Beta Bytes: Week of December 3rd
Photo by Denis Degioanni on Unsplash
Snippets of financial news calibrated to science, technology, and engineering as well as our client’s interests.
Jupiter May Have ‘Sprites’ or ‘Elves’ in its Atmosphere
From the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, researchers reported that Jupiter is the first planet other than Earth seen to host what appear to be atmospheric light shows called “sprites” or “elves.”
These two types of atmospheric glows form when lightning alters electric fields in the atmosphere above a storm. On Earth, these events cause high altitude nitrogen molecules to glow red for a moment.
Sprites appear in the mesosphere, at heights of about 50 to 90 kilometers (31 to 56 miles). They can light up the sky for tens of kilometers (miles). Elves are far bigger, spanning hundreds of kilometers and forming at greater heights of 75 to 105 km.
Salesforce Announces Acquisition of Slack After Strong Third Quarter Fiscal 2021 Results
Under the terms of the agreement, Slack shareholders will receive $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock for each Slack share, representing a value of approximately $27.7 billion.
The market reaction to this news has been positive for Slack but negative for Salesforce, Slack stock rose and Salesforce falling by 11% (MarketInsider).
This announcement came after Salesforce shared their third quarter fiscal results, with a notable revenue of $5.42 Billion (up 20% Year-Over-Year).
“We had another record quarter, and now we’re raising our FY21 revenue guidance to $21.11 billion at the high end and initiating FY22 guidance of $25.5 billion. No other major enterprise software company is growing at this rate,” from Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.
Creating a Next-Generation Photonic-Electronic Integration Circuit
Ph.D. candidate Xiao Liu, of Eindhoven University of Technology Dept of Electrical Engineering, is researching new ways to integrate the electronic circuits and photonic devices that make up optical transceivers needed to keep the world wide web running.
The electronic and photonic components of optical transceivers are typically made with different technologies and then integrated/packaged together later, causing a significant bottleneck to the performance of combined electronic-photonic systems.
New, small-size packaging technologies are needed that do not affect the optical transceivers' performance or increase their power consumption, which is the focus of Liu’s studies on electronic circuit and system approaches to develop a new 3-D photonic-electronic wafer-scale integration technology.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is Leaving Silicon Valley for Houston
Houston is an attractive (and affordable) talent market for the company to recruit and retain future employees, and the company has begun constructing a new campus.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise will keep their San Jose campus and has plans to consolidate its Bay Area sites.
The trend of tech companies and tech leaders leaving Silicone Valley continues as the coronavirus pandemic forced many into remote working and companies had an opportunity to move without disrupting their workforce.