Akamai had “de minimis” financial impact from the two service disruptions in as many months that cost some customers their connectivity (see 2107300039), said CEO Tom Leighton on a Q2 call Tuesday. “We lost, at the peak, about 2% of our traffic for up to one hour,” he said. “We care a lot about reliability at Akamai. It is core to everything we want to do, and we've put a ton of effort into making our solutions be reliable over the last 10-plus years.” Akamai had a “disastrous” outcome in 2004 when “we actually took the entire platform down for about an hour,” said Leighton. “That didn't happen in this case, but we did hurt hundreds of our customers, and we deeply regret that.” In both the recent outages, an update “caused a problem,” he said: “We are taking a fresh look at how we release updates to make sure that something like this won't happen again.”
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
The scarcest commodity during the global chip shortage is “access to good information,” Sony Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki told analysts and reporters in Tokyo Wednesday: “We have been able to control the situation, but going forward, we cannot remain complacent” on supply. In consumer electronics, “we do use a lot of semiconductors in various areas, so some availability of parts and components is a source of concern,” he said. Sony reported selling 2.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles in fiscal Q1 ended June 30, 30% fewer than in Q4 and down 49% from peak shipments of 4.5 million in Q3 when the PS5 was introduced. “We are beginning to see a decline in the stay-at-home demand that has continued since last fiscal year in the market for low-priced, small- and medium-sized products,” the CFO said.
Amid ransomware attacks, the Advanced Television Systems Committee takes security of the 3.0 standards and deployment “very seriously,” said President Madeleine Noland. “We are vigilant” about security, she told us Friday. “It is not an afterthought. It is absolutely one of the most important parts of the standard.” 3.0 security “was built in and considered from the very beginning,” she said. The A/360 document in the suite of 3.0 standards on security and service protection was approved two years ago and was last updated in February. A third A/360 amendment on updated system encryption is in the candidate standard process that runs through Dec. 31. The 3.0 standards say “all the executable code shall be signed” cryptographically with a specified “key structure,” she said. “The receiver is able to look at that signature and determine whether or not the executable came from a bona fide source.” And “all the signaling structures” for audio and video, emergency alerting and other service features “must be signed” by the broadcaster, Noland said. “It would be very difficult for a man-in-the-middle attack to come in and sort of take over.” ATSC’s S36 specialist group on 3.0 security, chaired by Sony Director-Technical Standards Adam Goldberg, “meets on a regular basis, and they always have their ear to the rail,” Noland noted. Broadcasters have been hit by other ransomware attacks. (See our recent report here.)
Amazon threw its weight into Section 301 litigation inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade, alleging in a complaint Monday that the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs are unlawful under the 1974 Trade Act. It said they violate Administrative Procedure Act rules against sloppy rulemakings and are unconstitutional because only Congress, not the executive branch, can levy taxes. Amazon reported 2020 revenue of $386.1 billion and is believed now to be the second largest Section 301 plaintiff behind Walmart, which sued March 8. Walmart reported $559.2 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31. Both companies are the relatively few among the roughly 6,500 importer plaintiffs to challenge the tariffs on constitutional grounds. Crowell & Moring is representing Amazon. Walmart’s attorneys are from Hogan Lovells. Both law firms sit on the 15-member plaintiffs’ steering committee formed in March to help manage the litigation.
Advanced Television Systems Committee meetings in Washington Aug. 25-26 will follow all health protocols (see [Ref:2107300059) and hopefully, the coronavirus situation in the city won't worsen in the coming weeks, President Madeleine Noland told us.
The ATSC NextGen Broadcast Conference “is shaping up to be a robust and exciting event” Aug. 26 at the Reagan Building in Washington, but “we also realize that the news about the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is at the top of most of our minds,” the association emailed members and conference registrants Friday. ATSC's members-only annual meeting precedes the conference on Aug. 25. The District of Columbia requires masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, except when eating, in an order that was to take effect Saturday. “The health and safety of our attendees is a top priority for ATSC and the conference planners,” the group said. “We will continue to monitor the situation while accepting reservations for both in-person and live-streaming attendees.”
Qualcomm continues to be “positively impacted” by the growth in 5G and the “changing OEM landscape, resulting in the expansion of our addressable handset opportunity,” said CEO Cristiano Amon on a fiscal Q3 earnings call Wednesday, his first as chief executive. “We see the shifts in OEM market share create an incredible opportunity for us,” he said: “This quarter, Xiaomi is now the No. 2 OEM.”
Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su is “quite pleased” with progress her company is making to increase supply amid the strong “semiconductor demand environment,” she said on a Q2 call Tuesday. “We've been working on supply for the past couple of quarters,” she said. “We do see some level of constraints, but we are making progress each quarter,” enough so AMD exceeded its revenue guidance for the quarter, she said. Supply is “tight, like you've heard from many other companies, through the end of this year,” but capacity “improves in 2022,” said Su: “We do have confidence that we can continue to grow substantially as we go into the second half of this year and into 2022 with the supply chain.” The stock closed 7.6% higher Wednesday at $97.93.
Teladoc had 3.5 million-plus telehealth visits in Q2, up 28% from a year earlier, the first full quarter of the pandemic, said CEO Jason Gorevic on a call Tuesday. It’s on track to surpass 13.5 million in 2021, he said. “Consumers are turning to our services for a broader array of conditions,” said Gorevic. More than 80% of member visits in Q2 “were related to noninfectious diseases,” compared with 50% in the “pre-pandemic period,” he said. “Demand for our mental health services remains especially robust as consumers and providers recognize the benefits of the virtual modality for mental health care.”
CTA announced T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert as its first CES 2022 keynoter, a year after picking Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg as the first keynoter for virtual CES 2021. Sievert “will discuss 5G innovations for consumers, businesses and thought leadership,” and how 5G advancements will enable people “to work, communicate and learn more efficiently,” said CTA Tuesday. A spokesperson confirmed Sievert will be in-person on the Las Vegas keynote stage.