I hope you all had a great couple of weeks!  

This week, several from our team attended many events: HP Security Roundtable (myself), Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event (Anshel, Mark, and I), Crestron Virtual Event (Mark), Lendit Fintech Conference USA(Melody), RedHat Analyst Event (Steve), and MVNOs North America (Will).  

Last week, I attended HPE's Compute Day. Mark and I attended Apple "Spring Forward" Launch Event.  Steve attended RedisConf 2021 and SNIA Persistent Memory + Computational Storage Summit.  Will attended Juniper Networks Global Summit.

Our MI&S team published 44 deliverables: 

• 18 Forbes columns 
• 20 MI&S blogs
• 6 podcasts   
• 0 research papers

The press quoted us with 36 citations. Journalists wanted to hear about Amazon, AMD, Apple, Arm, AT&T, Cerebras, Cisco, Dell, Fiercetelecom, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, and Verizon. 

Quick Insights:

President's Corner (Patrick Moorhead)

• Cloud revenues: What are cloud revenues? There has been a lot of debate on this. At its highest level, I think cloud = IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. I am willing to go one step further and say on-prem infrastructure used with cloud software is cloud as well. 
• Antitrust: Apple in hot water with the EU. Historically, when the EU calls your company a “monopolist” you will pay fines and most of the time have to change the way you do business. We will see a lot of action in Epic vs. Apple, but Epic doesn’t seem to be defining markets the right way. As an example, there isn’t an “Apple market”. 
• Management changes: Qualcomm’s CEO elect, Crisitano Amon took the reins on the company’s earnings call after CEO Steve Mollenkopf said goodbye to investors. Mollenkopf is a class act all the way around. I look forward to the Amon regime!
• Supply chain: Apple’s supply chain team deserves a medal as it is one of the only companies who could get full supply or near it. Even though much of its piece parts are proprietary, it makes multi-billion-dollar capital expenditures to lock of certain chip, display and memory supplies. Supply chain is a strategic Apple weapon. 
• Amazon hatred: Amazon was just voted best place to work in the US on a LinkedIn poll. All the people with pitchforks chasing the company really need to pause and ask themselves if there’s a degree of bias in their opinions after looking at many of the facts. The company's imperfect (Pee-gate), but it saved our butts during Covid-19, hired 450,000 employees during the pandemic at double the minimum wage, and is leading a multi-company effort to be ten years ahead of the Paris Accord environmental recommendations. Oh, and don’t forget about the failed unionization vote 70-30. 
• Miami: Mayor Suarez is killing it with startups and tech. Other cities who want to attract tech need to look at his strategies.  He has pulled many companies from the Bay Area and New York but given the trajectory of Austin with crime and home prices, I can imagine people leaving Austin for Miami.

 A.I./Machine Learning (Paul Smith-Goodson)

• This week IBM announced its intent to acquire Turbonomic. The acquisition will provide full-stack application observability and management and use A.I. to optimize all networking resources – such as containers, V.M.s, servers, storage, networks, and databases. This type of acquisition was expected because it furthers IBM's hybrid cloud and A.I. strategy and complements its recent acquisition of Instana.
• Several large companies use artificial intelligence affect-detection systems for various applications, including hiring decisions, attention monitoring, and numerous others. In a  2019 review of the literature discussing inferring emotions from facial movements, many academics have claimed there is no reliable evidence that facial expressions reveal a person's emotional state. After pressure from scholars and civil-rights groups, one large company recently stopped using facial analysis for hiring decisions. There are many startups in this space. I have been following one of these startups, Affectiva, which has created and evaluated an emotion database of over 10 million expressions from 87 countries. It seems reasonable to believe emotions that facial expressions can reveal emotions.  In my next call with the CEO of Affectiva, I will have a better understanding of her defense of the technology.
• MLCommons released its benchmarking MLPerf 1.0 results for artificial intelligence. NVIDIA was the performance leader in every category and by a wide margin. NVIDIA's new announcements included smaller GPUs, the A10 and A30. Its existing A100 MIG proved it value because NVIDIA submitted it for simultaneously running all seven tests that are usually run separately on GPU and CPU devices. It appears that most other A.I. companies are reluctant to test products against NVIDIA's dominant technology for data centers and edge. 
• The E.U. released a draft of strict regulations on how companies and the government can use artificial intelligence. The rules set limits on how A.I. will be used for self-driving cars, employment, finance, school enrollment selections, test scoring. The regulations would govern the use of A.I. by police, courts, and other areas considered to be high risk. Some uses would be banned altogether, such as facial recognition in public spaces. I believe it's too early to begin putting the brakes on A.I. It chills investment, stifles progress, and creates public biases against the technology. There are many excellent potential uses of A.I.
• A peek into the future of A.I. A year ago, GPT-3 came out with a monstrous A.I. model size with 175 billion parameters. Now, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Stanford University are working on scaling an A.I. model to one trillion parameters. Training a billion- or trillion-parameter model means maximizing the utilization of each GPU, distributing training workloads across chips, eliminating constraints on network bandwidth, optimizing on-chip processing speeds, etc. There are many problems associated with scaling large models. My point is this - the one trillion parameter model will be difficult and requires much planning. But models will keep getting larger and larger and more challenging to manage with each scale. After the one trillion connection model is built and conquered, the next giant model is just around the corner. The human brain has about 175 trillion connections, and NVIDIA plans for a 100 trillion connection model in 2023. It has already built the hardware for it. The one after 2023 will likely exceed the number of connections in a human brain. What can we do with that? Or maybe more correctly, what will it do with us?

 AR/VR (Anshel Sag)

• Oculus held its first Game Showcase, and it didn't feel like there was enough meat in the announcements to have an entire event about it. It was half game updates and half new announcements with mostly older I.P.
• Magic Leap's 2nd generation headset is expected to launch in Q4 of this year, with broad availability in 2022
• HTC has created a fitness-focused V.R. headset concept called HTC Vive Air, specifically catered to the needs of those who prefer to use V.R. for fitness

Carrier/Wireless (Will Townsend)

• Nokia reported its best earnings performance in six years this week under new CEO Pekka Lundmark. Highlights include nearly a 10% increase in year-over-year sales and a profit of $319 million compared to a loss of $139 million last year. I've been bullish on its outlook before its new CEO arrived, pointing to strengths in its Open RAN, private cellular networking, and optical networking portfolios.  
• The state of New York passed legislation this week mandating that cable operators and telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon offer a $15 basic Internet access tier of service. In my mind, it is ill-conceived for governmental bodies to set pricing for broadband services. Recent announcements from AT&T and T-Mobile to provide 5G fixed wireless services for underserved areas should go far to address the digital divide.

Datacenter: 

• Storage- (Steve McDowell) 
  • IBM announced its container-native Fusion HCI solution, marrying IBM's Spectrum software suite with Red Hat OpenShift, providing a high-end HCI solution for the enterprise. I'm a fan of the architecture. It's one of the only container-native HCI solutions on the market. It's also high-performance, competing directly against Dell's vxRail. I put up a piece on Forbes going into the details. 
  • Container-native seems to be the name of the game for data protection as backup player HYCU jumps in with both feet. HYCU's cloud-native Protege service offers data protection and management across physical, virtual, and container environments. Over the past 18 months, we've seen nearly every data protection vendor roll out a solution. It's become table-stakes in the space and speaks to the widespread adoption of containers as an enterprise application architecture.
  • We talk a lot about the rise of unstructured data in the enterprise.  Wasabi has been in this space from the beginning with its cloud object technology.  Wasabi, just this week, raised $112M in its c-round of fund-raising.  This follows $27.5M in debt financing earlier this year.  Wasabi is using the funds to help manage its growth.  The company has tripled its customer base over the past 36 months. Wasabi has a strong offering and a great brand. I expect that growth will continue. 
  • Western Digital announced Q1 earnings, delivering a solid $4.1B quarter, with a $197M profit.  Enterprise storage sales were not a bright spot for W.D., slipping 19% to a still-respectable $1.24B for the quarter. I don't read this as bad news, as its on par with the rest of the storage sector.  Storage media for the datacenter are flat-to-down, but every provider is predicting an uptick through the year.  This mirrors what we also hear from the OEM community.  
  • Dell provided a major update to its mid-range PowerStore solution and introduced a new entry-level PowerStore 500 model. It's a significant update to the year-old array, heavy with performance improvements.  The update also introduced support for NVME-over-FibreChannel, which is becoming a checkbox item for enterprise I.T.  Dell also fleshes out its AppsOn on-the-array virtualization solution. Its nice to see Dell come out of the gate with timely support for the new features and lavish attention on improving the overall experience for PowerStore users. Mid-range all-flash is where the momentum is right now. 
  • The big storage-related news out of NVIDIA's just-wrapped GTC event is NVIDIA's new BlueField-2 DPU.  Recall that a DPU is an intelligent adapter for storage and networking, which NVIDIA delivers by putting a lot of intelligence into a Mellanox smart-NIC.  The DPU allows for expensive storage networking operations, such as encryption-on-the-wire, compression, to be off-loaded from the CPU.  Going beyond traditional, accelerated NIC behavior, the DPU can do any number of data-related tasks, everything from data-cleansing to on-NIC image recognition.  NVIDIA isn't alone in this space. XILINX recently announced an updated line of FPGA-based smart-NICs, while smaller players like Nebulon and Fungible have similar solutions.           
• Networking- (Will Townsend) 
  • Extreme Networks rang in an impressive 21% year over year revenue gain this week. Although the pandemic was responsible for softening sales last year, I believe the company has finally integrated its Aerohive acquisition made in 2019 and is leaning into new depth in cloud management. A cloudified platform should position the company well for future growth in a highly competitive segment that includes Cisco, HPE Aruba, Juniper Networks, and Arista.
  • Juniper Networks held its Global Summit this week. I spent time with executives learning more about its recent Cloud Metro announcement. From my perspective, it is an innovative platform that will provide needed scale and automation features to support the deployment of 5G and related disruptive services.     
• Server- (Matt Kimball) 
  • Arm Neoverse Next Generation launched this week – including N2 (general purpose), V1 (high performance), CMN-700 (content mesh).  If you had any questions as to Arm's ability to drive enterprise adoption – question no more. The company has the I.P., hardware and software ecosystem, and differentiation to continue to carve out its place in the enterprise.  
  • Both AMD and Intel announced quarterly earnings, and the differences couldn't be greater. While Intel looks to temper expectations around its datacenter business claiming a cycle of cloud digestion, AMD continues to see EPYC business ramp.  The 3rd Generation of EPYC has a performance profile resonating with enterprise I.T., a market that the company has struggled to penetrate. But does this signal a significant downturn for Intel's business? Not at all. Ice Lake should help Intel's DCG business, and its long-term vision is quite compelling.
  • The biggest news I see out of the Red Hat Summit this week was around OpenShift. Perhaps the most significant news is the announcement of Red Hat OpenShift Plus, the companies top-tier product. Multi-cluster support, security, multi-cloud support? Check, check, check.  Container management is the space that every company seems to be chasing to own.  And there are a lot of compelling offerings in the market from the likes of VMware, HPE, Cisco, and others.  Red Hat seems to have found success in the telco and enterprise spaces and would expect them to continue to grow their share.      

FinTech (Melody Brue)

• Affirm, the BNPL leader that went public in January, raising $1.2 billion in its IPO, just acquired Returnly, a purchase-return facilitator, for $300 million. Affirm's stock has struggled a bit as we emerge from pandemic-level e-commerce and the comfort BNPL options provided during economic unknowns. Still, with the economy slowly rebounding, the company is betting on consumer spending again.  Affirm is currently valued at around $18 billion and putting that capital to work with deals that provide alternative conveniences to BNPL. CEO Max Levchin pointed to buyer's remorse being alive and well as a reason for the purchase.
• Ally Financial announced this week it has partnered with Microsoft on quantum computing. The company said in a press release: "To overcome the limits of traditional computing power, we have begun exploring the future use of quantum computing. Quantum computing has the potential to unlock new possibilities to solve problems beyond the reach of traditional computers." Although the market for large-scale quantum computers isn't quite there yet, the move seems intended to prepare for the future availability of scalable hardware with Microsoft's Azure Quantum.
• Arizent — the parent company of American Banker, PaymentsSource, and others -- released a report on how marketers at banks, professional services, and wealth management firms have navigated through the digital transformation the pandemic sparked. Traditional F.I. marketers are using outdated connection and engagement tools, putting them at a disadvantage to compete with Fintech companies that build products with U.I.s to answer modern communication preferences rather than reconfigure legacy systems. Very few financial marketers have data-driven approaches or ML/AI strategies currently. Suppose they don't prioritize this and modernize the acquisition funnel. In that case, they will undoubtedly lose out to Fintechs on customer acquisition and customize services and offerings to engage prospects along the customer journey.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Alex Oh was appointed Director of the Division of Enforcement. Oh is a former prosecutor and very focused on investor protections. She was previously a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and co-chair of the law firm's Anti-Corruption & FCPA Practice Group. My take on this is she isn't going to be easy on the Robinhoods of the Fintech world.

Home Automation/ Smart Home (Mark Vena) 

• The hit social deduction game Among Us is finally coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 sometime this year, Sony announced during its State of Play presentation this week.  Like on other platforms, the game will support crossplay and online multiplayer so that you can play with your friends no matter what platform you're on. But PlayStation players will be the only ones who can get exclusive Ratchet & Clank-themed cosmetics: a skin and hat to dress up like Ratchet and a pet.
• Here's one of the reasons why it sometimes doesn't pay to be an early adopter with Apple products: Apple's upcoming 2021 refresh of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro — which will feature an M1 processor and a new Mini LED display — will work with the 2020 model of the 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard case after all. But it's not going to be a perfect fit.  According to a newly added note to an Apple support document, the first-generation Magic Keyboard (model number A1998) will be "functionally compatible" with the updated iPad Pro. But due to the slightly thicker dimensions of the new 12.9-inch model (which is 0.5mm thicker than the 2020 version), Apple warns that "it's possible that the Magic Keyboard may not precisely fit when closed, especially when screen protectors are applied." Owners of the new iPad Pro will be forced to shell out another $349 for an updated Magic Keyboard.
• Microsoft's next big Windows 10 update for later this year will include some important audio improvements. The O.S. will finally get support for Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) over Bluetooth, which will give Windows users even more choice for Bluetooth headphones and speakers. Windows Insiders can test the changes right now.  Windows has long only supported SBC and AptX over Bluetooth. Still, AAC support also unlocks the potential for better audio quality for Apple's range of headphones and through iTunes or Apple Music on Windows. Apple was previously hiring engineers to build the "next generation of media apps for Windows," and AAC support would be a solid improvement for any potential Apple Music app or just streaming through the browser.
• The momentum behind cross-platform gaming continues in the console space: Microsoft is announcing today that Halo Infinite will support crossplay and cross-progression when it launches later this year. This will allow P.C. and Xbox players to match together and play the Halo Infinite campaign, and the support also extends to multiplayer. Any multiplayer customization and progress will sync across both P.C. and Xbox.
• Sony playing catchup: the company will begin rolling out support for 1080p streaming with PlayStation Now starting this week, upping the streaming quality from the cloud gaming service's previous 720p cap. "The rollout will occur over the next several weeks across Europe, US, Canada, and Japan, where PlayStation Now is available," Sony said in a tweet. Allowing some PlayStation Now games to stream at 1080p brings the service on par with some of Sony's cloud gaming competitors. Amazon's Luna currently tops out at 1080p, while Google's Stadia can hit up to a 4K resolution. Microsoft is presently testing 1080p support for Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud).
• I really would like Apple's next iPad Pro to be a laptop. Not a clamshell, but a Surface Pro type of product: a tablet with laptop hardware and a laptop O.S. I think there must be people at Apple who want this, too, so I'm sincerely hoping that the company stop dilly-dallying and make it happen. Here's my rationale: at Tuesday's Spring Loaded event, Apple finally unveiled a long-rumored update to its iPad Pro. While the device doesn't look too different from iPad Pro models of years past, it's a giant leap forward on the inside because Apple's eight-core M1 processor powers it. That's the same processor that powers its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (as well as the Mac mini), and it's exceptional. To repeat, the new iPad Pro isn't using a Macbook-adjacent or MacBook-equivalent processor. It's using the same processor that's in those laptops
• Interestingly, the Touch ID sensor in Apple's new Magic Keyboard, which debuted alongside the updated iMac earlier this week, works with any Mac fitted with Apple's M1 processor, according to some news reports. However, the sensor won't work with the new iPad Pro, which also uses the M1 chip. For now, the new keyboard is only sold with the new M1-equipped iMac, which is available to preorder from April 30.
• Here's how to recycle your old smartphone into your connected home: Samsung has launched a beta program to help put some older Galaxy phones to new uses. Owners of certain phones can download an update to turn the device into a smart home sensor with some neat functions — it can detect the sound of a crying baby or turn on a lamp when it gets dark. The program is limited to certain models launched in 2018 or later, which is fairly limited, but it's a nice, accessible offering that could help users get a little more use out of their old devices.
• Apple's new AirTag trackers are finally here after years of rumors. The $29 trackers work with Apple's Find My network, utilizing Bluetooth and UWB technology to help owners track anything from their keys to their bags. However, the design of the new trackers is somewhat controversial. Unlike most Bluetooth trackers, Apple's iteration doesn't include a built-in key ring loop. We're already seeing scores of companies offering accessories to hold AirTags since they can't be affixed to a physical device by itself, and this will quickly turn into several hundred million dollars business.

IIoT and IoT (Bill Curtis)

• The big IoT news from the Red Hat Summit this week is a new Linux distribution specifically tailored for the automotive industry. Two features differentiate this distro from others. First, it meets IS0 26262 vehicle safety requirements. Red Hat is partnering with Exida to manage the certification. Second, certification is continuous throughout the product's lifecycle, which is a big deal because of long vehicle service life. Linux typically powers automotive applications for infotainment, driver assistance, and vehicle automation. This new distro enables manufacturers to focus on differentiating features without worrying about the underlying O.S.
• Google and Siemens just announced a partnership to integrate Google cloud data analytics and A.I. technologies into the Siemens factory automation portfolio. This news comes on the heels of Siemens' recently announced partnership with IBM targeting edge computing for industrial applications. Every week there's more evidence that the IoT industry is transitioning from bottom-up, device-centric hackware (which does not scale) to top-down, platform-first architecture.
• This week, buried at the end of Apple's announcements, was news of the long-awaited Apple T.V. refresh. From an IoT standpoint, the new 4K streamer has one very significant new feature – Thread support. (The HomePod Mini also has Thread built-in.) Thread, a six-year-old mesh networking standard aimed at consumer and industrial applications, is built on the same radio technology that Zigbee uses (802.15.4). However, it uses open Internet protocols instead of pre-defined message formats. Although Apple didn't provide any details about specific applications for Thread, HomeKit integration is a good bet.
• In other standards news, the FIDO Alliance (Fast IDentity Online) issued a press release formally announcing FDO (FIDO Device Onboard). I previewed FDO in this blog two weeks ago. FDO removes undifferentiated friction from IoT supply chains by automatically and securely connecting devices from any manufacturer to any compatible service. Instead of manufacturing Azure-specific, AWS-specific, or Google-specific versions of a device, a single version works with many different services. Late-binding to services at the time of deployment enables manufacturers to mass-produce identical devices, resulting in fewer SKUs, larger TAMs, lower costs, and much better supply chain efficiency.

Personal Computing/ Collaboration (Anshel Sag) 

• Verizon is expanding its mmWave footprint, adding new cities and expanding coverage, including expanding its 5G home broadband service.
• Verizon lost customers over the last quarter while increasing revenue and is starting to ramp its mid-band 5G (CBAND) network buildout with help from Samsung and Ericsson equipment.
• The Chinese government has stated that the country now has 792,000 5G base stations, which translates to many potential 5G cell sites, even though you can have many base stations per cell site when you consider operators and deployment models.
• The GOP Senators have countered Biden's plans for a $100 Billion broadband fund with a $65 billion broadband fund, even though they have given no details on what should be cut.
• The new Quest 2 update brings 120 Hz refresh rates and Airlink seamless streaming from P.C. to the headset.

Quantum Computing (Paul Smith-Goodson)

• IonQ now offers full integration of its trapped ion quantum computer with Qiskit, an open-source quantum software development kit, or SDK developed by IBM research. Qiskit users can now submit programs directly to IonQ's platform without writing any new code. Through the Qiskit Partner Program, this new integration makes IonQ's high-connectivity high-fidelity 11 qubit system available to the 275,000+ enterprise, government, startup, partner, and university members already using Qiskit to create and run quantum programs. IonQ has released an open-source provider library that integrates seamlessly with Qiskit.  Qiskit is written in Python for working with quantum computers at various levels — from the "metal" itself to pulses, gates, circuits, and higher-order application areas like quantum machine learning and quantum chemistry.
• The Air Force Research Laboratory will be using one of QC Ware's quantum machine learning algorithms to determine the purpose/mission objective of unmanned aircraft by observing its flight path. The algorithm called Q-Means is used for clustering and classification. It can also likely be applied to other AFRL mission applications. AFRL is interested in supporting quantum algorithm development in optimization, machine learning, and quantum simulation for implementation in near-term quantum computers. The AFRL is also involved in the development of super-sensitive quantum sensors for a variety of applications.
• Scott Aaronson, a professor at the University of Texas, was recently awarded $250,000 by the Association of Computing Machinery for his groundbreaking contributions to quantum computing. Aaronson's area of interest is quantum computational complexity. He helped develop the concept of quantum supremacy. Aaronson recently expressed his belief that there is too much hype in quantum and too many claims about quantum capabilities. Aaronson argues that much of what quantum computing companies are doing can still be done better on the best classical computers. Compared to classical computing, Aaronson equates our quantum status to vacuum tube computers in the '50s. My beliefs align with Aaronson's. While quantum has tremendous potential, we still have 10+ years before it becomes useful. My concern is that Aaronson's remarks will chill investors, setting off another "winter" similar to the one experienced by A.I. a few
• Senators Maggie Hassan and John Thune sponsored legislation to provide the Pentagon with funding for quantum computing. The intent is to develop quantum computers and provide training for quantum computer engineers. The defense budget now stands at $753 billion, and I assume the quantum funding would come from those funds. The U.S. currently lags behind China in a few quantum technologies but has a two-year lead in the area of quantum computing. In the interest of our national security, we must stay ahead of China in quantum technologies with military applications.

Security (Will Townsend)

• AT&T recently bolstered its security offering for fiber customers at no additional subscription cost. Enhancements include more robust password management, suspicious device and intrusion blocking, and home network vulnerability scanning. I expect more features to be released as the operator leans into its Alienvault acquisition dating back to 2018. 
• IBM's Confidential Computing security platform that includes Hyper Protect and Data Shield is compelling given its assurance capabilities are both operational and technical. The latter ensures a public cloud provider can not access personal data.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Columns Published (Forbes, UPLOAD VR, and others)        

1. Tanium Selects Oracle Cloud As A Partner For Its As-A-Service Offering, by Patrick Moorhead
2. Poly P15 Personal Video Bar Review- Enterprise Plus Consumer Equals Awesome, by Patrick Moorhead
3. HP Launches New Cloud Printing System Called 'HP+', by Patrick Moorhead
4. Self-Driving Truck Company Plus Demonstrates Commitment To Sustainability With Eco-Friendly Collaborators, by Patrick Moorhead
5. Flex Joins Science-Based Target Coalition, Sets Goals To Help The Environment, by Patrick Moorhead
6. What Users Have To Look Forward To With Chromebooks Powered By Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7c, by Patrick Moorhead
7. Amazon Delivers On Its Sustainability Commitments And Then Some, by Patrick Moorhead
8. HP Celebrates Earth Day 2021 With Aggressive Climate Action Goals, by Patrick Moorhead
9. Hands On With Campfire's New Holographic Computing Enterprise Headset And Platform, by Anshel Sag
10. Is Amazon Building The Next Generation Bank? By Melody Brue
11. Jonathan Davidson And Cisco's Vision Of The Internet For The Future, by Will Townsend
12. Arm Continues Its Enterprise Push With Neoverse Next Gen, by Matt Kimball
13. IBM Goes Container-Native With Spectrum Fusion, by Steve McDowell
14. You Don't Have To Be A Rocket (Or Quantum) Scientist To Design A Quantum Computer Chip Using IBM's New Tool Called Qiskit Metal, by Paul Smith-Goodson
15. What Is Apple Up To With Its New AirTags? By Mark Vena
16. NVIDIA Crushes Latest Artificial Intelligence Benchmarking Tests, by Paul Smith-Goodson
17. HPE Aruba And Its Edge To Cloud Vision, by Will Townsend
18. Vessel Health: A Better Alternative For A Healthy Life, by Zane Pickett

Blogs Published (MI&S)                                                              

1. The Dell Tech And VMware Spin-Off Benefits Everybody, by Patrick Moorhead
2. Plus And NVIDIA Deal Gives Indications Of Our Autonomous Truck Future, by Patrick Moorhead
3. ZOHO: Why Low-Code Workflow Automation Trumps Spreadsheets In The Work-From-Home Economy, by Patrick Moorhead
4. Why I'm Not Surprised That IBM And Intel Are Collaborating On Chip Tech, by Patrick Moorhead
5. NVIDIA's Auto Business Takes A Front Seat At NVIDIA GTC 2021, by Patrick Moorhead
6. Amazon And The Truth About Corporate Taxes, by Patrick Moorhead
7. What's Better, The New M1 MacBooks Or The Microsoft Surface? By Patrick Moorhead
8. Oracle Updates Fusion Supply Chain And Discloses 750 New Customer Rollouts In Six Months, by Patrick Moorhead
9. The Decoder Ring For VMware's Multi-Cloud Offerings And Offers' As A Service', by Patrick Moorhead
10. The Latest Chapter In IBM's Quest To Build A Cloud For Banks, by Patrick Moorhead
11. Intel Plays To Its Strengths With 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable Processors, by Patrick Moorhead
12. Cisco All-In On XaaS, Observability, And Collaboration At Its 2021 Live! Conference, by Patrick Moorhead
13. How Digital Transformation Is Helping You Pay Your Mortgage, by Patrick Moorhead
14. Finding The Gems In Lenovo's Multiple Product Announcements, by Patrick Moorhead
15. 4 New Tech Products For The Smart Home And Office, by Mark Vena
16. IT & Security Operations Teams Must Be Ready For 2021 And Beyond, by Chris Wilder
17. NVIDIA Announces Technology For Training Giant Artificial Intelligence Models, by Paul Smith-Goodson
18. Intel's Ice Lake Launch Makes A Statement, by Matt Kimball
19. Cisco Meraki Helps Bay State College With A Safe Return To Campus, by Will Townsend
20. Why Microsoft Won The $22 Billion Army Hololens 2 A.R. Deal, by Anshel Sag

Research Paper:

• N/A

Podcasts:

The G2 on 5G by Moor Insights & Strategy, with Anshel Sag and Will Townsend

• Standalone Episode 3 (Ep 48) Nokia Private Networking 101 – April 22, 2021
  • Target industries and applications
  •  Manufacturing for machine-to-machine communication and process automation. Energy and utilities for grid management. Farming and ranching to improve crop and livestock yields through the application of "AgTech" methodologies. Operational technology (O.T.) environments will benefit from the deployment of cellular infrastructure. Nearly 3/4 of these enterprise "non-carpeted" areas such as warehouses, manufacturing lines, and industrial control systems are not connected by Wi-Fi today. 
  • The co-existence of 4G, 5G, and Wi-Fi
  • Enterprises have many choices for wireless connectivity. Wi-Fi enjoys a broad install base and supports the basic connectivity and application needs of knowledge workers cost-effectively. However, cellular private networking is poised to meet the more demanding needs of industrial applications. Today, 4G supports a majority of industrial use cases, and 5G, with its improvements in throughput and lower latency, is poised to unlock new ones.  
  • General deployment considerations
  • Should businesses own its private networking infrastructure on-premise or consider SaaS/cloudified or managed service offerings? There are many pros and cons to owning versus a subscription, including the balance sheet treatment of capital versus operational expenses and the need for immediate upside capacity and access to the latest feature releases. The ultimate decision should be made based on enterprise needs and I.T. staffing levels. 
  • Nokia's value add and market position 
  • Moor Insights & Strategy's opinion that there are only a handful of providers that can offer an end-to-end solution. We believe that Nokia is well-positioned to deliver a robust private networking platform based on its broad portfolio, deep experience, and overall leadership in private networking relative to its traditional peers, as highlighted by more than 260 4G and 5G customer deployments to date.
• Episode 49 - April 23, 2021
  • Dish and Amazon Web Services announce 5G RAN and Core deployment on public cloud-based infrastructure - is it a winning strategy?
  • Verizon mmWave expansion, C-Band Deployment and Earnings, Taps Samsung and Ericsson for C-Band equipment
  • AT&T earnings insights
  • China boasts 792K 5G base stations at the end of Feb
  • New York state mandates broadband pricing for economically disadvantaged subscribers - what's the impact on operators such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile offering 5G FWA services?
  • 6. Republicans counter Biden's $100 Billion broadband initiative with $65 billion for broadband

DataCentric Podcast by Moor Insights & Strategy, with Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell

• The Impact of A.I. on Enterprise I.T. Architecture
  • NVIDIA's Tony Paikeday and IBM Storage's Doug O'Flaherty join host Steve McDowell to talk about how to think about the unique place on the infrastructure by machine learning workloads.

SmartTechCheck Podcast by Moor Insights & Strategy, with Mark Vena

• SmartTechCheck Podcast (4-27-21)
  • HP execs Anneliese Olson and Xavier Garcia discuss the disruptive aspects of HP+, a new cloud-based ecosystem that is secure, productive, and uniquely sustainable
• SmartTechCheck Podcast (4-23-21)
  • Tech journalist Rob Pegoraro and Mark discuss the Apple SpringLoaded event, the new AirTag, iMac, and iPadPro announcements. 

The Six-Five Podcast by Moor Insights & Strategy and Futurum Research, with Patrick Moorhead and Daniel Newman

• Sustainable Ambitions, Sustainable Growth
  • Amazon Sustainability Announcements
  • IBM Earnings
  • H.P. Earth Day
  • Honeywell Earnings
  • Intel Earnings
  • Apple Event

Moor Insights & Strategy Podcast

•  N/A

 Press Citations: 

1. Amazon, Earnings / International Business Times https://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-caps-blockbuster-big-tech-earnings-reports-3189626 
2. AMD, Earnings / Siliconangle https://siliconangle.com/2021/04/27/amd-smashes-q1-expectations-almost-100-sales-growth/ 
3. AMD, Earnings / Austin American Statesman https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2021/04/27/amds-revenue-surges-gains-ground-rival-intel/7390054002/ 
4. Apple, Facebook, Earnings https://wallstreetpit.com/116127-facebook-apple-surge-after-beating-estimates/ 
5. Apple, Earnings / Yahoo  https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/apple-blows-past-quarterly-estimates-204642617.html 
6. Apple / USATODAY https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/04/26/facebook-apple-iphone-ipad-privacy-ios-software-update/7368248002/ 
7. Apple, Earnings / Morningstarhttps://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20210429410/dj-apple-reports-record-earnings-and-sales-for-a-non-holiday-quarter 
8. Apple, Earnings / MSN https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/apple-reports-record-earnings-sales-for-a-non-holiday-quarter/ar-BB1g9MSg?ocid=FinanceShimLayer 
9. Apple / ABC7 https://abc7.com/technology/heres-what-apple-unveiled-at-spring-product-launch/10532911/ (Mark Vena) 
10. Arm, Chips / Venturebeat https://venturebeat.com/2021/04/27/arms-neoverse-server-chips-generate-at-least-40-better-performance/ 
11. AT&T / Cordcutternews https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/att-pledges-2-million-to-help-bridge-the-digital-divide/ (Will Townsend) 
12. Cerebras, AI / Venturebeat https://venturebeat.com/2021/04/20/cerebras-systems-launches-new-ai-supercomputing-processor-with-2-6-trillion-transistors/ 
13. Cerebras, AI / ETCentric https://www.etcentric.org/cerebras-introduces-ai-processor-with-2-6-trillion-transistors/ 
14. Cisco, AMD / CIO https://www.cio.com/article/3616124/how-cisco-and-amd-are-accelerating-the-world-of-high-frequency-trading.html 
15. Cisco, datacenter / Datacenterknowledge https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/cisco/cisco-s-plan-delivering-data-center-and-more-service (Will Townsend) 
16. Fiercetelecom, IBM, Earnings https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/cloud-provides-pick-me-up-for-ibm-q1 
17. Dell / TechTarget https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/252499561/Dell-EMC-speeds-up-PowerStore-array-debuts-lower-cost-model (Steve McDowell) 
18. Google, Earnings, Cloud / Siliconangle https://siliconangle.com/2021/04/27/pandemic-alphabet-earnings-soar-ad-spending-jump-cloud-kicker/ 
19. IBM, Cloud / SPGGlobal https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/ibm-s-fortunes-set-to-rise-in-2021-on-hybrid-cloud-it-infrastructure-spinoff-63770514 
20. IBM / Marketwatch https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ibm-surprises-with-revenue-gain-and-stock-rallies-11618863761 
21. IBM, Earnings / Reuters https://www.reuters.com/technology/ibm-returns-quarterly-sales-growth-after-year-declines-2021-04-19/ 
22. IBM, Earnings / Siliconangle https://siliconangle.com/2021/04/19/ibm-surprises-investors-return-growth-first-quarter/ 
23. IBM, Earnings / Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/information-tech/ibm-quarterly-sales-growth-highest-in-over-two-years-on-cloud-strength/articleshow/82159996.cms?from=mdr 
24. IBM, Earnings / Morningstar https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20210419482/ibm-surprises-with-revenue-gain-see-growth-returning-to-pre-covid-19-levels 
25. Industry / Techtarget https://searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com/news/252499617/RingCentral-plays-catch-up-with-latest-video-features 
26. Intel, Earnings / Fiercetelecom https://www.fiercetelecom.com/financial/intel-results-mixed-q1-as-pcs-soar-data-centers-hit-floor 
27. Intel, Chips / Techxplore https://techxplore.com/news/2021-04-intel-tops-chip-demand-high.html 
28. Intel / Marketwatch https://www.marketwatch.com/story/intels-new-ceo-has-another-big-problem-to-fix-11619137489 
29. Intel, Chips / Yahoo Finance https://money.yahoo.com/intel-tops-expectations-chip-demand-205017982.html 
30. Microsoft, Cloud / Fiercetelecom https://www.fiercetelecom.com/financial/microsoft-rides-high-as-cloud-streak-rolls 
31. Microsoft, Earnings / Siliconangle https://siliconangle.com/2021/04/27/microsoft-vanquishes-estimates-investors-beat-shares-hours/ 
32. Microsoft, Cloud, Earnings / https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/microsoft-cloud-revenue-growth-rate-flatlines-at-50/2021/04/ 
33. NVIDIA, GPU, QUANTUM / TechTarget https://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/252499585/Nvidia-SDK-simulates-quantum-computing-circuits-on-GPU-systems (Paul Smith-Goodson) 
34. Qualcomm, Earnings, 5G/ Barrons https://www.barrons.com/articles/5g-hardware-sales-power-qualcomm-earnings-beat-51619648411
35. T-Mobile, Verizon, Broadband / USATODAY https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2021/04/19/t-mobile-verizon-up-their-bids-your-next-home-broadband/7262400002/ (Will Townsend) 
36. Verizon, 5G / Fiercewireless https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/verizon-offers-to-cover-up-to-500-fees-to-switch-to-5g-home 

New Gear or Software We are Using and Testing that is Public Knowledge 

• AMD Radeon RX 6700XT
• Cisco Webex Desk Camera
• Intel Core i9-11900K, Core i5-11600K
• Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (AMD), HoloLens 2 
• OnePlus 9 Pro & OnePlus 9
• Poly P15 Personal Video Bar
• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G

 Events MI&S Plans on Attending In-Person or Virtually (New) 

• April 2021
  • Crestron Virtual Event, April 27 (Mark Vena)
  • Lendit Fintech Conference USA, April 27-29 (Melody Brue)
  • RedHat Analyst Event, April 27-29 (Steve McDowell)
  • Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event, April 28 (Anshel Sag, Mark Vena)
  • H.P. Security Roundtable, April 28 (Patrick Moorhead)
  • MVNOs North America, April 28-29 (Will Townsend)
• May 2021
  • Five9 Industry analyst Summit (Patrick Moorhead)
  • HPE Storage Day, May 4 (Patrick Moorhead)
  • Dell Technologies World, May 5-6 (Patrick Moorhead, Matt Kimball, Steve McDowell, Will Townsend)
  • Microsoft Biz Apps Summit, May 4 (Patrick Moorhead)
  • MediaTek analyst Day, May 6 (Patrick Moorhead, Will Townsend)
  • Finovate Spring May 10-13 (Melody Brue)
  • IBM Think, May 11-12 (Steve McDowell, Matt Kimball, Patrick Moorhead, Paul Smith-Goodson, Will Townsend)
  • Cloudera Spring Spotlight, May 14 (Patrick Moorhead, Matt Kimball)
  • Nokia Roundtable, May 17 (Will Townsend)
  • Google IO, May 18-20 (Anshel Sag)
  • 8x8 Industry Analyst Conference (Patrick Moorhead)
  • Qualcomm 5G Summit, May 19-20 (Anshel Sag, Will Townsend)
  • Vivecon, May 20 (Anshel Sag)
  • Inside Quantum Technology Conference, Panel Member Quantum Policy – China, May 20 (Paul Smith-Goodson)
  • Zendesk Industry Analyst Summit (Patrick Moorhead)
  • Spark + A.I. Summit, May 24-28 (Steve McDowell)
  • Private Networks Forum, May 25 (Will Townsend)
  • Google Data Cloud Summit, May 26 (Matt Kimball)
• June 2021
  • NetApp Analyst Summit, June 8-9 (Steve McDowell)
  • Google A.I. Summit, June 10 (Matt Kimball)
  • The Six-Five Summit, June 14-18 (Patrick Moorhead)
  • HPE Discover, June 22 (Patrick Moorhead, Matt Kimball, Will Townsend)
• July 2021
  • Google Security Summit, July 14 (Matt Kimball)
• August 2021
• September 2021
  • Storage Develop Conference, Sept 28-29 (Steve McDowell)
• October 2021
  • VMWorld, October 5-7 (Matt Kimball, Steve McDowell)
  • NAB 2021, October 10-13, Las Vegas, in person (Steve McDowell) 
  • Nutanix .NEXT,  October 12-14 (Matt Kimball, Steve McDowell)
  • Google Next 21, October 12-14 (Matt Kimball)
  • IEEE Quantum Week Oct 18-22 (Paul Smith-Goodson)

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The Team 

Analysts, Analysts In-Residence, Contributors

1. Patrick Moorhead, Founder, President, Principal Analyst; Broad technology coverage plus deep insights into Cloud & SaaS, IoT, Personal Computing, Semiconductors, Automotive 
2. Bill Curtis, Analyst In-Residence, IIoT, and Deep IoT Technology 
3. Matt Kimball, Senior Analyst, Datacenter Servers, CI, and HCI 
4. Melody Brue, Senior Analyst, Financial Tech
5. Steve McDowell, Senior Analyst, Datacenter Storage, and Storage Technologies 
6. Anshel Sag, Senior Analyst; V.R., P.C. Gaming, Mobile Platforms 
7. Paul Smith-Goodson, Senior Analyst; Machine Learning, A.I. and Quantum Computing 
8. Will Townsend, Senior Analyst; Security, Carrier Services, Networking 
9. Chris Wilder, Contributor, Security 
10. Mark Vena, Senior Analyst, Smart Home, and Home Security 

Operations 

1. Dan Pickens, Business Director 
2. Paula Moorhead, Marketing Director, Website, and Social Media 
3. Walker Pickens, Media Relations, and Writer 
4. Zane Pickett, Office Manager, A.P., AR, travel, writer 
5. Lee LeClercq Williams, Business Associate