Commentary brings you FastForward’s take on the big trends and developments in enterprise tech and innovation — from AI and cloud to security, data and strategy. These pieces go beyond the headlines to unpack what’s happening, why it matters and what it means for leaders and builders in the space.
Some readers may recall that around the July 4th holiday, rather than do my normal column where I take a deep dive into a subject that’s been on my mind, I instead paid homage to Dan Shaughnessy, the long-time sports columnist at the Boston Globe, who regularly writes
I had a conversation with Amanda Silver from Microsoft recently, which turned into a profile I published earlier this week. Silver, who has been with the company for nearly 25 years, gets that startups have a distinct edge when it comes to embracing AI, no matter how well-intentioned an
So put me on a highway Show me a sign And take it to the limit One more time ~The Eagles, Take it to the limit If you listen to the hype from what I call the ‘AI true believers,’ you’d think it could do almost anything, but there
I did a thing last night You know those future games I turned off all the lights Oh, the future came ~Bob Welch, Future Games Filed under things I didn’t expect to see this week was Satya Nadella stepping back from his very successful tenure as full-time Microsoft
When you think about the impact of AI in recent years on the cloud companies, it’s pretty easy to make a connection between the rise of AI and increasing revenue for cloud infrastructure companies. Just this month, we heard about Oracle making some wild cloud revenue projections in the
For all the optimism surrounding AI in recent years, it feels like we are hearing an increasingly loud drumbeat of negativity lately. Heck, even Sam Altman is talking about an AI bubble – and he’s not alone. There’s even been talk of another AI winter. AI winters tend to
A year ago this week, I started my journey at boldstart. I had spent the previous decade at TechCrunch covering enterprise technology, but over time I had begun to grow restless. As I started to look outwardly for a new challenge, I landed on boldstart, but it was not by
As companies rush breathlessly forward to understand and incorporate AI into their organizations, they are often held back by legacy tech. I was thinking about this recently when I saw the news that AOL is ending its dial-up service at the end of September. It's the end
If you were trying to read the AI tea leaves this week, you could be forgiven for having a hard time. There was no shortage of AI-related news and it was a series of increasingly mixed messages. As an example, we had OpenAI announcing $1 billion in revenue in
It turns out that in spite of the hype, most companies are not all in on AI yet. While there’s a huge dose of FOMO out there, the Economist reported this week that just 10% of firms are using AI in a meaningful way (whatever that means). I’ve
When Palo Alto Networks announced it was buying CyberArk on Wednesday for $25 billion, it sent a clear signal that in the age of agents, identity is going to play a huge role, enough for Palo Alto to pay a premium to grab a major player in this space. It
We've been hearing a lot of positivity when it comes to AI in recent years. It’s going to transform business, increase efficiency, lower costs. Every company needs to embrace it. Ignoring it is not an option. Consider these recent quotes from big company CEOs: Technologies like Generative