Insider Lite

Insider Lite July

by Dave Michels

In the last few weeks, big tech has been providing us stranger-than-fiction headlines.

Power Hungry Giants: Microsoft and Google are now consuming more electricity than over 100 countries. In 2023 alone, each company consumed a whopping 24 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity.

A proposed supercomputer in Memphis, meant for X.ai, is expected to add about 150 megawatts to the electric grid’s peak demand—an amount that could power tens of thousands of homes. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity as a Google search query.

Yes, AI could provide the answer to how to save the world, but what if it instead tells us we missed the opportunity? Let’s hope that the millions of Americans being asked to turn down their AC are not asking ChatGPT for cooling advise.

OpenAI Board Dramas Part Deux: Both Apple and Microsoft declined the OpenAI board observer seats they previously demanded. The public narrative is to avoid regulator scrutiny (yeah right). The bigger concern is what’s happening on that board that no respectable company wants to observe? In related new, Reuters reported that OpenAI whistleblowers have called for an investigation over the company’s NDAs. Apparently, they require employees to waive their federal rights to whistleblower protections.

To DEI or not to DEI: Microsoft recently laid off its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team. Microsoft insists that its commitment to DEI remain unchanged, but that’s not helping.

Many tech companies announced  DEI initiatives during the peak of the BLM protests, but a leaked email implied those commitments were never real. Microsoft isn’t the only company pushing back. DEI has landed on the heap of complaints driving big tech to realign with conservative politicians.

The antics of these tech titans serve as a reminder that even the most advanced companies are not immune to drama and controversy.’

Snippets from the June Insider Report that paid subscribers received (9 pages)

The Next Pandemic: Former CDC director Robert Redfield warns that bird flu could morph into the next pandemic. The first human death from bird flu has occurred, and the virus has spread to cattle across the US. He noted that the mortality rate of bird flu could be higher than COVID-19. Many other disease experts predict that the common flu virus will cause the next global pandemic.

While doomsday predictions are not new, the real question is whether the enterprise comms industry is prepared. Certainly, online meetings are there, but we haven’t made much progress with remote work overall — specifically onboarding, culture propagation, team building, and more. Only two UCaaS firms are progressing here: Microsoft with Viva Engage and Zoom with Workvivo.

MQ CPaaS: Gartner published its second Magic Quadrant on CPaaS this month. The magical graphic has no big surprises. It has the same four Leaders as last year (Twilio, Infobip, Vonage, and Synch). However, Twilio is even further up and to the right, which is perplexing considering it just finished a very turbulent year. Since the last MQ, Twilio has experienced significant product retrenchment, layoffs, and declining revenues. Its activist board successfully drove its founder and CEO to leave. The graphic raises several questions: How long can Twilio hold the top right? Is CPaaS even profitable? How can CPaaS evolve?

The report includes a strategic planning assumption that by 2028, 90% of global enterprises will leverage CPaaS to operationalize CX and engagement. The odd parts of that assumption are “CPaaS” and “CX.” Clearly, we live in an…

Microsoft’s Bookable Desks: Microsoft has two approaches to managing shared workspaces. Most likely, the big strategy is Microsoft Places, currently in preview. Places is a new app that integrates with Outlook and Teams to promote space optimization. The comp…

NICE Interactions: NICE hosted its Interactions user conferences (Vegas and London) this month. As usual, NICE keynotes used immersive video choreographed with the speaker for effective storytelling. The key message was that AI, cloud, and digitalization are changing the game in more ways than providers can handle.

There were two major announcements in the US, one of which made it to the international stage…

Microsoft’s New CCaaS: In July 2022, Microsoft unveiled its “digital contact center.” It was a typical experiment from Microsoft, and we’ve been waiting for the more compelling version. Ta-da! Microsoft announced the Dynamics 365 Contact Center (again). Until now, Microsoft pitched its Digital Contact Center as an extension of Dynamics…

Many of us expected Microsoft’s CCaaS to arrive as a part of Teams, but this product is more about Copilot than communications, and AI needs data. Disruptive? Not yet. Maybe in a few years. Many may be thinking Microsoft will consume CCaaS like it did UCaaS, but it’s not a good comparison. First, the pandemic accelerated Teams adoption..

Dialpad’s New Logo: In a wave of rebranding fueled by the burgeoning hype around AI, unified communications companies are increasingly altering their taglines and logos to incorporate AI elements…

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