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.

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. ​

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.”

​IBM has launched a slew of new AI services that aim to help chief information officers (CIOs) to predict and tackle IT problems before they occur. 

Watson AIOps, unveiled at the company’s Think Digital Conference, are designed to provide automated protection for IT infrastructures that make them more resilient to future disruptions. 

Unforeseen IT incidents and outages can cost businesses in both revenue and reputation, according to IBM, while tech hub Aberdeen.com suggests that the average cost of an outage across businesses is $260,000 an hour. 

Artificial intelligence is being widely tipped as the solution to this; analysts at IDC have predicted that, by 2024, enterprises that are powered by AI will respond to customers, competitors, regulators, and partners 50% faster than those that are not using AI.

AIOps is IBM’s answer, a service that can automate how enterprises self-detect, diagnose and respond to IT anomalies in real-time. 
 
“We want to arm every CIO in the world to use AI to predict problems before they happen, fix problems before they happen and if they still happen to occur, they can quickly address problems within their IT infrastructure,” Rob Thomas, IBM’s senior VP for Cloud and Data Platform, said during a press conference. 

“Complexity is increasing, certainly things like COVID-19 is driving us to a distributed work environment. A CIO needs a powerful AI – think of it as metaphorically sitting on their shoulder, helping them run the operation and do that in a really elegant way.”

Along with AIOps, IBM also announced edge computing services, launched in partnership with Red Hat. It starts with IBM Edge Application Manager, which is for remote management of AI, analytics and IoT workloads.

IBM Telco Network Cloud Manager, which runs on Red Hat OpenShift, automates virtual and container network functions for 5G applications, and there is also a new dedicated IBM service team for edge computing and telco networks.

By 2015, Manny Medina had reached a point where he felt the only way he could save his failing business was to sell all his office equipment. His company, Outreach, was struggling to find buyers for its recruitment software and after just one year of operation, it didn’t have enough cash left to cover legal fees. 

Out of desperation, Medina and his small team began tagging things on eBay, calculating how much they could get for their computers. They quickly realised the answer was “not much”.

“It was one of those moments where everybody is shaken and freaking out and not thinking rationally,” Medina, who co-founded Outreach and remains the CEO, tells Cloud Pro. “Nobody wants to do it, but we’re all thinking ‘what? We fold and then go get jobs at Microsoft?’ No one wants to do that. That’s when we sat down and talked through giving it another shot.”

What happened next is the startup version of the phoenix from the flames – or unicorn from the flames, if you will – as Outreach moved to a new business model and, five years later, is worth over a billion dollars.

The pivot

Originally Outreach was an online recruitment business using used technology to search the marketplace for IT and digital talent. While the tech side of it worked, according to Medina, both the sales and the marketing teams struggled to get the company going and within a year it was almost out of money.

“We were about two months away from being out of cash,” Medina explains. “The co-founders turned to each other and were like, ‘we shouldn’t be using tech to solve the marketing problem, we should be using tech to just drive more demand’. 

“I have a background in sales, so I voted for using direct sales as a way to generate traffic. We decided if we drove 10 times more meetings per representative we could dig ourselves out of the problem.”

The company didn’t have the resources to throw more people at the problem, however, and its three employees needed to sell as much as a team of twenty to bring in enough cash. To help, Medina and his team built an AI engine that could send out emails with personalised messages and then follow up on any response it got. Before long, they realised the automated call system was generating ten times more potential job interviews and pulling in a reply rate of almost 50% on cold emails. 

“That was pretty unheard of at the time,” Median explains. “The problem with that is we didn’t have the capacity to follow up on all those meetings and actually close business. So I started talking to agency recruiters, telling them, ‘look, I can sell you meetings instead of candidates’.”

The agencies Medina reached out to were sceptical at first, questioning why he would do that, but also curious as to how he was able to generate so many? When he explained the AI engine and how it worked, no one was interested in paying for the meetings – they wanted the software. 

Venture capitalists  

The initial business model struggled to attract investment. Although Medina managed to source enough to get going, there was a lot of rejection from potential backers. Rajeev Batra, a venture capitalist from Mayfield, was one of those who weren’t keen on the idea and suggested it wouldn’t work based on his experience of the market – but he was left impressed by Medina. 

Batra was even more impressed after Outreach pivoted, but by then, the company had grown profitable so quickly that Medina considered not raising capital at all. Batra was persistent, sensing that the team was onto something with lots of potential and eventually wore Medina down in August 2015. 

“I convinced Manny to accelerate the product roadmap and GTM of the company by capitalising it properly and partnering with us to go for it,” Batra tells IT Pro. “I felt they could build a platform company. We made a compelling offer to him and the company with the promise that we would do everything we can to help them succeed.”

For Batra, partnering with Outreach was one of the best, and luckiest, decisions he ever made. For Medina, getting rebuffed for the initial idea turned out to be a financial blessing in disguise. 

“It could very well have been that if we were successful as the original company, we could have been like [hiring marketplace] Vettery, which was sold to [HR consultancy and hiring firm] Adecco for $100 million,” Medina suggests. “We’re now worth $1.1 billion (£883.6 million). Even if we had a good outcome, it would have been ten times lower than what it is right now. Life is perverse that way and now Rajeev thinks we should thank him for not previously investing.”

By 2015, Manny Medina had reached a point where he felt the only way he could save his failing business was to sell all his office equipment. His company, Outreach, was struggling to find buyers for its recruitment software and after just one year of operation, it didn’t have enough cash left to cover legal fees. 

Out of desperation, Medina and his small team began tagging things on eBay, calculating how much they could get for their computers. They quickly realised the answer was “not much”.

“It was one of those moments where everybody is shaken and freaking out and not thinking rationally,” Medina, who co-founded Outreach and remains the CEO, tells Cloud Pro. “Nobody wants to do it, but we’re all thinking ‘what? We fold and then go get jobs at Microsoft?’ No one wants to do that. That’s when we sat down and talked through giving it another shot.”

What happened next is the startup version of the phoenix from the flames – or unicorn from the flames, if you will – as Outreach moved to a new business model and, five years later, is worth over a billion dollars.

The pivot

Originally Outreach was an online recruitment business using used technology to search the marketplace for IT and digital talent. While the tech side of it worked, according to Medina, both the sales and the marketing teams struggled to get the company going and within a year it was almost out of money.

“We were about two months away from being out of cash,” Medina explains. “The co-founders turned to each other and were like, ‘we shouldn’t be using tech to solve the marketing problem, we should be using tech to just drive more demand’. 

“I have a background in sales, so I voted for using direct sales as a way to generate traffic. We decided if we drove 10 times more meetings per representative we could dig ourselves out of the problem.”

The company didn’t have the resources to throw more people at the problem, however, and its three employees needed to sell as much as a team of twenty to bring in enough cash. To help, Medina and his team built an AI engine that could send out emails with personalised messages and then follow up on any response it got. Before long, they realised the automated call system was generating ten times more potential job interviews and pulling in a reply rate of almost 50% on cold emails. 

“That was pretty unheard of at the time,” Median explains. “The problem with that is we didn’t have the capacity to follow up on all those meetings and actually close business. So I started talking to agency recruiters, telling them, ‘look, I can sell you meetings instead of candidates’.”

The agencies Medina reached out to were sceptical at first, questioning why he would do that, but also curious as to how he was able to generate so many? When he explained the AI engine and how it worked, no one was interested in paying for the meetings – they wanted the software. 

Venture capitalists  

The initial business model struggled to attract investment. Although Medina managed to source enough to get going, there was a lot of rejection from potential backers. Rajeev Batra, a venture capitalist from Mayfield, was one of those who weren’t keen on the idea and suggested it wouldn’t work based on his experience of the market – but he was left impressed by Medina. 

Batra was even more impressed after Outreach pivoted, but by then, the company had grown profitable so quickly that Medina considered not raising capital at all. Batra was persistent, sensing that the team was onto something with lots of potential and eventually wore Medina down in August 2015. 

“I convinced Manny to accelerate the product roadmap and GTM of the company by capitalising it properly and partnering with us to go for it,” Batra tells IT Pro. “I felt they could build a platform company. We made a compelling offer to him and the company with the promise that we would do everything we can to help them succeed.”

For Batra, partnering with Outreach was one of the best, and luckiest, decisions he ever made. For Medina, getting rebuffed for the initial idea turned out to be a financial blessing in disguise. 

“It could very well have been that if we were successful as the original company, we could have been like [hiring marketplace] Vettery, which was sold to [HR consultancy and hiring firm] Adecco for $100 million,” Medina suggests. “We’re now worth $1.1 billion (£883.6 million). Even if we had a good outcome, it would have been ten times lower than what it is right now. Life is perverse that way and now Rajeev thinks we should thank him for not previously investing.”

Office workers will be urged to continue working from home as part of the UK government’s roadmap to easing lockdown restrictions, according to reports. 

The proposal is among a list of guidelines drawn up by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) following consultations with bosses, unions and trade bodies. 

The documents are thought to be a crucial element of an announcement from Boris Johnson on how the government plans to ease the lockdown in order to get the UK’s economy moving, which he is expected to make on Thursday, according to The Financial Times. 

UK deaths due to the coronavirus increased by 315 over the weekend to 28,446, but the government said last week that the country had “passed the peak”. 

With the public and businesses now asking when they can return to work, the government is concerned about transport systems being overwhelmed, so those that can work from home will be encouraged to continue to do so after the lockdown is lifted. Businesses will also be asked to monitor the mental and physical health of these employees. 

The daily routines of those that return to the office will change significantly, according to the guidelines. Businesses with five or more employees will have to undertake “risk assessments” before allowing anyone to return and will be asked to submit a document explaining how they’ll maintain safe working conditions.

As part of these measures, businesses will reportedly be asked to reduce hot-desking and use “staggered” shift times to minimise the likelihood of infection spreading, while employees will be told to avoid sharing stationary and to steer clear of face-to-face meetings.

The two-metre distancing protocol will be enforced by floor tape, according to the guidelines, and staff canteens will remain closed.

There was very little in the documents about the use of PPE, but the guidelines insist on high levels of deep cleaning and sanitary practices within all work environments.