Alphabet Hires Head Of Policy And Communications Of Google Fiber

Gabriel Stricker left Twitter To Join Google to head Policy and Communications of Google Fiber.

Google has reappointed an employee. Gabriel Stricker would return to the office or rather its parent company, Alphabet. He left Twitter this year as its Chief Communications Officer to lead Policy and Communications of Google Fiber at Alphabet. He earlier worked at the enterprise as Director of Global Communications & Public Affairs before being appointed by the social networking organization in 2012.

Stricker’s return to Alphabet or Google also suggests the interest of the company in expansion of Google Fiber, the venture that has been initiated to provide fast fiber-optic internet connectivity and cable TV to more regions of the US. He announced on Twitter that he would lead Google Fiber’s communications and policy.

Introduced five years ago, the project was extended to only few cities, including Salt Lake City and Nashville. The tech company recently said that it would be expanding Fiber to Los Angeles and Chicago. Previously this year, Google Fiber had 27,000 TV subscribers.

In August, as part of a huge restructuring, Google announced Alphabet as its holding corporation, which has assumed the control over the core business of Google and driverless vehicles, efforts in the field of healthcare, and a large number of moonshot developments. Google’s internet service venture also comes under Alphabet.

The appointment of a communications and policy head for the project indicates that Alphabet might no longer view Fiber as an experimental venture, and it will need the expertise of Mr. Stricker to deal with internet service providers and local strategies.

In July, the new head, who helmed both marketing and communications at the San Francisco based enterprise, announced that he was quitting the micro blogging network, Twitter. He was one of those many senior executives of the company who stepped down from their posts, besides former CEO Dick Costolo, who also left previously.

This development has taken place at a time when the search engine developer has decided to remove Android’s code that are conflicting with Oracle, and switch over to an open source alternate instead. That alternate is still the under control of Oracle, but the search engine operator is legally permitted to employ.

The lawsuit involves Google’s usage of a programming language known as Java, which is under the ownership of Oracle (Oracle acquired it when it purchased Sun Microsystems five years ago). The issue is whether Google was able to illegally copy portion of Java known as APIs (application programming interfaces). 

IBM Signs $700 Million Agreement With UAE's Etihad Airways

IBM Corporation has signed a contract with Etihad Airways to improve the airline's booking system, and provide better customer analytics and weather production software.

IBM has confirmed to serve an airline, Etihad Airways, on Tuesday, in an information technology agreement worth $700,000,000 over a time span of ten years that intends to enhance the airline’s reservation systems and decrease its network operating costs. The deal between the New York based company and the Middle Eastern flag carrier includes analytics of client data and the establishment of technology that could forecast weather conditions to organize the air company’s flights better at its base in Abu Dhabi.

IBM News revealed that around 100 Airline’s workers would be moved to the Big Blue, which would also be developing and building a new datacenter in UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi. The contract is also covering Etihad’s eight partner airlines in which it has purchased minority shares. An official of Etihad Airways, Robert Webb, told the media, “We want to invest in innovation. We want technology to be pervasive throughout the business.”

IBM news today reported that the state-owned airline signed the agreement with the company following a set of similar contracts with suppliers, such as Panasonic Avionics, SAP SE, and Sabre Holdings, Mr. Rob stated. He further added that Etihad has discussed facilities and products for all the airlines in which it owns minority shares to reduce costs.

IBM Breaking News affirmed that Etihad Airways has disbursed investments recently by buying minority shares in other air companies and supporting their economic needs. Up till now, it has made non-controlling investments in eight carriers, including Jet Airways (India) limited, PLC, German Air Berlin, and Italian airline Alitalia.

IBM took on a similar contract with Deutsche Lufthansa AG in November 2014 worth €1,000,000,000 ($114, 000, 0000), which the European Airline stated would help it save costs worth €70,000,000,000 per annum. An official of IBM, Martin Jetter, stated, “This is a movement across the industry. You need an IT infrastructure that’s available around the world and the applications and technology that allow the airline to find out the preferences of their guests.”

In December, the technology giant stated that 2014 proved to be a successful year for its cloud operations and it is intending to increase the number of customer data across the world by 25%. Etihad carried 14,800,000 passengers in 2014. It is currently serving 113 passenger and cargo endpoints.

IBM’s initiative would improve its image in the competitive world but it also ties the company with more responsibilities. The deal would provide mutual benefit to both parties.

IBM Announces its Investment in Internet Of Things Unit and Further Collaborations

IBM has finally announced its strategic approach towards Internet of Things phenomenon. It plans to invest $3 Billion in order to build IoT unit.

IBM has been dragging time for a while when it comes to its contribution in Internet of Things. Latest IBM news is about the announcement company had made, two days ago, about the $3 billion investment that it has planned to invest in order to build its Internet of Things unit. It also announced the strategies it might be following in this phenomenon. The unit of Internet of Things will be established in Big Blue. The hardware giant has also announced about its partnership with The Weather Company.

The Internet of Things is a phenomenon where sensors are placed on almost everything, from smartphones to engines or refrigerators for that matter. Therefore, eliminating the dependency of connected computer in order to access internet and making the connection hub within all the things we use in our daily lives. Internet of computers that are connected becomes internet of devices or things.

According to the IBM news, this initiative has been taken so the world sees the company at forefront when it comes to Internet of Things. Also, seeing company as the provider of a platform open to all customers where they are able to build beneficial applications to take advantage of data collected. The company suggests that these partnerships like the one last year with Twitter and at the moment with The Weather Company will result as keystones of strategy in order to put them on top notch position of the growing technology.

However, IBM has tighten the belts to start working in this sector due to the main reason that they are not the only one that are growing partnerships. GE has introduced its platform for Internet of Things as well. It is aimed at Predix which is an industrial internet. They both are competing with each other to get the best and most powerful developers on board for this.

The package that IBM has introduced and is thinking about is analytics, it is specific to Bluemix which is the company’s offering when it comes to Platform as a Service, also called an advancement to the “Internet of Things ecosystem”. The other aspect is partnership with AT&T, The Weather Company and ARM. According to the rumours, these are just the beginning of big things ahead that the company has to offer.

The key piece of approach being followed by IBM is a platform to be built that is spread across various categories, it is willing to attract developers towards this ambition as well. We aren’t sure if it will win hearts of developers for the company and to drive the evolution of it.