Techstrong Gang
Techstrong Gang is your go-to weekday show on Techstrong TV and your favorite podcast platform, bringing together a rotating lineup of top thought leaders and technologists to break down the biggest stories and trends shaping the tech world. Hosted by industry veterans Alan Shimel, Mike Vizard, Mitchell Ashley, Jon Swartz, Lisa Martin, Tracy Ragan, Sulagna Saha, Anne Ahola Ward, Bonnie Schneider, and more, the show dives deep into everything from DevOps and cybersecurity to AI and cloud innovation. Tune in Monday through Friday for insightful discussions, expert analysis, and lively debates on the issues that matter most to today’s tech professionals.
Episodes
Alan, Mike, Mitch, Jon, Tracy Ragan, Chris Blask, JP Morgenthal, Fred Wilmot, Jack Gold and Teri Robinson wrap up 2025 by discussing how the biggest trends in IT, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) are, for better or worse, impacting not just businesses but society as a whole.
Alan, Mike, Jack Poller and Jack Gold dive into how training will need to evolve in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) following a move by Coursera to acquire Udemy and the extension of an online learning alliance between Pearson and IBM. Then the gang takes a look at an inquiry into the impact AI is having on electric bills that has been launched by three U.S. senators before discussing whether Oracle losing funding for a dat...
Mike, Alan, Jon, Alastair Cooke and Gina Rosenthal dive into reports that suggest Amazon is about to make a major investment in OpenAI before trying to make sense of Microsoft's latest plans for applying artificial intelligence (AI) to application development. Then the gang delves into a report that suggests the quality of the code being generated by AI coding tools has a lot more defects than most organizations fully appreciate.
Alan, Mike, Mitch, Jon, Teri Robinson and Futurum Group analyst David Nicholson debate the merits of a reported proposed Intel acquisition of SambaNova to gain access to artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator processors, before diving into the degree to which AI agents are actually being adopted in enterprise IT environments. Then the gang turns its attention to a cybersecurity advisory from OpenAI warning that the next generatio...
Alan, Mike, Tom Hollingsworth, Chris Blask, Jennifer Leggio and Dan O'Brien, president of the Futurum Group, dive into the debate over the affordability of artificial intelligence (AI) agents. Then the gang takes a look at the reasons ServiceNow is reportedly looking to acquire Armis before discussing why NVIDIA is acquiring SchedMD to gain control of an open source Slurm scheduler.
Alan Shimel, Kate Scarcella, and Hope Lynch discuss the challenges facing Broadcom as the company secures a $21 billion custom chip order while raising concerns about its growing reliance on Google.
The gang then looks at how environmental and local opposition is slowing AI data center projects before turning to IBM’s Project Alice, which aims to improve IT operations through a multi-agent approach, even as questions remain about i...
Alan, Mike, Tracy Ragan and Jack Poller dive into an artificial intelligence (AI) lawsuit brought forth against Google by Disney before discussing the merits of a wrongful death lawsuit filed against OpenAI and Microsoft. Then the gang delves into a Gartner advisory that calls for the banning of AI browsers in the enterprise.
Alan, Mike, Mitch, Jon, Fred Wilmot, Gina Rosenthal and Wickey Wang delve into the pros and potential cons of the new AI Agentic Foundation launched by The Linux Foundation before discussing the degree to which artificial intelligence (AI) agents are being adopted despite known cybersecurity issues.
Then the gang turns its attention to an open source effort led by Palantir, NVIDIA and CenterPoint Energy and to make consumption of e...
Alan Shimel, Mitch Ashley, Jon Swartz, Guy Currier and Teri Robinson discuss why the IT market is on track to surpass $4 trillion as advances in artificial intelligence and telecommunications drive 14% projected growth despite economic challenges. The gang then looks at why cybersecurity remains a critical investment area as CISOs struggle to secure funding and improve communication around security risks.
Alan, Mike, Jon, Chris Blask, Robert Reeves, Kate Scarcella and Dan O'Brien, president and COO of The Futurum Group, dive into the controversy surrounding the lack of child-safety controls being applied to artificial intelligence (AI) tools, the subject of a 60 Minutes investigation. Then the gang takes a look at the pace of humanoid robotic advancements before turning to the need for AI PCs following a new report from The Futurum ...
Alan, Mike, Mitch, Hope Lynch and Stephen Foskett, president of the Tech Field Day arm of the Futurum Group, delve into the latest acquisitions and alliances involving Anthropic before taking a look at the $11 billion acquisition of Confluent by IBM. Then the gang digs into an effort by Google to capture carbon emissions from data centers.
Alan, Mike, Mitch, Camberley Bates, Jack Poller and Andi Mann discuss how attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) are, for better or worse, rapidly evolving before diving into the need for radically different approaches to building out the IT infrastructure required to run AI applications. Then the gang delves into the need for a different approach to multifactor authentication (MFA) as man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks are no...
Alan Shimel, Mike Vizard and Mitch Ashley look at the latest advances in AWS technology with a focus on the new Graviton chip and its impact on cloud computing. The gang discusses the shift toward custom silicon, the importance of price performance and the ongoing challenges in cloud security.
The gang then examines how AI is being integrated into DevOps practices, the roles various companies are playing across the tech ecosystem a...
Alan Shimel, Mike Vizard and Mitch Ashley look at how artificial intelligence is reshaping the development process as coding tools evolve and developers take on a larger role managing smarter AI agents. The gang also discusses how these tools are changing DevOps practices and raising new questions about the future of developer roles.
The gang then reviews the messaging coming out of AWS re:Invent as Amazon emphasizes clearer commun...
Alan Shimel and Mike Vizard look at how artificial intelligence is affecting jobs and the broader economy as layoffs and budget shifts raise questions about regulation and long-term planning. They also examine the changing relationship between AWS and its partners as AI alters the cloud services landscape.
The gang then discusses the role of community, government and open-source collaboration in promoting the common good, along wit...
Stephen Foskett and Jeff Reich look at how organizations are choosing between cloud and on-premises platforms for artificial intelligence workloads as Mirantis presents advances in cloud-native AI infrastructure at AI Infrastructure Field Day 3.
The gang then turns to Campbell’s response to questions about its chicken sourcing before taking a look at how month-long discounts have reduced the impact of Cyber Monday as online sales ...
Alan, Mike, Jon, Garima Bajpai and Teri Robinson debate the impact the Second Coming of Shai-Hulud Worm will have on securing software supply chains before discussing whether a new age of transparency in social media might be upon us.
Then the gang discusses the state of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) ecosystem as the AWS re:Invent 2025 conference gets underway in Las Vegas
Alan, Mike, Jon, Chris Blask, Kate Scarcella and Futurum Group president and COO Dan O'Brien celebrate Thanksgiving by discussing the degree to which advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing bode well for the future.
Alan, Mike, JP Morgenthal, Hope Lynch, Evgeniy Karam and Stephen Foskett, president of the Tech Field Day arm of the Futurum Group, delve into the alarming rise in the number and size of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Then the gang discusses why Texas and Tennessee have emerged as the top two states in the U.S. where artificial intelligence (AI) workloads are likely to be deployed before examining why Nokia is pledgi...
Alan, Mike, Jack Poller, Ira Winkler, Jeff Reich and Chris Short discuss the odds that demand for agentic artificial intelligence (AI) will be realized to the point that justifies current investment levels in infrastructure. Then the gang takes a look at the degree to which AI is about to transform cybersecurity—for better or worse—before diving into why the European Union (EU) is investigating Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microso...
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