Recent stories about Microsoft

Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission on March 27. Photo by Getty.

microsoft media/telecom

FTC’s Khan Should Pick Her Targets More Carefully

By Martin Peers · July 11, 2023 5:00 PM PDT · 1 comment

Lina Khan needs to work on her aim. A judge’s ruling today against the Federal Trade Commission’s request to block Microsoft’s purchase of Activision was so definitive that it has to hurt the regulator’s credibility, at least when it comes to tech cases. Coming immediately after a similar defeat involving Meta Platforms, the ruling suggests that... Lina Khan needs to work on her aim. A judge’s ruling today against the Federal Trade Commission’s...

Microsoft's Gurdeep Pall at an event in Tokyo in 2017. Photo by Getty Images

Longtime Microsoft Executive Gurdeep Pall to Depart

By Kevin McLaughlin · July 3, 2023 5:00 PM PDT · 3 comments

Gurdeep Pall, a 33-year Microsoft corporate vice president who helped build and promote key products like Windows, Skype and Bing, recently informed colleagues that he plans to retire from the company in September, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Since joining Microsoft in 1990, Pall has served as a high-profile executive under... Gurdeep Pall, a 33-year Microsoft corporate vice president who helped build and promote key...

Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, arriving at federal court in San Francisco on June 28. Photo by Getty.

microsoft cloud

Microsoft’s Cloud Server Business in 2022 Was Less Than Half of AWS, New Document Reveals

By Aaron Holmes · June 29, 2023 1:36 PM PDT · 7 comments

For years Microsoft has kept a lid on details about the true size of its Azure cloud server rental business, making it impossible for investors to know how Microsoft’s cloud operations unit stacked up against industry leader Amazon Web Services. But this week, thanks to antitrust regulators, the world got a peek under the lid. Azure... For years Microsoft has kept a lid on details about the true size of its Azure cloud server...

President Joe Biden holds a microchip. Photo by Getty.

The Risks of Cutting Off China

By Martin Peers · June 28, 2023 5:00 PM PDT · 3 comments

President Joe Biden holds a microchip. Photo by Getty.

The Risks of Cutting Off China

By Martin Peers · June 28, 2023 5:00 PM PDT · 3 comments

The Great Wall dividing the U.S. from China is about to get higher. A Wall Street Journal report that the Biden administration is considering further tightening exports of artificial intelligence chips to China triggered a sell-off in chip stocks on Wednesday. Shares of Nvidia, the dominant provider of chips for generative AI, fell 1.8%. To be... The Great Wall dividing the U.S. from China is about to get higher. A Wall Street Journal report...

Naveen Rao (left), CEO of MosaicML, and Ali Ghodsi (right), CEO of DataBricks. Photos by Getty.

How Databricks CEO Justifies Paying $1.3 Billion for a Young AI Startup

By Aaron Holmes · June 28, 2023 3:31 PM PDT · 5 comments

When enterprise software firm Databricks revealed on Monday it would pay $1.3 billion for a two-year-old artificial intelligence startup, MosaicML, the deal looked overpriced. Databricks is paying 65 times Mosaic’s $20 million in annual recurring revenue, a measure of customer commitments to pay for its software, according to Databricks... When enterprise software firm Databricks revealed on Monday it would pay $1.3 billion for a...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

OpenAI Plans ChatGPT ‘Personal Assistant for Work,’ Setting Up Microsoft Rivalry

By Aaron Holmes · June 26, 2023 12:04 PM PDT · 4 comments

In the span of half a year, ChatGPT has become one of the world’s best-known internet brands. Now its creator, OpenAI, has bigger plans for the chatbot: CEO Sam Altman privately told some developers OpenAI wants to turn it into a “supersmart personal assistant for work.” With built-in knowledge about an individual and their... In the span of half a year, ChatGPT has become one of the world’s best-known internet...

Zenia Mucha. Photo by Getty. Art by Shane Burke.

microsoft media/telecom

Can a Hollywood Operator Help TikTok? That Didn’t Go So Well the First Time

By Jessica E. Lessin · June 22, 2023 5:17 PM PDT · 1 comment

“Terrifying.”That was the word from a longtime Hollywood hand when I asked for the person’s reaction to Disney’s former communications czar, Zenia Mucha, joining TikTok to lead brand marketing and communications. For a little context, Mucha is known as one of the toughest and best communications leaders in the land. For two decades, she ran... “Terrifying.”That was the word from a longtime Hollywood hand when I asked for the person’s...

Photo by Getty.

What the FTC Misses With Amazon Lawsuit

By Martin Peers · June 21, 2023 5:00 PM PDT · 4 comments

Photo by Getty.

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What the FTC Misses With Amazon Lawsuit

By Martin Peers · June 21, 2023 5:00 PM PDT · 4 comments

In its war on big tech, the Federal Trade Commission has opened a new front. In a lawsuit filed against Amazon today, the FTC accused the e-commerce giant of duping millions of consumers into “unknowingly” enrolling in its Amazon Prime service and then making it really difficult for them to cancel. So this is what Amazon founder Jeff Bezos meant... In its war on big tech, the Federal Trade Commission has opened a new front. In a lawsuit filed...

Nat Friedman, left, and Daniel Gross. Photos by Microsoft and Getty

Billion-Dollar AI Venture Fund Offers Elusive Nvidia Chips to Win Deals

By Kate Clark · June 20, 2023 2:19 PM PDT

Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, a pair of founders turned startup investors, set the venture capital world abuzz last week by announcing a novel tactic to win over founders: offering them access to a huge number of free servers equipped with the most advanced chips for training machine-learning models. It turns out the duo also quietly raised an... Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, a pair of founders turned startup investors, set the venture...

LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. Photo by AP

microsoft media/telecom

LinkedIn Plans Streaming Video Ad Push

By Sahil Patel · June 15, 2023 6:00 AM PDT · 1 comment

Major advertisers and nearly every big TV network have jumped into the market for ads on video-streaming services. Now LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, is trying to get in on the act as well. The Microsoft-owned business is about to start testing an ad product that will allow marketers to target LinkedIn users when they’re... Major advertisers and nearly every big TV network have jumped into the market for ads on...

Margrethe Vestager via Getty

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Why the European Antitrust Case Against Google Might or Might Not Matter

By Martin Peers · June 14, 2023 5:00 PM PDT

Margrethe Vestager must have been getting a little antsy. The European Commission antitrust boss has been relatively quiet lately even as her British counterpart has been throwing punches at big tech companies, including by forcing Meta Platforms to divest Giphy and then blocking Microsoft’s purchase of Activision. In contrast, the Europeans... Margrethe Vestager must have been getting a little antsy. The European Commission antitrust boss...

Photo by Getty

New Revelations About Shopify’s Deliverr Sale Spotlights CEO

By Martin Peers · June 13, 2023 5:00 PM PDT

Photo by Getty

markets e-commerce

New Revelations About Shopify’s Deliverr Sale Spotlights CEO

By Martin Peers · June 13, 2023 5:00 PM PDT

When business historians look back at what happened in tech between 2020 and 2022, one subject they’ll likely explore is the mass suspension of disbelief that led venture capitalists, startup founders and big companies to go wild spending money on all sorts of crazy stuff. We’re now living through the retreat from those moves, which we at The... When business historians look back at what happened in tech between 2020 and 2022, one subject...

Oracle co-founder talks to Elon Musk in Miami in May. Photo by Getty

Oracle’s Answer to the Microsoft-OpenAI Alliance: Cozying Up to Cohere

By Anissa Gardizy · June 9, 2023 2:08 PM PDT

Oracle has invested in Cohere, an artificial intelligence startup that competes with OpenAI, the startup said on Thursday. What Cohere didn’t say: Oracle plans to make the startup a centerpiece of its strategy to catch up to bigger cloud rivals that sell services powered by large-language models. Steve Miranda, a senior Oracle executive,... Oracle has invested in Cohere, an artificial intelligence startup that competes with OpenAI, the...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Photo: Getty.

Microsoft Is Charging Some Office 365 Customers 40% Extra to Test AI Features

By Aaron Holmes · June 2, 2023 6:00 AM PDT · 1 comment

Microsoft and other software companies that recently launched artificial intelligence features now face the hard part: getting customers to pay for the features, which are costly to operate. More than 600 of Microsoft’s largest customers, including Bank of America, Walmart, Ford and Accenture, are expected to test the AI features in... Microsoft and other software companies that recently launched artificial intelligence features...

Photo by Getty

venture capital

Google, Nvidia and Microsoft Offer What VCs Can’t

By Kate Clark · June 1, 2023 1:16 PM PDT · 1 comment

Welcome back,Amid all the hype for generative artificial intelligence, some venture capitalists have refused to join the fray. These young companies need so much capital and so much computing resources, the VC skeptics say, that they’ll have little chance of competing against Google, Amazon and other big tech companies that may soon have similar... Welcome back,Amid all the hype for generative artificial intelligence, some venture capitalists...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Bloomberg

Why Nvidia Aids Cloud Rivals of AWS, Google and Microsoft

By Anissa Gardizy · June 1, 2023 6:00 AM PDT · 2 comments

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Bloomberg

semiconductors ai

Why Nvidia Aids Cloud Rivals of AWS, Google and Microsoft

By Anissa Gardizy · June 1, 2023 6:00 AM PDT · 2 comments

Nvidia’s business of selling chips for artificial intelligence is going gangbusters, but the company faces a looming problem. Its biggest customers—cloud providers including Microsoft, Google and Amazon—are making their own AI chips to reduce their reliance on Nvidia. In response, Nvidia is helping two upstart cloud providers... Nvidia’s business of selling chips for artificial intelligence is going gangbusters, but...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo: Bloomberg.

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Google Invests in AI Startup Runway to Wrest Cloud Business From AWS

By Kate Clark, Jon Victor, Amir Efrati and Erin Woo · May 31, 2023 2:47 PM PDT · 1 comment

Google is investing in Runway, a New York–based startup that lets customers generate video from text descriptions using artificial intelligence it pioneered, at a valuation of around $1.5 billion including the new capital, according to two people familiar with the matter. The investment, part of a roughly $100 million funding round,... Google is investing in Runway, a New York–based startup that lets customers generate video...

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson. Photo by Bloomberg.

enterprise Finance

Twilio, Set to Lose Supervoting Protection Next Month, Has Been Meeting With Activist

By Maria Heeter · May 30, 2023 1:43 PM PDT · 2 comments

Activist investor Legion Partners, which owns a stake in Twilio, has met several times with the company’s board of directors and management, urging them to make changes to the board and consider divestitures, among other moves, according to people familiar with the matter. The conversations come at a critical moment for the $11.5 billion... Activist investor Legion Partners, which owns a stake in Twilio, has met several times with the...

Art by Clark Miller

How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI Responses

By Chris Stokel-Walker · May 27, 2023 6:00 AM PDT · 6 comments

When Andy Wilson’s company received its first successful client referral through ChatGPT, he was shaken to his core. The founder and CEO of Logikcull, a San Francisco–based legal technology company, Wilson “had the exact same reaction to ChatGPT as I had to the internet browser in the early ’90s,” he said.... When Andy Wilson’s company received its first successful client referral through ChatGPT,...

Sam Altman. Photo by Bloomberg.

Big Tech Investors Have Drunk the AI Kool-Aid

By Jessica E. Lessin · May 25, 2023 5:00 PM PDT

Sam Altman. Photo by Bloomberg.

Big Tech Investors Have Drunk the AI Kool-Aid

By Jessica E. Lessin · May 25, 2023 5:00 PM PDT

Since 100% of the conversations I have on a given day turn to artificial intelligence, I can’t stop thinking about the new technology, the new business models around it and how regulators will respond. And if I am being honest with myself, the answer to most of the questions that come up in these conversations is that I simply have no idea how... Since 100% of the conversations I have on a given day turn to artificial intelligence, I can’t...

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