Monthly Archives: September 2022

These multinationals have much higher pay grades and as such most Kenyan tech professionals are opting to work for them.

Also, an expansion of these companies operations within the country, which has prompted massive recruitment, is presenting Kenyans with financial opportunities they simply cant turn down.

In this case, the figures tell the whole story. These big tech corporations are offering up to Ksh1.8 million ($15,037) monthly for principal tech specialists, Ksh300,000 ($2,506) to junior tech developers, Ksh500,000 ($4,177) for mid-level techies and between Ksh800,000 ($6,683) and Ksh1.3 million ($10,860) for lead and senior roles.

Major telecommunications companies and financial institutions, which have a history of being the best paying firms, have steadily lost their best talents to these tech giants.

Smaller companies in Kenya such as Wasoko, Flocash, Twiga foods, Lori Systems, and Sendy, who had invested in and trained young engineers, have lost their talents to the multinationals.

CEO of the WPP Scangroup, Patricia Ithau, said; You know, what's happening in this market across all of us. We have some people called Microsoft, Amazon, Google who are just mopping up our developers.

He also noted that the solution to the problem may be to develop more talent that could serve the entire industry.

We have a program we recruit from the university two, three months, they come in from college, and you offer them a hundred. Google tells them two hundred, there's nothing you're going to do. They're going to go. And then they go from Google. Microsoft offers them three hundred, they'll move. So until we start creating a lot more talent, it is the way of the world. He concluded.

Tech giants like Google and Microsoft are notorious for sourcing the best talents across the globe. The high demand for their products and services calls for the best hands to be on deck. As a result, these companies spare no expense when looking for employees to join their organizations.

Continued here:

Kenya is experiencing a massive tech brain drain within its own borders - Business Insider Africa

Vator will be holding its Future of Mental and Behavioral Health event on Oct. 26

In the technology ecosystem, startups are typically where the new ideas spring forth, and in mental health there are very exciting companies that are raising money right now, even in this tough environment.

While innovation more often than not happens outside big corporations, the big companies are still the major distributors of those new products and services. That includes the big tech companies, of course, but in healthcare it's also the insurance companies, as well as the major hospital systems, all of which have been making strides in the mental health space in the last year.

Here's what they've been up to over the past year:

Tech companiesGoogle/YouTube:

Amazon:

Meta/Facebook:

Microsoft

Payers---------

Cigna/Evernorth:

Anthem/Blue Cross and Blue Shield:

CVS/Aetna

UnitedHealthcare/Optum

Humana

Health systems------

Providence:

Mercy Health:

UnityPoint Health

(Vator will be holding itsFuture of Behavioral and Mental Health eventin October with speakers that include Russ Glass from Headspace Health; Steve Gatena from Pray.com; Ben Lewis from Limbix; Rebecca Egger from Little Otter; Divya Shah from Meta, and others. Registerhereto buy your ticket)

(Image source: pillarsofwellness.ca)

Excerpt from:

What tech and healthcare giants - from Google to Cigna - are doing in mental health - VatorNews

Visualized: The State of Central Bank Digital Currencies

Central banks around the world are getting involved in digital currencies, but some are further ahead than others.

In this map, we used data from the Atlantic Councils Currency Tracker to visualize the state of each central banks digital currency effort.

Digital currencies have been around since the 1980s, but didnt become widely popular until the launch of Bitcoin in 2009. Today, there are thousands of digital currencies in existence, also referred to as cryptocurrencies.

A defining feature of cryptocurrencies is that they are based on a blockchain ledger. Blockchains can be either decentralized or centralized, but the most known cryptocurrencies today (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) tend to be decentralized in nature. This makes transfers and payments very difficult to trace because there is no single entity with full control.

Government-issued digital currencies, on the other hand, will be controlled by a central bank and are likely to be easily trackable. They would have the same value as the local cash currency, but instead issued digitally with no physical form.

105 countries are currently exploring centralized digital currencies. Together, they represent 95% of global GDP. The table below lists the data used in the infographic.

When aggregated, we can see that the majority of countries are in the research stage.

Weve also divided the map by region to make viewing easier.

A major benefit of government-issued digital currencies is that they can improve access for underbanked people.

This is not a huge issue in developed countries like the U.S., but many people in developing nations have no access to banks and other financial services (hence the term underbanked). As the number of internet users continues to climb, digital currencies represent a sound solution.

To learn more about this topic, visit this article from Global Finance, which lists the worlds most underbanked countries in 2021.

Just 9% of countries have launched a digital currency to date.

This includes Nigeria, which became the first African country to do so in October 2021. Half of the countrys 200 million population is believed to have no access to bank accounts.

Adoption of the eNaira (the digital version of the naira) has so far been relatively sluggish. The eNaira app has accumulated 700,000 downloads as of April 2022. Thats equal to 0.35% of the population, though not all of the downloads are users in Nigeria.

Conversely, 33.4 million Nigerians were reported to be trading or owning crypto assets, despite the Central Bank of Nigerias attempts to restrict usage.

Americas central bank, the Federal Reserve, has not decided on whether it will implement a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Our key focus is on whether and how a CBDC could improve on an already safe and efficient U.S. domestic payments system. Federal Reserve

To learn more, check out the Federal Reserves January 2022 paper on the pros and cons of CBDCs.

Read the original here:

Charted: Breaking Down Big Tech Revenue and Profit - Visual Capitalist

With help from Derek Robertson

Afropolitan, a new group that intends to create a sovereign, blockchain-enabled network state for the African diaspora, is gearing up to make its presence felt in the real world. Last Tuesday, members rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. This fall, its backers plan to begin issuing NFT passports to successful applicants who will pay a fee in exchange for formal membership and voting rights in the group.

The group, which evolved out of a travel and events business catering to Africans in the Bay Area, offers a striking illustration of the speed with which the focus of tech founders has shifted from consumer business concepts to grand political visions.

In this case, the groups backers are betting that new digital technologies like the ability to mint their own digital currency will make a 21st century reboot of pan-Africanism both politically potent and profitable.

Afropolitans co-founder, Chika Uwazie, said she and her partner, Eche Emole, settled on the idea on a trip last December to Kenya, after they read a call by crypto evangelist Balaji Srinivasan to create network states. The idea is to build new countries that begin online, gradually take shape in the real world, and achieve sovereignty. (Though as we noted last week, this is perhaps easier said than done.) Uwazie also cited Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, and the Federalist Papers, as sources of inspiration for the project.

Uwazie, 34, was born in Virginia and holds dual U.S.-Nigerian citizenships. She said the group has captured the aspirations of a generation of affluent Africans who have grown accustomed to the speed of start-up life and digital tech, and are growing impatient with the pace of political change back home.

We were frustrated with a lot of the nation-states she said We feel like they havent lived up to their potential. There are certain presidents who are sitting there for years, who have not left.

For now, the group is set up as a decentralized autonomous organization. It holds networking events and sends out a newsletter. Uwazie has pitched it to prospective members in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania. In June, the group announced it had raised $2.1 million from a group of early investors that included Srinivasan. Because this is Web3, it also has a manifesto.

Eventually, she said Afropolitans backers hope to knit together a sovereign network with territory both in Africa and in the form of Chinatown-esque Afro Towns around the world. Already, she said, one member has offered up 30 hectares (about 75 acres) of land in Zambia.

In other words, she insists the group will one day amount to much more than a social network for the continents business-school set. Were going to be a real country, she said. We think it's harder to disrupt the old system. We want to create something with a clean slate.

A message from CTIA - The Wireless Association:

5G is fighting climate change. According to Accenture, 5Gs impact across just five industries will help the United States meet 20% of its climate change goals by 2025. Thats equivalent to taking nearly 72 million cars off the road. Learn more about how 5G is making this happen, and how wireless industry innovation and commitment is helping create a more sustainable future.

The EUs ongoing flurry of regulations on AI, crypto, and tech in general makes the U.S. look indolent by comparison.

A report published this morning by the Information and Technology Innovation Foundation argues that the EU is purposely icing the States out of the process. Accusing European regulators of a nationalist turn, the report claims that by setting rules to exclude U.S. and other non-European experts from various standards-setting and research bodies the Union is hampering its own efforts and moving toward a protectionist cybersovereignty.

The Biden administration should initiate retaliatory measures and new trade law provisions on technical standards if the EU doesnt change its tune, according to Nigel Cory, the reports author. While an all-out regulatory war with the EU around tech policy is unlikely, the report highlights significant points of tension between the U.S. tech community and European regulators as the latter attempts to carve out its place in a world dominated by mostly Stateside tech giants. Derek Robertson

The Metaverse Standards Forum, formed in June to, as its name suggests, coordinate the development of metaverse standards, has an update on the work its members including industry giants including Meta, Microsoft, and Adobe have been up to.

As Europe officially kicks its regulatory machinery into gear on the metaverse, and American wonks and regulators are increasingly at the very least turning their gaze there, its worth paying attention to what developers are doing. In its blog post the forum, which has an open admission policy and has now grown to more than 1500 members, reported the most frequently upvoted topics for development by its members. Those include:

If youve been following our coverage, the focus on these topics will not be exactly surprising. But as one of the earliest concrete examples of what the tech industry is collectively hoping to hammer out as it builds the metaverse, its a convenient list of subjects at which regulators (on both sides of the Atlantic) will inevitably be taking a long, hard look. Derek Robertson

A message from CTIA - The Wireless Association:

Stay in touch with the whole team: Ben Schreckinger ([emailprotected]); Derek Robertson ([emailprotected]); Konstantin Kakaes ([emailprotected]); and Heidi Vogt ([emailprotected]). Follow us @DigitalFuture on Twitter.

Ben Schreckinger covers tech, finance and politics for POLITICO; he is an investor in cryptocurrency.

If youve had this newsletter forwarded to you, you can sign up and read our mission statement at the links provided.

A message from CTIA - The Wireless Association:

5G is helping address the challenge of climate change.These networks are unleashing new use cases across industries that are increasing efficiency and lowering emissions. 5G innovation across transportation, manufacturing, energy, agriculture and everyday life will transform the way we live and work and have an equally transformative effect on our ability to tackle this generational challenge. According to Accenture, next generation 5G networks will help America meet 20% of our emission reduction goals by 2025. Thats equivalent to taking nearly 72 million cars off the road. Learn more about how 5G is making this happen, and how wireless industry innovation and commitment is helping create a more sustainable future.

Read more from the original source:

The aspiration of a Pan-African 'network state' - POLITICO

In an interview earlier this month, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw spoke about a comprehensive policy roadmap for Indias digital economy. Crucially, he mentioned a Digital India Act that was being prepared to replace the Information Technology Act, 2000. The new law will encompass the whole menu of regulatory challenges facing the digital economy including anti-trust, data governance, intermediary liabilities, consumer protection and the ethical use of technologies.

In the past few years, policies and regulations in India have been tweaked and amended to expand their scope and bring within their ambit internet companies, especially Big Tech. In the new wave of regulation and enforcement, some countries have become trendsetters. The European Union led the way on privacy with its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) followed, more recently, by the Digital Services and Digital Market Acts. In the UK, the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum is bringing together regulatory cooperation between the competition authority, privacy regulator and telecom and financial services regulators. The US and Australian initiatives are still brewing, as are those in several other parts of the world. The principles of regulation are mostly aligned, reflecting their unease with the inconceivable growth and influence of Big Tech.

In 2019, Kashmir Hill, a journalist, wrote about her experiment with cutting out the Big Five Tech Giants. It explained her challenges of not knowing how to get in touch with people without the tech giants and in the following weeks of not being able to find easy digital replacements for sending huge files on the internet, searching the web, using maps, video calling, etc, without trespassing on the territory of the Big Five.

In a post-Covid world, one can imagine that this is much more pervasive. Hill made a point, which is now better understood and academically packaged as the doctrine of essential facilities. Digital platforms have now become our gateway to the internet. Many arguments support why private digital platforms are now seen as infrastructure and until regulations are future-proofed, the essential facilities theory offers a method to carry out anti-trust investigations. This also resonates with the EUs Digital Markets Act, which refers to gatekeeper firms.

The platform economy is global. While convergence may not be possible across the spectrum of regulatory challenges, Robert Fay from the Centre for International Governance and Innovation suggests that a patchwork deal may be possible among countries. Under the G20, the International Labour Organisation has already placed a proposal in the employment working group for digital labour platforms to develop an international governance system determining minimum rights and protections for platform workers. Similarly, on digital money, a reincarnated Bretton Woods is being advocated to address the distrust in private currencies and to coordinate the implementation of central bank digital currency projects.

Leaders from the financial sector including governments have emphasised the need for regulation of digital money at the international level. The envisioned Digital Bretton Woods is said to become the thinking pad for key questions related to the interoperability of digital asset wallets across countries, among other issues of cross-border financial transactions. This conversation is already happening at the bilateral level and within the small self-selected group of countries. Finally, in the deeply contested area of digital taxation, the OECD facilitated Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) negotiations and helped arrive at a global solution. The Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 proposals attempt to address the distribution divides in profit that accrued to big multinational internet companies and largely remained within the territory of their resident countries.

Another emerging area of cooperation is anti-trust enforcement. As countries including the US move away from traditional competition tools, there is an implicit agreement on regulatory responses that include ex-ante regulations and new guidelines for merger analysis. Faced with common challenges, countries are learning from each other. EU regulations, as mentioned above, have already become a global benchmark in this area.

The internet is splintering and digital sovereignty is now commonplace; yet, there is no better time for countries to come together and build a framework for global digital governance. As in every negotiation, countries will come to the table with their own vested interests Chinas great firewall, USs national champions, EUs focus on strategic regulation. Not every regulation will see consensus and those that do might be a compromise. But the world is accepting of the theory of the second best. Indias G20 presidency is a chance to propose a global governance framework that brings together common challenges of regulating Big Tech.

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A common minimum digital governance framework can become a win-win for both governments as well as internet companies. Most countries are currently struggling to strike a balance between reining in Big Tech versus boosting their digital economy. On the other hand, companies are burdened with the idiosyncratic regulatory requirements of the different countries they operate in. While such frameworks will allow for room to accommodate different values and cultures, there may still be countries that dont feel compelled to operate within a global framework the digital counterpart of tax havens. For the majority, however, a global response to the risks and challenges of a borderless digital economy dominated by Big Tech will work much more effectively than independent unilateral efforts. The timing is perfect.

The writer is Senior Fellow, ICRIER. Views are personal

See the article here:

Why we need to build a framework for global digital governance - The Indian Express

When we talk about virtual assistants, Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are usually the first names that come to mind.

But lets be honest: Those sorts of digital helpers are mostly just voice-controlled command systemscombined with a bit of basic automation. By and large, they dont do a heck of a lot to actually assist us in any life-changing, efficiency-enhancing ways.

A secrecy-shrouded startup called Augment is convinced theres room for something more. The company has been operating in stealth mode for the past year, with nary a detail beyond some mysterious teases about the future of productivity on its website. But now its shedding its cloak and opening its doors. And its rushing out of the gates with the bold promise of taking our virtual assistant expectations into entirely new dimensions.

Augment is launching in a limited, invite-only beta this morning. I had the chance to chat with Augments founders and sit through a demo of the services initial capabilities ahead of todays grand opening. And let me tell you: Based on this early sneak peek, at least, the service seems incredibly intriguingand absolutely packed with productivity-boosting potential.

The name Augment may not be familiar to most of us yet, but make no mistake about it: The folks behind it are no strangers to the tech universe.

The companys CEO and creator, Jordan Ritter, is best known for helping to give us Napster way back at the turn of the last century (along with, yes, that other guyyou know, the one played by Justin Timberlake in the Facebook movie). His Augment cofounder and head of product, Daniel Ladvocat Cintra, is a former Googler who worked on the business side of the search giant for the better part of a decade.

The two of them, along with cofounder Saurav Pahadia and a small team of other artificial-intelligence-obsessed humans (plus one canine), are determined to introduce us to a whole new side of AI-driven assistanceone that works proactively on our behalves and helps us out in some genuinely meaningful ways.

So lets dive into some specifics, shall we? In a nutshell, Augment adds numerous augments (get it?!) onto your existing devices. Those lowercase augments are best described as layers of intelligence that observe what youre doing and then step in as needed to make sure you always have the info you need exactly when you need it.

If that concept rings a bell, congratulations: Youve been paying attention. Philosophically, at least, Augment is strikingly similar to Heyday, a context-surfacing service I covered for Fast Company earlier this year. But while Heyday focuses exclusively on your browser and the info you interact with around the web, Augment works at the operating system level and attempts to serve much broader and more ambitious purposes.

One of Augments primary functions, for instance, is acting as an intelligent assistant for your various virtual meetings. With the software installed on your computerMac for now, with Windows support set to follow soon and then Android and iOS versions in the futureAugment keeps tabs on all of your work during the day. And since its a locally installed program, its privy to everything you open, be it a web app, a news site, a traditional note-taking or word processing program, or practically anything else imaginable.

When you head into a meeting, Augment tries to automatically pull together all the info you might need to prepareeverything its seen you interact with that could be relevant, ranging from previous emails and Slack messages with your fellow attendees to documents and websites you looked at while preparing. It assembles all that info into a custom-made docket and delivers it to you the moment your meeting begins.

I have nine pages of apps on my phone, and none of them talk to each otherso how many places [would] I have to go hunt for all that context? asks Ritter. We bring it all together.

Augment doesnt stop helping out when the meeting begins, either: During your meetings, it can quietly take notes for you and then automatically create an intelligent summary along with a list of action items and even a full transcript. All of that info is then sent your way when the meeting finishes, along with a complete collection of your related documents and conversations.

And the goal is for it to work the same way, consistentlyno matter which websites, apps, or services you might be using at any given moment.

Because of where we sit in the stack, were not integrated into Zoom, Google Meet, or anything, Cintra explains. Were actually tapping in at the OS level and so we tap [directly] into that audio data streamso were able to transcribe conversations from any source that you might have your conversations on.

Everything weve talked about so far has revolved around Augments first layerits ability to assist you with meetings. But remember: Augment (the service) involves multiple augments (the layers of added information).

At launch, Augment will have three other areas of focus revolving around memory, calendar, and tasks. Those will allow you to access similar sorts of intelligently compiled and automatically assembled bits of context from other parts of your computing experience.

So, for instance, you might summon Augment while browsing the web and ask it to show you everything related to a pending contract at your company. In that scenario, Augment might surface relevant info from your notes, documents, contacts, past meetings, or anywhere else its seen you work on something related to that subject.

You could also call up Augment directly from your calendarwhether a local calendar program or a web-based calendar service such as Google Calendarand have it give you extra context on the specific people involved in an upcoming meeting, culled from your web browsing history and past interactions.

It ultimately all boils down to the same basic principle of having an assistant act as an overlay and add an extra connective layer into your existing productivity setupwithout requiring you to change your habits or learn anything new.

For anyone building a new product, usually the first question is: What are you replacing in someones workflow? How are you going to change their behavior? How are they going to discover your product? Ritter says. Our answer is: No. All we do is overlay [on top of] whatever your systems apps are, and we bring the missing context and smarts wherever theyre needed.

Of course, you cant have software running on your computer and watching your every move without wondering about privacy. Augment uses enterprise-level security, Ritter assures me, with all data encrypted both in transit and at rest and no info ever being viewed or shared in any way. The other hefty caveat is how well it all actually works in the real world. Weve heard endless grand promises about the power of AI to assist us in various waysboth from the tech giants and from scrappy startups determined to beat the big companies at their own primary games. And more often than not, the practical benefits of each new innovation end up seeming far less life-changing in reality than they initially appeared in carefully controlled demos or marketing videos.

Today, the true test for Augment beginsas folks around the globe begin to get their hands on the technology and go beyond the polished presentations to see how it stacks up in day-to-day use.

If you want to experience Augment for yourself, you can sign up on the companys site to request early access. Itll be free for now, though only during this current beta phase. The specific pricing for Augments post-beta life is yet to be determined, but Ritter and Cintra say itll be built around a freemium subscription model, with certain features remaining free and the full experience requiring either an annual or monthly subscription (for individuals to start, with team options in the works).

Its clearly still early days for this type of technology, but Augments software shows plenty of promise. For those of us who have been waiting for a true AI assistant to make our lives easier and do more than merely react to our commands, its a tantalizing glimpse at a long-promised future that might finally be within reach.

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Read more here:

Augment AI assistant wants to go beyond Siri, Alexa, and Google - Fast Company

The Bay Area is facing a severe housing shortage, especially in San Francisco, where strict zoning regulations, an influx of affluent Silicon Valley tech workers, and insufficient housing production has caused rents to spike citywide, exacerbating a dire homelessness crisis. Securing approvals to build housing is normally an uphill battle, but Google is making strides toward creating thousands of new units in one of the countrys tightest markets. Partnering with development firm Lendlease, the tech juggernaut aims to develop nearly 15,000 units of affordable (defined in the Bay Area as costing no more than 30 percent of ones income) and market-rate housing over the next 15 years across Silicon Valley as it readies ambitious plans to expand its footprint.

If approved, the development will transform how the area around Googles headquarters will look and feel. Most housing nearby is car-oriented sprawl, but the master plan, called North Bayshore and designed by SITELAB Urban Studio, calls for mid-rise prefab apartments in bustling neighborhoods anchored by walkable shopping districts and acres of parklands. Googles vision for Mountain View is complemented by a similar development in downtown San Jose, which involves 4,500 housing units and 7.3 million square feet of commercial space, including an expansion of its own offices. Claire Johnston of Lendlease, whos overseeing the partnership with Google, has described both projects as a series of villages.

Those familiar with Googles recent forays into urban development may recall the disastrous dissolution of Quayside, a smart city along the Toronto waterfront envisioned by Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation arm of Google parent company Alphabet. Locals raised concerns about the projects privacy implications and painted a grim picture of a tech giant galvanizing economic development for the benefit of Silicon Valley. Heated public debate cast shadows over Quaysides feasibility until Sidewalk Labs nixed the project entirely in 2020. Toronto recently approved a new proposal that eschews smart city thinking, prioritizing sustainable living and affordable housing instead of ubiquitous tech and automized perks.

Will Google make the same mistakes in Mountain View? According to Johnston, all parties are listening closely to community feedback and tweaking the proposal as they ascertain local needs. No community likes an imposition, and nobody likes being told what to do or how to do things, she tells Fast Company. The role of a responsible developer who cares about longevity in a community is to come in and understand the place, understand what exists, understand the people. For example, locals werent thrilled about the intention to remove 2,500 towering redwoods from Googles tech park as it prepares to open up sight lines, so the company pledged to plant trees in Santa Clara County to ease the blow. As real estate prices nearby rose 25 percent after the announcement of the redevelopment in San Jose, Google worked with the community to devise anti-displacement and job readiness programs.

Theres also the reality that building 15,000 housing units is a drop in the bucket of a housing-starved region populated by three million people and afflicted with skyrocketing rents. But that number is dwindling as the region is weathering a major pandemic-era brain drain, with tech workers no longer bound to their employers Bay Area offices fleeing California for cheaper states with lower taxes. A pervasive sense of gloom, stoked by quality of life issues thanks to increasing distrust in local politicians and law enforcement, is only compounding the issue. According to a recent poll by the San Francisco Chronicle, one-third of locals said they were likely to leave the Bay Area in the next three years. (Even more shocking, 45 percent reported being robbed in the past five years.)

No matterGoogle is doubling down on bringing workers back to the office, a decision that has polarized its staff. The companys ambitious scheme of re-situating its own offices within walkable, town-like hubs places high stakes on the future of the Bay Area. It also establishes a precedent for Googles competitorsnamely Apple and Metato spring into action and start confronting an affordable housing crisis their industry helped exacerbate. Tech giants are notorious for building insular corporate campuses completely walled off from the outside, but Googles vision mirrors that of a resilient neighborhood more aligned with the Bay Areas long-term needs.

We all know this area is critically undersupplied with housing, and housing of all types, Johnston continues. What were seeing is people want to live in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, but theyve got supply constraints. I dont think this will be a full revisionist, we need to start over. Itll be an augmentation of whats already there. Googles efforts alone wont solve the regions deep-rooted problem of affordable housingespecially considering the projects inflated 30-year timelinebut its a start. The housing crisis will only worsen unless the city makes efforts to cut the red tape that keeps blocking new developments.

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Can Google Solve the Bay Areas Housing Crisis? - Surface Magazine

As one of Salesforces most visible products, Slack will be front and center at this years Dreamforce. The biggest Slack-related announcement at Dreamforce will be a feature called Slack canvas, built from Salesforces shareable document software Quip. Its another step toward incorporating Slack into the wider Salesforce family of products, which is critical in a highly competitive communication software space.

Slack has stopped publicly releasing its user numbers, but even with its most recent daily active user total in 2020, 12 million, Microsoft Teams was eating its lunch at 75 million. Teams reported 145 million users in 2021. Then there are challenges from Google, which has its own established workplace suite, and Zoom, which has recently placed a larger emphasis on its chat function.

Im pretty scared if Im [Salesforce co-CEO Marc] Benioff with Slack, going into a recession, said Wing Venture Capital partner Zach DeWitt. I think Microsoft is going to be very aggressive on distribution and pricing over the next few years here.

With Slack, Salesforce made a huge bet on the collaboration space. But with steep competition from Microsoft and others, is an underutilized tool that brought Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor into the company the missing link that could help the $27 billion bet pay off?

Nate Botwick, formerly VP of product with Quip, oversaw the process of building Quips software into Slack. The fruition of that project is Slack canvas. Canvases will be collaborative documents within channels that compile files, checklists and other important information that could previously just be pinned as messages by users. Theyll link to workflows like requesting a work phone, and pull data from Salesforce Sales Cloud.

It is a more persistent space to organize around this preexisting organization of channels, said Slack senior vice president of product Ali Rayl. This is a powerful thing we get with channels, which is that the right people are already there.

Quip-turned-canvas has its roots in the Salesforce-Slack acquisition. Taylor co-founded Quip in 2012, and Salesforce acquired the product in 2016. Fast forward a few years and, according to Botwick, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield approached Salesforce with interest in acquiring Quip.

Incorporating collaborative documents within Slack had been a part of Slacks original pitch deck when it was first getting up and running, Botwick said. But as we all know, those talks ended with Salesforce acquiring Slack instead of Slack acquiring Quip.

Both products independently had this vision of teams being able to work with both a canvas-like product and a messaging product together, but each product independently focused in different areas, Botwick said. Between Stewart and Brett, it was one of the things that they were both most excited about in this acquisition.

Quip moved into Slacks domain after the deal closed. The rest of Salesforces products, such as Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, are still external to Slack but integrated through thin work, as Rayl called it. For example, you can file a quick Salesforce expense report without leaving Slack. You're not provisioning people to a bunch of different systems just so they can access one chart or one ticket, Rayl said.

The connection to the broader Salesforce suite is a benefit for Slack, as its where employees are already working. But it's a play Microsoft also has, to an even greater degree.

Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research, said companies are absolutely using both Salesforce and Microsoft products. The question is which ones theyre paying for, as Slack and Teams offer some features for free.

There are many companies that are Microsoft shops, Rubin said. Do they need both? Teams can be a more general platform, whereas Salesforce might build functionality into Slack thats heavily integrated into CRMs, for example.

Futurum Researchs Kramer put it more bluntly: Microsoft has pretty much won the collaboration wars, she said.

Salesforce knows it has a long road ahead if it wants to prove Kramer wrong in the collaboration space. Although co-CEOs Taylor and Benioff have called the companys integration of Slack a key priority, it hasnt all been smooth sailing. During earnings calls Benioff has alluded to integration challenges and realignments within the Slack organization.

Although there were a number of standard internal operational changes that come along with any big merger, such as moving from Slack Workday to Salesforce Workday, Rayl was quick to point out that nothing has changed about the way Slack thinks about its product.

We still have the same goals for Slack. We still build the product in the same way, said Rayl. Now the focus is, How do we just expose all of Salesforces products in the best possible way inside of the Slack that we're already planning to build?

The true measure of Salesforces strategy, however, will depend on Slacks ability to add new users and also convert free users to paid ones. But Slack is cagey about disclosing the number of users it has. The company declined to share that information with Protocol ahead of Dreamforce, although it's a data point the company has shared in the past.

Since Slack doesnt disclose its user numbers, it's not clear how many Salesforce customers are actually using Slack as opposed to, say Microsoft Teams. Slack leaders are confident the company is differentiated, but it's still expanding into the same areas as its competitors.

I see Slack in the same boat as Zoom, Kramer said. Both companies are in an uphill battle to build true collaboration hubs that you live in all day, rather than a place you pop into for a meeting or a message.

Regardless, Salesforce executives seem pretty happy about Slacks performance so far.

This is the fourth consecutive quarter weve seen more than 40% growth, said Taylor during Salesforces first-quarter earnings call. And moving forward, Slack is expected to contribute about $1.5 billion towards Salesforces full year revenue guidance.

But if Salesforce customers arent actually using Slack for their work, the vision of becoming a digital headquarters that can compete with the likes of Teams and others begins to break down. Without data on the number of users, it's impossible to tell how close to that shaky reality Slack is.

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With Genie, Salesforce is the latest SaaS giant to build a CDP - Protocol

A high-profile antitrust bill intended to curb the power of tech giants like Amazon and Google appears to have enough support to pass Congress but likely wont be voted on before Election Day. Multiple sources familiar with the matter tell TIME they dont expect Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to bring up the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, known as AICO, for a floor vote before the November elections.

Doubt it, said Sen. Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri and a co-sponsor of the legislation, when asked whether there would be a vote on the measure before the midterms. I hope, but it doesnt look like it to me. A senior Democratic Senate aide likewise told TIME that there is no chance the Senate will vote on the bill before Congress breaks on Sept. 30, at which point most lawmakers turn their eyes to the campaign trail.

Thats not to say a Senate vote on the bill before the midterms is impossible. Only Schumer, as majority leader, controls the Senate floor, which is where AICO must first pass before Speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow the House to vote on it. But many of the bills fiercest champions have essentially given up hope that they will be able to send the legislation to President Joe Bidens desk ahead of the congressional recess.

It will be difficult to get it up in the next two weeks, Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and one of AICOs lead sponsors, told TIME, referring to the tight time frame when legislators will be mostly focused on passing a continuing resolution before Oct. 1 to avoid a government shutdown. After that, the chances of passing a bill before the election are slim to none.

If Congress doesnt vote on the legislation by then, lawmakers could potentially take it up during the so-called lame-duck session that takes place in November and December. On Thursday, a bipartisan group of Senators working on a bill to protect the right to same-sex and interracial marriage announced that the vote on that would be pushed back until after the election, when more Republicans may be willing to support it.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and the author of AICO in the Senate, acknowledged in a statement to TIME the possibility that the bill may be taken up in the lame-duck session.

Against all odds, we have passed a bill out of committee to take action to protect consumers and small businesses and put rules of the road in place for dominant tech platforms, Klobuchar said. We have a strong bipartisan coalition in both the House and Senate pushing this bill forward, and the American people are on our side. Sen. Schumer is committed to working with me for a vote, and whether this bill comes to the floor before or after the midterms, we will take action.

The delay brings yet another obstacle in the continuing saga for Congress to rein in Big Techs monopoly power. The AICO legislation would prohibit the likes of Amazon and Google from prioritizing their own products on their platforms over competitors. Its being held up along with a narrower companion bill, the Open App Markets Act, which would force Apple and Google to open up their app stores to rival marketplaces. Bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate judiciary committees have already voted to send both of the bills for floor votes in their respective chambers. Thats led to months of waiting on Schumer to schedule a vote in the Senate.

Sources tell TIME that the House wont act on AICO until the Senate does because Pelosi doesnt want to needlessly put her caucus through what would be a difficult vote for some of her members, especially those in California. The maneuvering has been a source of frustration for some of the measures House champions, such as Rep. Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, who is a lead sponsor of the bill. Why dont they bring it up in the House? Buck told TIME. Maybe Big Tech owns them. I have no idea. They point the finger at each other. Its ridiculous. They pass legislation when they want to. Pelosi has had plenty of tough votes for her members. The speakers office did not respond to a request for comment.

The main sponsors of the bills Senate version, Klobuchar and Grassley, both say it has more than enough votes to pass the upper chamber, which has 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Grassley, for his part, says there are more than 20 Senate Republicans prepared to vote for it. Most Senate Democrats are expected to vote for it as well. Yet Schumer, who says he supports the bill, has been noncommittal about when he will bring it to the floor.

While his office has suggested he intends to hold a vote on the measure, his reluctance has led some advocates to suspect he is playing into Big Techs strategy of running out the clock. In recent weeks, supporters of the bill, including privacy-focused tech companies like DuckDuckGo and Mozilla, have urged Congress to vote on the bill as soon as possible.

Sources familiar with the process say that Schumer delayed a vote on the antitrust legislation through the spring and summer to make sure Congress first could pass bills that would be most helpful to Democrats facing difficult election challenges. Indeed, Schumer surprised much of Washington last month when he managed to shepherd the Inflation Reduction Act to Bidens desk. The historic bill aims to mitigate climate change, lower prescription drug costs, and raise taxes on some of the richest corporations. Then he helped to pass the CHIPS and Science Act to subsidize domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research, and the PACT Act to provide health care to military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.

Now, Democratic operatives say hes afraid to put his vulnerable members in the crosshairs of Big Tech months before an election, when those companies and their wealthy leaders can pour money into helping efforts to sink their bids for reelection.

Others speculate that the more than $120 million that the tech behemoths have spent campaigning against the billincluding through ubiquitous television and online ads that argue the bill will stifle innovation, harm consumers, and jeopardize cybersecurityis paying dividends.

Pressure from Big Tech, Hawley said, when asked why he thinks Schumer wont bring AICO up for a vote. Its just millions of dollars spent. Truthfully, I also think that Democrats have fallen in love with the power of Big Tech. Its very useful to them. I think they kind of like it, so I think they dont really want to get rid of it.

Schumers office did not respond to a request for comment.

The majority leaders stalling has drawn the ire of progressive activists who are eager for lawmakers to prevent the tech giants from abusing their gatekeeper status. Over Labor Day weekend, Fight for the Future, a liberal advocacy group, hired an airplane to fly a message over New York beaches that said, Schumer: Help NY Workers, Not Big Tech! That same group has for months been playing a John Oliver segment in support of the bill on repeat on a large screen outside of Schumers Brooklyn home.

Some lawmakers are skeptical the bill has the votes needed to pass, and suggest that thats the real reason Schumer hasnt called a vote. I dont think there will be a vote unless the authors are fairly certain that they have 60 votes, Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, told TIME. Thats pretty standard protocol for Sen. Schumer. He tells people, You gotta demonstrate you have the votes before I commit to burning the floor time.

Yet earlier this summer, AICOs authors said they had precisely that. I think its very clear that we have the votes to pass both those bills in the House and in the Senate, Rep. David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and the author of the House version, told TIME. Grassley and Klobuchar have the votes, a lobbyist pushing for the legislation previously told TIME. Sen. Grassley has stated he has more than 20 Republican votes. He doesnt get the whip count wrong.

But whether the votes are there or not, some of the bills supporters are growing less optimistic that the bill will become law than they were earlier in the summer. While AICO certainly isnt dead, those who are hungry for Congress to crack down on Big Tech are getting more nervous by the day.

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Vote on Big Tech Antitrust Bill Unlikely Before Election - TIME

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As inflation bites and businesses fret over a potential economic downturn, the outlook for flexible working has looked a little more uncertain in recent months.

According to figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS), just over three in 10 workers currently work remotely at least some of the time. Those who are able to work from home in some capacity report better work-life balance (78%) fewer distractions (53%) and being able to get more work done (53%).

Understandably, employees want to hold onto these hard-earned freedoms. Employers, however, may have different plans.

According to a recent report by A.Team and MassChallenge, 55% of tech leaders plan to ask staff to work from the office more in the next 12 months. What's more, 53% of leaders said that an economic downturn "would make it easier to require employees to return to the office." As hiring slows and job cuts loom, some employers may well use this as an opportunity to reverse or at least limit remote working.

READ THIS: As hiring freezes and layoffs hit, is the bubble about to burst for tech workers?

No doubt many leaders will be paying attention to how major tech companies are reacting to the situation. Apple, for instance, has laid off a number of recruiters and plans to curb hiring next year to help it weather an uncertain economic climate. Meta, Microsoft and Google have also announced plans to slow hiring, and all four tech giants have made moves to get their workers into the office on a more regular basis in recent months.

Asking employees to return to the office as a reaction to financial uncertainty feels more like a return to what feels familiar than a practicable way of overcoming the challenges ahead. While doing so might help leaders regain a sense of control and run the business as a much tighter ship, it's not necessarily going to help improve productivity or engagement. ONS data suggests that 78% of employees who work from home in some capacity report a better work-life balance, and taking this away will not win employers any favours.

Workers might also choose to return to the office if working from home gets significantly more expensive.

In the UK, for example, energy bills are rising fast. Utility bills are already creeping up as a result of working from home, and as we approach winter, many employees will be forced to choose between costly heating bills, a cold house or a commute none of which hold much appeal.

Whether or not employees will save money by working from the office five days a week is another question. Commuting can be expensive, and if parents suddenly have to start thinking about childcare, it may be that working remotely remains the cheaper option. Either way, it's going to be adding to a complex balancing act.

For their part, leaders should consider how their decisions in periods of economic uncertainty impact employees. Bills might be rising, but salaries are dragging behind. Yes, leaders have a business to run and the bottom line to think about, but if they mandate a return to the office that puts staff on the financial backfoot, it's not going to solve any of the problems they're trying to address.

No matter what the coming months bring, there is no putting the genie back into the bottle when it comes to hybrid working. Recessions can have the effect of freezing people in pace or encourage firms to revert to what feels safe. But what worked before may not work in the future and companies should think about what they might lose by returning to old ways of working.

ZDNet's Monday Opener is our opening take on the week in tech, written by members of our editorial team.

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Hybrid workers don't want to return to the office. But soon, they might have to - ZDNet