Futurum Tech Webcast

In this episode of Infrastructure Matters, hosts Krista Macomber, Steven Dickens and Camberley Bates cover the latest from the NRF 2024 in NYC, perspectives from the MountainWest CyberSecurity Taskforce plus announcements from Hitachi Vantara, Hammerspace and Seagate.

Their conversation covers:

• The trends from the last 9 months in CyberSecurity, how the bad actors are approaching multifactor authentication and new phishing attacks

• Insights from the Mountain West Cybersecurity Task Force

• A review of the National Retail Federation's Big Show and highlighting the use of AI and technology in the retail sector, including edge computing and AI-powered image sensing for inventory management

• Management changes at Hitachi, including Octavian Tanase joining as the Chief Product Officer and the company's focus on data management and AI technology

• Announcements from Seagate's HAMR HDD technology and tape integration by Hammerspace for long-term data management and archiving

In this episode of Enterprising Insights, The Futurum Group's Enterprise Applications Research Director, Keith Kirkpatrick, provides a wrap of the National Retail Federation's 2024 Retail Big Show. Kirkpatrick discusses the key trends, notable vendors and announcements, and the key challenges ahead for both retailers and vendors in 2024.

Finally, he will close out the show with the "Rant or Rave" segment, where Kirkpatrick picks one item in the market, and champions or criticizes it.

An Assessment of Key 5G-IoT Ecosystem Developments Including 5G Sustainability Market Shapers, Top Sustainability Suppliers, and Vodafone Microsoft GenAI Alliance

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, I'm joined by my colleague and fellow analyst, Todd R Weiss, for a look at the top 5G developments and what's going on that caught our eye including a review of the top market shapers in the 5G sustainability realm, why we see Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper, and Nokia offer the mobile network portfolios that fulfill the topmost 5G sustainability objectives, and how the new Vodafone Microsoft alliance focused on generative AI, cloud, and digital services can improve Vodafone's customer experience and sustainability profile.

Our conversation focused on:

5G Sustainability Market Shapers. 5G network equipment providers (NEPs) are prioritizing the fulfillment of their organization-wide sustainability goals. NEPs are making tangible, measurable progress, including attaining science-based targets (SBTs) and developing ways to reduce waste and responsibly managing the lifecycle of their products. We assess how mobile ecosystem suppliers are embedding energy efficiency advances in product design and portfolio development across silicon, software, and systems from inception and throughout the entire lifecycle management in full alignment with energy orchestration and green operations.

Ring of Honor: Top 5G Sustainability NEPs. We identified and reviewed what we believe are the top five network equipment provider 5G sustainability portfolios across the mobile ecosystem today, noting why the players are selected based on our analytical perspective, their ability meeting the top sustainability strategy goals and capabilities, as well as their ecosystem-wide influence in powering ecosystem cooperation and support. The top players who made our Ring of Honor include Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper, and Nokia.

Vodafone and Microsoft - New Ten-Year Alliance Spotlights GenAI: Vodafone and Microsoft formed a ten-year strategic alliance with the topmost objectives of transforming Vodafone's customer experience using Microsoft's generative AI acumen, hyperscale Vodafone's managed IoT connectivity platform, develop new digital and financial services for businesses - especially small/medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe and Africa - and overhaul Vodafone's global data center cloud strategy. Vodafone will invest $1.5 billion over the next 10 years in cloud and customer-focused AI services developed in concurrence with Microsoft. We examine why the new Vodafone and Microsoft alliance can broaden their channel influence across the digital ecosystems of Europe and Africa, especially across the opportunity-rich SME realm by using generative AI and hybrid cloud flexibility to uplift the customer experience and improve energy efficiency and sustainability performance across mobile networks, especially within data center environments. Now the partnership can demonstrate the full ecosystem benefits that are emerging from tighter collaboration between telcos and hyperscalers.

Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.

On this episode of The AI Moment, we discuss an emerging Gen AI trend: Lawsuits and Probes, How OpenAI & Microsoft Are Impacting the Trajectory of AI

The discussion covers:

OpenAI and Microsoft seem to be at the center of discussions about AI monopolies and copyright fights. Last week the EU said they are considering opening an investigation into whether OpenAI and Microsoft's partnership agreement is a potential monopoly. Separately, The New York Times sued the pair claiming copyright infringement when ChatGPT was trained on NYT content. I'll discuss why I think the EU investigation will go nowhere and conversely, why the NYT suit is critical to better LLM outcomes.

On this episode of the Tech and Trends Podcast, host Daniel Newman welcomes Alexandre Audoin, EVP, Head of Automotive from Capgemini at CES 2024 for a conversation on the tech trends in the automotive industry, focusing on autonomous driving and new customer experiences (CX).

Their discussion covers:

• A brief introduction from Alexandre Audoin, his thoughts on the automotive industry, and a few tech trends he noticed at CES

• An overview of autonomous driving and where does AI come into play

• What automotive OEMs are focusing on to provide a better customer experience

• As vehicles become more high tech, what are other important considerations such as affordability, sustainability, and regulations

On this episode of The View from Davos, The Futurum Group's Daniel Newman is joined by IBM's Chairman and CEO, Arvind Krisha, for a conversation on how the topic of ethical AI is being discussed at Davos, the role of the government with AI, and the future of automation.

• What IBM is focused on and discussing at the World Economic Forum
• The role of government in the ethical deployment of AI and IBM's approach to governance in their solutions
• How AI can be leveraged towards increased sustainability
• What opportunities AI brings to the future of automation

In this episode Infrastructure Matters, hosts Steven Dickens, Camberley Bates and Krista Macomber cover Google's egress fee drop as a potential trendsetter for other cloud providers, making repatriation and hybrid workloads more attractive. Additionally, they provide their key predictions for 2024, including:

• Repatriation: Increased focus on workload placement based on cost and security, with egress fees playing a smaller role.

• Cybersecurity: Remains a top priority, with AI playing a bigger role in detection and response.

• AI adoption: Increased use of AI in data protection and security, particularly for training and automated responses.

• Mergers and Acquisitions: Expect more major deals, impacting the vendor landscape and channel partners.

• Generative AI: Growing concern about data security and protection implications, requiring best practices and processes.

• Mainframe 60th anniversary: Potential influx of activity and press attention to the space, possibly with M&A and new announcements.

• Data storage trends: Adoption of QLC SSDs, emergence of HTDs, and security built into primary storage.

• Data protection and security: Continued focus on data privacy, quantum-resistant encryption, and cyber resiliency.

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, I'm joined by my colleague and fellow analyst, Olivier Blanchard, for a look at the top 5G developments and what's going on that caught our eye at CES 2024 such as Qualcomm's Snapdragon Digital Chassis innovations and Stellantis, Blackberry, and AWS collaboration focused on advancing virtual cockpit development.

Our conversation spotlighted:

Qualcomm Snapdragon Digital Chassis Innovations. Qualcomm spotlighted the company's ecosystem-wide momentum and vital position as a key partner of the automotive industry, demonstrating maturity, breadth, and breakthrough innovations across its Snapdragon Digital Chassis portfolio. This includes Snapdragon Digital Chassis' ongoing market momentum with a full suite of products for Gen AI-enabled digital cockpits, connected car technologies, connected services, advanced driver assistance, and automated driving systems. We examine why we see Qualcomm meeting the growing demand for programmable and highly customizable solutions firmly backed by a diverse software and OS ecosystem that support all tiers of mobility platforms, including the fact that more than 350 million vehicles are on the road today using Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions.

Qualcomm Underscores Variety of New Snapdragon Automotive Capabilities. Qualcomm promoted its Snapdragon Ride Platform which is comprised of the company's scalable and customizable automated driving system-on-chip (SoC) family that is designed to help global automakers and Tier-1 suppliers build efficient automated driving (AD) solutions now enhanced by a comprehensive and scalable AD stack and perception solution, targeting Active Safety to L2+/L3 functions. Plus, Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC, Snapdragon Car-to-Cloud, and Snapdragon Digital Chassis SoCs for Two-wheelers further illuminated Qualcomm's portfolio acumen. We delve into why we view the entire set of Snapdragon automotive-related updates as fortifying Qualcomm's ability to directly influence the industry's rapid evolution to software-defined vehicle (SDV) architectures.

Stellantis, BlackBerry, and AWS Team Up for Virtual Cockpits. Stellantis, BlackBerry QNX, and AWS have teamed up to unveil the trio's virtual cockpit for automobiles. Part of the group's Virtual Engineering Workbench (VEW), the platform is designed to accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge car technology to customers. The key to this acceleration lies in the utilization of QNX Hypervisor in the cloud from BlackBerry, which functions as a virtual lab for developing car controls and systems. We assess why the platform's ability to create realistic versions of car controls and systems, emulating the behavior of a real car without needing to make disruptive changes to the main software, can significantly decrease development cycles from months to as a little as 24 hours, further fueling SDV innovation.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series, host Daniel Newman welcomes Peter van der Putten, Lead Scientist & Director of Pega's AI Lab at Pegasystems for a conversation on AI in 2024, including insights on ethics, governance and the hype around generative AI.

Their discussion covers:

• The concept of right-brain AI versus left-brain AI and what that means in terms of strategy and use cases

• The balance between the two that businesses need to achieve success

• Top AI trends that Peter thinks we'll see more of in 2024

• Whether the hype around generative AI is overshadowing the actual business value of the technology

• How ethics will continue to be a part of the conversation and Pega's approach to ethical AI

In this episode of Enterprising Insights, The Futurum Group's Enterprise Applications Research Director Keith Kirkpatrick discusses the upcoming year in enterprise-focused SaaS applications, focusing on six trends that he expects will come to fruition in 2024. He also addresses the underlying elements that are driving each trend, and discusses which companies in the market may be impacted.

Finally, he closes out the show with the "Rant or Rave" segment, where Kirkpatrick picks one item in the market, and will either champion or criticize it.