Microsoft has announced it is purchasing Nuance Communications, a natural language to computer processing company, in a deal valued at $19.7 billion. "Nuance's popular healthcare-focused products and services will provide Microsoft an instant revenue stream and relationships with existing Nuance customers," noted Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT.

Pat Gelsinger's Intel is looking like the very different company it needs to be. It is more collaborative than combative, more strategic than tactical, with a far more effective plan than it has had since Andy Grove left the firm. Let's talk about how Gelsinger presents Intel as an execution and partnering powerhouse, and we'll close with the product of the week, a new set of headphones from Lenovo.

An increasing number of businesses and even public companies are showing interest in Bitcoin. However, not all chief financial officers of these institutions are convinced to invest in the digital currency as a corporate asset any time soon. According to a recent survey of finance executives by Gartner, 84 percent say they have no plans to purchase Bitcoin as a corporate reserve any time soon.

Oracle's continued strides in the tech space say a lot about perseverance and deep pockets. It was a darling of the 20th century tech era, rising from a startup in the database wars and becoming the sole surviving independent database company. But at some point, success leveled out its rise and it became just another big company. Then came the challenge of cloud computing.

Jeff Bezos last week announced he will be stepping down from his role of CEO Amazon. Bezos is following Microsoft's lead and putting his cloud executive Andy Jassy in charge of the company. Given that Microsoft was exceedingly successful with putting Satya Nadella in the same role, it would seem that this would be a slam-dunk success. But the issue is that Amazon is not Microsoft.

Amazon gets a new chief executive this summer. Jeff Bezos plans to step down from that role and transition into a new job -- executive chair of Amazon. The chief of Amazon's cloud computing division, Andy Jassy, will become Amazon's new chief executive. Jassy served in that post in a temporary capacity along with another Amazon executive in recent years. The change will be effective in the third quarter, which starts in July.

The Big Tech companies have arguably done what they want over the years, arousing consumer anger and distrust, and numerous complaints by privacy and consumer rights groups. That includes cocking a snook at governments. While all of the Big Tech firms have been hit with multimillion-dollar fines at one time or another, many argue that's a drop in the bucket for companies that rake in billions of dollars annually.

Surely spurred by the work-from-home necessities of 2020, people have connected a multitude of non-business devices to their corporate networks, making it progressively difficult to implement cybersecurity because every device is a potential weak point. So, who will ultimately be responsible for cybersecurity of an IoT network?

Nvidia last week announced they are buying Arm, which will result in some exciting changes. This merger will open up opportunities for the company to create new, innovative, and compelling products across the technology ecosystem. Let's talk about that this week, and we'll close with my product of the week -- a new business class notebook from HP, the EliteBook 840 G7.

A proposal to avoid the banning of the popular social media app TikTok was submitted to the U.S. Treasury Department over the weekend. The plan submitted by ByteDance, which owns TikTok, calls for the company to enlist Oracle as a "trusted technology provider" in order to address national security concerns raised about the video-sharing software by the Trump administration.

Last week we ran a survey asking people which of the CEOs that were questioned by Congress last month is the most trustworthy. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg took the dubious prize for last place. Tim Cook of Apple was voted the most trustworthy. There shouldn't be any competition; Facebook has the tools and information access to assure it is beloved. Yet Apple, which doesn't have anywhere near that level of reach nor engagement, has a far better image. Let's talk about ironic incompetence.

Cisco Live was last week, and this was their first large scale virtual event. What made this event very different from the other games was the amount of effort they put into socially responsible projects. Many of the customer projects they highlighted are dealing with a variety of world problems, be they related to the pandemic or not.

Some of the troubling reports of corporate responses to COVID-19 include forced work in unsafe areas, not enough -- or any -- protection gear, massive layoffs and furloughs, and the sense that a critical mass of well-paid CEOs and politicians don't get that many people live paycheck to paycheck. There are exceptions though, and HP stands out, thanks to HR VP Tracy Keogh and CEO Enrique Lores.

Salesforce just announced it would buy Vlocity -- a startup with all the markings of a unicorn including a billion-dollar valuation -- for $1.33 billion. Vlocity was cofounded and led by David Schmaier, who was executive vice president at Siebel Systems in its go-go years. When Oracle bought Siebel it made Schmaier a wealthy man. He promptly dropped out of the CRM business.

One of the old sayings is that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics," with the implication being you really can't trust most reported numbers. Still, we've often thought, at least with major vendors, that you could trust rankings. One current set of rankings involves cloud providers. The general impression was that Amazon was first, Microsoft second, and Google third.

When it comes to any merger, you often can't trust the reason the firms are merging, particularly if financial rather than operational managers are driving the process. When it comes to hostile takeovers, you can bet you are being misled, because the rhetoric will address synergy, but the folks driving the effort know the more likely goal is to destroy the acquired company.

Who is most deserving of the title "CEO of the Decade"? Historically the focus in choosing CEO of the decade has been on their financial accomplishments, but that approach has left us in a world lacking diversity and empathy in positions of power -- particularly noticeable in the tech industry -- and one where global climate change may end the human race.

When the U.S. president was impeached last week, it surfaced the fact that impeachment, and particularly the removal of a U.S. president, is a process that doesn't work. Throughout U.S. history, there have been 45 presidents, and given that no one trains for that job, you'd figure several would have been removed for cause. However, impeachment has been attempted three times without a removal.

When Intel released its diversity report last week, it got pounded for the lack of diversity in its executive staff. Intel is one of the few companies being transparent about diversity. Given that lack of diversity is the problem we want to solve, the bashing is stupid. It is only going to make it harder to address the problem. In effect, Intel did the right thing and was punished for it.

I'm spending a lot of time these days looking at the evolving market for artificial intelligence and the problem of bias. I think the problem in part is due to confirmation bias -- the need to look only at the information that agrees with a position already set. Another contributing factor is the lack of a set of metrics that we can apply consistently. AI systems will face similar problems.

One of the last major initiatives former CEO Steve Ballmer launched before he left Microsoft was its Surface effort. It was designed to address the concern that the iPod would take over the PC world. During the Surface launch last week, it wasn't hard to see that Ballmer was right conceptually. It just took Satya Nadella to execute, showcasing that Ballmer didn't have a strategic problem.

Consumers have been adopting disruptive digital technologies in their daily lives at a rapid pace. Customers went from being limited to brick-and-mortar stores to researching, comparing and buying a company's products and services online. Along with those shifts came a change in how customers communicate with companies, and the need for positive, consistent and engaging customer experiences.

Apple held its huge product announcement event last week, and what once had people besides themselves with excitement has become a near pointless program of copied features and missed expectations. It is a shame to watch -- much like it was when Apple fired Steve Jobs. It appears that the firm has forgotten what Steve did to turn Apple into a unique company.

Amazon workers at a Minnesota, fulfillment center plan to strike for six hours on July 15, the first day of Amazon's Prime Day sales event. The strike threat reportedly is linked to unsafe working conditions at Amazon's warehouses, caused by low wages and pressure to meet shipping demands. Union officials also want a larger portion of temporary warehouse workers converted to full-time employees.

I attended Cisco Live last week, and one of the things that impressed me was how many amazing things the company has been doing that have nothing to do with products, services or revenue. Most companies have a philanthropic budget and donate, but they don't really seem to care if the money makes a difference. For most, philanthropy is more about uplifting their image than making a difference.

Salesforce has used its Trailhead learning system to teach developers how to program on its Lightning platform for more than five years. The company last week completed its fourth highly successful TrailheaDX conference, which attracted 14,000 people to the Moscone Center in San Francisco. There are plenty of good reasons for Salesforce to be in the software-coding-education game.

Like a lot of folks, I'm a tad sick of Intel. Last month we learned of its second big security scandal in as many years. Once again, the company not only neglected to disclose the problems in a timely way but also lacked a plan to recall the failed parts. Once again, buyers likely will have to cripple their Intel processors if they want to use them safely.

Brand ID is key to every company's success and growth. Why then do so many senior executives at so many different companies screw it up? When you come up with a winning brand ID, it's OK to build on it and to change it for the better, but not for the worse. Customers buy from you based on your brand ID. If that changes, then customers may change their buying habits as well.

Tesla sure didn't have a good week last week, given the kind of press coverage it got. I'm not that worried about Tesla going away, though, as its products are far too popular for it to disappear. On the other hand, management clearly needs to be fixed. What got me started looking at Tesla last week was that it pretty much announced that Nvidia was its Kryptonite.

Google has unveiled new minimum standards for temps, vendors and contractors in the United States, in response to demands from an employee coalition that included full-time Google staffers as well as temporary workers and contractors. "Yesterday, we shared an update on some new initiatives to support our extended U.S. workforce," Google spokesperson Jenn Kaiser said Wednesday.