IBL News

Author: IBL News

  • Data Mismanagement Jeopardizes the AI Achievement, Says an MIT Report

    Data Mismanagement Jeopardizes the AI Achievement, Says an MIT Report

    IBL News | New York

    Data management is critical for the successful use of AI, which is expected to be widespread by 2025. However, data mismanagement can jeopardize the company’s future AI success.

    This is the main finding of a research report by MIT Technology Review and Databricks – creator of the lakehouse architecture — after interviewing CIOs from 600 companies, including Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Cummins, Walgreens, S&P Global, and Marks & Spencer.

    More specifically:

    • 72% of CIOs say that data is the biggest challenge for AI.
    • 68% say unifying their data platform for analytics and AI is crucial.
    • 72% believe multi-cloud is critical.
    • A majority of surveyed support open standards to preserve strategic flexibility.

    Over three-quarters (78%) of the executives surveyed say that scaling successfully AI and machine learning is the top priority for their enterprise data strategy over the next three years.

    Of the 14 industries in the survey, financial services are expected to see the highest investment growth in data management and infrastructure. Retail/consumer goods and automotive/manufacturing companies will follow.

    “Improving processing speeds, governance, and quality of data, as well as its sufficiency for models, are the main data imperatives to ensure AI can be scaled,” said Laurel Ruma, Global Director of Custom Content, MIT Technology Review Insights.

    “AI-ready data is no longer a nice-to-have — it is critical to solve real-world problems and drive business outcomes,” says Chris D’Agostino, Global Field CTO at Databricks. “An open and unified platform like the Databricks Lakehouse enables organizations to put their data into action,” he added.

     

  • Figma’s CEO Dylan Field Pocketed One Billion More than Initially Announced by Adobe

    Figma’s CEO Dylan Field Pocketed One Billion More than Initially Announced by Adobe

    IBL News | New York

    Figma’s CEO Dylan Field and employees will make billions more than initially thought with the exorbitant sale they orchestrated to Adobe, which caused a stir on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the design community.

    Yesterday, Adobe Inc’s stock dropped another 1.69%, almost double the fall of the market. Figma’s $20 billion astronomical purchase provoked a backlash among some Adobe investors, especially given the multiple of 50 times sales over the expected revenue for the year.

    Yesterday, the market valued Figma at negative $16.5 billion, trading down more than 23% since the news broke.

    The compensation for Dylan Field and top executives is due to a historic retention package worth $2.3 billion at the time of the announcement — more than $1 billion of that for Field alone, according to a report on Forbes yesterday based on Adobe’s disclose of the deal through the regulatory filing at the SEC.

    The payoff comes in the form of 6 million restricted stock units, or RSUs, that will vest over four years after closing.

    Half of that is earmarked specifically for Field alone. “And Adobe initially offered Field more, the sources add, before the CEO settled upon a roughly even split with staff,” wrote reporter Alex Konrad on Forbes.

    The deal made Field, 30 years old, and cofounder Evan Wallace — who left the company in 2021 — billionaires.

     

  • Adobe’s Stock Continues to Fall as the Market Signals Its Concern About the Figma Deal

    Adobe’s Stock Continues to Fall as the Market Signals Its Concern About the Figma Deal

    IBL News | New York

    After Figma’s purchase by Adobe for $20 billion, analysts wonder which design startups will be the acquisition targets, especially those in the creative space. Specifically, it will be interesting to see what comes next for companies like Canva and Sketch.

    Meanwhile, Adobe’s stock continued to fall by another 1.16% yesterday, losing the bull day in the market. Wall Street signaled its concern with the Figma deal, saying that this wasn’t the acquisition to do.

    Wells Fargo analyst Michael Turrin cut his rating on the Adobe stock along with his price target. Edward Jones, Oppenheimer, Baird, Bank of America, and Barclays downgraded the stock in response. Most of them talked about the price being an issue.

    Since the purchase yesterday the stock has dropped 22.68%, reflecting the negative view of investors. Significantly, the capitalization loss amounts to $25 billion, more than the purchasing price.

    The transaction, announced last week, was surprising for its scale and valuation — twice over a year ago, when Figma was last valued at $10 billion in June 2021.

    Until it, Adobe’s largest deal was Marketo’s acquisition for $4.7 billion in 2018. Experts estimate that Adobe paid an astronomical amount simply because Figma was a threat to Adobe.

    Adobe XD is a similar product, but its pricing structure of $600 per year, as part of the package of Creative Cloud All Apps, makes it unattractive, especially in the educational industry.

    “Adobe saw the Figma deal as its organization-altering moment as it watched the creative market making a key change from one centered on creating assets with tools like Photoshop and Illustrator to one firmly focused on the creators themselves and the collaborative nature of the design process,” concluded analyst Ron Miller on Techcrunch.

    The visionary founders of Figma, backed by large amounts of capital ($333 million to date) shed by the Silicon Valley top firms, were becoming an increasing business problem for the old-guard company of Adobe.

    The willingness of Adobe to overspend to grab the young upstart and fast-scaling business has been seen as a defensive move.

  • Figma’s $20 Billion Acquisition by Adobe Causes Concern in the Creative Community

    Figma’s $20 Billion Acquisition by Adobe Causes Concern in the Creative Community

    IBL News | New York

    The recent $20 billion purchase of design platform Figma by Adobe — the giant behind Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere — is causing concern in the creative community.

    Over the past years, Figma built its brand and reputation as a collaborative and forward-thinking competitor to Adobe. Founded by Dylan Field [in the picture above] and Evan Wallace in 2012, the company pioneered product design on the web by adding web-based, multi-player capabilities.

    Last Thursday, that competition ended when Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) announced that it closed a transactional deal to buy for $20 billion with approximately half cash and half stock.

    Adobe’s move to taking, once again, a major competitor off the market dramatically reduces the list of companies capable of challenging the giant.

    However, San Jose, California-based Adobe said that it will keep Figma independent, keeping it free for those in education and keeping its current pricing plans — a free starter modality plus a paid professional plan that starts at $12 per month per editor. These prices are significantly less than an Adobe Creative Cloud single-app subscription.

    Adobe said that “the combination of Adobe’s and Figma’s communities will bring designers and developers closer together to unlock the future of collaborative design.”

    Figma’s CEO and Co-Founder Dylan Field’s words didn’t erase concerns, despite ensuring that pricing plans won’t change. In a blog post, he confirmed that he will continue to lead the Figma team, reporting to the President of Adobe’s Digital Media, David Wadhwani, upon the closing of the transaction.

    “There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise, and resources in the creative space,” he said. “For example, we will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D, and font technology to the Figma platform,” Dylan Field added.

    “Adobe’s greatness has been rooted in our ability to create new categories and deliver cutting-edge technologies through organic innovation and inorganic acquisitions,” said unapologetically Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO at Adobe. “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.”

    Figma is expected to surpass $400 million in revenues in 2022, with gross margins of approximately 90 percent and positive operating cash flows.

    The transaction is expected to close in 2023, subject to the receipt of required regulatory clearances and approvals.

    Dylan Field is estimated to own 10% of Figma’s stock—a share valued at $2 billion at the time of the company’s 2022 acquisition by Adobe.

  • Anthology Sells the Blackboard K-12 Division

    Anthology Sells the Blackboard K-12 Division

    IBL News | New York

    EdTech company Anthology announced this week it sold the Blackboard K-12 Community Engagement division (“Blackboard K-12”), which includes Blackboard Web Community Manager, Blackboard Connect, Blackboard Reach, Blackboard Mass Notifications, and the Blackboard Mobile Communications App.

    The transaction amount wasn’t disclosed.

    The buyer was Finalsite, a Glastonbury, Connecticut – based website, marketing, and communications software provider for K–12 schools. After the deal, Finalsite holds a client base of 7,000 schools and districts across 115 countries.

    Jon Moser, Finalsite’s Founder and CEO, said that “acquisition brings together the brightest minds in K-12 edtech, accelerating transformative improvements in everything from our product development to our customer service.”

    In May 2022, Anthology sold Blackboard Collaborate to Class Technologies (Class.com) for $210 million. The private equity firms that currently own Anthology, Veritas Capital, and Leeds Equity Partners seem to follow a strategy based on selling assets of the old Blackboard.

    In the PR announcement, the company said that the sale of Blackboard K-12 “enables Anthology to continue its accelerated investment in Blackboard Learn Ultra, Anthology Student, and other areas of the business where Anthology can provide significant value to the global education community.”

  • Amazon Will Invest $5,250 Per Year For Each Delivery Partner By Providing Educational Programs

    Amazon Will Invest $5,250 Per Year For Each Delivery Partner By Providing Educational Programs

    IBL News | New York

    Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced this month that it will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in its drivers’ education.

    “Investing in our DSPs (Delivery Service Partners)— means that we are continuing to invest in communities nationwide. I can’t wait to see the future success stories of what these drivers achieve,” said Parisa Sadrzadeh, Vice president of Amazon’s Worldwide Delivery Service Partner Program.

    The instrument used by Amazon will be an academic program called Next Mile, that will provide drivers employed by participating DSPs with up to $5,250 per year to access around 1,700 academic programs, including bachelor and associate degrees, skill certifications, and high school completion courses.

    In addition, Amazon will add a 401(k) by providing an estimated $60 million over the first year to help these small business owners match employee contributions.

    “These new benefits from leading providers and additional rate increases for DSPs to offer competitive pay to their drivers total a more than $450 million investment over the next year,” said the giant e-commerce company.

    Small businesses, through the DSP program, generated over $26 billion in revenue for their companies since launching four years ago. There are 3,500 DSPs around the world that employ 275,000 drivers.

    The Next Mile program, which will start in January 2023, is offered by InStride and was inspired by Amazon’s Career Choice program, which offers college tuition prepaid to 750,000 hourly Amazon employees.

    According to Amazon, over 70% of DSP drivers expressed that retirement savings are a critical benefit.

     

  • YouTube Will Allow Course Creators to Charge for their Content

    YouTube Will Allow Course Creators to Charge for their Content

    IBL News | New York

    YouTube announced this week a feature called Player for Education, an embedded player that will show paid course content and programs without ads, external links, and recommendations.

    In the beginning, this feature will roll out in EDpuzzle, Purdue University, and Purdue Global. The existing YouTube player embedded in Google Classroom will include this functionality as well.

    The video streaming platform disclosed that qualified creators in the U.S. and South Korea will be able to offer paid courses next year. These courses will feature ad-free videos, with the possibility of playing them in the background.

    In addition, in the coming months, YouTube will roll out in beta mode Quizzes to allow creators to post questions related to concepts taught in videos.

  • Cognizant Offers Five Train-To-Hire Courses on Java through edX.org

    Cognizant Offers Five Train-To-Hire Courses on Java through edX.org

    IBL News | New York

    Tech company Cognizant partnered with edX / 2U (Nasdaq: TWOU) to offer a new suite of Java courses, expanding its existing train-to-hire Skill Accelerator program.

    The initiative, announced this month, is intended to give qualified learners the opportunity to either pursue a full-time job at Cognizant or other companies requiring software programmers.

    There will be five self-placed, free Java courses to complete under 90 days. After that period, a professional “Introduction to Java Programming” certificate will be granted.

    Courses are focused on core Java programming, JavaScript, cloud computing, HTML5, and CSS3.

    To date, Cognizant has hired over 100 graduates from 2U boot camp training.

    The Cognizant Skills Accelerator program is aimed at U.S. veterans, women returning to the workforce, non-profit beneficiaries, and community college students.

    “The Cognizant Skills Accelerator program is a powerful example of a hiring initiative that recognizes the quality and value of alternative credentials,” said Lee Rubenstein, Vice President of Partnerships at edX.

    “With edX, we are able to cast a wider net, granting aspiring technology workers the opportunity to skill up and start new careers at Cognizant,” said Eric Westphal, Associate Vice President of Workforce Strategy and Operations at Cognizant.
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  • Online Learning Is Now Seen in Positive View Among Learners, Wiley Says

    Online Learning Is Now Seen in Positive View Among Learners, Wiley Says

    IBL News | New York

    The vast majority — 94% — of online learners have a positive view of online learning, up from 86% before the pandemic, and 83% said they would learn online again. Among graduated online learners, 87% reported achieving an outcome — i.e., a salary increase — they can attribute to their degree.

    These are the main findings of the 11th annual Voice of the Online Learner report, based on a national survey of 2,500 adult responders, issued by Wiley last week. [Download Report in PDF]

    The Hoboken, New Jersey-based, 200 years-old, educational company Wiley highlights that positive attitudes toward online learning have increased to their highest levels among learners.

    “Those individuals who engage in online learning overwhelmingly have a positive experience; they also see real value in the results they achieve through online education, which allow them to advance in their career,” said Todd Zipper, Wiley’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of University Services and Talent Development.

    Motivated by career outcomes, online learners mention as factors improving their job prospects and advancing, starting, or changing their careers.

    Respondents feel their employer benefits don’t cover enough tuition and worry about having to pay back their employer if they leave the company before finishing their program.

    The majority of students still prefer a university less than 50 miles from where they live. More than one-third said being close to their physical campus was important or very important, mainly for two reasons: to attend their graduation ceremony and to connect with their professors.

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  • Investment Company Thoma Bravo Sells Frontline Education for $3.7 Billion

    Investment Company Thoma Bravo Sells Frontline Education for $3.7 Billion

    IBL News | New York

    The U.S. EdTech firm for the K12 segment Frontline Education will likely be sold to Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ROP) in an all-cash transaction of $3.725 billion by the end of the year.

    The owner, the VC Thomas Bravo, recently announced the transaction — which still requires approval from the regulator.

    This exit comes five years after Thoma Bravo — a large private equity firm with more than $114 billion in assets under management — purchased Frontline.

    Since 2017, Thoma Bravo says that “completed six highly strategic acquisitions, significantly grew its revenue, expanded its market-leading product portfolio from 16 to 30 products, and increased headcount by over 70%.”

    Frontline Education claims to have 10,000 education organizations as clients to whom it offers solutions for human capital management, student and special programs, and analytics to increase productivity and performance for K-12 administrators.

    Neil Hunn, Roper’s President and CEO, said that this acquisition will enhance its cash flow compounding. He added: “Frontline is a terrific business with clear niche market leadership, a proven track record of strong organic and inorganic growth, excellent cash conversion, and an outstanding management team that will thrive as part of Roper.”