Coffee Briefings are timely deliveries of the latest ITWC headlines, interviews, and podcasts. Today’s Coffee Briefing is delivered by IT World Canada’s editorial team!
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What’s new this week
AWS launches new training to improve certification exam readiness and close IT skills gap
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification has launched the Individual and Team subscription options to help learners prepare for certification exams, boost their cloud skills, and help businesses equip themselves with the key IT skills to solve real world business challenges.
Both subscriptions include the following:
- AWS Certification Exam Preparation: Exercises geared towards testing exam readiness with a review of technical content, practice questions, lab activities and access to the AWS Certification Official Practice Exams.
- AWS Cloud Quest: A role based game where the player has to help citizens of a virtual city by learning and building cloud solutions to solve challenges.
- AWS Builder Labs: Learners develop practical skills through common cloud scenarios in a live AWS environment.
- AWS Jam Journeys: Learners are given clues to navigate AWS services and solve real-world, security-related problems.
The team subscription also includes an administrative setup for organizations to assign courses to their team, monitor their course progress and access training through an optional single sign-on (SSO).
The individual subscription is priced at US$300 yearly. The team subscription has a seat-based pricing where one user with an active seat can access all features of the subscription. The price for 100 seats is US$449 per year. Organizations need to purchase at least 50 seats.
BMO launches Pre-Authorized Payments Manager that previews future payments for customers
The Bank of Montreal (BMO) has added a Pre-Authorized Payments Manager to its mobile app, providing customers with a tool to track their future payments. This new digital banking feature seeks to help customers stay on top of their finances.
A recent BMO survey revealed that 33 per cent of Canadians have paid for a subscription they do not use, while 21 per cent have been charged for subscriptions they forgot about, and 28 per cent have difficulty canceling subscriptions. The new digital feature seeks to help people track how their money is spent by displaying both future and past payments.
BMO says that the new Pre-authorized Payment Manager adds to BMO’s Digital First strategy that focuses on strengthening the digital capabilities of the bank to deliver efficiency to customers.
LG Energy Solution announces plan to achieve RE100 at all of its global production sites by 2025
South Korean battery manufacturing company LG Energy Solution (LGES) has announced an initiative to achieve Renewable Electricity 100 per cent (RE100), by 2025. It was announced in the company’s ESG Report 2021 on August 3, 2022.
RE100 is a global initiative for businesses committed to converting their energy sources for electricity to renewable sources such as wind or solar.
According to the RE100 2021 Annual Disclosure Report released by international non-profit the Climate Group and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), LGES achieved 30 percent of RE100 by 2020 and plans to boost up to over 60 per cent by the end of 2022.
By 2030, the company plans to achieve RE100 at all its non-manufacturing sites, followed by the implementation of an enhanced version of carbon neutrality by 2040, which will entail converting all energy sources other than electricity, such as fuel and gas, to renewable sources. By 2050, the company seeks to achieve full carbon neutrality across its entire value chain.
The full ESG report can be accessed here.
Thoma Bravo buys Ping Identity for US$2.8 billion in all-cash transaction
Illinois based software investment firm Thoma Bravo has acquired Ping Identity, an Intelligent Identity management company headquartered in Colorado, for US$28.50 per share in an all-cash deal valued at approximately US$2.8 billion. The agreed share price is 63 per cent over Ping Identity’s closing share price on August 2, 2022, a day prior to the acquisition.
The announcement comes at the same time that Ping Identity posted its Q2 earnings that revealed that the company made US$72 million in revenue, missing analysts estimates.
Private equity firm Vista Equity owned the majority of Ping Identity’s shares and has retained a share of the company, currently 9.7 per cent, post Thoma Bravo’s acquisition.
After the deal completion in Q4 of 2022, Ping Identity will no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange and will be a privately-owned company.
More to explore
Equinix expands digital services, targets DX migration plans
Data centre provider Equinix Inc. today introduced new offerings across the country, which it said are targeted at Canadian businesses currently in the midst of or planning a digital transformation (DX) initiative.
WEtech Alliance funds 19 companies through Cohort 1 of Government of Canada-funded i.d.e.a. Fund
19 companies received non-repayable contributions totalling C$567,700 from Windsor-based non-profit organization WEtech Alliance, in partnership with Innovation Guelph, through Cohort 1 of the Government of Canada-supported i.d.e.a (Inclusion, Diversity, Environment, Acceleration) fund.
BlackBerry QNX SDP gains Future Airborne Capability Environment conformance certification
BlackBerry announced on Aug. 2 that its QNX Software Development Platform 7.1 has achieved conformance to the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) General Purpose technical standard for defence vehicles.
U.S., Canada urged to toughen fight against commercial spyware
U.S. government intelligence employees should be banned for life from working for “foreign offensive operators” as one means of fighting commercial spyware, a member of a Canadian internet research group has told Congress.
BMO to focus on closing tech talent gap by attracting diverse candidates from across Canada
BMO Financial Group (BMO) is committing to focus on recruiting and onboarding tech professionals from diverse backgrounds to close its tech talent gap, and to meeting the needs of a diverse population in a new work era.
Heatwaves putting IT at risk, analyst says
With temperatures reaching record highs pretty much everywhere in the northern hemisphere and following recent user-impacting outages of a Google Cloud data center in London and of Oracle’s British operations, reportedly due to cooling issues, effective cooling systems are needed, says GlobalData.
B.C.’s Sierra Wireless acquired by Semtech for US$1.2 billion
There was big news on the British Columbia tech scene yesterday when it was announced that Semtech Corp., a supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors and algorithms, has acquired Sierra Wireless Inc. for US$1.2 billion.
U.S.-based cyber insurance broker expands to Canada, seeks MSPs, VARs as partners
Small and mid-sized Canadian organizations have a new choice for cybersecurity advice.
Continuous scanning key to keeping SMBs safe: Report
The goal of implementing Zero Trust security is finding its way into small and medium sized business (SMB) environments, and a vital step involves the implementation of continuous scanning for vulnerabilities, a report released this week reveals.
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending
Netflix’s games aren’t very popular, video game industry slides post pandemic, and Ebay’s new refurbished program causes headaches for resellers.
Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today
This episode reports on vulnerabilities in routers and industrial gateways, a Twitter vulnerability that could have exposed anonymous users, a Slack password reset and more
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Tendances (Hosted by Direction Informatique)
If you live in Quebec, or prefer to consume the latest technology news in French, our sister publication Direction Informatique has you covered. Follow them on Twitter as well.
