While Build is mostly about software, there’s usually a considerable amount of information on hardware that can be, at times, revolutionary. Major breakthroughs for both software and hardware don’t typically happen at the same show, but this year we had new ARM-based, four-processor PCs and AI applications that address what is the most pervasive problem in computing that has been largely unaddressed since its creation: Enabling users to interact easily and naturally with PCs.

Also read: Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software 2022

Project Volterra

The hardware announcement was Project Volterra, which boasts four processors, two more than the typical CPU and GPU we’ve known for years. The third processor is called a Neural Processing Unit focused on AI loads and handles them faster while using far less energy than CPUs or GPUs, according to Microsoft.

The fourth processor I’m calling an ACU, or Azure Compute Unit, and it is in the Azure Cloud. This is arguably the first hybrid PC sharing load between the cloud and the device, which is stackable if more localized performance is needed. Volterra may look like a well provisioned small-form factor PC. However, while it’s targeted at creating native Windows ARM code, it is predictive of the ARM PCs we’ll see on the market once this code is available.

Useful AI

As fantastic as this new hardware is, Microsoft is a software company with a deep history in development tools that goes all the way back to its roots. A huge problem computing has had since its inception is that people have to learn how to interact with the machines, which makes no sense in an ideal world.

Why would you build a tool that people have to work with and then create programming languages that require massive amounts of training? Why not put in the extra work and do it so we can communicate with them like we communicate with each other? Why not create a system to which we can explain what we want and have the computer create it?

Granted a lot of us have trouble explaining what we want, but at least getting training in doing that better would have broad positive implications for our ability to communicate overall, not just communicate with computers. In short, having computers respond to natural language requests would force us to train people how to generally communicate better, leading to fewer conflicts, fewer mistakes, and far deeper and more understanding relationships, not just with computers, but with each other. Something I think you can agree we need now.

Also read: Microsoft Embraces the Significance of Developers

GitHub Co-Pilot

The featured offering is a release coming from GitHub called Co-Pilot, which collaboratively builds code using an AI. It will anticipate what needs to be done and suggest it, and it will provide written code that corresponds to the coder’s request. Not sure how to write a command? Just ask how one would be done and Co-Pilot will provide the answer.

Microsoft provided examples of several targeted AI-driven Codex prototypes as well. One seemed to go farther by creating more complete code, while another, used for web research, didn’t just identify the source but would pull out the relevant information and summarize it. I expect this capability will find its way underneath digital assistants, making them far more capable of providing complete answers in the future.

A demonstration that really caught my attention was on OpenAI’s DALL-E (pronounced Dolly). This is a prototype program that will create an image based on your description. One use: Young schoolchildren who use their imaginations to describe a picture of an invention they had thought up, which led to shoes made of recycled trash, a robotic space trash collector, and even a house kind of like the Jetson’s apartment that could be raised or lowered according to the weather.

Right now, due to current events, I’m a bit more focused on children this week, but I think a tool like this could be an amazing way to visualize ideas and convey ideas better. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; this AI could create that picture with just a few words. While cartoonish initially (this can be addressed with several upscaling tools from companies like AMD and NVIDIA), they nevertheless excited and enthralled the kids. It was also, I admit, magical for me.

A Useful Future for AI

Microsoft Build showed me the best future of AI. Applied not for weapons or to convince me to buy something I don’t want (extended car insurance anyone?), but to remove the drudgery from coding, enabling more people with less training to create high-quality code, translate imagination into images and make digital assistants much more useful.

I’ve also seen the near-term future of PCs, with quad processors, access to the near unlimited processing power of the web (including Microsoft Azure Supercomputers when needed), and an embedded AI that could use the technology above to help that computer learn, for once, how to communicate with us and not the other way around.

This year’s Microsoft Build was, in a word, extraordinary. The things they talked about will have a significant, and largely positive, impact on our future.

Read next: Using Responsible AI to Push Digital Transformation

The post Microsoft Build Showcases 4-Processor PCs and Useful AI Apps appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Often pushed to the edge of the network to maintain optimal network performance and to enhance network security, IoT devices are great data resources that can impact business decisions. Enterprises have adopted IoT to do everything from enhancing productivity to establishing systemwide automation. As we enter Industrial Revolution 4.0 — the great merging of artificial intelligence, IoT, and smart technology to monitor and manage automated processes without human interaction — managing the billions of IoT devices currently operating on cloud networks becomes an essential part of implementing a good IoT strategy. 

IoT Device Management Overview

• What is IoT Device Management?
• Benefits of IoT Device Management
• Best IoT Device Management Platforms & Software
  • AWS IoT Device Management
  • Cloud IoT Core
  • Azure IoT Hub
  • Oracle IoT Cloud Service
  • Datadog
  • IBM Watson IoT Platform
  • Particle

What is IoT Device Management?

IoT device management is a process that consists of provisioning, authenticating, configuring, controlling, monitoring and maintaining connected devices at scale. These steps allow for administrative monitoring and management of IoT ecosystems, providing notifications to administrators who can remotely troubleshoot problems and perform systemwide tasks, such as firmware updates. 

Here is how  IoT device management software works: 

• Provisioning or device registration adds a device to the system.
• Authentication establishes the device’s identity and ensures that it is secure and trusted in the system. 
• Configuration and control of IoT devices establishes firmware attributes and security settings. This allows for remote control of devices during and after deployment, including the ability to update a device’s functionality and firmware. 
• Monitoring and diagnostics provide insights into device health and send out notifications of anomalies and other network failures, allowing administrators to quickly and remotely address the problem. 
• Maintenance updates connected devices as well as adjust configurations to maintain device health and network security. 

Also read: Containers: Strengthening IoT Infrastructures

Benefits of IoT Device Management Software

IoT device management platforms offer comprehensive control and oversight of IoT devices — an approach that eliminates the headaches of manually and individually monitoring connected devices. In addition to enabling secure device on- and off-boarding, an essential step that permits devices to join a network and securely transmit data, IoT device management platforms offer:

1. Efficient and scalable IoT deployments that streamline network monitoring and troubleshooting. For complex IoT device fleets, these platforms serve as a central hub that provide deep-level views into network traffic, device status, and data aggregation that can help diagnose network and device issues. 
2. Remote management of IoT device fleets. As cyberattacks grow more sophisticated, IoT device management platforms allow users to automatically deploy security updates, customize alerts that indicate network and device anomalies that portend a security breach, and offer real-time, continuous monitoring of devices to help stay on top of security issues. 
3. Integration with other enterprise applications and data servers using APIs and protocols such as MQTT. This allows enterprises to scale and manage their IoT ecosystems from a single panel as well adjust their IoT infrastructure to accommodate evolving business needs. 

Also read: Bolstering IoT Security with Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)

Best IoT Device Management Platforms & Software

AWS IoT Device Management

Amazon Web Service’s IoT platform takes users through the full process of IoT device management, from registration through remote management at scale. The platform is part of an ecosystem of services that makes up its IoT device management capabilities and includes:

• Fleet Hub, which helps users build standalone web applications to monitor the health of their device fleets and to aid in investigating and fixing operational and security issues. 
• IoT Core to remotely manage devices connected to the cloud and other devices.
• IoT Device Defender to audit, monitor, and send alerts about fleet anomalies and then use AWS IoT Device Management to push security fixes.

Pricing: AWS IoT platform is a “pay-for-what-you-use” model, with separate billing for bulk registration, remote actions, and the number of updates and queries used for fleet indexing. 

Features:

• Offers bulk registration of devices by using the IoT management console or API. 
• Allows grouping of device fleets by function, security requirements, or any other user-defined category to manage access policies, view operational metrics, or perform actions on devices across the entire group.
• Offers fleet indexing and search functionality to query a group of devices and aggregate statistics on device records based on any combination of device attributes.
• Remotely push software and firmware updates to address security vulnerabilities and improve functionality using AWS FreeRTOS or AWS IoT Greengrass Core.
• Supports the creation of a device tunnel, which  provides secure connectivity to individual devices and allows for the diagnosing and fixing of issues.

Cons:

• Initial set up can be complicated
• Understanding AWS IoT-specific terminology takes time
• Expensive compared to competitors

Cloud IoT Core

Part of Google’s Cloud IoT platform, Cloud IoT Core is a fully managed IoT service that collects, processes, analyzes and visualizes IoT data in real time. Using Google’s Cloud Pub/Sub messaging service, Cloud IoT Core aggregates dispersed device data into a single global system that integrates with Google Cloud’s data analytics services. The platform runs on Google Cloud’s serverless infrastructure and automatically scales in response to real-time changes.

Pricing: The platform is priced by data volume used in a calendar month. Up to 250 MB are free, with 5TB and above priced at $0.00045 per MB.

Features:

• Supports MQTT and HTTP protocols to allow connection of an existing device network.
• Securely allows individual devices to be configured and managed via a console or programmatically.
• Provides end-to-end security using asymmetric key authentication over TLS 1.2. 
• Allows control of user access to devices data through the application of IAM roles to device registries. 
• Offers offline operation and support for resource-constrained devices using a gateway that can perform tasks on a device’s behalf, including authenticating credentials and connecting to the internet.
• USes Stackdriver Logging with audit logs to provide insights into connection and error logs.

Cons:

• Can be expensive for small- to mid-sized businesses
• Some users have acknowledged a steep learning curve for those lacking deep IT and IoT knowledge.

Azure IoT Hub

Part of Microsoft’s Azure ecosystem of products and services, IoT Hub is a centralized bidirectional message platform that securely communicates between IoT applications and their attached devices. Offered as a scable, full-featured device management solution, IoT Hub supports a variety of message patterns, including device-to-cloud telemetry and request-reply methods for cloud-based control.  

Pricing: In addition to a free edition, Azure IoT Hub has two tiers — Basic and Standard — that are broken down by usage. Basic’s first tier offers 400,000 messages for $10, while Standard’s highest tier is  priced at $2,500 for 300,000,000 messages. Pricing quotes are also available. 

Features: 

• Takes users through the four steps of Io device management best practices including authentication and provisioning.
• Offers flexible automatic, rule-based message routing to control where hub sends device telemetry, no-code required.
• Integrates with other Azure services — Azure Event Grid, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Machine Learning, etc. —  for the creation of end-to-end solutions.
• Stores, synchronizes, and queries device metadata and state information for all devices.
• Automatically responds to device-reported state change with message routing integration.
• Offers several ways to connect devices, including via Azure IoT desk SDK libraries, Azure IoT Plug and Play conventions, and custom protocols such Azure IoT Edge and Azure IoT protocol gateway. 

Cons:

• Can quickly become expensive for small and medium enterprises.

Oracle IoT Cloud Service

Oracle IoT Cloud Service manages and analyzes data generated by IoT-connected devices in real time. Allowing integration and automatic data synchronization with Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service, the platform provides secure, bidirectional communication between IoT devices and the cloud. 

Pricing: Oracle’s IoT Cloud Service is part of the company’s overall Cloud Service offering. Contact Oracle for more details about enterprise pricing.

Features:

• Provides provisioning, authentication, and authorization for connected devices to ensure proof of origin of data.
• Uses cross-protocol functionality that allows end users to directly address cloud-connected devices, regardless of network protocol and firewall restrictions.
• Allows access to the platform’s data and functions from enterprise applications by using REST APIs. 
• Allows the use of REST APIs to securely integrate connected devices with enterprise applications.
• Users of Oracle’s suite of IoT services enjoy cross-platform integration. 

Cons:

• Integration with other tools and vendors can be complex
• Overly complicated management console 
• Expensive

Datadog

Datadog offers comprehensive IoT monitoring of device fleets, including software performance, device hardware metrics, application logs, and more via one user console. Using tags, the platform allows end users to aggregate, slice and dice, and correlate performance data across the entire Iot-connected ecosystem. Its host map also provides a high-level of the system grouped by any tag for visual comparison of by a range of metrics, including region, operating system and region. The platform promises easy setup in minutes without extensive configurations, which can then be scaled to monitor tens of thousands of devices. 

Pricing: Datadog offers a free trial with enterprise prices provided on request. 

Features: 

• Customizable alerts allow IoT managers to set triggers that reveal sustained or widespread device failures.
• The platform’s uses tags that can be user-specified to provide multiple ways and metrics to visualize, analyze and aggregate IoT data from every device.
• Uses APIs and a deep variety of telemetry libraries, allowing IoT manager and developers to collect and analyze custom business metrics throughout their IT and IoT infrastructure by adding a few lines of code.
• Can be installed on several hardware platforms, including Linux, Windows, Android, and ARM devices.
• The company’s proprietary Logging without Limits enables end users with large IoT ecosystems to cost effectively manage and monitor their logs. 
• Provides data visualization of IoT devices running on managed cloud services, including Amazon IoT, Google Cloud IoT, Azure IoT Hub. 

Cons:

• Users have expressed frustration with the complicated pricing scheme 
• Documentation can sometimes be outdated
• Confusing user interface
• Initial setup can be difficult.

IBM Watson IoT Platform

A fully managed, cloud-host service, IBM Watson IoT Platform provides device registration, connectivity, control, visualization and data storage. The platform leverages machine learning and cognitive APIs to deliver predictive real-time and edge analysis of user, machine, and environmental data. Dashboards and alerts gather insights and manage risks across the IoT ecosystem through high-level monitoring of devices, apps, and connections. 

Pricing: IBM Watson IoT Platform offers four plans: Sensor, Consumer, Enterprise, and Industrial. Pricing is based on data usage and number of devices, but IBM provides a non-production solution that allows for exploration of how the platform could fit into your IoT plans with some limitations. 

Features:

• Uses MQTT messaging protocol to  to securely send IoT-connected device data to the cloud.
• The platform’s proprietary Cloudant NoSQL DB Solution provides direct access to the last 30 days’ worth of device data — which is also achievable using IBM’s Event Streams for IBM Cloud.
• Offers built-in monitoring dashboard to monitor IoT devices.
• Analyzes data using Internal and external tools, including the Analytics Service add-on that provides business end users with raw metric data using built-in configurable analytics functions.
• Includes IBM Cloud Object Storage, which offers scalable storage options and data lifecycle management.
• Monitors data usage and consumption using the platform’s dashboard, which can be customized in partnership with IBM’s IOT Solutions DevOps team.

Cons:

• Learning curve can be steep for novices
• The pricing model can be complicated and prohibitive.

Particle

An edge-to-cloud platform, Particle offers device life management, wireless remote management, and device health monitoring. One interface provides insights into every aspect of IoT devices, including event logs, asset tracking, access control, and more. A fully managed service, Particle manages devices at every stage of development, including provisioning, prototype and development, and device management and billing. 

Pricing: Particle offers a free plan with 100k data operations per month with support for up to 100 devices. Paid tiers include the Growth plan that allows for the purchase of blocks of service and the Enterprise plan, which is priced on request. 

Features: 

• A comprehensive platform-as-a-service solution that provides hardware, software, and connectivity that allows users to develop IoT prototypes, scale models, and manage devices.
• Allows for rapid deployment of over-the-air (OTA) software updates, including to the entire IoT ecosystem or to targeted subsets of the fleet.
• Provides device monitoring and remote diagnostic functionality  through its Health and Device Vitals Dashboards. 

Cons:

• Customers have noted that documentation can be insufficient and is not issued at the same rate of development.
• Infrastructure and user interface are not intuitive, making for a difficult start.

Read next: AIOps Trends & Benefits

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However, E2EE has its detractors. Created  to ensure that messages stay private between correspondents, E2EE has been a thorny issue between law enforcement and intelligence agencies seeking to gain access to users’ encrypted messages and tech companies who want to keep their customers’ communications confidential. 

What is E2EE?

End-to-end encryption is an encryption technique that uses cryptographic keys to scramble messages between a sender and a recipient. A program on a sender’s device generates two keys — a public and a private one — that encrypts the message that is then used to decode it for the recipient. This process ensures that no one, including the communications provider, can read or access the message while it is in transit as it appears as unintelligible gibberish to prying eyes or malicious actors. 

As the pandemic continues to reshape workforce models and the push toward digital transformation accelerates, the benefits of enterprise E2EE are emerging. 

Also read: Best Identity Access Management Software 2021

Benefits of Enterprise E2EE

While E2EE has been around for years in consumer-grade devices, the leap to enterprise use is a recent development. As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, forcing organizations large and small to accelerate digital transformation initiatives, E2EE became an attractive consideration for enterprises concerned about data security both in the cloud and on-premises network environments.

Enterprises who have their cloud computing environments in place, often rely on the security measures offered by their cloud providers. Though this security offers data encryption at rest, data becomes vulnerable if hackers access the providers servers where encryption keys are stored. Because E2EE stores encryption keys on user devices and not on servers, access to encrypted data  during such a breach would not be possible. 

“End-to-end encryption (E2EE) ensures that the data itself is protected, no matter where it is stored,” says Istan Lam, CEO of Tresorit, a Switzerland-based provider of E2EE solutions. “Besides providing the highest security level, E2EE is combining the convenience of cloud-based services with the data security and control of on-premises solutions for enterprises: it enables easy implementation, flexibility, accessibility, and scalability — together with the highest level of data security, integrity, and confidentiality. 

“End-to-end encryption ensures that control over encryption keys and the data itself remains in the hands of the owner, providing enterprises ultimate control over their data. No third party can access end-to-end encrypted data, not even the service providers themselves. Due to this, E2EE helps enterprises meet strict data protection compliance requirements and mitigate the risks of data breaches and leaks.”

As the diversification of the workforce continues, allowing remote workers access to files in the name of collaboration and efficiency has raised concerns about phishing scams and potential malware threats. These potential breaches also exist within organizations’ IT teams, where inexperience and the rush to build digitally driven processes can result in configuration issues that open up threat windows and surfaces. 

“Enterprise IT is often no longer a “known entity” where all parts are on managed and fully controlled infrastructure,” says Mathias Ortmann, CTO/CSA at New Zealand-based Mega Limited, an E2EE solutions provider. “Instead, there are mobile users, remote workers, and independent third parties who could potentially make enterprise networks porous. E2EE can add an important layer of protection in that scenario. E2EE also lets enterprises and other large organizations outsource storage and communication services without compromising on security or having to build costly, and probably inferior, systems from scratch.”

Also read: Email Security Tips to Prevent Phishing and Malware

Enterprise E2EE Use Challenges

When properly implemented, E2EE providers can not decrypt user data or communication that resides or moves through its infrastructure, notes Ortmann. However, if encryption credentials are lost so is access to your data. 

“Put simply, with proper E2EE, there is no password reset,” Ortmann explains. “Password loss is the biggest E2EE-related risk an organization faces. MEGA recognizes this and frequently reminds its users of the importance of safeguarding their recovery keys, which enable them to set a new password while retaining access to their data. Robust and secure key management is an essential component of enterprise-level E2EE usage.”

Lam also acknowledges that there are some feature set gaps offered by EE2E providers that cloud service providers offer such as file and content searches — a fault of EE2E technology itself.

“As end-to-end encryption ensures that the data never reaches the services’ servers in a readable format, processing user data for features such as searching in file contents presents complex problems for developers to solve,” notes Lam. “However, there is promising scientific research — for example, in the field of homomorphic encryption — that should help vendors overcome these technology challenges in the future.”

Enterprise E2EE Use Rises

As global companies like Zoom and Microsoft implement E2EE into their platforms and products, the robust security measure is on its way to becoming an industry standard. This growing recognition of the benefits of E2EE runs parallel to efforts by law enforcement agencies to have regulations in place to require E2EE providers to create ways, such as master keys, that allows them access to customer data — a direct violation of the created purpose of E2EE, which is to give users complete control of how their data is accessed and shared. . 

“MEGA sees E2EE becoming the norm for corporate audio and video calls and conferences,” Ortmann predicts. “E2EE will also help protect sectors that simply cannot afford to have their data exposed to anyone unauthorized, due to confidentiality and regulatory requirements, not to mention reputational risks. This could be law offices, health care providers, insurers, and financial sector enterprises.”

Lam, like Ortmann, Lam sees E2EE becoming an industry go-to security tool, with use cases emerging across consumer and enterprise data protection. 

“As the demand for data security grows with digital acceleration, I expect even more enterprise IT vendors will integrate end-to-end encryption in their products and adoption in the enterprise sector will ramp up.”

Read next: Best Practices for Application Security

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This week HP had their “Power of Print” event, and I was reminded of what makes HP, the company that was designed to fail, so successful. Every company that has been around for a long time will face industry changes where it has a hard choice. Most often than not, when it looks like the industry is moving away from where the company is, the right choice is seeing the trend and then starting to migrate to an industry where there is growth and away from the industry dropping into decline. The exception to this rule is when you are a significant player, dominant in the segment, or can find a way, if you are smaller, to focus and differentiate on the part of the market that sustains.

Let’s take horseback riding, for example. It once was the predominant way to get around in the U.S. It’s been a hundred years since that was the case, yet you can still make money selling saddles and horse gear for those that compete or ride recreationally; it required a shift to focus on recreational or competitive riders.

It is a similar situation for smaller firms looking to sustain and maybe increase revenues while the major players exit the segment. There are two significant examples for large companies —IBM with the mainframe and HP with printers — that showcase how to both deal and not deal with this problem.

This week, let’s chat about how HP could turn printers into a substantial profitable success in a market in decline. At the same time, how IBM almost went under trying a premature pivot to a new market. I call this the “Never Give Up” rule, and it is worth exploring.

Maintaining Perspective

HP was successful in its effort because it didn’t panic, while IBM almost lost its most profitable computing line because it did. I was working at IBM at the time, and it was fascinating to watch.  Back in the 1980s, IBM was severely hampered because it was an employment-for-life company like many of its peers. Without a regular influx of external employees and a massive level of dominance and client control, it didn’t see the threat.

I wrote one of the papers on why IBM nearly failed and was recognized internally for the effort. IBM panicked when they saw both Apple and Sun Microsystems emerge and it tried to become those smaller companies with disastrous results. Ironically, had the company remembered the one piece of advice their most famous CEO, Thomas Watson Jr., had left behind, they likely would have been fine. That advice was, “never change who you are but be willing to change everything else.”

In contrast, HP was pretty much designed to fail. Former president and CEO, Meg Whitman split the company off with most of the debt and declining two industries. HP started life in crisis, and that turned out to be an advantage. For IBM they went, almost overnight, from being the most well-regarded company in tech to being the only firm in tech with negative brand equity (this was the first time I’d seen this, which means a customer will pay more for a non-branded product than one with your brand on it).

To say IBM was blindsided is an understatement. Still, HP knew they were in a world of hurt. Instead of trying to be something else, they realized that even though they seemed to be in two declining industries, PCs and printers, everyone else was cutting resources to those segments. If HP didn’t cut, they could gain share and offset those declines until and unless those declines reversed.

PCs eventually recovered, and with the pandemic they returned to become part of a viable growth market. Printing continued to decline in general, but some parts did not. 3D printing is emerging, box and packaging printing is growing with no end in sight, and people continue to want to print at home, particularly now that their homes have become their offices.

While IBM initially panicked (later management reversed this effort and mainframes remain a powerful part of IBM’s portfolio today), HP did not. They took who they were and used that to open new adjacent markets like personal photo printers and 3D printing. HP also expanded into areas like packaging and lower cost industrial printers, which in a declining market, would become more attractive to buyers in the print business trying to contain costs. The company even found ways to move printing technology into the medical market in testing and has showcased massive productivity improvements during these critical pandemic times when such improvements are precious.

I expect as we move into areas like printed food, we’ll find HP there as well. Instead of being a company in a death spiral, they are a firm with an impressive number of future possibilities resulting from keeping their eye on the ball.

When Markets Change

We will be going through one of the most significant economic and business changes that have ever occurred on this planet this century. Robotics, flying cars, autonomous machines and vehicles, new ways of communicating and collaborating, new and innovative ways to explore the world around us, even the chance of going to Mars are all on our relatively near-term horizon.

The questions you should be asking or reaffirming are:

• Who are you as a company?
• Who do you serve?
• What parts of what you do remain relevant and which parts do not?
• Where do you need to be a company, or an employee, in 5 to 10 years?

The goal is to  figure out how to benefit from these coming changes as opposed to getting buried by them.

PCs and digital assistants will evolve into cloud-connected devices and robots. Cars will evolve into horizontal robotic elevators, which you may no longer own. Travel likely will become more virtual (with COVID mutations, the likelihood we will go back to the old normal is declining sharply). And, unless you evolve, what you are now selling may not sell tomorrow.

HP has provided a template on how to survive these changes by finding ways to remain relevant. In effect, they never gave up, and if you learn from their example, you shouldn’t either when you are faced with the hard decisions connected to massive market changes. When faced with your challenge, remember the “Never Give Up” rule that HP appeared to use.  And, also remember Thomas Watson’s advice to be willing to change everything but who you are as a company and maybe, who you are as an employee as well.  

The post HP and the “Never Give Up” Rule appeared first on IT Business Edge.

HP stands out as the market leader in printing. Not only with traditional printing business, but with printing on textiles, industrial-scale printing, and manufacturing integrated 3D printing. With 3D printing, they aggressively added capabilities like colors and metals to their 3D printing portfolio. But we are still some time out from when we’ll have 3D printers in our offices and homes. The foundation that HP is building with their HP+ effort should create a foundation for their future broad market 3D printing efforts still years in the future.

Let’s talk about how HP+ is a game-changer that goes beyond printing on paper, and how they’re creating an exciting foundation for when 3D printing becomes as common as printing on paper today.

COVID was good for printing

While the pandemic has undoubtedly done a ton of damage, it has been beneficial to two industries that HP is in—PCs and printers. PCs are manufacturing constrained as I write this, virtually every PC maker is showing a significant uptick in sales, and people adjusted to working from home. But they also started printing a ton more, because printing demand, which had been on a slow decline, jumped 6% as people shifted from working at the office to working from home. 

But with that shift to printing from home, many of the management programs designed to support operations in managing on-premise printers weren’t effective. This pivot drove HP to create a new offering. They are calling HP+, which effectively turns printing into a service.  

And this service could, and likely will, eventually embrace their likely coming line of home 3D printers and other markets like robotics (a market that HP competitor Lenovo just entered).  

HP+

HP+ approaches Printing as a Service (we can’t use PaaS because that acronym means something else—Platform as a Service). You buy the printer, and instead of getting an ink supply that runs out in days, you get one that lasts for six months, and a monthly charge automatically ships your new ink or toner before you need it. Additional supplies arrive, and the service handles most of what you’d need an administrator for, like fixing network connections. This program also extends the warranty by a year, so you get additional protection for your printer.  

To net the program out for a nominal monthly charge, you get a printer service that assures your printer is always there when you need it to be with critical supplies, updates and patches, and repairs handled by the service. And service is green, pointing you to HP paper at a discount, which is Forest First (from renewable resources, not old-growth forests) and includes recycling for the ink and toner cartridges.  

As you’d expect, this also works with an HP Smart App to help employees who work from home to manage this service.  

3D printing

As 3D printing moves into homes and small businesses, you can imagine a similar service will launch with these future printers. This service will also have recycling capabilities, automatic delivery of the 3D print raw material, and included maintenance and support, much like HP+ provides for paper printers.  Sustainability is essential to HP, and as with HP+ for paper printers, expect this program to include unique, environmentally safe materials and recycling as part of the package. Much like you never would want to run out of toner, ink, or paper, the program will help assure you don’t run out of 3D printing material either. Similar to existing paper printers, patches and software updates will likely be included, allowing for HP to move on this future market with a far more complete offering than other 3D printer companies can handle.   

Wrapping up

HP effectively leads the printer market, and they have pivoted hard as a result of the pandemic. To address this new market opportunity, they have created a service like printing to better address those working from home. This service could—and I expect they will—expand to embrace a future line of home and small business 3D printers when they become available. Also, given 3D printers are effectively focused robots, this service could expand to include that product set if and when HP decides to enter that segment.  

HP+ may be a game-changer for print, but it is forward-looking and could be a game changer for products HP hasn’t even begun to consider but will eventually bring to market. 

The post HP+ for Printing: Setting the Stage for Home and Small Business 3D Printing appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Recently we had the 25th anniversary of Windows 95, and one of the things that destroyed what otherwise could have been a powerful recurring OS launch event was the lack of quality ownership.

This historical lack of quality ownership has been an enormous problem for the PC industry ever since the birth of the PC because, unlike virtually every other platform, when there is a problem with the PC, folks often find locating the party to blame to be problematic.

With most products not in the traditional server or PC space, the OEM specifies to great detail what goes in their offering and that OEM owns the result. Still, with PCs, one company owns the OS, another owns the CPU and chipset, maybe a third owns the GPU, then a fourth may own the storage system, and finally, a fifth may own the security of the resulting device.

Granted, this has mitigated somewhat over the years with Microsoft picking up OS security, but on the hardware side, it is still pretty much a mess, well until Intel Evo. Let’s chat about that this week. 

Intel Evo Could Change the PC Market

Evo is a brand somewhat like what AMG is for Mercedes in that it is virtually tied to a unique hardware configuration, one where Intel takes responsibility for the hardware quality. Intel assures that the major systems components interoperate, that they are well-matched, and that the customer gets the full capability they were promised.

Up until now, Apple was the vendor that most closely took ownership of the hardware they created because they uniquely specified all the components and had their operating system. As Microsoft moved to match Apple’s OS reliability, there still needed to be an effort to do that same thing with hardware, and this is where Intel first stepped up.

Evo branded PCs, and there will only be a handful of them, go through 200 additional tests. The first products out of the gate will be the Acer Swift 5, the Asus ZenBook Flip S, the Lenovo Yoga 9i, and the Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 5G.

Interestingly, only one of the top three OEMs has entered this program, but that is likely because the top three vendors tend to already extensively test their products and most likely thought the brand was redundant. Lenovo entering this process may change their minds because Intel is expected to wrap this brand with effective marketing, which, if practical, will push people to Evo products and away from products for any vendor that isn’t Evo.

It is interesting to note that none of these notebooks are Enterprise-class; they are more mid-market or consumer-focused offerings. Ideal for working from home but not tied to the more rigorous programs that enterprise products undergo. Yet, with this testing, and the focus on component consistency and reliability, they could outperform those often more expensive offerings.

If this effort is successful, it could substantially change not only how the PC OEMs approach this market but how platforms from AMD and Qualcomm mature. NVIDIA may have to either partner to counter or approach this exposure very differently with something like a cloud hybrid platform that makes more use of their high-performance on-demand cloud technologies.

Wrapping Up: The Changing Face Of Quality

There is a book I read when I was young called Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, and it used the construct of a father’s motorcycle trip with his son to discuss the transient and relative nature of quality. It is less a discussion on quality than on how people perceive it, and even though it is fictional, I found it a fascinating think piece. It had me thinking very differently about the concept of quality. In particular, how quality could be manipulated both by the user and by the company that produces a product.

It is interesting to note that the author separated people into those that believed in the romantic aspect of quality (think of Faith) vs. those that believed in the absolute fact-based version of quality. Apple sells the romantic version of quality; you have Faith that an Apple product is right, Evo is based on the factual approach where extensive testing backs up the brand.

The success of this effort may depend directly on how many fact-based buyers are out there vs. those that are more romantically inclined. Evo is a fascinating experiment at scale and one that should have substantial advantages in terms of customer experience.

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At an industrial scale with 3D printing, HP pretty much stands alone. Their evident eventual goal is to transform manufacturing so that a plant works like one large 3D printer. We are years if not decades from that plausible eventuality, but they are getting ever closer to creating what we Star Trek fans genuinely want, a personal replicator.

The Covid-19 Pandemic is creating an opportunity for the entire technology industry to step up, and HP is stepping up. They have already delivered over 1000 3D printed parts to local hospitals across the world. They are spinning up their partners to both validate designs and provide completed solutions to help address the supply shortfall.

The lessons learned this time will go a long way towards assuring that at least large hospitals can print what they need when the next outbreak, be it local, national, or worldwide hits.

Let’s talk about HP, 3D Printing, and mitigating the supply shortages connected to Covid-19 this week.

3D Printing’s Promise

One of the potential advantages of 3D printing is extreme flexibility or the ability to rapidly remission the equipment from one task to another. You can be creating building materials one moment and medical prosthetics the next by merely loading the digital representation of the new part into the printer. It is that agility that currently makes this technology useful for prototyping and for making unique low-run parts that can be used to repair obsolete equipment or create unique physical solutions.

In the case of a disaster, there is an increasing potential to have the option of not sending finished supplies but a 3D printer with raw materials so that what is needed can be printed based on changing demands. For instance, you could have a situation where you initially low on one thing, say surgical gowns, only to discover you were out of something more critical like masks. Rather than waiting for a new shipment, you could print what you needed to address the spot shortage.

You would just need to stock up on the raw materials and then shift your 3D manufacturing capacity as required. This capability is more critical in a disaster than it is in manufacturing because with manufacturing, you have a plan, in an emergency, you primarily don’t, and people are dealing with problems as they come up.

What Is Being Done Now

Unfortunately, 3D printing isn’t yet to the point where a printer can switch from masks to ventilators, but they are ramping to build many necessary components. These components include face masks, face shields, mask adjusters, nasal swabs, hands-free door openers, and respirator parts.

Now several interesting parts are in the pipeline with designs going through validation right now. For instance:

·        Hands-Free Door Opener: Door handles are among the most germ-infested objects in houses, hospitals, factories, and elderly homes. This adapter allows for easy and more sanitary opening with an elbow.

·        Mask Adjuster: Many hospital staff is required to wear masks for long periods. This clasp is designed to improve comfort and alleviate associated ear pain.

·        Face Shields: Face shields are one of the highest-need personal protection items. Brackets to hold the shield and comfortably fit the wearer are a critical component.

·        Field Ventilator: 3D printed parts for a mechanical bag valve mask (BVM) that is designed for use as short-term emergency ventilation of COVID-19 patients. This simplified design enables a robust and less-complex device, facilitating its rapid production and assembly.

·        FFP3 Face Masks: Effective protective gear is needed for medical providers to treat the volume of expected COVID-19 patients. HP is validating several hospital-grade face masks and expects them to be available shortly.

For those with 3D printers looking to participate and needing designs, those that are already validated can be downloaded here. And if you are a Hospital that needs something printed, you can submit your request in a form here. (The same form allows you to submit an idea you just have to select that option in the first field, and before you comment, I struggled with that too).

Wrapping Up

Wars tend to accelerate results, and the battle against Covid-19 is resulting in many changes and advancements. One of the areas likely to see significant progress in both the development and use of 3D printers and HP is at the forefront of this development wave. Before this Pandemic is done, we will likely see significant advancements in how 3D printers are used and what they can do so that, perhaps, by the next Pandemic, they will be in every major hospital and critical medical shortages remain in the past where they belong.

Here is hoping we all live long enough to get there.

Rob Enderle has been a Quinstreet columnist since 2003. His areas of interest include AI, autonomous driving, drones, personal technology, emerging technology, regulation, litigation, M&E, and technology in politics. He has an AS, BS, and MBA in merchandising, human resources, marketing, and computer science. Enderle is currently president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, a consultancy that serves the technology industry. He formerly worked at IBM and served as a senior research fellow at Giga Information Group and Forrester.

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One of the most interesting changes this week was Microsoft placing the head of their Surface hardware effort, Panos Panay, in charge of Windows. This change may seem trivial, but it effectively destroys the model that created Windows in the first place but should result in products that can better match the reliability and experience associated with Apple offerings. DOS and Windows broke the mold of how you developed and sold technology products separating key components that would have more traditionally come from the same vendor into separate elements and companies, allowing Microsoft to reach incredible sales volumes but at a clear cost to quality and security.

This one staffing change changes the Microsoft model into something closer to what Apple had when they licensed, which failed, and like what IBM had with OS/2, which also failed. But given I was engaged with both companies when that happened, I think I know how this could be done more successfully, and both Apple and IBM showcased that while their models failed, they did demonstrate higher relative quality and security than Windows did at the time.

That quality and security have become more critical, and I think I know now how to make this kind of change successfully now. I should add that Microsoft is also far better at partnering than either Apple or IBM were when their models failed, and this suggests, even without my suggested changes, the result should be a far less aggravating offering as a result.

Let’s talk about that this week.

Separated At Birth

When the IBM PC was first conceived, its conception was affected by two things. IBM’s consent decree, which forced them to separate the hardware and software efforts, and Apples growing success, which represented a potential threat to IBM’s continued dominance.

Instead of using the operating system the company had developed internally, they instead licensed DOS from Microsoft who brilliantly had acquired and then licensed it to IBM at cost. Microsoft was free to license it to others, creating firms like Compaq, Dell, Acer, and Asus and a market with an incredible ability to scale to eclipse Apple was born.

Having this separation between software and hardware was new; generally, products were and are build as a complete whole, and while Microsoft had done the productivity software for Apple, they did their OS. Distribution was also separate, and those focused PC firms arose with little cost to Microsoft, which gave them their massive competitive advantage of economies of scale.

However, the resulting product was significantly less reliable, less secure (even security software initially came from different companies), and the result was far lower customer satisfaction than Apple enjoyed offset by what was often a significantly lower price.

Microsoft has been undoing parts of their model over time, first with security, which significantly increased the security of the product, and they have worked at better coordinating with hardware developers, particularly concerning drivers and Windows 10 is night and day better than Windows 95 was as a result.

We’ve gone from hours of uptime to weeks, and even though we still get breaches and malware, the product is generally resisting even State level attacks now where before it had issues resisting kids’ efforts to create malware.

But it still couldn’t approach the perceived quality of an integrated product like the Mac even though the Mac couldn’t approach the same value for the dollar that Windows enjoyed.

Why Apple’s Effort and IBM’s Effort Failed

Both Apple and IBM failed with something like what Microsoft is attempting, but both companies were in very different places. Apple was a premium vendor, and what happened wasn’t that the licensees built bad products; it was that they built good far less expensive offerings that were more cost-competitive with their Windows peers. This move stripped massive amounts of revenue from Apple because their buyers weren’t premium buyers, they were just paying premium prices, but the added complexity did result in more breakage degrading the Apple premium brand. It was somewhat like what happened when Porsche brought out the VW powered 914 and 912. It cost them revenue and did brand damage so it couldn’t sustain. For IBM and OS/2, they didn’t have a critical mass of partners, the firms Microsoft had didn’t trust IBM, and the result was they had trouble even giving the product away (at one point it was put in cereal boxes as a free treat).

Microsoft has the critical mass that IBM lacked, and they aren’t predominantly a premium hardware vendor like Apple, so the causes for the failures in Apple and IBM don’t currently exist at Microsoft.

However, to make sure they don’t kill their PC OEMs, there should be some changes.

Benefits Of Change

By more tightly coupling hardware and software inside Microsoft, we should see more advances like Windows 10X, which will more aggressively take advantage of dual screen products like the Surface Duo, allowing the product to more aggressively innovating and driving excitement back into the platform. Besides, there should be even fewer opportunities for breakage, and the potential to provide an experience that exceeds Apple’s while holding the price/cost advantage they already enjoy should result. In short, we should see a more reliable, more attractive, and more innovative line of products emerge, but they’ll still need to protect the OEMs; otherwise, a competitor will emerge or advance (like Chromebooks) to fill the gap Microsoft inadvertently opens with this move.

Wrapping Up: 3 Changes To Assure Windows Future

To make this work, Panos Panay needs to be measured only on the success of the platform, Windows, in terms of sales volume and quality. On this last, I’d recommend NPS over any other quality metric. If he is measured on hardware sales cannibalizing the OEMs becomes attractive, and that will adversely impact Windows volume and success.

Second, the OEMs need to be brought in more aggressively and formally as peers to Surface, so they don’t feel like Surface has an advantage. Any unique advantage offered to Surface needs to be equally available to the OEMs, and decisions should be made on the advice of both internal and external groups with a focus on doing what is best rather than favoring either group over the other.

Finally, the focus of Surface on Apple and Google, rather than cannibalizing OEM revenues, needs to be reemphasized constantly. If the OEMs see Microsoft’s effort targeting them, they will likely shift away from the platform over time, favoring a vendor like Google, who appears more neutral by comparison.

With these three changes, I think Windows can be consistently be made stronger rather than trading off a market share for product quality and creating the opportunity for either a Google Chromebook surge or the emergence of another top tier competitor.

In the end, there is no doubt that this change will improve Windows quality; what is in question is whether it will have an adverse impact on Windows market share. That will depend on Microsoft’s ability to execute, and this decade, that ability is impressively strong.

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I just spent several days with HP going over their security efforts, their PC Roadmap, and earlier this month, I reviewed their financial performance. In addition, I’ve done deep dives on their sustainability and printing efforts over the year. I’ve had a chance to review Xerox’s acquisition proposal and HP’s detailed public objections to it. As we approach the year-end, I thought it would be interesting to collect my thoughts and talk about the state of the company, particularly given the Xerox effort and the recent CEO change.

Culture

One of the things I think we overlook when it comes to reviewing a company is what is going on with the culture. Past CEOs, when HPE and HP were one company, were a mixed lot, and there has been historical animosity between what was a bad trend of autocratic CEOs starting with Carly Fiorina and ending with Marg Hurd. Meg Whitman had her own set of problems largely connected to not understanding the industry, which resulted in the firm’s split. After the split, the smart money would have been on HPE which makes the fact that, in my opinion, HP is much stronger both interesting and somewhat ironic given Whitman seemed to structure the split so that HPE got the strongest assets. HP got the most problems given both Printing and PCs were seen to be in decline. What is now clear is both groups lacked focus, something the split corrected, and the firm’s relative lack of complexity and strong leadership has largely turned the effort around.

Employee practices were relaxed post-Whitman, and many HP employees that have left seem to be gravitating back to the company. Morale seems strong, and the firm exits the year with what appears to be stronger employee loyalty tied to the belief that the execute staff has strategy and execution well in hand. The Xerox hostile acquisition is having a slight adverse impact on this creating some uncertainty, but, so far, the impact is negligible.

HP does have an announced layoff, and layoffs can cause disruptions and lower employee loyalty. I’ve observed no related impact (when handled badly, you often get employees asking about job opportunities at events) yet, but that could change as the layoff executes. I have not reviewed the layoff plan.

Xerox

As I’ve noted, I’ve reviewed both the Xerox proposal and HP’s response. Acquisitions of this scale are very difficult to do well, and this one has none of the elements of success I typically look for. Hostile acquisitions as a class are wicked expensive, create deep animosity between the firms, and generally destroy much of the value of the acquired company. Xerox is offering too little for HP and will destroy much of its value during the acquisition process, which means from HP’s perspective, the offer is too low, and from Xerox’s perspective, it is already too high. Given it would be catastrophic for both firms, I’m left wondering if this attempt is more of a distraction from the lack of a cohesive Xerox long term strategy and an inability in that firm’s leadership to find a future for the company. As noted above, the impact of this effort is negligible on HP, but I expect it is creating more concerns in Xerox as a result. Though, I expect, this effort may be more about trying to eliminate a strong competitor or spike Xerox valuation than any sustained corporate advantage since those attempting this are aware of how disastrous even a consensual merger can often be.

Differentiation

Across both the PC and Print units there is an unusual focus on both Security and Sustainability. Having reviewed both efforts in-depth, I can say with some confidence that HP currently is leading the segment in both efforts. Their acquisition of Bromium, a fascinating company that uses virtualization to effectively inoculate PCs against attacks and their use of Deep Instinct, arguably the only Deep Learning Anti-Virus company in segment, is inspired. These efforts extend across AMD and Intel product lines but do not yet address Qualcomm solutions.

With Nation-State level attackers HP may be the only firm in its class with an effort strong enough to withstand an attack at this level, though, when AI-driven attacks (which are anticipated within five years) emerge even they may not be able to provide an adequate defense. This will get worse with the advent of Quantum computing, but, fortunately, estimates still put the viable use of that technology out over five years.

If you are building your sustainability efforts, HP, in this segment, would be the strongest firm to learn from, and HP sets the bar on PC and Printer security.

Innovation

HP’s strongest innovation efforts are currently coming from its printing division. That division’s aggressive moves into 3D printing and cloth are segment-leading. In their class, they are the only vendor with the potential to fully revolutionize manufacturing. However, a rough gap analysis suggests there is still a long way to go before factories can fully embrace 3D printing in production as opposed to prototyping, where it is currently most often used. In PCs both Lenovo and Microsoft are being more aggressive than HP with innovation but given much of the enterprise market, in particular, seems to not like change and given driving change requires a level of marketing execution we haven’t seen in segment since the passing of Steve Jobs I don’t view this as a significant disadvantage. Their showcase product this year in the PC division is the Elite Dragonfly. I’m currently using this offering, and it is an impressive technology showcase blending their security and sustainability efforts more aggressively than other offerings. This product provides a good indication of where HP’s other business lines are likely to eventually go.

Executive Leadership

This year saw a CEO transition from Dion Weisler, who successfully navigated the transition from HP as a combined company to a more focused Printing and PC firm to Enrique Lores. Both executives are well regarded in the company, and given Printing was the stronger entity (in terms of revenue), this move was relatively painless. I’ve known and followed both men during their careers. Both represented some of the strongest CEO level skills in the segment with a deep understanding of the business and its related operations.

Wrapping Up

Except for the clouds created by both the Xerox acquisition attempt and the impending layoffs, HP appears to be in strong shape. Their security and sustainability efforts do differentiate them, and they have one of the strongest leadership teams in the segment. Employee support and morale appear strong, and their 3D printing efforts likely showcase the greatest long-term potential differentiated upside for the firm.

With the noted caveats, HP exits 2019 in good shape, and those working with or considering the company should particularly look at their security and sustainability efforts, this last with respect to their printing division because they are segment leaders there and can provide unique insights and direction.

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This has been an interesting initiative driven by Qualcomm and Microsoft. I’m writing this on the latest Qualcomm-based Always Connected PC, the Microsoft Surface X. The Surface X is a game-changing product that had a unique Qualcomm part that was co-designed by Microsoft and Qualcomm. At the Qualcomm Summit in Hawaii this week Qualcomm launched a series of new processors just for PCs with the same high emphasis on battery life and connectivity. The next wave of products will have the advantage of being able to connect to 5G, vastly improving the overall experience, better security, improved performance, and an extended set of new features.

Let’s talk about that this week.

Surface Pro X

Let’s start with the current generation product from Microsoft that I’m using. What makes it very different isn’t just the Qualcomm processor but the ability for Microsoft to own the entire customer experience. They co-designed the process, they own the connectivity experience, and they own the physical design. This allows them to go farther to assure the customer experience than any of the other hardware OEMs. This is critical to their ability to optimize on customer satisfaction and loyalty and brings them arguably closer to the ideal than even Apple has been able to demonstrate.

Unique features include an AI that adjusts your gaze when video conferencing so that it appears you are giving the person on the other end eye contact and a pen solution that assures, you’ll never again lose or have an undercharged pen. The WAN cellular connectivity allows the system to bypass the security problems created by rogue access points and assure the device gets critical software updates timely.

This approach also allows Microsoft to better extend the experience from the client to their Azure back end and, in the expanding Cloud Centric world, it provides the potential for an unprecedented end-to-end mainframe like (in terms of reliability, security, and uptime) user experience.

Next Generation

Qualcomm is using what they have learned from this initial set of products and they are creating a line of processors that range from the 7c entry level and 8c mid-range to the existing 8cx high end solution. At the event Microsoft indicated they would be bringing Project X gaming (this is their Cloud based Xbox experience) to this platform which will be 5G enabled. The 5G performance increase is significant across the board according to Microsoft allowing downloads that currently take 6 minutes to complete in under 10 seconds. This kind of performance should allow connection to low-latency cloud computing resources and provide workstation class performance on these ultra-low powered devices.

In fact, one of the more interesting presentations was using hosted workstation quality engineering applications to stream to these laptops and given the low latency capabilities that 5G promises this could be a game changer anywhere 5G is available. (Currently it is expected that 5G will get to critical mass in most US and Asian city centers by the end of 2020).

Zoom came on stage to talk about how they were going to use this platform to deliver a new unified communications platform. Zoom’s rise in the video conferencing/collaboration space has been impressive and, personally, I’ve found the service to generally be far better than most alternatives. While they didn’t go into detail on the whole “unified communications platform” thing the implication is that your phone and PC will become far more integrated in terms of communication going forward. It is interesting to note that the stuff we were working on at IBM/ROLM back in the 1980s in terms of PC integration still exceeds anything I’ve yet seen in market, but this presentation again raised the promise that the industry might still get there.

Wrapping Up

These Qualcomm based products which focus more aggressively on connectivity and battery life represent a major change in how we build laptop computers placing the Cloud more firmly as the central resource. While Microsoft is leading the current effort with Qualcomm, Google’s Chromebooks are also on a similar path and we are waiting for Amazon to enter. We are at the beginning of this change which should result in the Cloud providers playing a far more aggressive role in terms of the overall solution as the concept of connected terminal blends with the performance centric concept of the PC to eventually evolve into something very different. It’ll be a few years before we full grasp what that really means but clearly Qualcomm and Microsoft are aggressively moving to make a major change that should transform the industry. Let’s see who is left standing and what that is when this all comes to a head in around 3-5 years.

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