provider of offshore IT services. Particularly perplexing to some was the attendant news that the company’s long-time president Gordon Coburn was stepping down.Cognizant gave no reason for the departure of Coburn, who has been replaced by head of IT services Rajeev Mehta. However, the company did say in a regulatory filing that it was looking into whether it had violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) within a small number of company-owned facilities. Cognizant owns 12 of the 45 delivery centers it operates in India, where 75 percent of its employees work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

4 ways Cognizant customers can protect themselves amid corruption probe

Following Cognizant’s announcement late last week that it had launched an internal investigation into possible anti-corruption violations, there have been more questions than answers about what may have occurred at the Teaneck, N.J.-headquartered provider of offshore IT services. Particularly perplexing to some was the attendant news that the company’s long-time president Gordon Coburn was stepping down.Cognizant gave no reason for the departure of Coburn, who has been replaced by head of IT services Rajeev Mehta. However, the company did say in a regulatory filing that it was looking into whether it had violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) within a small number of company-owned facilities. Cognizant owns 12 of the 45 delivery centers it operates in India, where 75 percent of its employees work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Windows weakness no one mentions: speech recognition

Windows has a feature it doesn’t like to talk about. While the OS lets you scrawl notes with a stylus, log in with you face (or secure the Web) via Windows Hello, and even order Cortana to set a reminder, what it’s not so eager for you to do, apparently, is use its speech recognition engine to issue commands or take voice dictation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Deloitte leaders detail new iOS partnership with Apple

Apple will soon expand its enterprise roadmap thanks to a partnership that should result in the release of a new set of industry-specific iOS apps. The deal with Deloitte is designed to increase the value and appeal of Apple devices in the workplace with new specialized applications, network integrations and mobile-first processes for businesses. [Related: Should Apple worry about Microsoft-IBM deal]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here