We hope everyone had a wonderful week!  

This week, Melody attended NRF in New York City. Paul attended Qubits.

Next week, I am attending Samsung Unpacked and am attending an analyst council meeting in the Seattle area.

Over the last few weeks, our MI&S team published 20  deliverables:  

• 10 Forbes insight columns  
• 4 MI&S blogs 
• 6 podcasts    
• 0 research papers 

The press quoted us with 4 citations. Journalists wanted to hear about 5G, Ericsson, Google, and technology layoffs.  

MIS Quick Insights: 

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

• Startup Glüxkind's Ella "smart stroller" provides advanced safety features using the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform. It was named a CES 2023 Innovation Awards Honoree.
• Glüxkind, based in Vancouver, Canada, is a member of NVIDIA Inception, a free program designed to help startups evolve faster. The program gives members access to cutting-edge technology, NVIDIA experts, and opportunities to connect with venture capitalists.
• The stroller has an adaptive push and brake assistance that works going uphill, downhill, or when fully loaded with groceries and toys. It also has a Rock-My-Baby mode and built-in white noise playback.

AR/VR (Anshel Sag) 

• N/A 

Carrier/Wireless (Will Townsend) 

• 2023 will usher in consolidation in a crowded Open RAN market. Mavenir continues to underperform, as evidenced by another recent layoff. Airspan Networks and JMA Wireless should capitalize, given each company's portfolio depth and financial performance.                  

Datacenter:  

Networking- (Will Townsend)  

• I recently met with Aviatrix, which provides enterprise cloud networking, security, and visibility tools. Cloud networking is becoming crowded with many me-too players, but I am impressed with the company's portfolio. A recent NTT Data Business Solutions partnership announcement points to Aviatrix's capabilities. NTT enjoys a massive install base, and adopting Aviatrix's platform for NTT's Cloud Network as a Service offering validates my assessment.    

Server- (Matt Kimball)    

• N/A 

FinTech (Melody Brue) 

• There is a lot of agreement about M & A/consolidation in FS this year. Operations and staff challenges will need to be met with automation, ML, and AI, and the decrease in the formation of new fintechs will be compensated for by the ongoing push from big tech, retail, e-commerce, and traditional banks to introduce new financial services, wallets, and other fintech technologies.   

IIoT and IoT (Bill Curtis) 

• N/A 

Personal Computing/ Collaboration (Anshel Sag)  

• N/A 

Quantum Computing (Paul Smith-Goodson) 

• D-Wave announced advancements in its gate model computing system, including the successful design and validation of scalable qubits and a readout method for the gate model architecture. They have also benchmarked 1- and 2-qubit fluxonium qubit circuits and completed a first iteration of a logical qubit design that utilizes new scalable control and readout technologies. Additionally, they have launched a gate model simulator in the Ocean suite of open-source tools, which allows developers to build quantum circuits, add quantum gates, and simulate circuits using a high-performance state-vector simulator.
• IBM Quantum announced the fifth annual quantum awards (and the third annual Open Science Prize) for the best open-source solution to some of the most pressing problems in quantum computing. The challenge will feature one problem from the quantum ground state preparation field. The best open-source solution will receive a $30,000 prize. The runner-up will receive $20,000. 
• According to IBM: "Preparing quantum states lies at the heart of quantum computing and is essential to promising applications of near-term quantum processors. This year's problem asks participants to prepare the ground state of a Heisenberg spin-1/2 Hamiltonian on a kagome lattice using IBM Quantum's 16-qubit ibmq_guadalupe system. The ground states of such systems are highly entangled and linked to exotic quantum behavior at the forefront of quantum research. The goal is to compute the ground state energy with the highest fidelity using VQE. Note that this is the largest qubit system offered in an Open Science Prize, and working with 16 qubits will be its own challenge."
• More info here    

Retail Tech (Melody Brue) 

• Microsoft unveiled two new Microsoft Cloud for Retail products—Store Operations Assist and AiFi Smart Stores Analytics during NRF this week.
• Microsoft Store Operations Assist is a cloud-based software solution designed to help retailers streamline store operations and drive sales. It provides a unified view of store data, enabling retailers to manage inventory, pricing, promotions, customer relationships, and more. The platform also offers advanced analytics to gain insights into customer behavior, sales trends, and other key metrics. 
• By configuring Store Operations Assist in Microsoft Teams, leaders and managers can enhance collaboration, boost productivity, and support store associates throughout the sales cycle and in every aspect of their performance.
• Smart Store Analytics is a cloud service included in the Microsoft Cloud for Retail product suite, developed in collaboration with AiFi, an autonomous shopping technology startup. Smart Store Analytics gives retailers using AiFi's technology the ability to gain insights into shopper behavior and operations within their fleets of smart stores. 

Security (Will Townsend) 

• I predict that the zero trust whitewash will continue in 2023. This week, a public relations firm pitched me a meeting with a startup launching a zero-trust browser, a laughable consideration. The definition of zero trust must always embody the core principle that users authenticate to applications versus a flat network. Only a handful of companies deliver on the true promise of zero trust, including Zscaler, Fortinet, and Palo Alto Networks. Enterprise CISOs and security operations teams should keep this in mind while evaluating any cybersecurity offering.           

Space (Paul Smith-Goodson) 

• N/A    

Columns Published  

1. Amazon's Alexa Ambient Experience Brings Matter Into The Mix At CES 2023, by Patrick Moorhead 
2. The Goldilocks Principle And Hybrid Cloud, by Patrick Moorhead 
3. Qualcomm Highlights Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC And The Best Concept Car At CES 2023, by Patrick Moorhead 
4. NI – Getting Complex Products To Market Faster, by Patrick Moorhead 
5. Cadence Brings Dolby Atmos To Automotive Entertainment Systems, by Patrick Moorhead 
6. AMD Brings Zen 4 Architecture And AI To Its Mobile Processors At CES 2023, by Patrick Moorhead 
7. NVIDIA Continues Its Forward Momentum With New Robotics, Gaming And Creator Announcements At CES 2023, by Patrick Moorhead 
8. Three 5G Networking And Cybersecurity Predictions For 2023, by Will Townsend 
9. Low-Code, No-Code Aligns Business Needs With IT Strategy For Greater Workforce Productivity, by Melody Brue 
10. Three Sport And Entertainment Venues That Understand The Value Of Connectivity, by Will Townsend 

Blogs Published (MI&S)                                                               

1. Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 Versus Apple MacBook Air Experience Showdown, by Patrick Moorhead
2. Dell Leads With PC Peripherals At CES 2023, by Patrick Moorhead
3. Five Enterprise IT Predictions For 2023, by Matt Kimball 
4. Privacy Comes At A Premium: HTC's VIVE XR Elite Headset Could Save Us From An XR Privacy Mess, by Anshel Sag 
5. Dell's Reinvigorated Gaming Lineup Includes Many New And Revamped Products, by Anshel Sag 

Research Paper(s): 

• N/A

Podcasts: 

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

• The G2 on 5G Podcast – Mexican 5G Spectrum Rules, T-Mobile maintains 5G lead, Dish raises $500M 

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

1. Ep151: NOTAM Outage, Intel Sapphire Rapids, TSMC Earnings, HPE Acquires Pachyderm, ChatGPT to Azure
2. The Six Five On the Road "Short" at CES 2023 with Patrick Moorhead and Daniel Newman
3. The Six Five On the Road at CES 2023 with Luminar and Joanna Buttler, Daimler Truck AG
4. The Six Five On the Road at CES with Luminar and Martin Kristensson of Volvo Cars

Moor Insights & Strategy Podcast 

• LIVE! Talking patents w/ Chief Economist & VP Kirti Gupta, Qualcomm & Former USPTO Dir Andrei Iancu

Press Citations:  

1. 5G / Computer Weekly https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252529143/Tech-firms-add-to-private-5G-offer-but-ABI-warns-of-no-mass-take-off-in-2023 (Will Townsend) 
2. Ericsson / Zawya https://www.zawya.com/en/press-release/companies-news/strengthened-ericsson-private-network-portfolio-leads-the-market-in-solution-choice-c65ol2in (Will Townsend) 
3. Google / San Francisco Examiner https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/google-is-laying-off-12000-as-tech-downturn-deepens/article_6cbba7cc-98e0-11ed-a77f-d7b053107a7b.html (Melody Brue) 
4. Technology, layoffs / https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/tech-layoffs-are-turning-brutal-more-may-be-coming/article_f4c07c6c-93a2-11ed-8fcc-d77a011d3dfe.html (Melody Brue) 

Company: 

• N/A

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

• Inseego MiFi X Pro 5G hotspot
  • Solis Lite Global Mobile Wi-Fi hotspot   

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

• January 
• Samsung Unpacked, San Francisco, January 31- February 1 (Patrick Moorhead) 
• February
  • Seattle area advisory, February 2-3 (Patrick Moorhead) 
  • Cisco Live EMEA – Amsterdam, February 6-8 (Will Townsend) 
  • Net Events Debate Moderator – Digital Transformation and the challenges of CIOs and CISOs, San Jose, Feb 15-16 (Matt Kimball) 
  • Mobile World Congress – Barcelona, February 27 – March 2 (Will Townsend) 
• March
  • Mobile World Congress, March 1 (Patrick Moorhead) 
  • APS Quantum, Las Vegas, March 5-10 (Paul Smith-Goodson) 
  • Connected America – Dallas, March 28-29 (Will Townsend) 
• April
  • Fortinet Accelerate – Orlando, April 3-6 (in person) (Will Townsend) 
  • RSA Conference – San Francisco, April 24-27 (virtual) (Will Townsend) 

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The Team  

Analysts, Analysts In-Residence, Contributors 

1. Patrick Moorhead, Founder, CEO, Chief Analyst; Broad technology coverage plus deep insights into Cloud & SaaS, Personal Computing, Semiconductors, & Automotive  
2. Bill Curtis, Analyst In-Residence, IIoT, and Deep IoT Technology  
3. Matt Kimball, Principal Analyst, Datacenter Servers, CI, and HCI  
4. Melody Brue, Principal Analyst, Financial Tech 
5. Anshel Sag, Principal Analyst; VR, PC Gaming, Mobile Platforms  
6. Paul Smith-Goodson, Principal Analyst; Machine Learning, A.I. and Quantum Computing  
7. Will Townsend, Principal Analyst; Security, Carrier Services, Networking  
8. Chris Wilder, Contributor, Security  
9. Jacob Freyman, Junior Analyst 

Operations  

1. Dan Pickens, Business Director  
2. Paula Moorhead, Marketing Director, Website and Social Media  
3. Zane Pickett, Office Manager, AP, AR, travel, writer  Lee LeClercq Williams, Business Associate  Nigel Church, Business Associate, Writer, Editor 
4. Connor Kenyon, Six Five Sales & Business Development