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TOP OF MIND

Apparently, opt-out isn’t enough for The White House. The Obama administration thinks the federal government should control how businesses collect data—since the track record for protecting consumers hasn’t been all that great.

The discussion draft for its proposed Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights Act “promotes responsible practices that can maximize the benefits of data analysis while taking important steps to minimize risks.” The law would leave it up to companies to create their own codes of conduct. There isn’t a sponsor.

The timing is inspired by big data breach headlines—we now hear Uber may have exposed up to 50,000 drivers. Also at the core: privacy concerns over developments such as Oracle’s $1.2 billion purchase of marketing analytics company DataLogix.

TRENDING

It's official. As rumored last week, HP will pay $2.7 billion for Aruba Networks.The deal was approved by both companies' boards. Aruba's CEO and chief technology officer will stay in HP roles after the transaction.

Internet of things inspires $11.8 billion chipmaker merger. Watch out, Intel. The union of NXP Semiconductors and Freescale Semiconductor will create a $40 billion company with substantial influence in industrial, wearables, and automotive applications.

New galaxy in mobile payments. The most important feature of Samsung’s new iPhone 6 competitor, Galaxy S6, could be Samsung Pay. It automatically works at roughly 90% of all U.S. merchant locations, making Apple Pay’s reach seem limited. Incidentally, Samsung is getting even more serious about mobile security through a tighter relationship with BlackBerry. And while we’re on the subject of mobile wallets, it is definitely worth mentioning Visa’s acquisition mobile e-commerce player TrialPay.

EMC’s board isn’t convinced that selling its $29 billion VMware stake is a good idea, reports Reuters. But activist investor Elliot Management will have to wait another six months before expressing its displeasure.

The acquisitive Microsoft’s next mobile app buy could be social news reader Prismatic.

Meanwhile, Google’s social networking strategy is in question. Long-time executive Bradley Horowitz was named to run the Photos and Streams portions of Google+. Nothing was said (yet) about the Hangouts collaboration piece.

THE DOWNLOAD

Why forward-thinking finance teams are giving up spreadsheets

Corporate finance teams have been slower than their counterparts in sales and human resources to embrace cloud software options, but more are finding spreadsheets inadequate for financial planning.

Evidence: several venture-backed startups pioneering this space—notably Anaplan, Host Analytics and Tidemark—just reported record growth during 2014. Their specialty: applications for producing budgets and forecasts an ongoing process.

“The CFO is becoming the chief revenue officer,” said Christian Gheorghe, co-founder and CEO of Tidemark. “They are being asked to help find new sources of revenue, offer model, try different types of experiments, and leverage vast arrays of data. The demand for transparency and visibility are increasing.”

Tidemark (which has raised $80 million in venture capital) tripled total revenue under contract. Its customers include BlackBerry, Chiquita, Hostess, HubSpot and Netflix; and its technology interoperates with applications from Workday, Salesforce, Box, NetSuite, and New Relic.

Anaplan (backed with $150 million) grew bookings by 230% last year; it now counts 35,000 users, notably at tech companies such as Informatic, Splunk, and Symantec. Host Analytics ($86 million so far) was less forthcoming, although its new annual recurring revenue increased by more than 115%.

Another player, Adaptive Insights, isn’t talking up specific growth, but in January it hired a former CFO—Citrix Chairman Tom Bogan—to accelerate matters. Backed with more than $100 million, its account list includes Coca-Cola, Yamaha, and Bridgestone. Over the past 12 months, its renewal rate has been 100%.

A key selling point of cloud financial planning software: better support for collaborative planning, which can shrink annual budgeting cycles. Regional insurer Shelter Insurance, for example, cut the amount of time needed for this process in half with Tidemark’s software.

“Using a cloud service was a perfect solution because I knew when the contract term ended, I wouldn’t be stuck if this wasn’t working,” said Kimberly Gerard, senior director of corporate financial planning for healthcare IT services company Cerner, another Tidemark customer. “We’re relatively early in our transformation, but it becomes more valuable to me as others use this. We’re not there, but that’s where we’re headed.”

ALSO WORTH SHARING

Politics or incompetence? Looks like the finger-pointing over Oregon’s failed health exchange website will keep lawyers busy for some time. This time, Oracle is suing former staffers of former governor John Kitzhaber, suggesting they “improperly influenced” the project’s shutdown. The software company wants $33 million for its trouble.

Dropbox goes to Europe. The file-sharing company just gained access to more than 400 million potential mobile users through a partnership with carrier Vodafone.

China’s Huawei beat Apple to the punch with an “elegant” smartwatch it will sell in 20 companies, including the U.S., U.K. and Canada.

How will wearable technology affect traditional business models? Weight Watchers, for one, looks much slimmer.

Google’s new corporate headquarters will include modular “movable” buildings that can be reconfigured as strategy or projects change. Here’s what they look like.

Artificial intelligence, explained. Why are Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple so interested in neural networks and other “deep learning” technologies? Facebook’s AI director Yann LeCun talks up applications in natural language processing, pattern recognition and yes, self-driving cars and smarter robots in an interview with IEEE Spectrum: “The way we train [these systems] is similar to the way you train yourself to ride a bike.”

MY FORTUNE BOOKMARKS

Morgan Stanley sees Apple’s target market growing to $3.4 trillion by Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Exclusive: Jawbone nears big investment from BlackRock by Adam Lashinsky

These 20 jobs have the biggest gender pay gaps by Erik Sherman

Warren Buffett: My $100 billion blunder by Stephen Gandel

Read these 5 things to finally understand net neutrality by Benjamin Snyder

This set of car keys is worth more than your entire vehicle by Ben Geier

ONE MORE THING

It turns out very few people want to buy secondhand electric vehicles, but not for the reason you think.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

DocuSign Momentum. E-signatures and digital transactions. (March 10 – 12; San Francisco)

Microsoft Convergence: Dynamics solutions. (March 16 – 19; Atlanta)

IDC Directions 2015: Innovation in the 3rd Platform era. (March 18; Boston)

Cisco Leadership Council: CIO-CEO thought leadership. (March 18 - 20; Kiawah Island, South Carolina)

Technomy Bio: The big picture on transformation. (March 25; Mountain View, California)

Gartner Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit: Crossing the divide. (March 30 – April 1; Las Vegas)

AWS Summit. First in a series of cloud strategy briefings. (April 9; San Francisco)

Knowledge15: Automate IT services. (April 19 – 24; Las Vegas)

RSA Conference: The world talks security. (April 20 – 24; San Francisco)

Forrester’s Forum for Technology Leaders: Win in the age of the customer. (April 27 - 28; Orlando, Fla.)

MicrosoftIgnite: Business tech extravaganza. (May 4 – 8; Chicago)

NetSuite SuiteWorld: Cloud ERP strategy. (May 4 – 7; San Jose, California)

EMC World: Data strategy. (May 4 - 7; Las Vegas)

SAPPHIRE NOW: The SAP universe. (May 5 – 7; Orlando, Florida)

Gartner Digital Marketing Conference: Reach your destination faster. (May 5 – 7; San Diego)

Annual Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference: JP Morgan’s 43rd invite-only event. (May 18 - 20; Boston)

HP Discover: Trends and technologies. (June 2 - 4; Las Vegas)

Brainstorm Tech: Fortune’s invite-only gathering of thinkers, influencers and entrepreneurs. (July 13 - 15; Aspen, Colorado)

VMworld: The virtualization ecosystem. (Aug. 30 – Sept. 3, 2015; San Francisco)

Dreamforce: The Salesforce community. (Sept. 15 - 18; San Francisco)

Gartner Symposium ITxpo: CIOs and senior IT executives. (Oct. 4 - 8; Orlando, Florida)

Oracle OpenWorld: Customer and partner conference. (Oct. 25 - 29; San Francisco)