by Tech Talk | Mar 6, 2023 | Articles
Apple’s top executive in charge of cloud initiatives, including iCloud and the infrastructure for services like iMessage and FaceTime, is leaving the company, adding to a wave of recent departures.
The executive, Michael Abbott, is stepping down in April, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the move isn’t public. Abbott will be the second top lieutenant to services chief Eddy Cue to leave this year, joining a growing list of company vice presidents who have departed the iPhone maker in late 2022 and early 2023.
Abbott’s exit leaves a major hole in one of the company’s most critical divisions. As Apple’s vice president of cloud engineering, he’s in charge of the iCloud.com service, iCloud Mail and new features like iCloud data encryption. He also runs the company’s platform that powers iCloud, key communication services, the Find My feature and Emergency SOS on iPhones.
A spokesman for Cupertino, California-based company declined to comment.
The executive is one of a handful of Cue’s direct reports, a list that includes the heads of Apple TV+ content, music, financial services, maps, advertising and productivity apps. He also runs CloudKit, a service that developers can use to power third-party apps, and software offerings for both education and enterprise users. And he’s in charge of privacy and security engineering for Apple’s services.
The cloud services group had invested heavily in building an infrastructure to power its offerings. But more recently, the company has pared back that effort in favour of using servers hosted by Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Abbott’s group oversees a custom layer that sits on top of that infrastructure to optimise it for Apple’s offerings.
In recent years, Abbott has hired several cloud industry leaders to bolster Apple’s operations, but the integration of the new talent hasn’t gone as smoothly as some within the company had hoped, people familiar with the effort said.
Peter Stern, the other Cue deputy to leave this year, departed at the end of January. He was widely seen as a possible successor to Cue and ran many components of the company’s services business, including subscriptions and business matters for Apple TV+ and Apple News, as well as marketing across the services portfolio.
Abbott has held his role for five years. He joined Apple in 2018 after serving as an investor at venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins and an executive at Twitter, Microsoft and Palm. Apple employee shares vest in April, when Abbott plans to depart.
Beyond the departures of Abbott and Stern, Apple has recently lost executives in charge of industrial design, its online store, information systems, procurement, and parts of its hardware and software engineering divisions.
Apple has struggled in some cases to find successors, leading it to reshuffle roles. It chose not to name new privacy and design chiefs and split up the responsibilities of departing executives among remaining leaders.
Still, the company has had some success recruiting new executives. Its first chief people officer, Carol Surface, is joining Apple from Medtronic this month. — Bloomberg
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by Tech Talk | Mar 6, 2023 | Articles
Canal+ used a creeping takeover tactic to slowly acquire a significant portion of MultiChoice, threatening the company’s control structure.
During company takeovers — when one company acquires a controlling stake in another company — the acquisition price is typically valued at a premium to its market value.
It means the price per share paid is higher than the market value for the acquired company.
A buyer can be willing to pay a premium for another company they want to own for many reasons.
A deal may provide synergies between operations, the combined value can be worth more than their components, and it can lower costs.
As such, acquired companies rarely sell a majority share of their firm without pricing in a considerable premium.
It would, therefore, be beneficial for a purchasing company to increase its exposure to a target company without paying a “takeover premium”.
A popular way is buying a target firm’s shares in the open market and gradually increasing your stake without disclosing the motive behind the purchase.
This is known as a creeping takeover. With enough willing sellers, the acquiring company could gain a majority share in the target company without paying a premium.
A great example of a creeping takeover is the French media company Canal+ buying a large stake in MultiChoice through open market trades.
Over the last thirty months, Canal+ gradually increased its stake in MultiChoice — from 6.5% in October 2020 to its current level of over 30%.
In February 2023, MultiChoice announced that French media company Groupe Canal+ SA had increased its stake in the company to 30.27%.
Since MultiChoice first announced Groupe Canal+ was buying a large number of shares, the share price has traded relatively flat.
Canal+ was, therefore, able to increase its exposure to MultiChoice without needing to pay a premium on the DStv provider’s market value.
The creeping takeover strategy is likely to conclude soon as JSE regulations automatically trigger a mandatory buyout offer once a 35% ownership threshold is exceeded.
It means Canal+ would be forced to make an offer to buy all of the outstanding MultiChoice shares at this point.
Canal+ is close to this threshold level and, if it wants a majority position, it can no longer avoid paying a premium for the remainder of the stock.
It may be what Canal+ intended — buying as many MultiChoice shares at market value as possible and only paying a premium on the rest.
However, regulatory hurdles may prevent Canal+ from buying MultiChoice outright.
The Electronic Communications Act 36 of 2005 (ECA) puts limitations on foreign control of commercial broadcasting services through strict ownership rules.
- A foreigner may not, whether directly or indirectly, exercise control over a commercial broadcasting licensee.
- Not more than 20% of the directors of a commercial broadcasting licensee may be foreigners.
MultiChoice said their compliance with the ECA is ensured through restrictions in their Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI), where voting rights for foreigners collectively are limited to 20%.
The limited voting rights may bypass the ECA foreign ownership restrictions to some point, but a full takeover is a completely different beast. It is unlikely to be approved.
An alternative is for Canal+ to use its significant MultiChoice shareholding to gain control of MultiChoice Africa – the main prize it is after anyway.
MultiChoice Africa, which has around 12.8 million subscribers, is particularly valuable for Vivendi and Canal+ as synergies could unlock value for both companies.
MultiChoice Africa is mainly operational in South and East African countries like Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
Canal+, in turn, mainly operates in francophone countries of Central and West Africa, as well as some non-francophone countries like Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana, and Cape Verde.
Although there is some overlap, like in Nigeria and Ghana, the two companies focus on different parts of the continent.
Richard Cheesman, a senior investment analyst at Protea Capital Management, said the benefits of a tie-up include lower content costs, better satellite leases, and the expedited use of MultiChoice Africa’s tax losses.
Merging Canal+ and MultiChoice Africa’s subscriber bases will give a new entity better negotiation rights on satellite costs, rights on sports and movies, and channel distribution agreements.
Combining Canal+ and MultiChoice Africa’s advertising sales teams will extend their reach and improve efficiency.
A combined advertising offering reaching most countries on the continent will appeal to many global and African brands.
MultiChoice’s expertise in online streaming — DStv Now and Showmax — can also assist Canal+ in its online endeavours.
Sa Eva Nébié, head of research at Dataxis, said, although the two companies are still managed independently, an operational merger would create an undisputed pay-TV leader in Africa.
Nebie highlighted that Canal+’s ultimate intentions remain undetermined.
However, its investment in and closer ties with MultiChoice give it more control over the African market, which will count more than 1.3 billion people by 2027.
“This strengthened collaboration would make it all the more difficult for new entrants to penetrate an already concentrated market with success,” Nebie said. – Mybroadband
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Mar 6, 2023 | Articles
In support of relief efforts after severe flooding in Mpumalanga, Vodacom has donated food and care packs to hundreds of families who have been left vulnerable in the Mbombela and Nkomazi local municipalities. The donation includes grocery hampers and toiletries, such as feminine hygiene products and facecloths.
At the handover, Zakhele Jiyane, Managing Executive for Vodacom Mpumalanga Region, said, “The recent floods have devastated communities in Mpumalanga and we want to ensure that affected families are supported during this time. In addition to making sure that we repair infrastructure as quickly as possible so that people in the region can stay connected, our flood relief efforts support our commitment as a company to improve the lives in the communities we serve. As part of our Social Contract, we are using our capabilities to help the people of Mpumalanga in this time of crisis and ensure they have access to the most basic of needs.”
Over the past few weeks, large parts of South Africa have been hit by heavy rains, leaving numerous areas under water. Flooding in Mpumalanga has affected Thekwane, Elandshoek, Hazyview, and Nkomazi, which has caused extensive damage to infrastructure and even resulted in fatalities. In addition, many residents in low-lying villages situated near rivers and dams have been displaced and have lost access to basic needs such as food, clothing, and toiletries.
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
by Tech Talk | Mar 6, 2023 | Articles
China pledged to pool together all of the nation’s resources to achieve self-reliance in technology, underscoring the government’s determination to secure key breakthroughs in areas such as semiconductors as tensions with the US escalate.
In his government work report released at the start of the annual National People’s Congress on Sunday, outgoing Premier Li Keqiang reiterated the call for a “whole nation strategy” to edge out Washington on basic scientific research and advanced technologies ranging from advanced intelligence to space. His remarks come days after the Biden administration blacklisted more Chinese companies in the chip and genome industries.
“The new system for mobilising resources nationwide should be improved,” Li said. “We should better leverage the role of the government in pooling resources to make key technological breakthroughs, and enterprises should be the principal actors in innovation.”
Li’s speech, along with recent calls from Chinese President Xi Jinping, signals the top leadership’s determination to break choke points for an upper hand in the tech war with the US. Choke points refers to key technologies to make things like chips or jet engines that China lacks and the US and other nations control.
China should encourage private capital to collaborate on major government initiatives and projects aimed at addressing areas of weakness, Li said. Having “effectively countered external attempts to suppress and contain China’s development” in the past five years, China should “pool quality resources and make concerted efforts” to achieve breakthroughs in key technology fields in the future, he said.
The Chinese government’s hefty investment in the chip industry has borne little fruit in recent years, with technology champions from Huawei Technologies to Semiconductor Manufacturing International struggling to advance their chip technologies following US blacklisting. Sanction-hit Yangtze Memory Technologies, the country’s best shot to make memory chips for smartphones and computers, is also having trouble expanding capacity despite receiving additional state capital.
Xi has ordered the ruling Communist Party to exercise more control over the country’s science and technology agenda, paving the way for the creation of an even more powerful overseer to steer strategically critical industries. — Bloomberg
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by Tech Talk | Mar 6, 2023 | Articles
By: Monde Mawasha
The actions of present generations potentially have an enormous impact on those who will live in the future. One of the main obligations of a generation, therefore, is to leave the next generation with a stronger, healthier economy, as such, that it does not plunder from them by consuming resources at an unsustainable rate.
China and the Asian Tigers are a perfect example of the then-developing nations that drove economic and social development through an economic policy of increasing efficiency gains due to capital accumulation. The Four Asian Tigers (also known as the Four Asian Dragons or Four Little Dragons in Chinese and Korean) are the developed East Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Between the early 1950s and 1990s, they underwent rapid industrialisation and maintained exceptionally high growth rates of more than 7 percent per annum.
As a developing country, South Africa (SA) can draw great lessons from China and the Asian Tigers experience and success and identify ways to achieve a sustained trajectory of economic growth – growth that is inclusive and built on poverty reduction and shared prosperity. The greatest threat to political stability and social cohesion in SA is now economic growth.
Globalisation has been a major political economy concern for all nations since it is so pervasive and needs to be a pillar of any governments economic policy. It is true that the rise in the 21st century of the tech giants has weakened the ability of governments to use globalisation policy as a tool for economic growth through its waning leverage. It is, however, inaccurate to now abandon it as an economic policy lever. The semiconductor sector policy that the Biden administration is waging is a good example. Thus, the Neoliberal theory concept (Neoliberalism is a model of free market capitalism that favours greatly reduced government spending, deregulation, globalisation, free trade, and privatization) of globalisation has significant weaknesses.
SA, therefore, must consider two polar binaries to ensure proper management of the national economy. First, there is the debate between accumulation theorists, who primarily support the neoliberal globalisation idea, and innovation theorists, who contend that learning and invention are essential to progress in the tradition of Schumpeter. Closely related to this, is the debate between the “codified knowledge” camp, which supports the unique information at the company level that is by definition not driven by global supply chain constraints imposed by a small number of huge global corporations, and the “tacit knowledge” camp.
SA’s economic growth policy should focus on specialists’ knowledge that adds value in the global value chain and invest in technologies such as robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create innovation at the level of the firm (Tacit Knowledge).
Tacit Knowledge comprises, wealth-creating knowledge which includes practical skills established through learning by doing, as well as competencies acquired through formal education and training, and it includes management skills learnt in practice as well as new insights produced by research and development (R&D) efforts. Tacit Knowledge is almost by definition the foundational Political Economy consideration for the future of the country’s economy.
The creation of tacit knowledge is the decisive prerequisite for successful economic development. A weak tacit knowledge base constitutes a major barrier to South African economic growth, climate change initiatives and generally South Africa having distinct economic brand.
By adopting a tacit knowledge-based policy, SA will be able to “catch up” with developed economies and very importantly enable a job-creating economy with huge multiplier effect potential. Tacit Knowledge Policy will work well with the South African Reserve Bank mandate of inflation-targeting. This will ensure that monetary policy and fiscal policy are properly targeted.
It is important to emphasise that learning takes place in all parts of the economy, including in so-called low-tech and traditional sectors. Indeed, learning in traditional and low-tech sectors may be more important for economic development than learning in a small number of insulated high-tech firms. The learning potential (technological opportunities) may differ between sectors and technologies, but in most broadly defined sectors, there will be niches where the potential for learning is high.
Finally, all kinds of workers have skills and learning capacity, including those misleadingly called, “unskilled workers”. In fact, according to a 2022 projection from The New York Academy of Sciences, sub-Saharan Africa will require 2.5 million extra engineers just to meet its development issues.
One of Coega’s premier Corporate Social Investment (CSI) programmes, the Coega Maths and Science Programme (MSP) was established in 2013 with the goal of empowering matriculants by giving them the chance to improve their Grade 12 Mathematics and Physical Science exam results. This Programme is a living and breathing example of the adage that South Africa has talent. This talent just needs to be encouraged and harnessed. The MSP’s results have shown improvements in Maths and Science results of the learners by factors of 3 and sometimes even more. Learners who attained 20%, 30%, 40% in Maths and Science exams, within a year improved their marks to 70%, 80%, 90%. These are remarkable numbers and are indicative to the kinds of interventions that can make a real difference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills in SA.
Who and how can this scale up to be a primary rather than a secondary intervention? Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Content and Telecommunication are a potential solution to scale the results that the MSP attains. STEM subjects lend themselves to online content creation. Indeed, there is tons of STEM content. This resource needs harvesting.
Coega has collaborated with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education to provide STEM content and the devices to access that content. Ethical AI has the capability of being a tutor for learners. AI, through its deployment to understand the learning styles of students and thus algorithms that exist, can guide educators on the best way of presenting and learning the curriculum by considering students’ unique qualities. This insight that AI provides can be made available to teachers and parents. One of the best ways to get a learner to succeed is confidence. AI will be the tutor to build the confidence of the learner, thus creating a virtuous cycle.
Therefore, for South Africa to build the economy of the country, it will need to create a policy framework to enable South Africa to be a Tacit Knowledge economy. Sooner rather than later, South Africa must create data repository of education for the upcoming generation. The prosperity and stability of the country demands that it does so with speed and urgency.
As an adage, the beauty of Artificial Intelligence, is that it is not intelligent enough. So, what it does is, mimic the Intelligent Agent (i.e., the learner).
Editor@tech-talk.co.za
