Last week saw quarterly financial announcements from both Intel (Jan 26) and AMD (Feb 1) that help us see where things are going, at least in the short term. And Chinese regulators have finally approved the AMD deal to purchase Xilinx. We discuss these stories and more on this week’s Rundown.
HPE Wins Against Former Autonomy CEO | 1:34
Hewlett Packard has won a civil fraud judgement in the UK against the former CEO of Autonomy, Mike Lynch. HP acquired the company back in 2011 to the tune of $11 billion but was forced to write off $8.8 billion due to the value of the company being inflated. Lynch was accused of using accounting tricks and misstating revenues to make the company look much more valuable that it really was. HP filed the suit in 2015 and it had been working through the court system in the UK. In 2019, the US filed an extradition notice for Lynch to face the same charges in the US. The ruling came hours before the UK Home Secretary approved the extradition. Lynch will now be sent to the US to stand trial for similar fraud charges.
Read more: HP Wins Huge Fraud Case Against Autonomy’s Mike Lynch
Lazarus Uses Windows Update to Distribute Malware | 6:08
North Korean hacker group Lazarus has learned a new trick. What better way to keep your malware up-to-date than Windows Update? The analysis of a spearphishing campaign last month against defense contractor Lockheed Martin showed that a new variant of malware was leveraging the Windows Update client to sideload an infected DLL file. This is similar to the REvil campaign last summer that used Windows Defender to spread malware among targets.
Read more: Lazarus hackers use Windows Update to deploy malware
Citrix Goes Private in Big Deal | 9:25
Industry stalwart Citrix is going private. The remote desktop pioneer is being acquired by Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital for $16.5 billion. The move will combine Citrix with another part of the Vista portfolio, Tibco. The plan is to continue to do business under the Citrix name but provide “complete, secure, and optimized infrastructure for application delivery”.
Read more: Citrix acquired by private equity, will be paired with Tibco in $16.5bn deal
Blackberry Juices Patent Troll for $600 Million | 12:37
Just when you thought Blackberry was dead for real, the shambling ghost of patents past have risen from the grave to start a whole new horror story. Blackberry has sold their non-core patent assets to Catapult IP Innovations for $600 million. What does Catapult do? It’s a special purpose vehicle that was formed to buy the Blackberry patents. Catapult could be considered a “non-practicing entity”, which is an industry term for a company that doesn’t make money from selling things but instead through defending their patent portfolio. Apple has been sued by Blackberry in the past and industry experts are cautious that this sale could represent a new round of lawsuits.
Read more: BlackBerry sells mobile patents to patent troll for $600M
China Officially Approves AMD/Xilinx Deal | 16:25
Chinese regulators have finally approved the AMD deal to purchase Xilinx. The deal has been on hold as China has worked to approve the proposed merger, valued at nearly $35 billion in stock transactions. The industry had been wary at the approach because China had sunk a previous deal between Qualcomm and NXP, as we covered here on the Rundown, as well as being seen to be negative on the NVIDIA/ARM deal which was torpedoed last month by the UK. China was accused of slow-walking their approval and the delay also means that AMD must refile paperwork to complete the deal before the end of Q1 2022. Stephen, you’ve been a big proponent of this deal. Does this mean that we’re finally going to see AMD pick up the FPGA giant?
Read more: China finally green lights AMD–Xilinx merger
Xilinx Presents at Tech Field Day 24
Intel and AMD Release Earnings | 28:45
Although we don’t focus on financials, it’s hard to deny the power of Intel and AMD to IT practitioners. Last week saw quarterly financial announcements from both Intel (Jan 26) and AMD (Feb 1) that help us see where things are going, at least in the short term. Although Intel’s performance was strong, they warned of a dip in expected sales and higher investment expenses in R&D. AMD was much sunnier, beating expectations again and guiding sales growth for the year. What does this tell us about server and cloud in 2022?
Read more: Intel Reports Q4 2021 and FY 2021 Earnings: Ending 2021 On A High Note
AMD Stock Jumps on Earnings Beat and Strong Outlook
Cloud Field Day is February 16-18
Mobile World Congress is February 28-March 3
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