Produced by Tiger Sniff Technology Group
Author: Yu Yang
Editor|Miao Zhengqing
Header image: Visual China
On July 17, Microsoft faced an antitrust investigation in the United Kingdom, triggered by the partnership between Microsoft and Inflection Al. United Kingdom antitrust officials are weighing whether Microsoft's association with the start-up poses a threat to fair competition in the market.
However, Microsoft's water reversal has only just begun.
Inflection AI is a machine learning startup based in Palo Alto, California, United States, founded in 2022. Focusing on redefining human-computer interaction, this company aims to reduce people's reliance on computers and enable machines to better understand human language through its AI technology. Its founding team is made up of top AI experts who have worked at companies such as DeepMind, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta.
Inflection AI's first major product is a chatbot called Pi, which aims to be a "warm and supportive" companion, serving users through natural, fluid text and voice conversations, providing them with emotional support rather than just information. Pi can have a personal conversation with the user through the app or through the web, WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook.
As a result, Inflection AI raised $225 million in venture capital funding in May 2022 and $1.3 billion in June 2023, making Inflection AI the second largest startup in the AI space after Open AI. Bill ·Gates led the June 2023 investment, along with Eric · Schmidt, Microsoft, Nvidia and Reid Hoffman.
In March 2024, Microsoft made another move, agreeing to pay $650 million to Inflection AI to license its AI software. Not only that, but Microsoft also announced the hiring of Inflection AI's co-founders, Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan, as well as most of the company's employees.
This action attracted the attention of the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which subsequently announced an antitrust investigation into the transaction. The CMA said it had reason to believe that the deal could have a negative impact on market competition and decided to conduct a detailed review to assess the potential impact of the deal on the competitive environment, price and consumer choice.
The CMA moved fast. In April, the CMA sent out an Invitation to Comment (ITC) to interested third parties, which is the first step in the information-gathering process. Based on this, the CMA will decide whether to initiate a formal Phase 1 investigation. On July 17, 2024, the CMA announced the launch of a formal Phase 1 investigation and will decide whether a more in-depth Phase 2 investigation will be launched by September 11.
In addition to the United Kingdom, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also reviewing the deal and has issued subpoenas to Microsoft and Inflection AI for relevant documents from the past two years.
In this regard, Microsoft said that the acquisition of Inflection AI aims to promote the development of artificial intelligence technology and provide better products and services to users around the world. It also promised to provide the CMA with the information it needed to complete its investigation expeditiously.
Wave after wave.
At 15:16 p.m. on July 19, Windows users in many places around the world encountered computer blue screens, and there were problems such as downtime and signal interruption. As of the 21st, the turmoil has affected about 8.5 million Windows devices around the world, covering aviation, railways, banking, media, medical and other industries.
Image courtesy of Visual China
In the darkest moments of the "blue screen", some users "take an early holiday" because the computer is not functioning properly; The Western Japan Passenger Railway's train location information could not be obtained, the Australia broadcaster suffered a technical failure, United Kingdom the London Stock Exchange was also affected, a number of United States airlines were grounded due to communication problems, and more than 10 hospitals across the United States were affected and some of the surgical ...... were canceled that day.
Microsoft was quick to confirm the source of the problem.
About 50 minutes later, Microsoft replied that the "blue screen" was triggered by a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and contained a logic error that caused the operating system to crash. This was followed by a rapid deployment of fixes and emphasizing that this was not a security incident or a cyberattack.
However, investors are not buying it. CrowdStrike's pre-market decline extended to 20%. It also hurt Microsoft, Microsoft's U.S. stock fell 3% in overnight trading, and Microsoft's stock price hit a new low in 1 month due to the U.S. stock cycle.
Data FlightAware.com by flight-tracking websites shows that on the third day after the incident, more than 1,500 flights United States within and to and from United States were cancelled and more than 7,400 flights were delayed. At present, a significant proportion of these devices are back up and running. But for Microsoft, it's far from over.
According to the CEO of Anderson Economic Group, an United States research organization, the economic damage caused by the Microsoft technology failure is likely to exceed $1 billion. Microsoft may also face significant compensation under the agreement related to Azure cloud services.
However, after the avalanche, some changes are quietly taking place.
In the A-share market, shareholders have found a new target - domestic security and operating system companies.
Because the Microsoft blue screen incident proves the value of autonomous systems in this era. For example, since most of the domestic airlines use the TravelSky system, their operating environment is based on Linux, and they do not use Microsoft's Azure cloud service or Amazon's AWS, the flight operations of major domestic airlines, including Air China, China Southern Airlines, and China Eastern Airlines, have not been affected at present. Inspired by this, the localization of software and systems is likely to accelerate in the future.
As of the close of trading on July 19, the shares of enterprise service company iSoftStone rose 3.87%, ArcherMind Technology rose 5.7%, China Software rose 4.32%, Security Company 360 rose 1.8%, Qianxin shares rose 3.02%, and the shares of independent operating system company Kirin Xinan rose 7.76%.
Microsoft's two water reversals actually point to the same problem: security.
The security of the marketplace and the security of the digital world of the internet are two sides of the same coin.
Mary · Wasek, an expert in the Department of Computer Science at University College London, said that the over-reliance of the global technology system on the software of a few technology companies is one of the reasons why the problem is so serious, and the core of the problem is that Microsoft, as the industry standard software, is almost ubiquitous. Once exposed, vulnerabilities can quickly spread to individual systems.
From this point of view, the CMA's concerns are "inevitable".
The "blue screen" incident has reminded people of the value of "security" in the cloud era and the AI era. CrowdStrike, a company that provides endpoint security, intelligence threats, and cyberattack security services, had catastrophic consequences for negligent quality control checks prior to software updates, with flight grounding, train disconnection, medical delays, and ...... impact not only on the tech ecosystem, but also on countless lives.
No snowflake is innocent, which means that once a butterfly flapps its wings, no one is immune.
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