Business
Great cloud of China
Chinese tech companies plan to steal American cloud firms’ thunder
Alibaba aims at matching or surpassing Amazon Web Services by 2019
What goes up...
A weak market for football rights suggests a lower value for sport
As European viewers opt for cheaper internet-video services, even the Premier League may have to settle for lower increases
Regrets are not enough
After a huge loss on old reinsurance contracts, GE contemplates a break-up
The company’s new boss, John Flannery, sinks still more of his predecessor’s legacy
Life on the edge
The era of the cloud’s total dominance is drawing to a close
The rise of the “internet of things” is one reason why computing is emerging from the centralised cloud and moving to an “edge” of networks and intelligent devices
Schumpeter
Something doesn’t ad up about America’s advertising market
Stockmarket investors are wrong to expect an enormous surge in advertising revenues
Schumpeter
BlackRock v Blackstone
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the mightiest finance tycoon of them all?
The squeezed middle
As gyms hit peak season, the market does the splits
While low-cost offerings democratise the gym business, fancy ones are raising the bar
Float of a celestial jukebox
Having rescued recorded music, Spotify may upend the industry again
Its clout in streaming could allow it to sign new artists itself, challenging the major record labels
All things AI
Artificial intelligence dominated the Consumer Electronics Show
Another important theme was innovating around innovation itself
End of the line
Taiwanese bosses are the Chinese-speaking world’s oldest
Future leadership is a problem for many family-run firms, including Foxconn, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer
Strange brew
India’s tea industry is going through tepid times
Outdated government regulations and millennials’ impatience bode ill for plantations
Silicon melts
Spectre and Meltdown prompt tech industry soul-searching
Even if hackers do not exploit two new chip flaws, there will be economic consequences