Breaking Analysis: Dave Vellante's Collection on Broadcom, Cloud Spending, Intel Foundry, Enterprise Technology Predictions, and AI Supremacy

Episode 218: The Unplanned Genius of Broadcom's Route to AI Dominance

The semiconductor industry is one that is both exciting and highly competitive. It is also one that can be unpredictable, as it is subject to the vagaries of technology change, customer preferences, and macroeconomic conditions. Few companies have navigated these challenges better than Broadcom, which has enjoyed a remarkable run over the past five years. In this Breaking Analysis, Dave Vellante and Forrest Norrod discuss Broadcom's unique business model and how it has enabled the company to consistently beat the semiconductor industry's average growth rates. They also explore the company's recent acquisition of VMware and how it complements Broadcom's existing software businesses. Finally, they discuss the semiconductor industry's current challenges and Broadcom's strategy for navigating them.

Episode 217: Cloud Optimization Wanes as AI Slowly Liftoff

The cloud has been a major driver of IT spending over the past decade, but recent economic uncertainty and the ability to dial down cloud resources have led to a slowdown in cloud spending. However, the big four hyperscalers continue to report strong growth, with between $170 and $190 billion in IaaS and PaaS revenue in 2023. While cloud optimization is still a factor, its influence is waning as AI slowly begins to take off. We estimate that Microsoft's AI services accounted for around $800 million this past quarter, and we expect the generative AI uplift in cloud to surpass $10 billion this year. In this Breaking Analysis, Dave Vellante and Erik Bradley discuss their hyperscale cloud spending and market share data and analyze ETR survey data on cloud optimization and industry trends. They also look at the potential uplift for AI services and the trajectory for the big three US cloud players.

Episode 216: Intel Foundry is a Bold Bet Filled with Uncertainty

As an American, you can't help but root for Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to succeed in his vision to bring semiconductor manufacturing leadership back to the United States. But his strategy is dependent upon the success of Intel both as a designer and a leading manufacturer of advanced chips. As such, this puts Intel in a multi-front war with highly capable leaders in several markets, including chip designers such as AMD, NVIDIA, AWS, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, and other manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor and Samsung. Moreover, Intel's business model has been disrupted by Arm, which has created a volume standard powered by the iPhone and mobile technologies. And finally, China, Inc. looms as a long-term competitor, further underscoring the imperative. In this Breaking Analysis, Dave Vellante and Forrest Norrod discuss the odds that Intel's strategy will succeed and analyze whether there are more viable alternative strategies for both Intel and the United States. They also assess Intel's recent announcement that it is partnering with AMD to create a new foundry business.

Episode 215: Slicing the Gordian Knot: A Leap to Real-Time Systems of Truth

In order to support the vision of the sixth data platform, which allows for a globally consistent, real-time, intelligent digital representation of a business, we believe the industry must rethink the single system of truth. We envision a new data platform that marries the best of relational and non-relational capabilities and breaks the decades-old trade-offs between data consistency, availability, and global scale. Further, we see the emergence of a modular data platform that automates decision-making by combining historical analytic systems with transactions to enable AI to take action. In this Breaking Analysis, Dave Vellante welcomes two innovators, Eric Berg, chief executive of Fauna Inc., and S. Somasegar, managing director at Madrona Ventures, to discuss this concept in depth.

Episode 214: Enterprise Technology Predictions 2024

Predictions about enterprise tech have never been more uncertain, but they become even more challenging when you try to make forecasts that are measurable. In this Breaking Analysis and for the third year in a row, Dave Vellante and Erik Bradley of Enterprise Technology Research collaborate to share their annual enterprise technology predictions.

Episode 213: 2024 IT Spending Outlook Shows Cautious Start with Optimistic Finish

According to recent spending intentions data from over 1,700 information technology decision-makers, executives anticipate a 4.3% growth in technology budgets for the year, which is an improvement from the 3.5% growth seen in 2023 and higher than the 3.8% expectation from October. However, the forecasts for 2024 are back-loaded, with Q1 2024 forecasts at 2.4%, indicating that the optimism is concentrated in the second half of the year. In this Breaking Analysis, Dave Vellante discusses the latest IT spending outlook and analyzes the cautious start to the year with an optimistic finish.

Episode 212: Unifying Intelligence in the Age of Data Apps

We believe the future of intelligent data apps will enable virtually all organizations to operate a platform that orchestrates an ecosystem similar to that of Amazon.com. By this, we mean dynamically connecting and digitally representing an enterprise's operations, including its customers, partners, suppliers, and even competitors. This vision includes the ability to rationalize top-down plans with bottom-up activities across the many dimensions of a business: demand, product availability, production capacity, geographies, etc. Unlike today's data platforms, which generally are based on historical systems of truth, we envision a prescriptive model of a business's operations enabled by an emerging layer that unifies the intelligence trapped within today's application silos. In this Breaking Analysis, Dave Vellante