Google shares were roughly flat when the market closed on Thursday after Alphabet posted earnings less than what Wall Street expected. The after hours GOOGL stock price, however, did take an initial dive before rallying toward its $1,181.50 Alphabet, the parent company of Google, revealed its earnings report for fiscal quarter ending December 2017 shortly after the market closed. The company posted a $32.32 billion revenue, higher than Wall Street expectations. However, the company posted $9.70 earnings per share, missing expectations.

Microsoft $MSFT smashed analysts expectations for its December quarter earnings report Wednesday after the close. Once again $MSFT Cloud earnings powered revenue. Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing segment continued to expand, posting strong gains in its business selling web-based services to corporate customers. Microsoft did not give March-quarter guidance in its earnings news release. Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform growth has slowed down over the last few quarters but annually it's still showing near 100 percent annual growth.

Machine learning and vision startup Aquabyte announced Tuesday that it has raised $3.5 million in seed funding in order to build out a team of developers to refine its software, which is geared toward using machine learning and vision to reduce costs for fish farming. The round was co-led by Costanoa Ventures and New Enterprise Associates. Princeton University and other investors also participated in the round. The main purpose of the round is to help the company build out a team to develop its technology, both at its headquarters in San Francisco as well as Norway, where the company is working with pilot customers. The company is also focused on Norway because there's significantly more fish farming there than there is in the United States.

Ng announced Tuesday that he raised money from venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners as well as SoftBank Group Corp. In an interview with Reuters, Ng said his goal was to identify new business ideas around artificial intelligence and be able to put cash into them quickly from the so-called AI Fund, of which he will serve as general partner, so that founders of the portfolio companies will not need to burn time pitching traditional venture capitalists. Ng said he plans to draw on his experience at Baidu, one of China's largest internet companies, where he led the artificial intelligence team to develop a range of new business lines. Under Ng, Baidu released a voice-based operating system that users can talk to - much like Amazon's Alexa voice assistant or Apple's Siri - and also started working on self-driving cars and face recognition technology to open things like transit turnstiles when users approach. "Based on that experience, I have an unusual point of view on the building of AI businesses. I think it's a more systematic, repeatable process than most people think," said Ng, who also taught artificial intelligence courses at Stanford University.

Spending on information technology worldwide will reach $3.7 trillion this year, with the largest growth expected in spending on enterprise software. That is the prediction of research firm Gartner, which says organizations will increase spending on IT by approximately 4.5 percent in 2018. Enterprise software spending is the bright spot in Gartner's latest study, which predicts 9.5 percent growth in purchases for these applications in 2018, with another 8.4 percent growth in 2019, and will total $421 billion. "Global IT spending growth began to turn around in 2017, with continued growth expected over the next few years. However, uncertainty looms as organizations consider the potential impacts of Brexit, currency fluctuations and a possible global recession," said Gartner Research Vice President John-David Lovelock.

When it comes to raising tens of millions of dollars in venture capital, it helps to be a veteran of Baidu's artificial intelligence units. Over the prior 12 months, former employees of the Chinese tech giant have raised close to US$300 million in VC funding rounds, according to a review of deals by China Money Network. The latest recipient of VC funding is Aibee, an artificial intelligence solutions provider founded by Lin Yunqing, former head of Baidu Inc's Institution of Deep Learning (IDL), which today announced a RMB165 million (US$25 million) angel round led by China's venture capital firm Kinzon Capital. Alibee was established in last November, after Lin resigned from the tech giant Baidu in October. It focuses on developing AI solutions in areas such as computer vision, speech recognition, natural language understanding and big data analytics.

PREDICTIVE DATA: Degree Analytics, a startup that aims to use data and AI to increase college students' graduation rates, has raised $1 million in a "Seed B" round. The Austin-based company's investors include Rick Dalzell, formerly CIO at Amazon; David Palumbo, managing director at SoftMatch; and Larry Benz, founder of physical therapy group Confluent Health. Degree Analytics gathers student information such as attendance, library time or LMS login activity, and uses that data to make predictions on students' future behaviors. It will flag school counselors or instructors if they should intervene with a student. The company claims its platform is currently being used at three institutions, including Eastern University, and that the latest funding round will go towards further developing its platform and expanding both its "domestic and international presence."

The chipmaker, which recorded a $5.4 billion charge in the quarter due to the recent tax reforms, has been focusing on its data center business and newer areas such as artificial intelligence and driverless cars to reduce its reliance on its traditional PC market.

Above the Trend Line: your industry rumor central is a recurring feature of insideBIGDATA. In this column, we present a variety of short time-critical news items grouped by category such as people movements, funding news, financial results, industry alignments, rumors and general scuttlebutt floating around the big data, data science and machine learning industries including behind-the-scenes anecdotes and curious buzz. Our intent is to provide you a one-stop source of late-breaking news to help you keep abreast of this fast-paced ecosystem. We're working hard on your behalf with our extensive vendor network to give you all the latest happenings. Be sure to Tweet Above the Trend Line articles using the hashtag: #abovethetrendline.

Gartner's latest IT spending forecast has predicted a massive boost in IT spending on enterprise software. The analyst forecast that enterprise software will continue to show strong growth, with worldwide software spending increasing by 9.5% in 2018 and by 8.4% in 2019 to reach a total of $421bn. The current potential of the UK technology industry is restricted by the lack of tech and digital talent available. You forgot to provide an Email Address. This email address doesn't appear to be valid.