What’s up with… Amazon, Nokia, Oracle, TikTok

• Amazon eyes Rackspace stake
• Nokia wins patent ruling, lands Sunrise deal
• Oracle added to list of TikTok asset trackers

In the latest picnic plate of news nibbles, an expanding Amazon has been linked to an investment in Rackspace, while Nokia is winning court cases and new business in continental Europe.  

Amazon is in talks to take a minority stake in Rackspace, the independent cloud services specialist that launched an inauspicious IPO earlier this month, according to a report from Reuters. Rackspace listed its shares at $21 on 5 August, but they immediately lost value, dipping as low as $15.25 only days later. But the speculation of Amazon’s interest has given Rackspace’s share price a boost, as it gained more than 10% on Monday to close at $18.31. The interest in Rackspace comes as the cloud services market continues to thrive: Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud services leader with a 31% market share, recently reported a 29% year-on-year increase in revenues for the second quarter to $10.8 billion. It also comes as Amazon announces plans to create 3,500 new roles in tech hubs across the US.

Nokia has won a connected car patents battle against Daimler that, according to Bloomberg, could result in a ban on the sale of Mercedes-Benz cars in Germany. Daimler will appeal the ruling. Like many companies, Nokia has put more effort into generating income from its patents portfolio in recent years: In 2019, it generated nearly €1.5 billion in revenues from patent licensing, which is run by its Nokia Technologies division.

Still with Nokia… Sunrise has deployed the vendor’s cloud native converged charging system, developed by the vendor’s Software division, to support its consumer and enterprise services. Sunrise has been in the news in the past few days following the surprise news that Liberty Global has offered £5.7 billion in cash to buy the Swiss operator. 

Oracle has joined Microsoft and Twitter as a potential buyer of TikTok assets, according to The Financial Times. US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on August 14 giving TikTok owner ByteDance 90 days to sell assets that support the service in the US, a move the President believes will eradicate a security threat. TikTok, meanwhile, has set up a special webpage to counter the “rumors and misinformation about TikTok proliferating in Washington and in the media.”

In a significant new study from the scientific community, researchers have concluded that your smartphone can tell when you’re drunk by analyzing the way you’re walking. The Journal on Alcohol and Drugs has all the details. So, that’s a negroni for me, but just a sparkling water for my iPhone…

An Internet of Things (IoT) project run by Vodafone UK, Forest Research and the UK Government is helping tree scientists like the one above to learn more about climate change by measuring the levels of carbon dioxide that can be absorbed by our wooden friends. 

- The staff, TelecomTV