The only way for companies that serve a single industry to grow is to offer a broader product. Publisher-oriented content management vendor ePublishing just took that route by buying Multipub, which offers subscription management tools to the same market. And that’s your strategy lecture for the day, Dear Reader.
Industry-specific packages are one type of specialization; function-specific packages are another. Microsoft nicely illustrated the point last week by launching a digital contact center platform, a mash-up of existing products including Dynamics 365, Teams, Power Platform and conversational AI system Nuance. Microsoft announced its Nuance acquisition in April 2021 although the deal only closed in March 2022.
Documents found by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has widely tracked people’s movement. Of more than 6,000 records reviewed, the agency found approximately 336,000 North American location points. Over three days in 2018 in the southwest alone, 26 location points were tracked per minute. This, due to the DHS purchasing information from data broker Venntel, which had siphoned it from smartphone apps, so was not obligated to the same privacy restraints.
It barely feels like news when industry giants add AI features, since that’s what they’re expected to do. But lots of people use their products, so their announcements are probably of higher interest than most. With that in mind, let’s note that Adobe has just announced general availability of agents for audience creation, journey orchestration, experimentation, journey insights, website optimization and agent support.