Intel launches Intel Inside brand in Amazon Web Services with Marketing $$$s, bad news for ARM vendors

Intel Inside ®  is a recognized label on your laptop.  Now Intel has announced Intel Inside in a Cloud.  Amazon Web Sevices Cloud.

·        Amazon Web Services becomes first cloud service provider to use the “Intel Inside®” brand, letting its customers know that the services it provides utilize Intel technology.

Why did Intel negotiate with Amazon to have Intel Inside brand in the Cloud?  It looks like there is co-marketing of Intel advertising to sell the use of compute on AWS on this site http://www.powerof60.com/en/.

Intel advertising money showing up in a Cloud to market compute scenarios is something the ARM vendors are going to have a tough time competing against.

And Another Candidate for Microsoft CEO job? Jeff Raikes

The media is all in a tizzy that Stephen Elop is the leading CEO candidate.

The point I make and still stick to is the next CEO is going to be someone Bill trusts.  How long did Bill work with Stephen Elop.  Not much.

He spent way more time with his CEO of the Gates Foundation Jeff Raikes.  And Jeff just resigned as CEO.

Bill Gates ‏@BillGates1h

Thanks @jeffraikes for your leadership @gatesfoundation. You've been a great partner.

Jeff Raikes‏@jeffraikes

Thanks @MelindaGates and @BillGates for the opportunity to work with you in leading the @GatesFoundation these last five years.

Geekwire doesn't think Jeff is the next Microsoft CEO.  Maybe Steve Ballmer will be the next CEO of the Gates foundation.

 Raikes was recently included on some speculative lists of potential candidates to replace Ballmer. However, based on what I’m hearing from multiple sources this morning, Raikes’ retirement is not a sign that he is going to back to Microsoft.

Intel defends its data center territory vs. ARM with C2000 Atom

Intel announced last week the Intel ARM C2000 at 6W

The ARM processor was claimed to be more efficient.  And now the C2000 is 6x performance per watt

Barrons blog has a post on the business impact of the Intel Atom.  Here are the two analyst views.

Doug Freedman of RBC Capital Markets reiterated an Outperform rating and a $29 price target on the shares, writing, “INTC’s new Atom low-power C2000, successor to S1200, is a very compelling offering in that it not only offers up to 6x performance/ watt (vs. S1200), but will enable newer markets leveraging prior SoC efforts in mobile (smartphone/tablet).

Thus INTC stands to pick-up ground in new markets with attractive ROI on more customized solutions [...] Performance vs. select S1200 parts are expected to be up to 7x faster, offering up to 6x higher performance per watt. The product is expected to be a best-in-class solution vs. competitive ARM solutions in the marketplace [...] We were encouraged to hear that the gross margin impact is expected to be “a wash”. To us, this implies that the margins are at least comparable to performance-based parts, and potentially better due to 22nm and cost efficiencies realized as a result of leveraging mobile resources.”

From the bear camp, Hans Mosesmann of Raymond James, reiterating an Underperform rating, wrote that “Intel introduced today an impressive number of Atom-based processor, switch, memory, and optical connectivity products/technologies for the datacenter in a move that highlights, in our view, Intel’s sense of urgency to defend its server processor supremacy.”

It is hard to fathom Intel making this big of a splash had ARM not released its 64-bit v8 architecture (for licensing) nearly two years ago with the subsequent strong design interest. Intel was at pains to explain that microservers, as a category, are small but the opportunity for adjacent markets is big. Translation: we are worried about the ARM threat and are willing to cannibalize existing low-end, highly profitable XEONs to make sure this does not happen.”

Steve Jobs never wrote code, who cares? his code would have probably sucked

Some things that get written up are random things that aren't an issue.  For example?  Steve Jobs didn't write code covered in Business Insider.

Steve Jobs Never Wrote Computer Code For Apple

DYLAN LOVE AUG. 29, 2013, 11:02 AM

Publicly answering an email over at his site, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak goes into a few details on Steve Jobs's technical background.

"Steve didn't ever code," writes Wozniak. "He wasn't an engineer and he didn't do any original design, but he was technical enough to alter and change and add to other designs."

Why does the visionary CEO need to write code? To inspire the coders to write better code?  

Introvert-Friendly Career - Computer Programmer

Spending time alone with a computer could be a dream come true for any introverted techie. For them, life as a computer programmer might sound like a dream that could also pay the rent.

"From my understanding, computer programmers work by themselves, in the world of ideas," Anthony says. "That's more on the introverted side because introverts are more comfortable alone and like working on their own."

Apple products work because there is a huge amount of effort to hide the technical issues and just make things work.  Who cares if the code is beautiful if it doesn't solve an end user problem.

BTW the article got the introverted and extroverted pictures switched.  Here is the extrovert post.

Extrovert-Friendly Career - Computer Support Specialist

If you're a computer geek - sorry, computer aficionado - who isn't afraid of terms like face time and small talk, you might be hard-wired for a computer support specialist career.

"I think as a computer support specialist you have to feel comfortable interacting with people, unlike a computer programmer where you'll be working alone for long periods," Anthony says. "You'll want to make sure people are at ease so you can get information about their computer problems and then be effective in solving them."

What DCIM could have done if it was designed as a platform, Network Optimization

DCIM has not taken off the way the analyst and VCs would like.  What is wrong?  The niche of data centers and money saved is not big enough.  If DCIM was designed well it should be able to optimize other mission critical operations.  Like what?  How about mobile network optimization.

Here is a GigaOm post on Mobile network optimization.

The mobile network optimization business is not a bad one to be if you’re a tech startup looking for a big exit. Telecom billing systems maker Amdocs justannounced its intention to buy Actix for $120 million in cash. But it’s certainly not the first nine-figure selling price for a software company analyzing and tweaking traffic in mobile networks.

Actix tracks the how individual cells perform as devices connect to them throughout the day, letting carriers know where they need to add coverage and capacity as well as which apps and devices are performing well and which are not. That may not sound sexy to you, but that technology is really turning on the big telecom infrastructure vendors, who have been scooping up optimization companies left and right in the last year.

It is a dream of the DCIM world to be in the situation like the networking optimization companies.

So are there any network optimization startups left still ripe for the picking? There are plenty of companies who optimize some aspect of the mobile network — from the core to the base station — but it’s at the cell where most of the mobile industry’s interest seems to lie. One of the reasons why Intucell went for a high price is because its technology could react to changing networking conditions – when service in a particular part of the network starts sucking, its self-optimizing networking software can expand and contract cells to rectify the problem.

It is hard to get in one company to get the networking guys to work with the data center team, and it's probably even harder to get this done in a start-up which is probably why there is little overlap between the networking optimization software companies and DCIM.  Yet, at a low level they are doing many of the same things monitoring operations, optimizing, and reporting status in a dashboard.

Disclosure:  I work part-time for GigaOm Research.