In The Press

TechTarget: Energy consumption of AI poses environmental problems

“Data centers are going to be one of the most impactful things on the environment,” said Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder of analyst firm Deep Analysis. Companies can get swept up in the idea that they need an advanced deep learning system that can do it all, Pelz-Sharpe said. However, if they want to tackle a focused use case, such as automating a billing process, they don’t need an advanced system. These systems are expensive and use a lot of data, meaning they have a high carbon footprint. A dedicated system will have been trained on a much smaller amount of data while likely completing a specific use case just as well as a more general system. “Because it’s highly specialized, that AI has been trained on the most accurate possible data” while maintaining a small data set, Pelz-Sharpe said. A deep learning model, meanwhile, must churn through massive amounts of data to achieve anything.

CDO Trends: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Blockchain

“Oracle is the enterprise blockchain dark horse,” wrote Alan Pelz-Sharpe of U.S.-based research firm Deep Analysis in a research note. “Its stealthy but deeply funded and well-sourced entry into the market follows Oracle’s well-established pattern: the firm has a history of first dismissing new technologies, only to work quietly and then launch into the new market with full force. That being said, with Oracle’s deep roots in the supply chain, financial services, and government sectors, blockchain always made more sense for it to embrace than for some of its competitors.”

SearchCIO: Amazon GDPR fine signals expansion of regulatory focus

Indeed, Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder of consulting firm Deep Analysis, said the Amazon GDPR fine shows a seriousness from the EU to regulate big tech not just for data breaches, but for data privacy practices. “GDPR was designed to protect personally identifiable information [PII] and ensure data privacy; it’s not limited to simply pulling data out of a jurisdiction without consent or in suffering a data leak,” he said. “It is about how you make use of PII, not just how and where you store it. That’s important and something all the big tech firms should have … already been aware of.”

TechTarget: Salesforce automation strategy sharpens with acquisition

Salesforce’s first foray into robotic process automation follows a major RPA acquisition by competitor Microsoft in May 2020 and remedies a weakness for Salesforce, which has lacked advanced automation capabilities, said Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder and principal analyst at Deep Analysis. Servicetrace is a good fit for Salesforce, as their applications by default involve users undertaking a lot of repetitive tasks, and developers that build on the Salesforce platform often use third-party RPA tools. Alan Pelz-Sharpe Founder and principal analyst, Deep Analysis “Servicetrace is a good fit for Salesforce, as their applications by default involve users undertaking a lot of repetitive tasks, and developers that build on the Salesforce platform often use third-party RPA tools,” Pelz-Sharpe said. “Salesforce will be in a position to bundle this into their platform and most likely also offer it at a very low cost.”

TechTarget: Acquia release employee experience features

Making the next iteration of a corporate intranet a Drupal website is an interesting way to solve that issue, Pelz-Sharpe said. Companies like Adobe and Acquia have enabled developers to create elegant apps for customers over the last 20 years and doing that for employees is the next logical step. Developers will likely see it as a new avenue to deploy and monetize their skills. “Corporate intranets are terrible places,” Pelz-Sharpe said. “Absolutely horrible things. Everyone’s got one, and no one likes them. Nobody wants to build another one, but everybody wants to build a better employee experience.”

ITBrief Asia: Veritone releases version 3.0 of its AI operating system

“As enterprises begin to use multiple AI models and systems to extract and understand growing data volumes, the need for enterprise AI platforms is increasing,” says founder of market research firm Deep Analysis and co-author of Practical Artificial Intelligence: An Enterprise Playbook, Alan Pelz-Sharpe. “Veritone aiWARE has the potential to open up new possibilities to use AI in a coordinated manner across enterprises, along with expanded applications for digital transformation.”

TechTarget: EO zeros in on big tech, anticompetitive behaviour

Alan Pelz-Sharpe, the founder of consulting firm Deep Analysis, said Biden’s push to crack down on anti-competitive behavior has produced one of the most significant EO’s for the tech sector, especially its focus on data collection. Big tech is built on massive amounts of consumer data, which once accumulated represents an “impossible bar for other nascent competitors to reach,” he said. He believes the EO could have two effects — a pathway for smaller firms to grow rather than just be acquired and the potential to foster more innovation. “Simply having a lock on a consumer’s — or business’ — internet history means you don’t have to try that hard to sell to them or keep them as customers, as you essentially own them,” he said. “If that lock is opened, it then opens opportunities to build less intrusive and more equitable relationships between sellers and buyers.” 

SearchCIO: Senate dilutes US Innovation and Competition Act of 2021

Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder of consulting firm Deep Analysis, said that 20 years ago, China was behind the technology curve compared to other countries in the region like Japan or Korea, but huge investments into its own R&D have closed that gap. “China no longer relies on the U.S. for technology advances, though I am not sure many in the U.S., including the House and Senate, fully grasp that,” he said. “A case in point is BSN, China’s massive rollout of affordable blockchain infrastructure, which has truly set a high mark for other nations to match.” Legislators seem to recognize that the U.S. is in catch-up mode due to the push for funding through legislative packages like the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 and the push for global alliance through legislation like the Democracy Technology Partnership Act, which establishes a technology partnership among democratic countries. “How long, though, this will take to have an impact is the question, as technology is moving at hyperspeed, and government initiatives typically do not,” Pelz-Sharpe said.

TechCrunch: Box takes fight with activist investor public…

“Like any activist investor Starboard is interested in a quick increase in shareholder values and a flip. Box is in it for the long run. Further, it seems that Starboard may have mistimed or miscalculated their moves, Box clearly was not as weak as they appeared to believe and Box has been doing well over the past year. Bringing in KKR was the start of a big fight back, and the proposed changes couldn’t make it any clearer that they are fed up with Starboard and ready to

TechTarget: Antitrust lawsuits against Facebook dismissed

Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder of consulting firm Deep Analysis, said although the FTC’s complaint will likely be amended and refiled, he’s doubtful of a successful outcome. He called Facebook a powerful company, deeply embedded in consumers’ lives and said it will have “factored in a plan B to deal with any outcome,” even if the case rises to the level of the Supreme Court. “Firms at the scale of Facebook can afford to fight these moves with near unlimited resources,” he said. “Moreover, they can afford to drag them out over long periods of time with no impact on their bottom line.” Still, he said, the dismissed lawsuits send a strong message to technology companies like Facebook that the days of gobbling up companies without scrutiny and growing at an unprecedented pace are over. “The [antitrust lawsuits] are a threat and will be treated as such,” he said. “Not a threat to their existence or profitability, but a threat to [companies like Facebook] continuing to do what they want, when they want — and potentially a threat to their image.”

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