Business related notes.
Since COVID-19 let’s us work from home, we all made our experiences with Videoconferences. The tools make it possible to work from home, yet some still have to get used to the new freedom. We all know the feeling in these conferences, with colleagues listening or not, playing with their pets, kids or Zoom Backgrounds. Toggl, maker of fantastic time tracking software, nails it:
DigitalOcean, provider of Cloud Services, raises $50M to achieve a $1.15B Valuation, making it into the ranks of unicorns, reports Crunchbase.
Github is on a spree to get hold of the entire developer ecosystem. Offering the service for free to all teams, it’s difficult for any development team to ignore the Microsoft based platform.
GitHub today announced that all of its core features are now available for free to all users, including those that are currently on free accounts. That means free unlimited private repositories with unlimited collaborators for all, including teams that use the service for commercial projects, as well as up to 2,000 minutes per month of […]
Techcrunch
via: TechCrunch
The article mentions the benefit for developers and the ecosystem. I’d rather be curious to understand the drivers that led to the M&A decision on the buying side.
Japanese researches looked into a recent Tesla Model 3. Their analysis has some interesting findings over traditional car manufacturing methods. In particular when it comes to electronics, “ECUs” how they’re called in the automotive world, “Electronical Control Units” A regular Toyota or European car relies on dozens or more of these to make the car work.
However, research found that Tesla really only relies on one central component to take care of both autonomous driving and the entertainment part.
Self-driving AI sends shivers through traditional supply chains
From the article
This actually is big news, because it indicates Tesla has chosen to develop core technology in house, becoming (more) independent of supply chains. As of this writing, Tesla produces a fraction of what VW and Toyota output. To achieve the scale, automotive Industries traditionally groomed a rich ecosystem of suppliers, to form the entire value chain.
Automakers worry that […] will render obsolete the parts supply chains they have cultivated over decades, […]
From the article
However, it appears Tesla has an substantial competitive through this supplier independence. All of the above worry aside, Automakers will have to invest their capacity and headcount to catch up with this assumed advantage of 6 years.
Source: Nikkei Asian Review
Tech’s strangest job listings: Straight from the “daily workplace automation destruction” protocol.com reports the future of job descriptions, as indicated by job postings today.
Glimpsing the future in eye-opening tech job listings.
The article found quite a few interesting job profiles that companies apparently look for today already:
Source: Tech’s strangest job listings: Future Edition – Protocol
SoundCloud raises $75 million: Berlin founded Soundcloud raises another financing round. The company has a press release on the investment. TechCrunch has more:
SiriusXM invests $75 million in SoundCloud to beef up product development and enhance services.
Source: SoundCloud Gets $75M Investment From SiriusXM To Bring Its Funding To Over $500M
‘We’ve created a privacy industry’ was a statement you could often hear when Europe introduced General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the German implementation DatenSchutz GrundVerOrdnung (DSGVO). Already back in 2016 first predictions arrived, that GDPR will boost European software industry and give them a unique selling point. After the regulation became effective in Europe May 25th 2018(!), after a 2 years transition period, perceived only complaints happened. Affected data controllers and processors cited the difficulties implementing these regulations. A BitKom funded survey even indicates the regulation is hurting the European market.
Now, around 1.5years later, the industry seems to have settled on the regulation and business continues as usual. Subjectively perceived, privacy is indeed still an obstacle to decision makers in the market. Even politicians keep on imploring data to be the new oil, demanding a data driven economy and to weakend the underlying ideas of european data protection acts. Meanwhile, the opportunity has moved along. Californian Start-Ups discovered this niche and turn privacy it into value:
Privacy-focused technology companies are offering a variety of services, from personal data scrubbing to business-focused software meant to help companies comply with the law.
Source: ‘We’ve created a privacy industry’: California law fuels wave of startups
Are January layoffs just a few post-WeWork jitters? TechCrunch has found itself writing about layoffs at a few notable tech companies this week — and not just Softbank-backed ones. The focus is very much profits, as Alex Wilhelm summed up on Thursday, especially after the failed WeWork IPO and subsequent valuation and headcount decimation. We’ll […]
From the article
Source: Startups Weekly: Tech layoffs spread (a bit) | TechCrunch
Upcycle Windows 7 : Microsoft announced support for Windows 7 would end Janury 14, 2020 with plenty of lead time. A regular procedure in the world of enterprise software. The idea behind such a process is fairly simple. The software won’t stop working, nor are users unable to use in any other way. Only the company will stop developing and supporting patches for the operating system.
While this is typically not a immediate issue for the private user, it has some security implications. The corporate user, that requires support, still has an opportunity to pursue a more recent version of the software, Windows 10. The entire procedure created some media echo recently, given the date is only past due by one week.
Instead of simply letting go, the Free Software Foundation started a campaign and petition to create an alternative for Windows 7 to just stop it. While this didn’t happen with software are recent as Windows 7, the approach has been precedented. MS DOS, Classic Word and even calc.exe are up on the internet nowadays. The Register mentions potential issues with content licensed from third parties, too.
The announcement and petition is here: Upcycle Windows 7 — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software