Petrogenesis Means New Life for Xerox and Lexmark
December 24, 2024
Written by a dinobaby, not an over-achieving, unexplainable AI system.
I read about Xerox’s bold move to purchase Lexmark. I live in Kentucky, and some remember the days when IBM sought to create a brand called “Lexmark.” One of its Kentucky-proud units was located in Lexington, Kentucky. Unfortunately printers performed in market competitions about as well as most of the horses bred in Kentucky to win big money in races. Lexmark stumbled, but was not put down. Wikipedia has an amusing summary of the trajectory of Lexmark, originally part of IBM. That’s when the fun began.
The process of fossilmorphism begins. Will the progeny become King of the Printing Jungle? Does this young velociraptor find the snorting beasts amusing or the source of a consulting snack? Thanks, You.com. Good enough.
Xerox, on the other hand, is another Rochester, New York, business case study. (The other is Kodak, of digital camera fame.) Again Wikipedia has a good basic description without the color of the company’s most interesting missteps. (Did you know that one of Xerox’s most successful sales professionals was a fisherman. That’s is. Boat to big bucks without any of the Fancy Dan stuff in college.) Oh, Xerox made printers, and I was a dinobaby who worked on a printer that ingested scanned images or typed pages at one end and spit out collated paper copies at the other. Yep, a printer.
What has caused this dinobaby to stumble down memory lane? I read “Xerox to Acquire Lexmark.” Yep, Xerox a printer outfit has acquired what was once an IBM printer outfit. I call this type of business tactic
Fossilmorphism
A coinage! It meaning is that two fossil type companies fuse and create a new company. The idea is that the deal has “synergy” and the flows of cash from surging sales with lead to dinomorphism. This term suggests that companies only a dinobaby like me can love change and explode beyond their decades of organization and re-organization, might-have-been thinking, and the constraints of tromping around when this dinobaby was an agile velociraptor.
The deal raises an existential question: Are two dinosaurs able to mate? Will the offspring be a Darwinian win or fail? Every horse owner knows their foal is a winner. (Horse veterinarians are the big winners, according to Kentucky lore.)
Stephen E Arnold, December 24, 2024
Microsoft Grouses and Barks, Then Regrouses and Rebarks about the Google
December 23, 2024
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. No smart software was used.
I spotted a reference to Windows Central, a very supportive yet “independent” explainer of Microsoft. That write up bounced around and a version ended up in Analytics India, an online publication from a country familiar to the Big Dogs at Microsoft and Google.
A stern mother tells her child to knock off the constant replays of a single dorky tune like “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake.” Thanks, Grok. Good enough.
The Analytics India story is titled “Google Makes More Money on Windows Than Microsoft, says Satya Nadella.” Let’s look at a couple of passages from the write up and then reflect on the “grousing” both giants in the money making department are sharing with anyone, maybe everyone.
Here’s the first snippet:
“Google makes more money on Windows than all of Microsoft,” Nadella said, discussing the company’s strategy to reclaim lost market share in the browser space.
I love that “lost market share”. Did Microsoft have market share in the browser space. Like Windows Phone, the Microsoft search engine in its many incarnations was not a click magnet. I heard when I did a teeny tiny thing for a Microsoft “specialist” outfit that Softies were running queries on Google and then reverse engineering what to index and what knobs to turn in order to replicate what Google’s massively wonderful method produced. True or false? Hey, I only know what I was told. Whatever Microsoft did in search failed. (How about that Fast Search & Transfer technology which powered alltheweb.com when it existed?)
I circled this statement as well:
Looking ahead, Nadella expressed confidence in Microsoft’s efforts to regain browser market share and promote its AI tools. “We get to relitigate,” he said, pointing to the opportunity to win back market share. “This is the best news for Microsoft shareholders—that we lost so badly that we can now go contest it and win back some share,” he said.
Ah, ha. “Lost so badly.” What an interesting word “relitigate.” Huh? And the grouse replay “win back market share.” What market share? Despite the ubiquity of the outstandingly wonderful Windows operating system and its baked in browser and button fest for Bing, exactly what is the market share.
Google is chugging along with about 90 percent Web search market share. Microsoft is nipping at Google’s heels with a robust four percent. Yandex is about two percent. The more likely scenario is that Yandex could under its new ownership knock Microsoft out of second place. Google isn’t going anywhere fast because the company is wrapped around finding information like Christiano Ronaldo holding one of his trophies.
What’s interesting about the Analytics India write up is what is not included in the article. For example:
- The cultural similarities of the two Big Dogs. The competition has the impact of a couple of high schoolers arguing in the cafeteria
- The lack of critical commentary about the glittering generalities the Microsoft Big Dog barks and rebarks like an annoyed French bulldog
- A total lack of interest in the fact that both companies are monopolies and that neither exists to benefit anyone other than those who hold shares in the respective companies. As long as there is money, search market share is nothing more than a money stream.
Will smart software improve the situation?
No. But the grouse and re-grouse approach to business tactics will be a very versatile rhetorical argument.
Stephen E Arnold, December 23, 2024
IBM Courts Insurance Companies: Interesting Move from the Watson Folks
December 20, 2024
This blog post flowed from the sluggish and infertile mind of a real live dinobaby. If there is art, smart software of some type was probably involved.
This smart software and insurance appears to be one of the more active plays for 2025. One insurance outfit has found itself in a bit of a management challenge: Executive succession, PR, social media vibes, and big time coverage in Drudge.
IBM has charted a course for insurance, according to “Is There a Winning AI Strategy for Insurers? IBM Says Yes.” The write up reports:
Insurers that use generative artificial intelligence have an advantage over their competitors, according to Mark McLaughlin, IBM global insurance director.
So what’s the “leverage”? These are three checkpoints. These are building customized solutions. I assume this means training and tuning the AI methods to allow the insurance company to hit its goals on a more consistent basis. The “goal” for some insurers is to keep their clients cash. Payout, particular in uncertain times, can put stress on cash flow and executive bonuses.
A modern insurance company worker. The machine looks very smart but not exactly thrilled. Thanks, MagicStudio. Good enough and you actually produced an image unlike Microsoft Copilot.
Another point to pursue is the idea of doing AI everywhere in the insurance organization. Presumably the approach is a layer of smart software on top of the Microsoft smart software. The idea, I assume, is that multiple layers of AI will deliver a tiramisu type sugar high for the smart organization. I wonder if multiple AIs increase costs, but that fiscal issue is not addressed in the write up.
The final point is that multiple models have to be used. The idea is that each business function may require a different AI model. Does the use of multiple models add to support and optimization costs? The write up is silent on this issue.
The guts of the write up are quite interesting. Here’s one example:
That intense competition — and not direct customer demand — is what McLaughlin believes is driving such strong pressure for insurers to invest in AI.
I think this means that the insurance industry is behaving like sheep. These creatures follow and shove without much thought about where the wolf den of costs and customer rebellion lurk.
The fix is articulated in the write as have three components, almost like the script for a YouTube “short” how-to video. These “strategies” are:
- Build trust. Here’s an interesting factoid from the write up: “IBM’s study found only 29% of insurance clients are comfortable with virtual AI agents providing service. An even lower 26% trust the reliability and accuracy of advice provided by an AI agent. “The trust scores in the insurance industry are down 25% since pre-COVID.”
- Dump IT. Those folks have to deal with technical debt. But who will implement AI? My guess is IBM.
- Use multiple models. This is a theme of the write up. More is better at least for some of those involved in an AI project. Are the customers cheering? Nope, I don’t think so. Here’s what the write up says about multiple models: “IBM’s Watson AI has different platforms such as watsonx.ai, watsonx.data and watsonx.governance to meet different specific needs.” Do you know what each allegedly does? I don’t either.
Net net: Watson is back with close cousins in gang.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2024
A Monopolist CEO Loses His Cool: It Is Our AI, Gosh Darn It!
December 17, 2024
This blog post flowed from the sluggish and infertile mind of a real live dinobaby. If there is art, smart software of some type was probably involved.
“With 4 Words, Google’s CEO Just Fired the Company’s Biggest Shot Yet at Microsoft Over AI” suggests that Sundar Pichai is not able to smarm his way out of an AI pickle. In January 2023, Satya Nadella, the boss of Microsoft, announced that Microsoft was going to put AI on, in, and around its products and services. Google immediately floundered with a Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Show in Paris and then rolled out a Google AI service telling people to glue cheese on pizza.
Magic Studio created a good enough image of an angry executive thinking about how to put one of his principal competitors behind a giant digital eight ball.
Now 2025 is within shouting distance. Google continues to lag in the AI excitement race. The company may have oodles of cash, thousands of technical wizards, and a highly sophisticated approach to marketing, branding, and explaining itself. But is it working.
According to the cited article from Inc. Magazine’s online service:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had said that “Google should have been the default winner in the world of big tech’s AI race.”
I like the “should have been.” I had a high school English teacher try to explain to me as an indifferent 14-year-old that the conditional perfect tense suggests a different choice would have avoided a disaster. Her examples involved a young person who decided to become an advertising executive and not a plumber. I think Ms. Dalton said something along the lines “Tom would have been happier and made more money if he had fixed leaks for a living.” I pegged the grammatical expression as belonging to the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” branch of rationalizing failure.
Inc. Magazine recounts an interview during which the interlocuter set up this exchange with the Big Dog of Google, Sundar Pichai, the chief writer for the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Show:
Interviewer: “You guys were the originals when it comes to AI.” Where [do] you think you are in the journey relative to these other players?”
Sundar, the Googler: I would love to see “a side-by-side comparison of Microsoft’s models and our models any day, any time. Microsoft is using someone else’s models.
Yep, Microsoft inked a deal with the really stable, fiscally responsible outfit OpenAI and a number of other companies including one in France. Imagine that. France.
Inc. Magazine states:
Google’s biggest problem isn’t that it can’t build competitive models; it’s that it hasn’t figured out how to build compelling products that won’t destroy its existing search business. Microsoft doesn’t have that problem. Sure, Bing exists, but it’s not a significant enough business to matter, and Microsoft is happy to replace it with whatever its generative experience might look like for search.
My hunch is that Google will not be advertising on Inc.’s site. Inc. might have to do some extra special search engine optimization too. Why? Inc.’s article repeats itself in case Sundar of comedy act fame did not get the message. Inc. states again:
Google hasn’t figured out the product part. It hasn’t figured out how to turn its Gemini AI into a product at the same scale as search without killing its real business. Until it does, it doesn’t matter whether the competition uses someone else’s models.
With the EU competition boss thinking about chopping up the Google, Inc. Magazine and Mr. Nadella may struggle to get Sundar’s attention. It is tough to do comedy when tragedy is a snappy quip away.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2024
The Starlink Angle: Yacht, Contraband, and Global Satellite Connectivity
December 16, 2024
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. No smart software was used.
I have followed the ups and downs of Starlink satellite Internet connectivity in the Russian special operation. I have not paid much attention to more routine criminal use of the Starlink technology. Before I direct your attention to a write up about this Elon Musk enterprise, I want to mention that this use case for satellites caught my attention with Equatorial Communications’ innovations in 1979. Kudos to that outfit!
“Police Demands Starlink to Reveal Buyer of Device Found in $4.2 Billion Drug Bust” has a snappy subtitle:
Smugglers were caught with 13,227 pounds of meth
Hmmm. That works out to 6,000 kilograms or 6.6 short tons of meth worth an estimated $4 billion on the open market. And it is the government of India chasing the case. (Starlink is not yet licensed for operation in that country.)
The write up states:
officials have sent Starlink a police notice asking for details about the purchaser of one of its Starlink Mini internet devices that was found on the boat. It asks for the buyer’s name and payment method, registration details, and where the device was used during the smugglers’ time in international waters. The notice also asks for the mobile number and email registered to the Starlink account.
The write up points out:
Starlink has spent years trying to secure licenses to operate in India. It appeared to have been successful last month when the country’s telecom minister said Starlink was in the process of procuring clearances. The company has not yet secured these licenses, so it might be more willing than usual to help the authorities in this instance.
Starlink is interesting because it is a commercial enterprise operating in a free wheeling manner. Starlink’s response is not known as of December 12, 2024.
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2024
Amazon: Black FridAI for Smart Software Arrives
December 9, 2024
This write up was created by an actual 80-year-old dinobaby. If there is art, assume that smart software was involved. Just a tip.
Five years ago, give or take a year, my team and I were giving talks about Amazon. Our topics touched on Amazon’s blockchain patents, particularly some interesting cross blockchain filings, and Amazon’s idea for “off the shelf” smart software. At the time, we compared the blockchain patents to examining where data resided across different public ledgers. We also showed pictures of Lego blocks. The idea was that a customer of Amazon Web Service could select a data package, a model, and some other Amazon technologies and create amazing AWS-infused online confections.
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
Well, as it turned out the ideas were interesting, but Amazon just did not have the crate engine stuffed in its digital flea market to make the ideas go fast. The fix has been Amazon’s injections of cash and leadership attention into Anthropic and a sweeping concept of partnering with other AI outfits. (Hopefully one of these ideas will make Amazon’s Alexa into more than a kitchen timer. Well, we’ll see.)
I read “First Impressions of the New Amazon Nova LLMs (Via a New LLM-Bedrock Plugin).” I am going to skip the Amazon jargon and focus on one key point in the rah rah write up:
This is a nicely presented pricing table. You can work through the numbers and figure out how much Amazon will “save” some AI-crazed customer. I want to point out that Amazon is bringing price cutting to the world of smart software. Every day will be a Black FridAI for smart software.
That’s right. Amazon is cutting prices for AI, and that is going to set the stage for a type of competitive joust most of the existing AI players were not expecting to confront. Sure, there are “free” open source models, but you have to run them somewhere. Amazon wants to be that “where”.
If Amazon pulls off this price cutting tactic, some customers will give the system a test drive. Amazon offers a wide range of ways to put one’s toes in the smart software swimming pool. There are training classes; there will be presentations at assorted Amazon events; and there will be a slick way to make Amazon’s smart software marketing make money. Not too many outfits can boost advertising prices and Prime membership fees as part of the smart software campaign.
If one looks at Amazon’s game plan over the last quarter century, the consequences are easy to spot: No real competition for digital books or for semi affluent demographics desire to have Amazon trucks arrive multiple times a day. There is essentially no quality or honesty controls on some of the “partners” in the Amazon ecosystem. And, I personally received a pair of large red women’s underpants instead of an AMD Ryzen CPU. I never got the CPU, but Amazon did not allow me to return the unused thong. Charming.
Now it is possible that this cluster of retail tactics will be coming to smart software. Am I correct, or am I just reading into the play book which has made Amazon a fave among so many vendors of so many darned products?
Worth watching because price matters.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2024
Smart Software Is Coming for You. Yes, You!
December 9, 2024
This write up was created by an actual 80-year-old dinobaby. If there is art, assume that smart software was involved. Just a tip.
“Those smart software companies are not going to be able to create a bot to do what I do.” — A CPA who is awash with clients and money.
Now that is a practical, me–me-me idea. However, the estimable Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD, a delightful acronym) has data suggesting a slightly different point of view: Robots will replace workers who believe themselves unreplaceable. (The same idea is often held by head coaches of sports teams losing games.)
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
The report is titled in best organizational group think: Job Creation and Local Economic Development 2024; The Geography of Generative AI.
I noted this statement in the beefy document, presumably written by real, live humanoids and not a ChatGPT type system:
In fact, the finance and insurance industry is the tightest industry in the United States, with 2.5 times more vacancies per filled position than the regional average (1.6 times in the European Union).
I think this means that financial institutions will be eager to implement smart software to become “workers.” If that works, the confident CPA quoted at the beginning of this blog post is going to get a pink slip.
The OECD report believes that AI will have a broad impact. The most interesting assertion / finding in the report is that one-fifth of the tasks a worker handles can be handled by smart software. This figure is interesting because smart software hallucinates and is carrying the hopes and dreams of many venture outfits and forward leaning wizards on its digital shoulders.
And what’s a bureaucratic report without an almost incomprehensible chart like this one from page 145 of the report?
Look closely and you will see that sewing machine operators are more likely to retain jobs than insurance clerks.
Like many government reports, the document focuses on the benefits of smart software. These include (cue the theme from Star Wars, please) more efficient operations, employees who do more work and theoretically less looking for side gigs, and creating ways for an organization to get work done without old-school humans.
Several observations:
- Let’s assume smart software is almost good enough, errors and all. The report makes it clear that it will be grabbed and used for a plethora of reasons. The main one is money. This is an economic development framework for the research.
- The future is difficult to predict. After scanning the document, I was thinking that a couple of college interns and an account to You.com would be able to generate a reasonable facsimile of this report.
- Agents can gather survey data. One hopes this use case takes hold in some quasi government entities. I won’t trot out my frequently stated concerns about “survey” centric reports.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2024
Google and 2025: AI Scurrying and Lawsuits. Lots of Lawsuits
December 6, 2024
This is the work of a dinobaby. Smart software helps me with art, but the actual writing? Just me and my keyboard.
I think there are 193 nations which are members of the UN. Two entities which one can count but are what one might call specialty equipment organizations: The Holy See aka Vatican City and the State of Palestine. The other 193 are “recognized,” mostly pay their UN dues, and have legal systems of varying quality and diligence.
I read “Google Earns Fresh Competition Scrutiny from Two Nations on a Single Day.” The write said:
In India – the most populous nation on Earth – the Competition Commission ordered [PDF] a probe after a developer called WinZo – which promotes itself with the chance to “Play Mobile Games & Win Cash” – complained that Google Play won’t host games that offer real money as prizes, only allowing sideloading onto Android devices.
Then it added:
Advertising is the reason for the other Google probe announced Thursday, by the Competition Bureau of Canada – the world’s second-largest country by area. The Bureau announced its investigations found Google’s ads biz “abused its dominant position through conduct intended to ensure that it would maintain and entrench its market power” and “engaged in conduct that reduces the competitiveness of rival ad tech tools and the likelihood of new entrants in the market.” The Bureau thinks the situation can be addressed if Google sells two of its ads tools – but the filing in which the identity of those two products will be revealed is yet to appear on the site of the Competition Tribunal.
Whether Google is good or evil is, in my opinion, irrelevant. With the US, the EU, Canada, and India chasing Google for its alleged misbehavior, other nations are going to pay attention.
Does that mean that another 100 or more nations will launch their own investigations and initiate legal action related to the lovable Google’s approach to business? In practical terms what does this mean?
- Google will be hiring lawyers and retaining firms. This is definitely good for legal eagles.
- Google will win some, delay some, and lose some cases. The losses, however, will result in consequences. Some of these will require Google to write checks for penalties. These can add up.
- Conflicting decisions are likely to result in delays. Those delays means that Google will be more Googley. The number of ads in YouTube will increase. The mysterious revenue payments will become more quirky. Commissions on various user-customer-Google touch points will increase.
Net net: We have a good example of what a failure to regulate high technology companies for a couple of decades creates. Kicking the can down the road has done what exactly?
Stephen E Arnold, December 6, 2024
Googlers Face Another Ka-Ching Moment in the United Kingdom
December 5, 2024
This write up is from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If there is art, smart software has been involved. Dinobabies have many skills, but Gen Z art is not one of them.
Mr. Harold Carlin, my high school history teacher, made us learn about the phrase “The sun never sets on the British empire.” It has, and Mr. Carlin like many old-school teachers forced our class to read about protectionism, subjugation of people who did not enjoy beef Wellington, or assorted monopolies.
Two intelligent entities discuss how to resolve legal problems. Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
Now Google may want to think about the phrase, “The sun never sets on Google legal matters related to its alleged behavior in the datasphere.”
“Google Must Face £7B UK Class Action over Search Engine Dominance” reported:
The complaint centers around Google shutting out competition for mobile search, resulting in higher prices for advertisers, which were allegedly passed on to consumers. According to consumer rights campaigner Nikki Stopford, who is bringing the claim on behalf of UK consumers, Android device makers that wanted access to Google’s Play Store had to accept its search service. The ad slinger also paid Apple billions to have Google Search as the default for the Safari browser in iOS.
The write up noted:
According to Stopford [a UK official], Google used its position to up prices paid by advertisers, resulting in higher costs to consumers. “What we’re trying to achieve with this claim is essentially compensate consumers,” she said.
Google has moved some of its smart software activities to the UK. One would think that with Google’s cash resources, its attorneys, and its smart software — mere government officials would have zero chance of winning this now repetitive allegation that dear Google has behaved in an untoward way.
If I were a government litigator, I would just drop the suit, Jack Smith style.
Will the sun set on these allegations against the “do no evil” outfit?
Nope, not as long as the opportunity for a payout exists. Google may have been too successful in its decades long rampage through traditional business practices. The good news is that Google has an almost limitless supply of money. The bad news is that countries have an almost limitless supply of regulators. But Google has smart software. Remember the film “The Terminator”? Winner: Google.
Stephen E Arnold, December 5, 2024
China Seeks to Curb Algorithmic Influence and Manipulation
December 5, 2024
Someone is finally taking decisive action against unhealthy recommendation algorithms, AI-driven price optimization, and exploitative gig-work systems. That someone is China. ”China Sets Deadline for Big Tech to Clear Algorithm Issues, Close ‘Echo Chambers’,” reports the South China Morning Post. Ah, the efficiency of a repressive regime. Writer Hayley Wong informs us:
‘Tech operators in China have been given a deadline to rectify issues with recommendation algorithms, as authorities move to revise cybersecurity regulations in place since 2021. A three-month campaign to address ‘typical issues with algorithms’ on online platforms was launched on Sunday, according to a notice from the Communist Party’s commission for cyberspace affairs, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and other relevant departments. The campaign, which will last until February 14, marks the latest effort to curb the influence of Big Tech companies in shaping online views and opinions through algorithms – the technology behind the recommendation functions of most apps and websites. System providers should avoid recommendation algorithms that create ‘echo chambers’ and induce addiction, allow manipulation of trending items, or exploit gig workers’ rights, the notice said.
They should also crack down on unfair pricing and discounts targeting different demographics, ensure ‘healthy content’ for elderly and children, and impose a robust ‘algorithm review mechanism and data security management system’.”
Tech firms operating within China are also ordered to conduct internal investigations and improve algorithms’ security capabilities by the end of the year. What happens if firms fail? Reeducation? A visit to the death van? Or an opportunity to herd sheep in a really nice area near Xian? The brief write-up does not specify.
We think there may be a footnote to the new policy; for instance, “Use algos to advance our policies.”
Cynthia Murrell, December 5, 2024
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