We heard the rumors back in November that the HPE deal to acquired Juniper Networks was getting a closer look from the Department of Justice. Last week we got confirmation that the DoJ will be filing suit to half the deal. The arugument from the government is that the result of the deal would be 70% of the market for networking equipment being held by just two companies. Specifically cited was the wireless LAN component, where the DoJ said there were only three major players. This was refuted quickly by both HPE and Juniper. The UK Competition and Markets authority and the EU have both cleared the deal. This and more on The Rundown.

As we mentioned earlier, the early days of a US government change invovle a lot of new orders and announcements. After a week in office the current US administration announced a plan to impose import tariffs on Taiwan for a variety of goods, including pharmaceuticals, steel, and chips. The tariff was reported to be 25% but could be as high as 100%. In further comments the president said the goal of the move was to lure companies back to the US to manufacture chips domestically. However, the CHIPS Act was specifically called out as being problematic because it simply gave money away instead of punishing companies with additional taxes to change their behavior. This is definitely a developing situation but lets dive in. Al, what's the ultimate goal here? This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown.

Time Stamps:

0:00 - Welcome to The Rundown

1:23 - Pure Storage Gets Hyperscale Win

4:31 - Salt Typhoon Probe Potentially Disrupted

7:47 - AI Gets Trapped in a Maze

11:35 - Swedes Seize Ship Slashing Subsea Stuff

14:56 - OpenAI Announces Operator Agent AI

18:23 - DeepSeek Causes Deep Thoughts Among Tech

23:53 - TSMC Tariffs Could Cause Chaos

31:40 - The Weeks Ahead

33:12 - Thanks for Watching

Hosts:

Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/networkingnerd/

Alastair Cooke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastaircooke/

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#Rundown, #DeepSeek, #SaltTyphoon, #AI, #Hyperscalers, @GestaltIT, @TechFieldDay, @TheFuturumGroup, @NetworkingNerd, @DemitasseNZ, @PureStorage, @OpenAI, @TWSemicon,

We spoke last week about the executive order issued by former President Biden around AI export controls. There has been some more information released about the reasoning behind the controls. One of those was that, as mentioned, third party actors are shipping restricted hardware to countries that were already banned from receiving it. Still others were able to access those systems through cloud computing in countries such as Malaysia and Brazil. The AI Diffusion Framework names 18 "friendly" countries with no restrictions and designates 23 countries under embargo with restrictions and caps on certain AI chips. The remaining nations of the world are categorized into a kind of limbo. The restrictions are based on a Total Processing Performance (TPP) metric that restricts exports based on the power of the chip. This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown.

The Biden presidential administration might be winding down but thre are still some things that are making news. Yesterday the president proposed a new framework for the export of chips used to developer AI. The rules seek to limit exports of the chips to some 120 countries, including Mexico, Israel, and Switzerland. The rules appear to be aimed at protecting US national security and the undercurrent in the order is aimed squarely at China. The administration says this is designed to close some of the loopholes in currently existing regulations on chip exports. NVIDIA released a statement calling the rules "misguided" due to the fact that they could impact the largest AI hardware company in the world. This and more on the Rundown.

Time Stamps:

0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown

1:16 - Cohesity's CERT Service Boosted by Added Partners

3:43 - Building GenAI Apps Creating Headaches

7:01 - Eutelsat's 2-Day Outage and Resiliency

10:52 - Web Apps Exposed by AWS Configuration

14:28 - Oracle to battle for JavaScript Trademark

20:03 - An IT Exodus is Happening

23:46 - NVIDIA Comments on AI Diffusion

32:56 - The Weeks Ahead

33:34 - Thanks for Watching

At CES 2025, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang introduced Cosmos, a new AI model trained on 20 million hours of video to help machines better understand and interact with the physical world, available via Hugging Face and NVIDIA’s GPU Cloud. He also urged businesses to adopt a three-computer AI system, featuring tools like Project DIGITS for AI development and the Llama Nemotron models for autonomous agents. Meanwhile, Dell announced a full rebrand, replacing familiar names like XPS and Latitude with Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max, along with Plus and Premium tiers, aiming to attract customers seeking AI-powered PCs. Critics noted the naming is familiar, but it could help Dell appeal to new users. This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown.

We're looking back at our reporting on the biggest enterprise IT stories of 2024 and telling you the trends that will be discussion points well into 2025. We're reconsidering Broadcom's moves with VMware, the fall of Intel, HPE's acquisition of Juniper, that fab CHIPS act, the evolution of data protection companies to security, power-hungry GPUs, Co-Pilot PCs, lots of AI infrastructure, a whole lot of hacks, including Snowflake and Salt Typhoon, and the government's actions against big tech. 

Time Stamps:

0:00 - Programming Note

1:10 - Welcome to the Rundown

2:04 - The Fall of Intel

10:09 - Broadcom and VMware

20:53 - That's HPE's Juniper Buy!

26:59 - Fabulous Fabs and CHIPS!

34:37 - Transforming Data Protection

41:29 - Nuking GPUs in Pennsylvania

46:09 - My Co-Pilot is a Dog

52:44 - AI Infrastructure Baby!

1:00:10 - It's Snowing Data (Breaches)

1:03:25 - Crowd Strikes Back

1:07:14 - Salt Typhoon

1:10:18 - DOJ Gonna DOJ

1:14:53 - Thanks for Joining Us in 2024

Hosts:

Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd

Stephen Foskett: https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett

Alastair Cooke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastaircooke/

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The big story this week is the continued fallout from Salt Typhoon. The US government is feeling the heat from the exposure of so many telecom companies and they want answers. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has announced a proposed set of rules that would require companies that participate in the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to have a yearly requirement to certify their cybersecurity risk management plans to prevent hackers from getting in. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has gone even further and proposed a draft bill to secure telecom networks with the FCC implementing specific requirements instead of simple certifications.

Hosts:

The biggest news of the holiday weekend dropped on Monday. Pat Gelsinger has retired from Intel, effective immediately. David Zinsner, CFO, and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, newly named CEO of the Intel Product subunit, have been named as Co-CEOs while the board searches for a permanent member. Gelsinger has been the CEO since 2021. He has been focused on returning Intel to dominance in the chip market while also facing headwinds from industry transitions to mobile and AI computing. Intel stock prices rose on the news. This and more on The Gestalt IT Rundown.

The week before Thanksgiving is always busy and this year was packed with great conferences. Super Computing 24 took place in Atlanta and there was plenty to discuss with over 17,000 attendees learning about the latest technology. Let's dive in to a few key announcements.

The US Department of Justice is looking at two big IT companies, potentially making waves in the enterprise IT space. They are asking a federal judge to force Google to sell or spin off its Chrome browser, arguing that integration with Google's other products, particularly Android, Search, and the Play store, is anti-competitive. At the same time, the DOJ is also looking at the proposed acquisition of Juniper Networks by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Time Stamps:

0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown

2:09 - NIST Can Hear When Your Battery is Going to Catch Fire

4:48 - StarTree Cloud Powers Real-Time Data

9:44 - Itential Debuts Automation Service at Networking Field Day

17:11 - SentinelOne reports on The State of Cloud Ransomware in 2024

21:38 - Cyber Defense Agencies reveal Most Exploited Vulnerabilities in 2023

25:34 - Lightbend Launches Akka 3

29:40 - US Antitrust Actions Challenge Tech Deals

38:44 - The Weeks Ahead

39:28 - Thanks for Watching

Hosts:

Stephen Foskett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfoskett/

Alastair Cooke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastaircooke/

Follow Gestalt IT

Website: https://www.GestaltIT.com/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/Gestalt-IT

Tags: #Rundown, #Ransomware, #Cybersecurity, @Lightbend @NIST, @StartreeData @RonWestfallDX, @Google, @JuniperNetworks, @HPE, @SFoskett, @DemitasseNZ, @TheFuturumGroup, @GestaltIT, @TechFieldDay,