Industry news

The telecoms industry hope that the launch of the new iPhone 12 will create a shift in demand for 5G.

Despite other brands such as Samsung having launched 5G goods in 2019 there has been a slow adoption. With Apple's launch of the new iPhone there’s hope that Apple's marketing power and customers will create more demand for 5G. 

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IBM scrape through Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue, supported by higher demand for its’ cloud services.

Whilst their revenue for cloud services rose by 16% IBM’s total revenue fell by 2.6% in the reported quarter.

This supports their move to focus the business on Cloud and AI services.

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Japan are set to join forces with the US and Europe to try and regulate the big four tech companies according to the head of the antitrust watchdog.

Tokyo are also interested in a merger or business tie-up with Fitbit if the deal is large enough. 

This comes after the EU antitrust regulators reviewed a $2.1bn deal by Google to buy Fitbit in order to compete with Apple and Samsung for market share. 

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Canadian security firm GardaWorld has bid £3bn to takeover their rival UK firm, G4S. If the bid is successful, they could earn £312m in fees according to a report they have recently released.

Bankers that have helped to provide financial advice and broking services could also earn £100m in fees if a deal is signed. A further £180m is set to be paid to banks providing financial agreements used to pay for the deal. 

The G4S has also recently received interest from Allied Universal, one of the largest security firms in the US.

G4S are trying to keep their shareholders happy after rejecting GardaWorlds previous bid. However, many are open to a takeover at a higher price. 

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Private outsourcing firms Serco and Sitel providing the NHS Test and Trace scheme in the UK doesn’t have a penalty feature for under-performance in the contract.

After recent issues with testing services being under provided, many people are questioning why the contract never featured an under-performance penalty to avoid a situation like this.

Many perceive the penalty law as unenforceable under the English law. This is based on the 2015 Supreme Court Judgement where the penalty law is perceived as "ancient."

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Nokia has signed a five year contract with Google in order to improve efficiency with the use of Cloud.

The deal will help Nokia expand its capacity for collaboration and innovation whilst cutting costs and escalating its global digital transformation efforts.

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US tech giants such as Facebook and Google are being threatened by the EU attempts to break them up after France and the Netherlands joinforces to appeal for the bloc’s competition authorities to take measures to restrict the companies market power. 

By restricting their market power it will help smaller rivals to grow.

This push to implement restrictions on tech giants comes as Brussels has introduced new regulations to share data with smaller tech firms and for data to be used for narrower purposes.

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US State Department has proposed that the US government should add China’s Ant Group to a trade blacklist before the firm goes public.

Ant is an affiliate of the Alibaba Group. They are China’s dominant mobile payment company, offering loads, payments, insurance and asset management services via a mobile app.

This comes after the US has implemented restrictions on Huawei Technology. By blacklisting Ant they are aiming to send a  message to deter US investors from making public offers to Ant.

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Twilio, cloud communications platform has announced that it's acquiring Segment, customer data platform for $3.2 billion.

Cloud companies have experienced a surge in demand since the start of the pandemic as more people are working from home.

The firms will work together to build the customer engagement platform for the future.

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Amazon is investing in autonomous delivery and a new team of software development engineers in Cambridge.

Amazon “scout vehicles” are the size of a small fridge that run on the pavements at a walking pace. They are currently being trialed in the US. The team of development engineers will help the scout vehicles autonomously navigate around areas safely.

Many supermarket chains in the UK have considered using technology robots like this to deliver food. For example, the Co-op delivers food to consumers via Starship Technology Robots in Milton Keynes.

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