Fortune Article

Good morning, Data Sheet readers! Smartphone sales are declining in Japan, a harbinger of mobile trends. Guess what’s picking up the slack? The FCC’s two Republican commissioners want to delay Thursday’s net neutrality vote. SAP CTO Quentin Clark reveals why SAP is pushing its HANA database so hard. Plus, would you wear Google Glasses? Me neither, and that’s why the most successful wearables will be invisible.

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SCUTTLEBUTT

A cure for wireless network overload? Former QuickTime and WebTV engineer Stephen Perlman is hawking his latest startup, Artemis Networks. His solution: a technology called pCell (“personal cell”) that reduces interference and improves mobile device performance. His problem: carriers aren’t paying attention.

Attention audiophiles. It looks like Apple is adding to its music-editing collection through the apparent acquisition of British company Camel Audio.

Do you pay for the premium edition of LinkedIn? You might be eligible for money back under a class-action settlement related to the social network’s June 2012 security breach.

Attack of the drone lobbyists. People and businesses with an interest in the technology spent $186 million in 2014 (up from $35 million in 2011) to bring federal regulators around to their point of view. Expect an extra buzz of activity during the 60-day comment period.

I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing Google Glass. Simple reason: they’re ugly. Since more people are like me than like founder Larry Page, I’m thinking success in the $80 billion wearables market will come down to invisibility.

Microsoft’s quest to save obscure languages. Few people are likely to use the Yucatec Maya and Queretaro Otomi options in Translator. But the software could provide a digital dictionary for future generations.

Google takes on Apple Pay. Even though they’ve been working on their own mobile wallet application through a venture called Softcard, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon just agreed to preinstall Google’s option on certain Android phones. In exchange, Google gets Softcard’s intellectual property. More details will be shared in “coming weeks.”

FCC Republicans: Let’s be ‘transparent’. Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly think this Thursday’s scheduled vote on net neutrality should be delayed at least 30 days. What’s more, in a break from protocol, they think the entire regulatory proposal (all 322 pages of it!) should be published for public perusal. Hmmm, sounds like a not-so-transparent attempt to raise doubts.

Well, that was quick. Apple’s stock hit a record $133 per share on Monday, pushing its market cap close to $775 billion. Which means, oops, that at least half of the analysts following the stock have underestimated its value.

Speaking of Apple, guess which company isn’t on the list of 7 tech companies scoring the most patents in 2014?

Who says outsourcing is going out of style? HP just landed a multibillion-dollar deal with Deutsche Bank.

Uber and Airbnb just got more secure. Twilio, the messaging technology underlying both sites, is adding two-step user authentication through a buyout of startup Authy.

Yes, it’s true: another IBM cloud announcement. You definitely can’t accuse the tech giant of hiding progress against its ambitious cloud strategy. The technology announced this week makes it simpler to move important applications around between their own data centers and IBM’s cloud options. IBM is also opening new locations in Sydney and Montreal within the next 30 days, to address concerns over data residency. (That makes five new SoftLayer sites in less than four months.)

By the way, that aforementioned patent list? IBM is still untouchable.

GAZE INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL

Don’t write off the flip phone yet. One of the smarter product placements in the Fifty Shades of Grey movie? The simple “dumb” phone used by heroine Anastasia Steele. In Japan, often a leader in mobile phone trends, flip phone sales were up 5.7% last year as smartphone shipments declined. This is a trend likely to build in emerging economies. Two big reasons: size (fewer fancy accessory belts in far-flung rural communities) and battery life (you try charging an iPhone with solar energy).

Why tell the truth about your data? Apparently, one in three Europeans are so fed up about what they perceive as lax online data privacy that they provide fake phone numbers, emails, and ages when required by retailers or services. That’s according to data gathered by Symantec. Well that certainly would mess up a digital marketing campaign, wouldn’t it?

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Puzzling change of leadership for HP’s cloud team. Citing an internal memo, Gigaom reports that Marten Mickos is now in charge of “customer engagement and advocacy.” Mickos was anointed as head of cloud strategy just last September, when HP bought his company Eucalyptus. Sounds like more pre-split political maneuvering. Speaking of which, we’ll hear more about the impending breakup this evening when HP releases its first-quarter financials.

FOR YOUR INNER TECHNOPHILE

Why SAP is getting all aggressive about pushing its database . SAP has talked up its HANA technology for what seems like years (it’s officially been five). As of early February, it’s through with gentle persuasion.

Moving forward, if SAP customers want to take advantage of certain new features in SAP’s updated enterprise resource planning applications, they’ll have to use HANA.

My first thought upon hearing this news was, why now?

SAP’s relatively new chief technology officer (CTO) Quentin Clark (who left Microsoft for his new post last autumn) pitches three reasons. First, he believes the platform has reached new maturity, buoyed in part by key cloud-hosting relationships, like the one with IBM. Two, moving to HANA should help businesses reduce investments in custom software development. And three, businesses often consider database updates alongside business software upgrades. So why not now?

“If HANA was just another database, then we could have gotten people to move earlier. … We wanted to make sure we had the right readiness. People switch databases underneath their SAP software often, that’s a normal thing,” Clark said.

How’s HANA doing so far? As of late January, SAP counted around 5,800 customers for the platform. Approximately 1,850 use the HANA Business Suite. (The company doesn’t disclose the overlap between these numbers.) Compared with big competitors, its share is relatively small, but HANA is often touted as the fastest growing product in SAP history.

When I challenged Clark on SAP’s mandate, he reminded me that if SAP customers’ don’t choose to upgrade their software applications right now, they don’t necessarily have to move to HANA. “The reality is that some customers will move slowly, there’s nothing about this that will force them to switch,” Clark said.

To back up that commitment, SAP will offer maintenance on existing SAP installations using any database platform until at least 2025.

MY FORTUNE.COM BOOKMARKS

How one lawyer is making a dent in the tech world’s gender imbalance by Erin Griffith

The 10 most successful states for video game development by John Gaudiosi

Sony, FBI weren’t on same page during Sony Pictures hack by Andrew Nusca

The downsides of technology in a hyper-connected world by Cheryl Cook

Target raises ante in e-commerce fight with Amazon, Walmart by Phil Wahba

Astronomics: Is business written in the stars? by Margaret Santangelo

When Spain closes its doors on Uber, Uber finds a most delicious open window by Ian Mount

ONE MORE THING

Want to write an erotic novel like Fifty Shades of Grey? (Yes, I know, second reference.) Forget about using Google-owned Blogger to do it: the site just banned sexually explicit content unless it has a “public benefit.”