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☆ Microsoft Reports Rising Revenues as A.I. Investments Bear Fruit
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Karen Weise | More About Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Profit hit $21.9 billion, up from $18.3 billion. A year after Microsoft began its push to put A.I. into everything it does, the company said sales of its flagship cloud computing product, Azure, had grown 31 percent. push has helped it gain market share from Amazon, the leading cloud services provider. In January, the company said 53,000 customers were using its cloud A.I.

Persons: Microsoft’s Organizations: Microsoft, Revenue, Amazon

Microsoft filed a motion in federal court on Monday that seeks to dismiss parts of a lawsuit brought by The New York Times Company. The Times sued Microsoft and its partner OpenAI on Dec. 27, accusing the two companies of infringing on its copyrights by using its articles to train A.I. In its motion, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Microsoft argued that large language models, or L.L.M.s — the technologies that drive chatbots — did not supplant the market for news articles and other materials they were trained on. The tech giant compared L.L.M.s to videocassette recorders, arguing that both are allowed under the law. than it was to the VCR (or the player piano, copy machine, personal computer, internet or search engine),” the motion read.

Persons: OpenAI Organizations: Microsoft, The New York Times Company, The Times, Southern, of Locations: U.S, of New York

☆ Microsoft Reports 33% Rise in Profit
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Karen Weise | More About Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Two weeks ago, Microsoft topped Apple as the most valuable public company. Microsoft has told investors that A.I. On Tuesday, Microsoft gave signs that it is finding a path, as it posted revenue and profits that beat Wall Street expectations. Revenue was $62 billion in the three months that ended in December, up 18 percent from a year earlier. Profit hit $21.9 billion, up 33 percent.

Persons: Satya Nadella Organizations: Microsoft, Apple Locations: OpenAI

Page, hampered for more than a decade by an unusual ailment in his vocal cords, described his vision of a digital utopia in a whisper. If that happens, Mr. Musk said, we’re doomed. Finally he called Mr. Musk a “specieist,” a person who favors humans over the digital life-forms of the future. That debate has pitted some of the world’s richest men against one another: Mr. Musk, Mr. Page, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, the tech investor Peter Thiel, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sam Altman of OpenAI.

Persons: Page, Musk, we’re, ”, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, OpenAI Organizations: Valley, Meta, Microsoft Locations: Silicon

☆ Amazon Introduces Q, an A.I. Chatbot for Companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Karen Weise | More About Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Amazon was quieter about its A.I. Amazon also introduced a platform this year that allows customers to have access to different A.I. As the leading provider of cloud computing, Amazon already has business customers storing vast amounts of information on its cloud servers. In response, Amazon built Q to be more secure and private than a consumer chatbot, Mr. Selipsky said. Amazon Q, for example, can have the same security permissions that business customers have already set up for their users.

Persons: Selipsky, “, ” Organizations: Companies Locations: Anthropic

For much of the past year, OpenAI’s board of directors has been criticized as too small and too divided to effectively govern one of the fastest-growing start-ups in Silicon Valley history. On Friday, the board’s dysfunction spilled into public view when four of its members fired Sam Altman, OpenAI’s popular and powerful chief executive. Mr. Altman, 38, returned to the company on Tuesday night, after days of haggling over his job and over the makeup of the board. The board and Mr. Altman’s allies discussed more than a half dozen options for its future. The departing board wanted to be sure the replacements would be independent thinkers and experienced enough to stand up to Mr. Altman.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI’s, Altman, Altman’s, Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs, Brian Chesky Organizations: Emerson Locations: Silicon Valley

More board members, who could be plucked from OpenAI’s biggest investor, Microsoft, and the A.I. Mr. Altman was not named to the board on Tuesday night, and it was not clear if he ever will be. But some already argue that it will not be as attuned to OpenAI’s original mission to create A.I. The tech industry — perhaps even the world — will be watching to see if OpenAI is any closer to balancing those dueling aspirations than it was a week ago. “This needs to be a trustworthy organization that’s aligned with its board, and at the end of it all, OpenAI is a more valuable organization than it was a week ago.”

Persons: Altman, ”, Aaron Levie Organizations: Microsoft

Sam Altman was reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s chief executive, the company said, successfully reversing his ouster by the company’s board last week after a campaign waged by his allies, employees and investors. The board of directors will be overhauled, jettisoning several members who had opposed Mr. Altman. Adam D’Angelo, the chief executive of Quora, will be the only holdover. “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo,” OpenAI said in a post to X. “We are collaborating to figure out the details.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, Adam D’Angelo, Sam, Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, ” OpenAI, Greg Brockman, upended Organizations: Quora

☆ Cloud Growth Powers Microsoft Above Expectations
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Karen Weise | More About Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The results also showed early signs that the company’s investments in generative artificial intelligence were beginning to bolster sales, most notably reversing what had been slowing growth of the company’s important cloud computing product. The company had $56.5 billion in sales in the three months that ended in September, up 13 percent from a year earlier. wouldn’t start producing meaningful results until after the start of 2024, when more products become widely available. The company and its competitors are racing to put generative A.I. provider, thanks to its partnership with — and $13 billion investment in — the start-up OpenAI, which introduced the chatbot ChatGPT almost a year ago.

Organizations: Microsoft, —

☆ For Amazon’s Andy Jassy, a Cleanup Job Just Got a Lot Bigger
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Karen Weise | More About Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the two years since Andy Jassy replaced Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s chief executive, he has been cleaning up after his company’s aggressive pandemic expansion and after Mr. Bezos. Mr. Jassy has reined in Amazon’s voracious warehouse growth, culled from the company’s sprawl of products and laid off thousands of employees on several of Mr. Bezos’ pet projects. The suit focused on parts of the business that took off before Mr. Jassy gained control over the retail division. The redacted complaint mentions Mr. Bezos 16 times, and Mr. Jassy only twice. Mr. Jassy joins other big tech chief executives who have taken control of enormous businesses from idiosyncratic founders at difficult moments.

Persons: Andy Jassy, Jeff Bezos, Bezos, Jassy, ”, Sucharita Kodali Organizations: Federal Trade Commission, Amazon, Street, Forrester Research Locations: Washington

☆ Microsoft Revenue Up 8% to $56.2 Billion in Latest Quarter
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Karen Weise | More About Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Microsoft reported record sales and profits on Tuesday, as it shook off recession fears and began reaping the benefits of its investments in generative artificial intelligence. The company had $56.2 billion in sales in the three months that ended in June, up 8 percent from a year earlier. The profits beat Microsoft’s previous record of $18.8 billion, in December 2021, even as capital expenses grew to $10.7 billion, which included costs to build out data centers and buy expensive chips necessary for developing cutting-edge A.I. Investors have rallied behind Microsoft in recent months as the company has unveiled generative A.I. features across its products, including integrating a chatbot into its Bing search engine and adding an A.I.

Organizations: Microsoft, Investors

☆ Microsoft and Activision Delay Deal to Settle British Regulatory Issues
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Karen Weise | More About Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard said on Wednesday that they were delaying a $69 billion merger as the two companies scrambled to get final approval from British antitrust regulators. The new extension, set for Oct. 18, signals that the two companies believe they will complete the deal but need more time to satisfy regulators’ concerns. When Microsoft announced its plans to acquire the video game publisher Activision in early 2022, the two companies set a deadline of July 18 this year to close the deal. The revised agreement introduced an escalating breakup fee that Microsoft would have to pay to Activision if the purchase fell through, from $3 billion until Aug. 29, then growing to as much as $4.5 billion if it does not close by Sept. 15. “We are confident about our prospects for getting this deal across the finish line,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, wrote on Twitter.

Persons: Activision Blizzard, Brad Smith Organizations: Microsoft, Activision, Twitter

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