Tag Archives: Huawei

May 24, 2025 · 00:09

A swing and a miss

It is no secret that I hold the ‘possessors’ of AI at a distance. AI doesn’t exist (not yet at least) and now I got ‘informed’ through Twitter (still refusing to call it X) the following:

So after ‘Microsoft-backed Builder.ai collapsed after finding potentially bogus sales’ we get that the company is entering insolvency proceedings. Yet a mere three days ago TechCrunch gave us “Once worth over $1B, Microsoft-backed Builder.ai is running out of money”, so as such with a giggle on my mind I give you “Can’t have been a very good AI, can it?” So from +$1,000,000,000 to zilch (aka insolvency), how long did that take and where did the money go? So consider this, TechCrunch also gives us “The Microsoft-backed unicorn, which has raised more than $450 million in funding, rose to prominence for its AI-based platform that aimed to simplify the process of building apps and websites. According to the spokesperson, Builder.ai, also known as Engineer.ai Corporation, is appointing an administrator to “manage the company’s affairs.”” Now, I am going on a limb here. Consider that a billion will enable 1,000 programmers to work a year for a million dollars each. So where did the money go? I know that this doesn’t make sense (the 1000 programmers) but to consider that they might accept a deal for $200,000 each, there would be 5 years of designing and programming. Does that make sense? The website Builder.AI (my assumption that this is where they went gives us merely one line “For customer enquiries, please contact customers@builder.ai. For capacity partner enquiries, please contact capacitynetwork@builder.ai.” This is not good as I see it. The Register (at https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/21/builderai_insolvency/) gives us “The collapse of Builder.ai has cast fresh light on AI coding practices, despite the software company blaming its fall from grace on poor historical decision-making. Backed by Microsoft, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and a host of venture capitalists, Britain-based Builder.ai rose rapidly to near-unicorn status as the startup’s valuation approached $1 billion (£740 million). The London company’s business model was to leverage AI tools to allow customers to design and create applications, although the Builder.ai team actually built the apps.”

As such the headline of the Register is pretty much spot on “Builder.ai coded itself into a corner – now it’s bankrupt” You see coding yourself into a corner is not AI, it is people. People code and when you code yourself into a corner the gig is quite literally up. And I can go on all day as there is not AI. There is deeper Machine Language and there are LLM (Large Language Model) and the combination can be awesome and it is part of an actual AI, but it is not AI. As such as Microsoft is believing its own spin (yet again) we can confuse that there is now a setting that Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and a host of venture capitalists have pretty much lost their faith in Microsoft and that will have repercussions. It is basically that simple. The first part of resolving this is to acknowledge that there is no AI, there is a clear setting that the power of DML and LLM should not be dismissed as it is really powerful but it is not AI. 

As I personally see it, the LLM is setting a stage that the chess computers had in the late 80’s and early 90’s. They basically had every chess game ever played in their memory and that is how the chess computer could foresee what was possible thrown against it. And until 2002 when Chessmaster 9000 was released by Ubisoft, that was what it was and for that time it was awesome. I would never have been able to get as far as I did in chess without that program and I am speculatively seeing that unfold. A setting holding a billion parameters? So I ,might be wrong on this part, but that is what I see and we need to realise that the entire AI setting is spin from greedy salespeople that cannot explain what they are selling (thank god I am not a salesperson). I am technical support and I am customer care and what we see as ‘the hand of a clever person’ is not that, not even close. 

So as we are also given “Blue-chip investors poured in cash to the tune of more than $500 million. However, all was not well at the startup. The company was previously known as Engineer.ai, and attracted criticism after The Wall Street Journal revealed in 2019 that the startup used human engineers rather than AI for most of its coding work”, as such (again speculation) a simple trick to replay a mere 1800 days later. And this is what a lot are (plenty of them in a more clever way) but the show is now on Microsoft. They cracked this, so when they come with a “we were lured” or “it is more complex and the concept was looking really good” we should ask them a few hard questions. So whilst we are given “While the failure of startups, even one as high profile as Builder.ai, is not uncommon, the company’s reliance on AI tools to speed coding might give some users pause for thought.” And when we consider “might give some users pause for thought” is a rather nasty setting as I was there already years ago. So where the others? As such we should grill Satya Nadella on “Last month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella boasted that 30 percent of the code in some of the tech giant’s repositories was written by AI. As such, an observer cannot help but suspect some passive aggression is occurring here, where a developer has been told that the agent must be used, and so they are going to jolly well do it. After all, Nadella is not one to shy from layoffs.” As such I wonder when the stake holders for Microsoft will consider that the ‘USE BY’ date of Satya Nadella was only good until December 2024. But that is me merely speculating. So I wonder when the media and actual clever people in media are considering that this is a game thatch only be postponed and not won. So will the others run when the going gets tough, or will they hide behind “but everyone agrees on this” as such the individual bond will triumph and there is a lot of work out there. The need to explain to people (read: customers) is that there is a lot of good to be found in the DML and LLM combination. It remains a niche market and it will fill the markets when people cannot afford AI, because that setting will be expensive (when it is ready). These computers will be the things that IBM can afford, as can the larger players like an airline, Ford, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) and a few others. But the first 10 years it will remain out of the hands of some, unless they time share (pay per processor second) with anyone who has the option to afford one. That computer will need to work 80%+ of the time to be affordable. 

As such we will see a total amount of spin in the coming months, because Microsoft backed the wrong end of that equation and now the fires are coming to their feet. Less then. Less than an hour ago we were given ‘Microsoft Unveils AI Features for Windows 11 Tools’. I have no idea how they can fit this in, but I reckon that the media will avoid asking the questions that matter. As such we will have to wait the unfolding of the people behind builder.ai. I wonder if anyone will ask the specification off what happened to said billion dollars? Can we get a clear list please and where did the hardware end? Or was a mere server rack leased from Microsoft? This is just me having fun at present. 

So have a great day and I will sleep like a baby knowing that Microsoft swung and missed the ball by a fair bit. I reckon that this is…. Let’s see there was the Tablet, which they lost against Apple and now Huawei as well. There was the Gaming station, which was totally inferior against Sony. there was Azure (OK, it didn’t fail but a book vendor called Amazon has a much better product, there was the Browser, which is nowhere near as good as Google. And there are a few others, but they slipped my mind. So this is at least number 5, 6 if you count Huawei as a player as well. Not really that good for a company that is valued at 3.34 trillion. So how many failures will we witness until that is gone too? 

Have fun out there today.

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May 23, 2025 · 06:58

America of the Dead

I would want to set the stage as “The names of players and places have been changed to protect the greedy”, but that would not be true. This is a pure work of fictive imagination (based on real events) as there is no City of Anvil in Canada, There is (to the best of my knowledge) no Benirus Manor and to the best of my knowledge no Velwyn Benirus, as such, lets get this show on the road. 

BEGIN

There is a setting we all tend to ignore as it is easy to avoid knowledge when you can turn away from the facts presented to you. The American economy is in a spell, Wall Street is perhaps days away from retiring America’s Credit Card, time is up, the funds have dried up and in the last 6 months disaster upon disaster hit the shores of Wall Street. The MateBook Fold, which was released to the world in late 2025 took the planet by storm, the EU and Arabia almost instantly adopted it, HarmonyOS captured the world and the new settings changed everything. Google lost almost 15% market share within the first 6 months. And as TikTok showed a much larger impact, it lost 20% there too. Microsoft buckled as it had nothing to compete with and Apple was losing over 5% market share in the first three months. America’s economy has pretty much done for. The price of lack of innovation and the reliance on its own spin marketing. When results cannot be vouched for and revenue goes down an economy will be forced on its knees within a year, no matter how good your spin is, Wall Street demands results. Ad it was not the only element. There were the disastrous notions of AI, or NIP (Near intelligent Parsing) as it was blended into. AI was pretty much dead. All the hype demanded more and more results, but the bulk of the programmers couldn’t keep up with the hype and that made a collection of several companies shed a combined 900 billion dollars, and in the time of Wall Street draconian settings, results must be shown. And America was out of options, they had to result to attempts to annex areas. The first failure was Greenland, the EU and Canada stuck to their guns and the EU called in help from China as it could not counter a war on two fronts and China reacted positively. Then America tried to ‘annex’ their 51st state and that was in an impasse as the Commonwealth collectively came to the aid of their bigger brother. But that fight was not over, the President of the United States called  to the TV networks to the aid of MAGA and the people responded and this is such a story.

In Shelburne (Canada) is a house, the house is quite old, it was build around 1795, against all odds, as most of the town was build out of wood, this house was build from bricks, mortar and stones. The original owner was a stone mason and for years he created the house, stone by stone and in the unofficial suburb of Anvil, which was by Black Brook, just of Glasgow Street was Anvil. It was unofficial as that place had a mere 4 houses. The house was deserted, it was seemingly haunted and had a local appeal, especially with the younger folks as it was a place where you call out the chickens of the community, but over the years nothing had happened and it was a simple truth or dare place. And in 2026 things changed. The MAGA foundational idiots (for lack of a better term) decided to react to the call of President Trump and they invaded New Brunswick from Maine and pushed through to Nova Scotia. The 1500 RCMP were no match for the 11.000 heavily armed simpletons and as such they were handed a heavily defeat around Saint John. I heard they are building a memorial there, the entire state, as well as Nova Scotia is bringing the cash for that one and the reaction of the people has been nothing but stellar. Kids handing over their piggy banks to aid in this would bring tears to any parent. But that is about tomorrow, we are still dealing with yesterday.

So as the invasion proceeded it was the theoretically the second day. They stormed NB in mere hours and a 10:1 overwhelming force is no immediate match for Canada. But then the game changed because the truth or dare house came alive in the most peculiar way. The original oil lamps outside of the house started igniting and the fireplace lit up. The text was barely readable on the top bar of marble and it was in the fireplace, but the text ‘bydded i’r rhai sy’n byw trwy weithredoedd o frad, ddod o hyd i uffern dragwyddol’ lit up in the fieriest red, then turned white and an eerie sound of spectral people was to be heard, it was seemingly loud as people in the houses around it evicted themselves and ran for the church. It was at that point that the MAGA loving red hatted people came into view. They saw the house and saw it as a safe place. They entered the house, a mere dozen and that had the effect of the house flexing its stones and the setting these people got was even worse then the worst her they ever thought possible. 

At first there was nothing, a simple humming sound not unlike a generator and that is what the red hatters thought it was but in minutes they were surrounded by spectral wraiths, the wraiths slamming their claws into these enemies and the enemies that got of a shot merely realised that these ‘opposers of American Freedom’ were unharmed by bullets and within minutes, the red hatters were no more. The bodies slumped as potatoes on the floor and the wraiths seemed to lit up and they vanished. Still the setting was not done over the next minutes that they died their bodies changed, they took on Zombie like appearances, their flesh decaying in front of your eyes and soon the started twitching and they got up in clumsy ways and looked? Yes, that is the question, their eyes had become black pits and staring at the distance they merely started walking towards the places they came from. 

Yet the house was not done, there was a new eerie smell coming from the basement and the feeling of a presence was unmistakable, there was something coming up. It was still soft and unidirectional, but over the next hour it become more pronounced up came something that is seen in fantasy stories. It was a lich, it had the name of Dafydd Edwards and it was the original builder of the house, his grave was empty as the people concluded that he was dragged away and eaten by bears and in the early 1800’s it was a realistic premise. 

In the meantime the zombie alike people were getting back to the land of the not so free and they were creating mayhem, as the wraiths had made them pretty much impervious to bullets. And with every execution they made, they created new zombies, but there was something more. With every kill there was a small stream of light going straight into the direction where they came from. And within hours the 11,000 men had depleted to a few hundreds and they were running for their lives straight back into Maine where they were praying for insight and wisdom, but those who are not wise will not get it from a prayer, they merely remain as stupid as they were before. Still it was a few hours later and they had arrived in Bangor a more solid place where they could set up defenses. But in this day and age, where people had forgotten about real curses and that was the stage. It was a the next evening that the people feared. Whilst the news was in denial there was anything happening and President Trump gave his world the views he had implying that they are all seeing “Fake News” and “a big lie”, that he would never attack that “beautiful, beautiful 51st state to be” but the turnaround was coming and as the darkness set in, the city of Bangor in the state of Maine got a new view, hundreds of zombie like creatures, all dressed with a red hat and behind them was a shining white lich, walking upright and striding with prides. It was Dafydd Edwards, the shiny white came from the energy that the zombies had slain and Edward was shiny as the full moon on a dark day. As such it had gotten the energy of hundreds of slain Americans and with each attack Edward made on anyone, that person was given the trepidation of reality. His heart blackened with angst and the inability to aim or use his gun, stricken to move and that also came with an inability to move to any degree with agility. Their ability to run away was taken from them and as such the zombies made short work of them. America was losing a lot more than the economy, they lost their population.

THE END

As such this is a work of fiction. It is based on Bethesda’s Oblivion, Simon Pegg’s and Edgar Wright’s, Shaun of the Dead, America’s inability to set a budgets, Canadian values (against the 51st state mentions) and a personal need to come to the aid of the Commonwealth and in all this we shouldn’t ignore the innovation that Huawei brings to the table. So you all have a great day and for me it might be the first day since August 20th 2024 that I will not be able to make my 10,000 steps. The hard rain here, right now, is ghastly.

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May 20, 2025 · 18:41

The issue that nags

Yup, it happens and that its fine. But to face a bug at the 11:58 on a clock that merely goes to 12 is intensely nagging. There is a setting that we face and it is due to the blundering achievements of Virtuos. Don’t get me wrong, a game the size of Oblivion will always have a few settings that go awry and at that point it is a mere setting of fixing that problem. There is another setting they face and that is the simple fact that testing would have brought it to the attention of the development team. I refuse that the setting was ‘overlooked’, this was blatant stupidity. 

To paint you picture at the very end you are to go to Paradise (quest name) and you face a few settings and it is all fine. Even Eldamil, a high elf that will help you to allow you to continue. He even tells you that he is immortal. As such as we get to go further, you will forever face his cadaver down the road to stop you in your track. So, we get essential NPC’s always becoming ‘unconscious’ and NOW we get the dead High Elf? Virtuos, you stupid idiots. Fix this.

It isn’t that I never faced this, well I didn’t on Xbox360 and Playstation 3. But here at twice the price and a 125GB download, I would have expected things to be better and for the most it is, but this stops me from getting the last two achievements and when you are waiting for 23:59:59 midnight celebrations and the clock crashes at 23:59:00 stress levels tend to rise.

So when will we see the fix? I get that they are trying to fix glitches, but to fix this bug that shouldn’t have passed development in the first place is a rather large dum dum setting.

Well, I had to vent this, as it is irritating as hell and it is the second real bug that I get. So overall a true great achievement. Now the option to replay the game (as I had some plans there), or wait until this issue is fixed. The issue of irritating is boggling.

So as we are out on issues, lets face the one we might see as a rather large issue from our assisting sneaky sneaky people at the CIA. This one was brought to my attention with gratitude to the CBC who (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-china-foreign-source-recruitment-1.7531667) give us ‘The CIA is openly calling on Chinese officials to spy for the U.S. Will they listen?’ So what is going on? To be honest I was considering that the CIA was now controlled by the Keystone Cops, with Commissioner Ben Turpin leading the bunch. But then I remembered the first law of warfare and considered there is a lot more going on. So what is the setting? I have no idea, the fact that CBC has this makes me wonder the first law of warfare, but the quote “American spies are saying the quiet part out loud to Chinese officials: Their knowledge of Beijing’s secrets would be welcome in Washington.” So is it really that, or is Washington hungry for Chinese IP? Then there is the subsequent quote “The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has taken to social media to publish slickly produced videos in Mandarin with Chinese subtitles. One features a senior Chinese official making the dramatic decision to contact the U.S. spy agency, seemingly after watching two colleagues be disappeared by the communist government. It’s all part of a bold public pitch by the CIA to lure disaffected bureaucrats to spy for the U.S.” This has me wondering what is going on. Going to social media? I get the mandarin part with subtitles, but this path is in my opinion a game to get stress levels up in the Chinese bureaucracy. And the end quote “lure disaffected bureaucrats to spy for the U.S.” it kinda reminds me of the setting of two hotdog vendors at the Chinese National Stadium (Bird’s Nest) and the National Aquatics Center (Water Cube) proclaiming that a free hotdog and cash is due to any new spy for the CIA. With optional an American passport after 3 years of handing a wealth of knowledge (and IP) to the Americans. So how long will such a person last? That person will face the Ministry of State Security at No. 100 Xiyuan, Haidian, Beijing, China as well as a largely disgruntled Nie Furu, not to mention the colleagues that person have because there is every chance that this person is surrounded by people who does accept and love the Chinese way of life. I am just guessing (read: speculating) that China has plenty of those who embrace the Chinese way of life.

So at this point reading at the CBC that “CIA Director John Ratcliffe has confirmed the videos are “aimed at recruiting Chinese officials to steal secrets.” Links are provided with instructions on how to contact the spy agency in a secure manner”, as such is it really about “recruiting Chinese officials to steal secrets” or is it a hidden ploy for people at Huawei and Tencent to bag IP for America? I reckon that list is a lot bigger than these two, but they are way ahead of the rest of them. So is this an actual spy setting, or is America desperate to get their fingers on IP? I am just asking as the CIA (until recently) was unwilling to hire ‘foreigners’ and as such they got the stage of limelight seeking Bradley Edward Manning (2013) and Edward Snowden (2013). So what is this? I have no idea, but if it was a recruitment setting, it doesn’t seem to be a very intelligent one. As we get the Chinese ‘response’ that “China’s foreign ministry has labelled the initiative “a naked political provocation,” and the country has warned it will take steps to confront “infiltration and sabotage activities” accordingly.” And in this I have no idea what a “a naked political provocation” is, but I guess that nudity is not part of the setting. As my personal setting is that it is a play to see where the stress levels are in China, more important that ‘disgruntled’ people are more likely to be found in American staged businesses in China, as such I would presume that it is about IP and CIA Director John Ratcliffe better realise that this could be turned around. I reckon that with the dismissals all over tech America, China could play the same game. Perhaps my (personal speculated) setting would give the stage that Microsoft with its 280,000 people have a lot more disgruntled people per square inch than most other companies and the dog eat dog mentality show to be the usual operating setting to be more viable to get this settings. At present people are all ‘undone’ by Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon and META. So how is that for a shot across the bough John? 

Well time for me to crunch down on a plate of pasta. Time to resolve that hunger feeling in me. Have a great day.

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May 17, 2025 · 10:09

Death is nigh

Yup, a bit gloomy and perhaps a little too doom speaking, but the news is there and I for one saw this coming a mile away. I mentioned this in the article ‘Utter insanity’ on October 4th 2020 (https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/04/utter-insanity/, aka World Animal Day), I mentioned in there the few articles where I also made mention of the US debt, one as early as 2020. So why now?

Well, Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/moodys-downgrades-us-aa1-rating-2025-05-16/) gives us that the credit rating of America has been downgraded. It went from AAA to AA1, this might not be a big thing, but it is, especially in current conditions. You see, Moody also gives us “Moody’s cites rising debt and interest costs” and with that one line the die is cast. Even if it is merely a rise of 0.1%, the implied setting of $36 trillion ($36,000,000,000,000) gives us an additional interest of $36,000,000,000 or $36 billion and the Americans cannot keep their budget as is. So how much larger will this debt become? You can all say that Saudi Arabia is now investing, the AI is coming. But the investment over years will not even pay for the interest increase and at present the top 10 least risky investments hold 10 countries and none of them is America. Makes you think doesn’t it? Then there is the second stage, the stage where some players might think that holding US Bonds might be a tat too risky for them and banker being the cowards that they are learned from the 2008 credit crises and they will be bailing at the first opportunity, especially as the UAE is a much safer and seemingly more rewarding venture at present. 

So is death really nigh?
That is a fair question and I am hesitant to answer either way because the reliability of the press is nowhere to be found (perhaps in a dozen places). So they cannot give us the goods and I saw this going as far back as 2011, as such we cannot see any press reasonably credible, especially when they quote market wannabe’s. And this is not on President Trump, although his actions did speed up the process. The World Travel & Tourism Council gave us “THE U.S. IS projected to lose $12.5 billion in international travel spending this year, falling to under $169 billion from $181 billion in 2024”then there are the losses in defense projects, the losses from allies regarding Canada and Greenland and that showed me that America is desperate, and it seems now that the hammer falls down on people realising that I have been right for over a decade, but bury your heads in the sand. All these presented ‘wins’ are a cloth covering the larger losses. The AFR gave us yesterday ‘China slams Trump’s new chip ban, reigniting trade tensions’ with “The US Commerce Department issued guidance this week that Huawei’s Ascend AI semiconductors are subject to export controls anywhere in the world on the basis that they were developed using American technology.” What a way to piss off your allies. We see this when we critically look at the statement “For Washington, restricting Beijing’s access to cutting-edge processors is a way to blunt China’s rise in artificial intelligence and military applications.” In the first, Huawei is using its own chips, making it doubtful that it is ‘cutting edge’ and in the second, you just tried to ‘beg’ Saudi Arabia for more money, do you think that they as well as the UAE will take that warning? Huawei already has a decent grip on that region with cutting edge development and Oracle is about to go there too. So is this the best way for the American administration to hedge their bets? Now that their credit rating dropped, I reckon the floodgates are no longer sealed, whatever they let through will cost America close to billions and there are people holding trillions in American debt, as such they are likely to get out while the going is good.

So what if I am wrong?
It is doubtful, but it is a fair question. Look at all the economy that America lost in this year and add the losses of next year too, because as I see it, tourism and all the connected spendings are close to gone until at least 2027. Then in 2029-2031 Saudi Arabia has its 2030 setting with all the new resorts (which was always going to happen) and as such you see, the strangling interest of 36 trillion on American and their dream settings. The fact that Tourism at present is “This significant shortfall represents a 22.5% decline compared to the previous peak” as such their current setting is a lot less than 2019 before COVID, it is that bad and we might not care for the income of Disney, or Warner Brothers but this also impacts all the places around them as people cannot afford it all in these places. These places will share in those losses, as such I reckon that Florida will have a few massively bad years (compared to the present). Do your own researching and never accept anyones word as gospel (not even from me), know that data, know your area and see where the losses can be seen. 

I reckon that Oracle is doing fine and will be doing fine for some time to come, but they too have shed employees in 2024 and 2025. 

As I see it, when the masses get the insight of how bad America is doing, that coffin will basically bury itself. So have a great day and don’t let the recession hit you in the head, it is an expected two weeks away at present and there is the setting we all received there hours ago ‘Why France, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Finland, UK, Netherland, Belgium Issuing Travel Advisories to US, Making a Big Dent in American Tourism Revenue, The One Detail That Changes Everything’ as such the bulk of the EU is turning away from America on tourism, as you can see, I remained optimistic, it seems the news is pushing ahead of the settings we now see and when they catch on regarding bonds and America quality of life going down too, the panic will hit wall street and several other markets

So enjoy this Saturday.

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May 12, 2025 · 16:58

America’s shifting phase

This morning Arab News (at https://arab.news/9hjca) gave us ‘First Saudi-made THAAD system parts completed in Jeddah’ Saudi Arabia has been aiming for the need of internal national interests to have this done. We are given “Saudi Arabia has completed the first domestically manufactured components for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system launcher in Jeddah, marking a significant step forward in the Kingdom’s ongoing efforts to localize its defense industry.” And as we are given “Tim Cahill, president of missiles and fire control at Lockheed Martin; Nawaf Al-Bawardi, assistant deputy of the General Authority for Military Industries; and Wasim Attieh, president of AIC.” We seemingly are all OK with this, this is not really news. Saudi Arabia was aiming for this all along. In this case the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system launcher (THAAD) was on show. But the story goes beyond that. I reckon that the FEINDEF 2025 (Spain) as from today was the second initial kick off, but there were other symptoms. There was the (DSA 2024) in Kuala Lumpur and the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX/NAVDEX) in Abu Dhabi, UAE. I personally believe that Saudi Arabia kept close eyes on the ready date of this system as it allows them to gain interest from Bangladesh, Egypt and Indonesia, they might not be ‘big league’ material, but Bangladesh and Egypt represent almost $5 billion each and Indonesia represents $11 billion. Now, they don’t spend it all in one go, but Saudi Arabia is said to get a speculated part of that and even with a mere 200 million (over all three) that becomes a massive boost for the Saudi Defence industry, even more so, it would be revenue that America and Russia loses. Gives the expression “when two dogs fight for a bone, the third runs away with it” a new side to that equation. So as Lockheed Martin is locking in their services and consultancy for close to another decade, Saudi Arabia’s first delivery system is gaining strength in the defence industry. Bangladesh being 35th, Egypt 19th and Indonesia 16th. They are giving strength to the Saudi Defence industry. So as I saw that market evolve in February 10th 2022 in my story ‘Oh darn, I am missing out’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/10/oh-darn-i-am-missing-out/) with those decrepit tea grannies, it took Saudi Arabia a mere 3 years to evolve their own market. They now have their own industry. So cry “stop arming Saudi Arabia” all you like, the only thing they’d hurt was the British defence industry. And as I see it, they are about to do a lot more than hurt ‘the British business’, they are gaining political power by giving the Arabian nations and Asian nations their own voice, not hindered by America, Russian or British political powers. Now they (meaning Saudi Arabia) become the global political power player.

As I see that, I am reminded of the old setting that my granny complained about the essential need of the young to rely their technology, so I switched off her life support. How’s that for fun?

The world is getting smaller and the reach of every nation is increasing and now we see clear settings (not through alleged sport washing) that Saudi Arabia is becoming the larger power in the global arena. In the 2025 edition of “The Military Balance” from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) is currently on the 7th place, yet if this takes off Saudi Arabia will be in a position to become 5th, optionally 4th and their defence industry will be making a profit as the Arabian nation will see that Saudi Arabia is the ‘friend’ to hold in esteem, as that starts happening Pakistan might also change vendor it is at present a mere $10 billion, but as it is only 12% of India, it might see reason to switch if Saudi Arabia is willing to talk shop and that is another slice of pie that will not end in America’s or England’s budget. As I personally see it a start has been made for Saudi Arabia to become less dependent on their oil industry. Starting ‘small’ is a beginning, so as Saudi Arabia creates more options. I reckon that they would likely evolve their drone industry next, Saudi Arabia is becoming a much larger industry. Only 5 years ago we would have seen an industry with America, Russia, China and the United Kingdom as players. Now even at 5th place, Saudi Arabia becomes the new player in town and that sets a new premise for global economies. Russia and America never had to share that revenue pie and I guess they will have to content with less as per 2026 onwards. 

A nice setting for Saudi Arabia who is likely to seek more revenue from Pakistan as it is outmatched to India at 2:1 in the best settings they can hope for and that allows for larger business benefits for Saudi Arabia. We tend to forget that war is business and their business is war. A little outdated setting, but we forget that it isn’t ugly to some, it is a payday. An essential need for any nation is to defend itself from enemies hostilities and that setting is over 2000 years old. It was given to us by Julius Caesar (that Italian dude). He did so in Commentarii de Bello Gallico at 50BC.

I reckon that the Saudi defence industry will be more than a simple blip by the time we get to 2027, still three years ahead of the schedule we saw 5 years ago. 

And as I personally see it, these tea grannies (CAAT) are still drinking tea, but the option for a biccie with that tea will soon be done for, because the revenue you hurt also impacts what you can have and they vied for less, so they will have less. I take my learning from someplace else. America decided to hurt Huawei as they were a threat, now we have HarmonyOS entering version 5.0, and Reuters gave us last November that ‘Huawei wants 100,000 apps on Harmony OS within a year’, and set that against Alphabet (Google) had announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its global workforce In January 2023, Amazon laying off 14,000 people in name of efficiency? (Source: MSN) and in 2023 Microsoft laid off approximately 10 000 employees followed by an additional 4 000 roles being cut in 2024. So with these big three ‘decimated’, who will counter Huawei? As I see it no one and now Huawei will have another industry to set foot in. Because all these Saudi systems require automation (as well as other options) as such HarmonyOS will be seen almost everywhere and that is only the beginning. Those who push to limit others, merely limit themselves and we have plenty of evidence there.

As I see it the shifting space of America is seeing that they never wanted other to be in certain places. This sounded like an idea in the 80’s when America was a global power, but they no longer are. They are mere steps away from becoming a third world country. You cannot remain a 3.4% military spending of GDP whilst being seen as a 37% of global spending. A 997 Billion invoice where in the fiscal year 2024, the U.S. federal government collected $4.92 trillion, not whilst you have $36.21 trillion in federal debt (and they cannot pass a budget either), it just cannot be done. As such the America setting will implode all whist their tech is set to impossible markers. 

As we consider this and we consider that the Russian stage merely sounds better (whilst it isn’t) there is every possibility that be 2027/2028 Saudi Arabia could become 4th or 3rd as a defence industry by that time. The idea that Saudi Arabia surpasses or equals America in three years is making me giggle. How the mighty fall, so how’s that for looking great, President Trump? It started on your watch in 2020 and almost a decade later you become allegedly surpassed by Saudi Arabia by 2027, a nice footnote in your memories and I reckon you will blame everyone but yourself in that writing. I am curious what the World Defense Show 2026 in Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center will give us. I reckon that Saudi Arabia will have a few nice surprises in that show. I am willing to bet that Huawei will have a stand there to in showing us what the Internet of things driven by HarmonyOS will give the world.  I reckon you need to reserve tickets for the event  on February 8-12, 2026 now. As I see it the first day will be for the larger customers, so February 8th has been sold out to preferred customers. So, when will you optionally go? 

I won’t be invited, so let me know how the snacks were, they tend to be magnificent at these events. Now I’m hungry, time for some peppered crackers. Have a great day.

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May 3, 2025 · 02:25

Where is the gem?

That is the setting I am faced with. You see, like McCarthy had his Russian phobia, Trump is now delivering the Chinese phobia, also known as the yellow fear. We can argue how right McCarthy was in light of the events from the last few years (and a decade before that), But as the yellow fear is grasping America, the question becomes, is it a valid one? I am not denying that there are issues, the larger setting is now on big tech. You see Apple known for its multi trillion dollar value is now under the hammer. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86jx18y9e2o) gives us ‘Apple says most US-bound iPhones no longer made in China’ the issue is not that they aren’t made in China. The stage becomes where are they made now? At present Apple is giving us that “It comes as the technology giant estimated that US import taxes could add about $900m (£677.5m) to its costs in the current quarter, despite Trump’s decision to spare key electronics from the new tariffs.” Yet as I see it, the focus is in the wrong area. It is not where it is build now, the question becomes “At what loss?” And it is not money I am speaking of. These plants are Chinese in nature (as far as I can tell), and now we get a very new stage. No matter where they are set. China might not like it that certain IP manufacturing settings will leave China, which would be an acceptable move. Not for Apple and the losses they will receive because of it, and there the tariff war takes another bite out of the meat that is American Revenue. I am not stating that this will be great, but even at a mere 2% loss of quality it will impact numbers and it will hit Apple’s customer satisfaction. A simple setting that will impact the Apple revenue bottom line and it will be more than dollars. This could (could being the operative word) impact customer care numbers too. A whole new area for Apple to maneuver against the economic currents it is fishing in.

As Timmy the Cook gives us “He also said Apple is shifting its supply chain for US-bound products away from China, but it is India and Vietnam that are poised to be major beneficiaries of that move.” It is the setting that I fear, as China is pushed out, whomever gets the new ‘victory’ is likely to be no more than 95% of what China delivered and that impacts, so even if there is merely 1% impact (I fear it is larger) it impacts numbers of produced iPhones, as well as the QC of the product. So not only will Apple see less results, if this holds up the loss of quality (with an impact of more service patches) will upset its customers to no end and the speculative result is that this more merely impacts the need for a Huawei phone (I would be OK with the jump from Apple to Google), which will feel good for Google, but Apple will not be pleased. 

So as we consider “China will remain the country of origin for the vast majority of total products sold outside the US, he added.” With the setting that Made for America will not have the rosy stage that President Trump is hoping for. I might think that Apple will not like it either. And with “However moving production lines to India will take time and significant investment, costing billions of dollars”, with the added “Apple have said they want to invest $500B over the next few years.” And that still comes with my speculated expected loss of quality, a setting that Apple never wanted, or never opted for. 

So what is the real threat? Is it China or has it become President Trump?

Even as the Financial review gives us ‘Apple and Amazon have no idea what’s coming’, I myself don’t agree. They are very much aware that they know. The American Administration howling like little puppies that Amazon was making moves to give their customers a look at what the tariff was doing to their goods with ‘Donald Trump slams Amazon’s rejected plan to display cost of tariffs on goods’ (source: ABC News) I wonder when people will figure out to ask questions from an administration bend on hiding additional charges (to customers) and consider that the quote “US President Donald Trump has labelled a reported plan by online retailer Amazon to display the cost of US tariffs on its products as a “hostile and political act”.” Is clear evidence that this America Administration is all about a lack of transparency. It is the statement from Shanti Kelemen, chief investment officer at M&G Wealth where I have issues. I do not deny that her statement is true, but lacking “There will still be tariffs that impact the supply chains [for Apple] and a cost to move them and build new factories” It took years to get the Chinese factories to work at the level they are now working at. The other factories will have to go through all these pains to get them running and that is before you consider that there would also be staffing issues. China and India have different settings in mental achievements. So the pain for Apple is merely beginning. 

A setting that the bulk of people are overlooking, I wonder why.

So as Amazon scrapped the tariff mention on its pricing, the call was heard by a lot of people and they are now looking at Temu and Alibaba. Alibaba mentioned a net income up by 237.53%. Today the Alibaba group is up by 3.83%. I cannot say how much of an impact the tariff has had there, but as others are merely scraping by and some are even reporting losses, the view on Alibaba might not be seen as a good thing, yet Wall Street seems optimistic about Alibaba (not that I know anything about that). 

So this is where the gem requires seeking. Is it still Apple? And there is a second setting. Will there be a larger call to reject the Apple for American markets? This is not easily answered because it is all depending on what is yet to happen. But Americans might be required to smuggle their new Apple devices into America. All because of a setting that the American administration itself is hunkering down on the lack of transparency. The one weird thing I am noticing is that the tariff solution is setting the minds of others towards what is the right path and at present it is not an American First item. And there is more bad news on the horizon (for America) as we seek gems we should be aware that Huawei is a much larger gem than expected. You see, Huawei is making larger captures revenue that expected. The headline ‘Indonesia is hooked on Huawei’ (Source: ASPI) is important as Indonesia is 3% of the planet. This might not seem much, but it gives Huawei larger importance to get into Bangladesh which gives them another 2%, so in a few short weeks Huawei gets an improved 5% goalpost. They already had visibility all over the Arabian peninsula and as Egypt is becoming a larger slice of their business, we see that America basically lost out of a 7% market share. As I see it America First is having a few corners they slice off from themselves. As these stages are evolving and the setting for Europe changes, as America is fumbling the ball. They are now ready to ignore American ‘advice’ and reopen doors with Huawei (likely with conditions) and as I see it Huawei is likely to respond favorable to that. As I see it, the game is changing andAmerica is losing several base stations in delivered ‘revenue’, a state that was almost unimaginable  less than a year ago. That was shown a mere two months ago with ‘German telcos pool efforts to retain more ‘open’ Huawei – sources’ and as this is realised, the rest of Europe is likely to follow, at least the EU is. 

The gem were not the tech companies, they are found where these companies were not, mainly through the pains given to these companies. Apple was not the focus, the companies that profited by the pain given to Apple. The moment you see that, is the moment that you realise that this chaotic setting is giving Chinese companies the open doors they were waiting for. I have no idea what Russia is up to, but this reminds me of the Toshiba settings. I wonder if this is what was supposed to happen, but no matter what. It seems that Huawei is profiting because of this. And with HarmonyOS now at version 5, Apple and others don’t only have to deal wit Android, they now have a competitor in HarmonyOS devices. This is a time to remember the words of Richard Yu who stated that all Huawei devices the company will launch in 2025 will be powered by HarmonyOS Next. You might have forgotten that, but I did not. So as Apple and Google were given settings of diversification, Huawei combined all the strengths they had and that will also impact market share. 

So as some will be given and accepted that the gem is America First. Others might not agree with that and as some sources are diverted Chinese corporations are now focussed on Asia, Arabian countries and Europe (through TAWAL). A setting I warned for almost two years ago and now it is seemingly happening. So where were these captains of industry?

Have a great day and enjoy the smell of coffee in the morning.

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April 10, 2025 · 12:08

New short term thinking

The news hit me somewhere yesterday. I got it by means of a LinkedIn mention, and it gave me reason to pause. Here is one version of that news (at https://techwireasia.com/2025/04/microsoft-pauses-key-builds-in-indonesia-us-and-uk-amid-infrastructure-review/) with the mention ‘Microsoft pauses data centre investment in Indonesia, US, and UK’, and here we see the byline “Microsoft pauses or delays data centre projects in the UK, US, and Indonesia.”, it is my view that they cannot afford this setting. You might have heard the American expression, “Go big or go home” and I think that Microsoft is about to go home. You see, I have forever had the clear opinion that there is no AI. I call it NIP (Near Intelligent Parsing), the setting that if too many start accepting the setting that I was always right (which comes from the clear setting that there is one AI station and it was given to us by Alan Turing) the people will realise that there is no AI and it comes down to programming and a programmer. That setting puts Microsoft in hot water for a lot of heavy water (to be poured over their heads). And lets be clear, a side you can confirm with mere logical thinking. A data Centre is a long term setting. No matter what you put in the White House (by some called the village idiot) whatever this administration is, it is short term and a data centre is long term and that so called hype around their AI should never waver. You see, this short term action (read: knee jerk reaction) implies short term planning and that is where they all get into hot waters. Why did you think that I made mention that Google needs to put a data centre in Iceland and consolidate their thinking into geo thermal reactors? (Reactors might not be the right word). A setting where ceramic tiles (or cylinders) surrounding new constructions that is not unlike a nuclear reactor, but the reactor is all around them, not Uranium rods, the Lava (or Magma) is the powerful and as it is merely bleeding the radiation, the fuel never dissipates and never ending energy is theirs. For all these parties looking of creating data centers (as far as I can see around 50 in total globally) they will all require energy and as one data centre takes energy close to a amount a small city does, we will get energy issues a lot sooner than we think.

Did Microsoft think this through? Pretty sure they did and their conclusion is that they cannot spend billion on data centers. So at the same time as we are given “Rivals Oracle and OpenAI ramp up investments”, I come to the conclusion that Microsoft can no longer afford the bills their ego’s committed themselves to. Feel free to disagree, but they set out this AI ‘vibe’ and own 49% of OpenAI, so why close down their Data Centers whilst they ‘own’ one of the ramp up partners? They are figuring out that they are too deeply committed. And as the world realizes that NIP is not the same as actual AI, they fear what is coming next.

So you decide what to make of the stage of “Microsoft has acknowledged changing its strategy but declined to provide details about specific projects. “We plan our data centre capacity needs years in advance to ensure we have sufficient infrastructure in the right places,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “As AI demand continues to grow, and our data centre presence continues to expand, the changes we have made demonstrates the flexibility of our strategy.”” As I see it, it is an answer, but not the one that touches on this. I come with questions as ‘What growth?’ All this sets the need for some lowered activity, not pausing, unless you know what comes next and there is a larger setting with Oracle, Tencent and Huawei, I know there is a Swedish centre as well but I forgot the name. All these are ramping up, but Microsoft is pausing? That makes no sense unless there is another reason and my thought of “They can no longer afford it” takes another gander and when we consider that they paused “North Dakota, Illinois, Wisconsin, the UK midlands and Jakarta, Indonesia.” That implies something is going on and when we combine this with “Microsoft cuts data centre plans and hikes prices in push to make users carry AI costs” (source: The Conversation, March 3rd 2025) these elements together implies (imply, not proven) tells me that there is a funding setting for Microsoft. Combine that with the lovely voiced fact of “OpenAI brought in US$3.7 billion in revenue – but spent almost US$9 billion, for a net loss of around US$5 billion.” (Source: the Conversation) we see another failed setting and that failure gets to be bigger. As Amazon, Google, Oracle, Tencent and Huawei steam ahead getting larger data centers and ready long before Microsoft is there means less revenue for Microsoft. I did say that they could go big or go home? I reckon that Microsoft already lost 6 times on front settings and they lost to Amazon, Apple (twice), Sony, Adobe, Google, and IBM. I should add Huawei to that list but they already bungled that setting before Huawei became an actual competitor. A simple deduction from little stupid old me. 

So whatever you do, you might look into the trust you gave Microsoft and see that you are not left with an empty shell. Oh, and to prove that I am not anti-Microsoft you need to know that they did corner the spreadsheet market (Excel) and the flight Simulator market. Microsoft did some things good, but when it comes to the spin setting of vibes they need to reassess their situation.

Have a great day, it’s midweek now. I am happily in the next day.

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March 17, 2025 · 21:50

The what? Cry me a river.

Yup this happens. I am in the mindset to cry a river as Cookie Tim (apparently the CEO of Apple) screwed up the application design of Apple products to such a degree that several apps are now lagging and giving me less joy and appreciation of what Apple does at present. In Music, Keynote, And Photos and a few more items. These three hit me personally. So as such if I can give Cookie Tim a hard time I will. As such when the BBC gave us ‘Global smartwatch sales fall for first time’ I was interested in reading that ‘news’. News by Imran Rahman-Jones. So first we see “Global sales of smartwatches have fallen for the first time, new figures indicate, in large part due to a sharp decline in the popularity of market leader, Apple.” That is nothing short of weirdly imaginative and a lack of reasoning has applied. Then we get “Market research firm Counterpoint says 7% fewer of the devices were shipped in 2024 compared to the year before. Shipments of Apple Watches fell by 19% in that period, Counterpoint says.” And the first thing I wonder is where is the data? I am decently convinced (like 80%+ certain), I could drill holes in that, possibly the size of the grand canyon. So where is my view? Well, the general setting is that “Samsung introduced a rectangular smart watch, the Samsung Gear, in 2013, two years before the first rectangular Apple Watch.” And yes, Apple ruled that market in the beginning. As I personally see it I reckon that in a short time Apple had that market for about 70% and Samsung for 30% And when you consider that in 2025 Android has 71.75%, IOS has 27.78%, So there is a large abundance of non-Apple systems. So Apple did something extremely right in those days. The larger setting that the BBC seemingly overlooks is that the consumer gets a watch once and then some time later another one. You see, these bad boys cost a few shillings and as such plenty of people cannot afford one. So I bought my Smartwatch last year and I expect that this device will last until at least 2027 and it is not as expensive as the Apple variety (and I am an Android fan). As such, at present we have iTouch, Garmin, HardHat, GadPro, Nexus, Huawei, Withings, Amazfit, Xiaomi, Imoo, HiFuture (all iOS options) and some of these are being marketed as ‘the economical choice’ the iTouch is less than $50, whilst the Apple Watches come at well over 1000% ($500+). As people cannot afford a lot of stuff and some are still new in the Smartwatch category, Can you blame them for selecting the cheaper option at present? 

As the article is blatantly short on ‘data’ can you blame me for not believing a word that the BBC prints here? That is besides the lack of the words ‘pricing’, ‘price’ and ‘expensive’ in this article. Another reference is “Another large contributor to the global sales drop was India, which fell from 30% of the market to 23%.” It seems like an issue that is until you realise that in India “In 2023, Android held a share of 95.17 percent of the mobile operating system market in India. This was followed by Apple’s iOS, a distant second, with 3.98 percent market share.” (Source: Statista), so when you consider that a 7% drop over a market they only have for 4%, the drop is negligible. But the BBC wanted something to write about, how about we write about the lack of data in this setting? Oh, wait they are already screwing this up in regards to the Hamas setting. As such this lack is merely laughable. 

Another setting I dropped over (not in this article) was “So, it makes sense for users to buy an iPhone, especially if they already have a Mac, iPad or even the Apple Watch.” Now this isn’t a given, but I reckon that a smartwatch lacks vision if you do not have the proper smart phone. 

So is there a real setting?
Actually the article gives us that “the fact a rumoured high-end Ultra 3 model never materialised.” This could be a reason, but that implies that these customers from 2024 are merely waiting for a release in 2025, so they aren’t gone, there are merely set in a waiting pattern awaiting the go signal. I would be in the same setting with the MAC Studio (if I could afford one). Why select the M4Max over an M3Ultra, it would make more sense waiting until the M4Ultra comes (and perhaps at that time I could afford one). So we have two settings, the affordability (in this economy) and the technology when it comes available as well as the realistic option that there is a market saturation, or near that setting and with a dozen brands Apple will lose a few notches and that too is missing from the article. It gives us ‘how great’ Chinese brands are doing, but there is more than China. There is a flood of brands coming to the customers now and as Apple staff (in their shops) are ‘indoctrinated’ to do the Apple talk in a few ways, they are losing market share there too. I reckon that it is the price of depending on teenagers doing the job because they look fresh and appealing. I reckon that it is costing Apple more than they realise. It is a choice and I reckon it is no longer the better choice.

Still that doesn’t excuse the BBC article, it is as I personally see it shoddy all by itself. 

Have a great day this Monday.

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March 7, 2025 · 02:10

True to the old word

The ‘old’ saying is “Where are idiots grouped”, the answer is “Usually between Canada and Mexico”, I don’t completely agree as politicians are for the most to some degree a global problem. But you get the gist of the matter. It gets to be funnier as we look at the numbers on Fentanyl smuggling where 86.4% of the convictions are US citizens. Take that and the anger from Canadian people (regarding the 51st state) and we have ourselves a clambake. And that is getting more traction now. The setting has gone viral as many places (I am reluctant to hide behind the operative word ‘all’) have removed America booze from the shopping racks (example: LCBO). For others (Australia) it could be seen as good news as Bundaberg Rum might grace the stalls of these shops, UK already had their gin setting, but that could grow a lot more now that brands like American Gin are removed (sorry Mr. Reynolds) as well, and the removal of several Vodka brands will be good news for Sweden. The branding marks will currently see a shift in consumer ‘appreciation’ as over $20,000,000,000 is removed from America’s branding. I reckon that soon others will see places like Coca Cola will soon also have an impact. Then there is tourism, that ship still under investigation might also see impacts. I think that the numbers for the tourist operators (like Disney, Warner Brothers and Universal) might see a bad summer coming. I don’t think that they have a large dip as they were seemingly over capacitated, but there will be an impact. As such the estimated impact from Canada on Fentanyl is getting a weird impact. According to some, the In the first 10 months of 2024, the Canadian border service reported seizing 10.8lb (4.9kg) of fentanyl entering from the US, while US Border Patrol intercepted 32.1lb (14.6kg) of fentanyl coming from Canada. And if the NPR is to be believed that joke has a nasty sting as in 2024, only about 43 pounds of fentanyl was seized at America’s northern border. That compares with roughly 21,100 pounds seized at the southern border. So the difference of this implies that the 43 pounds of substance caught on the Canadian side amounts to a mere 0.002 of the actual problem and that is now costing America an additional $20B plus change and commission. So how does that go over with Wall Street? So in a short moment, Alcohol, Tourism and retail is impacted in America. If we can believe Doug Ford (Premier of Ontario) has given the headline ‘Ontario premier Doug Ford cancels $100-million Starlink contract’, it becomes a comedy should Huawei fill that gap. So how is that Trump ego going at present? As Canadian tourists generated $20.5 billion in spending and supported 140,000 American jobs last year. They could see an optional 40% drop at present, I personally believe that this could be as much as 60% in an area where spend was 20% down from pre-Covid settings. And others are taking notice Especially the UK, Australia and New Zealand. They might not amount to much, but they do have an impact. I for one had dreamt (I have silly dreams) of seeing Universal Orlando once, but at present I will chose Abu Dhabi over USA. Warner Brothers would still see my money, but where in America my contribution would be close to 100%, In Abu Dhabi they merely fetch 30% of my money and the rest is all for Miral Experiences L.L.C. As such I become an asset feed to Julien Kauffmann. And consider I am merely one person, now consider that 40% of the commonwealth sees this the same way? How much damage did President Trump do to his own economy? If he was the King of Australia I would advice the board of Governors in Australia to muzzle him. This typically refers to the Reserve Bank Board, which oversees the monetary policy of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and is made up of the Governor (currently Michele Bullock), Deputy Governor, and other appointed members. So, what did Wall Street duo to reign in this level of idiocy? (Just to coin a phrase). 

So, as we realize that over the course of Rome’s long history, taxation was frequently a source of outrage and grief. Indeed there is a basic lesson to be learned from Roman history, namely that people did not like paying taxes they found unjust. And this setting comes from 357AD. As such it is over 1700 years old. Even Julius Caesar, according to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus “declared that he would rather lose his life than allow it to be done. For he knew that the incurable wounds of such arrangements, or rather derangements had often driven provinces to extreme poverty.” So President Trump (and his advisors) had examples coming from history and now the stone is set and Beijing announced retaliatory tariffs of 10-15%, starting 10 February, on various US imports, including coal, crude oil and large cars. (Source: BBC) and that has larger repercussions. Huawei is sensing blood in the water and at present they are ‘arming’ their devices with Linux (I reckon for Europe and other places). People might not ‘go’ for HarmonyOS at present but they now have a foot in the door and with a linux setting they could get into the Commonwealth to a larger degree (Canada included) as America now has to prove that there is an actual danger (which they never did). And only yesterday ‘Huawei Unveils Latest Suite of Intelligent Campus Solutions to Accelerate Intelligent Campus 2.0 Development’ that is the business opening to more. By providing high-quality 10 Gbps network experiences, it accelerates the digital transformation of enterprises across various sectors. No American solution got this close before (only on leaflets as far as I could tell). So whilst Huawei was stated to look out for what was coming, they opened the door to a juicy steak for all the greed hungry entrepreneurs sailing the global waters and they will get their grain. With ‘Intelligent Stadium Solution: Redefining Sports Venues’ they stand to win the hearts over in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, including people in Glasgow (2026), 2027 Cricket World Cup (South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia),  French Alps (2030), 2031 Cricket World Cup (India and Bangladesh) and Brisbane (2032). So when you add that up, how much of the world stage will Huawei capture? And China will be there to laugh out loud, especially as America NEVER showed any evidence and that has been voiced by Germany more than once. 

So how stupid was starting a trade war founded on tariffs and based on a ludicrous setting whilst Canada was a mere 0.002 of the actual problem? Oh, for desert we get the quote we were fed less than 10 minutes ago (source: USA Today) ‘Canadian province leader threatens to cut off energy to 3 US states, imposes 25% surcharge’ and I suggest that the MAGA fans in Michigan, Minnesota, and New York find a good hiding spot, because when that energy block comes through a lot of people will curse the day President Trump was reelected for some time. And then there is the energy coming at +25%, so how much energy does New York need?

Have a great day and happy trails to Bundaberg Rum as they now have an open door to an optional 40 million additional consumers.

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January 20, 2025 · 03:54

And there was more

You see three days ago (merely two days and change) I wrote ‘A story in two parts’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/01/17/a-story-in-two-parts/) where I laird bare a few of the ‘shortcomings’ of Microsoft. However there was more. I had initially chosen the title ‘The color is blue’ yet I decided that the premise is not about Azure, there is more to it all. You see Fierce Network gives us ‘Google Cloud could overtake Microsoft’s No. 2 cloud position this year’, which sounds nice. However there are a few issues with that. We will all love ““Google Cloud is already nearly equal to Microsoft Azure in revenues, and has a higher revenue growth rate than Microsoft Azure,” Gold wrote in a research note. “By the end of the next four years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.”” The research note gives the proper “Based on the Average of Past Two Years Revenue Growth Rate

Assuming Same Growth Rate Going Forward” so that is good, but it does not despair from “By the end of the next 4 years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.” Yet this setting does not account that someone at Microsoft ‘suddenly’ takes an innovative step towards (who knows), the second setting is that the technology premise stays where it is. Huawei with their HarmonyOS is another factor, the Chinese factor. In this I predict that they might use Microsoft down the line and might step away from Google (speculative). We have little insight in what places like the UAE does and they have a large investment in their approach to AI and in this Microsoft has the inner track there. So I love the premise, but I have thoughts of consideration on how the future unfolds. There is a chance that AWS will clear house, but there are reservations on that front too. 

Still, Azure has issues. You see the Register (at https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/azure_m365_outage/) gives us ‘Azure, Microsoft 365 MFA outage locks out users across regions’ with the added “Microsoft’s multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Azure and Microsoft 365 (M365) was offline for four hours during Monday’s busy start for European subscribers.” I understand that it comes with “It’s fixed, mostly, after Europeans had a manic Monday” now I wonder why we see the use of ‘mostly’ there are perhaps a few gaps in the solution and that happens, but how many of these events will Microsoft cater to until a user like Coca Cola gets a tap on the shoulder to start looking for alternatives? Do you think that a man like James Quincey keeps his sense of humor when his bottom line is under fire? And that is only the beginning.

Still Microsoft has its own ‘defense’ knee jerk operation, we are informed of that by Techi where we see (at https://www.techi.com/microsoft-files-suit-against-hundreds-abuse-azure-openai-services/) with the headline ‘Microsoft Files Suit Against Hundreds for Abuse of Azure OpenAI Services’, so not only is their OpenAI ‘flawed’, it is open to abuse (apparently). We are given “API Key Theft and Hacking-as-a-Service”where we see “As per Microsoft, the defendants systematically and through their deceitful acts stole API keys, the fundamental means of authentication to its AI services. The hacked accounts were allegedly pivotal in creating an act of “hacking-as-a-service” One main ingredient for that operation would be De3u, a software that enabled one to convert images synthesized by OpenAI’s DALL-E without the necessity of writing an actual code.” I kinda covered that on September 8th 2024 in ‘Poised to give critique’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/09/08/poised-to-deliver-critique/). Michael Bargury gave us a small example of how bad things can get.  Here the operational setting is given through “A former security architect demonstrates 15 different ways to break Copilot: “Microsoft is trying, but if we are honest here, we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”” and here is the premise now consider what (under Torts) customers will do, for example Coca Cola. Do you think they go after the so called hacker with not enough money to afford his/her own place or Microsoft with access to several bank vaults? Take the fortune 500 clients with claims of transgressions, do you really think there will be even a penny left in those Microsoft vaults when their legal teams are done with them? It might not be fair on Microsoft, but the setting of the use of the term AI opens up a whole new can of worms.

Then the Business Times (at https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/microsoft-openai-partnership-raises-antitrust-concerns-ftc-says) gives us ‘Microsoft-OpenAI partnership raises antitrust concerns, FTC says’ in this I might actually be a bit on the side of Microsoft. They give us “MICROSOFT’S US$13 billion investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the tech giant could extend its dominance in cloud computing into the nascent artificial intelligence (AI) market, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a report released on Friday (Jan 17).” My issue here is that there is a setting we had in the past and in countries they created their version of the FTC. It was a power for good then, but there is now the setting that LLM’s and Deeper Machine Learning has grown to a scope that the FTC cannot really fathom. This IT solution goes beyond what they know or understand and all the tech companies face this. So either they grow their ‘programming with barricades’ side of it all, giving tech companies the flaws that the law imbued in whatever country it is based. And that for global companies will set a larger flawed premise. It is like parties are limited to what others have. As such all criminals will come to us with BB-guns, because that is what the police have. Does that sound realistic? I don’t think so. But this also falls straight into the premise that Fierce Networks gave us. It works out fine for Google, until Google gets barricaded I reckon. So this is a setting that the tech firms are set to whatever the wannabe’s can do, that is a direct strangling of commerce and innovation and it sets whomever develop the trigital computer system and if you think that these systems are fast now? The next level system develops with a trinary operating system running on that hardware will astound the world. As I see it should diminish the IBM Deep Blue to a simple calculator. The difference will be THAT much, so who will innovate that when the FTC strangles innovation?

And finally we get the CIO (at https://www.cio.com/article/3802745/microsoft-commits-to-ai-integration-but-delivers-no-particulars-to-differentiate-from-rivals.html) who gives us ‘Microsoft commits to AI integration, but delivers no particulars to differentiate from rivals’ and as I see it, it was already lagging too much against AWS, and now apparently Google is coming up fast and under these settings we get this headline? And the part that matters is given with “Analysts, however, agreed that the statement reflected no meaningful changes to Microsoft’s AI strategy. The bluntest assessment came from Ryan Brunet, a principal research director at the Info-Tech Research Group: “This is classic Microsoft. It’s very much the same old garbage.”” It reminded my towards an old premise from the late 80’s when the PC was exciting and new ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ in the age when everyone considered themselves a Market Research executive and these wannabe’s had not even mastered the basic needs of data quality. It was a Gender versus Shoe size and they thought that the solution was add the Lambda test (I think it was Lambda). And I get it, Satya Nadella talks his own street side, the problem is that there are too many unknowns at present and he hopes to get all the others onboard before they have thoroughly selected their options and in light of the selected abuses, that setting is not a given, especially as Google seemingly doesn’t have these flaws (as far as I know neither does IBM or whatever AWS wields). 

A setting that was more and could set a lot of people in the liable column of choices. And some of this has been known for at least a quarter. When you add this with part one, you see why I predicted the downfall of Microsoft three years ago. And as I see it Microsoft walked to dotted line in a near perfect manner, too bad they never read the byline ‘this way to the crevice you will not avoid when getting too close’.

It is as some say ‘the way the cookie crumbles’. Darn still 4 hours until breakfast. Time to find a new story. Have a great Monday and if you cannot get into Azure today, feel free to investigate alternatives.

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