Must Read
Welcome to Prudentj2 IT. Here's today's recap with major headlines from Amazon, Arm Ltd., and Apple.
1. For several years, the construction of Amazon's second headquarters in Virginia has been in the works, but the company confirmed with Bloomberg Friday that it paused construction indefinitely on the second phase of the new campus. The company's decision could be a strategy to preserve cash flow in anticipation of a difficult operating environment over the next 12 months.
2. Arm Ltd., a British chip designer and a SoftBank Group Corp. Subsidiary, plans to list its stock in the U.S. later this year, seeking to raise at least $8B. The company does not intend to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange despite pressures from British stakeholders.
3. For the first time in two years, Apple will be launching a new iMac. The new computer is expected later this year and is expected to have the company's latest M-series chip but the same screen size as the current model.
4. Apple's VP of Cloud Engineering, Michael Abbott, will leave the company next month, marking the second executive departure since the start of 2023. Mr. Abbott, who currently oversees the company's cloud initiatives, will hand over his responsibilities to Jeff Robbin, the creator of iTunes.
5. Zscaler, a cloud security company based in California, revealed a restructuring plan which includes layoffs of 3% of its workers after aggressively growing its headcount over the last year and a half. The initiative seeks to "address inefficiencies in certain job functions and projects," according to the company's CFO.
6. For the fiscal year that ended January 1, 2023, VMware saw a 30% year-over-year increase in revenues from its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and subscription segments which it attributed to "consistent customer appetite for [its] multi-cloud offerings and [its] ability to help companies with a cloud-smart approach." The solid results precede Broadcom Software's acquisition which CEO Hock Tan believes will be completed before the end of October 2023.
7. Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and Thales Group received certification for the world's first commercially deployable iSIM (Integrated SIM), allowing a smartphone's main processor to function as a SIM. The invention is expected to save space within cellphones, allowing room for other hardware of greater value to consumers.