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Annasha

Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more

Trump

Trump bans Chinese apps like Tik Tok and WeChat to safeguard America’s assets

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To assure national security and prevent the collection of data and personal information of Americans by the Chinese companies, Trump finally announced the ban of a few most common Chinese apps. According to the announcement on Thursday, the Chinese video-sharing app, Tik Tok, and another Chinese app WeChat will be banned in the U.S.

Trump

Imposing a ban within 45 days

In response to the miserable and horrendous consequences of the pandemic which spread from the Wuhan city of China, many nations have turned against this Asian country. A month ago, India banned the Chinese apps and now Trump is making efforts to stop the intervention of these “untrusted” Chinese companies. Trump further said that it is an effort to keep the U.S. digital network safe from “significant threats” as Tik Tok is charged with data collection. The tension between Washington and Beijing keeps on increasing and will become more intensified in the upcoming 45 days.

Trump imposed the ban on these Chinese apps under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This law can be used in case of any unusual and extraordinary threat thus giving power to the president of the United States to regulate international commerce. Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, mentioned that the US will be focusing on the expansion of a clean network thus preventing the Chinese telecom companies to fetch sensitive information as well. Wilbur Ross, US Commerce Secretary, will be in charge of identifying the transactions after the order comes into effect from mid-September.

Tension keeps on increasing 

Not only the American government has ordered China to vacate its consulate from Houston, Texas but also the Chinese government has reciprocated by ordering the U.S. to vacate from the southwestern city of Chengdu. James Lewis, a technology expert based on Washington in response to the imposed ban said that it will demolish the digital world between the U.S. and China. And, the American government should be very cautious as China will retaliate and not sit silently.

Trump also mentioned that the operation of Tik Tok in the U.S. will be sold to Microsoft is the U.S. government gets a part of the sales price. But, no matter what the Chinese apps will be banned in the U.S. on 15th September 2020.

Expansion of the Clean Network

The clean network is a program under Trump’s administration to protect the privacy of American citizens and prevent leaking of sensitive information about the nation. The program clearly states that it guards the nation’s important information against intruders like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On 5th August 2020, five new lines of effort were announced by the United States.

  • Clean Carrier: This new effort was to ensure that there is no relation or connection between the People’s Republic of China and the U.S. telecommunications network. It is for the safety of the nation that those companies should not carry any kind of telecommunication services to and from the nation.
  • Clean Store: This step was taken to eradicate the untrusted Chinese application from the U.S. mobile app store.
  • Clean Apps: The trusted apps should be removed from Huawei’s app store and also prevent it from pre-installing in the smartphone.
  • Clean Cloud: This is one of the most important new installations in the Clean Network as sensitive information about the vaccines and researches regarding COVID-19 are stored on cloud-based systems.
  • Clean Cable: The U.S. will work with foreign partners to make sure the undersea cables are not compromised.

The outrage of Tik Tok lovers

But apart from ensuring the safety of the U.S. citizens, the ban of Tik Tok has not been taken positively. There are around 100 million Americans who use Tik Tok and they have voiced against banning the app. But, to prevent theft of information that can destroy a nation, it’s high time to take a big step against China.

illumina

The success of Illumina, Inc. and how it helped fight COVID-19

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With our generation constantly marching towards the IT sector and playing safe by working for a multinational company is a common view these days. This doesn’t mean that working for the IT sector harms us rather the advent of AI and ML is making a great contribution to every field. But, how many of us consider working for a biotechnology company and contributing to mankind from a different perspective? Our world has been attacked by an infectious pathogen that can stop time and turn everything upside down. People dying, the economy at the edge, unemployment, and we do not know what else we will witness. And, in this crisis, we are looking up to companies like Illumina to make a breakthrough and save the world from drowning.

What is Illumina?

Illumina is an American-based biotechnology company that develops systems to analyze genetic variation and biological function. The company dragged down the price of human genome sequencing from $1 million to $1,000 in 2014. Research organizations around the world, the pharmaceutical companies, and also academic institutions buy the products of Illumina. The company was founded in 1998 by David Walt, Larry Bock, John Stuelpnagel, Anthony Czarnik, and Mark Chee. The company’s headquarters are currently based in San Diego, California.

About the founders

David Walt

David Walt went to the University of Michigan and acquired a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. He later pursued his masters and Ph.D. in chemical biology. Currently, he is an Advisor at Illumina Ventures and a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School.

Larry Bock

Larry Bock was a famous American entrepreneur who died on 6th July 2016. He went to Bowdoin College and later to UCLA for his MBA. Apart from Illumina, Larry has also founded Nanosys, Caliper Life Sciences, and a few more companies.

John Stuelpnagel

John Stuelpnagel went to the University of California and has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry. He was a venture capitalist at the CW group when he founded Illumina. Currently, he is the chairman of Fabric Genomics (also co-founder).

Anthony Czarnik

Anthony Czarnik is an American chemist who worked as an assistant professor at Ohio State University. Czarnik is the founder of RenoCares, a charity to support the drug addicts for rehab.

Mark Chee

Mark Chee went to the University of New South Wales followed by the University of Cambridge. He completed his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. Currently, he is on the Board of Directors of Complete Genomics.

How Illumina was founded?

Back in 1998, the five founders established Illumina when Larry and John came to an understanding of what would be the BeadArray technology for Illumina. Shortly after founding the company, Illumina acquired Spyder Instruments which had the technology for high-throughput synthesis. In 2000, the company successfully filed its first IPO. The next year, the company started the new service, single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping.

Growth and Expansion

Eventually, the company started growing and designing solutions that can make our lives better. In 2007, Illumina acquired Solexa, a British company for approximately $600 million. Solexa was famous for commercializing genome sequencing technology who also bought the DNA colony sequencing technology in 2004. Illumina from the very beginning put immense effort to bring down the sky-high cost required for this kind of analysis and sequencing. In 2009, the company started its service for personal full genome sequencing for $48,000 which dropped to almost $19,000 by the next year.

Until 2010, Illumina sold systems and solutions only for research purposes but in 2010 it received approval for clinical tests as well. In 2011, the company acquired Epicentre Biotechnologies and next year launched HiSeq 2500, a very successful product of Illumina. This year the company also launched a cancer analysis service.

Famous people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos invested $100 million in Series A funding of the company. Since Illumina was working in the field of cancer testing as well, it partnered with Philips in 2017 to offer integrated genomic solutions for oncology. This year the company also opened its first commercial and customer training center.

How Illumina is fighting COVID-19?

Today, Illumina has provided solutions to more than 10,000 labs over 115 countries. And, due to the trust, they have built over time they are now connecting the local and global resources to fight against the pandemic. Next-generation sequencing or NGS is claimed to be very crucial for the study of patients during this pandemic. Illumina said that NGS can help gain information about patients and create a genetic tree that can show the path of transmission of this virus between two patients.

In response to this, the company designed Illumina COVIDSeq Test which is the first NGS test to receive emergency authorization use from the FDA. It can be only used in the US-based laboratories to perform tests at moderate and complex levels. The software toolkit of Illumina for COVID-19 has also been made free. The company is still working vehemently to help combat COVID-19 around the globe.

amdocs

Digital solutions of Amdocs is making communication smarter and faster

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Amdocs is a famous multinational software company providing the digital solution in the sector of communication, media, finance, and many giant digital enterprises. The history of the company dates back to 1982 when this Israeli business was founded by Morris Kahn and Boaz Dotan. Boaz became the first CEO and President of the company. Today, the company is based in Missouri, United States. It has more than 25,000 employees and last year its annual revenue summed up to $4.1 billion.

Let’s delve deeper into the history of Amdocs and have a look at why it is better than other software companies.

About Morris Kahn and Boaz Dotan – Amdocs Founders

Morris Kahn is one of the most famous Israeli entrepreneurs who is also a billionaire. Kahn stepped into the business world and explored different niches of business for a long time. When he was young he established a bicycle company followed by a cattle company. He is also a famous philanthropist who received Bonei Zion Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Boaz Dotan received his bachelor’s degree from Tel-Aviv University. Apart from founding the company, Boaz is currently a partner at AfterDox and a board member of Retalix Ltd.

Founding history of Amdocs

The foundation of the company took place as a part of Golden Pages which is the Israeli phone directory company. Morris Khan acquired Golden Pages hence the company which then came under the Aurec Group, a telecom company established by Morris in 1968. Boaz Dotan was the first president of Amdocs who along with Morris developed software for phone directory companies. This led both of them to open a new company, Aurec Information & Directory Systems.

In 1985, a 50% share of this new company was acquired by Southwestern Bell Corporation and the company was renamed as Amdocs. Within the next couple of years, the other assets of Aurec Group were sold to Amdocs as well for $1 billion. The company started gradually expanded to the area of the telecom sector followed by mobile communication. In 1998, the company went public and next year it acquired ITDS thus entering into the reign of management services.

2000-present

Stepping into a new century, the new acquisitions by Amdocs flooded the news headlines. In 2001, the company acquired a software firm, Clarify for $200 million. Amdocs acquired DST Innovis and Cramer Systems in two consecutive years and an Israeli start-up called SigValue in 2007. This was just the beginning and the following years witnessed the acquisition of many more communication and software companies from around the world. Last month, Amdocs acquired Openet Telecom Inc, a world-renowned 5G connection provider.

Why choose Amdocs?

The demand for every business is different depending on the sector of business and type of clients. Amdocs has connectivity solutions for any business and helps gain a faster pace to grow one’s business. Last year, Gartner named Amdocs as a leader for both IRCM and OSS and IT Services Magic Quadrants. Till now, the company has worked with more than 350 service providers in 80 countries. Amdocs also helps in accelerating the network and cutting cost at the same time. And, the most important and valuable service for a client is to received quality solutions cost-effectively. Amdocs is also excelling at providing fraud-management services based on ML and AI. A few months ago Amdocs launched Home Operating System powered by AI and Cloud-Native.

Amdocs’ AI-powered Home Operating System

This year, Amdocs’ revolutionizing home broadband has become a big hit in the market. The name of the product is Amdocs doxiO HomeOS providing better suggestions based on AI, enhanced cybersecurity, working more on basic commands thus adapting the “touch-free” notion and making it easier for everyone in the home to control and use the connected devices.

The consumers can change manually the Wi-Fi settings that getting an insight into how many devices are connected. This is specially designed for the benefit of parents as one receives notifications regarding the usage patterns, media, and gaming consumption. And, alerts and notifications are also sent to the users if anticipated a security breach.

Effect of COVID-19 on Amdocs

Putting forward the safety of employees and partners, Amdocs didn’t attend the MWC Barcelona 2020. The CEO of the company said they appreciate the preventive measures taken up by GSMA, but the health concern of Amdocs’ employees is the first priority for the company. This statement was given by Shuky Sheffer, current president and CEO of the company on 19th February 2020.

ChargePoint Logo

ChargePoint is a boon in the industry of electric vehicle infrastructure

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ChargePoint is one of the biggest companies around the world that operates an EV charging network in 14 countries. The growth of electric vehicle has been increasing every day and thus the demand for EV charging stations are also increasing. These charging stations are becoming as common as petrol pumps and will expand to other countries very soon.

Richard Lowenthal is the founder of the company and currently, Pasquale Romano, CEO of ChargePoint is the most important person in the company. His visions for the company are big and he thinks he doesn’t need to wait for the world to understand the charging network. So, the technology on which the EV charging networks run is built by the company itself.

About Richard Lowenthal

Richard acquired his bachelor’s degree from the University of California Berkeley. He was the CEO of ChargePoint from 2007 (the founding year) to 2011. Currently, he is the CTO of the company. Apart from ChargePoint, Richard is also the co-founder of Lighter Networks.

Richard Lowenthal
Image Source: entrepreneur.wiki

History of ChargePoint

Initially, when the company was founded, people didn’t have much idea about electric vehicles and how it can take over the world within the next few years. Founded in 2007, ChargePoint witnessed massive growth in profit within 10 years. By 2017, ChargePoint owned more than 35,000 EV stations in many countries. The company’s headquarters are based in Campbell, California. But, apart from that, the company has big markets in Mexico, Canada, Australia, and the United States.

The growth escalated highly in the past three years and in 2017 the company was planning for a listing. But, no one from the company mentioned a specific timeline. At the end of 2018, the company raised around $240 million, and the number of stations summed up to 57,000. At the end of 2021, the annual growth of the company is predicted to be around 55%.

Pasquale Romano- The man taking ChargePoint to newer levels

In 2011, Pasquale Romano became the CEO and the President of ChargePoint. Since then he has opened many new ideas and paths for the company to increase the revenue and expansion in foreign lands. He is highly inspired by Tesla and said Tesla didn’t wait for the rest of the world to catch up and thus designed Tesla’s Supercharger Network. Similarly, he won’t stop making significant changes and build out the biggest charging network only because the world isn’t fast enough to catch up with it.

Pasquale has a very rich experience in the business world. Before becoming the CEO of ChargePoint, he was the board member of many companies like CALSTART, AgilOne, Proterra Inc, and also the owner of Centonove and a few other companies. He went to Harvard and later to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his maters.

The world is changing and irrespective of the pace people are buying electric vehicles and by 2025 the demand will be at its peak. Pasquale also said that he is not looking into the business from a single man’s perspective. He has laid put strategic plans for the company for both private vehicles and public transport as well. So, even in the next few years if the number of personal vehicles drops due to excess pollution level or oil demand, the company can benefit from the public transport sector.

Pasquale’s main vision is to make the lives of common people easier by bringing down the cost for vehicles and EV is the best way in this era to do it. He is a very optimistic person who mainly focuses on the driver’s perspective, his customers, and customers of EV in general. Thus, he dedicates all his work to make this technology easily viable and affordable.

ChargePoint and its growth in Europe

In 2018, the company planned to expand its business as the market for EV in Europe is increasing more rapidly. The firm of ChargePoint is now owned by Daimler and BMW and it started selling charging points in Europe in 2018. Quickly, electric cars will be outnumbering diesel cars as in many parts of Europe diesel cars have been banned. This is one of the reasons why ChargePoint thinks the market of Europe has a big potential for EV. The company has raised $125 million for expansion in the European market and soon it will compete with Engie and Innogy.

Avira Antivirus

German company Avira famous for its antivirus software is acquired by Investcorp

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Founded in 2006, Avira is a German software company mastering in the sector of the security system. The most famous product of Avira, Avira free antivirus application was developed during the 1980s by the predecessor company of Avira, H+BEDV Datentechnik GmbH. Over time it has been modified several times for Android, iOS, and Windows. Avira has also expanded its product spectrum entering the world of IoT. Avira used to support the Linux OS as well but discontinued it in 2013.

Tjark Auerbach is the founder of the company. Tjark is born in 1957 and he is currently famous as the Former CEO of Avira.

Avira antivirus

Success of Avira

Under the name of H+BEDV Datentechnik GmbH, Avira was introduced in the market in 1986. But, the software company Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG was founded in 2006. It is a business in the field of security solutions providing software for phones, laptops, tablets, etc. It is a family business that has a market in various parts of the world.

Avira’s first and main headquarters are based on Tettnang, Germany. Apart from the country’s headquarters, the other offices are located in the USA, China, Romania, and the Netherlands. The free antivirus software of Avira became very famous and by 2012 it reached 100 million customers. Apart from software products, Avira also delivers cloud-based products. Well, every software company needs to update itself with time and it’s the motto of their sector.

In 2016, Avira become the sixth-largest antivirus in terms of market share and until today it maintains consistency. Some of the biggest partners of the company are IBM, Microsoft, Synergy Systems, Novell, etc. Avira is also famous for doing charitable work and promote art and culture apart from the growing technology.

Avira is the recipient of many prestigious awards for its brilliant and high-quality products. In 2008, it received a “gold” status from Anti-Malware Test Lab. In February 2010, Avira achieved a 99% score on a “malware on-demand” detection test conducted by AV-TEST. In 2016, it was named AV Product of the Year by AV-Comparatives.

To date, Avira experienced three major cyber attacks. In 2005, the company experienced a buffer overflow vulnerability followed by a compromise in 2010 in the Avira Management Console. And, in 2013, it suffered 0-day vulnerability that allowed attackers to get into the customer’s PC.

Main products of Avira

The main products that Avira provides for the Windows OS are Avira Free Antivirus, Avira Antivirus Pro, Avira System Speedup Free (Pro as well), Avira Internet Security Suite, Avira Ultimate Protection Suite, and Avira Rescue System. For OS X Avira provides Avira Free Mac Security that can be installed and run only in OS X 10.9 and above. Avira has free mobile security for iOS that can run on both iPhone and iPad. For Android, both free and pro versions of the software are available. The company also has Avira Phantom VPN for private networks.

Avira in the world of IoT

Entering into the world of IoT, Avira came up with a whole new approach to safeguard your house with Avira SafeThings. It is a software application that can be installed on routers and it will keep the connected devices safe in your home. With the Avira SafeThings customers don’t have to buy yet a new hardware and install it. With the use of AI and ML, Avira designed such a unique software to ensure safety at home.

Avira SafeThings performs four basic activities namely, Watches, Thinks, Acts, and Shares. First, it will tag all the connected devices at your home followed by learning their normal behavior using AI. Now, if they detect anything suspicious it will simply shut down that activity showing the user what is taking place in the network.

Acquisition of Avira by Investcorp

In April 2020, Bahrain based company Investcorp acquired Avira Holding for $180 million. By this time, Avira had over 500 million customers in various sectors including finances, online identity, malware detection, protecting private data, etc. Investcorp has a rich experience in working in the field of security and IoT and the company’s managing director said that it would help Avira expand and reach the targeted growth faster. Avira also has plans to expand in the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) segment.

ServiceNow

Software Enterprise company ServiceNow is named Leader in the 2020 Magic Quadrant by Gartner

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Cloud computing is very crucial since data has become the key asset for every individual or a gigantic nation. The business tycoons are also dependent on big cloud companies these days for IT services. Because, no matter in which field or what size of a business is, IT service is required by all of them. ServiceNow is a famous company based in Santa Clara, California that provides IT services around the world. It provides a cloud computing platform that enables better efficiency of a company by managing its digital workflow. Four founders, namely, Fred Luddy, David Loo, Don Goodliffe, and Bow Ruggeri officially founded the company in 2003. Since then the company has acquired many businesses, expanded geographically, and hired over 11,000 employees.

About the founders

Fred Luddy

Fred Luddy worked as a software developer at Amdahl Corporation for four years. In 1990, he joined Peregrine Systems as the CTO of the company and worked there for thirteen years followed by founding ServiceNow. Currently, Fred is the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Service Now.

David Loo

David Loo is famous for being the CEO of Perspectium in 2013. But, before that, he was the founding developer of ServiceNow and resigned from the company in 2012.

Don Goodliffe

Don Goodliffe is one of the founding members of ServiceNow who was hired by Fred during 2005. He is currently the VP of the J&D Goodliffe Association.

Bow Ruggeri

Bow Ruggeri started his career as a junior software developer at controlroom.com followed by a developer at CTSNet. He was the Principal Architect at ServiceNow for seven years before he founded another start-up, Dreamtsoft.

History of ServiceNow

With a lucrative career experience, Fred founded ServiceNow in 2003, and eventually, the other three joined in. So, we can say that Fred is originally the father of the company who started it from scratch and wanted to enforce similar services as Peregrine Systems. After a couple of years, he decided to perform the first round of hiring and ended up with five more people in the team. Till then he was the only employee of ServiceNow. When the company was founded it was known as Glidesoft Inc.

In 2005, the company raised $2.5 million from its first funding round from JMI Equity. Next year, the company changed its name to ServiceNow followed by opening its first office in 2007. The company’s profit was remarkable and in 2006 its annual revenue summed up to $13 million. Eventually, the number of offices started increasing, and by 2011 they had offices in San Diego, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, London, and Frankfurt with more than 250 employees.

Eventually, the company came into partnership with a few companies one of them being Accenture. The company decided to file an IPO and in 2012 became a publicly-traded company. This year, ServiceNow shifted its headquarters from San Diego to Santa Clara.

Expansion and Business model

In the industry, ServiceNow is one of the earliest companies that started providing IT management services. So, the success of the company skyrocketed over no time and even the founders were swept off their feet. Bow Ruggeri, in one of his interviews, said that he never expected the company’s growth to increase so rapidly. Maybe this is the reason he stepped out and embarked on a whole new venture with Jerrod Bennett to experience it all over again and do it better.

ServiceNow started acquiring many companies starting with Mirror42 in 2013 followed by Entries in 2015 and Brightpoint Security in 2016. With AI and ML growing and dominating the modern world, ServiceNow acquired a machine learning startup, DxContinuum in 2017. Later in 2017, the company acquired Telepathy, a human-centered design firm that doubled the size of ServiceNow’s internal design agency. The latest acquisition of the company was in June 2020 when it acquired Sweagle.

ServiceNow’s business model is based on Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider that allows a customer to use the platform for running and managing applications without worrying about the infrastructure. Fred said that to excel with this kind of business model it should provide real values to customers. So, sticking to the old code is not a good idea and one must keep redesigning to match with the pace of the clients.

ServiceNow and Zoom

With the pandemic taking a big toll on the world, Zoom’s popularity was increased by many folds. This month, Zoom introduced new hardware as a service offering in partnership with ServiceNow. The deal is a symbiotic relationship as both parties will be benefited. While this new service of Zoom will run on one of the platforms of ServiceNow, ServiceNow will use Zoom for all its internal communication purpose. With recent end-to-end encryption recently launched by Zoom for paid customers, ServiceNow will be hugely benefited.