Video Data: Comcast merges with Time Warner Cable
Comcast Corporation and Time Warner Cable announced that their Boards of Directors have approved a definitive agreement for Time Warner Cable to merge with Comcast. The agreement is a friendly, stock-for-stock transaction in which Comcast will acquire 100% of Time Warner Cable’s 284.9 million shares outstanding for shares of CMCSA amounting to approximately $45.2 billion in equity value. “This transaction will create a leading technology and innovation company, differentiated by its ability to deliver ground-breaking products on a superior network while leveraging a national platform to create operating efficiencies and economies of scale,” it is stated in the official press release. Also, a promise of superior video experience, higher broadband speeds, and the fastest in-home Wi-Fi is there for the consumers. The new cable company will be led by President and CEO Neil Smit.
Read the press release here.
Also, “Why you should be scared of Comcast and Time Warner Cable merging?”and “Why Comcast-Time Warner deal is far more dangerous than you think”
How One AI-Driven Media Platform Cut EBS Costs for AWS ASGs by 48%
Cisco invests another $100M in the Internet of Things
Regardless of their revenue and profit drop that was recently reported, Cisco expects the internet of everything to drive growth in its services revenue from 20 percent of total sales to 30 percent, and is thus allocating $100 million to invest in early stage companies in order to drive the evolution of the Internet of Everything (IoE). Cisco’s Q2 revenue (for the period ended January 25, 2014) was $11.2 billion, which is a decrease of 8% year over year. “We delivered the results we expected this quarter. I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made managing through the technology transitions of cloud, mobile, security and video,” said chairman and CEO John Chambers. “Our financials are strong and our strategy is solid. The major market transitions are networking centric and as the Internet of Everything becomes more important to business, cities and countries, Cisco is uniquely positioned to help our customers solve their biggest business problems.” Additionally, Cisco announced a blueprint for creating a sustainable smart and connected city to help fulfill Dubai’s Smart City ambitions, released a study which estimates that The Internet of Everything (IoE) could generate $4.6 trillion in value for public sector organizations over the next decade.
Read the full financial report here.
Napier retires from Rackspace, new CEO: Graham Weston
Rackspace open cloud company announced that Lanham Napier retired from the company as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors. Graham Weston, Rackspace’s co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, has been appointed the new CEO. “My decision to step down as CEO was a difficult one, but it’s the right choice for me and for the company. With the board and management team aligned around our 2014 strategy and financial plan, I believe now is a natural transition point to select a new leader for the next exciting phase of Rackspace’s growth. I look forward to following Rackspace’s success as I return to my entrepreneurial roots – to build new things and invest in disruptive ideas,” said Napier in an official release. “Graham is the right person to step in and lead Rackspace since he’s been with the company from the beginning and served us well previously as CEO for seven years. “I am confident that Rackspace’s future is brighter than ever and that Graham and Taylor Rhodes, as president, will continue to build on our success.”
The news of new CEO comes after the firm released their financial results for the period. Despite an increase in revenue of 15.6% to $408.1 million, fourth quarter earnings fell 30%, and the share price is 45% down on last year, reports Cloud Tweaks.
CDNetworks Adds Point of Presence in Mexico
CDNetworks, global cloud acceleration company, decided to expand to Mexico by adding new Points of Presence (PoPs) in the area. “Mexico has become an important manufacturing hub for the world,” said Jeff Kim, President and COO at CDNetworks. “Our new PoP enables manufacturing headquarters, located in the US and Europe, to reliably and easily manage offsite resources by ensuring fast and available applications running over the internet.” Many other companies (especially auto manufactures such as Nissan, Honda, General Motors and Ford) seem to be building and owning manufacturing facilities in Mexico, as well as outsourcing their businesses. The new PoP enabled by CDNetworks allows manufacturing headquarters, located in the US and Europe, to manage offsite resources by ensuring available applications running all over the internet.
Find out more here.
Also, read why Mexico is becoming a global manufacturing power.
Cloud Performance Tuning, Step-by-Step
David Linthicum, cloud expert writing at InfoWorld, offers the path to good cloud computing performance in five steps which are; getting the requirements right, i.e. not overestimating or underestimating them; dealing with the network, i.e. considering the network infrastructure since slow network means slow performance; optimizing for the cloud, i.e. optimizing applications for cloud-based platforms; dealing with the data, i.e. dealing with the manner in which data is linked to the application which can be crucial to cloud computing performance; and finally testing, testing, testing, that is, you must determine what happens to performance as the stress on the system increases.
