Inflation, cybersecurity and taxes: PwC’s update from Dubai

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What happens in Dubai … well, happens everywhere

On March 1, PwC Dubai hosted a LinkedIn webcast, “Transforming Our Region,” featuring commentary by Stephen Anderson, PwC Middle East markets leader; Richard Boxshall, PwC chief economist for the region; and Hanan Abboud, a partner in PwC’s International Tax & M&A practice. This latest episode of the webcast series, which started in the summer of 2020, included three main themes, two of which likely resonate strongly outside the Middle East region.

Global inflation can be a drag, but regionally not so bad

First, Anderson and Boxshall noted recent regional economic growth and an overall positive picture, particularly as the pandemic begins to wane, but cautioned about inflation as a damper in the near term, with a critical caveat: Many of the global inflationary pressures and trends have been more muted in the Middle East, particularly within the economies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Boxshall reported that inflation has been relatively low and well managed locally, at around 2% for the region, but varies widely across countries.

Like elsewhere, energy prices and supply chain snafus drive most of the inflationary concerns and effects in the Middle East, but high oil prices act as a double-edged sword for some of the most important regional economies, as more money flows into government coffers while demand is put at risk of being suppressed in the long run. Overall, PwC reported on the cautious sentiment in the region as the business leaders it surveyed see inflation elsewhere and hope for sustained smart economic stewardship to keep inflation low in the region.

Cybersecurity tops concerns

Investment and innovation comprised a second regional trend with global echoes, primarily because of the main concern about what could hold back growth: cybersecurity risks. According to Anderson, cybersecurity generated more worry among Middle East business leaders than geopolitical tensions or lingering pandemic-related healthcare risks. Notably, PwC’s survey did not factor in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which could bring geopolitics to the forefront. In TBR’s view, consultancies like PwC that can address clients’ cybersecurity concerns in concert with offerings around innovation, transformation and sustainability will continue to outpace cyber-centric or niche vendors as client leaders increasingly appreciate the business value of integrating cybersecurity into enterprisewide strategy.

Joining the global movement toward 15% tax rate

The last development PwC highlighted will have the greatest near-term effect in the UAE but bodes well for global economic growth and regional good governance. Anderson and his colleagues noted that the UAE became the first country in the region to announce plans to adhere to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines by instituting a 15% minimum corporate tax rate. With the country planning to implement the 15% tax rate effective June 1, 2023, and the local business corporate tax rate capped at 9%, PwC acknowledged plenty of unknowns and expects plenty of exemptions. But overall UAE is continuing its decades-long efforts to keep the country economically attractive and closely intertwined with the global economy.

Advising clients on adjustments to the new 15% tax rate, to include navigating free-trade-zone rules, will provide near-term opportunities in the UAE and longer-term revenues as other regional governments adopt similar tax structures. For PwC, a new UAE tax regime aligns perfectly with PwC’s The New Equation strategy and emphasis on trust, transparency and global interconnectedness. As TBR noted in November, “Globally, PwC partners were leaning into the trust and leadership components of The New Equation and finding clients receptive to, and even welcoming of, PwC’s efforts to ‘peek around the corner’ at trends, challenges and opportunities on the near and far horizons.”

Don’t bet against the Emirates

In TBR’s estimates, PwC’s 2021 management consulting revenues in the Middle East topped $670 million, roughly one-third of the firm’s APAC revenues but growing faster than any other PwC region. Inflation spikes and cybersecurity strikes may slow that growth, but a more likely scenario is that the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other regional economies will maintain their rapid growth as their booming talent pools and friendly tax and corporate governance structures continue to draw investments and continue to create opportunities for consultancies like PwC. I served in Dubai, UAE, as a foreign service officer for the State Department in the late 1990s and know it’s a fool’s bet to think the UAE won’t, eventually and sometimes in surprising ways, do exactly what they say they’re going to do.

Capgemini aims for growth in digital marketing services

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Building regional capabilities through acquisitions to disrupt the APAC market

In TBR’s most recent Digital Transformation: Digital Marketing Services Benchmark, my colleague Boz Hristov examined trends across different regions and wrote, “While regional nuances … compel vendors to build local resources to ensure they can tailor culturally aligned campaigns, the evolving nature of the DMS [digital marketing services] market is also creating country-specific openings. For example, the last three Olympic Games including PyeongChang (South Korea), Tokyo (Japan) and Beijing (China) have been driving investments and opportunities within Southeast Asia.” In covering Capgemini for more than a dozen years, I’ve seen how the company has been able to combine internal capabilities development and highly strategic acquisitions to stay on the leading edge of trends across the IT services space, including digital marketing services. At the same time, acquisitions enable Capgemini to diversify its geographic reach outside its home market of Europe, namely in North America and APAC.

 

Overall, APAC is becoming a region of acquisition focus as Capgemini strives to diversify global revenues and expand work with local clients in the region. APAC is a major global service delivery location, but activities with local clients are limited outside of Australia and New Zealand. Recent acquisitions in APAC that build on Capgemini’s local market reach include those of Empired in Australia, around digital and cloud; Acclimation in Australia, around SAP consulting and systems integration; Multibook’s SAP global services line in Japan; RXP Services in Australia, around digital, data and cloud; and WhiteSky Labs in Australia around MuleSoft consulting.

 

Capgemini’s innovation, design and transformation brand, Capgemini Invent, is rolling out its capabilities across APAC. Capgemini is establishing a new network around frog, the brand experience design consulting arm of Altran. During 2020 frog scaled from about 500 people in the U.S. and Europe to about 2,000 by absorbing Capgemini Invent’s customer experience team and employees from Capgemini’s acquisitions of global design studio Idean, innovation firm Fahrenheit 212, agency June 21 and customer engagement marketing firm LiquidHub. Frog initially had one studio in Shanghai but has expanded in APAC with studios in Singapore; Hong Kong; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; and India. Frog’s APAC business emphasizes industrial and special design, tied with the new Capgemini Engineering brand experience and design-led transformation.

 

In some ways, this is a natural outcome of making related tuck-in acquisitions: Eventually, Capgemini creates scale to establish a new business unit or service line. Additionally, it is a way of retaining acquired talent by showing that employees will be part of a special group assembled from similar acquisitions.

Tuck-in acquisitions supported digital services establishment in North America, providing use cases and lessons learned

In 2016, 2017 and 2018, Capgemini made several acquisitions in North America to initially build out its digital services capabilities, some of which now reside in frog. Fahrenheit 212, which Capgemini acquired in February 2016, enhanced Capgemini’s business transformation consulting and digital customer experience solutions portfolio. Lyons Consulting Group, which Capgemini acquired in September 2017, strengthened the company’s position in digital commerce, specifically around integrating Salesforce Commerce Cloud solutions. Idean, which Capgemini acquired in February 2017, expanded Capgemini’s digital transformation consulting capabilities and added seven digital design studios worldwide.

 

The acquisition of LiquidHub in February 2018 further expanded Capgemini’s digital services, notably digital consulting capabilities in North America. With LiquidHub, Capgemini gained customer experience capabilities and improved its ability to capture digital opportunities with clients in the U.S. LiquidHub augmented Capgemini’s client base by adding logos, such as Wells Fargo, Chase, Godiva, Subaru, Microsoft and Amgen, and improved Capgemini’s relationships with clients’ CXOs.

APAC will become a larger revenue contributor in the long term

By making acquisitions, expanding its portfolio, keeping up with trends around digital marketing services, and even leaning on its core strengths around engineering services, Capgemini could become more disruptive in the APAC market in the very near term. The vendor’s combined revenue from APAC and LATAM accounted for 7.8% of total revenue in 2021 and increased 26.2% year-to-year as reported in euros, outpacing revenue growth in other regions.

 

TBR’s most recent report on Capgemini was published on March 7 and provides a detailed analysis of the company’s performance and investments in 4Q21 and 2021. Recent deals such as with Volvo Cars to enable digital transformation of the client’s operations in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation by implementing Salesforce solutions such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Experience Cloud and Configure Price Quote software exemplify Capgemini’s activities that are supported through investments in digital and cloud capabilities. APAC provides opportunities for Capgemini and might be even better suited to pave the way to growth now that the company’s home market of Europe might be disrupted by the war in Ukraine. The deal with Volvo Cars provides Capgemini with a good opportunity to expand into the emerging China market, as Volvo is a well-known European brand but is now managed out of China.

There are no guarantees in the metaverse, but Tech Mahindra bets on it anyway

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Tech Mahindra unveils a dedicated metaverse practice

On Feb. 28, 2022, Tech Mahindra announced the launch of its new practice, TechMVerse, a metaverse-oriented business unit that will focus on developing immersive and digital experiences for clients. According to the company’s press release, the practice will combine Tech Mahindra’s network and IT infrastructure expertise with AI, blockchain, 5G, augmented reality (AR)/VR and quantum computing capabilities to build metaverse use cases, such as DealerVerse (a metaverse-based car dealership), Middlemist (a non-fungible token [NFT] marketplace), Meta Bank (a virtual bank), and a gaming center. While currently at about 100 employees, according to The Economic Times, Tech Mahindra announced that it plans to train 1,000 engineers in the coming years to support the practice’s growth.

5G as the company’s backdrop 

Tech Mahindra’s historical strengths as a telecom-oriented IT services firm help guide its future path. Today’s Tech Mahindra was born from a 2013 merger with Mahindra Satyam, which helped the company diversify into new verticals outside of its core telecommunications market, such as banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI). As such, telecom infrastructure, network and IT services are Tech Mahindra’s bread and butter, accounting for approximately 40% of total revenue. And the company has continued to invest in 5G, network and software-defined architecture services, giving Tech Mahindra strong capabilities in the next-gen wireless technology that will help power many of the data-intensive metaverse use cases.


A recent example includes a collaboration with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) that will enable Tech Mahindra to leverage Nokia’s private wireless Digital Automation Cloud solution for customers and support 5G private wireless network automation and management through an “as a Service” model. Verizon’s (NYSE: VZ) “H1DD3N” AR/VR treasure hunt in September 2021 to promote its 5G network across several large U.S. markets and Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) new iPhone lineup reflects 5G’s role in supporting metaverse use cases, and Tech Mahindra’s 5G private wireless network capabilities can make similar events and 5G speeds possible for its enterprise clients.

Tech Mahindra eyes 2 key areas of the metaverse 

Two components of Tech Mahindra’s investments related to the metaverse stand out to TBR, particularly around NFTs and gaming. As blockchain data and analysis firm Chainalysis stated in its 2021 NFT market report, “In 2021, users have sent at least $44.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency to … two types of Ethereum smart contracts associated with NFT marketplaces and collections.” Tech Mahindra is aiming to capitalize on the commercialization of new products related to this NFT spending. Specifically, the company plans to offer digital and professional experience services around design and content through TechMVerse and will also offer low-code NFT and blockchain platforms for enterprise clients.


We see this as a key opportunity for Tech Mahindra, as organizations increasingly devote resources to exploring the connection between NFTs and the metaverse — such as JPMorgan’s Onyx Lounge in Decentraland, where one can buy virtual land with NFTs — yet may lack the required IT infrastructure, skills or impetus to build their own use cases from scratch. Tech Mahindra is also planning to collaborate with Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. to offer digital collectibles that will be listed and offered for sale through Tech Mahindra’s NFT Marketplace platform.


At the same time, the gaming industry is arguably the pioneer of the metaverse. From The Sims to Fortnite, consumers continue to spend real dollars on virtual things in virtual worlds. Hence, the metaverse is not a new concept, rather one that has already been quietly and successfully adopted by gaming companies, as new data from the Entertainment Software Association found that spending on gaming content reached $51.7 billion in 2021. While noting that it plans to develop use cases, Tech Mahindra also announced it is launching a new Cloud Gaming as a Service solution for telecommunications, cable and OEM companies in partnership with Ludium Labs, a firm that offers cloud adoption and interactive streaming of applications.


According to the press release, the 5G-powered, low-latency gaming solution will have a library of 150-plus AAA games stored in the cloud and will help these firms improve their customers’ access to compute-intensive games on any device, thereby eliminating the need for consoles and high-speed internet. The service mirrors Microsoft’s efforts to transform the gaming industry by bringing in subscription-based business models with the 3Q20 launch of Project xCloud.


According to TBR’s 4Q21 Microsoft Cloud report: “While Project xCloud — now called Xbox Cloud Gaming — was not the first subscription-based gaming service to be offered in the industry, TBR felt at the time of the launch that Microsoft’s ability to differentiate would be supported by the company’s expertise in operating subscription-based businesses and guide its gaming go-to-market efforts.” Tech Mahindra’s Cloud Gaming as a Service solution can open up similar opportunities to its core communications client base and enable telecom companies, cable companies and OEMs to compete with gaming incumbents, further expanding Tech Mahindra’s addressable market in the metaverse.

Logicalis: The partner for helping with today’s problems and providing solutions for the future  

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In February 2022 TBR spoke with Logicalis Group Chief Operating Officer Michael Chanter and Chief Technology Officer Toby Alock for an update on the company’s strategy as well as an overview of the company’s new Global Services Organization (GSO), including its solutions portfolio and road map. The conversation, which contained specific details on strategy, was a continuation of the journey Logicalis embarked on nearly two years ago when it appointed Bob Bailkoski as CEO.  

In TBR’s special report Know-your-tech strategy could be invaluable as Logicalis aims to disrupt peers in cloud managed services, we wrote, “Logicalis’ efforts to optimize its legacy operations while doubling down on key growth areas such as cloud will largely depend on the company’s ability to develop integrated scale to ensure standardized service delivery.” The launch of Logicalis’ GSO highlighted these efforts and marked a new stage in the company’s ability to deploy practical solutions that build a foundation of trust with partners, employees and clients.  

Transforming into a modern managed services provider  

Logicalis Group’s executives understand the need to develop an ever-evolving strategy that allows the company to stay abreast of market trends. Pivoting from historically employing a regional focus to now building outcome-based solutions that are global in nature paves the way for Logicalis to build scale. Ensuring internal organizational silos are removed will be key, as clients expect vendors to deliver services locally through globally integrated operations.  

At the same time, Logicalis realizes the importance of nurturing local relationships, ensuring its consultants and professional services organization continue to operate as close to the customer as possible. Developing a “modern managed services organization,” as Chanter describes the company’s transformation, is not an easy task, especially when executed at scale.  

Accounting for the permeation of automation to drive efficiency and fine-tuning operations and business models to facilitate cloud-enabled sales, service delivery and support are among the key pillars of GSO. Continuing to provide existing clients with support also enables GSO to secure foundational revenues and maintain relevance, as often clients take time to move to the next phase of their digital transformation (DT) programs.  

When TBR asked about the change management that typically comes with such evolution, especially due to the increased use of automation in service delivery, Chanter provided a strong use case for how the company is handling it. Starting with the appointment of an executive dedicated to overseeing transformation, the main focus then has been teaching staff how to be agile while also considering new compensation models in connection with cloud-enabled service delivery.  

Providing support to external clients has been enabled by a three-part framework: Align, Transform, Scale. Logicalis first assesses where clients are in their DT journey compared to their desired outcome. The company then maps out the kind of support it can provide at different points in the journey, relying on its professional services organization to feed regional market nuances. With sales teams trained and certified before going to market, Logicalis also tries to align and close the feedback loop with staff at the Centers of Excellence (CoEs), which are typically responsible for the development and management of global solutions.  

As Logicalis Group aims to increase its share of the managed services market, we believe the company will continue to work toward striking the right balance between developing automation-enabled services P&L and achieving integrated scale. Previously, TBR wrote, “Logicalis has begun to identify areas across geos, industry verticals and horizontal areas that can support its goal of expanding share of highly profitable ‘as a Service’ managed service sales, which currently garner about 25% of its global revenues. … As Logicalis works out the details around managing its partner ecosystem, Bailkoski and [Chief Customer Experience and Service Transformation Officer Vincent] DeLuca are also increasing the company’s investments in internal portfolio offerings that will not simply standardize global service delivery but also pave the way for an innovative approach to engaging with clients. Launched in June, we believe Logicalis’ AI-enabled Digital Service Platform (DSP) will be the center node of Logicalis’ solutions and services ecosystem, similar to how iTunes has helped Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) build a community of die-hard brand followers.”  

Logicalis is on the right path to achieving its managed services goals, but like many of its peers, it needs to partner better and differently than it has in the past, especially as buyer expectations around managing partner ecosystems also evolve. Meanwhile, expanding its global footprint, similar to opening an engineering center in Portugal to house about 200 employees in support of the Agile, Transform, Scale framework, will continue to bolster Logicalis’ resource bench for building and delivering solutions at scale as clients seek support around migrating and transforming operations. Chanter noted that the new Portugal facility will “help transform clients quickly and help Logicalis transform.” TBR notes this dual-track approach has proved successful for other IT services vendors undergoing their own digital transformations.  

Inflation’s Effect on SaaS & ITO Operating Models – An Update

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Who today has experienced a long-term economic inflationary period?

Inflation is very much in the U.S. news as it reaches 40-year highs. This means a person has to be near the end of their professional careers to have experienced the previous inflationary period. One of the authors dimly recalls his economics professors trying to parse what, at the time, was called stagflation, which impacted the United States in the 1970s. Oil price shocks drove up prices, while unemployment remained high. Inflation previously had been explained as too many dollars chasing too few goods and was generally assigned to economies overheating because of very low unemployment rates.

Today economists seek to assess economic fundamentals to predict whether this inflationary spike will be temporary or persistent. Factors suggesting a short-term spike revolve around the well-publicized supply chain disruptions coupled with record savings levels during the pandemic when discretionary spending on things like travel and restaurant meals was greatly hindered and retail spending shifted from in-store shopping to e-commerce.

On the other hand, some economists point to persistent government deficits due to pumping money into the economy. Given various regulatory and economic uncertainties, that money has been sitting on the sidelines. Further stock market run-ups in valuation have been attributed to investor money seeking higher returns that can be achieved in traditional savings and bond ownership because of low interest rates on these conservative investment instruments.

Partisans will selectively mention these factors to explain away or criticize the current economic climate. Businesses, on the other hand, have a recently dormant financial risk rearing its ugly head that can dramatically impact long-term financial forecasting.

So what are the technology company business models where inflation has near term impact?

Transaction-based businesses in  the IT industry will be able to follow traditional methods of passing costs on to the customer. But, for those business units working from Anything as a Service (XaaS) subscription models, ITO contracts and infrastructure managed service agreements, the near-term impact could be more acute.

Cloud-enabled SaaS models are a relatively new phenomenon as Industry 4.0 gains momentum. Proponents of these business models also assert that legacy business model metrics and analysis do not apply given the majority of selling expenses are recognized in the first fiscal quarter of multiyear agreements while the revenue is then recognized ratably over the contract term. As such, the financial spokespeople for these business models lean heavily on relatively new business metrics — annual recurring revenue (ARR), net dollar revenue retention and lifetime customer value — that chart a forecast course for when operating profits will materialize.

ITO contracts have had a somewhat longer evolution, starting as multiyear deals where vendors could reap greater profits as operating costs declined due to the increased automation of the overall monitoring and maintenance. These contracts then moved to shorter-term durations and, more recently, have stipulated cost decreases over time such that any operating costs savings created by the vendor are passed along, or at least shared with, the customer. The ITO market has likewise seen a shift or rebranding of these customer offers into infrastructure managed services to pivot the contract model to be more in line with SaaS constructs.

When inflation was last a top-of-mind economic consideration, most IT was on premises and operated by company personnel. TBR seriously doubts strategic scenario planning for these new subscription consumption models prior to perhaps late 2020 anticipated the current inflationary levels and their potential operating impact.

What is the immediate inflationary risk to XaaS and ITO business models?

SaaS models take several years to generate profit in what is variously described as the flywheel effect or the force multiplier effect. Increased labor and utility costs beyond forecast and tethered to long-term contracts will add several percentage points of operating costs to these models. In this sense, the newer the SaaS operating model the less risk it will have to cost structure as it has less renewed revenue. TBR expects the more mature the SaaS model, and greater amount of accrued or committed revenue, the more adverse the bottom-line operating impact.

The ITO market, on the other hand, has shown persistent declines, resulting in consolidations and divestments to profitably manage eroding streams traditional ITO vendors seek to convert into managed services agreements. The inflation impact on costing will amplify the need to infuse these business practices with more automated capabilities or increased low-cost (typically offshore) labor as offsets. Still, the operating profit declines in this space will likely worsen unless vendors seek to negotiate incremental cost increases that customers may or may not be willing to accept based on their own issues with cost containment.

What go-forward tactics are in the technology vendor toolbox to mitigate inflationary impact?

Inflation is not new, but the operating models prevalent now were not around when we last experienced it. Business strategists still have a blend of initiatives they can embrace to preserve their operating models and their customer relationships:

  1. Market education: Transparent declarations on the cost impacts to the vendor business and any suggestions of sharing the burden with customers can preserve customer loyalty.
  2. Customer research in existing brand perception. The XaaS Pricing team has a very good blog outlining the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter and its applicability setting B2B SaaS pricing strategy. That research methodology can assist vendors in level setting where they stand with customers on the value perception and give pricing strategists a line of sight into how much room they have within their brand perception for implementing price increases.
  3. New contract language for price increases: The historic quiet period on inflation, coupled with the innate reality within technology of “faster, better, cheaper,” has customers expecting price reductions for IT that will require true customer education around inflation as an offset to those prevailing market expectations. This will not help with the inflationary impacts on the existing contracts that must be honored, but can establish a new go-forward pricing model that can take into account a business risk largely dormant for the better part of 40 years.

Inflation as a business risk will persist for the foreseeable future. TBR will be assessing it closely as public companies report their earnings and release their financial filing documents.

As the pandemic continues to push customers to hybrid IT, vendors aim to meet demand with flexible, cloud-like pricing models

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Average revenue growth for vendors in TBR’s Cloud Components Benchmark increased 12.6% year-to-year in 3Q21, partly due to a favorable year-ago compare considering the economic impacts of COVID-19 in mid-2020. Further, with many vendors operating transactional-heavy business models, rebounding demand for license products supported revenue growth during the quarter, especially for software-centric vendors like Microsoft and VMware. COVID-19 is causing customers to reevaluate their digital transformation plans; this may include migrating completely to a cloud environment, which will erode opportunities for some vendors while others will expand their existing data center investments through solutions like hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI).

Software-centric circles are blue. Hardware-centric circles are orange.

Given some customers’ reluctance to move outside the data center, opportunities arise for vendors to push ‘as a Service’ offerings

According to TBR’s 2H21 Cloud Infrastructure & Platforms Customer Research, 42% of respondents plan to keep most of their workloads inside the data center over the next three years. As COVID-19 accelerates customers’ cloud migration timelines, many enterprises turn to self-built private cloud environments as an intermediary step to a fully managed vendor-hosted private or public cloud model.

Further, many larger, established enterprises are looking to protect their existing investments in IT and find that their own data centers are a better fit for certain workloads, particularly those with stringent security or latency requirements. These customer trends present opportunities for hardware-centric vendors such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell EMC to capitalize on demand for cloud-like consumption services on premises in the coming years.

Data center consolidation persists

Many self-built private cloud customers adopt HCI solutions to modernize their legacy systems and consolidate their overall data center footprint, a trend brought on by cloud migrations and exacerbated by the pandemic. Colocation is emerging as a notable alternative to privately owned data centers in this model, as customers are offered a secure landing spot for their hardware while providing high proximity to major public cloud platforms. Recognizing this trend, OEMs are partnering with colocation providers to offer central management and governance capabilities that facilitate customers’ workloads.

Vendor competition ramps up amid high demand for cloud-like economics on premises

The cloud components market is consolidating around select vendors, such as Microsoft and VMware, specifically in the virtualization space. However, on the hardware side, vendors are emphasizing their consumption-based pricing offerings, seeking differentiation by taking a workload-by-workload approach. While in general IBM has been lacking in consumption-based hardware, the company is expanding its investments in the area, evidenced by the release of the company’s Tailor Fit Pricing solution for hardware consumption, which applies a pay-as-you-go model to a highly scalable, premium solution like IBM Z.

Gain access to the entire 3Q21 Cloud Components Benchmark, as well as our entire Cloud & Software research, with a 60-day free trial of TBR Insight Center™.

Register for our upcoming webinar, 2022 Predictions: Cloud, an in-depth discussion on the increasing importance of cloud partnerships in the market; how partners will enable growth and stickiness; vendor embrace of open, hybrid architectures; and more.

Webinar: Hyperscalers are reimagining how networks are built, owned and operated

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Hyperscalers are building end-to-end networks that embody all attributes and characteristics coveted by communication service providers as part of their digital transformations. Hyperscalers are starting from scratch, completely reimagining how networks should be built and operated. Their clouds, numerous network-related experiments over the past decade, and raft of new network-related technologies on the road map will enable hyperscalers to build asset-light, automated networks at a fraction of the cost of traditional networks.


Join Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz on Thursday, March 24, 2022, for an in-depth, exclusive review of TBR’s most recent Hyperscaler Digital Ecosystem Market Landscape, during which he will discuss hyperscalers’ disruption of the telecom industry, how and why hyperscalers are building networks, and the particular focus of these networks.


The Hyperscaler Digital Ecosystem Market Landscape tracks how and why the world’s largest hyperscalers are disrupting industries to unlock economic value in the digital era, with specific focus on the disruption of the telecom industry. The report focuses on Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms (Facebook), Microsoft and Rakuten.


Mark your calendars for Thursday, March 24, 2022, at 1 p.m. EDT,
and REGISTER to reserve your space.


Related content:

  1. Hyperscalers are reimaging how networks are built, owned and operated
  2. Top 3 Predictions for Telecom in 2022

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Atos future-proofs compute ahead of Great Acceleration

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As the world awaits the scientific discoveries needed to bring quantum processors to commercial applicability, Atos’ BullSequana XH3000 allows for ecosystem participation within the compute platform itself and future-proofs any early buyer investments. In its Feb. 16 official announcement of the XH3000 supercomputer, for which TBR was provided pre-briefing access, Atos claims the product will have a six-year life cycle and that it is an open architecture capable of housing up to 38 blades. The blades can accommodate a mix of different XPU processors, with more under consideration and development.

The rapid rise in large data sets and evolving AI/machine learning (ML) algorithms have driven this global appetite for greater compute capacity — an appetite that many data scientists believe will only be sated once quantum computers reach commercial viability. Atos’ early lead in quantum simulators and alliances with various quantum systems vendors imply the company will be capable of pivoting its high-performance computing (HPC) offerings quickly to accommodate the addition of commercial-grade quantum processors when they arrive. Atos’ flexible hybrid supercomputing architecture will sell well in Europe for a variety of reasons and may enable Atos to gain share against notable HPC vendors in North America and Asia.

Data and AI require new compute platforms to address intractable problems

Atos correctly asserts the state of compute trails the size of the data sets that are available to run algorithms. Specifically, the world is running out of computational capacity to address the complex problems that can now be simulated and analyzed through increasing digitization.

Proof points offered in the Atos announcement included:

  • Average HPC job durations grow as larger data sets will be applied against systems with as many as 10,000 nodes and 25,000 endpoints.
  • Application refactoring and algorithm refinements can provide as much as a 22x speed improvement.
  • Data centricity and edge processing grow in use case applicability, requiring greater hierarchical depth and more localized compute near the application.
  • Hybrid Sim/AI Workflows for approximate computing are nearing reality. Atos offered the example of Alphafold 2 for protein folding prediction reaching over 90% accuracy, whereas classical methods currently achieve between 30% to 40% accuracy.
  • Yet another industry prediction of reaching the physical limits of Moore’s law now that the industry is at 3nm technology.
  • Extending the performance gains from classical computing while quantum discovery and commercialization advance will require greater innovation around multiple XPU architectures. These hybrid or heterogenous compute architectures need a new compute system structure, which Atos believes the XH3000 system provides.

The Atos Exascale strategy is a hybrid approach that serves many masters

Atos states the future of supercomputing will be hybrid. According to Atos, the future of supercomputing will involve a hybrid approach, consisting in the near term of a blend of classical CPU configurations and specialized processor architectures to address specific workload requirements. Presently, Atos collaborates with AMD (Nasdaq: AMD), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA), SiPearl and Graphcore, among others. Eurocentric chips based on ARM designs are also in the news and have been discussed by Atos.

Atos has addressed the need for future-proof flexibility in its designs by building the standard chassis of the BullSequana XH3000 to accommodate up to 38 compute/switch blades on one rack to be mixed and matched as workflows require from the different blades currently available and available in the future.

This hybrid architectural design approach serves many masters, such as those addressing:

  • Sustainability: Different cooling and processing designs not only generate greater computational capacity but also, when coupled with the hybrid configurations and algorithm innovations, can lead to lower power consumption, and therefore lower carbon footprints.
  • Sovereignty: Technonationalism is not going away, and Atos is a flagship European technology vendor. Former Atos CEO Thierry Breton is now the commissioner for internal market affairs within the European Union (EU) and has been tasked with managing many elements pertinent to digitization and “enhancing Europe’s technical sovereignty.” The EU has clearly stated its intentions to ensure there are European-controlled processors in market. Hybrid computing structures enable companies to select different processors to address the computational requirements amid the increased attention nation states place on compute access as a strategic national interest.
  • Higher performance: The HPC market increasingly takes on the dynamics of emerging ecosystem business models and requires a physical compute stack that can accommodate the many tech stack variations the ecosystem can create to address the world’s compute and AI challenges. Atos claims it also has built the architecture to be resilient and adaptable for six years without forklift upgrades. This flexibility, Atos asserts, can accommodate new discoveries as the unknowns around deep learning, algorithm development and new processor developments in the classical and quantum computing realms come into view.

Lockheed Martin forced to abandon $4.4B acquisition

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On Feb. 13 Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) pivoted and severely altered its FY22 outlook by withdrawing from its $4.4 billion plan to acquire missile and rocket propulsion expert Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) (NYSE: AJRD) after months of mounting antitrust pressure and the recent unanimous U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decision to sue Lockheed Martin to obstruct the planned acquisition of AR.

Lockheed Martin looked to challenge Northrop Grumman for missile and rocket propulsion market dominance

In December 2020 Lockheed Martin announced it had entered into a definitive agreement with AR to acquire the missile and rocket propulsion innovator. With this proposed purchase, Lockheed Martin indirectly revealed its plans to disrupt the market dominance Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) has enjoyed since 2018 when it purchased renowned rocket booster manufacturer Orbital ATK. Lockheed Martin hoped that its acquisition of AR would follow a similar trajectory as Northrop Grumman’s purchase of Orbital ATK, where the FTC would approve the acquisition so long as Lockheed Martin followed FTC stipulations, such as refusing to discriminate access to its missile system products and services to competing contractors.

With the world’s largest defense contractor planning to dedicate significant resources to acquire AR, Lockheed Martin expected the FTC to approve its acquisition as the combination of Lockheed Martin and AR would be a stronger competitor against Northrop Grumman, giving the U.S. government an additional option when selecting contractors. Expecting approval in 1Q22, Lockheed Martin forecasted its FY22 based on gaining an expanded propulsion systems and rocket engines portfolio and priority access to AR resources during the ongoing supply chain chaos seen in all industries.

After a year of setbacks, the FTC intervenes with Lockheed Martin’s proposed acquisition

Lockheed Martin experienced several setbacks almost immediately after announcing the planned acquisition. In February 2021 Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) stated it would implore regulatory agencies to block Lockheed Martin’s proposed purchase, arguing that the acquisition would give Lockheed Martin an unfair market advantage and Raytheon Technologies would have to purchase approximately 70% of its missile propulsion systems through Lockheed Martin as a result.

In July 2021 Senator Elizabeth Warren petitioned the FTC to probe the acquisition. Despite a bipartisan appeal to the Pentagon by a group of 13 U.S. Congress members in support of the merger in August 2021 and rumors circling that the Pentagon was in favor of the deal, the FTC voted 4-0 in January 2022 to file a lawsuit impeding Lockheed Martin’s $4.4 billion acquisition.

After initially postponing the vote, the FTC finally argued that Lockheed Martin would damage the national defense market and its rivals by acquiring the United States’ only independent provider of essential missile inputs. By reducing industry competition, Lockheed Martin would be able to relax innovation efforts and not be as competitive with its pricing, which could result in higher prices for the government. The acquisition would also potentially limit rivals access to resources and provide Lockheed Martin with unfair insight into their confidential information as AR operated as a subcontractor for many of them in the market.

Rather than face an arduous administrative trial against the U.S. government in mid-June, Lockheed Martin opted to simply abandon its acquisition plans.

Hyperscalers’ cloud-based modern network architecture provides strategic advantage over legacy network technologies

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2H21 Hyperscaler Digital Ecosystem Market Landscape infographic

Hyperscaler-built networks will look very different from traditional networks

Hyperscalers are building end-to-end networks that embody all the attributes and characteristics coveted by communication service providers (CSPs) as part of their digital transformations. The most significant differences are in the software stack and the access layer, where new technologies enable hyperscalers to build dense mesh networks in unlicensed and/or shared spectrum bands and build out low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite overlays for access and backhaul. Mesh networks will likely be used to provide low-cost, wireless-fiber-like connectivity in urban and suburban environments, while satellites will primarily be leveraged to provide connectivity to rural and remote environments.

Hyperscalers are starting from scratch, completely reimagining how networks should be built and operated. Their clouds, numerous network-related experiments over the past decade, plus the raft of new network-related technologies on the road map will enable hyperscalers to build asset-light, automated networks at a fraction of the cost of traditional networks.

Hyperscaler networks will cost a fraction of traditional networks

TBR estimates hyperscaler networks cost 50% to 80% less to build than traditional networks (excludes the cost of spectrum, which would make the cost differential even more pronounced because hyperscalers will primarily leverage unlicensed and shared spectrum, which is free to use). Most of the cost savings stems from innovations, such as mesh networking, carrier aggregation, LEO satellites and integrated access-backhaul, that enable significantly less wired infrastructure to be deployed in the access layer for backhaul and last-mile connection purposes.

For example, Meta’s Terragraph mesh access point can autonomously hop signals through multiple other access points before sending the data through the nearest available backhaul conduit. In the traditional architecture, some form of backhaul would need to connect to each access point to backhaul the traffic. Mesh signals could also be backhauled through LEO satellites, further limiting the need to deploy wired infrastructure in the access layer, which is one of the most significant costs of traditional networks.

Another key area of cost savings stems from cutting out certain aspects of the traditional value chain. By open-sourcing some innovations, such as hardware designs, hyperscalers can foster a vibrant ecosystem of ODMs to manufacture white boxes to compose the physical network. The white-boxing of ICT hardware can lead to cost savings of up to 50% compared to proprietary, purpose-built appliances.

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