5 Companies That Had A Rough Week

The Week Ending March 16

Topping this week's roundup of those having a rough week is Broadcom, whose efforts to buy communications chipmaker Qualcomm suffered a potentially fatal blow.

Also making the list this week are Dell Technologies, which faced shareholder opposition to the idea of a reverse merger with VMware; Samsung, whose output of NAND flash components was hit by a power outage at a Taiwan manufacturing plant; Microsoft, for losing a major Office customer to rival Google G Suite; and jewelry maker MBM for exposing data on 1.3 million customers through an unsecured Amazon storage system.

Not everyone in the IT industry was having a rough go of it this week. For a rundown of companies that made smart decisions, executed savvy strategic moves – or just had good luck – check out this week's Five Companies That Came To Win roundup.

President Trump Signs Order Preventing Broadcom From Buying Qualcomm, Cites National Security Concerns

Broadcom's bid to acquire Qualcomm for $121 billion suffered a serious setback this week when President Donald Trump ordered that Singapore-based Broadcom immediately abandon its efforts to buy the communications chipmaker.

Broadcom has pursued an unsolicited bid to acquire San Diego-based Qualcomm, a move Qualcomm's board of directors rejected last month.

Trump, in a written order, prohibited Broadcom's proposed acquisition of Qualcomm and also said the 15 people Broadcom has nominated for Qualcomm's board of directors are disqualified from standing for election.

The proposed acquisition has been under investigation by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a multi-agency panel led by the U.S. Treasury Department.

VMware Shareholder Signals Opposition To Potential VMware-Dell Reverse Merger

Dell Technologies' widely reported option of executing a reverse merger with VMware came under fire this week when Jericho Capital, one of VMware's largest independent shareholders, sent VMware's board of directors a sharply worded letter opposing the move.

Jericho Capital said a reverse merger would be "a terrible deal for [VMware] shareholders" and "lead to significant [VMware] shareholder value destruction" because the virtualization technology company would be hampered by "the dead weight of Dell's slower growth" and referred to Dell as a "heavily debt-laden, legacy hardware-dependent entity."

Dell, which owns about 82 percent of VMware shares, is considering a reverse merger as a way to handle the enormous debt it took on to acquire EMC in 2016 for $67 billion.

Power Outage At Samsung Plant Threatens World Supply Of NAND Flash Components

A 30-minute power outage at a Samsung plant in Pyeongtaek, Taiwan damaged thousands of NAND chip wafers that were in production – bad news for Samsung and bad news for manufacturers that use the NAND components in their products.

While the March 9 power outage was brief, it may have damaged as many as 60,000 NAND flash wafers, equivalent to about 11 percent of Samsung's overall monthly NAND flash production, according to reports this week on the Digitimes web site and Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA).

CNA said that could impact as much as 3.5 percent of the global supply of NAND flash components in March. While observers said Samsung has enough inventory to meet demand, it could push up the price of NAND flash components.

Airbus To Switch 130,000 Workers From Microsoft Office To Google G Suite

Microsoft lost a major round in the personal productivity application battle this week when news got out that European aircraft manufacturer Airbus is switching from Microsoft's Office to Google's competing G Suite.

Airbus will move 130,000 employees around the world off of Microsoft Office and onto Google's G Suite personal productivity and collaboration applications over the next 18 months. The migration will begin with an internal pilot program, according to a Reuters story.

A memo from Airbus CEO Tom Enders called the move to drop Microsoft Office in favor of Google G Suite a "transformational step" and "a strategic choice, a clean break with the past," according to a story on The Register website.

Jewelry Maker Exposes Data On 1.3 Million Customers On Misconfigured AWS Server

Jewelry manufacturer MBM Co. left personal data and contact information on 1.3 million customers on a misconfigured Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket exposed to the Internet.

The exposed S3 repository, containing an MSSQL database backup file, is owned by MBM Co., a Chicago-based jewelry maker that operates mainly under the name Limoges Jewelry. The exposed database was discovered Feb. 6 by Kromtech Security, according to a report this week on the Threatpost website.

The data included such personal information as names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, and unencrypted, plain-text passwords for shopping accounts held by 1.3 million people in the U.S. and Canada, Threatpost said.

While the storage system was named "walmartsql," Kromtech concluded the exposed data belonged to MBM customers. The Threatpost story said it was possible the customers had accessed MBM/Limoges through a Walmart site.