If 2021 was the year businesses adopted a connected enterprise mindset to adapt to new ways of working, 2022 will be the year digital transformation becomes an even more integral part of enterprise planning. 

Global IT expenditure is forecast to grow 5.5% year-on-year to $4.47 trillion (approximately £3.3 trillion) this year, according to Gartner. Digital tech initiatives will remain a top strategic business priority for companies as they continue to reinvent the future of work, said its research vice president John-David Lovelock, in October. This is especially true for those focusing spending on making their infrastructure bulletproof and implementing increasingly complex hybrid work patterns.

IT departments, however, could very well hit a crunch point over the next 12 months. Demand for high-performance computing and data centres, which comprise the infrastructure underpinning remote work, has gone through the roof since the start of the pandemic. This, coupled with poor planning on the part of automakers and a surge in demand for home entertainment electronics, has led to an ongoing chip shortage. Simply, there currently aren’t enough chips to satiate the hunger for silicon.

This shortage is set to continue for some time yet. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has warned the shortage will continue to impact production until 2023 at the earliest. Analysts at Deloitte, meanwhile, are slightly more optimistic and believe that the imbalance in supply and demand will normalise towards the end of this year. The shortage will, nevertheless, restrict what businesses can achieve in the coming months.

Delays, delays, delays

Amid the chip crunch, companies may struggle to get their hands on crucial hardware and equipment, says Maynard Williams, a managing director at Accenture Technology. “Businesses may find the nuts and bolts of digital transformation start to become a problem,” he tells IT Pro. “Longer lead times for laptops could mean new employees, or those with broken devices, are left unable to work for extended periods of time.”

There are, nonetheless, effective workaround strategies, such as refurbishing devices and IT equipment, Williams adds. Open dialogue with suppliers and partners around lead times and bottlenecks can help businesses improve forecasting, so they aren’t forced to make last-minute decisions. Some suppliers may be able to build up a buffer of inventory to support businesses if and when their needs suddenly change.

Demand for laptops and personal computers has been strong throughout 2021, but sales slowed towards the end of the year as supply chain constraints snarled production volumes. Some major chip foundries have also been prioritising higher margin product lines, such as CPU servers for data centres. 

A key concern for IT leaders will be if and when delays bleed into digital transformation projects that rely on connected devices, says Williams. “A warehouse automation project, for example, requires robotics and IoT sensors as well as 5G edge solutions to relay data,” he explains.

“This is all powered by chips. Even though a project like this will be planned in advance, though, plans could be threatened as a lack of supply is pushing up the price of certain chips, forcing businesses to pay more. Projects could become more expensive than previously budgeted.”

The world’s leading chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is poised to raise chip prices by as much as 20% in 2022. Prices for the likes of microcontrollers and chips communication technologies could see sharper rises than CPUs and GPUs, which have had less significant availability issues. Forrester research shows the higher costs are likely to hamper IoT device deployment, and it’s forecast the crisis could slash 10% to 15% off the IoT industry’s growth rate this year. 

The security hardware problem

Many digital transformation projects may have to be rethought over the next 12 months. What’s certain, though, is that businesses will want to move their workloads to the cloud. This is especially true for those companies that have had to reduce their cloud infrastructure spending during the pandemic.

Schwaz says adopting a zero trust-based model helps to reduce the attack vector, while providing remote workers with a seamless user experience without hindering performance.

Beyond security, the cloud can drive digital transformation through PaaS and SaaS solutions. It can also help to circumvent any local device capacity issues. Workers may need more powerful laptops with better CPUs, for example, to effectively perform their role. Rather than wait for new hardware to become available, however, much of the processing can be done in the cloud, says Williams. 

“Cloud providers also have stronger buying power,” he adds. “This means they have greater capacity to support businesses with scaling up their digital transformation plans.”

​Google and Facebook have been hit with a combined fine of €210 million (£175 million) over failures in policies that allow users to accept and refuse cookies on their websites.

France’s National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties regulator (CNIL) fined Google €150 million euros, €90 million for Google LLC and €60 million for Google Ireland Limited, while Facebook Ireland Limited was given a fine of €60 million.

CNIL said that the websites facebook.com, google.fr, and youtube.com have all failed to provide an easy way for users to reject cookie collection on their browsers, and that several clicks are required to refuse all cookies, compared with a single click to provide consent.

The regulator argued the fact users are unable to refuse cookies as easily as they can accept them influences their choice in favour of consent, constituting an infringement of Article 82 of the French Data Protection Act.

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, head of France’s National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (CNIL), speaking at CNIL’s headquarters in Paris

The penalties also order the companies to provide internet users in France with a means of refusing cookies that is at least as simple as the existing mechanism for accepting them, within a three month period. If they fail to do so, the companies will have to pay a penalty of €100,000 per day of delay.

“We are reviewing the authority’s decision and remain committed to working with relevant authorities,” a spokesperson from Meta told IT Pro. “Our cookie consent controls provide people with greater control over their data, including a new settings menu on Facebook and Instagram where people can revisit and manage their decisions at any time, and we continue to develop and improve these controls.”

A Google spokesperson said: “People trust us to respect their right to privacy and keep them safe. We understand our responsibility to protect that trust and are committing to further changes and active work with the CNIL in light of this decision under the ePrivacy Directive.”

This isn’t the first time that CNIL has targeted big tech companies over their use of cookies. In December 2020, Amazon and Google were fined £122 million collectively for “insufficient” cookie consent. Google was hit with a €100 million (£90 million) fine while Amazon received one for €35 million (£32 million).

According to the investigation, Google didn’t provide enough information to users in France about why and how cookies are used, whereas Amazon was fined for placing cookies on people’s computers without their consent.

Google challenged this fine at the Council of State in February 2021, according to Euractiv. Politico reported that Google is still fighting this case, and a source said the company is likely to oppose the new fines and go to the French top court again.

Microsoft and Qualcomm are set to collaborate to expand and accelerate the adoption of augmented reality (AR) for the metaverse in both the consumer and enterprise sector, including developing custom AR chips.

The companies stated they were believers in the metaverse and intend to work together across several initiatives to drive the ecosystem. This includes developing custom AR chips to enable a new wave of power-efficient, lightweight AR glasses to deliver rich and immersive experiences.

Microsoft and Qualcomm also plan to integrate software like Microsoft Mesh and Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform. They hope the collaboration will create transformative experiences for the next generation of head-worn AR devices in the metaverse.

“Our goal is to inspire and empower others to collectively work to develop the metaverse future – a future that is grounded in trust and innovation,” said Rubén Caballero, corporate vice president of Mixed Reality at Microsoft.

“With services like Microsoft Mesh, we are committed to delivering the safest and most comprehensive set of capabilities to power metaverses that blend the physical and digital worlds, ultimately delivering a shared sense of presence across devices.”

Hugo Swart, vice president and general manager of extended reality (XR) at Qualcomm added that the collaboration reflects the next step in both companies’ shared commitment to XR and the metaverse. Swart said Qualcomm’s core XR strategy has always been delivering the most cutting-edge technology, purpose-built XR chipsets, and enabling the ecosystem with its software platforms and hardware reference designs.

At the start of November, Microsoft launched Mesh for Microsoft Teams, its pitch for the metaverse. It aims to make remote and hybrid meetings more immersive and is set to roll out in 2022. It is a mixed reality service that allows people in different physical locations to join collaborative and shared holographic environments within Microsoft Teams to allow for chats, virtual meetings, and the sharing of documents and more.

This came after Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s name change and its renewed focus on the metaverse. He said the metaverse would feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world to allow people to share immersive experiences, even when you can’t be together. The CEO added that it will be a more immersive social media experience, where virtual and augmented reality will take centre stage.

Google Cloud has announced the acquisition of Siemplify, an Israeli-based cyber security company that specialises in end-to-end security for enterprises. 

The exact terms of the deal were not announced, though Reuters reports it is worth around $500 million. 

Acquisition rumours were reported in the Israeli press just before Google Cloud made an official announcement on Tuesday. The CEO and co-founder of Siemplify, Amos Stern, also noted that his company is to be integrated into Google Cloud’s Chronicle platform. 

Founded in 2015, Siemplify is another example of the growing tech prowess of Israel, which has become a hotbed for new startups and data-centric businesses. Much like digital footprint tracking service Mine, Siemplify is another Israeli company founded by former members of the country’s military intelligence agencies. 

The company is typically referred to as a security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) service, which is “the missing piece” for Google’s Chronicle platform, according to Forrester analyst Allie Mellen. 

“Other security analytics platforms began incorporating SOAR as early as 2017,” Mellen said. “This acquisition is an important step in providing a unified offering to practitioners and in being able to compete more directly in the security analytics platform space. Enabling the orchestration of response across multiple tools is an integral part of security operations and has become an integral part of a security analytics platform. This acquisition continues to demonstrate that.” 
 
Chronicle is one of Google’s original moonshots founded within its “X” programme that was migrated to Google Cloud in 2019. It was designed for cyber security telemetry, specifically to track the movement of data across all devices and networks in a bid to prevent breaches. SOAR platforms act as the customer interface for that operation. 
 
“Siemplify was one of the few remaining standalone SOAR offerings, as many others have been picked up by SIEM vendors over the years,” Mellen added.

“Most other standalone SOAR vendors have been acquired or built out their portfolio with other products like threat intelligence platforms. In some ways, that makes this a heady acquisition and signals the end of the standalone SOAR or, frankly, SIEM. We predicted early on that the SOAR market could not stand on its own, and now it has truly come to fruition.”

Microsoft has released an emergency patch for a flaw in Microsoft Exchange that prevented emails from sending at the turn of the new year.

Businesses running on-premise Microsoft Exchange environments reported encountering issues whereby emails were stuck in a queue instead of sending after the yearly date changed to 2022.

The issue has been attributed to Exchange’s malware scanning engine which manages dates in the form of 32-bit variables. The variable’s maximum integer value is 2,147,483,647 but a variable of 2,201,010,001 is required to display the date as 1 January 2022 – a value that exceeds the maximum and caused the engine to crash.

Microsoft said the situation is not caused by a fault in either Exchange or its malware-scanning engine that affects the effective running of the products, but rather the engine’s date-checking process. Microsoft also said this is not a cyber security issue.

Customers can check if the issue is affecting their on-premise solutions by checking the Application event log on the Exchange Server for the following errors, specifically event 5300 and 1106 (FIPFS).

Microsoft Exchange customers will need to intervene and apply the patch themselves in order to restore smooth email functionality. Microsoft detailed the step-by-step process customers can follow if they wish to patch manually, and also supplied a downloadable script for customers who want to take the automated solution. 

The script “will take some time to make the necessary changes, download the updated files, and clear the transport queues,” Microsoft said. Whether customers choose the automated or manual steps towards remediation, they must be carried out on every on-premises Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2019 server. The automated script can run on multiple servers in parallel.

Members of the IT community have dubbed the issue the ‘Y2K22’ bug for its similarity between it and the issue that threatened to break all computers at the turn of the millennium. 

Both issues are based on the way computers handle dates and it required millions in investment and lots of work to combat the original Y2K bug.

Oracle has acquired the digital medical records business Cerner for $28.3 billion (£21.4 billion), with plans to use the company as an anchor asset into the healthcare sector.

The enterprise software company made the purchase through an all-cash tender offer for $95 per share and the transaction is expected to close in 2022. Oracle expects Cerner to be a huge additional revenue growth engine for years to come as the company expands the acquired business into many more countries throughout the world. 

Cerner is a leading provider of digital information systems used within hospitals and health systems to enable medical professionals to deliver better healthcare to individual patients and communities. Oracle said the company has over four decades of experience in modernising electronic health records, improving caregiver experience, and streamlining and automating clinical and administrative workflows.

The two companies are hoping to transform healthcare delivery by providing professionals with better information, hoping this will help them make better treatment decisions resulting in better patient outcomes. Cerner systems will run on the Oracle Gen2 Cloud, with the goal being to deliver zero unplanned downtime in the medical environment.

As Cerner systems will run on the Oracle database, only specifically authorised medical professionals will be able to access patient data. IT professionals running the systems will be unable to look at patient data too.

“With this acquisition, Oracle’s corporate mission expands to assume the responsibility to provide our overworked medical professionals with a new generation of easier-to-use digital tools that enable access to information via a hands-free voice interface to secure cloud applications,” said Larry Ellison, chairman and chief technology officer at Oracle.

“This new generation of medical information systems promises to lower the administrative workload burdening our medical professionals, improve patient privacy and outcomes, and lower overall healthcare costs.”

Cerner will be organised as a dedicated Industry Business Unit within Oracle and will be its anchor asset to expand into healthcare. Oracle also intends to maintain and grow Cerner’s community presence in the Kansas City area, while utilising Oracle’s global footprint to reach new geographies faster.

“Joining Oracle as a dedicated Industry Business Unit provides an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate our work modernizing electronic health records (EHR), improving the caregiver experience, and enabling more connected, high-quality and efficient patient care,” said David Feinberg, president and chief executive officer at Cerner. 

Last week there were rumours that Oracle was in talks to acquire Cerner, for around $30 billion. The deal could give Oracle massive volumes of health data for its artificial intelligence services and be Oracle’s largest acquisition ever, as well as one of the biggest takeovers of 2021.

Kyndryl, a spin-off of IBM’s managed infrastructure division, has announced the opening of its new Cloud Innovation Center in Montréal, Quebec.

The facility will create nearly 500 new IT jobs over the next five years while also providing digital transformation services to Canadian organisations.

In particular, the Cloud Innovation Centre will offer certified training in modernizing cloud applications, automating DevOps and service management, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), and more.

Over 100 new IT positions have already been created at the center, who have been offered training in advanced cloud platforms, automation tools, cyber security, and given access to its vast partner network.

“This centre creates tremendous opportunity in several ways. Our customers and organizations across Canada can now leverage Kyndryl’s world class talent, with the top skills in cloud and technology services, to help them accelerate their digital transformation strategies and achieve their business goals,” said Xerxes Cooper, president of Kyndryl Canada.

“The next-generation workforce from local technical colleges and universities have the opportunity to deliver the technology skills needed to drive business innovation, and this centre positions Quebec as a hub for global businesses.”

Additionally, Kyndryl’s new bilingual technology services center will support industries’ digital transformation efforts and help meet the growing demand for cloud skills. Kyndryl also has expertise in security and resiliency, network and edge, and core enterprise and cloud services, among others.

“Montréal International is proud to support Kyndryl in this project that will offer great career opportunities to young graduates and professionals while growing the local IT talent pool,” said Stéphane Paquet, president and CEO of Montréal International.

“This investment will also provide local businesses with specialized services in an evolving sector where the demand keeps on growing.”

Enterprise software giant Oracle is reportedly in talks to acquire Cerner, a digital medical records business, for around $30 billion.

The deal could give Oracle massive volumes of health data for its artificial intelligence services, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cites sources familiar with the story.

If it does go through, it will be Oracle’s largest acquistion ever, as well as one of the biggest takeovers of 2021.

Cerner is the second largest provider of electronic health record software in the US, just behind Epic Systems Corp. The company offers full IT services, including hardware, to medical facilities across North America and has over 29,000 employees around the world, with the majority based in Kansas City, Missouri.

Its business is heavily reliant on sales of software and IT services, but it has been looking to move deeper into new technologies and cloud services. The company recently collaborated with the Vaccination Credential Initiative, launching a global digital passport to for international travel to help manage the spread of COVID-19.

The firm is also a known partner of Amazon Web Services; the cloud provider was approached in 2019 to collaborate on AI services for healthcare projects.

The proposed deal is part of a growing trend of software developers and cloud providers finding routes into healthcare. Microsoft announced a similar deal to acquire Nuance Communications for $19.7 billion earlier in the year. That takeover is currently being looked at by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority over concerns it will give Microsoft an unfair advantage in that particular market.

Other tech giants such as Google, Apple and even Facebook have also made in-roads into healthcare, with large acquisitions and new services. The social network is reportedly investing in a new wearable health tracker.

As another turbulent and unprecedented 12-month period wraps up, we can look back at a busy year for the tech industry. A handful of household names pursued mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs and strategical overhauls, with many striving to become a stronger force on the world stage. Other deals, meanwhile, became mired in regulatory issues. 

From Facebook to Intel, and from Microsoft to Salesforce, 2021’s most significant industry moves will have repercussions for years to come. We look back at a handful of the loudest to examine why these moves were so important, and what each one means for the future of the industry.

Intel launches $20 billion manufacturing roadmap 

When Intel announced in March it was to invest $20 billion into two new Arizona factories, the US chipmaker’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, described it as “setting a course for a new era of innovation and product leadership”.

The continued chip shortage has wreaked havoc on the production of everything, from laptops, smartphones and tablets to gaming consoles and even cars. Boosting manufacturing capacity and economies of scale seem a natural response to that, assuming Intel can get hold of enough of the necessary raw materials, given the global supply chain crunch. The sector, of course, has also been hit by an increase in the price of copper.

The launch of Intel Foundry Services (IFS), which aims to make the company a major provider of foundry capacity in the US and Europe, is also a key factor, given its plan to make custom chips for tech firms and national governments.

Where’s the strategic value? 

The pandemic hugely increased demand for technology that could power the massive remote working shift across the world. Chipmakers will be instrumental to that change and need to be ready and flexible to take advantage. Intel is in a tight race for supremacy with Nvidia, and also needs to compete with the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) and Samsung. In light of geopolitical tensions, this move is, in part, a bid to ensure more is made in the US.

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, US-based fabs account for just 12% of the world’s manufacturing, down from 37% in 1990. There are also restrictions and sanctions on China’s largest chip manufacturer, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), put in place by the US Department of Commerce. In mid-December, Intel also announced it will invest more than $7 billion to develop a new chip-packaging and testing factory in Malaysia.

Salesforce bets big on collaboration with $27.7 billion Slack acquisition

As we entered 2021, Salesforce announced it would acquire Slack, the popular workplace collaboration platform with more than 10 million active users daily.

Marc Benioff’s software giant, whose customer relationship management (CRM) platform is used by 150,000 companies, heralded it as a “match made in heaven” while Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield hailed the “most strategic combination in the history of software”.

Where’s the strategic value? 

The world of work is changing beyond all recognition thanks to remote working and greater flexibility – and that means workplace collaboration software will be critical to productivity and growth.

Joining forces gives both Salesforce and Slack much greater capacity to compete against the likes of Microsoft Teams and Facebook Workplace, offering the sort of software and functionality that would prove complementary to each of its customer bases.

Nvidia and Arm’s $40 billion bid to own the age of AI

Combining a company with the artificial intelligence (AI) strength of Nvidia with the semiconductor prowess of Arm seems a no-brainer. 

When the deal was announced in September 2020, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said: “In the years ahead, trillions of computers running AI will create a new Internet of Things (IoT) that is thousands of times larger than today’s internet of people. Our combination will create a company fabulously positioned for the age of AI.”

The move hasn’t panned out as either company will have hoped, however, and has since been endangered by a thorough regulatory process in the UK.

Where’s the strategic value? 

As Huang pointed out, the value lies in the future, with technology set to become more connected than ever. In the coming years, smart devices and appliances will become the norm, while sensors will power smarter cities, using AI alongside the wealth of data they gather from the likes of shops, roads, buildings, and factories to drive both government and business decision-making and direction.

Given the size and scope of the deal, however, 2021 has seen it attract a continued amount of regulatory scrutiny. The UK has put Cambridge-based Arm under the spotlight due to fears over competition and national security. Read more about that investigation, by the Competitions and Market Authority (CMA), here. It was also announced in December 2021 how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also seeking to block the takeover.

IBM officially launches Kyndryl spin-off

In November, IT services firm Kyndryl completed its spin-off from IBM. Alastair Edwards, chief analyst for channels analysis at Canalys, told Channel Pro how removing the IBM shackles would allow it to work with a broader range of technology vendors. This would allow Kyndryl to enjoy “the agility to focus on what they’re really interested in, which is obviously cloud, AI, and other technology areas that they’re doubling down on”.

Where’s the strategic value? 

The true value of the spin-off remains to be seen. Experts suggest, though, Kyndryl will face fierce competition from managed cloud service providers. By focusing on its specialisms, however, it could carve out a newer niche and premium role for itself. 

For IBM, it represents a move away from its legacy as it focuses on the three pillars of AI, hybrid cloud and quantum computing.

The $64 billion Dell-VMware question

Following the news that VMware would spin out from Dell to create a standalone company, valued at approximately $64 billion, its CEO Raghu Raghuram explained: “We will continue to bring our multi-cloud strategy to life by providing our customers the power to accelerate their business and control their destiny in this new era.”

This is, of course, only the latest chapter in a long saga of the relationship between Dell and VMware, since Dell acquired EMC (which owned VMware) in 2016.

Where’s the strategic value? 

You could describe this November 2021 separation as a “conscious uncoupling”, an amicable breakup with a positive outcome for both. VMware and Dell will continue to provide “differentiated solutions” for their customers ensuring they are still strong apart. The move has benefited Dell as it has meant it received $9.3 billion to use to pay down debt, while VMware now has far more flexibility to partner with a greater number of cloud and on-premises infrastructure companies.

Facebook goes all ‘Meta’ on us

The Facebook Company has come a long way since the social network site launched to the public in 2006. Alongside the platform we all know, the wider business now owns WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus. 

To distance itself from the negative word association regarding its legacy name, in light of a string of scandals, data breaches and PR disasters, the umbrella company is now called Meta. It’s a similar move to when Google changed its parent company’s name to Alphabet. 

Meta was chosen as a title because, as we head into the future, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is pinning his hopes on the metaverse – an online world for people to inhabit 24/7 using Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to work and have fun. Zuckerberg said, at the time of the announcement: “Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company and I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we’re building towards.”

Where’s the strategic value? 

The names of Meta’s individual brands aren’t changing; they’re far too well-known and ingrained in the psyche to mess with. Given the size of the business now, though, a new name and logo can help to cement a fresh identity in the future, especially for existing shareholders and future investors. It allows the business, too, to report on two different sides of its operations.  

The metaverse is a big strategic gamble and looks set to revolutionise the business world in the same way Facebook has influenced the nearly two billion daily active users it retains worldwide. For many younger people in Generation Z and Generation Alpha, Facebook holds far less relevance to their lives, however, compared to those of their parents.

Differentiating the name means there’s no negative attachment to Meta from younger groups who have little or no emotional affiliation to Facebook, while also distancing the brand from a litany of high profile scandals.

AMD’s $35 billion gambit on Xilinx

Industry moves this year have definitely been highly influenced by chipmakers as well as the ongoing chip shortage. This deal will see the manufacturer circuit boards, ethernet ports and high-performance processors become part of the AMD family.

“By combining our world-class engineering teams and deep domain expertise, we will create an industry leader with the vision, talent and scale to define the future of high-performance computing,” AMD president and CEO Dr Lisa Su said in October.

Where’s the strategic value? 

As Su explains, Intel is in a close battle with Nvidia for chipmaking supremacy, meaning AMD must also stay in that race. An acquisition such as this provides far more firepower in that fight. 

The world’s chipmakers are now at the very heart of every technological change we’re set to experience over the next decade. Without them, little would be possible and it’s why the chip shortage has bitten hard across a variety of industries.

Ramping up production is now key, and everyone involved in the chipmaking process will be looking to gain a greater strategic advantage. It’s likely 2022 will see more acquisitions and consolidations across the industry to aid in that effort.

Microsoft shouts loudly with $19.7bn Nuance deal

Acquiring AI voice firm Nuance feels like a natural win for Microsoft. As more people work from home, tools that enable productivity are going to be in real demand.

Microsoft already signalled its intent to underpin itself more deeply into this workplace-related market back in 2016 with its $26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn. Since the pandemic started, Microsoft Teams has been building itself to become indispensable in office life, enabling remote and flexible working through communication and collaboration. 

Where’s the strategic value? 

Outside of the office setting, one area Microsoft suggests will benefit from the Nuance deal is the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Nuance already has a number of products in this space, helping with dictation and transcription for medical professionals, and these solutions are currently used by more than 55% of physicians and 75% of radiologists in the US, and used in 77% of US hospitals.

The future of healthcare, driven by AI and machine learning, is a huge growth area and opportunity. Across the globe, it’s a frontier being explored to improve patient outcomes and journeys, while also delivering innovative and life-saving treatments. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella previously said healthcare is the most urgent application of AI, with this move paving the way for advanced systems to be put into the hands of professionals everywhere. 

Despite receiving regulatory approval in the US and Australia, however, the deal is being scrutinised by the UK’s CMA.

No year passes without incident, and that’s especially true for a 12-month period equally blighted with COVID-19 as it was with tech-related mishaps and mix-ups.

From public sector IT blunders to catastrophic cyber security failings, here’s our pick of the most eye-catching and alarming incidents to grace the headlines. 

Government-funded laptops arrive in schools loaded with malware

The UK government welcomed us into 2021 with a major IT blunder that saw it issue malware-infested laptops to vulnerable children. A number of these devices were found to be infected with a “self-propagating network worm”, and also appeared to be communicating with Russian servers. 

The Windows-based laptops were, specifically, infected with Gamarue.1, a worm Microsoft first identified in 2012. At the time, the Department of Education said it was “urgently investigating” the issue that had only affected a “small number of devices.”

Slack kickstarts 2021 with a major outage 

Slack, meanwhile, also started 2021 on the wrong footing, with the now Salesforce-owned business communications platform suffering a major outage on 4 January as employees across the globe began to log back onto their systems to start their working year afresh. 

The outage saw team members unable to reliably send or receive messages, with some users also struggling to log into the service altogether.

Home Office wipes 15,000 police records

Back in February, the Home Office was forced to admit it had inadvertently deleted the records of more than 15,000 people from the Police National Computer (PNC). 

A total of 209,550 offence records that related to 112,697 individuals were wiped from the system, including crucial evidence such as fingerprint scans, DNA and arrest records. This “critical incident” was later blamed on a combination of “human error” and failures at the management level. 

SolarWinds blames intern for weak ‘solarwinds123’ password

The password ‘solarwinds123’ – a critical lapse in password security – was publicly accessible through a private GitHub repository from June 2018, before this was finally addressed in November 2019. 

SolarWinds failed to mention, however, whether the password played a role in the major cyber attack the company sustained. This incident saw up to 18,000 businesses compromised by a version of its Orion security platform loaded with malware. The incident, nevertheless, serves as a reminder for businesses to stay on top of information security as we transition on into a more dangerous than ever 2022.

Australia’s Channel Nine interrupted by cyber attack

In March this year, an unknown assailant took down a live broadcast by Australia’s Channel Nine TV station. This ransomware attack locked staff out of emails, internet access and print production systems.

This incident, which serves as a concise visual metaphor for the disruptive effects of cyber crime, has since been described as the largest cyber attack to hit a media company in Australia’s history. The incident itself affected several shows, including the Weekend Today programme, and forced the Sydney-based organisation to shift to its Melbourne studios.

Cause of the OVH data centre fire won’t be revealed until 2022

March played host to a series of incidents, as we also saw a fire erupt at an OVH data centre in the French city of Strasbourg. The destruction resulted in both the loss of data and service outages across Europe.  The incident was first reported on 10 March and the firefighters, although they responded almost immediately, were unable to stop a blaze inside the SBG2 building. Four rooms inside SBG1 were also destroyed, although two other data centres owned by OVH were not affected. The company, however, did have to switch off every one of its servers.  The official root of the blaze still hasn’t been revealed – and likely won’t until 2022 with OVHCloud’s chairman and founder Octave Klaba apologising for the incident, but remaining tight-lipped on the cause.

Gmail “more secure” than Parliamentary email, claims MP

Train firm slammed over ‘bonus’ phishing test 

West Midlands Railway found itself in hot water in May after it dangled the prospect of a company-wide bonus for workers as part of a lure in a phishing simulation test.

Julian Edwards, the train operator’s managing director, emailed the company’s 2,500 employees with a message saying the firm wanted to thank them for their hard work during the COVID-19 pandemic, promising a one-off payment. Those who clicked the link for the bonus, however, received a message telling them this was merely a “phishing simulation test” designed by the firm’s IT team to entice employees.

The email was described as “crass and reprehensible” by the leader of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, Manuel Cortes. Others in the cyber security community, meanwhile, struck a more diplomatic tone, suggesting this was exactly the type of lure cyber criminals would deploy.

Researchers leak Windows zero-day exploit in fatal misunderstanding

Kaspersky generates passwords that can be ‘cracked in seconds’

In July we learned that Kaspersky Password Manager (KPM) was embedded with several problems that meant the passwords it generated could be cracked using brute force techniques “in seconds”. 

The password generator created passwords from a given policy, with users able to set parameters to change password length and include uppercase letters, lowercase letters, digits and special characters. By default, KPM generated 12-character passwords with an extended chart set. 

The generation process is a complex method but effectively meant letters such as q, z and x were more likely to appear than in the average password manager. Once any given letter was generated, it skewed the probability of other letters appearing in the same string.

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