Nine picked a streaming guy to be its new CEO

• Mike Sneesby is the new boss of Nine Entertainment. He is a former telco executive and the head of streaming service Stan. 
• He will be in charge of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, but Nine also owns Stan as well as television, radio and other publishing assets. 
• The company has been searching for a new CEO since Hugh Marks abruptly resigned in November because of his relationship with a former member of his executive team. 
• Sneesby has extensive experience in leading a subscription service, but does not have a background in free-to-air television, radio or publishing. There’s some commentary around that this signals the TV side of Nine is more powerful than the old Fairfax side… But I think it’s a sign that the future is digital and driven by subscription revenues. That’s good news for newspapers. 
• Investors value Stan at more than $1 billion. Stan has 2.3 million subscribers. The achievement was met through securing large content deals with US companies such as ViacomCBS, Disney and NBC Universal. There’s also Stan Sport… 
• So now Stan is looking for a new boss… 

Teams upgrades + speaker 

Microsoft’s new Intelligent Speakers deliver its promised meeting room of the future

Microsoft to add new shared channels, encryption for calls, webinar features to Teams

• Microsoft Ignite is on, and the conference has a few great Teams updates so far 
• Teams Connect will allow users from two different organisations a way to create a shared channel to collaborate
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• Microsoft is getting into the smart speaker business, but in a very Microsoft way 
• Rather than coming after Google, Apple and Amazon in the personal speaker device, Microsoft’s new  Intelligent Speaker is an enterprise product 
• The new smart microphone can detect up to ten separate voices and dictate the notes of a meeting, so you can see exactly who did the talking 
• The mic can also translate, in case a host or guest is speaking in another language
• No pricing as yet

Meanwhile, Zoom killing it

Zoom (ZM) earnings Q4 2021

• Revenue grew 369% year over year in the quarter that ended on Jan. 31, according to a statement. 

It’s too soon to kill off cash 

• An analogue story from Woolies, which has walked away a cashless store trial at a small number of its Metro stores
• The trial started mid-way through last year, when no one was touching cash and in smaller stores that didn’t have a high amount of cash payments. 
• But Woolies will be accepted cash again at those locations  
• Woolworths Metro general manager Justin Nolan told iTnews, “While almost all Metro customers choose to pay with cards, cash remains...
  

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