Author Archives: Ron Miller

Blue Prism looks to partners to expand robotic process automation with AI

Posted on by

Blue Prism helped coin the term robotic process automation (RPA) when the company was founded back in 2001 to help companies understand the notion of automating mundane business processes. Today, it’s releasing updates to that platform including an updated marketplace for exchanging connectors to extend the main product, and in some cases, adding a layer of […] Continue reading Blue Prism looks to partners to expand robotic process automation with AI→

Open-source leader Confluent raises $125m on $2.5b valuation

Posted on by

Confluent, the commercial company built on top of the open source Apache Kafka project, announced a $125 million Series D round this morning on an enormous $2.5 billion valuation. The round was led by existing investor Sequoia Capital with participation from Index Ventures and Benchmark, who also participated in previous rounds. Today’s investment brings the […] Continue reading Open-source leader Confluent raises $125m on $2.5b valuation→

Two years after being acquired by Cisco, AppDynamics keeps expanding monitoring vision

Posted on by

Two years ago this week, AppDynamics was about to IPO. Then Cisco swooped in with a big fat check for $3.7 billion and plans changed quickly. Today, as part of Cisco, the company announced it was expanding its monitoring vision across the business with a number of enhancements to its product suite. AppDynamics CEO David […] Continue reading Two years after being acquired by Cisco, AppDynamics keeps expanding monitoring vision→

Linux Foundation launches Hyperledger Grid to provide framework for supply chain projects

Posted on by

The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project has a singular focus on the blockchain, but this morning it announced a framework for building supply chain projects where it didn’t want blockchain stealing the show. In fact, the foundation is careful to point out that this project is not specifically about the blockchain, so much as providing the building […] Continue reading Linux Foundation launches Hyperledger Grid to provide framework for supply chain projects→

Citizens Reserve is building a supply chain platform on the blockchain

Posted on by

Citizens Reserve, a Bay Area startup, has a broad goal of digitizing the supply chain. Last fall, the company launched the Alpha version of Suku, a Supply Chain as a Service platform built on the blockchain. Today, it announced a partnership with Smartrac, an RFID tag manufacturer, based in Amsterdam, as a key identity piece for […] Continue reading Citizens Reserve is building a supply chain platform on the blockchain→

Salesforce is building new tower in Dublin and adding hundreds of new jobs

Posted on by

Salesforce put the finishing touches on a tower in San Francisco last year. In October, it announced Salesforce Tower in Atlanta and today it was Dublin’s turn. Everyone gets a tower. Salesforce first opened an office in Dublin back in 2001, and has expanded to 1400 employees today. Today’s announcement represents a significant commitment to expand even […] Continue reading Salesforce is building new tower in Dublin and adding hundreds of new jobs→

Alation announces $50M Series C investment as data catalog biz takes off

Posted on by

Alation, a startup that helps crawl a company’s databases in order to build a data search catalogue, announced a $50 million Series C investment today. The round was led by Sapphire Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. Existing investors Costanoa Ventures, DCVC (Data Collective), Harmony Partners and Icon Ventures also participated. Today’s investment brings the total raised to […] Continue reading Alation announces $50M Series C investment as data catalog biz takes off→

Infor lands $1.5 billion investment ahead of possible IPO

Posted on by

Infor, a NYC-based enterprise software company, announced a massive $1.5 billion investment today that could be the precursor to an IPO down the road. One analyst is estimating that the valuation could be at least $60 billion. The investment is being led by Koch Industries’ investment arm, Koch Equity Development, and Golden Gate Capital. Today’s […] Continue reading Infor lands $1.5 billion investment ahead of possible IPO→

Box hires former SAP exec as chief information security officer

Posted on by

Box announced today that it has hired Lakshmi Hanspal to be the company’s new chief information security officer (CISO). She boasts 20 years of security experience, including holding executive security roles at SAP Ariba and Bank of America. She also spent time in a senior role at PayPal. In a blog post announcing the hire, […] Continue reading Box hires former SAP exec as chief information security officer→

Microsoft continues to build government security credentials ahead of JEDI decision

Posted on by

While the DoD is in the process of reviewing the $10 billion JEDI cloud contract RFPs (assuming the work continues during the government shutdown), Microsoft continues to build up its federal government security bona fides, regardless. Today the company announced it has achieved the highest level of federal government clearance for the Outlook mobile app, […] Continue reading Microsoft continues to build government security credentials ahead of JEDI decision→