Archive for August 18, 2020

Apple Just Shot Itself In The Foot By Cutting Epic Games Off From Apple’s Developer Tools

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 18, 2020 by itnerd

This battle between Epic Games and Apple has been interesting to watch. However, yesterday’s move by Apple to cut Epic off from using Apple’s developer tools is a major mistake by Apple. One that will bite Apple in the rear end.

Here’s why.

By targeting Epic Game’s access to Apple’s developers tools, Apple by extension is targeting the maintenance of the Epic Unreal Engine that is used many third party game makers to allow them to create the visuals behind a lot of really popular games. All these third party developers have nothing to do with this fight. Yet they’ve now been sucked into this fight. Because if Epic Games cannot make updates to the Unreal Engine, third party game makers can’t create or update their games. And that will create the perception that Apple has way too much power. And all this latest move by Apple does is to take the argument that Apple has way too much power, wrap it up in pretty wrapping paper, put a bow on it, and presents it Congress for them to slap Apple with an anti-trust investigation.

I’m not sure if this is what Apple intended. But the die has been cast. And Apple is going to need to think long and hard about whether this is really such a good idea, and if they want to change course to deal with Epic Games so that all these third party game aren’t collateral damage.

Over to you Apple.

Keyfactor Ranks Fastest Growing Digital Key & Certificate Automation Provider On Inc. 5000

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 18, 2020 by itnerd

Keyfactor, the leader in crypto-agility solutions, ranked as fastest growing digital key and certificate automation provider on the 2020 Inc. Magazine Inc. 5000, an annual ranking of America’s fastest growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within America’s privately held business sector.

Noting Keyfactor’s momentum, in the past year the company:

  • Welcomed its 500th customer to the Keyfactor platform, a five-fold increase since 2018
  • Secured more than 500 million digital certificates under management
  • Announced partnerships and integrations with innovators such as HashiCorp, ServiceNow, F5, CyberArk, PrimeKey and Thales
  • Earned recognition as a Sample Vendor for Machine Identity Management in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Identity and Access Management Technologies, 2020 (Authored by Ant Allan, Published 16 July 2020)

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. 

Complete results of the 2020 Inc. 5000 can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000.

Oracle Said To Be After TikTok

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 18, 2020 by itnerd

There’s a new player who has joined Microsoft in an attempt to buy TikTok. That player is Oracle according to Business Insider:

Enterprise software giant Oracle has entered the race to acquire some of TikTok’s operations from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, the Financial Times reported Monday.

Oracle has been involved in preliminary discussions with several current US-based TikTok investors, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, to purchase the app’s US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand operations, according to the report.

Oracle and TikTok both declined to comment and ByteDance could not immediately be reached.

What’s interesting about the Oracle bid is that Larry Ellison who founded Oracle is known to be a Trump supporter and current CEO Safra Catz was on Trump’s transition team. That in my mind may make the Oracle bid the preferred bid for the Trump administration. But we’ll have to see if Microsoft has anything to say about that.