Cogent acquires the legacy Sprint fiber network

Cogent Communications completed its previously announced acquisition of T-Mobile's Wireline Business, which is the legacy Sprint U.S. long-haul network. The deal greatly expands Cogent's network footprint and enables it enter the U.S. market for dark fiber and wavelength services.

Cogent paid $1 as the purchase price, subject to customary adjustments for net debt and net working capital. In addition, Cogent will provide T-Mobile with IP transit services in return for $700 million in contractual monthly payments over 54 months; $350 million will be paid in the first year of the agreement.

The deal includes a North American wholly-owned fiber network spanning approximately 19,000 long-haul route miles and approximately 1,300 metro route miles. The assets also include over 47 data centers or colocation facilities. Key services provided include MPLS (Cogent expects to convert to VPLS and WAN), DIA and Transit, Colocation, and Wavelengths.

Cogent said the deal brings a current customer base who are a fit for Cogent's products and services, and a group of experienced employees with the knowledge and capabilities to execute the company's strategy. The legacy Sprint customer base is approximately 1,400 business enterprises, outside of Cogent’s typical customer profile.

Integration of Cogent’s network with the legacy Sprint Wireline network will substantially expand Cogent’s footprint, as well as adding ownership of 47 new facilities, aggregating to over 1,000,000 square feet.

Cogent also said that it plans to migrate these acquired network assets to its more efficient architecture, supporting IP over DWDM for greater wavelength count and throughput per wavelength. Consolidated routing infrastructure will facilitate higher port densities.

Cogent expects its revenue base will be approximately $1.1 billion, or 180% of Cogent’s current $600 million run rate. The multi- year revenue growth target for Cogent post-closing will be 5-7% annually, with targeted aggregate revenue of over $1.5 billion by 2028.

https://www.cogentco.com/en/

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Arista posts Q1 revenue of $1.351 billion

Citing a recovering supply chain, Arista reported Q1 2023 revenue of $1.351 billion, an increase of 5.9% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, and an increase of 54.1% from the first quarter of 2022. Non-GAAP net income was $452.5 million, or $1.43 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $268.5 million, or $0.84 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2022. Non-GAAP gross margin was 60.3%, compared to non-GAAP gross margin of 61.0% in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 63.9% in the first quarter of 2022.

“Amid macroeconomic uncertainty and a gradually recovering supply chain, Arista continues to bring innovative, leading-edge platforms to market, while delivering superior customer and financial outcomes," said Jayshree Ullal, President and CEO of Arista Networks. “Our Q1 results illustrate this with continued growth in revenue and profits.”

Some notes 

Americas sales were 82.5% for the quarter. International sales were 17.5%, down from 23.5% last quarter.

R&D spending anounted to $164.8 million, or 12.2% of revenue, up from $153.2 million last quarter.

At OFC, Arista previewed its vision for Linear Drive optics for intra and interdata center connectivity at 800 gig and beyond.

https://investors.arista.com/Communications/Press-Releases-and-Events/Press-Release-Detail/2023/Arista-Networks-Inc.-Reports-First-Quarter-2023-Financial-Results/default.aspx

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Imagia raises seed funding for silicon-based optical lenses

Imagia, a start-up based in Fremont, California, announced the close of a $4.5M seed round for evelopment and initial commercial deployment of the company’s first generation of flat, silicon-based optical lenses.

Imagia said its metalens technology can shrink an entire optical assembly into a planar, wafer-thin device, resulting in a dramatic reduction in size and complexity for optical assemblies. Using the patent-pending approach, Imagia can precisely pattern nanoscale structures directly onto various substrates, creating completely flat metalenses that steer light waves by design, and without the need for traditional curved lenses. The lenses can be square or round, and can be made as small as a single pixel on a digital display.

The metalenses can be built directly on top of CMOS devices like LEDs and image sensors in the same fabrication flow. Target applications include AR/VR headsets.

The funding was led by Gates Frontier and joined by MetaVC Partners and other strategic investors.

“Metamaterials are a true paradigm shift in the way we manipulate light,” says Greg Kress, CEO of Imagia, “akin to the shift from analog to digital computing. Traditional glass lenses have been around for hundreds of years. The inherent constraints of working with these types of lenses result in complex, bulky optical assemblies that require precise mechanical alignments. Imagia changes that approach by building lenses like integrated circuits, something that was not possible until very recently.”

“We are firm believers that the next generation of AR glasses will be powered by this kind of metalens technology,” says David Bonelli, Founder & CEO of Pulsar, the leading AR hardware and optics design firm behind Red6's ATARS and NuEyes's NuLoupes. Pulsar is now working in partnership with Imagia, exploring future applications for metalenses. “Imagia’s metalens technology promises to open up new frontiers in optical design that were previously impossible.”

www.imagia.io

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Lattice Semi posts Q1 revenue of $184 million, up 22%

Lattice Semiconductor, reported Q1 revenue of $184.310 million, up 22% compared to Q1 2022 and 5% compared to Q4 2022, which represented the twelfth consecutive quarter of sequential growth. Gross margin was 70.3%.

Jim Anderson, president and CEO, said, "Our strong growth and customer momentum continued into the first quarter of 2023 with a 22% year-over-year increase in revenue. We drove 55% year-over-year growth in net income on a GAAP basis and 36% on a non-GAAP basis. While we’re not immune to macro-economic challenges impacting the industry, we have Lattice-specific growth drivers, which position us well for long-term growth in our core markets."

Sherri Luther, CFO, said, "Q1 2023 represented our twelfth consecutive quarter of sequential growth, with revenue increasing 5% compared to Q4 2022. We achieved record operating profit of 32% on a GAAP basis and 41% on a non-GAAP basis, and expanded gross margin by 290 basis points on a GAAP basis and 260 basis points on a non-GAAP basis compared to Q1 2022. We also completed the tenth consecutive quarter of our share repurchase program."

https://ir.latticesemi.com/investor-overview/quarterly-earnings

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FCC issues fines for defaults of winning bids in RDOF auction

The FCC is proposing fines totaling $8.7 million against 22 companies for defaulting on their winning bids in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I Auction (Auction 904).

“When the Commission set up this program, it set clear rules of the road to ensure that winning bidders would fulfill their promise to use this funding to build new broadband infrastructure,” said Chairwoman Rosenworcel.  “Not following the rules has consequences.  For those who failed to meet their obligations, today’s action shows the Commission takes seriously its commitment to hold applicants accountable and ensure the integrity of our universal service funding.”

“This enforcement action represents the second group of bidders we have pursued for failing to live up to their obligations,” said FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief, Loyaan A. Egal.  “We will be steadfast in making sure that those who impede the timely deployment of broadband-related infrastructure are held to account.”

https://www.fcc.gov

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Arm files for IPO

Arm submitted a draft registration statement on Form F-1 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) relating to the proposed initial public offering of American depositary shares representing its ordinary shares. 

The size and price range for the proposed offering have yet to be determined. The initial public offering is subject to market and other conditions and the completion of the SEC’s review process.

https://www.arm.com/company/news/2023/04/arm-announces-confidential-submission-of-draft-registration-statement-for-proposed-initial-public-offering

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ViaSat-3 brings terabit class switching to geostationary orbit

SpaceX successfully launched ViaSat-3 Americas satellite to geostationary orbit aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also on board this mission was Astranis's first MicroGEO satellite and Gravity Space’s GS-1 satellite. 

ViaSat-3 Americas is the first of three geostationary satellites that will form a new constellation. Each of the satellites offers over 1 Tbps of onboard switching capacity with the ability to redirect bandwidth as needed. Each of the satellites in the upcoming ViaSat-3 global constellation is expected to be able to temporarily concentrate capacity at geographic points of demand, reducing coverage to places that need less capacity. Enormous solar panels will offer 25 kilowatts of power.

ViaSat-3 also features anti-jamming capabilities for government and defense applications.

"That additional capacity gives us all kinds of leverage to grow the business and provide even better services on the commercial side, and the military and defense side as well,” said Craig Miller, president of Viasat’s government services segment. “The ViaSat-3 constellation will give us global capability and opens the door to a wider variety of government missions.”

“Jamming is highly successful and commonly used in war time,” Miller said. “ViaSat-3 is designed to be incredibly difficult to disrupt. So you’re going to have a system that has a large amount of capacity that is designed to work even when our adversaries are trying to make it stop working. That’s really important, and it will set ViaSat-3 apart from basically all other systems. ViaSat-3 is expected to outperform even some purpose-built military satellites in that regard. That’s a really exciting capability.”

ViaSat-3’s ground network will be composed of hundreds of Satellite Access Nodes (SANS), ensuring redundancy.

SpaceX noted that one of the side boosters on this mission previously supported Arabsat-6A, STP-2, COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM2, KPLO, and three Starlink missions, and the second previously supported launch of Arabsat-6A and STP-2.

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Video: What's next for NaaS?

https://youtu.be/NpTW5QwnIK0

Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) is a cloud-based networking model that allows businesses to outsource network deployment and operations to a third-party provider. Is a subscription-like model for network infrastructure right for your business?

In this video, Larry Lunneta provides some key insights on NaaS.

Recorded at this year's atmposhere'23 conference in Las Vegas.

Also, check out our New Middle Mile (#nmm2023) video showcase here: https://ngi.fyi/nmm23yt

Want to be in one of NextGenInfra.io videos? Contact us at info@nextgeninfra.io.

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SES launches 2 more O3b mPOWER satellites

SES confirmed the successful launch of two additional O3b mPOWER satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The second pair of O3b mPOWER satellites will join the first two satellites launched in December 2022, which have arrived at their target medium earth orbit (MEO) and are currently undergoing in-orbit check out. 

The O3b mPOWER initial constellation consists of 11 high-throughput satellites built by Boeing. 

O3b mPOWER commercial service is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2023. Key customers who have signed up for the next-gen system include Microsoft, Princess Cruises, Marlink, Jio Platforms, Orange, Claro Brasil, Vodafone Cook Islands, the Government of Luxembourg (subject to parliamentary approval) and the newly-announced CNT Ecuador.

“Today we are closer to delivering our promise of a new era of connectivity. Our team has been working with more than 30 technology partners to prepare the O3b mPOWER space and ground segments to offer the differentiated and high-perfomance services that our customers need to run their operations,” said Steve Collar, CEO of SES. “We have already rolled out and tested O3b mPOWER terminals over the existing O3b constellation, and are delighted to hear positive customer feedback about their increased reliability and performance, as well as the ease of self-installation, activation, and maintenance.”

“It’s been an incredible journey with an exceptional and dedicated team at the Boeing satellite factory, and an invaluable partnership with SES,” said Michelle Parker, vice president of Space Mission Systems at Boeing Defense, Space & Security. “As we near completion on the remaining satellites, we’re excited to showcase on-orbit how our fully flexible 702X payload architecture allows operators to adapt to changing business needs and reallocate resources instantly.”

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Video: What's next for AIOps?

https://youtu.be/PZVfJiS4Goo

AIOps, which is the application of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, such as natural language processing and machine learning models, to automate and streamline operational workflows in IT and network operations.

There is a big opportunity to learn from the vast number of daily interactions across networks and to then implement new management policies automatically.

In this video, David Hughes, Chief Product and Technology Officer, HPE Aruba Networking, reflects on the rapidly evolving market for enterprise connectivity. 

Recorded at this year's atmposhere'23 conference in Las Vegas.

Also, check out our New Middle Mile (#nmm2023) video showcase here: https://ngi.fyi/nmm23yt

Want to be in one of NextGenInfra.io videos? Contact us at info@nextgeninfra.io

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RSA 2023 attendance topped 40,000

Last week's RSA Conference in San Francisco's Moscone Center ttracted over 40,000 attendees, including 650+ speakers, 500+ exhibitors and 500+ members of the media.

Key session and seminar presentations included:
Security as Part of Responsible AI: At Home or At Odds? - Rumman Chowdury, Founder, Bias Buccaneers; Ram Shankar Siva Kumar, Data Cowboy, Microsoft; Harvard (Moderator); Daniel Rohrer, VP of Software Product Security, NVIDIA; Vijay Bolina, CISO, Deep Mind
The Cryptographers’ Panel - Whitfield Diffie, Cryptographer and Security Expert, Cryptomathic (Moderator); Clifford Cocks, Former Chief Mathematician, Government Communications Headquarters, United Kingdom; Anne Dames, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Security; Radia Perlman, Fellow, Dell Technologies; Adi Shamir, Borman Professor of Computer Science, The Weizmann Institute, Israel
Five Most Dangerous New Attach Techniques – Heather Mahalik, DFIR Curriculum Lead, SANS Institute and Senior Director of Digital Intelligence, Cellebrite; Steven Sims, Offensive Operations Curriculum Lead and Fellow, SANS Institute; Katie Nickels, Certified Instructor and Director of Intelligence, SANS Institute and Red Canary; Johannes Ullrich, Ph.D., Dean of Research, SANS Institute; and Ed Skoudis, President, SANS Institute (Moderator)
Hugh Thompson Show: Quantum Edition – Shohini Ghose, Professor of Physics and Computing, Wilfrid Laurier University; Paul Kocher, Independent Researcher and Cryptographer; Christopher Lloyd, Actor; and Hugh Thompson, Program Committee Chair, RSA Conference (Moderator)

• HiddenLayer named “RSA Conference 2023’s Most Innovative Startup” by the Innovation Sandbox’s judges’ panel comprised of technology, venture and security industry thought leaders.
• The Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics co-sponsored by IACR presented to Paul Kocher, renowned cryptographer and independent researcher.
• RSAC College Day welcoming more than 550 college students, recent grads and faculty to network with leading companies, explore career opportunities, attend dedicated education events and experience RSA Conference sessions and the expo floor.
• Executive Programs – RSA Conference hosted four closed door programs for select executive and government audiences: RSAC CISO Boot Camp, International Cybersecurity Forum (ICSF), Executive Security Action Forum (ESAF) and eFraud Global Forum(eFG). RSAC will bring its CISO Boot Camp to the Australian Information Security Association (AISA)’s Australian Cyber Conferencefor the first time later this year from October 17-19, 2023, in Melbourne.

RSA Conference 2024 will take place May 6-9, 2024, in San Francisco at the Moscone Center.

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Ericsson adds Dell serves to its Cloud RAN portfolio

Ericsson is partnering with Dell as a supplier of Dell PowerEdge servers for its Cloud RAN offering.

Ericsson said adding Dell PowerEdge servers, including the PowerEdge XR8000 and XR5610, which are specifically designed for telecom, Open RAN and mobile edge-computing workloads, brings even more choice and flexibility for Cloud RAN customers. D

Freddie Södergren, Head of Technology and Strategy for Networks, Ericsson, says: “Collaborating with Dell exemplifies our commitment to deliver added flexibility for our Cloud RAN customers, allowing them to choose their own infrastructure while ensuring telco-grade performance at the far edge. This collaboration will further enable open cloud infrastructures while supporting Dell’s high-performing server offerings.”

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Ericsson strikes Cloud RAN agreement with AMD

Ericsson entered into an agreement with AMD to strengthen the Open RAN ecosystem and vendor-agnostic Cloud RAN environment.

The Ericsson-AMD collaboration will see additional processing technologies in the Ericsson Cloud RAN offering. The expanded offering aims to enhance the performance of Cloud RAN and secure high-capacity solutions. The collaboration will enable joint exploration of AMD EPYC processors and T2 Telco accelerator for utilization in Cloud RAN solutions, while also investigating future platform generations of these technologies.

Freddie Södergren, Head of Technology and Strategy for Networks, Ericsson, says: “Our work with AMD is a great example of our efforts to expand our support and add more choices for our customers looking to advance their Cloud RAN and Open RAN journey. Adding this technical partner furthers our commitment to enable Ericsson Cloud RAN to run on multiple platforms, delivering a truly cloud-agnostic platform that provides the highest performance required for delivering 5G connectivity and beyond.”

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Intel reports steep drop in Q1 revenue, looks for stability in 2nd half of year

Citing steep drops for its Client Computing Group and Data Center and AI groups, Intel reported Q1 revenue of $11.7 billion, down 36% year over year. First-quarter GAAP earnings (loss) per share (EPS) attributable to Intel was $(0.66); non-GAAP EPS attributable to Intel was $(0.04).

Despite challenges, Intel said it now expects some modest recovery in the second half of the year along with increasing stability in the PC market as inventory corrections are worked through. However, the server and networking markets have yet to reach their bottoms, as cloud and enterprise remain weak.

“We delivered solid first-quarter results, representing steady progress with our transformation,” said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. “We hit key execution milestones in our data center roadmap and demonstrated the health of the process technology underpinning it. While we remain cautious on the macroeconomic outlook, we are focused on what we can control as we deliver on IDM 2.0: driving consistent execution across process and product roadmaps and advancing our foundry business to best position us to capitalize on the $1 trillion market opportunity ahead.”

David Zinsner, Intel CFO, said, “We exceeded our first-quarter expectations on the top and bottom line, and continued to be disciplined on expense management as part of our commitment to drive efficiencies and cost savings. At the same time, we are prioritizing the investments needed to advance our strategy and establish an internal foundry model, one of the most consequential steps we are taking to deliver on IDM 2.0.”

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1615/intel-reports-first-quarter-2023-financial-results

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AWS sales increased 16% y-o-y in Q1, operating income drops 21%

AWS  sales increased 16% year-over-year in Q1 2023 to reach $21.4 billion, representing 16% of Amazon.com overall revenue for the quarter. 

Q1 operating income for AWS amounted to $5.123 billion, down 21% year-over-year and down 26% when adjusting for constant currency.

Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, states "while our AWS business navigates companies spending more cautiously in this macro environment, we continue to prioritize building long-term customer relationships both by helping customers save money and enabling them to more easily leverage technologies like Large Language Models and Generative AI with our uniquely cost-effective machine learning chips (“Trainium” and “Inferentia”), managed Large Language Models (“Bedrock”), and AI code companion CodeWhisperer. We like the fundamentals we’re seeing in AWS, and believe there’s much growth ahead.”

Amazon also highlighted the following AWS customer wins for Q1:

• Southwest Airlines selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider for a large-scale modernization as part of the airline’s long-term plan to optimize airline operations, streamline infrastructure costs, and provide a more seamless and enjoyable travel experience to customers.
• Zurich Insurance Group is moving its enterprise information technology infrastructure, including 1,000 applications over the next three years, to AWS to deliver new digital customer experiences and drive automation at scale.
• BBVA is employing AWS’s extensive portfolio of cloud services to launch new financial solutions that will help BBVA Corporate and Investment Banking expand its business to accelerate innovation, reduce costs, scale quickly, and increase flexibility.
• Broadridge’s LTX electronic trading platform completed a successful migration of its corporate bond e- trading platform to AWS.
• S&P Global and AWS announced a multiyear strategic collaboration to extend the delivery of advanced, secure, cloud-based services to more than 100,000 of S&P Global’s government and enterprise customers in 43 countries around the world.
• Snowflake and AWS announced a new commitment to build joint industry-specific solutions, increase sales collaboration, and deepen product integration, including further streamlining running Snowflake on Graviton processors. Approximately 84% of Snowflake’s customers run their deployments on AWS to rapidly innovate.
• Stripe announced a new global agreement to run virtually all their infrastructure on AWS while reliably serving millions of internet companies.
• Westpac, one of Australia’s leading banks, expanded its collaboration with AWS through a new five-year agreement that will tap into advanced AWS capabilities, like machine learning, compute, and data analytics, to further accelerate the bank’s digital transformation, drive cost efficiencies, and personalize its banking applications.
• T-Mobile is integrating its 5G Advanced Network Solutions portfolio with AWS to help customers more easily discover, customize, and deploy 5G edge computing.
• Marvell selected AWS to rapidly scale its electronic design automation in the cloud to address increasingly complex chip design processes and deliver continuous innovation for expanding needs across the automotive, carrier, data center, and enterprise infrastructure markets.
• TELUS, one of Canada’s leading telecommunications providers, is collaborating with AWS to develop a new smart-living solution that will reduce the need for multiple smart-home apps, simplify installation, and enable new multidevice automation.
• Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest clean energy companies, selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to support the energy company as it embarks on further digitalization to enable smarter grids, customer engagement, and connected clean power.

https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q1/Q1-2023-Amazon-Earnings-Release.pdf

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T-Mobile US posts growth in customers and profitability, raises guidance

T-Mobile US reported Q1 service revenues of $15.5 billion, up 3% year-over-year, including postpaid service revenue growth of 6% year-over-year.

Net income of $1.9 billion grew 172% year-over-year and diluted earnings per share (“EPS”) of $1.58 grew 177% year-over-year.

"T-Mobile’s focused execution against our intentional growth plan delivered best-in-class postpaid and broadband customer and profitability growth in Q1 that gave us confidence to raise our 2023 guidance for customers and profitability,” said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. 

Some highlights:

• Postpaid net account additions of 287 thousand decreased 61 thousand year-over-year, reflecting continued industry-leading share of net account additions in an environment of industry growth normalization toward pre-pandemic levels.
• Postpaid net customer additions of 1.3 million decreased 25 thousand year-over-year, reflecting continued normalization of industry growth.
• Postpaid phone net customer additions of 538 thousand decreased 51 thousand year-over-year while reflecting a higher share of industry net additions. Postpaid phone churn of 0.89% improved 4 bps year-over-year.
• Prepaid net customer additions of 26 thousand decreased 36 thousand year-over-year, and Prepaid churn was 2.76%.
• High Speed Internet net customer additions of 523 thousand increased 185 thousand year-over-year. T-Mobile ended the quarter with 3.2 million High Speed Internet customers.
• Total net customer additions of 1.3 million decreased 61 thousand year-over-year. The total customer count increased to a record high of 114.9 million.

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POET Technologies intros light source for AI applications

POET Technologies introduced a packaged light source solution for AI applications. 

POET’s Starlight products integrate active components like lasers and certain other passive optical and electrical components into the optical interposer to provide a complete light source solution that can be integrated on a host board and connected to chips and ASICs with built-in silicon photonics.  POET achieves its low-cost solution through the use of features and benefits of the POET Optical Interposer platform and the “semiconductorization” of photonics fabrication processes.

POET’s Starlight C-Band and O-Band LightBar products incorporate monolithically integrated passive components like multiplexers, demultiplexers, splitters, combiners, and waveguides. Known-good high power CW lasers and monitor photodiodes are flip chipped and passively attached to the optical interposer platform. POET expects to complete design verification testing and reliability qualification of the Starlight engines by the end of 2023 and start production in the second half of 2024. 

POET also noted an agreement with Celestial AI, creators of the Photonic Fabric, for development and production of POET Starlight packaged light sources and has received an advanced purchase order for initial production units.

“External light sources for Artificial Intelligence applications has been one of the key verticals for POET Technologies. We are delighted to continue to work with Celestial AI to provide a high-volume manufacturable solution for their optical interconnect technology platform,” said Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, Chairman and CEO of POET Technologies.  “The ability for POET to passively attach high power CW lasers on its optical interposer at wafer scale enables the use of single known-good laser chips and eliminates the need for laser arrays which can be cost prohibitive for high-volume applications. The POET team has worked closely with Celestial AI to define a low-cost packaging solution that is up to 75% lower in cost than competing solutions and is highly scalable for the volumes that Celestial AI is projecting.”

https://poet-technologies.com/news/2023-apr-25.html

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Google Cloud Security AI Workbench leverages LLMs

Google Cloud introduced a security platform powered by specialized large-language-model (LLM) artificial intelligence.

Google Cloud Security AI Workbench addresses three top security challenges: threat overload, toilsome tools, and the talent gap. The platform le customers make their private data available to the platform at inference time. It is also extensible for third-party security tools.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/rsa-google-cloud-security-ai-workbench-generative-ai

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Vodafone appoints Margherita Della Valle as Group CEO

 Vodafone has appointed Margherita Della Valle as its new Group Chief Executive.

Della Valle currently serves as the company's CFO. Her previous roles within Vodafone were Deputy Chief Financial Officer from 2015 to 2018, Group Financial Controller, Chief Financial Officer for Vodafone’s European region and Chief Financial Officer for Vodafone Italy. She joined Omnitel Pronto Italia - which later became Vodafone Italy - in 1994 and held various consumer marketing positions in business analytics and customer base management before moving to finance.

Jean-François van Boxmeer, Vodafone Group Chairman said:

“On behalf of the Board, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Margherita as Group Chief Executive, following a rigorous internal and external search. Margherita has a strong track record during her long career at Vodafone in marketing, operational, commercial and financial positions. Over the last few months as interim Group Chief Executive, the Board and I have been impressed with her pace and decisiveness to begin the necessary transformation of Vodafone. Margherita has the full support of myself and the Board for her plans for Vodafone to provide better customer experience, become a simpler business and accelerate growth.”

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HPE Aruba: What comes next?

At its atmosphere’23 conference in Las Vegas this week, HPE Aruba Networking unveiled a number of product innovations for enterprise IT and disclosed key strategic directions as it integrates with the HPE GreenLake

What’s next?  Major items include the next generation of HPE Aruba Networking Central, its cloud-native network management solution, Network-as-a-service (NaaS) capabilities for customers and channel partners to acquire, deploy, and manage on the HPE GreenLake platform with a monthly subscription, private 5G via its pending acquisition of Athonet, improved artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) to reduce manual tasks, and Zero Trust / SASE capabilities. 

“A modernized network is the backbone for powering next-generation digital experiences and enabling new business models,” said Phil Mottram, executive vice president and general manager, HPE Aruba Networking. “The evolution of our AIOps in HPE Aruba Networking Central and Agile NaaS represents the next step toward more effectively managing operational complexity, while connecting with ever-expanding workloads from edge to cloud for a seamless hybrid work experience.”

Some notes from the event:

• Over 4,300 attendees at the atmosphere’23 event
• Aruba has shipped over 27.6 million APs since 2006
• Over 23 million switch port shipped
• In the data center, the partnership with AMD Pensando is progressing and delivering significant performance, efficiency and functionality gains
• 
  
  The HPE Aruba Networking Central cloud network management platform has been re-designed to simplify operations and improve productivity. The interface offers “solar system” views to promote intuitive navigation and reduce cognitive loads; a “time-travel” feature for a contextually correlated ‘point-in-time’ view of the network that allows recovery in minutes to a specific point; multi-layer physical and logical “sunburst” topology views to transform visualization of large, complex networks; Intelligent assurance indicators for device health and client experience, enabling rapid first-level triage; and AI-powered full-stack insights for enhanced root cause analysis (RCA), impact assessment, and precise recommendations platform.

• A new Agile NaaS framework aims to make on-demand networking easier for partners to sell and end-user customers to consume. New service pack capabilities added to HPE GreenLake for Aruba networking enable partners to bundle their design and delivery services for their customers with a monthly NaaS technology subscription.
• New Service Pack enhancements on HPE GreenLake for Aruba networking adds a new standardized NaaS network policy offering to complement eight previously introduced wired, wireless, and SD-Branch NaaS service packs from 2022.
• 
  
  The recent acquisition of Axis Security, which occurred in March, adds SASE security capabilities. 
• The pending acquisition of Athonet, will bring private 5G capabilities. 
• 
  
• 

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