Robert Hof
Latest from Robert Hof
Newly public Dell cleans up on servers and storage, but investors yawn
Updated: In its first quarter as a newly public company, Dell Technologies Inc. today reported marginally better-than-expected quarterly revenue growth but a higher-than-expected net loss. The 9 percent revenue growth was centered in servers and networking gear as well as in Dell’s share of the spoils from its 80 percent ownership of computing virtualization giant ...
Google doubles down on hybrid computing with Cloud Services Platform beta
Hoping to wrest some cloud computing market share from its bigger rivals, Google LLC today announced that its software platform for bringing its cloud services into private data centers is more or less ready for prime time. In particular, Google said its Cloud Services Platform, announced at its Cloud Next conference last July, today is ...
Google to acquire cloud data migration startup Alooma
Picking away at bigger cloud computing rivals, Google LLC today said it plans to acquire Alooma Inc., which helps companies move their disparate data into a single cloud data warehouse. Google didn’t say how much it paid for the Redwood City, California-based startup, which also has significant presence in Tel Aviv, but it was likely not ...
Jeff Bezos claims National Enquirer tried to blackmail him with nude selfies
Updated: Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos came out Thursday with guns blazing against the owner of the tabloid National Enquirer, which he claimed threatened to release explicit selfies he and his girlfriend sent to each other. The charge came in a long, exceedingly rare and unusually frank missive on Medium from the usually utterly ...
Google pitches ‘confidential computing’ challenge to boost cloud security
There are plenty of ways to secure data while it’s sitting in databases and while it’s winging around networks, even if the means remain far from perfect. But what about when the data is being actively used in cloud applications and services? That particular state of data is what the emerging concept of “confidential computing” ...
Alphabet beats earnings forecast, but costs weigh on shares
Updated: In almost as much of an anticlimax as Sunday’s Snoozer Bowl, Alphabet Inc. today again beat most expectations for its fourth quarter thanks to continued strength in its search and video advertising and investment gains. Only problem: Some higher expenses for spending on cloud engineers and data centers as well as YouTube content didn’t ...
Amazon’s cloud again boosts profits but sales guidance disappoints
Updated Cloud computing keeps wagging Amazon.com Inc.’s e-commerce dog, with no signs the tail-wagging will slow down anytime soon. The Seattle-based retail and cloud behemoth today reported fourth-quarter earnings that easily beat expectations thanks in part to its highly profitable Amazon Web Services Inc. cloud unit. But the company provided first-quarter guidance that fell a ...
Despite ongoing data and privacy issues, Facebook’s business keeps rolling
Updated In case anyone had forgotten amid its unending data and privacy issues, Facebook Inc. actually is a business — one that keeps making a lot of money. The social networking giant proved that once again today. Facebook reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, with a profit per share before costs such as stock compensation of $2.38 ...
Earnings outlook: Cloud, AI spending could boost tech giants’ growth – for now
Executives at Choice Hotels International Inc. realized years ago that they needed upgrade the company’s information technology systems — especially a global reservations system that, like many companies’ mission-critical systems, predated the internet. Ultimately, the owner of Quality Inn, Cambria Hotels and other chains settled on moving to Amazon Web Services Inc.’s cloud — a ...
PREDICTIONS 2019
Ready or not, a lot more AI-powered services are coming
For a technology that’s decades old, artificial intelligence managed to emerge in the public imagination as one of the signature technologies of 2018 — if not always in a positive way. On the upside, AI and its related sets of technology such as machine learning and deep learning enable now-taken-for-granted services such as speech recognition ...