Google’s Cloud Firestore NoSQL database hits general availability

Google today announced that Cloud Firestore, its serverless NoSQL document database for mobile, web and IoT apps, is now generally available. In addition, Google is also introducing a few new features and bringing the service to ten new regions. With this launch, Google is giving developers the option to run their databases in a single…

Figma’s design and prototyping tool gets new enterprise collaboration features

Figma, the design and prototyping tool that aims to offer a web-based alternative to similar tools from the likes of Adobe, is launching a few new features today that will make the service easier to use to collaborate across teams in large organizations. Figma Organization, as the company calls this new feature set, is the…

SAP job cuts prove harsh realities of enterprise transformation

As traditional enterprise companies like IBM, Oracle and SAP try to transform into more modern cloud companies, they are finding that making that transition, while absolutely necessary, could require difficult adjustments along the way. Just this morning, SAP announced that it was restructuring in order to save between $750 million and 800 million euro (between…

Timescale announces $15M investment and new enterprise version of TimescaleDB

It’s a big day for Timescale, makers of the open source time series database, TimescaleDB. The company announced a $15 million investment and a new enterprise version of the product. The investment is technically an extension of the $12.4 million Series A it raised last January, which it’s referring to as A1. Today’s round is…

Dropbox snares HelloSign for $230M, gets workflow and eSignature

Dropbox announced today that it has purchased HelloSign, a company that provides lightweight document workflow and eSignature services. The company paid a hefty $230 million for the privilege. Dropbox’s SVP of engineering, Quentin Clark, sees this as more than simply bolting on electronic signature functionality to the Dropbox solution. For him, the workflow capabilities that…

Has the fight over privacy changed at all in 2019?

Few issues divide the tech community quite like privacy. Much of Silicon Valley’s wealth has been built on data-driven advertising platforms, and yet, there remain constant concerns about the invasiveness of those platforms. Such concerns have intensified in just the last few weeks as France’s privacy regulator placed a record fine on Google under Europe’s…

Pentagon stands by finding of no conflict of interest in JEDI RFP process

A line in a new court filing by the Department of Defense suggests that it might reopen investigation into a possible conflict of interest interest in the JEDI contract RFP process involving a former AWS employee. The story has attracted a great deal of attention in major news publications including the Washington Post and Wall…

Vodafone pauses Huawei network supply purchases in Europe

Huawei had a very good 2018, and it’s likely to have a very good 2019, as well. But there’s one little thing that keeps putting a damper on the hardware maker’s global expansion plans. The U.S. and Canada have already taken action over the company’s perceived link to the Chinese government, and now Vodafone’s is…

Apple finally brings Microsoft Office to the Mac App Store, and there is much rejoicing

That slow clap you hear spreading around the internet today could be due to the fact that Apple has finally added Microsoft Office to the Mac App Store. The package will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote. Shaan Pruden, senior director of worldwide developer relations at Apple, says that when the company overhauled the…

Microsoft acquires Citus Data

Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Citus Data, a company that focused on making PostgreSQL database faster and more scalable. Citus’ open source PostgreSQL extension essentially turns the application into a distributed database and while there has been a lot of hype around the NoSQL movement and document stores, relational database — and especially PostgreSQL…

Blue Prism to issue $130M in stock to raise new funds

Just this morning robotic process automation (RPA) firm, Blue Prism, announced enhancements to its platform. A little later the company, which went public on the London Stock Exchange in 2016, announced it was raising £100 million (approximately $130 million) by issuing new stock. The announcement comes after reporting significant losses in its most recent fiscal…

Humio raises $9M Series A for its real-time log analysis service

Humio, a startup that provides a real-time log analysis service for on-premises and cloud infrastructures, today announced that it has raised a $9 million Series A round led by Accel. It previously raised its seed round from WestHill and Trifork. The company, which has offices in San Francisco, the U.K. and Denmark, tells me that…