Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
Look Out Amazon, Here Comes...Rakuten?
Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten announced on Tuesday it is acquiring Ebates for $1 billion.
The acquisition, which Rakuten hinted at last week, is part of the Japanese company’s push to grow its base beyond its domestic market and hopefully, become a global player. Having made some $1.2 billion acquisitions to date along these lines, this is Rakuten’s most ambitious move to date.
However, investors are dubious that the company can absorb yet another foreign acquisition, much less one the size of Ebates, despite Rakuten’s strong cash position.
Then there is the ever-present Amazon, which dominates the e-commerce market in the U.S. Few believe it will falter in the face of Chinese giant Alibaba, much less a Rakuten-Ebates combo.
Rakuten Goes Forth
Not surprisingly, Rakuten says it is undaunted. For starters, it has assembled a very interesting mix of acquisitions. There is messaging app Viber, which it purchased for $900 million in February, the Canadian ebook offering Kobo, Spanish video service Wuaki.tv, Viki, a digital content platform and Buy.com.
Now it has picked up Ebates.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikamorphy/2014/09/...ere-comes-rakuten/
By Kexuan Sun
Principal Wireless Architecture, Rakuten Symphony CTO Office
September 17, 2024
The increasing complexity of 5G, and early 6G, network infrastructure demands sophisticated management solutions.
Much of the complexity is due to networks built using different hardware types, multi-cloud environments, and varying protocols from multiple vendors. This heterogeneous environment poses challenges in terms of cost, performance, and energy consumption – and necessitates intelligent solutions.
One promising approach is the integration of AI/ML into RAN to automate RAN deployment and ongoing operations. Training these AI models, however, needs the data from a live production network for accuracy, but can negatively affect services if trained in a live network.
One solution is the use of digital twin (DT) technology optimized for the RAN (DT-RAN).
In a previous white paper, I explored how digital twin technology applies to Open RAN and 5G. Recently, I contributed my thoughts on how DT-RAN could work for AI/ML training, evaluation and performance as a contributor to a DT-RAN research report sponsored by the O-RAN ALLIANCE next Generation Research Group (nGRG) task force. Rakuten Symphony joined 10 other network operators, telecom vendors and one university from around the world to compile the research for the report.
This research report is one of the documents that will inform the work of standards bodies to create at DT-RAN standard. The 3GPP is developing its DT-RAN standard slated for Release 19 / Release 20 that will be finalized in 2025 or 2026. The O-RAN ALLIANCE is also planning to include DT-RAN in its O-RAN Rel005 that will be available at about the same time.
The rest of this post will give you a preview of my use case, but the research report has other interesting use cases for DT-RAN including network testing automation, network planning, and energy savings. I encourage you to download the entire report here.
https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...y-will-tame-5g-6g-ran-complexity
By Brooke Frischemeier
Head of Product Management, Unified Cloud Rakuten Symphony
September 20, 2024
In the first edition of this three-blog series, I introduced the Kubernetes Container Storage Interface (CSI) and discussed its fundamental benefits for enterprise storage solutions. In this second instalment, I will delve deeper into how vendors can leverage CSI to introduce advanced data management features, enhance performance and scalability, and improve security. These innovations are particularly crucial for enterprises operating at the edge, where efficient and reliable storage solutions are paramount.
Advanced data management features
One key area for innovation in CSI is advanced data management. Vendors can integrate capabilities such as advanced lifecycle management, compression, and tiering into their CSI drivers. These features can help reduce storage costs and improve efficiency by minimizing the amount of data that needs to be stored and transferred.
Data lifecycle management and protection
Features like automated snapshots, cloning, and backup can provide robust data protection and disaster recovery options. Automated snapshots capture the state of a volume at a specific point in time, allowing organizations to restore data to that state if needed. Cloning creates a copy of a volume, which can be used for testing or development purposes. Backup features ensure that data is regularly backed up and can be restored in the event of data loss or corruption.
Automated storage policies
Storage policies define rules for data placement, replication and retention, automating and enforcing data management in Kubernetes. These policies ensure data is stored in the appropriate locations, replicated for high availability, and retained according to compliance requirements. This automation simplifies management and enhances data reliability and security.
Quality of Service (QoS)
Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) is a performance measurement used to benchmark the speed at which a storage device or system can read and write data. QoS in Kubernetes ensures storage performance meets the specific requirements of different workloads. By setting performance metrics like IOPS, latency, and throughput, QoS guarantees that critical applications receive the necessary resources, optimizing performance and preventing resource contention in multi-tenant environments.
Compression
Compression reduces the size of data by encoding it more efficiently. By integrating compression capabilities into their CSI drivers, vendors can help organizations store more data in the same amount of space, further reducing storage costs.
Enhanced performance and scalability
Another critical area for innovation is performance and scalability. Vendors can focus on optimizing their CSI drivers to reduce latency, increase input/output operations per second (IOPS), and ensure that their solutions can handle large-scale deployments efficiently.
Reducing latency
Latency is the time it takes for a storage request to be processed. By optimizing their CSI drivers to reduce latency, vendors can improve the performance of applications that rely on storage. This can be achieved through techniques such as caching, which stores frequently accessed data in memory for faster access and optimizing the storage stack to minimize processing time.
Increasing and managing IOPS
By increasing IOPS, vendors can improve the performance of applications that require high levels of storage throughput. This can be achieved through techniques such as parallelism, which allows multiple storage requests to be processed simultaneously, and optimizing the storage hardware to handle more operations per second. Furthermore, IOPS can be used to control and manage throughput in shared environments, which is increasingly necessary in edge deployments where storage resources may be limited and frequently shared among applications.
Handling large-scale deployments
As organizations scale their Kubernetes environments, they need storage solutions that can handle large-scale deployments efficiently. Vendors can optimize their CSI drivers to ensure that they can manage large numbers of volumes and handle high levels of storage traffic without performance degradation.
Security enhancements
Security is a critical concern in any storage solution. Vendors can innovate by incorporating advanced security features into their CSI drivers, such as end-to-end encryption, secure multi-tenancy, and compliance with industry standards like GDPR and HIPAA.
End-to-end encryption
Encryption ensures that data is protected from unauthorized access by encoding it in a way that can only be decoded with the correct key. By implementing end-to-end encryption, vendors can ensure that data is protected both at rest and in transit, providing a higher level of security for sensitive data. This is especially relevant for edge cloud use cases as data will most certainly cross WAN links.
Secure multi-tenancy
In multi-tenant environments, multiple users or organizations share the same infrastructure. Secure multi-tenancy ensures that each tenant's data is isolated and protected from other tenants. By implementing secure multi-tenancy features, vendors can help organizations meet their security and compliance requirements while sharing infrastructure resources.
Compliance with industry standards
Many organizations are required to comply with industry standards and regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from Europe and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S. By ensuring that their CSI drivers comply with these standards, vendors can help organizations meet their regulatory requirements and avoid potential fines and penalties.
The Kubernetes CSI provides a robust foundation for storage management in containerized environments. By focusing on areas such as advanced data management features, enhanced performance and scalability, and security enhancements, vendors can not only enhance their CSI offerings but also provide significant value to their enterprise customers, especially those operating at the edge. In the final blog post of this series, I will explore how vendors can simplify management and monitoring, and support hybrid and multi-cloud environments to further revolutionize enterprise storage solutions.
Stay tuned for more insights on leveraging CSI to unlock the full potential of Kubernetes storage management.
https://symphony.rakuten.com/cloud/blogs/...-performance-enhancements
1.1§ACTION EXECUTION SYSTEM AND CONTROL METHOD THEREOF (18245150)
1.2§METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATION AND ROLE-BASED CONTROL IN MARKETPLACE (18012777)
1.3§CONSTRAINT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CLASSIFIER BASED CONSTRAINT MANAGEMENT (18011526)
1.4§COOPERATIVE TRAINING MIGRATION (17770049)
1.5§INSTRUCTION FOR UE TO START AI, ML BY BASE STATION (17999402)
1.6§CAUSE SPECIFYING SYSTEM AND CAUSE SPECIFYING METHOD (18044992)
1.7§ACTION EXECUTION SYSTEM AND CONTROL METHOD THEREOF (18044991)
1.8§CENTRALIZED KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR MONITORING AND DATA STORAGE APPARATUS AND METHOD (17757300)
1.9§APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR OPTIMIZING UPLINK CARRIER AGGREGATION IN A RADIO ACCESS NETWORK (17923498)
1.10§CONTROL SYSTEM AND CONTROL METHOD (18246682)
1.11§SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ADAPTIVE DCI RAR OPTIMIZATION (18010344)
1.12§SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING RRC INACTIVE MODE ENHANCED PAGING FOR MOBILE TERMINATING-SMALL DATA TRANSFER (18011314)
https://wikipatents.org/index.php/...ublished_on_September_12th,_2024
Rakuten Cloud-Native Platform and Intel architecture-based edge technologies provide low latency, reduced costs and scalability
One of the challenges of deploying edge cloud networks is supporting a growing number of stateful applications using Kubernetes, which is designed for stateless workloads. An application’s state is its status at any point in time. A stateful application saves this state information to storage and can act or build upon it. Other applications are considered stateless in that once an action or user request has taken place the application no longer keeps track of the state of that transaction. Each follow on action or transaction is executed without regard for the previous state information. Many web applications are stateless but offer some stateful capabilities by offloading these requests to a user’s device or to a database server. For example, a web browser is a stateless application, but with cookies stored on the user’s device, or with access to a database, a browser can deliver stateful features. Enterprises are expanding their use of edge cloud servers that need to support stateful applications such as databases, analytics, IoT, mobile networks, AI model training and others. Many edge use cases, such as computer vision or analytics, can benefit from low latency access to local data at the edge which makes stateful edge application delivery a necessity. The volume of data processed and the need for low latency limits the ability to offload the data to an out-of-container storage solution. This makes support for stateful cloud-native applications essential. Kubernetes is the leading cloud-native operating system and was designed to orchestrate stateless applications. The main challenge to building stateful cloud native applications is delivering persistent data storage within a container or a Kubernetes pod to maintain state information. Many initial cloud deployments relied on managed database services or ran their databases outside of Kubernetes containers / pods because round-trip times impacted latency, reducing performance and requiring new reliability and reliance infrastructure for the storage.
https://networkbuilders.intel.com/docs/...s-with-intel-1722330398.pdf
Muntaha Karim September 12, 2024
You heard it right! Rakuten is the largest Japanese e-commerce and affiliate marketplace, and Rakuten is the 2nd most visited marketplace website (as of January 2024).
But it doesn’t operate business only in Japan. Right now, Rakuten is available in 77 countries. The Rakuten Group is now serving about 1.6 billion members across the world.
Rakuten has already spanned its business on 70+ platforms. It includes the eCommerce industry, communications, digital content, FinTech, etc. So, this is undoubtedly a great platform to promote your products worldwide.
In this article, we are going to cover the best method of creating a product feed for Rakuten and promoting it via Rakuten.
https://webappick.com/rakuten-product-feed/
- Leveraging the Rakuten Ecosystem’s rich data assets to improve customer understanding and support businesses’ growth.
Tokyo, September 25, 2024 - Rakuten Group, Inc. today announced the full-scale launch*1 of Rakuten Analytics, an analytics platform for corporate clients that leverages the rich statistical data of the Rakuten Ecosystem to deepen customer understanding and support data-driven decision-making.
Rakuten Analytics is a platform that enables businesses to strengthen their understanding of customer profiles by linking a company’s data with the statistical data assets held by Rakuten, while maintaining measures to protect personal information. It features an intuitive and easy-to-use simple user interface (UI), making it easy to understand analysis results. Corporate customers can use the insights gained from the platform’s analysis for ad delivery, marketing strategies targeting their own Rakuten member customers, product planning and more.
The statistical data assets that form the foundation of this platform utilize the Rakuten Ecosystem’s "CustomerDNA" database, which classifies Rakuten user attribute information – which includes demographic data such as age, gender, life stages, lifestyle and more – into over 4,000*2 attributes using AI. This database provides multifaceted persona information, classified into attributes based on real registration information and purchasing behavior, as well as attributes estimated from user behavior.
Rakuten has focused on analyzing the robust user behavior data in its services to achieve optimal personalization for individual users. By utilizing a range of rich statistical data insights provided from more than 100 million Rakuten members in Japan through the Rakuten Analytics platform, clients can visualize the online and offline behaviors and personas of their customers, thereby supporting data-driven decision-making.
In the future, Rakuten plans to release an AI assistant feature linked to Rakuten AI to support the analysis of results, as well as implement API integration with in-house and external marketing tools to support the execution of streamlined marketing initiatives. These features will support ad delivery for acquiring customers, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives to improve customer Lifetime Value (LTV), and additional research for product development.
Under its AI-nization initiative, Rakuten is promoting the use of AI in all aspects of its businesses to drive further growth. Through the use of rich data and cutting-edge AI technology, Rakuten is committed to making AI a force for good that augments humanity, drives productivity and fosters prosperity.
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2024/0925_01.html
By Linda Hardesty Sep 24, 2024 12:43pm
Rakuten Symphony’s CMO says his pet peeve is the mobile industry looking for the 5G ‘killer app’
The CMO says the mobile industry needs to start thinking beyond connectivity
For its part, Rakuten Symphony is looking at future trends and serving enterprise demand
Rakuten Symphony’s Chief Marketing Officer Geoff Hollingworth said Symphony now has an internal group that’s working on innovations to solve future problems.
Fierce asked if the group was looking for the “5G killer app," and Hollingworth said that kind of question was his pet peeve.
Earlier this summer, Hollingworth posted on LinkedIn that “now is the perfect time for telecom to start building more than connectivity solutions.”
Hollingworth told Fierce, “There’s so much activity starting to gain traction outside of telecom. We invest so much in technology but invest so little into the application of that technology. We tend to not look outside at what’s changing. The landscape is completely transforming again because of AI. We need to be designing to solve the future problems.”
To that end, Rakuten Symphony is working on creating business applications.
https://www.fierce-network.com/modernization/...e-about-5g-killer-app
September 24, 2024
Retail campaigns can use Viber Ads and Viber Rich Business Messaging to engage customers, drive conversions, and enhance the shopping experience during these peak shopping periods.
Viber Ads offers a versatile inventory of native and display placements within the Rakuten Viber app, featuring high viewability, CTRs of up to 4%, and rich media options. From the frequently viewed main chat screen to the interactive Viber Explore, where users check local news and content, the app creates unobtrusive points of connection with potential customers.
https://www.adobomagazine.com/brand-business/...s-business-solutions/
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/rakuten/...s-7m-subscriber-milestone/
Am 30. September 2024 um 07:59 Uhr
Die japanische Rakuten-Gruppe gab am Montag bekannt, dass ihre Kreditkartensparte und die Mizuho Financial Group Gespräche über eine Kapital- und Geschäftsallianz führen.
Rakuten teilte außerdem mit, dass es eine geplante Umstrukturierung seines Finanztechnologiegeschäfts absagt.
https://de.marketscreener.com/kurs/aktie/...it-Mizuho-fuhrt-47961040/
“Additionally, uncertainty surrounds the share exchange ratio between Rakuten Bank and its Card/Securities units, which might impact the stock following the first half results expected in January.”
https://www.investing.com/news/company-news/...says-bofa-93CH-3638261
Kazunori Ito, Pujance Chan Aug 12, 2024
While Rakuten is most notable for its e-commerce platform, Rakuten Ichiba, we believe the company’s success in Japan lies in its first-mover advantage in establishing a comprehensive ecosystem composed of e-commerce, fintech, and mobile network services. Over the years, Rakuten accumulated over 40 million monthly active users, and close to 80% of users use more than two Rakuten services.
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/XTKS/4755/quote
September 30, 2024
However, we have concluded that proceeding with this reorganization is not necessarily the best option for further expansion of the FinTech Ecosystem and enhancing competitive advantage. Therefore, we have decided today to cancel this reorganization.
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2024/0930_11.html
By Michał Nawrocki
2024-09-2
Im kommenden Herbst 2024 wird die in Tokio ansässige Rakuten Securities eine neue Smartphone-Anwendung namens iGrow lancieren. Diese Anwendung hat zum Ziel, Benutzer umfassend in ihren Vermögensaufbau-Bestrebungen zu unterstützen, indem sie sowohl Kommunikations- als auch Handelsfunktionen integriert und sowohl für iOS- als auch Android-Plattformen verfügbar ist.
Die iGrow-App ist darauf ausgelegt, ein nahtloses Investitionserlebnis von der Initiierung bis zum fortlaufenden Management zu ermöglichen. Sie umfasst drei wichtige Funktionen, die den Investitionsprozess vereinfachen und sicherstellen, dass selbst Anfänger ihn selbstbewusst navigieren können. Benutzer können mühelos ihre Investitionsfonds verwalten, einschließlich derjenigen, die mit NISA und iDeCo verbunden sind, sowie ihre Salden über verschiedene Dienste im Rakuten-Ökosystem verfolgen.
Rakuten Securities, das die Branche mit über 5,5 Millionen NISA-Konten anführt und bemerkenswerte Auszeichnungen für die Kundenzufriedenheit erhalten hat, zielt darauf ab, die iGrow-App sowohl benutzerfreundlich als auch mit Funktionen zu bereichern, die eine spannende Investitionsreise fördern.
https://smartphonemagazine.nl/de/2024/09/26/...ch-rakuten-securities/
October 1, 2024 01:03 JST
E-commerce giant seeks funds from megabank to expand fintech business
Rakuten Group announced the talks toward a strategic capital and business alliance on Monday. The two Japanese groups aim to finalize details about Mizuho's investment in Rakuten Card this year.
Rakuten had been considering restructuring its fintech business, including Rakuten Card, but said separately on Monday that it canceled those plans.
With over 30 million credit cards provided, Rakuten Card is the largest such issuer in Japan. The company is a pillar for Rakuten, along with the group's mainstay e-commerce site. Both businesses facilitate the use of group services through the Rakuten's rewards points system.
Mizuho lacks a major card company within its group, having dissolved a partnership with Japanese card issuer Credit Saison in 2019 after 15 years. It was late to the game compared with rival major banks Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, both of which have card issuing companies under their umbrella, and hopes to make a comeback with this investment.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Finance/...buy-stake-in-Rakuten-Card
Tokyo, August 7, 2024 - Rakuten Group, Inc. today announced that it will support the fashion show and events for fashion brand “sulvam” during Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO S/S 2025, scheduled for September 2 to September 7, 2024, and again during the term of Paris Fashion Week S/S 2025, scheduled for September 23 to October 1, through the “by R” project to support the Japanese fashion scene.
Rakuten will support sulvam’s milestone collection following a decade since the brand's founding, as well as the full-scale unveiling of their newly launched women's collection. As part of the project’s aim to foster the next generation of designers, Rakuten will also collaborate with Bunka Fashion College, the alma mater of sulvam's Teppei Fujita, to hold a runway show at Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO S/S 2025, featuring collections that involved fashion students from the college in select parts of the production process. Additionally, Rakuten will support the launch of sulvam’s reception gala during the term of Paris Fashion Week S/S 2025 to celebrate the opening of the brand’s flagship store in Paris.
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2024/...Rakuten%2520Group,
https://www.lightreading.com/open-ran/...es-up-24-in-2q-2024-dell-oro
October 02, 2024
In this video, RNN delivers details about Rakuten Fulfillment Centers and post offices. In the warehouse, see automated guided vehicles, dizzyingly fast automatic packaging and labeling systems, and lanes moving parcels along. Look into the surprising process bringing Rakuten Ichiba products to users' doorsteps and understand the efforts and sincerity of staff members, how fulfilment centers are optimized using new tech, and the importance of logistics-now a part of everyday life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_zHmFAoZJg
With over 30 million credit cards provided, Rakuten Card is the largest such issuer in Japan. The company is a pillar for Rakuten, along with the group's mainstay e-commerce site. Both businesses facilitate the use of group services through the Rakuten's rewards points system.
Mizuho already holds a 49% stake in Rakuten Securities. Through a new joint venture, the two companies began a service in April that provides online and face-to-face asset management consultations to Rakuten Securities customers and others.
Rakuten Card will remain a consolidated subsidiary of Rakuten Group.
The group also has achieved progress in its cash management, which has been a concern for the past few years. Raising new funds from Mizuho through the investment in Rakuten Card will bolster financial stability.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Finance/...buy-stake-in-Rakuten-Card
Published by Statista Research Department, Apr 16, 2024
As of March 2024, the value of deposits at Rakuten Bank, Ltd. amounted to around 10.5 trillion Japanese yen. Rakuten Bank, Ltd. is a Japanese online bank that is part of the Rakuten Group.
2015: 1.25 trillion JPY
2016: 1.63 trillion JPY
2017: 1.72 trillion JPY
2018: 2.13 trillion JPY
2019: 2.81 trillion JPY
2020: 3.58 trillion JPY
2021: 5.77 trillion JPY
2022: 7.77 trillion JPY
2023: 9.13 trillion JPY
2024: 10.54 trillion JPY
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1230753/...%2520Japanese%2520yen.
- 10 Milliarden Yen in der kürzesten Periode neu aufgelegter Fonds im letzten Jahr erreicht -
https://www.rakuten-sec.co.jp/web/company/...se/pdf/press20241004.pdf
Die Konjunkturaussichten in Japan sind im internationalen Vergleich besonders gut, weil die Investitionen besonders stark steigen. Die Regierung investiert inzwischen wesentlich mehr in den Rüstungsbereich. Vor dem Hintergrund der sinkenden Zinsdifferenz zwischen Japan und den USA ist mit weiterem Anstieg des Yens zu rechnen.
Obwohl der Aktienmarkt in Japan aufgrund der Währungsschwankungen ins Stocken geraten ist, bleiben die Aussichten positiv. Wahrscheinlich werden die Zinsen im Dezember oder Januar leicht erhöht, was zu einem überfälligen Kursschub nach oben bei Finanzwerten führen sollte. Die Inflationsrate stieg zuletzt auf 2,8% (ohne Lebensmittel und Energie +2%), so dass eine leichte Zinserhöhung überfällig ist. Die Teuerungsrate liegt seit 29 Monaten über dem Ziel der Bank von Japan. Die Notenbank zweifelt aber nicht daran, dass die Teuerungsrate auf 2% zurückfallen wird.
Der neugewählte japanische Ministerpräsident Shigeru Ishiba, sein Vorgänger Fumio Kishida trat wegen ähnlich niedriger Zustimmungswerte wie für die deutsche Regierung zurück, gilt als überzeugter Inflationsbekämpfer und setzt sich für Zinserhöhungen in Japan ein. Das müsste Finanzwerte stärken und Exporttitel im Trend schwächen.
Japan weniger gefährdet im Fall einer Trump-Zollrunde
Sollte Trump die US-Wahl gewinnen, hat er Zölle für chinesische Importe in Höhe von 60% angekündigt. Dies würde den chinesischen Aktienmarkt erheblich treffen. Weniger gefährdet bei Einfuhrzöllen wäre Japan. Hinzu kommt, dass japanische Unternehmen 57% des Umsatzes im Inland erwirtschaften und nur vergleichsweise wenig im Ausland (16,5% in den USA und in Kanada). Japan wäre also bei einer Trump-Zollrunde weniger gefährdet.
https://themarket.ch/meinung/...ktcid=nled&mktcval=219_2024-10-04
1 Nutzer wurde vom Verfasser von der Diskussion ausgeschlossen: Scansoft