This week in enterprise: Cyber consolidation quickens, AI transforms programming and open-source rifts widen

Consolidation seems to be accelerating in cybersecurity, and generative artificial intelligence is transforming programming very fast.

Those are two big trends that emerged this week in SiliconANGLE’s coverage of enterprise and emerging technologies. There was a lot more news on the earnings and antitrust fronts as well. And Nvidia just keeps on rolling, coming out with new chips, software and alliances that present a formidable challenges to a growing cast of rivals in AI.

Some breaking news today: Three firms opposed to Red Hat’s limitations on using Red Hat Enterprise Linux source code formed the Open Enterprise Linux Association to provide a fully open-source alternative. Plus, the driverless cars will roll in San Francisco despite protests. And Sam Bankman-Fried of crypto-fraud fame at FTX is headed for the slammer.

Analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante will also discuss this and other news in their weekly podcast, theCUBE Pod, available late Friday afternoon on YouTube and here. And come Saturday, Vellante will have his usual deep dive in his Breaking Analysis.

So let’s get into the details….

Less-open source code

Big changes afoot with the nature of open source in the enterprise: Oracle, SUSE and CIQ launch Open Enterprise Linux Association to target Red Hat Also note that HashiCorp yesterday said it’s going to a Business Source License instead of full open source.

Cyber consolidation

Baby steps to much-needed cyber consolidation (along with bigger steps by various PE players in the past year or two): Rubrik acquires cloud data security startup Laminar for reported $100M+ and Check Point Software buys secure networking startup Perimeter 81 for $490M … and on PE’s role: Rapid7 to lay off 18% of staff amid new takeover reports Also, U.K. cyber giant NCC Group just laid off more people.

Our writer Mark Albertson heard generative AI on everyone’s lips at Black Hat but everyone seems to be in the dark about its impact: Report from Black Hat: Many questions, few answers as cybersecurity world confronts AI threats

Analyst Jason Bloomberg wraps up Black Hat for us, and says the proliferation of too many cybersecurity vendors is indeed a big issue: At Black Hat, getting past enterprise cybersecurity ‘Oh sh*t!’ moments

Also from Black Hat, the US gamifies cybersecurity: White House launches contest to improve critical infrastructure cybersecurity with AI

And in other cyber news:

Cyber attacks on healthcare facilities accelerate: FBI investigates ransomware attack on California-based healthcare provider

And a big breach in elections: UK Electoral Commission hack steals data on up to 40M people

Just wait until they hack your Neuralink: New cyberattack method: tracking typing remotely via keyboard sounds

AI: It’s Nvidia and everyone else, and it’s all about developers for now

Nvidia presses its AI advantage: Nvidia debuts upgraded GH200 Grace Hopper chip with high-speed memory and Nvidia announces major updates to Omniverse with generative AI and OpenUSD and Nvidia puts generative AI at the forefront with AI Workbench and Hugging Face partnership and Rackspace to collaborate with Dell and Nvidia amid generative AI pivot

Developers are the current prime target for generative AI: Stability AI and Google target software developers with latest generative AI tools and AI development tooling startup Weights & Biases reels in $50M and DataRobot announces new applied generative AI offering for building trustworthy AI apps

And more here on how the rapidly changing nature of programming is making another, this time very big, leap in abstraction: https://venturebeat.com/ai/dont-quit-your-day-job-generative-ai-and-the-end-of-programming/ and https://www.infoworld.com/article/3704232/generative-ai-and-a-new-version-of-old-programming.html

Will Grannis, vice president and chief technology officer of Google Cloud, think it’s even bigger than that: AI as the next computing platform

AI in the data center gains some steam, or at least data center suppliers hope so: Rackspace to collaborate with Dell and Nvidia amid generative AI pivot Dell/Oro Group’s report on that: https://www.delloro.com/market-research/data-center-infrastructure/data-center-physical-infrastructure/

Another step in IBM’s bid for leadership in generative AI: IBM to host Meta’s Llama 2 for enterprise AI development

Maybe we just needed ChatGPT to tell us what the heck Web3 means: Aptos Labs partners with Microsoft to build AI blockchain solutions using OpenAI

No sh*t: Lucidworks study finds 93% of companies plan to increase their AI investments And you know when AI is heading toward a bubble when SoftBank gets back in: The AI Frenzy Resurrects the Old SoftBank

AI uh-ohs: Detroit police in deep water after using erroneous facial recognition to arrest pregnant black woman and AI-generated deepfake books were just sold on Amazon under a real author’s name

Earnings ups and downs

Kyndryl wows investors with strong earnings beat

Shares of big-data company Alteryx hammered on soft guidance

Datadog tops earnings estimates, but mixed guidance sends its stock falling

Palantir’s stock rises on growing profitability and strong guidance

Despite earnings beat, Lyft shares drop on lower revenue per rider

Strong earnings and revenue beat helps Twilio’s stock recover lost ground

CyberArk’s shares jump on guidance-topping earnings results

Antitrust action

Amazon to Meet With FTC Officials Ahead of Expected Antitrust Complaint (WSJ)

EU launches investigation into Adobe’s proposed $20B acquisition of Figma

Federal judge narrows scope of Google antitrust lawsuit brought by DOJ and states

Also notable

Frankly, I’m less worried about driverless cars than the drivers in cars now: Waymo and Cruise cleared to offer paid autonomous taxi services in San Francisco

The U.S.-China tech battle escalates, but Mike Wheatley found that not everyone thinks this new policy is a great idea: Biden orders ban on certain US tech investments in China and More from Axios

Twitter & Trump in hot water again: X Corp. hit with fine for not turning over data on Donald Trump

Paul Gillin gets the lowdown on Informatica’s move to a cloud model: Informatica CEO Amit Walia says multiyear turnaround is nearly complete

Remote work? Never mind (except I don’t think it’s going back to “normal”): Zoom, Other Remote-Work Champions Call Employees Back to the Office

RingCentral has a new CEO, an oddly timed move it seemingly tried to downplay behind new product introductions the same day: As it announces new CEO, RingCentral rings up more AI with RingCX and RingSense

We’re doomed: Elon Musk-backed Neuralink raises $280M in additional funding

Coming next week

Amazon’s “last rites” antitrust meeting with Lina Khan

Earnings from two bellwethers: Cisco in networking and Palo Alto Networks in cybersecurity

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