Digital Transformation Digest: Walmart's Tech Investments Pay Off, NVIDIA Wants to Democratize HPC, and More

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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Walmart tech investments pay off in war against Amazon: It appears that the billions of dollars Walmart has invested in e-commerce technology and niche online retailers is paying off in its battle against Amazon. This week the retailer reported second-quarter results, saying that revenue rose 2.1 percent overall to $124.4 billion. But e-commerce revenue soared 60 percent, driven largely by organic growth through Walmart.com. 

One thing Amazon has long had is a massive selection of items to buy. Walmart.com now offers 67 million SKUs; while it has a long way to go before catching up to Amazon, it has picked up the pace significantly. The retailer wants to build customer loyalty through continuous digital transformation, CEO Douglas McMillon said on a conference call:

Our strategy is to make every day easier for busy families. To accomplish this, we continue our transformation to become more of a digital enterprise that moves with speed and agility. I’m encouraged by innovation in the business. We’re testing associate delivery of walmart.com orders in a few stores and by the end of the year, we’ll have approximately 100 automated pickup towers in stores across the U.S., where customers can pick up their orders within a matter of minutes.

With Easy Reorder on walmart.com, a customer has visibility to their past in-store and online purchases. In a matter of seconds, they can easily repurchase the items they’ve bought most frequently before and save the time it may have taken to make a weekly shopping list.

One challenge Walmart is trying to address is the matter of attracting more upscale shoppers. It's done so with the acquisition of primarily online boutique retailers such as Moosejaw, Shoebuy and Bonobos. These companies have given Walmart "critical category expertise" in higher-margin shoes and apparel, McMillon said.

POV: Walmart also cited growth in store visits, a key goal of its e-commerce program. Many customers who come in to pick up online orders stick around to shop for other items, thereby driving more revenue. While profits were down in the quarter, that's a reflection of the ongoing investments Walmart is making in the business. One challenge it still faces with those niche acquisitions—and more are rumored to be on the way—is to preserve their brands' image and customer base, which may be turned off by an association with Walmart.

New NVIDIA virtualization software delivers, democratizes HPC: NVIDIA has introduced Quadro Virtual Data Center Workstation Software, aka Quadro vDWS, which can deliver HPC (high performance computing) capabilities across enterprises in a much more flexible manner than before. Here's how NVIDIA describes the value proposition:

Quadro vDWS enables greater mobility and collaboration among globally dispersed teams. It also addresses the increasingly compute-intensive workflows -- with their exponential growth in data size and complexity -- associated with new technologies for 3D, photorealistic rendering, virtual reality and deep learning. These are particularly common in such fields as engineering and science, where, for example, simulations are conducted during the design process to accurately predict final products.

"The enterprise is transforming. Workflows are evolving to incorporate AI, photorealism, VR, and greater collaboration among employees. The Quadro visualization platform is evolving with the enterprise to provide the performance required," said Bob Pette, Vice President of Professional Visualization at NVIDIA. "With Quadro vDWS on Tesla-powered servers, businesses can tackle larger datasets, power the most demanding applications and meet the need for greater mobility."

The software is available for more than 120 systems from 33 vendors and runs in a browser.

POV: GPUs are rapidly becoming a favorite The Tesla GPUs provide up to twice the graphics performance of previous-generation GPUs, and high-end versions contain a whopping 24GB of RAM. Here's where Quadro vDWS can make a real difference: Not every user may need the full power of a Tesla GPU, and some may need only a small fraction. Quadro vDWS coupled with Tesla GPUs make it possible to slice and dice its computer power and serve it up as needed to multiple users, working on multiple types of devices, in multiple locations. The economic and operational benefits of this are pretty clear; it's a long way from the days when a workstation meant a large, expensive computer tied down to a desktop. 

NVIDIA sees a major opportunity in orienting its GPUs around deep learning. GPUs are well-suited for deep learning jobs due to their architecture, which is geared toward massively parallel processing. It has an early lead over competitors such as AMD in the deep learning market, not only with respect to the GPUs themselves but the many libraries and frameworks it has developed for deep learning workloads. The company is on a mission to train 100,000 developers this year on a variety of related technologies through its Deep Learning Institute.

Legacy watch: Michigan's mainframe migration project from Hell: Like many public-sector organizations, Michigan's Secretary of State is still running critical processes on a mainframe system that dates back to the 1960s.

The state wants to move off the mainframe rather badly. However, it's been trying without success since 2008, when it signed a deal with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise—which is now known as DXC Technology following its merger with CSC—on a $49 million contract, as MLive.com reports.

Michigan and HP agreed on a 2010 deadline to deliver a new version of the state's Customer and Automotive Records System, but HP didn't meet it. The state, which paid the contractor $33 million, ended up filing a lawsuit against HP in 2015.

In the end, Michigan received a $13 million settlement, but still had no new system. Now it has hired a new contractor, FAST Enterprises, to restart the project. It is now expected to be completed over the next five years, meaning the project from start to finish could take up to 14 years—and that's assuming the new deadline is met. It's not clear how much more money has been budgeted for the contract with FAST Enterprises.

POV: The five-year timeline granted to FAST raises a few questions. It could merely be a reflection that the project plan with HP was unrealistically short in length. However, the more likely case may be that the project's requirements have to be rewritten, given how old the original plan already is. In any event, this is yet another case of wasted money and missed opportunities, to the taxpaying public's detriment.

Digital Transformation Digest: Docker EE Gets Big Update, Microsoft Invests in HPC, and Lowe's E-Commerce Coupon Conundrum

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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Docker EE update brings together Windows, Linux and mainframe apps: The latest version of Docker Enterprise Edition is now available and includes some significant enhancements to the popular CaaS (container as a service) platform.

It's now possible to bring together containerized applications for Windows, Linux and IBM System z mainframes into the same cluster, allowing a single orchestration system for all three types. This means IT shops can set access and security policies once and apply them across the different applications, saving significant time and effort.

Another prominent addition to Docker EE is secure multi-tenancy. Here's how it's described in the announcement:

[O]rganizations can customize role-based access and define both physical and logical boundaries for different users and teams sharing the same Docker EE environment. These new capabilities allow teams to BYO IT services model to a Docker environment where different teams rent their own nodes, multiple teams share resources, or a specific team is granted access to a collection of specific resources.

Docker EE is available as a community edition as well as several enterprise editions (pricing available here).

POV: Cross-platform, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud capabilities are what enterprises want when deploying their code assets, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. It's a surprising twist on Docker's part to add mainframe support to Docker EE, given that mainframes are often not leveraged for next-generation application projects, he adds. "Nothing is more valuable for enterprises than to re-use working code and focus on the creation and implementation of new code assets," and that's where platforms like Docker come in, Mueller says. .

Microsoft bolsters Azure's HPC capabilities with Cycle Computing buy: Redmond wants to bring what it calls "big computing"—better known as HPC (high-performance computing) to the masses, and its latest move in that direction is the acquisition of startup Cycle Computing. Here's the rationale, as provided by Azure CVP Jason Zander in a blog post:

Azure ... has powerful infrastructure, InfiniBand support for fast networking and state-of-the-art GPU capabilities. Combining the most specialized Big Compute infrastructure available in the public cloud with Cycle Computing’s technology and years of experience with the world’s largest supercomputers, we open up many new possibilities.

We’ve already seen explosive growth on Azure in the areas of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and deep learning. As customers continue to look for faster, more efficient ways to run their workloads, Cycle Computing’s depth and expertise around massively scalable applications make them a great fit to join our Microsoft team. Their technology will further enhance our support of Linux HPC workloads and make it easier to extend on-premise workloads to the cloud.

POV: HPC capabilities are key for enterprises to take full advantage of the opportunities machine learning offers, and large IaaS vendors such as Microsoft provide the most efficient avenue to obtain them, says Constellation VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. The question is whether Microsoft will retain Cycle Computing multi-cloud approach, as it currently also supports Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, he adds. "That would be a good move, as customers want choice and IaaS vendors compete more successfully on TCO than lock-in," Mueller says.

Legacy watch: Couple allegedly used website loophole to scam Lowe's out of goods: A New Jersey woman "knowingly and purposely exploited weaknesses" in home improvement chain Lowe's website in order to receive a trailer load's worth of merchandise shipped to her home without payment.

Romela Velazquez then put up some of the items for sale on a local Facebook "buy and sell" page, listing them as new in the box and available for less than half the original price tag, according to a release from the Brick Township Police Department and the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

Earlier this month, authorities executed a search warrant on Velazquez and her husband Kimy's home "and recovered enough stolen merchandise to fill a 18 foot trailer," the release notes. "Detectives on scene stated the residence resembled more of a warehouse than a home."

The items included a Weber grill, a Honda lawnmower, a Dewalt power washer, a 70" TV, three Dyson vacuum cleaners, a Nikon camera and multiple boxes of furniture. The Velazquezes are facing multiple theft-related charges.

POV: A Lowe's retail crime manager alerted authorities to the alleged thefts. The official press release didn't give specifics about how the Velazquezes allegedly pulled off the thefts, but the New York Post reported they used a technique known as "glitching," in which scammers log in coupon codes that incorrectly provide steep discounts or even free products. 

Glitching has become a bit of a phenomenon thanks to social media, with tips passed among users through dedicated groups and channels. To be sure, most glitchers aren't trying to steal a tractor-trailer load of goods for resale—they may just want to use that $1 off coupon to get a $0.79 bottle of iced tea for free.

But glitching is nonethless a big problem for retailers and CPG companies, and stems to inherent system weaknesses that their IT departments need to address as part of their e-commerce evolution. Couponing remains a key strategic pillar for both product manufacturers and retail stores, as they attract new customers, drive customer loyalty and can offer advantages over competitors.

Digital Transformation Digest: Microsoft Continues Open-Source Push with .NET Core 2.0, UPS Adds VR to Driver Training, Facebook Goes After Real Estate Ads, and More

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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Cindy Zhou

CMO
Level Access

Cindy Zhou is a practicing CMO.  Prviously, she was Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Digital Marketing Transformation and Sales Effectiveness. With over 18 years of practitioner experience in corporate marketing, product marketing, product management, and sales operations, Zhou has spearheaded marketing transformation at multiple technology companies. She advised Constellation’s clients on strategies to light-up demand generation, prove revenue contribution, and maximize sales productivity. Prior to joining Constellation, Zhou was Global Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Operations at BackOffice Associates, a global provider of data quality and information governance solutions to the Fortune 1000 and SAP SolEx partner. Before…...

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Microsoft wants to push .NET everywhere with Core 2.0: Under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has made a consistent push toward embracing open source software and cross-platform support. That continues in a big way with the release of .NET Core 2.0, the latest edition of its open-source software development framework.

As a companion, Microsoft has also unveiled .NET Standard 2.0. This is a specification that defines which APIs (application programming interfaces) a .NET implementation is required to have. It's hugely important to developer productivity, since over the years .NET's codebase has been forked off a few times for various purposes, such as to better target mobile devices. Before .NET Standard, developers would have to familiarize themselves with multiple class libraries.

Meanwhile, .NET Core 2.0 "treats Linux as a single operating system," Microsoft said in a blog post. "There is now a single Linux build (per chip architecture) that works on all Linux distros that we’ve tested. Our support so far is specific to glibc-based distros and more specifically Debian- and Red Hat-based Linux distros. There are other Linux distros that we would like to support, like those that use musl C Standard library, such as Alpine. Alpine will be supported in a later release."

Microsoft has also added improved support for Docker containers, a move that makes sense given how much general industry momentum Docker has.

POV: .NET dates back nearly 20 years, when it was tightly coupled to the Windows ecosystem, and its evolution away from that mindset—whether forced by simple pragmatism or not—has been something to see. One thing Microsoft has always excelled at is developer evangelism, and like every major platform vendor, it wants to retain and grow developer mindshare as the next wave of enterprise applications—leveraging containers, microservices and cross-platform capabilities—are being built.

That's the goal of .NET Core 2.0, but Microsoft will also have to pay heed to the needs of IT shops still invested heavily in server-side apps built with the closed-source .NET Framework. 

AWS rolls out new data management and security services: While Amazon Web Services rolls out a slew of new features each quarter, it used the occasion of this week's AWS Summit in New York to make several particularly significant ones.

Amazon Macie is a security service "that uses machine learning to help customers prevent data loss by automatically discovering, classifying, and protecting sensitive data in AWS," the company said. It can spot sensitive data such as PII (personally identifiable information) and sound off alerts to customers if it detects something may be awry.

Macie is based on technology AWS acquired earlier this year through the purchase of startup Harvest.ai. It will join AWS security features such as Amazon Inspector, and gives AWS an answer to the likes of Microsoft Azure's Threat Detection service.

Named initial Macie customers include Netflix, Edmunds.com and Autodesk. AWS plans integrations with third-party monitoring services such as Splunk

Meanwhile, AWS also announced the general availability of Glue, a serverless ETL (extract, transform and load) service. Serverless computing means that customers only pay when the service is actually running; there is no need to set up and maintain infrastructure. Initial customers include News Corp. and 21st Century Fox.

Glue was first announced at last year's re:Invent conference. It has native support for a number of AWS data stores, including Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS MySQL, Amazon RDS PostreSQL, Amazon Redshift and Amazon S3, along with MySQL and PostgreSQL databases running in a virtual private cloud on EC2.

While AWS has other ETL-related tools, such as Elastic MapReduce and Data Pipeline, Glue is focused on rapid preparation of AWS-stored data based on a Spark environment; it's not appropriate for every use case, as AWS explains in a FAQ.

POV: The race between AWS, Microsoft, Google, IBM and Oracle for cloud workloads is running at an ever-faster clip, with features just as important as lower prices. To that end, Microsoft this week announced the acquisition of startup Cycle Computing, which will add more support for HPC (high-performance computing) jobs on Azure. 

UPS using VR headsets for driver safety training: The days when driverless delivery trucks will be a common sight are some ways off, and in the meantime major carrier UPS is using virtual reality headsets to help train human drivers at its Integrad facilities. Here's how the company describes its plans:

IT experts at UPS created the VR training modules that users see and hear inside VR headsets like the HTC Vive. Students using the modules must verbally identify potential road hazards such as pedestrians, parked cars and oncoming traffic. The 360-degree view inside the headset is realistic down to the finest details.

“Virtual Reality offers a big technological leap in the realm of driver safety training,” said Juan Perez, UPS chief information and engineering officer. “VR creates a hyper-realistic streetscape that will dazzle even the youngest of our drivers whose previous exposure to the technology was through video games.”

UPS will replace touchscreen devices currently being used with the VR headsets. The new VR training is only for drivers of UPS's ubiquitous brown package delivery vehicles, but may be expanded to tractor trailer training later. Real-world driving is still a part of Integrad training centers, which include replica city streets and sidewalks.

POV: This is one enterprise-centric VR case study to watch very closely. UPS has long been a heavy investor in driver safety and training, spending nearly $200 million on it last year alone, as the Boston Globe notes. Its efforts have led to a 32 percent drop in accidents since 2008. It will be interesting to see how well it weaves VR into existing training programs, and how much impact the technology will have on its safety results. 

Facebook eyes real estate ads for growth: The social network's Dynamic Ads offering is now targeting real estate, which has become a white-hot market in the U.S. over recent months. The move comes following Dynamic Ads' initial forays into travel, retail and mobile application installations, as AdWeek notes.

POV: This is a natural next step for Facebook, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Cindy Zhou. "Most realtors post about and discuss their listings, or ask for referrals on their Facebook page," she says. "Providing an opportunity for buyers to find listings driven by their preferences on both Facebook and Instagram has tremendous potential."

Facebook's treasure trove of data also provides broader signals regarding buyer intent, Zhou adds. "People could be posting about a relocation to a particular city, or asking for ideas for vacation property areas," she says. "These are earlier signals in comparison to a person actively searching for properties on Zillow."

Digital Transformation Digest: Google Adds Enterprise Muscle to Cloud Speech API, AWS Lands Hulu, Target Invests In Same-Day Delivery Tech, and More

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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Google Cloud Search API gets enterprisey additions: Last year, Google launched its Cloud Speech API, which business could use to add voice commands to various applications, such as call center systems. Now the company has released a series of enterprise-friendly enhancements to the API upon requests from customers. Here are the key details from an official blog post:

Our number one most requested feature has been providing timestamp information for each word in the transcript. Word-level timestamps let users jump to the moment in the audio where the text was spoken, or display the relevant text while the audio is playing.

To help our users with long-form audio needs, we’re increasing the length of supported files from 80 minutes to up to 3 hours. Additionally, files longer than 3 hours could be supported on a case-by-case basis by applying for a quota extension through Cloud Support.

Cloud Speech API already supports 89 language varieties. Today, coinciding with the broader announcement this morning, we’re adding 30 additional language varieties, from Bengali to Latvian to Swahili, covering more than one billion additional speakers.

POV: The new time-stamping feature provides an obviously major convenience, but it's the additional language support that should prove most appealing to enterprises. With nearly 120 languages supported, Cloud Speech API will allow voice commands to have a "nearly global reach," as Google puts it.

AWS grabs Hulu for new OTT TV service: Add Hulu to the long list of streaming content services that have chosen Amazon Web Services as their platform. Hulu launched its over-the-top (OTT) live television service in May, and at this week's AWS Summit in New York, the companies revealed their business relationship.

Hulu says by using AWS, it can focus on delivering more personalized user experiences rather than spend resources managing infrastructure. The company's OTT network joins many other streaming companies on AWS, including Amazon's own video service, Netflix, AOL, Hearst Corporation, News International, News UK and Time Inc.

POV: Hulu also noted that it chose AWS because its infrastructure can support high spikes in traffic without a degradation in service. While that's an issue for VOD (video on demand) services such as Netflix, live television has even higher demands for low-latency and other factors. Hulu's OTT network competes with several others today, and more are likely to spring up in coming months and years as consumers look to "cut the cord" on more expensive cable TV services. As this shift occurs, AWS will find itself not only serving up more and more content, but playing an important role in the evolution of content delivery over the Internet.

It's not so surprising that Hulu would sign up with AWS, given it already powers the likes of Netflix in proven fashion, says Constellation VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "The remarkable part is more on the enterprise sales side of AWS—they're creating repeatable sales in the same vertical, addressing both value proposition and competitive concerns to repeat a similar sale."

Target buys Grand Junction for same-day delivery tech: Retail giant Target is buying a startup called Grand Junction in order to support its push into same-day delivery. Based in San Francisco, Grand Junction's software platform is used by retailers, distributors and logistics companies to fulfill local deliveries, according to a statement.

The company is already working on a same-day delivery pilot project at Target's store in Tribeca, New York:

“Grand Junction’s technology and algorithms will help Target deliver to guests faster and more efficiently,” said Arthur Valdez, executive vice president, chief supply chain and logistics officer, Target. “This acquisition is part of Target’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Target’s supply chain to provide greater speed, reliability and convenience for guests.”

POV: Same-day delivery is a top priority for brick-and-mortar retailers as they compete with Amazon, which offers both same-day and in some markets, two-hour delivery services. Grand Junction will help Target go beyond merely dropping off goods, however; the chain plans to also offer product assembly and installation, according to a company blog post.

Target hired Valdez last year away from Amazon, where he spent 16 years in top supply chain and logistics roles, as it embarked on a plan to shake up its store formats and product mix.

The Grand Junction deal clearly has Valdez's fingerprints all over it, and a big reason Target is making the investment has to be speed-to-market. Grand Junction already has 700 carriers signed up to its program, with 10,000 drivers. It claims to cover 96 percent of North America's population. The main onus on Target will be managing quality control with a same-day service staffed by third-party vendors.

Legacy watch: Mozilla prepares to mothball thousands of older Firefox add-ons: The upcoming version 57 of Mozilla's enduringly popular Firefox web browser will be of note as much for what it adds, as what it leaves behind.

That's because it will no longer support add-ons built with the older Add-Ons SDK (software development kit). Only ones created using WebExtensions will be compatible with Firefox 57. This is a fairly significant deal, given how much Firefox's staying power has been the ability to add so many useful extensions. As Bleeping Computer notes, only about 3,600 of the more than 18,000 add-ons available now through Mozilla's portal are compatible with WebExtensions.

POV: Mozilla first announced WebExtensions—and signaled the end of Add-Ons SDK—two years ago, so it's not as if developers haven't had time to port over their code. It may be that many more do before 57 is released, or will do so shortly thereafter. There are some advantages to WebExtensions, namely that add-on code written for other browsers may work with few or no changes in Firefox, but developers apparently haven't found them compelling enough.

There's no question that Mozilla could see some user backlash from the change; in the meantime, if your browser of choice is Firefox, the time is now to look for alternatives to those useful add-ons.

Digital Transformation Digest: Oracle's New Database Release Schedule, Kohl's Weathering Amazon's Storm, and DARPA's Bid for 'Explainable' AI

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

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Oracle shakes up database release naming convention: The Oracle database has long been and remains the market-share leader. Now the company is making a major change to its database release numbering structure, one that could have mixed results from a marketing and customer-satisfaction perspective.

In short, Oracle will move to an annual release cadence with releases named by the year, as Mike Dietrich, master product manager for database upgrades and migrations, explains in a blog post:

In my own words we basically rename the patch sets and name them what they were since years: Full releases. This means, Oracle Database 12.2.0.2 will be Oracle 18. And Oracle 12.2.0.3 will be Oracle 19. And so on.

Therefore there won’t be any Oracle 12.2.0.2 anymore – and obviously no Oracle 13.1 followed by Oracle 13.2.

Along with the annual release, Oracle will issue quarterly release updates. Historically, Oracle database customers have largely waited until the second rendition of a major release before upgrading, with the thinking being it will be more stable than the first. That approach hasn't been necessary for quite a while, but it's been hard to get that across to customers, Dietrich says:

Patch sets are full releases. Patch sets were full releases for years. In Oracle 12.1.0.2 (a so called “patch set” containing only as little as 13000 fixes on top of 12.1.0.1) we introduced complete huge and important new features such as Oracle In-Memory. Patch sets became full releases since at least Oracle 11.2.0.2.

This will hopefully end discussions. Nobody has to justify to go live on the first release. There is no first release. And there weren’t first release for many years. It were full releases.

So yes, I’m happy with this change. And it makes a lot of sense.

POV: A H/T goes to the Register for flagging Dietrich's post. Oracle's previous numbering convention was favored by developers, but this won't be the first shift toward a more marketing-minded approach, nor the first shift that takes place before the dreaded Release 13, says Constellation VP and principal analyst Doug Henschen: "Software release 13.xs are about as popular as 13th floors in office buildings."

But it's not clear that a revamped numbering convention will be enough to spark faster uptake of new database releases, Henschen adds. "Whatever the release designation of the database might be, organizations will continue to consider the lifecycle of holistic deployments, not just the latest features introduced with each new database release."

Kohl's continues evolving toward multichannel: It appears that large retailer Kohl's is having some luck weathering the competitive storm clouds generated by Amazon, reporting quarterly results on Thursday that contained positive news regarding online sales as well as improving synergies with its brick-and-mortar stores.

At Kohl's, online demand sales rose 19 percent and 31 percent of those orders were picked up in stores. (Kohl's also ended the quarter with 1,154 stores, up from 1,150 one year ago.) In addition, Kohl's smartphone app is looking pretty sticky, with 66 percent of its online traffic and 42 percent of online revenue coming through that channel. Overall, Kohl's revenue dipped very slightly to $4.14 billion, but net income shot up 49 percent to $208 million.

Kohl's goal is to continue driving foot traffic toward its stores by leveraging online ordering and in-store fulfillment, which it says leads to significant upselling opportunities. CEO Kevin Mansell said it is continuing to open new stores this year, but they are "very different" than past designs. There also shouldn't be any news regarding store closures this year.

POV: Traditional department stores like Kohl's have been some of the hardest-hit by Amazon's ability to discount, offer a massive selection and deliver a pleasurable overall customer experience. While Kohl's has plenty of work ahead of it, the company at this moment seems like a good example of a legacy business making the right, if sometimes painful steps, toward transformation and ultimately survival. 

DARPA funding research into AI that explains itself: The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is bankrolling research with the end goal of creating artificial intelligence systems that can explain to humans how they arrived at a given result.

The Palo Alto Research Center, a subsidiary of Xerox, has been awarded a DARPA contract to create a system called COGLE (COmmon Ground Learning and Explanation), as the company describes in a release:

The key idea behind COGLE is to establish common ground between concepts and abstractions used by humans and the capabilities learned by a machine. These learned representations would then be exposed to the human via COGLE’s rich sense-making interface, enabling people to understand and predict the behavior of an autonomous system.

It's all about gaining crucial context for an AI system's conclusions, as well as to develop trust in the system. COGLE will first be developed in conjunction with an unmanned aircraft system but its design will be applicable to other types of autonomous systems later. Carnegie Mellon University, West Point, the University of Michigan, the University of Edinburgh and the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Learning are also involved in the research.

POV: It's not just DARPA that's interested in AI that is explainable, as financial organizations also insist on recommendations and automated decisions that are explainable for reasons of legal and regulatory requirements, notes Constellation VP and principal analyst Doug Henschen.

"When it comes to decisions on lending, risk, pricing and claims, financial organizations have to avoid black-box approaches because they have to be able to explain to regulators why certain decisions were made," he adds. "Regulators want to ensure there isn't bias or bad math behind the scenes. The challenge of ensuring human transparency in decision systems will become more challenging as organizations seek to rely on machine learning or cognitive systems that constantly adapt to the results, as expressed in data, of each new decision."