Microsoft Azure Revenue Increases 93% YoY

Microsoft posted revenue of $24.1 billion GAAP and $26.1 billion non-GAAP for its quarter ending 31-Dec-2016. Net income was $5.2 billion GAAP, and $6.5 billion non-GAAP.

“Our customers are seeing greater value and opportunity as we partner with them through their digital transformation,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Accelerating advancements in AI across our platforms and services will provide further opportunity to drive growth in the Microsoft Cloud.”

Some cloud highlights:

• Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 5% (up 7% in constant currency) driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 47% (up 49% in constant currency)
• Office consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 22% (up 21% in constant currency) and Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 24.9 million
• Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 7% (up 9% in constant currency) driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth
• Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $6.9 billion and increased 8% (up 10% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
• Server products and cloud services revenue increased 12% (up 14% in constant currency) driven by double-digit annuity revenue growth
• Azure revenue increased 93% (up 95% in constant currency) with Azure compute usage more than doubling year-over-year
• Enterprise Services revenue decreased 4% (down 2% in constant currency) with declines in custom support agreements offset by growth in Premier Support Services and consulting.

http://www.microsoft.com

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Ixia Demos 400GbE via Four-Level PAM4

Ixia successfully demonstrated 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) technology by combining eight electrical lanes of 56 Gbps, defined as 400GAUI-8 by IEEE802.3bs, via four-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM4).

Ixia said currently supports and collaborates with two key multisource agreement (MSA) development groups to help drive the effectiveness and efficiency of 400 GbE technology: double-density quad small-form-factor pluggable (QSFP-DD) MSA, and Octal Small Form Factor Pluggable (OSFP) MSA.

The QSFP-DD MSA Group is addressing the technical challenges of achieving a double-density interface and ensuring mechanical, electrical, thermal, and signal-integrity interoperability for module components produced by different manufacturers. Collaboration through the MSA is intended to enable faster implementation and easier operation of the high-speed, double-density quad small-form-factor pluggable interface in networking equipment. QSFP-DD addresses increasing global bandwidth consumption with its ability to quadruple aggregate switch bandwidth while maintaining port density.

The OSFP MSA is comprised of 49 industry leaders who are tasked with defining the form factor for new 400 GbE transceiver module that will support the full range of 400 GbE optics technologies, from datacenter to metro reach.

http://www.ixiacom.com

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Juniper Posts Q4 Revenue of $1.386B, up 5% YoY

Juniper Networks reported preliminary net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2016 of $1,385.6 million, an increase of 5% year-over-year and an increase of 8% sequentially. Juniper's GAAP operating margin for the fourth quarter of 2016 was 21.5%, an increase from 21.2% in the fourth quarter of 2015, and an increase from 19.5% in the third quarter of 2016. GAAP net income was $197.4 million, flat year-over-year, and an increase of 15% sequentially. GAAP diluted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2016 was $0.51.

"I am pleased to report year-over-year revenue and non-GAAP earnings growth after a challenging start to 2016," said Rami Rahim, chief executive officer at Juniper Networks. "We believe we are successfully executing on our strategy to diversify our business and capture share in the cloud and cloud-enabled segments of our market. Our innovation pipeline and product portfolio are strong and position us well as we head into 2017."

http://www.juniper.net

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T-Mobile Boosts Capacity in Houston Sites 20X Ahead of Super Bowl

T-Mobile has permanently increased 4G LTE capacity nearly 20x in and around Houston’s NRG Stadium and more than 10x at area airports, venues and hotels in the last year in anticipation of the upcoming Super Bowl.

“When carriers get ready for big events, they just bring in a lot of temporary, short-term fixes. That’s not how we roll, so when we souped up T-Mobile’s network in Houston, we did it permanently and all through the city -- not just in one place and not just for the weekend,” said Neville Ray, T-Mobile CTO. “For us, just being the fastest and most advanced LTE network is never enough. We push the limits every day, and I predict T-Mobile’s LTE network will be the fastest at this year’s game, just as we were last year!”

The boost was achieved by using more LTE spectrum, including Extended Range LTE; three carrier aggregation for a total of 35+35 MHz of LTE; new small cells and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS); 4x4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).

http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage

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Ericsson and Orange Exceed 10G in 5G Testing

Ericsson and Orange have exceed 10 Gbps peak rates in lab testing for 5G technologies in France.

"The significant increase in throughputs, including on the move, is one of the promises of 5G. These ever-increasing speeds will be needed for new use cases such as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, or the needs of business environments. Thanks to our 5G partnership with Ericsson, we are preparing the future of networks," says Alain Maloberti, senior vice president of Orange Labs Networks.

A video is posted online.

http://www.orange.com

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x59jas9_high-speed-5g-experiment-orange-and-ericsson_tech

High-speed 5G experiment - Orange and Ericsson by Orange

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MACOM Completes AppliedMicro Acquisition

MACOM completed its previously announced acquisition of AppliedMicro.  MACOM plans to sell off AppliedMicro’s compute business.


John Croteau, MACOM’s President and Chief Executive Officer stated, “I am pleased to announce the completion of this transaction. AppliedMicro’s leadership in MACsec and 100G to 400G single-Lambda PAM4 positions MACOM as a preferred supplier to major Enterprise and Cloud Data Center providers, many of whom are adopting the technologies this year. MACOM will now be able to support customers with all of the requisite semiconductor content for optical networks—analog, photonic and mixed signal PHY—from the switch to fiber for long haul, metro, access, backhaul and data centers.”

http://www.macom.com

MACOM to Acquire AppliedMicro for $770 Million

Tuesday, November 22, 2016  AppliedMicro, MACOM  No Comments

MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings agreed to acquire Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AppliedMicro") for approximately $8.36 per share, consisting of $3.25 in cash and 0.1089 MACOM shares per share of AppliedMicro. The deal, which represents a 15.4% premium over AppliedMicro's closing price of $7.25 on November 18th, is valued at approximately $770 million. MACOM plans to divest AppliedMicro's non-strategic Compute business within the first 100 days of closing. The company said it is already talking to interested parties.

MACOM said the deal will accelerate its growth in optical technologies for Cloud Service Providers and Enterprise Network customers.

AppliedMicro, which supplies semiconductors for compute and computing in data centers, has approximately $165 million in TTM revenue (including the Compute business) and $82 million of cash and short-term investments. AppliedMicro's leadership PAM4 solutions based on FinFET technology and custom engagements with top-tier Data Center and service provider customers is expected to strengthen MACOM's competitive position with those customers

MACOM and AppliedMicro's pro forma combined TTM revenue was approximately $709 million including AppliedMicro's Compute business, or approximately $644 million excluding the Compute business
AppliedMicro's Connectivity business is highly complementary to MACOM's product portfolio, through the addition of market-leading OTN framers, MACsec Ethernet networking components and the industry's leading single-lambda PAM4 platform

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Apple Plans to Add 200 Megawatts of Solar in Nevada

Apple reached an agreement with NV Energy to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy in Nevada by early 2019 to support its Reno data center.

"We are proud to play a role in helping Apple meet their energy needs with Nevada's abundant solar resource," said Paul Caudill, president and CEO of NV Energy. "In partnership with our customers, we continue to develop a more balanced fuel mix in a way that benefits the local economy by providing hundreds of jobs for Nevadans, particularly those in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 357 and 396, and advances the state's policy goals."

"Investing in innovative clean energy sources is vital to Apple's commitment to reaching, and maintaining, 100 percent renewable energy across all our operations," said Apple's vice president for environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson. "Our partnership with NV Energy helps assure our customers their iMessages, FaceTime video chats and Siri inquiries are powered by clean energy, and supports efforts to offer the choice of green energy to Nevada residents and businesses."

https://www.nvenergy.com/company/mediaroom/newsdetail.cfm?n=136958

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Ericsson's Q4 Sales Drop 11% YoY

Ericsson reported Q4 2016 revenue of SEK 65.2 billion (US$7.36 billion), down 11% YoY primarily due to the decrease of SEK -5.5. b in IPR licensing revenues. Full-year IPR licensing revenues were SEK 10.0 (14.4) b. Operating income decreased to SEK -0.3 (11.0) b. in the quarter.

Ericsson said a number of markets, in regions such as Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, were impacted by a weak macroeconomic environment with a negative effect on mobile broadband investments. The underlying market remained weak in the fourth quarter with further weakness in Latin America. However, hardware deliveries previously planned for Q1 2017 were made on customer requests, and had a positive impact on sales in the fourth quarter. In combination with a weakened SEK versus USD, this resulted in a stronger than expected sequential sales growth in mobile broadband.

Global Services sales declined by -4% YoY mainly due to the reduced scope of a managed services contract in North America. Support Solutions sales declined by -39% YoY, mainly due to lower IPR licensing revenues. In addition, TV & Media sales were lower than expected due to a rapid decline in legacy products. Sales in the targeted areas declined by -7% YoY, mainly impacted by lower sales in OSS and BSS following the transition from legacy to new products. We are allocating resources into our digital transformation projects to secure important deliveries in 2017. Full-year sales for targeted areas were flat and accounted for 20% of group sales in 2016.

http://www.ericsson.com

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