Data center and Internet of Things chips drive Intel Q4 revenues to $16.4 billion
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/26/data-center-and-internet-of-things-chip-revenues-drive-intel-q4-revenues-to-16-4-billion/

Intel reported fourth-quarter earnings that were mixed, missing its target on earnings per share but beating estimates for revenues. The results were driven by revenues from desktop and laptop computer chips, data center chips, and the Internet of Things.

Microsoft Q2 earnings edge higher on Office and cloud services growth
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/26/microsoft-q2-2017-earnings/

Microsoft reports $26.1 billion in Q2 2017 revenue: Azure up 93%, but Phone down 81% and Surface down 2%
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/26/microsoft-reports-26-1-billion-in-q2-2017-revenue-azure-up-93-but-phone-down-81-and-surface-down-2/

Storage Review in 2016 Storage in 2016 saw its on-premises SAN/filer array heartland assaulted by the public cloud on the one hand, and hyper-converged and software-defined storage on the other.

The now-classic dual-controller disk array went hybrid to keep storing primary data, but all-flash arrays are taking on that role and so the hybrids went all flash too. High-end monolithic arrays saw newcomer Infinidat make roaring progress as it took share with its low-priced and highly available InfiniBox array.

Secondary data was sucked off more and more to object storage, which itself saw a mass adoption of S3 as the preferred interface, leaving mainstream disk and hybrid arrays storing relatively less and less on-premises data.

The public cloud growth was unstoppable, with AWS out ahead, followed by Azure and Google, and then by Oracle and IBM – the only on-premises storage suppliers with public cloud service ambitions. The 451 Research group forecast public cloud storage spend to double in two years – with NetApp, HPE and IBM moving down the supplier rankings as Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure clawed their way up.

Hyper-converged infrastructure was a storage hot point, with Nutanix having a successful IPO and powering ahead to lead the market. Cisco, Dell EMC, Lenovo, and HPE made hyper-converged products move as suitability for sales of servers inside a combined server, storage and networking sell exploded.

With 2016 now behind us, we can take a look at how far Windows 10 has come thanks to usage-share with statistics from Net Marketshare. At the end of December for 2016, Windows 10 is installed on roughly 24.5% of devices

Windows 10 Gains 14% Desktop Market Share in 2016, Edge Continues to Struggle
https://www.petri.com/windows-10-gains-14-desktop-market-share-2016-edge-continues-struggle

Microsoft has been investing heavily in Windows 10, not only for a development point of view but also with marketing as well. The company is pushing the OS at every opportunity and occasionally crossed the boundary of forcing it on to machines even when a user does not want the OS.

With 2016 now behind us, we can take a look at how far the OS has come thanks to usage-share with statistics from Net Marketshare.

At the end of December for 2016, Windows 10 is installed on ~24.5% of devices whereas, at the end of 2015, the OS was only installed on around 10% of machines. During the same period, Windows 7 declined from 55.68% to 48.34%, Windows 8.1 usage dropped from 10.3% to 6.9% and XP dropped slightly from 11% to about 9%.

The last figure Microsoft publicly stated was that there are now 400 million devices running Windows 10 but this figure was released in late September.

Old-Line Companies Like Wal-Mart and GM Acquire Taste for Tech Startups
Silicon Valley upstarts are courted by retail, manufacturing companies seeking new growth
http://www.wsj.com/articles/old-line-firms-acquire-taste-for-tech-startups-1483102801

In late 2015, a commuter-shuttle startup caught the attention of Ford Motor Co. executive John Casesa, who runs global strategy for the auto maker. The startup, called Chariot, was growing fast and had an interesting crowdsourced reservation model, a staffer told him, suggesting a meeting.

One year and a $65 million deal later, the San Francisco van service is owned by the Detroit giant, part of an acquisition-fueled push into new areas as an uncertain and perhaps driverless future looms.

“We are in an era in our industry where M&A will be a frequently used instrument,”

IDC bean-counters saw strong high-end server revenue growth in the third quarter high-performance technical computing market but revenue falls in low-end sysyems.

HPC server sales growth contrasts with the decline in the overall world-wide server market, which IDC says shrank by 7 per cent to $12.5 Bn in the year since the third 2015 quarter.

Earl Joseph, IDC’s program VP for Technical Computing, said; “Higher-priced systems led the way with year-over-year growth exceeding 22 per cent, while lower-priced system revenue declined.” The dip in departmental and workgroup HPC server sales is thought to be temporary by IDC.

HPE was the highest-performing server vendor, with a 35.8 per cent share of the overall HPC server market and 37 per cent of the supercomputer section. Second-placed Dell’s respective numbers were 18.5 per cent and 13.3 per cent. Lenovo was in third place with 8.6 per cent and 8.1 per cent respectively, while Fujitsu was awarded 7.0 per cent of the supercomputing segment,

The research house says buyers have spent $8.1bn in the three 2016 quarters so far, which is 3.4 per cent more than the $7.8bn spent in the same three 2015 quarters. So the market is growing steadily.

The Python language, which is not new but continues to gain momentum and users as if it were, has changed remarkably little since it first was released. I don’t mean to say that Python hasn’t changed; it has grown, gaining functionality and speed, and it’s now a hot language in a variety of domains, from data science to test automation to education. But, those who last used Python 15 or 20 years ago would feel that the latest versions of the language are a natural extension and evolution of what they already know.

At the same time, changes to the language—and particularly changes made in Python 3.x—mean that Python 2 programs won’t run unmodified in Python 3. This is a known issue, and it was part of the process that Python’s BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life) Guido van Rossum announced back when the “Python 3000″ project was launched years ago. Guido expected it would take time for organizations to move from Python 2 to Python 3, but he also felt that the improvements to the language were necessary.

A project for a microservices-friendly Java is to be overseen by the Eclipse Foundation.

The MicroProfile project has been accepted by the Eclipse Foundation Board following a vote.

MicroProfile is a lightweight profile of enterprise Java using existing elements of the Java EE stack.

Backers of MicroProfile initiated the project and sought stewardship outside the JCP following Oracle’s hiatus on the Java EE 8.

MicroProfile’s licensing might have to change, though.

Eclipse, famed for the Eclipse open-source tools framework, has asked the MicroProfile project to: “Re-consider dual licensing.”