Mesosphere raises $125M for its hybrid cloud

Mesosphere, a start-up based in San Francisco, announced $125 million in Series D funding for its hybrid cloud platform.

Mesosphere DC/OS automates operations. The idea is to automate workload-specific operating procedures to “as-a-Service” anything from Kubernetes to data services, while optimizing workload density to achieve the highest utilization with resource guarantees.

Mesosphere said it has nearly tripled revenue year-over-year.

The series D funding was co-led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) with participation from ZWC Ventures, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Disruptive Technology Advisers (DTA). The round also features participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Two Sigma Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, SV Angel, Fuel Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners.

"We make world-changing technology, like Kubernetes, Tensorflow and more, available at the click of a button, enabling business impact faster because DC/OS automates operations of more than one hundred complex technologies," said Florian Leibert, CEO and co-founder at Mesosphere. "This investment will help us to arm the enterprise with leading edge technology, like containers, machine learning, and IoT applications, allowing them to reclaim their competitive edge and reinvent the customer experience."

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Protego raises $2 million for serverless security

Protego, a start-up based in Baltimore, announced $2 million in seed funding for its security solution for serverless applications.

Protego works by continuously scanning your serverless infrastructure, including functions, logs, and databases, to help increase the application’s security posture and minimize the attack surface. Using machine-based analysis and deep learning algorithms, Protego builds a model of normal function behavior to effectively detect threats, anomalies, and malicious attacks as they initiate and propagate. Protego also identifies and prevents attacks in real time and provides the “minimum effective dose” of protection in the right place, maximizing your security while minimizing your costs.

The seed funding came from a team of investors led by Ron Gula of Gula Tech Adventures, Glilot Capital Partners, and several security industry pioneers, including former RSA CTO, Tim Belcher.

“Protego is the first and only platform of its kind that delivers full life-cycle security to serverless applications from deployment to run-time – that can be up and running in just 20 minutes,” said Tsion (TJ) Gonen, CEO and Co-Founder of Protego.  “With this investment, Protego will continue to work with customers and partners to broaden our offering and bring the product to market.”

http://www.protego.io

• "Protego" is a shield charm cast by wizards for self-protection in the Harry Potter books.

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Chunghwa Telecom sets off price war with Unlimited Mobile Data Plan

Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom set off a price war by launching a Mother's Day promotional offer of unlimited 4G service for NT$499 (US$16.7). The offer promised unlimited mobile Internet, free calls within the Chunghwa Telecom network and 180 minutes of free calls outside its network on a 30-month contract. The promotion runs May 9-15.

Local media reported long lines at Chunghwa stores, as well as complaints from competitors.

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Telstra launches its first unlimited mobile data plan

Telstra has launched its first smartphone plan with unlimited data.

The Endless Data BYO personal smartphone plan is priced at Aus $69 with a 12-month contract, but after 40GB, speeds are capped at 1.5 Mbps and slowed further during busy periods. The plan also comes with unlimited talk, text and MMS to standard Australian numbers plus exclusive extras available to Telstra mobile customers – including unlimited Wi-Fi data at more than one million Telstra Air hotspots around Australia and access to every AFL, NRL and netball game this season live and fast.

“We have invested billions in our network, pioneered world-leading 4G speeds and pushed our 4G coverage out to more than 99 per cent of the population. We are now introducing the unlimited plan Australians tell us they want while maintaining the superior network experience they expect," stated Vicki Brady, Group Executive of Telstra Consumer & Small Business.

Telstra also highlighted the following network milestones:

• Introduced the world's first gigabit-enabled network coverage using LTE-Advanced
• Increased the number of mobile network sites to more than 9,200 nationally
• Commenced a national rollout of small cells across Australia’s capital cities
• Expanded 4G coverage to 99% of the population and a landmass area of 1.6m sq.km and 3G coverage to 99.4% and a landmass area of 2.5m sq.km,
• Extended calls over Wi-Fi calling to millions of Australians
• Expanded the Telstra Air Wi-Fi network to more than one million hotspots around Australia

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Amdocs posts quarterly sales of $992M, up 2.7% yoy

Amdocs reported revenue for its second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2018 of $992.3 million, up 1.5% or $14.6 million sequentially from the first fiscal quarter of 2018 and up 2.7% as compared to last year’s second fiscal quarter.  GAAP net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2018 was $101.7 million, or $0.70 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $112.6 million, or $0.76 per diluted share, in the prior fiscal year’s second quarter. Net income on a non-GAAP basis was $137.4 million, or $0.95 per diluted share.

“We are pleased to report solid results for our second fiscal quarter which included double-digit growth in Europe and record revenue in Rest of World. Our operating profitability was stable and we grew our 12-month backlog to another new high. Additionally, we extended our technology leadership with the launch of AmdocsOne at Mobile World Congress and we utilized our cash to close on the acquisitions of Vubiquity, as well as UXP Systems, a leader in User Lifecycle Management solutions,” said Eli Gelman, president and chief executive officer of Amdocs Management Limited.

Amdocs announced a contract with Safaricom, a major mobile network operator in Kenya with 29.5 million customers. Safaricom will use revenue assurance technology and expertise from Amdocs to provide more comprehensive and adaptive revenue safeguards for the entire lifecycle of new services across its entire business.

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