AWS $5 billion Thailand investment 🌏

And also: Activist investor enters Salesforce 👨‍⚖️, Cloud spending down in the Asia Pacific 🔻, Jasper raises $125 million 🤑

October 20, 2022

This is the Cloudly Update. Helping you stay above the Clouds.

Today we bring you:

AWS $5 billion Thailand investment

Activist investor in Salesforce

Cloud Service spending down in the Asia Pacific

Jasper is the latest generative-AI Unicorn

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Amazon Web Services plans to invest $5 billion in Thailand over the next 15 years.

Investments would include the construction of data centers and the purchase of goods and services from regional businesses.

Plans to set up an infrastructure hub in Bangkok to help customers in the region securely store data.

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Activist investor Starboard Value LP has bought a significant stake in Salesforce, and the exact value is undisclosed. Starboard believes Salesforce's share price has underperformed its benchmark indices, its closest peers, and the broader market over the last three years.

Salesforce shares rose 7% post news and are projecting an adjusted profit of around $1.20 per share on revenue of $7.82 billion to $7.83 billion.

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Information Services Group (ISG) reports a sharp decline of 29% in ACV (Annual Contract Value) for the combined market to the US $3.1 billion in the Asia Pacific in the third quarter and a 14% decline for the first nine months versus the same period last year.

XaaS ACV slumped 37 percent versus the prior year, to the US $2.4 billion, but was up 9 percent against a weak second quarter.

IaaS fell 40 percent versus the prior year, to the US $2.0 billion, attributed to lower demand for cloud services provided by China’s big four hyperscalers.

SaaS was down 15 percent, to US $390 million.

53 managed services contracts signed during the third quarter, down 12 percent.

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Jasper, an AI-powered content creation platform, raises $125M in early-stage funding and brings its valuation to $1.5 billion.

Series A round included participation from Coatue, Bessemer Venture Partners, IVP, Foundation Capital, Founders Circle Capital, HubSpot Ventures, and others.

Jasper has more than 70,000 paying users, ranging from individuals to teams at large enterprises, since its launch in January 2021.

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