Faye Ellis & Mattias Andersson | PluralSight
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The ongoing mission to close the skills gap for IT practitioners

What started with a simple phone conversation seven years ago led to a $2 billion acquisition in 2021.That is how much Pluralsight LLC paid to acquire A Cloud Guru Ltd. in the middle of last year. When company co-founder Ryan Kroonenburg just missed getting hired for a job at a major cloud provider in 2015, he spoke with his brother, Sam, on a phone call and expressed frustration at losing the opportunity over a lack of cloud skills. The two decided to join forces and the outcome was a global business designed to raise the level of cloud expertise

Despite earnings beat, light revenue guidance sends Snowflake’s stock down

Cloud data warehouse darling Snowflake Inc.’s stock fell more than 13% in extended trading at one point today after the company offered light product revenue guidance for the coming quarter.The light guidance came after the company reported its third-quarter financial results, beating Wall Street’s expectations. Snowflake revealed that its earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation came to 11 cents per share, ahead of the four-cent-per-share estimate. Revenue for the period rose 67%, to $557 million, ahead of the $539 million analyst target

Box hits $1B revenue run rate amid record operating profitability

File-sharing company Box Inc. reported its first $1 billion revenue run rate in its fiscal third-quarter earnings today amid record operating profitability.For its third quarter that ended Oct. 31, Box reported a profit before costs such as stock compensation of 31 cents per share, up from 22 cents per share in the same quarter of fiscal 2022. Revenue rose 12% year-over-year, to $250 million. The figures were roughly in line with analysts’ expectations of 30 cents and $251.67 million.As of the end of October, remaining performance obligations sat at $1.056 billion, up 11% year-over-year, while billings in the quarter totaled $258.2 million, up 12%. Gross profit was $185.5 million or 74

IBM makes more software products available via AWS Marketplace

IBM Corp. today announced that it’s making more products from its software portfolio available through Amazon Web Services Inc.’s AWS Marketplace.AWS Marketplace provides access to a catalog of software products from the cloud giant’s partners. Companies can install the products in their AWS environments with less effort than the task would otherwise require. Additionally, companies have access to other offerings besides software, including consulting services and datasets.IBM in May partnered with AWS to bring more of its applications to the AWS Marketplace. As part of the partnership, IBM has made more than 50 software products available to AWS Marketplace users

CloudSMART for AWS acts as a one-stop shop in the cloud adoption journey

For fundamental business operations to be transformed, deeper cloud integration is a must.Through an end-to-end cloud-native service meant for business-specific goals, HCLTech CloudSMART for AWS o

AWS introduces raft of new AI tools for Amazon SageMaker

Amazon Web Services Inc. today expanded its lineup of artificial intelligence capabilities by introducing an enhanced version of SageMaker, its neural network development platform.Originally introduced in 2017, SageMaker includes more than a dozen AI development tools. Software teams use the platform to create neural networks, train them, monitor their performance after they’re deployed and perform related tasks. AWS disclosed today on occasion of the updates that the platform is used by tens of thousands of customers.“Many customers are using ML at a scale that was unheard of just a few years ago,” said Bratin Saha, the vice president of artificial intelligence and machine learning at AWS

VMware works to improve DevOps experience and make cloud-native Kubernetes consumable

In the app-modernization journey, the role of developers continues to be at the center stage. As a result, solutions companies are working to improve the developer experience by freeing them from admi

AWS aims to future-proof enterprise data strategy with a slew of new database and analytics tools

After introducing a number of new services for machine learning and data analytics on Tuesday, Amazon Web Services Inc. doubled down today with a host of new tools aimed at providing what one top executive described as a “future-proof” data strategy.In a keynote address led by Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of database, analytics and machine learning at AWS, the cloud giant introduced enhancements for file ingestion, workload scaling and managing overall data quality. Sivasubramanian noted at the start of his presentation that the latest innovations were a continuation of Amazon’s lengthy history of data management

US Army’s ECMA emphasizes a ‘quality-first’ approach as it standardizes hybrid cloud adoption

Just as cloud and digital transformation serve private sector interests, they also enable public sector capabilities.One example is the United States Army’s Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, or ECMA, which has entered into a joint project with Accenture Federal Services to create a blueprint for agency-wide hybrid cloud adoption.“When you think of the partnership between the Army and Accenture Federal, we thought a lot when it came to establishing the Enterprise Cloud Management Agency,” said Paul Puckett (pictured, right), director, enterprise cloud management agency for the U.S. Army

Bridgestone taps AWS and Accenture to build powerful, centralized analytics capabilities

Given current economic uncertainties, companies are embracing a data-driven culture and building out infrastructures to harness trusted data in an expedient and scalable manner.The latest in that growing list is Bridgestone Americas Inc., which has leaned on the expertise of Accenture PLC and the Amazon Web Services Inc. platform to create its Central Data Platform. In doing so, the company hopes to add solutions to its well-known product reputation

Teampay raises $47M for its cloud-based purchasing platform

Teampay Labs Inc., a startup helping companies manage their business expenses more efficiently, has closed a $47 million funding round.Announced today, the Series B round was led by returning Teampay investor Fin Venture Capital. Mastercard Inc., Proof Ventures, Trestle and Espresso Capital participated as well.“Teampay is entering the second half of 2022 well-positioned for future growth, as companies of all sizes strive to manage spending more strategically in the current uncertain economic environment,” said founder and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Hoag

Cloud-native application security firm Apiiro raises $100M round

Israeli application security startup Apiiro LLC today announced an impressive Series B round of $100 million, led by General Catalyst with participation by Greylock and Kleiner Perkins.The company, which was founded by former employees of Microsoft Corp. and has offices in New York and Tel Aviv, raised $35 million in funding in 2020 from Kleiner Perkins and Greylock. Today’s round shows significant trust at a time when investors are increasingly keeping a tight hold on their purse strings.Apiiro offers software to address security issues before developers release code to the cloud. That should ensure that vulnerable code is discovered before hackers have a chance to exploit it

Investors hammer Atlassian on earnings miss and weak outlook

Investors hammered Atlassian Corp. stock in after-hours trading after the Australian software company missed earnings forecasts and gave a lower outlook than had been expected by analysts.For its fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, Atlassian reported net income of $92.5 million, or 36 cents per diluted share, down from $94.4 million, or 37 cents in the same quarter of last year. Revenue rose 31%, to $807.4 million. Analysts had been expecting earnings per share of 38 cents on revenue of $806.4 million.Atlassian added 6,550 new customers in the quarter, its 10th quarter of customer growth, bringing its total number of customers to 249,173

Datadog beats Wall Street’s expectations as its revenue grows by more than 60%

Application monitoring software firm Datadog Inc. delivered strong third-quarter financial results today, beating expectations on earnings and revenue, and offered solid guidance for the coming quarter too, but its stock barely moved.The company reported a net loss of $26 million for the quarter, with earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation coming to 23 cents per share. Revenue for the period rose by an impressive 61% from a year earlier to $436.5 million. The numbers came in comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s forecasts. Analysts were modeling earnings of just 15 cents per share on revenue of $412.2 million

Despite smashing earnings forecasts, Cloudflare sees shares plunge on growth concerns

Shares in content delivery network company Cloudflare Inc. plunged in late trading even though it beat all expected metrics in its latest earnings report as investors were reportedly spooked by figures suggesting moderating growth.For its third quarter that ended Sept. 30, Cloudflare reported a profit before costs such as stock compensation of $19.1 million, or six cents per share, up from $1.4 million or breakeven in the same quarter of 2021. Revenue in the quarter jumped 47%, to $253.9 million. Analysts had expected breakeven earnings per share on revenue of $250.63 million.Adjusted gross profit was $198.4 million or 78.1% gross margin, up from $136.6 million or 79

Twilio’s stock crumbles on poor revenue guidance

Shares of the cloud communications firm Twilio Inc. nosedived in extended trading today after it issued a soft earnings and revenue outlook for the coming quarter.The company did OK in the quarter just gone, reporting a third-quarter loss before certain costs such as stock compensation of 27 cents per share, ahead of Wall Street’s forecast of a 36-cent loss. Revenue for the period came to $983 million, beating the consensus estimate of $972.2 million. Overall, Twilio reported a net loss of $482.2 million, much bigger than the $224.1 million loss it delivered in the same period last year

Block shares surge on strong earnings beat

Shares in Block Inc. surged in late trading after the payments company delivered a strong earnings beat in its latest quarterly report.For its fiscal third quarter, Block reported net income before costs such as stock compensation of 42 cents a share, up from 25 cents a share in the same quarter of last year. Revenue rose 18% from a year ago, to $4.52 billion. Analysts had been expecting earnings per share of 23 cents on revenue of $4.49 billion.Gross profit in the quarter rose 38%, to $157 billion, marking the fifth straight quarter of increasing profit

Dropbox delivers on earnings and revenue targets with slow and steady growth

Dropbox Inc. delivered strong third-quarter financial results today, beating Wall Street’s forecasts on earnings and revenue and offering guidance above expectations.The file-sharing company reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of 43 cents per share, with revenue coming to $591 million in the period, up 7.4% from a year earlier. Altogether, the company netted a profit of $83.2 million.The results were good, since Wall Street analysts were modeling lower earnings of just 37 cents per share on sales of $585.5 million. Dropbox’s share price stayed flat in after-hours trading

Higher-than-expected user numbers elevate Coinbase shares

Shares in Coinbase Global Inc. rose slightly in late trading after the cryptocurrency exchange reported better-than-expected user numbers amid misses on its latest quarterly earnings and revenue.For its fiscal third quarter that ended Sept. 30, Coinbase reported a loss before costs such as stock compensation of $2.43 a share on revenue of $590 million. Analysts had expected an adjusted loss of $2.40 a share on revenue of $654 million.Monthly transacting users in the quarter came in at 8.5 million, down from 9 million in the previous quarter but up from 7.3 million in the third quarter of last year. Analysts had been expecting 7.84 million

Growing tech landscape shines spotlight on need for enhanced data culture

The data revolution is not just about technology innovation, but also cultural and community transformation.Since a data citizen is anyone who uses data to do their job, enterprises have to cultivate a conducive data culture so that employees can hone their skills and competencies in this space, according to Stijn “Stan” Christiaens (pictured), co-founder and chief data citizen at Collibra NV, who believes that in today’s organizations, most employees will be data citizens

Cisco Partner Summit 2022 kicks off the Age of the Partner

Cisco Systems Inc. held its annual Partner Summit this week in Las Vegas, bringing together thousands of global partners to exchange ideas and learn about the networking giant’s most recent innovations. Cisco has one of the largest and most diverse partner ecosystems in the information technology industry, with about 90% of the company’s revenue flowing through its partners from more than 150 countries.The event returned to an in-person format for the first time since 2019, which is crucial for this event. Some events are fine done virtually but partner relationships for all vendors, including Cisco, requires a high level of engagement and that can’t be simulated virtually