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How an Israeli startup is geared up to take on big enterprise software players

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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How an Israeli startup is geared up to take on big enterprise software players
  • BlackSwan is set to disrupt the market and make it easier for enterprises to adopt different AI-based technologies to create their own applications.
  • Startup launches world’s first cloud-based OS for enterprises based on AI .
  • An enterprise can create their applications in just five months compared to the legacy way of a couple of years.
  • They are looking to open an office in UAE and hope to benefit from the UAE-Israel normalisation agreement.
  • Aim is to become a top-five option by 2027 for any enterprise application.

Tel Aviv-based start-up – BlackSwan Technologies – is set to disrupt the enterprise software market and make it easier for enterprises, big and small, to adopt different AI-based technologies to create their own applications.

The Paas/SaaS platform came into the limelight when they raised $28 million pre-Seed round recently but the company is active from 2015. It became commercially viable in September 2019.

Speaking to TechChannel News, Michael Ouliel, CEO of BlackSwan Technologies, also a former Oracle executive and Israeli intelligence officer, said that what BlackSwan is going to do to the data is exactly what the cloud has done to IT.

Michael Ouliel, CEO of BlackSwan Technologies.

“We were in complete stealth mode still December last year. We gradually went into the market and secured customers one by one. We have eight big customers. What we build is a system called Element which is predominantly a cloud OS for enterprises based on AI.

“We have a patent to start with and we are going to open the platform by the end of the year to allow startups to execute their ideas on Element,” he said.

What is Element?

Element is a big data, cognitive computing, AI, a contextual analytics system that covers the entire data life cycle.

It is composed of a host of capabilities addressing data acquisition and fusion through analysis, insight discovery and predictions, which are pre-built and pre-integrated.

The capabilities can be combined to perform a virtually unlimited range of tasks that address customers’ most critical business challenges.

Monetising the data

Ouliel said that companies buy software to solve a specific problem but this software is catered to multiple customers and to solve multiple tasks.

“How long will it take for a bank to build a new compliance system or for an insurance company to build an underwriting application, six years or seven years and at what cost.  With BlackSwan, it can be done in just five months and costs about 30 per cent of what a traditional player charges,” he said.

Instead of going for a long, time consuming, complex process of consulting and integration, and taking a couple of years to execute, he said that clients can execute their ideas in five days in a very low code environment with BlackSwan and it can give clients what they require in just five months. 

“We are looking at five pillars of AI – machine learning, natural language processing, deep learning, neural network and data operation facilities. Every one of them will have a different version of how to look into the data and how to monetise the data,” he said.

When considering the legacy players such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle or SAP, he said that they have AI as a layer on top but they don’t deal with the “data challenge”.

They are playing on the application level and not on the data level, he said and added that they [legacy players] need to organise the data, cleanse the data and use multiple sources to achieve the target.

“It will take a very long time and a very high cost. With Element, you don’t have to massage your data (for an enterprise, it takes three years) and you can add entities, schema inside the system and the system is going to adopt you rather than you adapt to the system,” he said.

In essence, he said that enterprises can build a variety of applications on top of Element to cater to various industries in the market.

Digital university

“The benefit is coming in multiple ways – speed from ideation to production is about five months, everything in the white box can be controlled by the use of the system and to the code level, schemaless, cloud-agnostic and microservice (bringing your legacy into the system in a seamless way),” he said.

Companies can integrate Element into the apps they already have and, at the same time, he said that BlackSwan has built multiple apps for banking, insurance, pharmaceutical and finance sectors and the company plans to build two apps every year.

On top of that, BlackSwan has also built a digital university to help a company build its own applications step by step and own the asset they build.

Ouliel said that they are looking to raise more money in the first half of next year to grow the product and compete with the likes of Salesforce, IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc. 

“We have just started and there is still a long way for us to grow but in terms of technology, the sky is the limit. We aim to become a top-five option by 2027 for any enterprise application,” he said.

On the UAE-Israel normalisation agreement, he said: “I think there might an opportunity for us to be a potential vendor of high value to the UAE and its ecosystem to adopt AI.”

Opening an office in the UAE is definitely on the cards; he said and added that they are actively looking into it in the last couple of weeks.

97m new jobs may emerge due to automation in next five years

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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97m new jobs may emerge due to automation in next five years
  • The World Economic Forum Report reveals that 85m jobs could be displaced by robots.
  • Companies estimate that around 40% of workers will require reskilling of six months or less
  • 94% of business leaders expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a sharp uptake from 65% in 2018.

Dubai: About 85 million jobs could be displaced over the next five years by robots by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines, a World Economic Forum (WEF) survey revealed.

According to “The Future of Jobs Report 2020” by the Geneva-based body, 97 million new jobs may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.

The tasks where humans are expected to retain their comparative advantage include managing, advising, decision-making, reasoning, communicating and interacting.

Saadia Zahidi, Member of the Managing Board at WEF, said that the adoption of cloud computing, big data and e-commerce remain high priorities for business leaders, following a trend established in previous years.

However, she said that there has also been a significant rise in interest for encryption, nonhumanoid robots and artificial intelligence.

Comparing the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 on individuals with lower education levels on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, the impact today is far more significant and more likely to deepen existing inequalities.

Technology integration

Surveys of nearly 300 global companies found four out of five business executives were accelerating plans to digitise work and deploy new technologies, undoing employment gains made since the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

The survey showed that 43 per cent of businesses indicated that they are set to reduce their workforce due to technology integration while 41 per cent plan to expand their use of contractors for task-specialised work, and 34 per cent plan to expand their workforce due to technology integration.

 By 2025, the time spent on current tasks at work by humans and machines will be equal.

“A significant share of companies also expects to make changes to locations, their value chains, and the size of their workforce due to factors beyond technology in the next five years,” Zahidi said.

Employers expect that by 2025, increasingly redundant roles will decline from being 15.4 per cent of the workforce to 9 per cent (6.4 per cent decline) and that emerging professions will grow from 7.8 per cent to 13.5 per cent (5.7 per cent growth) of the total employee base of company respondents.

The top skills and skill groups which employers see as rising in prominence in the lead up to 2025 include groups such as critical thinking and analysis as well as problem-solving, and skills in self-management such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility.

On average, companies estimate that around 40 per cent of workers will require reskilling of six months or less and 94 per cent of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a sharp uptake from 65 per cent in 2018.

Reskilling and upskilling

The survey showed that 84 per cent of employers are set to rapidly digitalise working processes, including a significant expansion of remote work—with the potential to move 44 per cent of their workforce to operate remotely.

To address concerns about productivity and well-being, about one-third of all employers expect to also take steps to create a sense of community, connection and belonging among employees through digital tools, and to tackle the well-being challenges posed by the shift to remote work.

For those workers set to remain in their roles, the share of core skills that will change in the next five years is 40 per cent, and 50 per cent of all employees will need reskilling.

An average of 66 per cent of employers surveyed expects to get a return on investment in upskilling and reskilling within one year.

However, this time horizon risks being too long for many employers in the context of the current economic shock, and nearly 17 per cent remain uncertain on having any return on their investment. On average, employers expect to offer reskilling and upskilling to just over 70 per cent of their employees by 2025.

The report said that companies hope to internally redeploy nearly 50 per cent of workers displaced by technological automation and augmentation, as opposed to making wider use of layoffs and automation-based labour savings as a core workforce strategy.

Public sector needs to play a key role

Currently, only 21 per cent of businesses report being able to make use of public funds to support their employees through reskilling and upskilling.

The public sector will need to create incentives for investments in the markets and jobs of tomorrow; provide stronger safety nets for displaced workers amid job transitions, and to decisively tackle long-delayed improvements to education and training systems.

Additionally, it will be important for governments to consider the longer-term labour market implications of maintaining, withdrawing or partly continuing the strong Covid-19 crisis support they are providing to support wages and maintain jobs in most advanced economies.

Among the business leaders surveyed, just over 80 per cent report that they are accelerating the automation of their work processes and expanding their use of remote work.

A significant 50 per cent also indicate that they are set to accelerate the automation of jobs in their companies.

In addition, more than one-quarter of employers expect to temporarily reduce their workforce, and one in five expect to permanently do so.

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SK Hynix to become second largest with $9b purchase of Intel’s NAND Flash business

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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SK Hynix to become second largest with $9b purchase of Intel’s NAND Flash business
  • South Korean maker is projected to secure more than 20% market share, behind Samsung.
  • The industry is consolidating fast as Nvidia and AMD revealed its acquisition plans.
  • Intel CEO aims to divest non-core businesses.
  • Deal going to elevate SK Hynix’s competitiveness in enterprise SSD market.

Dubai: South Korean flash memory chipmaker SK Hynix’s acquisition of Intel’s NAND Flash business and Dalian-based Fab 68 for $9 billion is set to propel it to become second largest globally, behind Samsung.

The deal is expected to be closed in March 2025.

However, the acquisition pertains only to Intel’s relevant 3D NAND Flash technologies and capacities and does not include its 3D-XPoint memory technology, which has recently received much attention in the market.

The semiconductor industry is rapidly consolidating as Nvidia said it would acquire UK-based chip designer Arm for $16 billion and AMD is in talks to buy Xilinx for more than $30 billion.

The $9 billion deal is the biggest acquisition to date for the Korean maker after its $3.7 billion investment in Japanese rival Kioxia in 2017.

“This transaction will allow us to further prioritise our investments in differentiated technology,” Intel CEO Bob Swan said in a statement.

Swan has told investors he plans to divest non-core businesses. The company earlier sold its 5G modem business to Apple.

Competition set to intensify

Research firm TrendForce said that the acquisition of Intel’s 3D NAND Flash capacity will massively elevate SK Hynix’s competitiveness in the enterprise SSD market.

“SK Hynix is projected to secure more than 20 per cent of NAND Flash market share after it acquires Intel’s production capacity, in turn surpassing second-place Kioxia and ranking SK Hynix right behind market leader Samsung,” it said.

According to data compiled by TrendForce, Samsung is the leader in the NAND flash market with a 31.4 per cent share, followed by Kioxia with 17.2 per cent SK Hynix at 11.7 per cent and Intel with 11.5 per cent, in terms of revenue, in the NAND Flash market in the second quarter, placing the two companies in fourth and sixth places, respectively.

In terms of product competitiveness, SK Hynix has an advantage in the mobile market, including eMCP and eMMC products, accounting for more than 60 per cent of SK Hynix’s total NAND Flash revenue in 2019.

On the other hand, Intel has been performing superbly in the enterprise SSD market.

Not only is Intel on par with Samsung in enterprise SSD, but it has also captured more than 50 per cent of the Chinese market.

Enterprise SSD yields the highest profitability among the entire range of the company’s NAND Flash end-products.

In terms of production capacity, all of SK Hynix’s current NAND Flash wafer inputs are located in South Korea, whereas Intel’s NAND Flash capacity is entirely located in Dalian, China.

Among all NAND Flash suppliers, Intel is the most committed to the promotion of QLC architecture adoption, and QLC SSD is expected to occupy more than 30 per cent of its NAND Flash bit output by the end of this year.

Half a million jobs at risk as Covid-19 is reshaping service robots industry

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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Half a million jobs at risk as Covid-19 is reshaping service robots industry
  • With social distancing in place and limited staff in the office, decreased dependency on the human workforce is vital to businesses.
  • Top five repetitive positions to be replaced by robots are drivers, cleaners, waiters, receptionist and order takers, Experthubglobal says.
  • Businesses are utilising emerging technologies to improve process efficiencies, transform business operations and enhance customer experience.

Dubai: Service robots have been increasingly sharing our workplaces and this is gaining momentum due to Covid-19 as part of social distancing.

These service robots perform specific tasks that assist humans outside of industrial automation applications, such as customer service, cleaning, temperature check, etc.

Many hospitals, schools and airports across the globe have installed disinfection robots since the outbreak of the pandemic.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, out of the almost one million robots expected to be sold for enterprise use in 2020, more than just over half of them will be professional service robots.

“Covid-19 has given an unexpected boost to automation to help reduce contact between humans and make the workplaces safer,” Jaya Bhatia, CEO, Advisor, and Founder of Experthubglobal.com, distributor for Sanbot and Mitra humanoid robots in the UAE, Middle East and Canada, told TechChannel News.

She said that the Android robots can do 16 odd jobs such as receptionist, cashier, HR executive, waiter, happiness ambassador and take orders, to name a few, very efficiently.

Currently, she said that over half a million people are using Sandbot globally but in the UAE, it is still in hundreds.

“In the next three years, half a million repetitive or boring jobs will be replaced by robots and humans will have to promote themselves to more intelligent and calculative jobs such as decision making, troubleshooting and problem-solving where they cannot be replaced by robots,” she said.

Repetitive tasks such as printing offline, greeting a visitor or offering tea or coffee, checking of temperature can be handled by robots and they are well efficient in doing that, she said.

A recent report by McKinsey & Co found that jobs most at risk from the pandemic were also those likely to be automated in the next few years such as food services, customer service and sales and building occupations.

Boosting efficiency

In the last 10 years, Bhatia said that half a million jobs have been replaced by robots such as call centre, replaced by chatbots, and email services.

She expects that the top five repetitive positions to be replaced by robots are drivers, cleaners, waiters, receptionist and order takers.

“In the HR space, 35-40 per cent will be automated while 60 per cent of the businesses will be automated,” she said.

Gartner predicts that by 2025, at least two of the top 10 global retailers will establish robot resource organisations to manage non-human workers.

Bhatia said that the robots they are bringing to the market are functional robots that can do a specific job with limited AI.

Right now, with social distancing in place and limited staff in the office, she said that decreased dependency on a human workforce is vital to businesses.

“It is a necessary and a desire at the moment to run the office smoothly and to be safe. Even before Covid, there was a demand but it has accelerated during Covid. Businesses are utilising emerging technologies, including robotics, to improve process efficiencies, transform business operations and enhance customer experience,” she said.

Championship for developers

According to MarketsandMarkets, the service robotics market is projected to grow from $37 billion in 2020 to $102.5 billion by 2025.

Experthubglobal has sold more than 500 robots in the region in the last quarter.

The price of a robot starts from $4,000 and can go up to $75,000.

“The life of a robot is about three years. The companies offer one year warranty and two years of maintenance. Having said that, it can be used for more than that but companies come out with a newer version of hardware and software,” Bhatia said.

To give a boost to the developers, Experthubglobal is launching the Robotics Developers Championship in the UAE.

Bhatia said that developers will be briefed on the development protocols, and given test projects to choose from to submit their projects, for analysis. Winner will be acknowledged, with “Master Sanbot Developer”, “Innovative Sanbot Developer” and “Champion Sanbot Developer”.

 “The challenge is to look at identifying some key transformative entries that will take robotics to the next level. The championship is free. The idea is to create more developers in this market and to support the UAE Government’s vision,” she said.

Which country is the most expensive and cheapest place to buy an iPhone 12?

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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Which country is the most expensive and cheapest place to buy an iPhone 12?
  • Counterpoint Research expects Apple to become number two player, after Samsung, in the fourth quarter and for the whole year.
  • Apple iPhone 12 sales are expected to be more than the supply this year.
  • Significant pent-up demand seen from iOS subscribers as they put off upgrades for the 5G devices.
  • Apple could manufacture iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini in India by the first or second quarter of next year.

Dubai: The most expensive place to buy an iPhone 12 models is in India and the cheapest is in the US.

In the US, the iPhone 12 (128GB) is priced at $943 while in India, it is priced at $1,158 and same is the case for iPhone 12 Pro.

In the US, it is priced at $1,071 while in India; it is priced at $1,636.

The UAE is the third most expensive country to buy an iPhone. The iPhone 12 is priced at $983 and $1,143 for iPhone 12 Pro.

The iPhone prices in the US are also quite low compared to other countries. The Japanese are also among the luckiest Apple customers. Here, the new iPhone model is available for under $950 (including tax) for the 128GB iPhone 12 and just over $1,100 for the 64GB iPhone 12 Pro.

While the price of the iPhone 11 was one of the highest in the world in the UK and Russia, the price of the 12 models turned out lower.

Customers in Germany and France are going to pay more of a premium this time around.

The 6.7-inch Pro Max is priced at Rs1,29,900 in India while the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro is priced at Rs1,19,900 and iPhone 12 is priced at Rs69,900.

Shobhit Srivastava, a Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, told Tech Channel News that iPhone 12 models are not manufactured in India and carry a 20 per cent import tax as it is manufactured in China.

“Apple’s idea is not to sell super-premium phones but to get more users into its ecosystem by reducing the prices of its older models in India. Once a consumer is into their ecosystem, they will any way upgrade it to a newer iPhone model after a few years,” he said.

The best-selling iPhone could be iPhone 11 or iPhone 12 Mini because of the price points, he said.

Apple 5G phones to have a bigger pie in India

“Apple can have a bigger pie of the 5G smartphone market when 5G is likely to be launched in India in 2022. Then, the prices of older iPhone 12 models will be cheaper in India and they could be manufactured in India and consumers can avail the 20 per cent import tax cut,” he said.

Moreover, he said that Apple is likely to manufacture iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 in the first or second quarter of next year in India.

Apple started assembling phones in India with the original iPhone SE in 2017. In 2018, it moved assembly of the iPhone 6S also to India, followed up by iPhone 7 in 2019. All these units were manufactured by Wistron in its Bangalore plant.

In 2019, Apple’s partner Foxconn started assembling the iPhone XR at its plant in Chennai and followed by assembly of the iPhone 11 models this year at the Chennai plant.

For Indian customers, Srivastava said that older iPhones have traditionally offered a more affordable entry point in the Apple ecosystem and that is due to the price cut.

Even the iPhone 11 Pro models had a 20 per cent import tax and Apple quickly started manufacturing iPhone 11 in India.

Pegatron will be the fourth partner of Apple to set its footprint in India after Wistron, Foxconn and Compal Electronics. At present, only Wistron and Foxconn assemble iPhones in India.

Apple OEMs in India get PLI approval

In a bid to boost electronics manufacturing in the country, the Indian government in April introduced the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, which would give incentives of 4-6 per cent to electronics companies which manufacture mobile phones and other electronic components in India.

The total incentive to be given in the first year is capped at Rs53.34 billion, Rs80.64 billion in the second year, Rs84.25 billion in the third year, Rs114.88 billion in the fourth year and Rs76.4 billion in the fifth and final year. The total incentives over five years have been pegged at Rs409.51 billion.

“The iPhone manufacturers such as Wistron, Foxconn and Pegatron have been approved under the PLI scheme. The approval comes only in view that Apple will produce more iPhones in India,” Srivastava said.

The global demand for iPhone 12 will be very high, he said, more than the supply this year.

So, he said the demand is going to be better than iPhone 11 and they will become the number two smartphone manufacturer in the fourth quarter after Samsung.

Counterpoint Market Outlook forecasts that Apple’s October-December 2020 line-up sales will exceed the iPhone 11 family’s September-December sales by one per cent and this growth is despite a delayed launch in 2020 where Apple’s new line-up will see zero sales in September and also miss much of October sales.

According to DigiTimes report, Apple’s new 5G smartphone series is expected to see significant sales momentum, with shipments for iPhone 12 devices standing a chance of hitting as many as 80 million units by the end of 2020, although the US vendor is looking to build an inventory of 71-75 million units for this year.

It is either Huawei or Apple in ultra-premium space

Jeff Fieldhack, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, said that there is significant pent-up demand from iOS subscribers putting off upgrades until these 5G devices launch. Also, options for display sizes and price points will help drive sales.

“In countries where 5G has begun to roll out, operators will have a significant monetary incentive to migrate LTE iOS subscribers to their near-empty 5G networks. The US is likely to see its most competitive marketing wars in years, which will benefit Apple. European carriers will also see elevated levels of marketing. But China is not expected to be as aggressive,” he said.

For the whole year, Srivastava said that Apple is very likely to become number two due to the Huawei woes.

“It all depends on how many Mate 40 phones can Huawei produce with the latest Kirin chipset and nobody has any idea. After the ban came in, Huawei had very little time to produce and procure the 5nm chipset from TSMC,” he said.

Even Apple is launching the new iPhones with 5nm A14 Bionic chip.

“If Huawei can do good sales with Mate 40, then the sales of iPhone 12 in China will be impacted as there is no other vendor and competition in the super-premium space in China as of now. Samsung was not able to make a dent in China with its ultra-premium phones. It is either Apple or Huawei in the ultra-premium space in China,” he said.

“My view is that Mate 40 shipments are not going to be as high as Mate 30 series last year,” he said.

SAP brings innovation to enhance customer experience

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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SAP brings innovation to enhance customer experience
  • SAP’s CDP can handle multiple scenarios such as commerce, service, support and supply-chain management and offer a personalised experience.
  • Enterprise software giant had acquired Qualtrics, Coresystems, Recast.AI, Callidus Software, Gigya and Abakus to ramp up its CX portfolio in recent years.

Dubai: Covid-19 has forced big software players to bring innovations into its customer data platform (CDP) to support B2B and B2C marketers to personalise customer interactions and enhance the customer experience.

The changing face of the digital commerce space led prominent players such as Microsoft, Salesforce, IBM and Oracle to capitalise on the new opportunity of personalised customer experience in the last few months.

SAP had acquired Qualtrics, Coresystems, Recast.AI, Callidus Software, Abakus and Gigya to ramp up its CX portfolio in recent years.

Now, SAP has planned to go beyond marketing by adding rich context to commerce, sales and service experiences to its CDP.

“SAP can now connect the experience on the front office to all of the functions in the company. Based on the acquisition of Emarsys, we can also personalise the experiences. We can also make sure that the personalised experience in service and support in the supply chains also,” Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, said.

SAP has agreed to acquire Emarsys, a leading omnichannel customer engagement platform provider, this month to deliver hyperpersonalised, omnichannel engagements in real-time in a bid to help organisations ensure every engagement is relevant and impactful.

It is all about customers

“This is something that only SAP can do but we can do it as a team and that is why we are far more than a transactional CX vendor. It is really about customer experience,” Klein said.

SAP is highly committed to CX, he said, but “we now also invite the ecosystem to come and reach our solutions in the apps store and seamlessly integrate with the data model”

Christian Klein, CEO of SAP.

“We are far more than a transactional CRM vendor. It’s really about customer experience. I don’t think you will find it in other platforms,” he added.

An industry expert said that the importance of customer data has grown due to remote mode in commerce and take the data that exists in silos to power their business.

Paula Hansen, Chief Revenue Officer, SAP CX, said that customers have come to trust SAP for its scale and agility and which is important right now, especially during the pandemic.

“Our customers are making very dramatic pivots with consumers moving online and sales and services model being remote,” she said.

What a CDP does it brings everything together, so that the experience the consumer has at the point of interaction, whether it is commerce or a B2B scenario, it is highly personalised and highly interactive and all the data is there, Bob Stutz, President, SAP CX, said.

Investing over $1b

“I don’t think that there is any other company that takes care of the customer data every seriously. Companies collect data using different methods such as online browsing data, third-party CRM data, second-party CRM data, and it is pretty much all over the place. With our CDP, we can tie in with the one data model in our cloud platform and utilise the data in real-time,” he said.

SAP’s CDP is powered by identity management platform Gigya which it acquired in 2017 for $350 million.

 “We did not invent CDP, but SAP opens the concept to a new world of opportunities. SAP Customer Data Platform can deliver personalised experiences that nurture anonymous users into known, loyal customers using the customer’s preferred channels, unifying vast amounts of front-office, back-office and experience data as only SAP can,” Stutz said.

Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE for SAP Product Engineering, said that SAP will invest more than $1 billion into the localisation of its solutions over the next five years.

“SAP made more than 80 tweaks to its systems to accommodate local legal changes since the pandemic and there is a big need for it,” he said.

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