Here's Everything You Need To Know About The New Samsung Galaxy S8

Samsung&;s new flagship phone is thinner and more high-resolution than ever. And it comes with a new personal assistant named Bixby.

If you&;re one of the 69.5 million people in the US that already own a Samsung phone, you might be wondering: Is the Galaxy S8 worth the upgrade?

Samsung&039;s latest flagship device, unveiled today in New York City, is the company&039;s first smartphone launch in the post-Note7 explosion era.

I got a preview of the phone before today&039;s announcement, and, during that briefing, Samsung representatives reiterated their commitment to safety and the new eight-point safety protocol being implemented for the device. The Galaxy S8, which ships in April, will test its efficacy.

Samsung&039;s latest flagship phone is larger (but slimmer) than previous models and has a brilliant display with even more pixels packed in. It&039;s an elegant device with curved edges all around, but the most note-worthy Galaxy S8 news is on the inside. “Bixby” is what Samsung calls an “intelligent user interface agent” and allows users to perform tasks with their voice. It&039;s an interesting update, considering Google&039;s voice-enabled AI, Google Assistant, already ships with phones running Android, the Galaxy S8&039;s operating system.

Stayed tuned for a full review, but until then, here&039;s a look at the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

There are two sizes: the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+.

There are two sizes: the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+.

The smaller Galaxy S8 has 5.8-inch display, while the Galaxy S8+ has a 6.2-inch display. That&039;s much larger than last year&039;s Galaxy S7 and S7 edge devices, which were 5.1 and 5.5 inches respectively. However, the devices&039; edges are curved on all four sides, which makes them seem smaller than it actually is.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

It’s even slimmer than the S7 – but by just 1.5 millimeters.

It's even slimmer than the S7 – but by just 1.5 millimeters.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News


View Entire List ›

Quelle: <a href="Here&039;s Everything You Need To Know About The New Samsung Galaxy S8“>BuzzFeed

5 highlights from InterConnect 2017

At this year’s InterConnect, I learned so much, met clients from across industries and geographies, and yet again left Las Vegas buzzing with excitement about IBM solutions and partnerships.
Throughout the week, clients told me they’re thrilled to see the IBM commitment to building a cloud that’s enterprise strong, puts data first and has cognitive at its core. They see their own ambitions in this strategy and are excited to work with a cloud services provider with a hybrid cloud strategy that spans platforms, industries and partners, putting client needs first.
As I reflect on the week, I thought I&;d share five of my personal highlights, in no particular order:
 
1. David Kenny&8217;s entrance
This wasn’t a tech, client or partner announcement, but it was a truly memorable entrance from the IBM senior vice president of IBM Watson and cloud platform. Though he entered to an exciting adventure theme, there was of course a serious message behind the fun: to show IBM clients just how far we’ll go to get them great pricing on cloud object storage. David shared the stage with Arvind Krishna, senior vice president of hybrid cloud and director of IBM Research, Monday morning as Indiegogo and Arrow Electronics announced a partnership to help bring new Internet of Things (IoT) ideas to life.
Monday’s opening event was also packed with announcements around leading technical innovation, such as the Cognitive Security Operations Centre, IBM Cloud Automation Manager, IBM Cloud for Financial Services and much more.
2. Ginni&8217;s keynote
IBM CEO and Chairman Ginni Rometty took the stage Tuesday morning having returned from China the evening beforehand. She announced the IBM Cloud partnership with Wanda China Cloud and shared the stage with clients and partners such as AT&T, Everledger, H&R Block, Royal Bank of Canada and Salesforce.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stood out as he expressed his excitement around the Einstein/Watson partnership and the insights already being made available to Salesforce clients worldwide.
Joining Ginni on stage to close Tuesday’s keynote was the inspirational Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. Three Girls Who Code students also took the stage to share their stories of coding, equality and opportunity.
3. Partnership announcements
With hybrid at the heart of IBM cloud strategy, partnering to extend key capabilities that offer clients choice with consistency is key.
IBM announced strategic partnerships with Red Hat focused on hosted private cloud and Intel and HyTrust with a focus on security. As a Red Hat certified cloud and service provider, IBM Bluemix now delivers managed, private cloud at scale on the IBM Cloud infrastructure, available with the Red Hat OpenStack platform and Red Hat Ceph storage.
With Intel and HyTrust, IBM will offer the IBM Cloud Secure Virtualization Solution running on VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud. The Secure Virtualization solution safely and securely reduces the barriers to cloud adoption, spanning various vertical specific compliance standards, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
4. The concourse
As a regular InterConnect attendee over the years, I’ve seen the exhibition area grow in size and improve in quality year over year, and 2017 was no exception. At 350,000 square feet and renamed the concourse, 200-plus exhibitors from across IBM, business partners and the IBM Cloud ecosystem hosted stands manned by subject matter experts to share insight and experience with clients that were keen to learn.
Personal highlights included the Bluemix Garage presence, the Dev/Zone and of course, the cloud adoption leaders’ Cloud Confidence Center, where I spent much of my time.
5. The steps
You haven’t experienced IBM InterConnect if you haven’t clocked at least 15,000 steps on your pedometer each day. With the vast Mandalay Bay Conference Center taken over by IBM for InterConnect, the sheer extent of IBM InterConnect is an experience you won’t forget.
From the hands-on labs and certification hall on the third floor, to the various theatres and breakout rooms on the second floor, not to mention the concourse, exhibition centre and event arena on the ground floor, no trip to InterConnect is complete without a daily workout. Of course, the exercise tends to go unnoticed given the excitement and learning that takes place daily.
I’m writing this post as I travel from Las Vegas to Newark on the first leg of my journey home to Dublin, Ireland. As I recap the week that’s just passed, I’m making notes of clients that’ll be excited to learn more about InterConnect and the plethora of announcements and capabilities IBM just launched.
Feel free to contact me if you’d like to learn more about InterConnect 2017 and if you’re not already, start to make plans for InterConnect 2018 at Mandalay Bay, 18 to 22 March.
The post 5 highlights from InterConnect 2017 appeared first on news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Benefits of increasing use of cloud managed services

This is the second part in a two-part interview series with Lynda Stadtmueller, vice president of cloud services for the analyst firm Frost & Sullivan. In part one, we discussed why 80 percent of US companies plan to increase their use of cloud managed services. Today, she offers perspective on the benefits that cloud managed services can deliver.
Thoughts on Cloud (ToC): Based on your experience, what are the biggest benefits for a company when moving to a managed cloud environment or increasing its use of cloud managed services?
Lynda Stadtmueller, vice president of cloud services, Frost & Sullivan: The primary benefits are increased application performance, improved efficiency in infrastructure utilization and faster speed to market.
But another benefit that might be surprising is that managed services can help manage costs. When I work with enterprises to create a total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) analysis, we often find that managed services can pay for themselves when compared to on-premises deployment and management of some applications, or even with a “do-it-yourself” approach.
In my last survey, 45 percent of businesses using a “do-it-yourself” approach to cloud — meaning they are deploying their own infrastructure as a service — said that for every dollar they spend on the infrastructure itself, they spend three to five dollars managing it. That’s a huge amount. If you&;re using a managed service provider, you can offload a lot of that internal cost.
ToC: Do cloud managed services tend to deliver more benefits for large enterprises?
LS: I&8217;m actually seeing more growth in the midmarket. My personal theory is that midmarket chief information officers (CIOs) often come from large enterprises, which means that they recognize the value of technology for making the company more competitive and increasing revenue.
Midmarket businesses are less willing to spend on “break-fix” types of managed services. They want more value. So I&8217;m seeing higher cloud managed services adoption rates in the midmarket segment because they need those to compete, and they see the value these services can provide.
ToC: What&8217;s the number one recommendation you make to clients that are considering moving to cloud managed services?
LS: When we look at what chief executive officers demand from IT, it’s not just about reduced costs. It’s also about making the business run faster and raising productivity. Because of that, I encourage CIOs to do a TCO analysis that includes more than the top-line expenses.
The cost of downtime is a good example. If you have a managed services partner with availability service level agreements (SLAs) and a tested backup and recovery plan, you can quantify the cost savings for lack of downtime.
When businesses can use dollar figures to quantify the workloads across the entire enterprise that are going to your managed service provider, it helps the CIO better understand the value they’re driving for the company. It also helps them speak in a language that their business colleagues understand.
ToC: If companies choose not to use cloud managed services, what&8217;s the alternative for taking advantage of the benefits of cloud?
LS: Our 2016 study on cloud-based managed services found that 91 percent of businesses hire somebody to do something, but it’s not necessarily managed services. Instead, it might be services to help design and implement a cloud strategy.
But problems can arise when companies forget about applications after they’re launched. Costs start increasing because there’s nobody to keep things running efficiently. The people who uploaded the workload are off doing the next piece of technology and nobody&8217;s minding the store.
To estimate your annual savings from implementing cloud managed services, try the Cost Benefits Estimator.
The post Benefits of increasing use of cloud managed services appeared first on news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Scaling with Kubernetes DaemonSets

The post Scaling with Kubernetes DaemonSets appeared first on Mirantis | Pure Play Open Cloud.
We&;re used to thinking about scaling from the point of view of a deployment; we want it to scale up under different conditions, so it looks for appropriate nodes, and puts pods on them. DaemonSets, on the other hand, take a different tack: any time you have a node that belongs to the set, it runs the pods you specify.  For example, you might create a DaemonSet to tell Kubernetes that any time you create a node with the label app=webserver you want it to run Nginx.  Let&8217;s take a look at how that works.
Creating a DaemonSet
Let&8217;s start by looking at a sample YAML file to define a Daemon Set:
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
 name: frontend
spec:
 template:
   metadata:
     labels:
       app: frontend-webserver
   spec:
     nodeSelector:
       app: frontend-node
     containers:
       – name: webserver
         image: nginx
         ports:
         – containerPort: 80
Here we&8217;re creating a DaemonSet called frontend. As with a ReplicationController, pods launched by the DaemonSet are given the label specified in the spec.template.metadata.labels property &; in this case, app=frontend-webserver.
The template.spec itself has two important parts: the nodeSelector and the containers.  The containers are fairly self-evident (see our discussion of ReplicationControllers if you need a refresher) but the interesting part here is the nodeSelector.
The nodeSelector tells Kubernetes which nodes are part of the set and should run the specified containers.  In other words, these pods are deployed automatically; there&8217;s no input at all from the scheduler, so schedulability of a node isn&8217;t taken into account.  On the other hand, Daemon Sets are a great way to deploy pods that need to be running before other objects.
Let&8217;s go ahead and create the Daemon Set.  Create a file called ds.yaml with the definition in it and run the command:
$ kubectl create -f ds.yaml
daemonset “datastore” created
Now let&8217;s see the Daemon Set in action.
Scaling capacity using a DaemonSet
If we check to see if the pods have been deployed, we&8217;ll see that they haven&8217;t:
$ kubectl get pods
NAME                        READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
That&8217;s because we don&8217;t yet have any nodes that are part of our DaemonSet.  If we look at the nodes we do have &;
$ kubectl get nodes
NAME        STATUS    AGE
10.0.10.5   Ready     75d
10.0.10.7   Ready     75d
We can go ahead and add at least one of them by adding the app=frontend-node label:
$kubectl label  node 10.0.10.5 app=frontend-node
node “10.0.10.5” labeled
Now if we get a list of pods again&8230;
$ kubectl get pods
NAME                        READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
frontend-7nfxo              1/1       Running   0          19s
We can see that the pod was started without us taking any additional action.  
Now we have a single webserver running.  If we wanted to scale up, we could simply add our second node to the Daemon Set:
$ kubectl label  node 10.0.10.7 app=frontend-node
node “10.0.10.7” labeled
If we check the list of pods again, we can see that a new one was automatically started:
$ kubectl get pods
NAME                        READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
frontend-7nfxo              1/1       Running   0          1m
frontend-rp9bu              1/1       Running   0          35s
If we remove a node from the DaemonSet, any related pods are automatically terminated:
$ kubectl label  node 10.0.10.5 –overwrite app=backend
node “10.0.10.5” labeled

$ kubectl get pods
NAME                        READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
frontend-rp9bu              1/1       Running   0          1m
Updating Daemon Sets, and improvements in Kubernetes 1.6
OK, so how do we update a running DaemonSet?  Well, as of Kubernetes 1.5, the answer is &;you don&8217;t.&; Currently, it&8217;s possible to change the template of a DaemonSet, but it won&8217;t affect the pods that are already running.  
Starting in Kubernetes 1.6, however, you will be able to do rolling updates with Kubernetes DaemonSets. You&8217;ll have to set the updateStrategy, as in:
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
 name: frontend
spec:
 updateStrategy: RollingUpdate
   maxUnavailable: 1
   minReadySeconds: 0
 template:
   metadata:
     labels:
       app: frontend-webserver
   spec:
     nodeSelector:
       app: frontend-node
     containers:
       – name: webserver
         image: nginx
         ports:
         – containerPort: 80
Once you&8217;ve done that, you can make changes and they&8217;ll propagate to the running pods. For example, you can change the image on which the containers are based. For example:
$kubectl set image ds/frontend webserver=httpd
If you want to make more substantive changes, you can edit or patch the Daemon Set:
kubectl edit ds/frontend
or
kubectl patch ds/frontend -p=ds-changes.yaml
(Obviously you would use your own DaemonSet names and files!)
So that&8217;s the basics of working with DaemonSets.  What else would you like to learn about them? Let us know in the comments below.
The post Scaling with Kubernetes DaemonSets appeared first on Mirantis | Pure Play Open Cloud.
Quelle: Mirantis

What’s new in Kubernetes 1.6 — a focus on stability

The post What&;s new in Kubernetes 1.6 &; a focus on stability appeared first on Mirantis | Pure Play Open Cloud.
Kubernetes 1.6 is forecast to be released this week. Major themes include new capabilities for Daemon Sets, the beta release of Kubernetes federation and new scheduling features, and new networking capabilities. You can get an in-depth look at all of the new features in the Kubernetes 1.6 release notes, but let&8217;s get a quick overview here.
DaemonSet rolling updates
You&8217;re probably used to dealing with Kubernetes in terms of creating a Deployment or a ReplicationController and having it manage your pods, making certain that you always have a particular number of instances spread among the nodes that are available.  DaemonSets, on the other hand, look at things from the opposite perspective.
With DaemonSets, you specify the nodes to run a particular set of containers, and Kubernetes will make certain that any nodes that satisfy those requirements will run those pods. With Kubernetes 1.6, you now have the option to update those DaemonSets with a new image or other information.  (For more information on DaemonSets, you can see this article,which explains how and why to use them.)
Kubernetes Federation
As Kubernetes takes hold, the likelihood of running into situations in which users have multiple large clusters to deal with increases. Federation enables you to create an infrastructure in which users can use, say, the closest cluster to them, or the one that has the most spare capacity.
Now in beta, kubefed &;supports hosting federation on on-prem clusters, [and] automatically configures kube-dns in joining clusters and allows passing arguments to federation components.&;
Authentication and access control improvements
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), which makes it possible to define roles for control plane, node, and controller components, is now in the beta phase.  (It also defines default roles for these components.) There are numerous changes from the alpha version (such as a change from using * for all users to using system:authenticated or system:unauthenticated) so make sure to check out the release notes for all the details.
Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) also been tweaked, with wild cards defaulting to authenticated users. The kube-apiserver and the authentication API have also seen a number of improvements.
Scheduling changes
Now in beta is the ability to have multiple schedulers, with each controlling a different set of pods. You can also set the scheduler you want for a particular pod on the pod sec, rather than as an annotation, as in the alpha version.
Also in beta are node and pod affinity/anti-affinity. This capability enables you to intelligently schedule pods that should, or shouldn&8217;t be, on the same piece of hardware.  For example, if you have a web application that talks to a database, you might wat them on the same pod.  If, on the other hand, you have a pod that needs to be highly available, you might want to spread different instances over different nodes as a safeguard against failure. You can specify the affinity field on the PodSpec.
Kubernetes 1.6 also includes the beta release of taints and tolerations, and some improvements to that functionality from the alpha version.  Taints enable you to dedicate a node to a particular kind of pod, similar to the way in which you might flavors in OpenStack. Unlike OpenStack, however, you can tell Kubernetes to try to avoid scheduling pods that aren&8217;t explicitly allowed (read: tolerated) to that node, but if it has no choice, it can go ahead. This functionality also enables to you specify a period of time a mod might run on this node before being &8220;evicted.&8221;
And speaking of being evicted, Kubernetes 1.6 now enables you to override the default 5 minute period during which a pod remains bound to a node if there are problems,s o you can specify that a pod either finds another node more quickly, or is more patient and waits even longer.
The Container Runtime Interface is now the default
While it&8217;s natural to assume that containers running on Kubernetes are Docker containers, that&8217;s not always true.  Kubernetes also supports rkt containers, and in fact the goal is to enable Kubernetes to orchestrate any container runtime. Up until now, that&8217;s been difficult, because the container runtimes were coded into the kubelet component that runs the actual containers.
Now, with Kubernetes 1.6, the beta version of the Docker Container Runtime Interface is enabled by default &8212; you can turn it off with &;enable-cri=false &8212; it will be easier to add new runtimes.  The old non-runtime architecture is deprecated in 1.6 and is scheduled for remove in Kubernetes 1.7.
Storage improvements
Kubernetes 1.6 includes the general availability release of StorageClasses, which enable you to specify a particular type of storage resource for users without exposing them to the details.  (This is also similar to flavors in OpenStack.)
Also now in GA are the ability to populate environment variables from a configmap or a secret, as well as support for writing and running your own dynamic PersistentVolume provisioners.
Note that StorageClasses will change the behaviors of PersistentVolumeClaim objects on existing clouds, so be sure to read the Release Notes.
Networking improvements
You now have added control over DNS; Kubernetes 1.6 enables you to set stubDomains, which define the nameservers used for specific domains (such as *.mycompany.local), and to specify what upstreamNameservers you want to use, overriding resolve.conf.
Digging deeper, the Container Network Interface (CNI) is now integrated with the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) by default, and the standard bridge plugin has been validated with the combination.
Other changes
Kubernetes 1.6 includes a huge number of changes and improvements, some of which will only be of interest to operators, as opposed to end users, but all of which are important. Some of these changes include:

By default, etcd v3 is enabled, enabling clusters up to 5000 nodes
The ability to know via the API whether a Deployment is blocked
Easier logging access
Improvements to the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler
The ability to add third party resources and extension API servers with the edit command
New commands for creating roles, as well as determining whether you can perform an action
New fields added to describe output
Improvements to kubeadm

Definitely take a look at the full release notes to get the details.
The post What&8217;s new in Kubernetes 1.6 &8212; a focus on stability appeared first on Mirantis | Pure Play Open Cloud.
Quelle: Mirantis

OpenStack Developer Mailing List Digest March 18-24

SuccessBot Says

Yolanda [1]: Wiki problems have been fixed, it&;s up and running
johnthetubaguy [2]: First few patches adding real docs for policy have now merged in Nova. A much improved sample file [3].
Tell us yours via OpenStack IRC channels with message “ <message>”
All: [4]

Release Naming for R

It&8217;s time to pick a name for our “R” release.
The assoicated summit will be in Vancouver, so the geographic location has been chosen as “British Colombia”.
Rules:

Each release name must start with the letter of the ISO basic Latin alphabet following the initial letter of the previous release, starting with the initial release of &;Austin&;. After &8220;Z&8221;, the next name should start with &8220;A&8221; again.
The name must be composed only of the 26 characters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Names which can be transliterated into this character set are also acceptable.
The name must refer to the physical or human geography of the region encompassing the location of the OpenStack design summit for the corresponding release. The exact boundaries of the geographic region under consideration must be declared before the opening of nominations, as part of the initiation of the selection process.
The name must be a single word with a maximum of 10 characters. Words that describe the feature should not be included, so &8220;Foo City&8221; or &8220;Foo Peak&8221; would both be eligible as &8220;Foo&8221;.

Full thread [5]

Moving Gnocchi out

The project Gnocchi which has been tagged independent since it&8217;s inception has potential outside of OpenStack.
Being part of the big tent helped the project be built, but there is a belief that it restrains its adoption outside of OpenStack.
The team has decided to move it out of OpenStack [6].

In addition out of the OpenStack infrastructure.

Gnocchi will continue thrive and be used by OpenStack such as Ceilometer.
Full thread [7]

POST /api-wg/news

Guides under review:

Define pagination guidelines (recently rebooted) [8]
Create a new set of api stability guidelines [9]
Microversions: add next_min_version field in version body [10]
Mention max length limit information for tags [11]
Add API capabilities discovery guideline [12]
WIP: microversion architecture archival doc (very early; not yet ready for review) [13]

Full thread [14]

 
Quelle: openstack.org

Twitter turns to Watson to stop abuse before it starts

Twitter isn&;t taking bullying on its platform sitting down.
In remarks at IBM InterConnect this week, Twitter Vice President of Data Strategy Chris Moody said stopping abuse is the company&8217;s number one priority, though he admitted it is &;a very, very hard challenge.&;
Along with updates to its policies, another way Twitter is facing down that challenge is by bringing Watson in to analyze the wording of tweets.
&8220;Watson is really good at understanding nuances in language and intention,” Moody said. “What we want to do is be able to identify abuse patterns early and stop this behavior before it starts.”
Moody added that the early testing of using Watson&8217;s Tone Analyzer technology, which is available through IBM Bluemix, to identify abusive language is very promising. He said he&8217;d like to return to next year&8217;s InterConnect to share results.
For more of Moody&8217;s remarks, check out the full story on GeekWire or watch the video on IBMGO.
The post Twitter turns to Watson to stop abuse before it starts appeared first on news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Girls Who Code: Inspiring a generation of change makers

Reshma Saujani, CEO of Girls Who Code, joined IBM CEO Ginni Rometty on stage at IBM InterConnect this week to discuss how IBM has supported the company&;s growth, which in turn has helped young girls break barriers in the technology industry.
As a politician, Reshma visited hundreds of schools. The lack of girls in IT classes made her question where women sit in the tech industry. Through research, she found out that today, less than 18 percent of women major in IT.
Moving in the right direction
Five years after the Girls Who Code started in 2012, IBM has sponsored summer camps, helping 40,000 girls from every US state learn to code. All the girls who attended these summer camps intend to major or minor in a computer tech course.
Considering only 7,000 graduated in computer science in 2016, it is clear the numbers are moving in the right direction.
Watson platform
The Girls Who Code camps teach girls how to use Watson API and Bluemix. For example, one girl created an app to help children with autism connect with their friends.
The camps are helping build a generation of change makers to help people with autism, those who are battling cyberbullying and others.
Three summer camp attendees, Karen, Michelle and Madison were welcomed to the stage during Rometty&8217;s keynote. They described how they used Bluemix workshop and Watson for an interactive chatbot, specifically using the Tone Analyzer. They later used the platform for their end-of-summer project because it was so interesting and exciting.
Supporting Girls Who Code
Continued support from IBM means that girls across the US can learn about the applications and the processes of coding. The girls on stage said being mentored by female IBMers was incredibly inspiring. They added that the best experience was the chance to spend time, collaborate and work in a real tech company that supports women in the tech field.
Saujani and Romette agreed that it is so possible to inspire young girls by showing them what coding is and how they can use it to benefit themselves and those around them. Young women can use tech to solve the things they’re passionate about rather than having to wait for someone else to do it.
Learn more about Bluemix and find out more about Girls Who Code.
A version of this article originally appeared on the IBM Internet of Things blog.
The post Girls Who Code: Inspiring a generation of change makers appeared first on news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

How Watson helps H&R Block deliver engaging customer experiences

Just under three-fourths of US citizens get tax refunds every year, according to H&R Block CEO Bill Cobb. For H&R Block customers, the number is higher; it&;s closer to 85 percent.
Now that IBM Watson is helping H&R Block tax professionals guide customers through the filing process, the company is aiming to make that number rise even further.
Cobb joined IBM CEO Ginni Rometty on stage at IBM InterConnect Tuesday to explain just how H&R Block teamed up with IBM to get Watson working on taxes and how the whole process works.
&;I think this is one of the best examples of two brands coming together where they worked seamlessly,&; Cobb said after showing the ad that aired during this year&8217;s big game. Rometty added that H&R Block is &8220;a wonderful exemplar of continuous transformation.&8221;
Cobb shared that, after the 2016 tax season, H&R Block research found that customers were looking for more engaging experiences. So he called IBM on his landline phone and asked how Watson could make that happen while still keeping tax professionals at the center of customer relationships. In June 2016, teams from both companies were working on a solution. Just eight months later, ads for the service were running on TV.
&8220;Anyone who says IBM doesn&8217;t work quickly, I&8217;m here to tell you, IBM works fast,&8221; Cobb said.
The cognitive interview
Here&8217;s how the process works: a customer walks into an H&R Block office and sits down in front of a screen&;where previously they usually just watched a tax professional type away. A tax professional begins the usual interview, asking about life events, potential deductions and possible credits.
Throughout that process, Watson is listening in, referencing 600 million data points and the entire US tax code, creating a &8220;knowledge graph,&8221; which outlines all the areas where there might be a savings.
After the interview, Watson displays a massive chart of all the possible deductions and credits, and the tax professional goes through that chart with the customer, explaining all the different ways to increase the refund.
Positive response
Even before H&R Block with Watson was branded, when it was just a pilot program, customer satisfaction was ticking up, Cobb said. Now it&8217;s rising even more.
Tax professionals are responding positively, too, he said.
&8220;This makes them feel like they&8217;re really on the cutting edge,&8221; Cobb said.
Cobb said Watson is &8220;a beautiful fit for the nature of our business&8221; and is likely to expand into other areas of H&R Block&8217;s services, such as digital tax preparation.
Learn more about Watson on IBM Cloud.
The post How Watson helps H&;R Block deliver engaging customer experiences appeared first on news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Account Executive- Telco

The post Account Executive- Telco appeared first on Mirantis | Pure Play Open Cloud.
We are transforming the industry and you will be helping us lead the charge.  As an account executive at Mirantis you will develop and execute a strategic and comprehensive business plan for your territory, including identifying core customers, mapping the benefits of OpenStack to customer’s business requirements. You will take full responsibility for accurate forecasting, regular quarterly revenue delivery, and facilitation of sales enablement and regulate the implementation of agreed account and business plans. Your overall focus areas will be in prospecting, developing business, responding to RFP&;s, developing proposals for presentation to customers, and selling Services and Products. Cross-functional teams from Mirantis’ Marketing, Solutions Engineering, Professional Services, and Product Development functions will provide support and tools for you to leverage to attain and exceed sales performance goals. Primary ResponsibilitiesPipeline Generation- acquire new customer database from calling into high level within prospect organizations, networking and various customer account lists.Participates in campaigns, conferences, works with marketing team to understand new offers and leads in assigned region, generates leads independently and follows-up appropriatelySolution Selling – consults with clients to determine their needs and works with application sales specialists to generate multi-product/service solutions. Takes initiative to learn new offers and products, as they become available. Able to apply technology knowledge in business development effortsProposal/Presentation Generation: incorporates executive summary, ROI analysis, and solution design to develop customer-specific proposals and presentations.Develop Scope of Work – works with the customer and engineering team to define and document the project scopeRelationship Management – develops and manages relationships with current clients to develop additional business as well as ensure a high level of client satisfactionAccurate Forecasting – captures activity information on a timely basis as client interactions occur to insure accurate product and services forecastingRequirementsAdvanced selling skills with a demonstrated track record of selling into complex organizations with multiple layers of decision makers. 10+ years selling experience with telecom and other technology products and solutions such as Cisco, EMC (Storage), VMware, NetApp, Oracle and managed services.Market knowledge (i.e. industry knowledge relevant to geographic area) and technical knowledge are necessary, and if assigned to vertical markets, knowledge of public sector is required.Must possess business experience to analyze client business requirements and develop creative solutions as well as utilize technical resources to complete an accurate and technically assured sales order.Exceptional communication skillsAbility to accept constructive criticism; and ability to maintain and develop positive team cohesivenessWork constructively across cultural boundaries in a globally distributed organization What We OfferWork in the Silicon Valley with established leaders in their industryWork with exceptionally passionate, talented and engaging colleaguesBe a part of cutting edge of open-source innovation since LinuxHigh-energy atmosphere of a young company, competitive compensation package with strong benefits plan and stock optionsLots of freedom for creativity and personal growthThe post Account Executive- Telco appeared first on Mirantis | Pure Play Open Cloud.
Quelle: Mirantis