The writing’s on the wall. One by one, major trade shows have fallen victim to the coronavirus. Computex Taipei has until now showed no sign of being scratched.
Category: Enterprise
NVIDIA grants free Parabricks access to COVID-19 researchers
Researchers working on sequencing the novel coronavirus and the genomes of people afflicted with COVID-19 now have a helping hand — NVIDIA is offering a free 90-day licence to Parabricks, which uses GPUs to accelerate by as much as 50 times the analysis of sequence data.
Technologies that matter at such a time as this
By Edward Lim
COVID-19 is hijacking life. From Facebook News Feed to printed newspapers, it’s everywhere. And it just seems to get worse with countries taking measures to prevent spread. Telecommuting has now become necessary for many.
Micosoft shutters all stores globally
Microsoft has announced the closure of all its stores across the global with immediate effect due to COVID-19 health concern.
NVIDIA holds off GTC announcements

Huang: This is a time to focus on our family, our friends, our community.NVIDIA will not be making any product or news announcements next week, according to a NVIDIA blogpost.
ViewSonic offers free distance learning tool to schools
Education has been affected as some cities and countries have closed schools and universities to contain the spread of the coronavirus. One way to keep students engaged is through online learning. ViewSonic has stepped in by offering its myViewBoard distance learning tool free to K12, colleges and universities during this period.
Hold the predictions
By Edward Lim
Research firms have played a vital role in providing the industry with vital information on market trends and technologies. Reports based on past quarters contain valuable analysis that helps enterprises and consumers make better sense of the numbers.
Glue introduces VR-first collaboration platform
With the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses are letting staff work remotely as part of the social distancing efforts. Collaboration platforms have become increasingly popular with many turning to the likes of Webex and Zoom. Finland-based Glue Collaboration has taken this a step further with the introduction of the next generation of its VR-first collaboration platform.
Zendesk Singapore team spearheads chat product development
Zendesk has added to its chat product new features that were developed by its Singapore team. The Singapore office, which is Zendesk’s Asia Pacific Commercial Headquarters, has led the end-to-end development of Zendesk Chat since April 2014.
GTC goes online, Google IO and GDC scratched
It’s been a month of event cancellations due to COVID-19. NVIDIA has pulled the plug on the annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose and taking the show online. Just how much of the event will be held online is yet to be known but the definite go ahead is the keynote address by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.
HP strikes back, touts value creation
HP is not taking the Xerox takeover bid lying down. Backed by strong Q1 results, it is striking back, even teasing a reverse takeover of Xerox instead.
2 Singapore IT events shelved, Computex Taipei to go on
COVID-19 is leaving a trail of cancelled events in its footpath. Two IT events scheduled this week in Singapore have been canned.
Xerox ups HP offer
Xerox is pressing ahead with its HP takeover by launching a tender offer of US$24 per share for all outstanding common stock — that’s US$2 more than its original proposal — on March 2, 2020.
IBM selects new Chief
IBM has chosen Arvind Krishna to be its new Chief Executive Officer from April 6. The current Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software will take over the reign from Virginia Rometty, who will remain as Executive Chairman of the Board and serve until her retirement at the end of the year.
ForgeRock names David Hope as SVP of APAC and Japan
Digital identity solution provider ForgeRock has appointed David Hope as Senior Vice President for Asia-Pacific and Japan.
Microsoft plots hijack of Google search engine for Office 365 users
Netscape used to be the king of browsers in the 1990s until Microsoft came along and bundled Internet Explorer from Windows 95. This swayed many PC users to the Microsoft browser and marked the demise of Netscape.
Intel regains top spot as semiconductor market dips in 2019
Despite a 0.7 percent drop in revenue, Intel climbed to the top of the global semiconductor market in 2019, according to Gartner.
Fuji Xerox to become Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp
Fuji Xerox is changing its corporate name to Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp on April 1, 2021. All Fuji Xerox affiliates and sales companies in and outside Japan will also change their names respectively on that date but their new names will be announced later.
Snow Software snaps up Embotics
Sweden-headquartered Snow Software has acquired Embotics will enable CIOs to understand and manage their full technology stack from software and hardware to infrastructure and applications, regardless of environment.
Panasonic exits semiconductor business
Panasonic has totally moved out of the semiconductor business by selling its last plant to Taiwan firm Nuvoton Technology.
AI Innovation Day to focus on IVA
From enhancing public safety to improving customer experience, intelligent video analytics (IVA) is shaping the way videos are used for more informed decision-making. The technology is the focus of AI Innovation Day, which will be held at Kent Ridge Guild House in Singapore on December 4.
HP rebuffs Xerox again
Just days after Xerox threatened to make its takeover bid hostile by approaching HP Inc’s shareholders, HP Inc has issued a strongly worded statement, “We will not let aggressive tactics or hostile gestures distract us from our responsibility to pursue the most value-creating path.”
TerraMaster unleashes high capacity D8 Thunderbolt 3 storage drive for professionals
The D8 Thunderbolt 3 is compact and easy to carry around.
TerraMaster has unveiled the D8 Thunderbolt 3 high capacity storage drive for professionals working in mission critical productions.
HP: No go to Xerox bid

HP board of directors halts Xerox bid.HP Inc has rejected a proposed acquisition by Xerox. In a letter sent to John Visentin, Vice Chairman and CEO of Xerox, HP board of directors unanimously concluded that the bid “significantly undervalues HP and is not in the best interests of HP shareholders”.
NVIDIA hold hands with Arm and tech leaders on GPU-accelerated servers

NVIDIA’s new reference design platform enables companies to build GPU-accelerated Arm servers for running a broad range of applications, from hyperscale-cloud to exascale supercomputing and beyond.NVIDIA has teamed up with Arm and a host of tech leaders to introduce a reference design platform for enterprises to quickly build GPU-accelerated Arm-based servers.
Lenovo retains pole position in India PC market in Q3
India’s PC market shipped 3.1 million units, rising 15.8 percent year-on-year in Q3, according to IDC. The key growth driver was the second phase of shipment to the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) under its ongoing initiative of free distribution of laptops in the state. The coming end of life of Windows 7 in early 2020 also contributed to the growth as corporate and enterprise users accelerated their upgrades to Windows 10.
Fintech startup ABC Technology makes Singapore its international HQ
Singapore’s vibrant fintech community has scored another first with Beijing-headquartered strtup ABC Technology making Singapore its international base.
HP mulls over Xerox offer
At one corner is a company that made cyclostying machines (above) history and whose name became a verb for photocopying. At the other corner is an IT giant that spewed dots per inch and made printing easy at home and in the office. From speculations this week, it looks like the two may become one.
Singapore hotels pilot face recognition check in

Grand Park City Hall is one of three hotels taking part in the pilot.Three Singapore hotels — Ascott Orchard, Grand Park City Hall and Swissotel The Stamford — are piloting a system that uses face recognition technology to expedite the check-in process.
NVIDIA unveils Jetson Xavier NX for AI supercomputing at the edge
NVIDIA has introduced the Jetson Xavier NX, which it dubbed as “the world’s smallest, most powerful AI supercomputer for robotic and embedded computing devices at the edge”.
IBM rolls out first financial services-ready public cloud
IBM has developed the world’s first financial services-ready public cloud with Bank of America (BoA) as its first collaborator. Under the arrangement, the bank will host key applications and workloads to support the requirements and privacy and safety expectations of its 66 million banking customers.
NTU scientists develop 1000x smaller quantum chip

The tiny chip uses quantum communication algorithms for better security than existing industry standards.
Computer and machine vision market to hit US$26b in 2024
Expanding range of applications and more powerful hardware are expected to drive growth in the computer vision and machine vision market in the next five years, according to BCC Research.
Snow Software enhances Risk Monitor to strengthen cybersecurity and compliance programs
Snow Software has enhanced its Risk Monitor product to help organisations strengthen cybersecurity and compliance programs with insight across their technology landscape.
Infineon inks 3 MOUs to accelerate innovations in Singapore

SM Tharman: Keep pushing the frontiers of innovationInventing the future together was the theme of this year’s OktoberTech Asia Pacific conference in Singapore organised by Infineon Technologies. And the semiconductor giant certainly walks its talk. At the opening of the event, it inked three memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to help accelerate innovations in Singapore.
Infineon Co-Innovation Space takes flight as startups depart with commercially-ready solutions
A year after its launch, the Infineon Co-Innovation Space has borne fruit with two of its inaugural batch of startups coming up with their commercially-ready solutions built with Infineon’s microelectronics.
Simon IoT launches management platform for IoT data market
Vast amounts of data are vital for Internet of Things (IoT). At Mobile World Congress Los Angeles, Simon IoT has launched an innovative IoT management platform and pricing model that offers “fairly priced, reliable IoT data” to companies ranging from start-ups to large enterprises.
NVIDIA announces EGX edge supercomputing platform for AI, IoT and 5G
NVIDIA has announced the NVIDIA EGX Edge Supercomputing Platform which lets organisations deliver next-generation AI, IoT and 5G-based services at scale and with low latency. Along with annoucing this at his keynote address at the opening of Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles, NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang declared that we have entered a new era, where billions of always-on IoT sensors will be connected by 5G and processed by AI.
Singapore Polytechnic first to offer AI diploma course
It’s a case of preparing them early as Singapore Polytechnic (SP) became the first polytechnic in the country to offer a full-time diploma in applied artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics from April next year.
SAP opens data centre in Singapore in e-commerce push
SAP has expanded its presence in Asia-Pacific (APAC) with the opening of a new data centre in Singapore to support SAP Commerce Cloud deployment.
Slack releases new app for Salesforce
Slack has strengthened its partnership with Salesforce with the release of a new Salesforce for Slack app that provides a significant update to Sales Cloud integration and integration with Service Cloud.
TerraMaster releases entry-level NAS for SOHO and home users
TerraMaster has unveiled the F2-210 , an entry level network attached storage (NAS) solution for home and small office home office users.
Qualcomm announces IP e-learning platform for India startups and MSMEs
Help is at hand for India startups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to get quickly from mind to market, following the launch of the L2Pro India IP e-learning Platform.
Zendesk launches Gather and Sunshine Conversations
Zendesk has launched Gather, which lets companies provide trusted and transparent support to customers through online community forums. They can engage with each other and company experts to offer guidance and insight beyond what a single customer support agent might be able to handle.
AWS avails NVIDIA T4-powered Amazon EC2 G4 instances
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced general availability of G4 instances, a new NVIDIA T4 GPU-powered Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance designed to help accelerate machine learning inference and graphics-intensive workloads.
India server market dips in Q2
The server market in India dropped one percent year on year, driven primarily by a dip in x86 server sales.
IBM keeps betting on mainframes with z15 launch
The mainframe computer is not quite going the way of the dinosaur. Even in today’s age of Intel-based servers, there’s still room and relevance for the mainframe. This explains why IBM has launched the z15, its 15th generation of the mainframe.
Datacenters.com launches Colocation Marketplace
Datacenters.com has launched Colocation Marketplace, claimed to be the “first platform to offer transparent co-location pricing from numerous providers to all visitors in an e-commerce platform”.
VMware makes double acquisition
Ahead of the VMWorld in San Francisco next week, VMware has announced two major acquisitions — Pivotal for US$2.7 billion and Carbon Black for US$1.9 billion.
Microsoft buys jClarity to improve Azure
Microsoft has acquired AdoptOpenJDK project contributor jClarity to drive increased performance for Java workloads on Azure.
Salesforce bags ClickSoftware
Just two months after it’s acquisition of data visualisation firm Tableau, Salesforce has gone shopping again. This time, it has bagged ClickSoftware for US$1.35 billion.
Qualcomm and Tencent Games ink MOU

Qualcomm and Tencent Games have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a strategic cooperation on digital entertainment. This includes joint efforts to optimise future projects such as Qualcomm Snapdragon-based mobile gaming devices, game content and performance optimisations, Snapdragon Elite Gaming enhancements, cloud gaming, AR/VR, 5G gaming use case developments and additional relevant technologies.
APAC GPUaaS market poised for 40 CAGR by 2025

The global GPU as a Service (GPUaaS) market is expected to jump tenfold from around US$700 million in 2018 to US$7 billion by 2025, according to Global Market Insights. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is expected to lead this charge with a compounded annual growth rate of more than 40 percent between 2019 and 2025.
IBM seals Red Hat deal
IBM has acquired Red Hat for US$34 billion, one of the biggest technology deals of all time — bettered only by Dell’s purchase of EMC for US$65 billion and Avago’s buyout of Broadcom for US$37 billion, both in 2015.
Private equity firm acquires Corel
Hands up if you’ve not heard of Corel before. Does the company sound vaguely familiar? Founded in the 1980s, this is a company that is well past its glory days. Corel used to be a well-known brand in the PC era with products such as Corel Draw and WinZip.
The future of database is in the cloud

Unsurprisingly, a Gartner report is predicting that three quarters of all databases will reside in the cloud by 2022. Only five percent of migration will remain on premises.
Malaysian teams top first Infineon-LG Hackathon

Malaysia scored big at the first Infineon LG </> Make Hackathon on breakthrough Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in Singapore on June 17.
NVIDIA empowers Arm with AI and HPC software
Giving customers choices and enabling innovation in the high performance computing (HPC) space are the key reasons why NVIDIA is providing support for Arm CPUs.
Infineon to acquire Cypress for €9b
Semiconductor giant Infineon Technologies will be acquiring embedded solutions provider Cypress for €9.0 billion.
Taiwan’s fastest supercomputer goes online

Taiwan’s new and fastest supercomputer, Taiwania 2 is also the world’s 20th fastest and 10th most energy efficient. Made in Taiwan, it will be used by the academic and research communities at the Taiwan Computing Cloud.
