Like many readers I have been following the rise of Microsoft in the 90’s to flatlining when browsers really important due to page speed, and finally when Google made the browser an operating system. Opening Windows | Economist Mr Nadella’s formula for reinvigorating Microsoft is to move as quickly and as far as possible away from being a Windows-only company to be a global network of giant data centres that provide a broad range of online services for companies and individuals. So far he has done well in beginning to turn round a supertanker of a company, with 123,000 employees … Continue reading Nadella is doing the right things but will it save Microsoft

Sabadell agrees to $2.54 billion takeover of TSB | Finextra Banco Sabadell is making its first play for a European business outside of its home territory as Lloyds agrees to sell 50% of TSB to the Spanish bank. Continue reading Sabadell agrees to $2.54 billion takeover of TSB

The lecture by Andreas Antonopoulos was highly entertaining with anticipated shots at banks.  In the audience of 400+ there were 6~ bankers so we were an easy target. Apparently banks are busy developing strategies he surmises for use of the blockchain without the currency, or with normal currency.  He poo pooed that idea noting that the bitcoins and the blockchain were inseparable. Having said all that and thoroughly enjoyed his talk I am still no wiser for the use case, let alone the business case for Bitcoin.  Some facts mentioned tonight are well known: bitcoin is unsupervised with no centralized authority Fintrac … Continue reading Bitcoin – what is the use case DEC_TECH

When I read the headline I assumed Microsft were getting out of the browser business, which might have made more sense.  However a new browser, Spartan is coming. Microsoft sends Explorer into retirement Internet Explorer — the software that launched the browser wars of the 1990s and became a symbol of the Seattle company’s former stranglehold on the tech world — is about to be ushered into retirement. The group confirmed this week that it would not use the IE name for the new browser that it plans to ship with the next version of its Windows operating system, due … Continue reading New Microsoft Browser coming with focus on cross platform

As banks adopt the new best practise approach of tokenization to ensure that real card information is not passed to merchants, new risks will appear as the potential for breach is shifted upstream to new attack vectors. Chase Launches Robust Digital Banking Services, Own Wallet Platform Coming Soon Tokenization ensures sensitive customer data is never passed to the seller, greatly reducing the risk of identity theft and security breaches Bad guys will seek the next easiest attack approach: Banks that haven’t adopted tokenization still have their customer card information sitting on multiple store databases. Tokens themselves will be subject to attack. … Continue reading Tokenisation of payment solves one problem for Banks but not all future attacks