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Misery loves company – all of its competitors were also negatively impacted

One of the US's largest car dealerships says the IT outage caused by CDK Global's June ransomware attack cost it approximately $30 million.…

Dell Technologies is reportedly laying off thousands of staffers from its sales team.

The layoffs are part of the hardware vendor’s reorganization efforts targeted at increasing its revenue from AI-related sales by putting in a new sales unit focused on AI products, according to a Bloomberg report.

“We are getting leaner,” sales executives Bill Scannell and John Byrne were quoted as saying in an internal memo to Dell employees.

 “We’re streamlining layers of management and reprioritizing where we invest,” the executives explained, adding that the company would be changing its approach towards data center sales.

In an emailed statement to Computerworld, Dell said, “Through a reorganization of our go-to-market teams and an ongoing series of actions, we are becoming a leaner company. We are combining teams and prioritizing where we invest across the company. We continually evolve our business so we’re set up to deliver the best innovation, value and service to our customers and partners.”

In March of this year, the company revealed in a filing that it was continuing to execute cost management measures, such as workforce reductions, limiting external hiring, and employee reorganizations, as it tried to navigate issues related to the ongoing macroeconomic environment.

The layoffs in March resulted in a reduction of the company’s overall headcount. After their completion, the employee count stood at approximately 120,000, declining from the 133,000 recorded in February 2023.

A repeat of last year

During the first week of February last year, the company laid off 6,650 workers, about 5% of its total workforce, due to declining PC sales and infrastructure requirements.

The company had already tried to cut costs by pausing hiring and limiting travel before taking the decision to downsize its workforce, Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke shared in a blog post at the time.

In addition to the downsizing, Clarke said the company would introduce a slew of changes that include changing the structure of its sales team and integrating the services division of its consumer and infrastructure businesses.

“We have further opportunity to drive efficiency through department reorganizations, which has resulted in a reduction of team members across the globe,” a company spokesperson said in an email after the 2023 layoffs.

Tech industry layoffs continue

Dell Technologies is not the only company that has had to lay off staffers this year, especially in its sales team, to maintain business operations.

In January, Google, in an extension to the restructuring strategy it planned last year to maintain investor confidence and adjust to market conditions, laid off a few hundred staffers from its advertising sales team and started relying on machine learning to automate advertising.

After two years of massive layoffs at IT companies, 2024 was expected to be a year of recovery for the industry. While there are early signs of that, with global IT spending expected to increase 8% to cross $5.1 trillion in 2024 according to Gartner, jobs continue to be impacted in the sector.

So far in 2024, 387 tech companies globally have laid 126,032 employees, according to job reduction tracker website layoffs.fyi.

Those companies include the likes of Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, SAP, and Docusign.

INTERPOL said it devised a "global stop-payment mechanism" that helped facilitate the largest-ever recovery of funds defrauded in a business email compromise (BEC) scam.  The development comes after an unnamed commodity firm based in Singapore fell victim to a BEC scam in mid-July 2024. It refers to a type of cybercrime where a malicious actor poses as a trusted figure and uses email to

INTERPOL said it devised a "global stop-payment mechanism" that helped facilitate the largest-ever recovery of funds defrauded in a business email compromise (BEC) scam.  The development comes after an unnamed commodity firm based in Singapore fell victim to a BEC scam in mid-July 2024. It refers to a type of cybercrime where a malicious actor poses as a trusted figure and uses email to Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Google has released a new batch of security fixes that close 46 vulnerabilities in Android; the most serious flaw is found in the kernel and has the designation CVE-2024-36971, according to Bleeping Computer.

The vulnerability has reportedly been actively exploited by hackers for some time, which makes it especially important to install the security fixes as soon as possible.

To get more information about the vulnerabilities that have been patched, users can check out the latest edition of the Android Security Bulletin .

Apple is on the cusp of becoming the world’s leading ecosystem for personal productivity AI, with the software features introduced at WWDC soon to be accompanied by the world’s most computationally powerful (yet efficient) Macs, iPads, and iPhones. 

This fully integrated, platform-wide approach spanning mobile, PC, and even cloud is not currently matched by anyone else in the business. That Apple’s platforms already have hundreds of millions of users means its AI offer should achieve market traction incredibly quickly, even as it works in partnership with AI firms to deliver the things its own intelligence doesn’t do.

Apple’s AI-augmented fab gadgets

Thanks to its powerful processor, the M4 iPad Pro has turned Apple’s tablet sales around, according to IDC. And while Apple’s fastest M4 processor has only been available in the iPad Pro, that still gives developers a perfectly viable machine on which to test software built to exploit Apple’s APIs for AI. No Macs run these chips, yet, but that’s about to change. 

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (who I imagine has bugging devices across Apple Park, judging from the frequency of his leaks) tells us Apple will put M4 Apple Silicon processors inside the MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini this year — with the rest of its Macs set to gain these chips in 2025.

There is little doubt that the upgrade to an M4 Mac will be hugely tempting for those of us running M1 models.

When the going gets tough, Apple goes pro

Given the steady improvements in computational power and battery life in each iteration of Apple’s chips, the upgrade may be as significant as the original transition from Intel to Apple Silicon was. This also means the world’s most personal and private AI will run natively on the world’s fastest low-energy computers. 

That’s by design, of course, and was more or less hinted at by Apple CEO Tim Cook who said recently, “We will continue to make significant investments in this technology and dedicate ourselves to the innovation that will unlock its full potential.”

Gurman’s news follows hotly on speculation Apple will actually introduce Apple Intelligence features a little later than had originally been expected. Again, that makes plenty of sense if the intention is to introduce Apple Intelligence alongside a host of new — and powerful — devices capable of running it.

Reading between the lines, the significance is that by the end of 2024, Apple will offer a full-fledged AI-augmented ecosystem in every plausible productivity category: smartphone, computer, and tablet. Some elements of Apple Intelligence will eventually make it to other devices as well.

When Black Friday comes around again, Apple will be offering a range of devices that also have the best user satisfaction rankings in the industry. 

If there’s a one more component to this, it has to be that Apple’s unique approach to privacy means that when it comes to AI, it is already forging a path toward the on-device, edge-based, cloud secure tools enterprise users need.

And it’s doing so at precisely the same time as the recent Crowdstrike disaster showed the inherent weakness of the dominant PC platform. For Apple, the Mac, and the company’s other products, the only way is up.

Please follow me on Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

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Windows SmartScreen and Smart App Control both have weaknesses of which to be wary

Elastic Security Labs has lifted the lid on a slew of methods available to attackers who want to run malicious apps without triggering Windows' security warnings, including one in use for six years.…

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That one weird thing in Outlook that gives phishers and scammers an in to an inbox

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Zoom has added a document creation tool that uses generative AI (genAI) to help create and manage information related to meetings. 

First announced last year, Zoom Docs is now generally available within Workplace, Zoom’s an all-in-one collaboration app, the company said in a blog post Monday.

Docs is pitched as a word processor that can be used create and share information related to meetings, though it supports different content types, such as wikis, whiteboards, and project tracking tables. 

Docs can be pulled up and edited directly from within a Zoom video meeting, with real-time co-editing for up to 100 colleagues; it also includes collaboration features such as @mentions and comments within documents. 

A key part of Zoom Docs is the integration with Zoom’s AI Companion. The genAI  assistant can be used to create text from scratch, such as drafting an agenda prior to a meeting.  

After a video meeting has taken place, the AI Companion can then turn the conversation transcript into a summary document for sharing and editing with coworkers. Available templates allow documents to be crafted in a certain format, such as a basic summary of key points and next steps, or a “brainstorm” document that highlights ideas proposed during the meeting. 

Zoom Docs is a genAI-focused tool that’s now included in Zoom Workplace to bolster collaboration and productivity.

Zoom

As with other AI assistants, Zoom’s AI Companion can also be used to revise and enhance text; check for grammatical and spelling errors; or change tone and style.  

Zoom Docs is available at no extra cost to paid Zoom Workplace customers. Those on the free version can create up to 10 shared documents and unlimited personal documents, but won’t have access to Zoom’s AI Companion.