Blog

08/05/2024

One blue screen to rule them all 

By Jane Dornemann

On the left of frame reads the words

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Wheelin’ and dealin’ 

  • You win some, you lose some: Xerox is moving its legacy data-center workloads to Azure, which unfortunately doesn’t involve photocopying body parts and leaving the prints for other attorneys to discover (like when my dad used to take us to his office as kids: “It’s making people very uncomfortable, you have to stop”). Meanwhile, the Broad Institute at MIT is not renewing its Azure contract, with a TBD on where it goes next. 
  • Microsoft has stepped down from its non-voting observer seat on OpenAI’s board. So, it gave up its role of doing nothing but getting the tea. Speculators say the OpenAI seat will go to an Apple executive following a recent deal between the two companies. And this might sting a little, but OpenAI is selling more of its AI models than Microsoft is. 
  • That’s OK because Microsoft is busy making its own deals—starting with Adept, a young AI startup. I went to Adept’s website and I still have no idea what the company does. DM me if you can explain it like I’m five years old.
  • Microsoft led a $40M investment in Armada, which provides off-grid, satellite-connected modular centers that customers can buy through Azure. Is this like the prepper of the tech world? 
  • Criteo is collaborating with Microsoft Advertising. TL;DR: they’re using and selling each other’s products to retailers.
  • Deloitte will use Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker in its products to help clients “augment their workflows.” Does anyone want their workflows augmented? I don’t. 
  • After agreeing to essentially contract out its cloud services so Microsoft can keep offering generative AI, wouldntyaknowit, Oracle’s Autonomous Database has become available on Azure.
  • Digital mapmaker TomTom signed a long-term deal with Microsoft to bring its maps and traffic data to Azure Maps and other Microsoft products. 

Gossip (for nerds) 

  • AWS is investigating whether or not Perplexity AI has been “scraping” websites that have tried to block the practice. Scraping, which in this case is not about cleaning out your bong with an unbent paper clip, is the act of extracting data for things like market research or content analysis. And it’s forbidden by AWS. Because Perplexity is an AWS customer, it must adhere to the cloud provider’s rules. Do as I say, not as I do, I guess.
  • AWS, Google, and Microsoft are among several tech companies calling for industry-wide adoption of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), a statement of greenhouse gas emissions that’s verified by a third party. 
  • This is funny because some Amazon and AWS employees past and present are calling the company’s sustainability claims cap. (See how familiar I am with the lingo of today’s youth? How sigma of me). There have been walkouts and accusations of “creative accounting.” (I know someone who creatively accounted 34 times, but I’ll tell you about it later.) 
  • Microsoft is scrapping the underwater data center it started in 2013, and in the same breath the spokesperson was basically like, “It worked, but also it didn’t work.” That last part I could have told you for free. 

Ma’am, I’m going to have to call security 

  • By now, you know the details of the CrowdStrike/Microsoft debacle that affected almost nine-million devices—and ruined vacations, halted flights, stopped surgeries, paused banking, and crapped on emergency services. If you don’t, then you’ve been living under a rock, and I suggest you return to that rock because things are rough out here. 
  • After advising customers to reboot at least 15 times to solve the issue, Microsoft and CrowdStrike realized that they’ll need to write some very large checks. (On top of the $22M settlement it paid to EU regulators for something else…. And also the $14M settlement it paid to California after penalizing workers who took medical or family care leave.) But, more importantly, the “blue screen of death” is looking like a solid Halloween costume right now. 
  • It wasn’t just the faulty CrowdStrike update that caused problems: Azure and Microsoft 365 customers experienced a separate outage stemming from the Central US region, which greatly affected airlines. Let’s pour one out for anyone who had a plane ticket this past week. 

World domination 

  • Microsoft is offering Chinese businesses a loophole to get around OpenAI’s exclusion of Chinese customers (even those using VPNs). But the US won’t allow China to access this advanced technology for long, because we can be next-level savage like that. 
  • In the meantime, Microsoft is worming its way into Hong Kong schools by incorporating OpenAI into education services.
  • Chile will soon have more than one of the world’s largest swimming pools—it will brag about a second AWS data center in 2026. And in Australia, AWS is building a high-security data center for the down-under government in a $2B, 10-year, top-secret project. This means nobody knows the location, except we do: it’s in the Outback, because where else would you secretly build a data center? 
  • To get more public agencies on board with generative AI, AWS is doing what it does best: throwing money at it. The company announced a $50M investment in its Public Sector Impact Initiative, which is mostly about giving promotional credits to the government to use solutions like Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Q. 
  • Remember that $1.5B investment Microsoft made in G42, an United Arab Emirates–based AI company? Republican lawmakers want to know what’s up with that. They demand info and they demand it NOW. Microsoft is all like, CHILL OUT we care about security…can’t you tell? 
  • Google is giving off some big Pick Me energy, per my last leaked memo. In a 500M Euro effort to lure European cloud companies away from Microsoft, the companies stuck with Microsoft anyway. Google’s incentive was offered on the condition that the companies held their ground on the anti-trust allegations against Microsoft. Does anyone have some soap, because this is DIRTY. 

New stuff 

  • AWS Graviton4 Cloud Processors for EC2 R8g are now generally available; AWS claims the combo is more energy efficient and more powerful—and they have receipts. AWS is also developing an even more powerful AI chip, Trainium3, which will compete with NVIDIA’s family of Blackwell chips. AWS is preparing its data centers for increased demand—such as using liquid-cooling and cold-plate technology. So much for net-zero by 2040. 
  • Amazon Q can provide customer service agents with step-by-step guides on how to handle customer calls, and never in my life have I wanted an AI to hallucinate in any given scenario. “Step 3: Tell customer your butt itches and to please hold while you scratch it. Step 4: Hang up.” 
  • AWS is also throwing credits at startups, again, to win market share away from Microsoft. 
  • Welcome, App Studio! It’s the newest generative AI solution from AWS that promises to build you an app based on a written prompt. Why do I feel like this will be used for evil? 
  • Avoiding all hyperbole, Automation Anywhere is “automating the impossible” using Azure OpenAI Service. Does that mean it will automate Elon Musk’s donations to food banks? 

Professional pivots 

  • NVIDIA hired Howard Wright, formerly AWS VP and Global Head of Startups, to lead its startup ecosystem.
  • Google has hired two executives away from competitors: Saurabh Tiwary, formerly of Microsoft’s Copilot arm, and Raj Pai, formerly of the EC2 arm at AWS. They’ll help lead Google’s cloud-based AI business. 

Best friends forever 

  • AWS, Microsoft, Intel, Google, and other puppeteers of humanity have joined the Fintech Open Source Foundation, which aims to “enhance the financial service industry’s technology ecosystem through open-source initiatives.” (Because what banks need is more free shit.) In partnership with financial institutions, the foundation will set common standards. 
  • I scream, you scream, we all scream for ISVs! Browse Microsoft’s 2024 Partners of the Year. 
  • SourceFuse earned AWS Premier Tier Services Partner status. 
  • CCL, a provider of IT and hybrid cloud services, is the first launch partner for Microsoft’s New Zealand cloud region.
  • Soracom, a provider of advanced IoT connectivity, has joined the AWS ISV Accelerate program. 
  • Telco Systems’ Edgility platform passed the AWS Foundational Technical Review validation for AWS IoT Greengrass and has joined the AWS Partner Network. 
  • New to AWS Marketplace: Observo AI, which creates security and observability data pipelines. 

Additions to Azure Marketplace