WalMart Launches Global Shop To Take On Market Leaders

Wal-Mart will take on Amazon and Alibaba in the Chinese market through its Global Shop service.

Alibaba is currently the uncrowned king of the online retailing industry in China. The company solely dominates the Chinese e-commerce industry and is accountable for a massive 80% market share in the industry. It was the only company, which was running business-to-business platform such as Alibaba.com and business-to-consumer platforms such as Aliexpress.com, Tmall.com, and Taobao Marketplace. Recently, a local player ‘JD.com’ and international rival ‘Amazon’ has been trying to give troubles to the e-commerce leader in China.

In a short span of time, the industry which had no competition for Alibaba Group turned upside down with the entrance of new players competing for the larger market share. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has also decided to take on Alibaba and that too in its mainland. The US retailing giant has already launched an attractive new service to offer excellent quality imported goods and items to the Chinese consumers. Alibaba just announced that it might surpass Wal-Mart to become the world’s largest retailer.

Walmart Stores already owns top name brands of the United Kingdom such as Asda. For now, it still is known as the biggest retailer in the world and being the biggest is no surprise that it is exploring opportunities to expand in probably the biggest e-commerce market in the world.

The President and CEO of Walmart China, Sean Clarke, said in a statement during the launch, “Cross-border e-commerce service is a good supplement and extension to our stores. Wal-Mart aims to be the most reliable retailer in China, no matter online or offline.”

Irrespective of the service and goods that Walmart wants to bring in the Chinese market, it would face a stiff and tough competition from the likes of market leader Alibaba Group and JD.com, which are the local established business. It also meets its domestic rival Amazon in the international market and will go head to head for a larger market share. Amazon also deals in importing global brand to Chinese consumers.

Last year, Alibaba was ramping up its activities to add top name Western brands on its online marketplaces so that the Chinese consumers get to buy the foreign products as well. That time, Alibaba boasted to have brands like Burberry, Estee Lauder, and L’Occitane.

Walmart officials said in a statement that in the beginning, it eyes to sell 200 products in the region that will include the US brand Aveeno and Starbucks. The company currently has 500,000 users on its smartphone app. It initially launched in China in 1996 and since then it has managed to open 400 stores over there. The US retailer holds 51% stake in Yihaodian, which is a reputable Chinese e-commerce platform.

Twitter Periscope Celebrates First Anniversary With 200 Million Streams

Twitter rolled out Periscope a year ago, and gained much popularity in a year.

Twitter launched Periscope on March 26, a year ago, and it now celebrating its 1 year anniversary. It has gained 200 million users, and is giving the company huge success. Periscope is a live streaming service and already has numerous live videos that are seen every day by android and iOS users. 

The social media network has reportedly faced issues when it comes to its sluggish user growth but this service has proved to be successful for the company. It became highly popular in Australia in just a year and has become a huge part of the society in the region. Other competitors of Periscope are Meerkat, Facebook Live and YouTube Connect. Live video streaming has gained popularity in the past few years, thus almost all social media companies are launching their own such services.

Periscope might have 200 million users and thousands of videos but if this data is compared to its bigger competitors, one would be unsure if this service really did win. No other service has revealed its data publicly yet, thus the live streaming service has nothing to compare itself. This service has enabled Twitter to put live events and keep focusing on it.

The CEO of the micro blogging company, Jack Dorsey still has the same concept for this service; i.e. still about bringing people from around the world together and enable them to witness live events in the comfort of their homes while bringing the information to them as fast as possible. Dorsey believes that Periscope is the key to reaching this goal in future for the company.

There is no denying that Periscope has managed to do well considering it has only been out in the market for just a year. It launched rapidly for android and iOS and can be enjoyed on the web. Since then, the service has received numerous updates such as landscape version, skipping ahead and even replaying.

The live streaming service has managed to capture some highly important events in a year including the Nepal earthquake, Syrian refugee’s crisis and many more. Many high profile celebrities are using this feature.

Periscope is eventually going to monetized in the future as many companies are making efforts to earn money through live streaming. For Twitter Inc., it is not just about winning from other live streaming services but even saving itself since it has been suffering for month in the market now.

Periscope might just life saving for the microblogging site.

Yahoo Investors Approach Microsoft For Deal

Reuters confirmed that Yahoo investors have approached Microsoft for a possible buyout deal.

Yahoo Inc. officially launched an auction process last month and made itself available for a possible buyout. When the speculations began about the possible sale options, there were many buyers outlined by the analysts that could move forward with an official bid. One of the top names was of Verizon Communications that already own a similar business i.e. AOL Inc. Even, the company began to approach its bidders for a possible buyout as soon as possible.

Irrespective of the situation within the company, Yahoo itself is not sure about its future. It is also in middle to avoid a possible proxy war that its activist investor, Starboard Value LP, might launch if the firm fails to meet all of its demands. Starboard Value wants the board of directors to finalize the sale of Yahoo core internet and advertising business in the coming times but the board is looking for strategic alternatives, which CEO Marissa Mayer insisted to do so.

Several names came in front that wanted to buy Yahoo’s dying business but one prominent name was Microsoft Corporation. According to Reuters, the executives of the US software firm have entered talks with the investors of Yahoo about their plan to contribution that will finance the purchase of the search engine giant. A person familiar to the matter stated that the investors seem interested in this option.

The person confirmed that at this point, the talks between both parties are preliminary and the software giant seeks to preserve the relationship between Microsoft and Yahoo. This is not the first time both companies are planning to join hands. Yahoo and Microsoft have a longstanding search and advertising agreements prior to this.

Reuters confirmed that the private equity firms and several investors of Yahoo approached the software giant for a possible deal. Microsoft has declined to comment on this matter.

The search engine giant is currently looking to auction its core internet and advertising business including search, mail, and news sites. The pioneer internet company was once the powerhouse of the tech industry but failed to keep up with the fast moving industry which resulted in major downfall. Yahoo could not only keep up pace but failed to compete against its rising rival Google which touched new heights with the new technology. It was struggling to be on par in terms of online advertisers with Google and Facebook.

The Verizon Communications CFO, Fran Shammo, said that his firm would go forward with a move only if it is a good enough deal. Reuters say that Starboard Value has moved on Thursday to forcibly remove the entire board panel along with Marissa Mayer and her management team. The team has struggled to turn around the fate for almost four years now.

Microsoft previously approached Yahoo with a business deal almost a decade ago and the CEO of that time Steve Ballmer failed to buyout the internet company for $45 billion. 

Boeing Tankers Delivery To Pentagon Delayed

Boeing is behind schedule and missing the deadline for its tankers that were planned to be delivered to the Pentagon.

Boeing might not be able to deliver the tankers that it had to the Pentagon and will miss the deadline. The airplane maker agreed to reach the goal of manufacturing approximately 18 KC-46 Pegasus tankers by next year in August according to the DCMA, but this goal might be difficult to accomplish and is expected to be at least seven month behind, 2018, March.

The aerospace company might have to face a penalty by the Air Force if it is not able to meet the deadline. The Air Force will even withhold future payments of the company and lower the assessment rating of the airplane maker. The company is supposed to deliver 18 of its KC-46 tankers by August 2017, which is now being delayed to March 2018 or even more.

The Defense Contract Management Agency even went as far as to say that it now has ‘low confidence’ in Boeing Co. promises of deliveries and making them on time, but the company will not slip this to pay the price for it through a penalty. One spokesperson for the company said otherwise, that it would be able to deliver the tanker on schedule.

This tanker is currently undergoing tests; the second tests will took place in the beginning of this month. This tanker has been manufactured for refueling airplanes of United States, used in wars, midair, replacing the company’s previous tanker, the KC-135. Boeing failed many other deadlines, thus agencies don’t have much confidence left in the aerospace giant and its promises. The first tests for these tankers are six months behind and the second test is at least four months behind.

The commercial airplane provider KC-46 will cost the company $5.59 billion in its development, or even $766 million above the budget. The KC-46 Pegasus is a military model of the famous 767 jet, which is also under production. Boeing is staying positive regardless of what others are saying and still believes it will be able to make the delivery of 18 tankers on time. Delivering and manufacturing 18 tankers is difficult task to accomplish, but the company is an expert in making jets and might just be able to make and avoid penalties and disappointments. 

The KC-46 is capable of carrying almost 212,229 pounds of fuel at one time and is ideal for supplying fuel midair to military airplanes. The airplane manufacturer is supposed to deliver the Pentagon with 179 of these tankers costing $39 billion, but the production will not be authorized until the development concerns have been completely dealt with. 

Google Is Competing With Amazon Web Service

Google is competing with Amazon in the cloud computing space.

Alphabet Inc.’s Diane Greene, the new chief of the company’s cloud computing domain did not have good news for its employees during the company’s internal sales meeting that took place at Las Vegas last month. The tech giant came to a unanimous consensus that they need to take their customers seriously, need to endorse their services better, be aggressive and complacent to embrace a change.

This was a rather strange message that was revealed by the search engine giant, since the company lays emphasis on technology in contrast to marketing and sales. However, the move was quite necessary. The company ranks third in the cloud computing domain which is the next big thing in the IT fraternity. As per Gartner Inc. the industry is likely to grow by 35% next annum where it is likely to make business of $20 billion a year as estimated. Thus, to reach the top in this segment, the company needs to increase the number of data centers it operates. This will be in compliance to their strategy of relying on technology to sort out the obstacles that are thrown their way.

However, Diane Greene is also adopting new strategies that are unlike the playbook of GOOG. The company is designing tools which will help it to increase its corporate user base to indulge less tech savvy clients. It is also looking for fresh talent who will be responsible to sell and endorse the product offerings.

"There was a pretty darn good vision in place and now I’m just bringing everybody together so that we all know what we’re doing," stated Greene- who is the part of the company’s Board of Directors. “The cloud is a revolution, I mean it’s rivaling the industrial revolution, and it’s pretty fun being this involved."

Google initially invested the cloud platform for its own use back in 1990 and 2000. Google thus left Amazon.com Inc. to transform the idea into a service that could be rented by other firms. This eventually paved way for Amazon Web Services which transformed into a service that had a net worth of $8 billion in FY15. This made AWS the uncrowned king of the fraternity sabotaging Microsoft and Google that only garnered $500 million as per Morgan Stanley.

Back in November, Google recruited Greene so it could change its fate. She is a maestro in the Silicon Valley who founded VMware Inc. that debuted virtualization in the data centers of big corporate giants. Basically, virtualization enables a computer to perform tasks of several computers. This was the ability that paved way for Amazon Web Services. 10 years after the launch of VMware, Ms. Greene was fired and in just a day’s time the fate of the company changed.

In the coming months, Google is likely to establish two cloud regions. The company will come up with data centers that will be loaded with software and computers that can be rented over the Internet in Japan and Oregon. More data centers will be established in 12 to 1 months that will either be leased or will be operated under Google.

Google Maps Comes With Another Android Update

Google Maps offers customized stickers for Android users.

A blog post by Alphabet Inc. that was officially posted by the company unveiled that Google Maps has come up with a new intriguing update where it has added 24 customized stickers to its platform. These stickers can be used to decorate the preferred locations. All the users of Maps can now simply log in via their Google accounts and then view it on all the addresses which are saved by them.

The locations comprise of igloos, an extravagant castle, and a submarine which is yellow in color. It has been assured that every sticker will add a personalized touch to the location. These stickers revealed by the search engine giant can be used for work and home addresses. Other than that, it will also enable users to chalk out the best possible routes, fast directions and a lot more.

The blog post clearly highlights, “To save home and work addresses and other destinations, just make sure you’re signed into your Google account. Then visit the Your Places tab or type an address, then label it. Once setup, you can just type "home", "work" or "gym" in the search bar to get directions and navigate quickly and easily from wherever you are.”

To allow Google users to mark the top locations on its platform is also part and parcel of the update by Google Driving Mode platform. By making use of preset locations to come up with results emphasizes on the tech giant’s use of critical algorithms that provides users with the information regarding the places which have been visited frequently. It is speculated that by personalizing the favorite locations and chalking out the destinations will assist users during the peak traffic hours with the help of Google’s navigation tool.

This update is said to be a relatively small, it is assumed that by coming up with customized stickers, the users will be intrigued and the user experience will enhance. It needs to be noted here that Snapchat and Facebook have been adding stickers to their platform gradually. Thus, the decision made by the company is rather inevitable. The stickers designed by Google are designed in a manner that appeals to the liking of consumers.

The recent stickers are presently limited to Google Maps and so far have only surfaced to the Android devices. Many analysts are confused so as to why the company decided to eliminate the Apple iOS users from this update. However, it is assumed that the remedy will not surface anytime soon.

It is assumed that the company wishes to propagate the popularity of its operating system. Along with having a fresh look, it also shows the company’s desire to keep pace with competitors that are doing quite well in terms of innovation.

Google Maps is doing a lot to bolster its platform. Such updates are necessary to hook the user to the platform and in this age of millennials where Snapchat has taken the industry by a storm, it seems like a rather sane decision.

Facebook CEO Makes A Move In China

Facebook CEO is touring China with hopes of a comeback..

 If you are thinking in terms of mass appeal, this weekend turned out to be amazing for Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg.

Mr. Zuckerberg made his way back to Beijing for another trip that got ample traction in China’s local headlines along with the online fraternity. He initially came up with a post that became extremely popular through Tiananmen Square. This was merely covering an important conversation with Mr. Jack Ma- the founder of Alibaba and a top notch entrepreneur. Other than that, he also met Mr. Liu Yunshan, the propaganda chief of China.

Back in time, when Mr. Zuckerberg paved his way to China, he enthralled the masses with his great language skills. The masses did not expect him to be that good with Chinese however he fascinated them with his skills. At instances, when he was not visiting China, he acknowledged the President of the country that he has named his daughter Max a Chinese name as well.

The recent tours have engraved his name in China as the most recognized business tycoon. However, it is still not clear if his personal will help him achieve his final goal. Mr. Zuckerberg strongly desires that the country lifts the ban from its social media platform so that he gets access to 100 million Chinese users.

Making ties better with Chinese executives in such an open way is rather unusual for an executive. It needs to be noted that with power comes a lot of influence and thus any blow that is not governed by the Chinese Communist Party can be dangerous. China did a similar thing last month when a popular account of a real state behemoth that was widely followed in the region disappeared after criticism. Mr. Xi is extremely loyal to the country’s media.

Several technology firms belonging to America is striving to enter China over the past couple of years. However, they have now minimized their efforts. The founder of the ride hailing service, Uber usually travels to China however; news regarding his arrival merely surfaces in the region. Moreover, news about the LinkedIn deal with the Chinese venture capitalist entering China also did not garner traction and the event was just celebrated via a blog post.

If the social media giants succeed then other international firms can also get blocked in China. This means that they will get more access to reign over the rapidly evolving industry. This industry will be extremely regulated and its discourse will be under vigilance so that the boat dos not sink. In case anything wrong happens that the Chinese officials will not trust the foreign technologies ever again whatsoever. The best way to sustain in the region is by having a low profile approach.

Ironically, Facebook needs to win one person’s heart and that is Mr. Liu who for four years has managed the control over the China’s extremely censored and state regulated media.

During the meeting, Mr. Liu appreciated the technology prowess of FB however; he still laid emphasis on the importance of the Internet governance and that even via “Chinese characteristics” to a local news media platform. The statement highlights that the company will continue to regulate Chinese media.

Intel Likely To Close Deal With AMD

Due to AMD bright future prospects, Intel is trying to have partnership with AMD.

Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. have been carrying out the discussions in order to consider the licensing of the latter’s GPU patents. After the news of the probable licensing agreement of AMD with Intel hit the surface, the stock of AMD went up by 5%.

Currently, Intel has a cross-licensing arrangement with NVIDIA Corporation – who is AMD’s chief rival. The deal was closed around six years ago and under the arrangement, the chipmaker had won the permission of incorporating NVIDIA’s IP into the GPUs, which Intel installed in its own CPUs. In the exchange of the aforementioned arrangement, NVIDIA would add around $66 million quarterly revenue.

The Santa Clara based chipmaker’s deal with the tech company will be expired next year. The former’s search for other options seems prudent. If Intel could win a deal with AMD, then it will be able to have adequate savings in terms of licensing fees. In the current year, AMD is likely to launch Polaris graphics-processing chip by June. Through the prospective deal with AMD, Intel can boost its graphical technology capacity. In January, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Polaris validated around twice the performance per watt as compared to the GPUs predecessors.

Through Polaris chip, AMD can regain the substantive portion of market share, which it has earlier lost, according to investment firm Nomura research note. This is the reason for the company to look forward to grab the opportunity of capitalizing on AMD’s bright outlooks. During the Christmas season, it is planning to release the Zen CPU.

Analysts at Nomura believe that this initiative of the tech company can help it to win significant chunk of market share in the server market, which otherwise has the dominance of Intel Corporation. The Japanese financial services group, Nomura, projected that AMD’s Zen can be an instant hit in the server market as the consumers, for quite some time now, have been on the watch for Intel’s alternative. It can form an alliance with smaller rival in this regard.

After making announcement of glowing futuristic prospects, for instance, the upcoming strong product launches, AMD stock gained moderate momentum. Last month, the stock went up by 44%. It is also desires to hold the Virtual Reality space strongly. On Monday, the Sunnyvale headquartered firm disclosed that its processors have powered an “overwhelming majority” of home VR system.

The said statement uplifted the stock by 8%. The tech organization has estimated that it has around 83% share of the VR market. If Intel could enter in a licensing agreement with AMD, the American chipmaker can also strengthen its existence in the growing VR space.

Samsung Reveals Gear S2 By De Grisogono

Samsung has managed to create a luxury watch through partnership with De Grisogono, a watch making company.

Samsung is making its wearables as fashionable and trendy as possible. For customers who enjoy bling and like to stay updated with latest tech but with fashion. This recent partnership between the South Korean tech company and the watchmaker, De Grisogono, is going to make it possible. The Galaxy Gear S2 wearable limited edition is going to be made out of gold and other expansive jewel carved into it.

This fashionable bundle of tech will be revealed at the watch event known as Base World 2016. The company cannot evidently stop putting valuable stones to its extravagant devices. The watch is going to be seen in Grisogono stores in summer of this year. This is not the first time Samsung is giving bling to its wearable devices; this time, the Swiss jeweler is helping to achieve this.

The maker of the best smartphones in the world has never hesitated in bringing handy accessories to these phones including the smart watches that track that are sued for tracking activities for health conscious people and erasing the need of taking out the phones for every notifications customer get, but look at their wrist instead. For customer who can afford this fashionable product can go to the Swiss makers store and purchase the watch this summer.

The pricing of this luxury watch has still not been revealed, but this product is not going to be cheap. It will have both brand names on it, Samsung and Grisogono most probably costing from $10,000 to $17,000. When it comes to the specs of the luxury diamond smart watch, they are the same with same rotating tizen and all the other standard specs.

The alliance between the tech giant and the watchmaker is not simply a branding move but a sign that these companies are planning to co-create the partnership. These companies are focusing on fashion with a mixture of functionality. The luxury diamond watch is going to be available in a rose gold color, with 100 white and black diamonds and the signature of Den Grisogono in the bracelet of the watch.

The functions are the same operating on the Exynos 3250 chipset with 4GB of internal storage and 512 MB of RAM. It will have the super AMOLED display, 1.2 inches in its circular size. No evidence has come forward about the shipment of this product and since it is a limited edition product, customer will have to hurry up to get it.

Samsung’s major rival, Apple, recently released a different edition of its smart watch costing $17,000, which managed to get a huge amount of attention when it was launched.

Tesla Vice President Of Global Communications Resigns Within 18 Months Of Service

Ricardo Reyes has submitted the resignation shortly before the highly anticipated prototype of Model 3 was about to be released by the company.

Within the period of mere 18 months, Tesla’s vice president of global communications, Ricardo Reyes, has resigned from his services to the organization. He has taken the bold step at a very crucial time when the luxury electric carmaker is on the verge of selling its highly anticipated new model.

On the recent resignation, Mr. Reyes chose not to comment but one of Tesla’s spokespersons approved the news that he is no longer part of the company. Since November 2014 until the date of his resignation, Mr. Reyes held the offices of the top communications.

For Tesla, the top communications job is pivotal, as it does not rely on the traditional advertising. Unlike its counterparts, the Silicon Valley automobile giant does not spend millions of dollars on advertising. The methodology adopted by the company for the marketing of its prestigious electric vehicles involve the holding of automotive and technology press conference ensuring a substantial amount of media coverage.

The charismatic and visionary Chief Executive Officer of the company, Elon Musk, markets the company’s luxurious cars via highly popular social networking site, Twitter. The step is beneficial for the business as the CEO has around 3.6 million followers.

In its recent 10-K, the automaker has cited that generally it has always been successful in garnering significant media coverage of its vehicles and for itself. The statement said that the organization looks forward to continue with its advertising methodology. It believes that up till now, it has achieved substantial number of sales through advertising via word of mouth and media coverage. The statement contained the company’s opinion that by not going for traditional methods of advertising, it has also endured low marketing costs.

Model 3 is supposedly is less expensive Tesla car. Smaller than the Model S, the new model is intended to be sold at a price of around $35,000 before tax incentives. The entire hopes of the business to emerge as a high-volume manufacturer in the automobile industry rest on Model 3. The highly anticipated car is expected to debut in market in late 2017.

On March 31, for the advertisement and marketing of the company’s affairs, journalists have been invited to an “intimate event” at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, California. In the event, the CEO is scheduled to take the stage for a live presentation broadcasted on the organization’s website.

In 2009, Ricardo Reyes donned the role of vice president of global communications and strategic marketing. It was the time when the organization was planning for its June 2010 IPO. He resigned in 2012 in order to take the realm of brand marketing and communication for Square. He dedicatedly served in the top communications job for Tesla.

Google Might Just Make Autonomous Cars A Reality

The company is striving hard to overcome all obstacle in terms of autonomous cars.

Back in February, Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous car venture had to deal with a major setback when its test car collided with a bus. Astonishingly, almost three weeks after the accident took place, the company has been successful in getting a patent that will enable its self-driven cars to locate school buses in the vicinity.

The time to secure a patent of this nature is quite ideal for the company. However, the company claims that it has no such association with the accident that occurred. It is their initiative to make their cars safer. The search engine giant had been working on the technology for quite some time now. The patent was filed almost two years back and got approved on March 8, 2016. The news surfaced by the newsletter of Future of Transportation. The patent basically references to a multi-layer system that will analyze in the basis of signage, color, size along with the complete structure of the car to gauge if it is a school bus.

Google cares about the safety of children thus this is not the first time when they are working on a project of this nature. Last year, during Halloween, the company enhanced its self-driven prototype vehicles to locate children even when they are attired in rather unfamiliar dressing code. On October 31, 2015 when children were all dressed rejoicing Halloween at Mountain View- the testing platform for the company, the tech giant allowed the families to get hands on experience with the cars to “give the software extra practice at recognizing children in all their unique shapes and sizes.”

As per the company it is harder to predict the behavior of children thus the software is tailored in a manner that ensures extra precautionary measures are taken.

Since the time the accident took place, the autonomous cars had to deal with a lot of criticism regarding its credibility. Many ignore the good traits and record of these cars. The cars have surfaced on the roads for testing and have successfully covered 1.45 million miles in the self-driving mode since the program began in FY09.

It is a great breakthrough for the company since they are the only ones successful in reaching a modified stage in terms of self-driven cars production. The companies rival in this domain such as Apple Inc. and Ford Motors are still quite behind by just managing to be in the planning phase. The industry giant’s like Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and executives belonging to Google have timely mentioned that autonomous cars will hit the roads in the fiscal year of 2020. Thus, there is not much time before we see these self-driven cars being used by the masses.

The technology is rather futuristic and there are several reservations associated to it which makes it under immense scrutiny all the time. However, the company is gradually overcoming all the obstacles that come its way so that they can achieve their goal of transforming the automotive industry in the times to come.