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Without a doubt, there are major shifts taking place in the way technology is used in the world today. From analyzing tremendous amounts of data to using the Internet in new ways to make life significantly more efficient, technology continues to change the way we live. With it comes job losses in old departments, new experiments on consumers, and a heightened need for new types of experts. In this week’s Web roundup, we look at which tech jobs are at risk and where new jobs will start appearing.
Microsoft Is Laying Off How Many Employees?
Waves were sent through the tech world on July 17th when Microsoft announced plans to lay off 18,000 employees. The majority of this group is former Nokia employees. For a brief moment, some people breathed a sigh of relief thinking that the Nokia acquisition was to blame. That was until they learned that there were still 5,500 Microsoft jobs at risk. So who else is Microsoft planning to lay off? The company is declining to comment.
Facebook Is Experimenting Again
Facebook has launched yet another experiment and all eyes are on the results. Now, the social media giant is aiming to break into the ecommerce market by placing a "buy" button in news feeds. The new Facebook buy button has not reached all Facebook users and pages yet, but if all goes as expected, it will soon. The button is embedded into Page posts to allow fans and followers to purchase within Facebook so they never have to leave. Although Facebook ensured that privacy and security standards were in place, the social media network’s track record has some people feeling skeptical about entering credit card information through Facebook’s interface.
Amazon Creates Tools to Fill the Big Data and Business Intelligence Gap
The big gap between big data and business intelligence has long been known, but now Amazon is hoping to step up to shrink that gap with some new tools. With Amazon’s Elastic MapReduce, customers might have an easier time finding business intelligence from big data with log files and hidden connections. With more money and innovation from the tech giants like Amazon backing the venture, many in the tech industry are hopeful that better solutions to help with big data analytics will continue to emerge.
Big Data Hoarding Could Have an Adverse Impact on Business
While businesses try to sort through all of the data they accumulate, some analysts wonder if storing large amounts of data could actually do more harm than good. Big data has the ability to help businesses boost sales, but if the data is not put to use – which is exactly what’s happening with many small businesses right now – it could cost more than it’s worth. Storing data is expensive, even in spite of the falling rates for storage. Now it’s time for IT-managers to determine what can be done to get more bang for their data storage buck.
The Internet of Things Continues to Boost the Tech Economy
The Internet of Things continues to progress alongside big data – and the tech companies are feeling the impact. Intel reported profits of $2.8 billion for the second quarter of 2014. This was up by 45% compared to the previous quarter. The divisions that boosted these profits were its Data Center Group, PC Client Group and Internet of Things Group. Surprisingly, the group that saw the biggest losses for Intel was the Mobile and Communications Group.
