HPE bids for Juniper, layoffs surge and AI dominates CES

With the CES consumer electronics show as usual setting the news year in motion, the technology industry got busy again this week.

The biggest deal, and biggest surprise, was Hewlett Packard Enterprise making a $14 billion bid for Juniper Networks, for better or worse looking to challenge Cisco Systems for networking leadership as artificial intelligence workloads force many enterprise to rethink their compute, data and network architectures.

Meantime, enterprise and consumer tech companies alike have resumed cost-cutting, specifically people-cutting, as they seem to think the economy’s successful soft landing (so far) still might present growth challenges. These won’t be the last layoffs either.

And CES demonstrated anew, as if we didn’t already know, that AI remains Job One. After a year of hype and hope about the potential of generative AI, this may be the year enterprises actually dive in and start to implement AI throughout their operations.

This and other news will be discussed in John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast theCUBE Pod, now out on YouTube. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive Breaking Analysis, coming this weekend.

Here’s a sampling of this week’s news:

AI chugs away despite obstacles

2023 may have been the year of AI hype; maybe 2024 will be when the rubber hits the road in enterprises — which also means we’re likely to see the usual trough of disillusionment in some quarters as the enthusiasm hits reality: CES 2024 signals widespread enterprise adoption of AI is coming soon

Speaking of obstacles to AI implementation…

OpenAI argues New York Times’ AI copyright lawsuit is ‘without merit’

Google battles billion-dollar patent lawsuit over its TPU AI chips

EU weighing whether Microsoft-OpenAI alliance could be subject to antitrust probe

US lawmakers push for regulation of AI companies supplying government agencies

AI-powered misinformation is the biggest short-term threat to the global economy, says WEF

This likely won’t be quite the force of nature of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store but it will be interesting to see how this develops: OpenAI launches GPT Store for custom chatbots and new ChatGPT subscription

And in other AI news

It’s all about AI: Microsoft briefly stole Apple’s crown as the world’s most valuable company

Nvidia’s latest RTX GPUs will bring generative AI to millions of laptops and PCs

AI drug discovery startup Isomorphic Labs partners with Eli Lilly and Novartis

Generative AI startup Ask-AI, which breaks down data silos for customer service teams, raises $11M

Web3 AI data marketplace Ta-da raises $3.5M to expand operations

Intel targets automotive sector with AI-enabled system-on-chip for next-generation cars

Contents.com raises $18M for AI-driven multilingual enterprise content generation

Luma, developer of generative AI models that create 3D objects, raises $43M

Quora raises $75M, led by a16z, for its Poe AI chatbot creator program

Casper Labs previews blockchain-based AI governance tool built with IBM’s watsonx platform

Google Cloud expands its generative AI for retail offerings

Nvidia: AI fuels tech transformation for retail and consumer packaged goods

Industrial tech giant ABB buys AI-powered robot navigation startup Sevensense

And a bonus technical paper, h/t to Andrew Ng on X, that suggests a better way for people — real people — to fine-tune AI models: Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model

In the cloud and enterprise

The big deal this week

Hewlett Packard Enterprise surprised us this week with plans to acquire Juniper Networks. More than anything, it looks like a bid by HPE to become a stronger force in networking as it becomes and ever more important component of the evolving cloud computing business where AI increasingly will make fast interconnections between the cloud and the edge critical.

Analysts appeared mostly to see the benefits more than the challenges. As theCUBE Research analyst Dave Vellante put it: “While we don’t see this move as a dramatic growth driver for HPE, the acquisition will improve the quality of HPE’s earnings, bolster its free cash flow and further support strong momentum in its networking business, giving it more ammunition to compete with market leader Cisco and other networking pure plays.”

That said, $14 billion is a mighty big chunk of change for something that, for the time being, doesn’t radically change the competitive dynamics, as Cisco remains dominant in networking. And the debt HPE will incur to do the deal could reduce how much it can spend on R&D and other innovation, and also limit other acquisition opportunities. But CEO Antonio Neri at least is showing he can make big bets.

For more details, here’s what we wrote: It’s official: HPE confirms plans to acquire Juniper Networks for $14B In a pre-announcement analysis, analyst Zeus Kerravala concludes this may not be the best use of the considerable debt HPE will incur with the deal, and the concerns hold post-announcement: How HPE acquiring Juniper does – and does not – make sense And not least, analysis from a very informative panel led by theCUBE Research and other analysts: Inside HPE’s acquisition of Juniper Networks and the battle for networking supremacy And for more analysis, check out Vellante’s and John Furrier’s own takes on that panel discussion.

Layoffs keep coming

Just when you thought a steady economy and the prospect of interest rate reductions could make 2024 better than expected just a few months ago, here come more layoffs, and these are just a sample that also included Discord, Instagram, Amazon’s Prime Video and Audible in addition to Twitch, Citrix parent company Cloud Software Group, Unity Software and more:

Google lays off hundreds of employees across Google Assistant unit, other divisions

In another cutback, Twitch lays off 500 people, 35% of staff

Data protection provider Veeam reportedly lays off 300 employees

In other cloud and enterprise news

Report: Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman are competing to buy DocuSign

Global PC shipments grow again after two years of declines, but recovery may be short-lived

Google ends transfer fees for customers exiting its cloud

Intel debuts refreshed Raptor Lake CPUs for desktops and laptops

AMD debuts new desktop APUs, GPU at CES 2024

Alliance begins certifying devices that support the Wi-Fi 7 wireless standard

Technology procurement startup AppDirect raises $100M in fresh funding

Terraform fork OpenTofu launches into general availability

SAP will pay $220M+ to settle bribery charges brought by Justice Department, SEC

CI/CD startup Harness acquires venture-backed rival Armory

Cyber beat

SEC’s X account hacked: Fake bitcoin ETF approval leads to market turbulence (update below)

Pinpoint reports increase in cybersecurity deals despite funding dip in 2023

Chertoff Group affiliate MC² Security Fund acquires cybersecurity company Trustwave

Access management provider Delinea acquires cybersecurity startup Authomize

Cloud storage exposure by school security firm risks aiding potential school shooters

Cloud-based network detection company ExtraHop raises $100M in growth capital

Mortgage lender LoanDepot struck by suspected ransomware attack

Elsewhere around tech

Or was the bitcoin ETF tweet not so fake after all? In any case, they’re now moving ahead: SEC endorses 11 bitcoin ETFs amidst investigation into X hack incident

Apple Vision Pro will ship to US customers Feb. 2

Xreal releases $699 Air 2 Ultra augmented reality glasses

USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO in the US

Space logistics outfit D-Orbit raises $110M

Comings and goings

Twilio co-founder and CEO Jeff Lawson bows to pressure from activist investors to step down Khozema Shipchandler is the new CEO

Founders Fund General Partner Keith Rabois will rejoin Khosla Ventures as a managing director.

Stability AI appointed Ella Irwin, X/Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, its new senior vice president of integrity.

Mirantis co-founder Alex Freedland is returning to the company as CEO.

Oliver Parker is the new vice president of AI for Google Cloud’s go-to-market organization, after serving as senior vice president and general manager at Okta.

Slack CTO Cal Henderson is out and will be replaced by Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris (from Fortune)

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