Author Archives: Ron Miller

Microsoft is putting HoloLens to work with new Dynamics 365 applications

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Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality glasses have always been interesting technology, but it’s never been clear how the company would move from novelty device to actual viable business use cases. Today, it made a move toward the latter, announcing a couple of applications designed to put the HoloLens to work in Dynamics 365, giving it a […] Continue reading Microsoft is putting HoloLens to work with new Dynamics 365 applications→

UIpath lands $225M Series C on $3 billion valuation as robotics process automation soars

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UIPath is bringing automation to repetitive processes inside large organizations and it seems to have landed on a huge pain point. Today it announced a massive $225 million Series C on a $3 billion valuation. The round was led by CapitalG and Sequoia Capital. Accel, which invested in the companies A and B rounds also […] Continue reading UIpath lands $225M Series C on $3 billion valuation as robotics process automation soars→

Why the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI deal has cloud companies going nuts

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By now you’ve probably heard of the Defense Department’s massive winner-take-all $10 billion cloud contract dubbed the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (or JEDI for short). Star Wars references aside, this contract is huge, even by government standards.The Pentagon would like a single cloud vendor to build out its enterprise cloud, believing rightly or wrongly that […] Continue reading Why the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI deal has cloud companies going nuts→

Why rumors that Adobe could be in talks to buy Marketo make sense

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Adobe could be shopping for another piece of the digital marketing puzzle, as reports surfaced today that the company might be in talks with Vista Equity Partners to buy Marketo, a company the private equity firm purchased in May 2016 for $1.8 billion in cash. Reuters was first to report the rumor. While the report […] Continue reading Why rumors that Adobe could be in talks to buy Marketo make sense→

Hacera creates directory to make blockchain projects more searchable

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In the 1990s when the web was young, companies like Yahoo, created directories of web pages to help make them more discoverable. Hacera wants to bring that same idea to blockchain, and today it announced the launch of the Hacera Network Registry. CEO Jonathan Levi says that blockchains being established today risk being isolated because people […] Continue reading Hacera creates directory to make blockchain projects more searchable→

Sisense hauls in $80M investment as data analytics business matures

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Sisense, a company that helps customers understand and visualize their data across multiple sources, announced an $80 million Series E investment today led by Insight Venture Partners. They also announced that Zack Urlocker, former COO at Duo Security and Zendesk, has joined the organization’s board of directors. The company has attracted a prestigious list of […] Continue reading Sisense hauls in $80M investment as data analytics business matures→

Twilio’s contact center products just got more analytical with Ytica acquisition

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Twilio, a company best known for supplying a communications APIs for developers has a product called Twilio Flex for building sophisticated customer service applications on top of Twilio’s APIs. Today, it announced it was acquiring Ytica (pronounced Why-tica) to provide an operational and analytical layer on top of the customer service solution. The companies would […] Continue reading Twilio’s contact center products just got more analytical with Ytica acquisition→

Packet hauls in $25M Series B as customized cloud vision takes shape

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In a world where large hyperscale companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google dominate the public cloud, it would seem foolhardy for a startup to try and carve out a space, but Packet has an alternative customized cloud vision, and investors have taken notice. Today, the company announced a $25 million Series B led by Third […] Continue reading Packet hauls in $25M Series B as customized cloud vision takes shape→

Zendesk expands into CRM with Base acquisition

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Zendesk has mostly confined itself to customer service scenarios, but it seems that’s not enough anymore. If you want to truly know the customer behind the interaction, you need a customer system of record to go with the customer service component. To fill that need, Zendesk announced it was acquiring Base, a startup that has […] Continue reading Zendesk expands into CRM with Base acquisition→

New Relic shifts with changing monitoring landscape

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New Relic CEO Lew Cirne was feeling a bit nostalgic last week when he called to discuss the announcements for the company’s FutureStack conference taking place tomorrow in San Francisco. It had been 10 years since he first spoke to TechCrunch about his monitoring tool. A lot has changed in a decade including what his company […] Continue reading New Relic shifts with changing monitoring landscape→