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5 tech decisions CEOs need to make in 2019
ByRalph Haupter, President, Microsoft Asia.This article was originally posted on LinkedIn.
As I look out at 2019, there’s certainly plenty to be optimistic about – revolutionary new technologies are fueling the 4th Industrial Revolution and positively impacting how we work, live, connect and play.
It’s exciting to see technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Mixed Reality (MR) and the Internet of Things (IoT) becoming key drivers for digital transformation and making a positive and lasting impact on our society and environment. In Australia, for example, the Department of Primary Industry and Resources for the Northern Territory Government is using AI and IoT to identify and analyze hundreds of precious fish species in one of Australia’s largest harbors. This massive undertaking will ensure fisheries’ resources are sustainably-managed, protected and developed for future generations.
In Australia, AI now automates the laborious process of counting local fish stock (Click here to read more)
Although there is good reason to be generally optimistic about economic and societal prospects for 2019, some business leaders have also confided in me that they see significant challenges ahead.
In particular, many industries are being disrupted, sometimes even revolutionized, by the adoption of digital technologies and processes, often bringing with them new and more agile competitive entrants to their industry.
How should established industry participants respond to these kinds of disruptive challenges?
In late 2018, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, introduced the concept of “tech intensity”, where organizations can embark on accelerated digital transformation journeys by adopting technologies much faster than before and focusing on building their own digital capabilities.
In 2019, to help organizations embrace and drive “tech intensity”, here are five technology decisions that Asian CEOs should make as we enter the new year:
1.Modernize your data strategy: If we compare a digital organization to the human body, then data is the blood that provides nourishment and allows it to grow.
In large organizations across Asia Pacific, the challenge is often not about the availability of data, but the vast effort needed to manage the almost-uncontrollable growth of the organization’s data estate. For example, banks today need to track and analyze tremendous amount of unstructured data coming in from new channels such as connected devices, new customer touchpoints and 3rd party data flows. They also need to factor in additional resources to cope with increasing regulatory and compliance requirements.
CEOs need to prioritize the redefinition of their organization’s entire data strategy, from creating a secure platform to managing and harnessing data to creating a corporate culture where the workforce embraces data in their daily work. It is only with a sound data strategy that organizations can truly optimize new digital transformation technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence.
2. Accelerate full cloud adoption: There was a time, not that long ago, when CEOs would ask me: “Should we move our data to the cloud?”. Now, increasingly, they are asking: “Can we afford not to?” The question is not just one of economics (although, for most customers, the ROI of moving to the cloud are highly – and increasingly – compelling). They are also considering the risks of maintaining their own on-premise security data-centre infrastructure, including hardware, software, physical and operational security, hiring IT security experts and meeting statutory or industry standards and certifications. Many large customers now opt for a hybrid cloud strategy that combines both public and private cloud by allowing data and applications to be shared between them. This approach gives businesses the ability to seamlessly scale their on-premises infrastructure via the public cloud when required – without giving third-party datacenters access to the entirety of their data.
3. Workforce reskilling is a new CEO priority: Many of the CEOs I speak with are excited about AI’s potential to increase productivity, reduce costs and accelerate innovation. For example, Airdoc, a fast-growing start-up from China, uses AI to help detect medical problems by examining a patient’s eyes in less than a second. Its potential to transform patient care is limitless. But would healthcare organizations be able to seamlessly integrate Airdoc’s AI solution into healthcare professionals’ workflow if they do not have the necessary training?
CEOs need to focus increasingly on workforce reskilling in their digital transformation journey to ensure that their people and processes are aligned to optimize the new technology. Without that, AI projects are likely to fail because of the lack of digital expertise to utilize the technologies and the absence of data skills to derive actionable insights.
4. Cultivate a new digital mindset: To paraphrase Peter Drucker, culture eats technology for breakfast. No amount of new technology application will deliver an organization’s true digital transformation unless it is accompanied by a corresponding change in culture; one that embraces an open mindset and favors experimentation, learning and growth. At Microsoft, we laid this foundation over four years ago when we underwent our own transformation, focusing on creating a ‘learn-it-all’, rather than ‘know-it-all’, culture. This change in mindset enabled us to, for example, embrace a dramatic transformation of our business model.
(You can read more about how Microsoft has successfully transform in this Forbes feature story)
5. Trust defines the new digital organization: When it comes to customer trust, it has been said that it is often “earned in drips and lost in buckets”. Trust in your organization can take years to build and can be destroyed in a single moment. This ethos resonates particularly deeply in today’s digital world where organizations face mounting cyberthreats as well as evolving regulatory and ethical expectations when it comes to online transactions and handling of customer data.
Ultimately, the responsibility for the creation and maintenance of customer trust sits squarely with the CEO, who needs to ensure that all elements of trust – including security, privacy, reliability, transparency, compliance and ethics – are embedded into digital transformation initiatives right from the start.
Increasingly, CEOs also need to examine if their ecosystem of partners recognize and share the same trust principles as their own organization. Specifically, do the technology partners they entrust with their customer data have the same set of values, principles and policies – when it comes to the use of that data – as they do.
In summary, I believe that 2019 is the year of hyper digital transformation, where many business leaders will start to take quantum leaps in their response to a new digital economy. To do so, CEOs need imbue their organizations with ‘tech intensity’ by focusing on the five technology decisions that I have outlined.
The ONAP and OPNFV developer communities will be coming together for an ONAP DDF + ONAP Plugfest January 8-11, 2019 at the Nokia facility in Nozay, France. The ONAP community will be working toward the Dublin release while the OPNFV community will be focused on testing the Gambia release.
Update: Netflix has officially announced the hiring of Spencer Neumann, who becomes the company's new CFO, replacing David Wells. There's only a single mention in Netflix's press release of his role at Activision. It's unclear how soon he'll start in the new role or whether he'll attempt to prove he should not have been dismissed by Activision. The original story follows.
Activision Blizzard, the gaming giant behind franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Diablo, has lost one of its senior executives. The California-based publisher announced that chief financial officer Spencer Neumann was notified on December 31 that his contract with Activision Blizzard was terminated.
The company decided to terminate Neumann's contract "for cause unrelated to the Company's financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures," Activision Blizzard said in US Securities & Exchange Commission filing. In a PR statement, it said that he was "terminated for cause for violating his legal obligations to the Company."
Neumann is now on paid leave, and he's been given the opportunity to "demonstrate why cause does not exist to terminate his employment or why termination of his employment is not otherwise justified."
Activision Blizzard chief corporate officer Dennis Durkin is taking over for Neumann as CFO in the interim. Should Neumann end up leaving Activision Blizzard, Durkin will officially step into the role of CFO, the company said. Durkin was CFO from 2012-2017.
A source told Reuters that Neumann is leaving Activision Blizzard to join video streaming giant Netflix. Netflix's former CFO, David Wells, announced last August that he was leaving the company after 14 years. The source told Reuters that Netflix wanted its next CFO to be based in Los Angeles, which Neumann is.
According to Reuters, Neumann is expected to start at Netflix in early 2019, so an official announcement might be coming soon.
Neumann had been Activision Blizzard's CFO since May 2017. Before joining the company, he rose through the ranks at Disney, eventually becoming the CFO of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
At the time of this writing, investors don't appear to be worried about the news, with Activision shares up 1.4%.
Physical Nindie Publisher Super Rare Games Launches Exclusive Members Club
Publishing company Super Rare Games, known for releasing indie favourites in physical form on Nintendo Switch, is launching a Super Rare Club Membership which hopes to “remove any potential stress associated with purchasing items” from the store.
As any collectors of physical Nindies will know, securing each and every one of the titles made available through sites like Super Rare Games and Limited Run Games can be incredibly difficult; often, thanks to each release’s limited number of units, you can still find yourself empty-handed even after putting the game in your online basket the second it goes on sale. This membership is hoping to change that, giving you early access to sales and providing you with “exclusive” information.
– Access to all products 48 hours before their general release dates – Priority shipping: we will send your games out before anyone else – Be part of a secret mailing list and receive inside information and exclusive game announcements – Added to a secret Discord server containing other members and also the Super Rare Team – Entered into monthly competitions to win special items and signed copies of games – 25% discount on any purchased merchandise (one use only) – Premium packaging on all orders
As you might expect, the membership comes at a price, with £30 of your hard-earned cash being required to join. For that £30, you’ll be covered from 1st February 2019 until 31st January 2020, gaining all of the benefits mentioned above. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, you can purchase a membership right here.
Does this sound like a good idea to you, or do you think the benefits aren’t worth the extra money? Let us know in the comments.
We’ve also added an Honorable Mention for the Accessibility features released this year, which include the improved formula bar, adding filters from the context menu, and more!
We hope you enjoy the video and would love to hear about your favorite five!
This month we will have a Power BI Report Server update only, but starting February, Power BI Desktop will continue our monthly ship cadence. Looking forward to an even more impactful 2019!
Battle Princess Madelyn is a game that follows the journey of a young knight in training, Madelyn, and her ghostly pet dog, Fritzy. They set out on a journey to save her kingdom and her family from the clutches of an evil wizard.
You are a newly employed department officer within the Ministry of a totalitarian State. While you are poised to have an illustrious career and possibly become Prime Minister someday, the way up won't be easy. So, how high up the career ladder will you climb? The choice is still yours to make!
Halloween night. 1996. A group of teenagers awake to find themselves trapped in a dark, twisted reflection of their sleepy hometown of Forest Hills. As they make their way across the East Side High School campus, they realize they are being hunted by a supernatural force taking the forms of fearsome killers. Relentlessly pursued, the teens must band together to fight back, survive, and escape the terrifying anomaly they have come to know as The Nightmare.
Now that the various challenges and successes of 2018 are behind us, let’s look back at some of the year’s highlights and see what’s in store for 2019 here on Linux.com.
Wins for 2018
2018 saw amazing growth for open source generally and for The Linux Foundation specifically, with huge tech acquisitions and widespread industry adoption stemming from more than 20 years of steady open source development and innovation.
At The Linux Foundation, this growth was reflected in the formation of many new projects, such as:
This interest in learning and training was seen on Linux.com as well, where tutorials were consistently the most popular articles on the website. For 2019, our goal is to feed that interest with articles that educate and inform and that provide a firm foundation from which to explore the array of tools, projects, and opportunities within the open source ecosystem. You can look forward to previews of the best Linux distributions, in-depth command-line tutorials, information on LF training courses, ebooks, and webinars, highlights from industry-leading events, and much more.
A word for 2019
I recently read an essay by Melinda Gates in which she said that rather than making a list of resolutions, she picks a word for the year and uses to that word to inform her goals and shape her actions.
When pressed to choose a word for 2019, I choose strength. In doing so, I think about the various projects, teams, and individuals I work with and how we are more effective when we collaborate, learn from, and advocate for one another. I think about advances in terms of inclusion and acceptance and how diversity and civility can strengthen our community. I think about the opportunities we have to improve open source practices, expand them into new areas, and apply them to create solutions to new and existing problems.
Open source is a powerful catalyst; its strength lies in the bonds formed through open development and shared knowledge which combine to make a stronger and more resilient whole. Let’s carry that strength into 2019 and become stronger together.
Fortnite Challenge Guide: Letter N, O, M, S Locations (Season 7, Week 4)
Fortnite is now in Week 4 of Season 7, which means there's new challenges to do for those precious Battle Stars. Among the paid Battle Pass-exclusive challenges is a multi-stage one that begins by tasking players with search for the letter 'O' west of Pleasant Park. There's a further three parts to this challenge, with each one requiring players to find a letter. While the game provides the name of the location where these can be found, we've got more specific details that'll help you get to them quicker.
First up is the letter 'N', which under a frozen lake. One glance at the map and you'll know that can be found in the bottom left of the island, but if you aim yourself to land at the grid reference C7 you'll see there's a number of black floor panels in the middle. Equip your pickaxe, destroy those, and you'll fall into the area below where the letter can be found.
Next up is the 'O' in Pleasant Park, which is at the grid reference B4. You'll need to look for the house, head left of the gate, and you'll find it tucked away in the corner. Simply walk up to it, search it, and it's on tot he next one.
After that, it's the letter 'M' at Dusty Divot. This one is pretty easy to find as it's at the very center of the forest at grid reference G6. In the top left of that grid block you'll find a collection of what looks like metal containers and small white buildings, and there's a door in. Pop inside and you'll find the 'M' waiting in the corner of the room.
Finally, the letter 'S' is at Wailing Woods at grid reference I3. At the very center of the hedge maze is the wooden shack with the "Leave" sign on it. Smash the barrier directly below it and head inside, and you'll want to find the room in the north with old computers and the colorful lockers next to them. In there is a smaller room where you'll find the 'S' waiting for you. With that done, you'll have collected all the letters, which spell "NOMS" and you're done. You can also watch us complete the challenge in the video above.
Fortnite Letter N, O, M, S Locations
Letter N: North of Polar Peak (C7)
Letter O: House at Pleasant Park (B4)
Letter M: Center of Dusty Divot (G6)
Letter S: Center of Wailing Woods (I3)
The other tricky challenge for Season 7, Week 4 involves taking out enemies at Expedition Outposts. We've put together a guide for exactly where you can find these outposts, and the the best way to give yourself the edge for when you get there.
While you're completing these, it's also worth taking a look at our 14 Days of Fortnite event guide, which breaks down all the special challenges available until January 2. They're quite easy to complete and you'll get yourself some nice cosmetic unlocks for doing them.
