Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of Amazon Kendra, a machine learning-based search service for organisations with large datasets.

Kendra enables businesses to index all of their internal data sources, make that data searchable, and allow users to get precise answers to natural language queries with just a few clicks, according to AWS.

The service doesn’t require machine learning expertise and can be set up completely within the AWS Management Console. A key part of it is that rather than using keywords to search through datasets, Kendra uses machine learning algorithms that can understand specific questions.

This enables businesses to search internal documents spread across portals and wikis, research organisations to create a searchable archive of experiments and notes, and contact centres can use it to find the right answer to customer questions across a library of documentation.

“Our customers often tell us that search in their organisations is difficult to implement, slows down productivity, and frequently doesn’t work because their data is scattered across many silos in many formats,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of Amazon Machine Learning.

“Using keywords is also counterintuitive, and the results returned often require scanning through many irrelevant links and documents to find useful information.”

Kendra is underpinned by technology that understands natural language, and as such employees can run searches with detailed questions. They can still use keywords, but it is optimised to understand complex language from multiple domains, including IT, healthcare and life sciences.

Kendra also supports industry-specific language from insurance, energy, industrial, financial services, legal, media and entertainment, travel and hospitality, human resources, news, telecommunications, mining, food and beverage, and automotive.

The service encrypts data in transit and at rest, according to AWS, and it integrates with commonly used data repository types such as file systems and relational databases, so developers can index their company’s content with just a few clicks, and provide end-users with accurate search without writing a single line of code.

Microsoft will soon give end-users the ability to revoke encrypted email messages sent using its Office 365 Message Encryption (OME) service.

The OME service is built on Azure Rights Management (Azure RMS) and lets businesses send encrypted emails to people inside or outside of their organisation using Outlook.com, Gmail and other email services with support for encryption.

Currently, only IT administrators can make use of the service’s ability to revoke encrypted emails that have already sent, but as first reported by Bleeping Computer, Microsoft is planning to expand this capability to end-users in the fourth quarter of 2020.

“As part of Office 365 Advance Message Encryption, we are extending the email revocation capabilities to the end-user,” Microsoft explains. “Previously, you had to be an admin to revoke an already sent message; with this update, end users will have this capability as well.”

Once an email is revoked, recipients will receive an error stating “The message has been revoked by the sender” when they attempt to access the encrypted message.

The feature, which will help companies to prevent leaks and enterprise data theft, will be available to users whose business is signed up to an Office 365 subscription with Advanced Message Encryption. This is offered as part of Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 E5, Microsoft 365 E5 (Nonprofit Staff Pricing), Office 365 Enterprise E5 (Nonprofit Staff Pricing), and Office 365 Education A5.

As part of Microsoft’s wider efforts to improve its services as employees continue to work from home during the pandemic, the company also announced this week that it has started rolling out a new feature that will protect users from reply-all email storms. The Reply All Storm Protection tool for Office 365 will block subsequent replies to an email thread for four hours when it detects 10 reply-all emails to over 5,000 recipients within 60 minutes.

Prior to that, the company upgraded its Microsoft Teams collaboration platform to support up to nine people in participant view, and also made its the Yammer Communities app available in Teams.

Last weekend we hosted a Zoom-based birthday party for my girlfriend, packed with a four-round quiz, six-part scavenger hunt and a few rounds of e-Pictionary. Oddly enough we were having just as much fun online as we would if we’d headed for a night out at Popworld, as was originally planned. This has become the new normal, and we’re not alone. 

Millions of us have inexplicably signed up to the business-centric video conferencing platform in recent weeks to stay in touch with friends and family. Our online gatherings now extend beyond work meetings into the realm of virtual pub trips, birthday parties, and even pre-booked dance classes. 

Even as the coronavirus crisis began escalating, nobody could have foreseen the extraordinary surge in Zoom’s popularity, especially given the former dominance of Skype. Not even Zoom’s founder and CEO, Eric Yuan, would have anticipated a thirty-fold increase in usage, with daily meeting participants ballooning from 10 million in December 2019 to 300 million just last month. 

Zoom’s surge is bizarre in many ways, none more so than how it flew by Skype, although the surge in popularity is something of a special case. Its success is entirely predicated on a short-term growth in demand fuelled by COVID-19 lockdown measures, which will likely be lifted to a great extent by the end of the year. The firm’s privacy and security woes have proven that success isn’t always a walk in the park either, but these problems are ultimately manageable. The more worrying challenge might come a little later down the line.

There’s every possibility, first of all, that the company has hit its peak in terms of its user base. Additionally, many of us have been taking advantage of the company’s cost-free tier, meaning the company now encounters a headache that oddly enough resembles the existential crisis plaguing the digital media industry. While online publications have had no problem attracting hundreds of millions of online readers, figuring out how to monetise this massive traffic has been difficult. Zoom, similarly, may struggle to actually convert this unprecedented demand into a viable revenue stream.

To make matters trickier, phasing in a cost-barrier beyond a 40-minute time limit, which itself can be easily bypassed by starting a new conversation with participants, may drive people away. The likes Skype or Facebook’s own newly announced services are just as capable.

The final, crucial point to consider is that people aren’t attached to Zoom as a company or platform, but to the friends and family it allows them to keep in touch with. Once lockdown measures are lifted, it’s more likely than not we’ll leave the service as quickly as we found it and arrange to meet up in-person with the folks we’re desperately missing. As enjoyable as our Zoom-based birthday bash was, I’d still choose that night out in Popworld if given the option.

For these reasons, the company’s explosion in popularity, a surge in daily participants and even its exorbitant $40.5 billion valuation – more than double its $16.1 billion market value in January – are all highly volatile. Zoom’s executives, therefore, must ensure all business and product decisions made in light of this short-term success are sufficiently future-proofed.

There really is no predicting what might happen in a world riddled with coronavirus, but there’s every chance that once we’re all allowed outside and Zoom’s active daily user count plummets, its investors will lose confidence and cut their losses. That could leave the company in a far more precarious position than it has ever been, even before COVID-19. While Zoom represents an astounding story of business success in 2020, the same forces that fuelled its rise may also be the root of its downfall.

The House of Commons is reportedly looking at alternatives to video conferencing service Zoom due to concerns about its security capabilities. 

The lower house of Parliament is already testing a UK-based provider called StarLeaf, according to The Telegraph. 

Parliament IT teams are also looking for a service that can display as many MPs as possible at once, with many members frustrated by the current system used by Zoom that jumps around when someone speaks, according to The Telegraph. 

StarLeaf, like a number of video conferencing services, has seen a surge in usage since the coronavirus pandemic hit and a number of organisations have looked for alternatives to Zoom due to its poor security reputation. 

Norwegian firm Pexip is also currently enjoying a big spike in users, with big-name customers such as Intel, Vodafone and even the Irish Court system. StarLeaf is said to be readying a push into both Ireland and Northern Ireland, which could be made easier with a successful trial with the UK’s government. 

“The House of Commons has already purchased some hardware from us, their IT department is currently testing the software and they’re doing a security analysis on us,” Starleaf CTO Will MacDonald said to The Telegraph. 

If successful, the House of Commons will become the latest organisation to be added to the ever-expanding list of those that have ditched Zoom. Companies like Google, the FBI and even the country of Taiwan have banned the video conferencing service over issues about encryption standards and ‘Zoom-bombing’. 

The company has made repeated attempts to shore up its services but its reputation has taken a big hit and it’s proving too much of a concern for many. The House of Commons would be the first of the government’s institutions to ditch the video conferencing service, despite the Ministry of Defence labelling the services as a security risk a few months ago. ​

Facebook and Google will continue to allow employees to work from home for the rest of the year, the two companies have confirmed.

The tech giants have announced plans to reopen offices for July, but both will allow home working to continue for most of their workforces.

As lockdown restrictions are lited, there are concerns about how employees will manage issues like childcare, commuting and keeping to safe distances to prevent further spread of COVID-19. In the US, there has been plenty of criticism around the handling of the pandemic and the government’s plan for a lockdown exit. 

Facebook previously said it would ignore government guidance and only bring back “critical workers” when it’s safe to do so. The company has expanded on that statement, announcing that it will reopen offices on 6 July, but that most employees will be encouraged to continue working from home. 

“Facebook has taken the next step in its return to work philosophy,” a spokesperson said, according to the BBC. “Today, we announced anyone who can do their work remotely can choose to do so through the end of the year. As you can imagine this is an evolving situation as employees and their families make important decisions re: return to work.”

Google has also extended its working from home policy, which it originally had in place till 1 June. CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed that its offices will reopen in July, with enhanced safety measures, but that all employees that can do their jobs from home will be able to continue doing so till the end of the year.

What’s more, the tech giant has also announced a company-wide holiday for Googlers to help deal with coronavirus fatigue. All employees will take a day off on the 22 May to address “work from home related burnout”, the firm has said. ​

Zoom will implement new security measures for its free users in response to a growing number of ‘Zoom-bombing’ incidents.

The company said on Wednesday it will be updating default password settings for all account types and it will also require that users set passwords for meetings and webinars, including events which were scheduled before 9 May, when the new measures are set to be implemented.

Zoom will also make its Waiting Room feature enabled by default for the Personal Meeting ID for all account types.

In a move which is likely a response to the numerous ‘Zoom-bombing’ incidents, where hackers crash a meeting to share offensive content, the company also announced that their Screen sharing feature will be limited to the host exclusively. With this, even if hackers manage to join a video conference, they will not be able to show other users offensive content from their screens.

While all free/basic accounts will see the changes implemented this week, Pro, API, Business, Education, and Enterprise accounts will receive the update on 30 May.

The announcement comes after an online tasting event, hosted by a Prestwich-based wine merchant, was hacked by a ‘Zoom-bomber’, who shared child porn material to the 60-70 unsuspecting participants.

Last month, Zoom’s stock price dropped nearly 14.5%, as numerous school systems, including the New York City Department of Education, moved to ban Zoom entirely. The video conferencing platform has also been outlawed by Google, SpaceX, and the FBI.

Zoom also announced on Wednesday the appointment of a new independent director on Zoom’s Board of Directors, the role being given to former US National Security Advisor Lieutenant General Herbert Raymond “H.R.” McMaster. The company also chose Jonathan “Josh” Kallmer to take over as the head of Global Public Policy and Government Relations, starting 26 May.

Last week, Zoom quietly edited a blog post claiming the number of daily users the platform had. The company stated earlier this month that it had “more than 300 million daily users” and “more than 300 million people around the world are using Zoom during this challenging time”. These claims have since been deleted, and the company now says it has “300 million daily Zoom meeting participants.”

Box has announced a host of changes to the platform to maximise productivity with new integrations for Zoom and a simplified filing system.

The changes speak to the broader trend of how tech companies are adapting to remote working, according to the company.

The “all-new Box experience” includes ‘Collections’, a new way to personalise and organise content in Box, available now in beta, and an enhanced Zoom integration that makes it easier to collaborate on content while on a video call.

With Collections, users can create and name a dedicated space for projects within Box. This includes adding files, folders, or book-marked documents into one or more of their personal sections without impacting access for collaborators.

As an example, Box suggests a user might want to group documents and folders around projects, such as ‘event contracts’, ‘marketing launches’ or ‘user research studies’. In Collections, this can be organised personally with the information users need to find them in the left-hand navigation in Box.

The makeover has also included a new action bar design, refreshed icons, and advanced preview capabilities for ZIP and RAW file types.

“We’ve seen work styles change more dramatically in the last two months than at any time in the previous few decades,” said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO at Box. “With the All-New Box, we’re taking usability even further, introducing powerful new tools for organising your files and working together in real-time, while making it easy to bring your content into the applications you use every day.”

Deeper integration with Zoom is also due later in May. The two companies have been working together since last year and the integration between the two has grown “dramatically” over the past few months, according to Box. As such, a new enhancement will let users create or join Zoom meetings directly from a piece of content in Box with just a click from Box Preview.

Data platform Splunk is now available on Google Cloud in beta before it’s rolled out fully later in the year. 

The new partnership is aimed at organisations that want faster analytical decisions from large datasets, and follows on from Google’s acquisition of multi-cloud data analytics firm Looker in February. 

The two companies plan to integrate Splunk Cloud across Google Cloud, with services like Anthos, Google Cloud Security Command Centre and Google Cloud’s operations suite. 

With these integrations, Google hopes existing customers can share critical data between applications and pull insights from hybrid and multi-cloud datasets. 

“Data is at the centre of every digital transformation and we are proud to partner with Splunk to help organisations build data-driven, cloud-native strategies,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.

“Businesses can now leverage Splunk’s capabilities in data analytics for IT, security, user behaviour and more, on Google Cloud’s trusted and secure infrastructure.”

The partnership highlights Google’s cloud strategy, which has seen big moves with data and migration companies in 2020. Along with Looker, the company also acquired Cornerstone Technologies in February, a Dutch mainframe migration firm.

Google Cloud is seen as the third big provider, behind AWS and Microsoft, but its heavy investment in the market is leading to signs of growth. 

According to Doug Merritt, president and CEO of Splunk, the new partnership will help companies bring data to every question, decision and action for both on-premises and cloud digitisation journeys at incredible speed and great scale.  

“We chose to partner with Google Cloud to deliver the technology, capabilities and trusted infrastructure required to help businesses connect all forms of data,” said Doug Merritt, president and CEO of Splunk. 

“Splunk’s partnership with Google Cloud will help empower even more customers to harness nearly limitless data opportunities across IT, Security and Application Development while remaining agile and cost-effective.”

IBM is “pivoting hard” to help its customers accelerate digital transformation and the adoption of artificial intelligence, its executives have said. 

The tech giant kicked off its Think Digital virtual conference this week and the key themes so far have been AI, edge computing and hybrid multi-cloud. 

While the coronavirus has been disrupting business and putting greater emphasis on cloud computing services, IBM has not only been adapting to the challenge but also making changes at the top. Ginni Rometty announced she was stepping down just a before the pandemic hit and her replacement, Arvind Krishna, has been at the helm for a month – taking over mid-crisis. 

Think Digital is the first major event under Krishna’s stewardship and during his virtual keynote on Tuesday, he set out his vision for both IBM and the future of business.

“More than 20-years ago, experts predicted that every company would become an ‘internet company’,” Krishna said. “I’m predicting today that every company will become an AI company, not because they can, but because they must.”

At the very beginning of the event, IBM launched AIOps, its automated cloud protection system, along with an edge computing service built with Red Hat. Krishna touched on both of these new offerings and also spoke about life after the pandemic. 

His belief is that there will be no going back, companies will need to change for the ‘new normal’ that awaits them. His comments were backed by Michelle Peluso, IBM’s SVP of digital sales, who said that the company was “pivoting hard” to provide customers with the capabilities they need now. These were technologies to help supply chain and business continuity and, also, essential transformations. 

Gartner analyst, Chirag Dekate, agreed that the coronavirus is forcing companies to accelerate digital transformation journeys.
 
“CIOs today are faced with two choices, they can either reboot to their previous state and do business as usual, or they can use this opportunity to rethink their ecosystems and devise a new strategy to go forward,” he told IT Pro. “What we are seeing at Gartner, is that most organisations are choosing to use this time to rethink their infrastructures and accelerating their cloud adoption and AI journey.” 

Dekate has been impressed with the new IBM CEO, particularly in this challenging period but also with his involvement in the company’s biggest acquisition to date, Red Hat.
 
“Krishna was the brains behind it,” Dekate said. “He was a key IBM leader, who was shepherding the process and integrating these companies together. So he’s had a leadership role at IBM, quite extensively, prior to him taking over. 
 
“A lot of the portfolio announcements since he took over, you can clearly see themes around hybrid multi-cloud, customer AI transformations and edge computing.”

​Tech giant Nvidia is set to gobble up networking software firm Cumulus Networks in a bid to further enhance its data centre credentials.

Cumulus, which was founded in 2010, is an open source-focused firm that specialises in helping organisations optimise their data centre networking stack through its Linux distribution for network switches, as well as various network management tools.

While its bread and butter is software, it does also have its own hardware offering in the shape of the Cumulus Express data centre switch.

The acquisition is part of Nvidia’s continued drive into the enterprise and cloud market. While the company is probably best known for its graphics processing units (GPUs), initiatives like its EGX edge computing platform and its collaboration with King’s College London to develop AI technology that can detect cancer in scan images have seen it become a serious data centre player as well.

Further smoothing the way to this purchase is the fact Cumulus already had a partnership with high-performance networking firm Mellanox, which Nvidia formally acquired last month after announcing the merger in March last year. 

Underlining the importance of this partnership in Nvidia’s decision to make the acquisition, Amit Katz, VP of Ethernet Switch at Mellanox, said: “In March 2016, Mellanox announced a partnership with Cumulus and started shipping combined offerings.

“Today, the ONIE environment Cumulus created is a software foundation for Mellanox’s bare-metal switches. Together, we built DENT, a distributed Linux software framework for retail and other enterprises at the edge of the network. And our Onyx operating system continues to expand, especially in Ethernet Storage Fabrics (ESF).”

No financial details of the deal have been announced, although it’s likely to be significant, given Cumulus has raised $134 million in funding over the past 10 years.