• At least five people are dead after a shooting inside a Florida bank on Wednesday, authorities said.
• Police identified the suspect as 21-year-old Zephen Xaver, and said he contacted dispatch while still inside the bank to tell them he had fired shots.
• Authorities have not yet identified the victims.

At least five people were killed on Wednesday after a gunman opened fire inside a bank in Sebring, Florida, about 90 miles south of Orlando.

Police identified the suspect as Zephen Xaver, 21, who surrendered to authorities after negotiating with them from inside the bank.

Xaver "contacted dispatch and reported that he had fired shots inside the bank" shortly after noon on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Highlands County Sheriff's Office.

He eventually surrendered to tactical officers after multiple negotiation attempts.

"We have at least five victims who were senselessly murdered as a result of this act in this bank," Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund told reporters at a press conference.

Authorities did not identify a motive for the shooting.

"Obviously this is an individual who needs to face very swift and exacting justice," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters at the press conference.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida tweeted Wednesday afternoon that he had spoken to Sheriff Paul Blackman about the incident, and that he and his wife were praying for those involved.

Photos from the scene showed a massive law-enforcement presence surrounding the bank, including scores of police officers, armored vehicles, and helicopters. The FBI was reportedly also en route to the scene.

SunTrust chairman and CEO Bill Rogers said in a statement, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at our Sebring, FL branch. We're working with law enforcement & are dedicated to supporting the people & families impacted by this horrible & senseless tragedy. Our entire team mourns this terrible loss."

The incident on Wednesday follows two other high-profile mass shootings in Florida. Seventeen people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the city of Parkland in February 2018, and the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando claimed 49 lives.

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• President Donald Trump is the first president in US history to be disinvited from delivering the State of the Union address.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday more or less canceled Trump's address after the two had quarreled over the issue for days amid an ongoing partial government shutdown.
• Reacting to the move, Trump on Wednesday said, "I don’t believe it's ever happened before, and it's always good to be part of history. But this is a very negative part of history."
• Historical records show that no president has ever had an invitation to deliver the State of the Union in the House chamber rescinded.
• Pelosi on January 3 invited Trump to deliver the address, but later called on him to postpone it because of the shutdown, and the two have traded blows on the matter ever since.

After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday effectively canceled President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, the president suggested the move was completely unprecedented.

Based on historical records, Trump is correct, and we are in uncharted waters.

Trump and Pelosi have been trading blows on this issue for two weeks as part of a broader standoff between the White House and Democratic leaders over funding for a border wall. The dispute has led to the longest government shutdown in US history.

Read more:Pelosi says she won't let Trump deliver the State of the Union on the House floor after the president said he would show up anyway

The story took yet another turn on Wednesday after Trump essentially threatened to waltz into the House chamber next Tuesday, on the originally scheduled date of January 29, and deliver the address regardless of Pelosi's authority or wishes.

In a letter to the House speaker, Trump said "it would be so very sad for our Country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location!"

In response, Pelosi sent a letter to Trump informing him the House "will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the President's State of the Union address in the House Chamber until government has opened."

The House speaker added, "Again, I look forward to welcoming you to the House on a mutually agreeable date for this address when government has been opened."

Read more:Trump signals government shutdown will 'go on for a while' after Pelosi cancels State of the Union address

In this sense, Pelosi did not outright cancel the address, but informed Trump it is to be postponed and rescheduled, pending the reopening of the federal government.

Pelosi on January 3 invited Trump to deliver the address, but later called on him to postpone it, citing security concerns linked to the shutdown. Trump responded by canceling Pelosi's scheduled government trip to Afghanistan at the last minute, and their fight over the State of the Union has only escalated since then.

Reacting to Pelosi's letter, Trump at a meeting on Wednesday said, "We just found out that she's canceled it, and I think that's a great blotch on the incredible country that we all love. It's a great, great, horrible mark."

Trump added, "I don’t believe it's ever happened before, and it's always good to be part of history. But this is a very negative part of history. This is where people are afraid to open up and say what's going on. So it's a very, very negative part of history."

The president, who has often struggled to accurately depict history, is right in this case: There's no evidence an invitation for a scheduled State of the Union address has ever been rescinded, according to records from the office of the House historian.

Read more:A big portion of Trump's base is breaking from him and would want to end the shutdown without a border wall, new poll shows

There have been cases in the past in which presidents have sought to deliver speeches to Congress that were not State of the Union addresses and had their requests denied. Former President Ronald Reagan, for example, in 1986 was denied a request to address the House to make an appeal for aid to the Contras rebel group in Nicaragua. At the time, House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. rejected Reagan's ask as an "unorthodox procedure."

Relatedly, Reagan, also in 1986, postponed his State of the Union address following the tragic explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.

Read more:The complete history of the US State of the Union address

If Trump delivered the State of the Union address on January 29, and the shutdown was ongoing, he also would make history in that context.

A State of the Union address has not coincided with a full or partial government shutdown since the start of the modern budget process in fiscal year 1977, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service and records from the House historian.

It's not clear what Trump will do moving forward. During a Wednesday afternoon meeting, he said he was considering an "alternative" and he'd provide more details later.

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NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

What is eSports? History & Rise of Video Game Tournaments

Years ago, eSports was a community of video gamers who would gather at conventions to play Counter Strike, Call of Duty, or League of Legends.

These multiplayer video game competitions would determine League of Legends champions, the greatest shooters in Call of Duty, the cream of the crop of Street Fighter players, the elite Dota 2 competitors, and more.

But today, as the history of eSports continue to unfold, media giants such as ESPN and Turner are broadcasting eSports tournaments and competitions. And in 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch, the live streaming video platform that has been and continues to be the leader in online gaming broadcasts. And YouTube also wanted to jump on the live streaming gaming community with the creation of YouTube Gaming.

eSports Market Growth Booming

To put in perspective how big eSports is becoming, a Google search for "lol" does not produce "laughing out loud" as the top result. Instead, it points to League of Legends, one of the most popular competitive games in existence. The game has spawned a worldwide community called the League of Legends Championship Series, more commonly known as LCS or LOL eSports.

What started as friends gathering in each other's homes to host LAN parties and play into the night has become an official network of pro gaming tournaments and leagues with legitimate teams, some of which are even sponsored and have international reach. Organizations such as Denial, AHQ, and MLG have multiple eSports leagues.

And to really understand the scope of all this, consider that the prize pool for the latest Dota 2 tournament was more than $20 million.

Websites even exist for eSports live scores to let people track the competitions in real time if they are unable to watch. There are even fantasy eSports leagues similar to fantasy football, along with the large and growing scene of eSports betting and gambling.

So it's understandable why traditional media companies would want to capitalize on this growing trend just before it floods into the mainstream. Approximately 300 million people worldwide tune in to eSports today, and that number is growing rapidly. By 2020, that number will be closer to 500 million.

eSports Industry Analysis - The Future of the Competitive Gaming Market

Financial institutions are starting to take notice. Goldman Sachs valued eSports at $500 million in 2016 and expects the market will grow at 22% annually compounded over the next three years into a more than $1 billion opportunity.

And industry statistics are already backing this valuation and demonstrating the potential for massive earnings. To illustrate the market value, market growth, and potential earnings for eSports, consider Swedish media company Modern Times Group's $87 million acquisition of Turtle Entertainment, the holding company for ESL. YouTube has made its biggest eSports investment to date by signing a multiyear broadcasting deal with Faceit to stream the latter's Esports Championship Series. And the NBA will launch its own eSports league in 2018.

Of course, as with any growing phenomenon, the question becomes: How do advertisers capitalize? This is especially tricky for eSports because of its audience demographics, which is young, passionate, male-dominated, and digital-first. They live online and on social media, are avid ad-blockers, and don't watch traditional TV or respond to conventional advertising.

So what will the future of eSports look like? How high can it climb? Could it reach the mainstream popularity of baseball or football? How will advertisers be able to reach an audience that does its best to shield itself from advertising?

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled an unparalleled report on the eSports ecosystem that dissects the growing market for competitive gaming. This comprehensive, industry-defining report contains more than 30 charts and figures that forecast audience growth, average revenue per user, and revenue growth.

Companies and organizations mentioned in the report include: NFL, NBA, English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, NHL, Paris Saint-Germain, Ligue 1, Ligue de Football, Twitch, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, Electronic Arts, EA Sports, Valve, Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, ESL, Turtle Entertainment, Dreamhack, Modern Times Group, Turner Broadcasting, TBS Network, Vivendi, Canal Plus, Dailymotion, Disney, BAMTech, Intel, Coca Cola, Red Bull, HTC, Mikonet

Here are some eSports industry facts and statistics from the report:

• eSports is a still nascent industry filled with commercial opportunity.
• There are a variety of revenue streams that companies can tap into.
• The market is presently undervalued and has significant room to grow.
• The dynamism of this market distinguishes it from traditional sports.
• The audience is high-value and global, and its numbers are rising.
• Brands can prosper in eSports by following the appropriate game plan.
• Game publishers approach their Esport ecosystems in different ways.  
• Successful esport games are comprised of the same basic ingredients.
• Digital streaming platforms are spearheading the popularity of eSports.
• Legacy media are investing into eSports, and seeing encouraging results.
• Traditional sports franchises have a clear opportunity to seize in eSports.
• Virtual and augmented reality firms also stand to benefit from eSports.  

In full, the report illuminates the business of eSports from four angles:

• The gaming nucleus of eSports, including an overview of popular esport genres and games; the influence of game publishers, and the spectrum of strategies they adopt toward their respective esport scenes; the role of eSports event producers and the tournaments they operate.
• The eSports audience profile, its size, global reach, and demographic, psychographic, and behavioral attributes; the underlying factors driving its growth; why they are an attractive target for brands and broadcasters; and the significant audience and commercial crossover with traditional sports.
• eSports media broadcasters, including digital avant-garde like Twitch and YouTube, newer digital entrants like Facebook and traditional media outlets like Turner’s TBS Network, ESPN, and Canal Plus; their strategies and successes in this space; and the virtual reality opportunity.
• eSports market economics, with a market sizing, growth forecasts, and regional analyses; an evaluation of the eSports spectacle and its revenue generators, some of which are idiosyncratic to this industry; strategic planning for brand marketers, with case studies; and an exploration of the infinite dynamism and immense potential of the eSports economy.

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• Prosecutors have accused a man of sending threatening and harassing messages on Instagram to relatives and friends of people killed in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
• Brandon Fleury, a resident of Santa Ana, California, said he sent the threatening messages for nearly three weeks using numerous Instagram accounts, according to court documents seen by INSIDER. The fake Instagram profiles Fleury is accused of creating for this purpose referenced Nikolas Cruz, the gunman charged with killing 17 people at the Parkland high school in February 2018.
• At least five accounts with usernames such as "nikolas.killed.your.sister,""the.douglas.shooter," and "nikolasthemurderer," were traced to Fleury's home after Instagram shared his IP address with law-enforcement officials.
• Multiple news outlets cited authorities who said Fleury did not show remorse for his actions and said he did not intend to act on the threats, which he described as "taunts."

Prosecutors have accused a man of sending threatening and harassing messages on Instagram to relatives and friends of people killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Brandon Fleury, a resident of Santa Ana, California, said he sent the threatening messages for nearly three weeks using numerous Instagram accounts, according to a criminal complaint filed in the US District Court of Southern Florida and seen by INSIDER.

"One post threatened to kidnap the message recipients, while others sought to harass the recipients by repeatedly taunting the relatives and friends of the [high school] victims, cheering the deaths of their loved ones and, among other things, asking them to cry," the affidavit said.

Following the search warrant on his home last week, Fleury said he created multiple Instagram profiles referencing Nikolas Cruz, who is accused of killing 17 people in the Parkland shooting.

At least five accounts with usernames such as "nikolas.killed.your.sister,""the.douglas.shooter," and "nikolasthemurderer," were traced to an IP address linked to Fleury's home during the course of a law-enforcement investigation.

Some of the messages contained emojis with applauding hands, a smiling face, and a handgun:

"I killed your loved ones hahaha"

"With the power of my AR-15, I erased their existence"

"I gave them no mercy"

"They had their whole lives ahead of them and I f-----g stole it from them"

"Did you like my Valentines gift? I killed your friends."

"Little [AS] will never play music again," one message said on New Year's Eve, in an apparent reference to the death of 14-year-old student Alex Schachter, who performed in the school's marching band and orchestra.

Fleury said in a statement that he posted the messages "in an attempt to taunt or 'troll' the victims and gain popularity," according to the FBI. Fleury also said he had a "fascination" with Cruz and other mass shooters, and specifically targeted the victims' family, who he said were "activists" with large followings on social media.

Multiple news outlets cited authorities who said Fleury did not show remorse for his actions.

Law-enforcement officials investigated similar threats made on Instagram last year. Two days after the Parkland shooting, a 15-year-old Florida teen was arrested on charges of threatening to kill people in the same school district. The teen at the time "appeared to be remorseful and claimed his post was a joke," according to the Broward Country Sheriff's Office.

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The consumerization of healthcare — a fundamental shift in patients’ preferences, behaviors, and demands around healthcare services — is threatening hospitals' bottom lines. For the first time, patients are transforming from passive recipients of healthcare services to active participants in their own health. They're flocking to online review sites to choose which doctor to see, skipping hospital visits in favor of a health clinic in their local CVS, and aren't afraid to ditch providers that don't offer them an engaging experience.

The superior customer service expectations of millennials, declines in hospital profitability, and threats from startup providers and retail pharmacies intensify the need for providers to revamp the patient experience. Providers' current engagement capabilities are weak, and deficiencies around scheduling, appointment wait times, and billing are dragging on patient satisfaction, driving patients elsewhere and draining provider revenue.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence explores the trends that are driving providers to revamp their care services. We then outline how patients' expectations for transparency, convenience, and access are transforming the way they interact with providers across each stage of care. Finally, we detail strategies health systems and hospitals can implement to create a consumer-centric patient experience that fosters satisfaction, loyalty, and patient volume. 

The companies mentioned in this report are: 98point6, BayCare, Cleveland Clinic, CVS, Integris, Kaiser Permanente, Luma Health, New York-Presbyterian, One Medical, Publix, Target, Walgreens, Walmart, Yelp, and Zocdoc.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

SEE ALSO: Top 5 Healthcare Startups & Digital Health Tech Disruptors in 2018

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• Former Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Steven Cantrell and his deputy, Master Chief Leilani Cale-Jones, delivered a sharp rebuke to Congress amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.
• "To our congressional and administration leadership, we say: We are so ashamed of you," Cantrell and Cale-Jones wrote.
• The government has shutdown for 33 days at the time of writing, and the Coast Guard, which operates under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, is poised to delay its service members' paycheck for the second time.
• Cantrell and Cale-Jones said the Coast Guard was being used as a "political football" and described the situation as an "absurdity in 2019."

The former top enlisted Coast Guardsman and his deputy delivered a sharp rebuke of Congress amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, which has delayed paychecks for thousands of Coast Guardsmen.

In an opinion column on Military.com, former Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Steven Cantrell and his deputy, Master Chief Leilani Cale-Jones, compared the congressional impasse to disappointed parents scolding their children.

"The most demoralizing thing a child can hear from their parents is 'I am so ashamed of you' when they do something stupid," Cantrell and Cale-Jones wrote.

"To our congressional and administration leadership, we say: We are so ashamed of you."

While the two chiefs praised local communities for the public's continued support of the unpaid men and women of the Coast Guard, they highlighted what they described as an "absurdity in 2019."

"We all have a bitter taste regarding the use of our pay as a political football to kick around by people who have an obligation to pay just debts and provide for the general welfare of the United States while they themselves are getting paid," their column continued.

"The Coast Guard workforce has every right to be bitter, but please don't let that bitterness take away from all the good that is being done all around the country by those who support and serve in the nation's oldest continuous seagoing service and keeping our service Semper Paratus."

"Semper Paratus," the Coast Guard's motto, is Latin for "always ready."

President Donald Trump, who is demanding $5.7 billion in funding for a barrier on the US-Mexico border, faces opposition from a Democratic-majority House, who have refused to pass any funding bill that includes spending on the barrier.

As a consequence, around 800,000 federal employees and contractors are affected by the longest government shutdown in US history. The Coast Guard, which operates under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, was reportedly not able to pay around 42,000 active-duty service members last week.

The delay marked the first time in recent history that a branch of the US military was not able to pay its service members.

Numerous food pantries for Coast Guardsmen and other federal agencies have reportedly opened since the shutdown. Unable to secure funding, the Coast Guard's newest recruits are also reportedly in limbo after their graduation.

"These patriots do not carry out the missions of the US Coast Guard protecting and defending our great country to get rich, but they have the right to expect to be paid as entitled and when due as anyone else would," Cantrell and Cale-Jones wrote.

Current Coast Guard officials made similar comments in recent days, including Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz. On Tuesday, Schultz called the ongoing partial government shutdown "unacceptable" and said he would "continue to seek solutions" on Capitol Hill.

"We're five-plus weeks into the anxiety and stress of this government lapse and your non-pay," Adm. Karl Schultz said in a video message to service members. "You, as members of the armed forces, should not be expected to shoulder this burden."

SEE ALSO: US Coast Guard leader rails against the government shutdown that's led some service members 'to rely on food pantries and donations'

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The smartphone is an essential part of our everyday lives.

But as with all technology, things change. So the question becomes: What will be the next smartphone?

Will it be the connected car? Or the smart speaker? What about the smartwatch?

Find out which device, if any, will take over the smartphone's role with this brand new slide deck from Business Insider Intelligence called The Next Smartphone.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Smartphones are the fastest adopted tech in the U.S.
• Whichever device becomes the next smartphone needs to go everywhere
• Consumer expectations around the smartphone are changing
• And much more

To get your copy of this FREE slide deck, simply click here.

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• President Donald Trump will not give his State of the Union address during the government shutdown, he announced on Twitter Wednesday night.
• This concession ends a weekslong scuffle between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who earlier on Wednesday denied Trump use of the House of Representatives chamber to deliver his speech.
• "I am not looking for an alternative venue for the SOTU Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber," he wrote. "I look forward to giving a 'great' State of the Union Address in the near future!"

President Donald Trump will not give his State of the Union address during the government shutdown, he announced on Twitter Wednesday night.

This concession ends a weekslong scuffle between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who earlier on Wednesday denied Trump use of the House of Representatives chamber to deliver his speech.

"As the Shutdown was going on, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address," Trump tweeted. "I agreed. She then changed her mind because of the Shutdown [sic], suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative - I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over [sic]."

"I am not looking for an alternative venue for the SOTU Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber," he continued. "I look forward to giving a 'great' State of the Union Address in the near future!"

Pelosi responded in a Tweet of her own.

"Mr. President, I hope by saying 'near future' you mean you will support the House-passed package to #EndTheShutdown that the Senate will vote on tomorrow," Pelosi wrote on Twitter. "Please accept this proposal so we can re-open government, repay our federal workers and then negotiate our differences."

On January 3, Pelosi invited Trump to deliver the State of the Union Address. However on January 16, she sent the president a letter asking him to postpone the address to the nation citing security concerns during the partial government shutdown.

Shortly after, Trump denied Pelosi use of a military plane for a trip to visit troops overseas, which was interpreted as retaliation to Pelosi's letter asking him to postpone his address.

The spat between Trump and Pelosi continued into this week. In a letter dated January 23, Trump responded saying that the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security had "no problem" with security.

"It would be so very sad for our Country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location!" the letter stated.

Pelosi, however, sent her own letter saying that the House "will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the President's State of the Union address in the House Chamber until the government has opened."

The backdrop to this tit for tat between the House Speaker and the President of the United States is a partial government shutdown — the longest in history — which on Wednesday was in its 33rd day. The crux of the shutdown is $5.7 billion in funds Trump's proposed wall along the US-Mexico border. Trump has said he will not sign a bill to fund the government until the wall is funded, and Democrats have pushed back saying they will not fund the wall.

There are currently two bills in the Senate aimed at opening the government — one from the Democrats, the other modeled after the president's proposed compromise — neither is expected to get the 60 votes needed to pass.

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NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'

• The government shutdown has effectively halted operations at the National Transportation Safety Board.
• The NTSB is tasked with investigating aviation and surface transportation accidents.
• According to NTSB documents obtained by Business Insider, 92% of the agency's employees have been furloughed.
• As result, 87 accidents have yet to be investigated.

As the government shutdown pushes past the one-month mark, it's taking a severe toll on the operations of the National Transportation Safety Board. As the independent organization tasked with investigating aviation and surface transportation accidents, the NTSB looks into everything from crashed Boeing airliners in Indonesia to burning Teslas is Los Angeles.

Since the government shutdown commenced late last month, nearly all NTSB staff members have been on furlough, which means the agency's operations have effectively ground to the halt.

Read more: Delta can't put its new Airbus jets into service because FAA inspectors have been sent home during the government shutdown.

In fact, when contacted an NTSB spokesman for comment, Business Insider received an automatic email response that stated:

"Thank you for your message. Due to the lapse in appropriations, I and the media relations staff have been furloughed. I am not checking or responding to email or voicemail during the shutdown. I will respond to your email after the shutdown has ended."

According to NTSB documents obtained by Business Insider, 92% of the NTSB's 397 staff members were put on furlough. A total of 26 employees - five board members and 21 staff — were exempt from the furlough and have been working without pay. 

As a result, the NTSB has yet to launch investigations of 87 accidents that occurred shortly before and during the shutdown.  These investigations include more than 20 fatal accidents, which resulted in more than 35 deaths.

Six investigators have been recalled for work. Four are working on the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 while two others are working on the failure of a Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engine on a Korean Air Airbus A220 airliner.  

The US federal government entered into a partial shutdown on December 22 when Democratic lawmakers refused President Donald Trump's demand that any spending bill include $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along US-Mexico border.

SEE ALSO: Airbus CEO reveals why the company will be protected during an economic downturn

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• Home sales in the Hamptons slumped for a fourth consecutive quarter as inventories swelled to their highest level in more than a decade, according to a report.
• A mismatch between residential-real-estate activity and the rest of the economy may be worsening the slowdown, said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, a real-estate-consulting company.
• Unfavorable conditions, such as volatile mortgage rates and the new federal tax law that capped housing-related deductions, are also pulling down sales, he said. 

Home sales in the Hamptons slumped for the entire year of 2018 as inventories swelled to their highest level in more than a decade, indicating the US housing market is falling deeper into a weak stretch. 

According to a new report published by the real-estate company Douglas Elliman, home sales in the Hamptons plunged 34.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter to 360 units, booking the fourth consecutive quarterly decline. As a result, inventories swelled by 81.9% to 2,197 units, the highest level since the firm began tracking the data in 2006. 

"Like the city, Hamptons sales fell year over year each quarter in 2018 as the market reset," Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, a New York-based real estate consulting company, told Markets Insider. 

A mismatch between residential-real-estate activity and the rest of the economy may be worsening the slowdown, according to Miller. The US economy is humming, with unemployment at multi-decade lows and average hourly earnings gaining at an unprecedented speed. Despite strong economic metrics, US home inventories are sitting at their highest level since 2011.

"Sellers remained anchored to the stronger market conditions of the past few years and their confusion over the disconnect between the housing market and the US economy," Miller said. 

He added that volatile mortgage rates are causing home buyers to have a wait-and-see attitude. In November, the average rate on a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage rose to 4.94%, the highest level in seven years. While the rate has declined a bit to 4.45% now, it's still above the 3.9% from a year ago. 

And the new federal tax law that capped housing-related deductions is also pulling down sales, according to Miller. In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which curbed mortgage-interest deductions and placed a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions. It essentially wiped out some provisions that were designed to encourage Americans to own homes.

It's not all bad, however, as the unfavorable market conditions haven't discouraged the super wealthy from buying homes in the Hamptons. According to the Douglas Elliman report, luxury Hamptons sales at or over $5 million reached their highest market share in three years as the average price jumped 14.6% YoY to $8,588,288. 

Gina Heeb contributed to the story.

Now read:

• America's housing market is raising a 'large red flag' for the economy

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The healthcare industry is facing disruption due to accelerating technological innovation and growing demand for improved delivery of healthcare and lower costs. Tech startups are leading the way by seizing opportunities in the areas of the industry that are most vulnerable to disruption, including genomics, pharmaceuticals, administration, clinical operations, and insurance.

Venture funds and businesses are taking notice of these startups' potential. In the US, digital health funding reached $1.6 billion in Q1 2018, according to Rock Health — the largest first quarter on record, surpassing the $1.4 billion in venture funding seen in Q1 2016. These high-potential startups provide a glimpse into the future of the healthcare space and demonstrate how we’ll get there.

In this report, a compilation of various notes, Business Insider Intelligence will look at the top startups disrupting US healthcare in four key areas: artificial intelligence (AI), digital therapeutics, health insurance, and genomics. Startups in this report were selected based on the funding they've received over the past year, notable investors, the products they offer, and leadership in their functional area.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Tech startups are entering the market by applying the “Silicon Valley” approach. They're targeting shortcomings and legacy systems that are no longer efficient.
• AI is being applied across five areas of healthcare to improve clinical operation workflows, cut costs, and foster preventative medicine. These areas include administration, big data analysis, clinical decision support, remote patient monitoring, and care provision.
  
• Health tech startups, insurers, and drug makers are rapidly exploring new ways to apply digital therapeutics to the broader healthcare market that replace or complement the existing treatment of a disease.
• Health insurance startups are taking advantage of the consumerization of healthcare to threaten the status quo of legacy players. 
• Genomics is becoming an increasingly common tool within the healthcare system as health organizations better understand how to extract the value from patients’ genetic data. 

 In full, the report:

• Details the areas of the US health industry that show the greatest potential for disruption.
• Forecasts the industry adoption of bleeding edge technology and how it will transform how healthcare organizations operate.
• Unveils the top five startups in AI, digital therapeutics, health insurance, and genomics, and how they're positioned to solve big issues that key players in healthcare face. 
• Explores what's next for the leading startups, providing a glimpse into the future of the healthcare space and demonstrating how we’ll get there.

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• Sen. Michael Bennet, a moderate Colorado Democrat, excoriated his Republican colleague Sen. Ted Cruz on the Senate floor on Thursday over Cruz's position on the government shutdown.
• Bennet accused Cruz, who forced a government shutdown in 2013, of shedding "crocodile tears" over the first responders who are going unpaid during the shutdown. 
• "I'm not gonna stand here and take it from somebody who shut the government down while my state was flooded," Bennet said, referring to the floods that devastated Colorado during the 2013 closure.

Sen. Michael Bennet, a moderate Colorado Democrat, excoriated Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on the Senate floor on Thursday over Cruz's position on the partial government shutdown.

In a 25-minute-long monologue, Bennet accused Cruz of shedding "crocodile tears" over first responders who are being denied paychecks after Cruz made a speech pressuring Democrats to vote for a bill that would pay the Coast Guard during the shutdown.

Democrats blocked the measure, saying the entire federal government should be reopened and all workers should be compensated.

Bennet singled out Cruz because the Texan led the movement to shut the government down in 2013 over his demand to defund Obamacare. At the time, Colorado had been devastated by floods and was temporarily cut off from federal emergency support. 

"These crocodile tears that the senator from Texas is crying for the first responders are too hard for me to take," Bennet said. "Because when the senator from Texas shut this government down, my state was flooded. It was underwater. People were killed. People's houses were destroyed. Their small businesses were ruined forever. And because of the senator from Texas, this government was shut down. For politics."

He added later, "I'm not gonna stand here and take it from somebody who shut the government down while my state was flooded." 

Bennet also attacked Cruz for voting against a major bipartisan immigration-reform bill that passed the Senate with 68 votes in 2013 and was ultimately killed by House Republicans. Cruz opposed the bill, which would have funded border fencing and appropriated $46 billion to border-security efforts. 

Bennet, who began his speech by commenting that he's not usually in the habit of making impassioned speeches and tries to work across the aisle, attacked the president's long-promised border wall. He called the idea "ludicrous ... creation of the president's mind" and unpopular among the majority of Americans. (According to a Washington Post survey published earlier this month, only 4 in 10 Americans want to build a wall.)

"This idea that he was gonna build a medieval wall across the southern border of Texas, take it from the farmers and ranchers that were there, and have Mexicans pay for it, isn't true," the Democrat said, throwing his hands up in the air.  

Bennet went on to say many of his Republican colleagues — particularly far-right lawmakers such as Cruz and the House Freedom Caucus — actually benefited politically from government dysfunction.

"If you think you have been sent here to dismantle the federal government ... as the Freedom Caucus does, in my view, then a 9% approval rating suits you just fine," Bennet said, "because you get to go home and say, 'see how terrible those guys are' ... while you're taking your pay, while the federal workers are not getting paid."

Cruz accused Bennet of "banging the table" rather than engaging with "facts" in remarks he gave after Bennet's speech. 

"The senator from Colorado spent a great deal of time yelling, spent a great deal of time attacking me personally,"Cruz said on the Senate floor. "I don't believe I have ever bellowed or yelled at one of my colleagues on the Senate floor, and I hope I never do that." 

As The Washington Post reported, Cruz once called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor. 

The Senate, which has largely stayed out of the headlines during the partial government shutdown while President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spar, voted on two measures to open the government on Thursday — both failed as expected.

The plan put forth by Democrats, which mirrored bills passed in the House, would open the government without $5.7 billion in border-wall funding. The Republican bill to reopen the government included funding for the wall and some immigration proposals (changes to asylum and temporary protected status, along with a program similar to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called "bad-faith" attempts at a compromise.

SEE ALSO: Republican Sen. Joni Ernst says her husband abused her and she was raped in college

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NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'

• Even with the wildly low expectations heading into its release, last week's China's December trade report was a horror show, Business Insider Australia's David Scutt wrote.
• Then on Monday, China announced its official GDP came in at 6.6% for 2018, the slowest pace of growth since 1990. This was music to the ears of US President Donald Trump who triumphantly tweeted that it made sense now for a battered China to make trade-war concessions.
• But compared to 30 years ago, this is a brand-new Chinese economy, under shiny new management.
• Winning a trade war with China is not as easy as tweeting about it.

Even with the wildly low expectations heading into its release, China's December trade report was a horror show.

With a US-China trade war in full effect, the value of China's exports and imports imploded by 7.6% and 4.4% respectively from a year earlier, well below market expectations.

"Underlining just how weak the result was, the year-ended percentage decline in both exports and imports was the largest since the second half of 2016, another period when concerns about the Chinese economy were acute," Business Insider Australia's David Scutt wrote.

Then on Monday, China announced its official GDP came in at 6.6% for 2018 — the slowest pace of growth since 1990.

US President Donald Trump took note. Perhaps with an eye to generating concessions out of the ongoing trade war. Trump said this week that it "makes so much sense for China to finally do a real deal," and stop — as he put it — "playing around."

But with the China hawks circling, The Economist encourages a closer look at the world's second-largest economy to better understand why Chinese President Xi Jinping and his economic management team are a good deal calmer than Trump is imagining.

Here are 7 sensible reasons that China is not about to fall over in the face of US tariffs, tweets, or a trade war.

1. It's a question of scale

With an economy now of gargantuan proportions, even at its weakest in 30 years, China’s slower growth last year still generated a record amount of new production. Nominal GDP increased by eight trillion yuan, according to The Economist.

The math is simple: China's economy has been growing in double digits for decades; that means its growth in the present day is coming off a much, much larger base than 2007, when it grew at 14.2% but generated around 3 trillion fewer yuan than 2018's derided 6.6%.

2. China is now a much more self-sustaining economy

A few years ago when China largely made things cheaply and sold them overseas cheaply, a trade war would have been devastating. And while US tariffs still smart, the fall in exports that Scutt called a horror show are less of a bloodbath now than ever before.

So while the trade surplus is slipping, domestic demand easily accounted for the half-percent loss. Domestic consumption, as promised, has been driving Chinese growth; in 2018, it accounted for three-quarters of the growth, the most since 2000, The Economist says.

3. Debt is no longer a secret word

China's financial system remains troubled, but it's a mess that is being openly discussed and not hidden in the shadows.

Xi Jinping's government is the first to try and resolve the debt that has risen dramatically in the decade since the Beijing Olympic games.

Debt-to-GDP levels are still rising, but deleveraging was never Xi's goal. That can wait and may be part of an eventual re-nationalization of certain industries. What Xi craves is stability.

The Economist reckons China's pace of debt accumulation has slowed sharply. "In 2015 it took more than four yuan of new credit to generate each yuan of incremental GDP. In 2018 that multiple fell to 2.5, in line with China’s average over the past 15 years."

4. Growth that is in for the long haul

China’s vice-president Wang Qishan has waved away the fears that decades of break-neck growth was always unsustainable, particularly in the face of a US trade war.

"There will be a lot of uncertainties in 2019, but one certainty is that China’s growth will continue and be sustainable,” Wang told the World Economic Forum in Davos, which leads us to China's ace-in-the-hole.

5. Growth that is stage-managed

When Wang says that the Chinese Communist Party will pull out all the stops to maintain the many years of growth China has enjoyed since the 1980s, he knows it's true. China's government and its economy are stage-managed by the same team. When the stock market moves in the wrong direction, the Party has never been too shy to get involved.

6. Actual tax cuts

This year, for example, the government says it will step up fiscal spending to buoy the economy. There is strength enough to deliver further tax cuts and assistance for small business, finance ministry officials told Reuters on Wednesday. 

Beijing delivered about 1.3 trillion yuan of cuts in taxes and fees in 2018.

7. Inspired consumption

Consumption in China looks less promising this year, according to The Economist.

"The middle three quintiles of China’s population by income distribution saw earnings increase by only about 2% last year in real terms. Those of the richest quintile rose by 6.6%." Car sales fell last year for the first time in more than two decades. Even mobile phones sales were"sluggish."

But while China brings in a slew of supportive economic policies (like tax breaks) and a stimulus forever on stand-by, the fact is rousing the Chinese consumer for a spree of patriotic spending can be done at the drop of a hat. Or in this case, the word of a president.

One need only look at Jack Ma's Singles Day to understand what can be done when the political and the economic align in today's China.

Trump would do well to consider the previous 30 years of unbroken Chinese growth before he goes into negotiate with a China he imagines has its back against a wall.

SEE ALSO: China's economy continues to slow

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NOW WATCH: The founder of the World Economic Forum shares what he sees as the biggest threat to the global economy

• Amazon Web Services announced a new open source project on Thursday called Neo-AI, which helps developers bring artificial intelligence to hardware like security systems or maybe even self-driving cars. 
• Amazon has historically had a reputation for using a lot of open source software, without giving much back. But Neo-AI could be a sign that it's ready to be a bigger part of the open source community.
• Neo-AI is Amazon Web Services' second-ever open source project, after Firecracker, which it launched last November.

Amazon Web Services has a certain reputation for taking a lot from the open source software community, without giving much back.

Now, the cloud giant taking another baby step away from that image by making some of its own artificial intelligence code available for anyone to use for free. It's only the second open source project out of Amazon Web Services, which is largely considered the number-one player in the cloud computing market.

Last November, Amazon Web Services announced a machine learning feature called SageMaker Neo that allows users to train and run artificial intelligence programs on Amazon's cloud. Now, AWS is making much of the SageMaker Neo code  available as open source under the name Neo-AI.

This new project will help developers to program hardware platforms — like home security systems, or even perhaps self-driving cars — to use machine learning models like TensorFlow, the mega-popular AI technology originated at Google. Since Neo-AI is available as open source, anyone can use, download or modify the code for free.

An olive branch from Amazon

Beyond the technology itself, Neo-AI could be an important effort from Amazon Web Services to mend bridges with the open source world.

In recent months, Amazon Web Services has come under fire for taking open source code and reselling it to customers as a paid service. Doing so is completely legal — open source software, by its nature, can be used for any purpose, even commercial use. But Amazon's reputation for not contributing back to open source projects has worked against it, as it's percieved as happy to profit from the software, but not to contribute to making it. 

Indeed, some studies have suggested that Amazon contributes very little code to open source projects compared to fellow tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Red Hat and IBM.

Neo-AI isn't the first wave in Amazon's open source charm offensive. Firecracker, announced in November, was taken by developers as a sign that AWS was finally ready to contribute significant projects to the open source world. With Neo-AI, Amazon is releasing even more of its internally-developed technology as open source.

Read more: As tensions with smaller software companies run high, Amazon is extending an olive branch with a new open-source project

Neo-AI helps make hardware smarter

Normally, developers may need to spend weeks or months manually adjusting the program so that it works on whatever hardware device they're using — different types of gadgets have different levels of computing power and even battery life, making for a lot of variables that need to be fine-tuned. 

Not only that, but the software on the device might also be a mismatch with the software the developer is using. Neo-AI eliminates these compatibility issues by converting these programs into a common format, and it also makes these programs run more efficiently on the hardware.

Neo-AI supports hardware platforms from Intel, NVIDIA, and ARM, and in the future will support Xilinx, Cadence, and Qualcomm.

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NOW WATCH: We compared Apple's $159 AirPods to Xiaomi's $30 AirDots and the winner was clear

Digital has transformed retail possibilities.

And with e-commerce sales growing at nearly five times the rate of brick-and-mortar sales, retailers need to find cheaper and more efficient ways to deliver e-commerce orders.

But different age groups have different preferences for which delivery and fulfilment options are most important to them.

Find out which delivery features are most important to consumers as well as what fulfillment options retailers should be using to meet consumer demands in this new FREE slide deck from Business Insider Intelligence’s three-part Future of Retail 2018 series.

In this first installment of the series, Business Insider Intelligence explores delivery and fulfillment, including consumers’ delivery preferences, the challenges those demands pose to retailers, and the strategies retailers can use to meet consumers’ expectations of fulfillment without tanking their profitability.

As an added bonus, you will also gain immediate access to our exclusive Business Insider Intelligence Daily newsletter.

To get your copy of the first part of this FREE slide deck, simply click here.

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• Microsoft employees spent much of Thursday ensnared in a massive reply-all email thread, according to social-media posts from employees.
• It started with a message sent to some 11,543 Microsoft employees registered to the company's GitHub account. 
• The episode is especially delightful for longtime Microsoft employees: This is evocative of 1997's legendary Bedlam DL3 incident, in which a similar reply-all apocalypse actually took down Microsoft's internal email servers for days.

It happens to the best of us.

On Thursday, Microsoft found itself swept up in a reply-all email apocalypse, with thousands of hapless employees caught in the unwanted thread and receiving frequent updates, including ones that were irksome and others that were absurd. In a video trying to help his colleagues break free, one Microsoft employee said the email had ensnared as many as 11,543 Microsofties.

Microsoft declined to comment.

It all started when an employee sent a message to everyone who helps manage Microsoft's GitHub account, we hear. Ironically, we hear that this original message was trying to tell everyone in the organization how to change their GitHub settings to get fewer notifications.

GitHub is the mega-popular code-sharing site for programmers, of which Microsoft was a major power user even before it acquired it last year for $7.5 billion. Given that Microsoft is the top corporate contributor to open-source projects on GitHub, it's no surprise that this message reached over 11,000 people. 

According to Twitter posts, it didn't take long before it turned into a full-fledged fiasco: Some people committed the cardinal sin of this situation and replied to everyone in the e-mail thread asking to be removed. Others cracked jokes to their captive audience, begged their colleagues to stop replying, or tried to offer useful advice to those stuck in the thread.

What's more, a quirk in the system meant that even employees who managed to unsubscribe kept getting resubscribed, according to reports. 

It was, apparently, chaos. 

The Bedlam connection

The whole incident appears to have been extra-funny to longtime Microsofties, as it evokes a legendary episode in the company's history.

Way back in 1997, Microsoft was still working the kinks out of Exchange, its ubiquitous corporate email server. For the purposes of testing, Microsoft created a mailing list with about 25,000 employees on it, called Bedlam DL3, with the name chosen for reasons that are lost to time.

An employee noticed that they were in the Bedlam DL3 group and sent a message to the list asking to be removed. 

That message went to all 25,000 people in the mailing group. It sparked plenty of responses — again, some people tried to help, while others cracked jokes. But the most common reply was a simple "Me too!" from people who wanted off the Bedlam DL3 list and off the thread. 

Factoring in all of those messages, not to mention the read receipts that many employees had enabled, and it actually brought Microsoft's email server to a standstill for two days while the IT department figured out how to fix it.

To this day, Bedlam DL3 is still a running joke among Microsoft employees — indeed, during Microsoft's newest reply-all apocalypse, several employees are said to have added their own "Me too!" to the thread. In fact, some are already calling it "Bedlam V2," or even "Gitlam."

On a final note: The best advice for how to make sure a similar situation doesn't happen to you is to simply not reply to everybody when you're copied on a mass email or another kind of message. You'll do everyone a favor. 

Just ... seriously, don't.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft's president says tech's bruising 2018 has left scars that will result in US federal regulation as early as this year

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NOW WATCH: I went on Beyoncé's 22-day diet — and I lost 15 pounds

• Digital trust is the confidence people have in a platform to protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content.
• Business Insider Intelligence surveyed over 1,300 global consumers to evaluate their perception of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
• Consumers’ Digital Trust rankings differ across security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance for the six major social networks.

If you feel like “fake news” and spammy social media feeds dominate your Internet experience, you’re not alone. Digital trust, the confidence people have in platforms to protect their information and provide a safe environment to create and engage with content, is in jeopardy.

In fact, in a new Business Insider Intelligence survey of more than 1,300 global consumers, over half (54%) said that fake news and scams were "extremely impactful” or “very impactful” on their decision to engage with ads and sponsored content.

For businesses, this distrust has financial ramifications. It’s no longer enough to craft a strong message; brands, marketers, and social platforms need to focus their energy on getting it to consumers in an environment where they are most receptive. When brands reach consumers on platforms that they trust, they enhance their credibility and increase the likelihood of receiving positive audience engagement.

The Digital Trust Report 2018, the latest Enterprise Edge Report from Business Insider Intelligence, compiles this exclusive survey data to analyze consumer perceptions of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

The survey breaks down consumers’ perceptions of social media across six pillars of trust: security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance. The results? LinkedIn ran away with it.

As the most trusted platform for the second year in a row – and an outlier in the overall survey results – LinkedIn took the top spot for nearly every pillar of trust — and there are a few reasons why:

• LinkedIn continues to benefit from the professional nature of its community — users on the platform tend to be well behaved and have less personal information at risk, which makes for a more trusting environment.
• LinkedIn users are likely more selective and mindful about engagement when interacting within their professional network, which may increase trust in its content.
• Content on LinkedIn is typically published by career-minded individuals and organizations seeking to promote professional interests, and is therefore seen as higher quality than other platforms’. This bodes well for advertisers and publishers to be viewed as forthright, honest, persuasive, and trustworthy.

Want to Learn More?

Enterprise Edge Reports are the very best research Business Insider Intelligence has to offer in terms of actionable recommendations and proprietary data, and they are only available to Enterprise clients.

The Digital Trust Report 2018 illustrates how social platforms have been on a roller coaster ride of data, user privacy, and brand safety scandals since our first installment of the report in 2017.

In full, the report analyzes key changes in rankings from 2017, identifies trends in millennials' behavior on social media, and highlights where these platforms (as well as advertisers) have opportunities to capture their attention.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Intel Thursday gave Apple watchers some insight into the latter's iPhone sales shortfall during the holidays.
• The chip maker announced that the revenue it saw from its cellular modems was $200 million less than expected.
• Apple is the major customer of Intel's modem chips.
• A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that Apple could have sold 11.8 million fewer iPhones than expected.

Intel may have just given us a better sense of how poor Apple's iPhone sales were over the holidays.

Apple may have sold as many as 11.8 million fewer smartphones than expected in the fourth quarter, based on back-of-the-envelope calculations. The calculations were derived from the shortfall Intel announced in its earnings report Thursday in its sales of modems, the communications chips smartphones use to connect to the cellular networks.

Intel saw "dramatically weakening modem demand" in the holiday period, Bob Swan, the company's interim CEO, said on a conference call with investors. The company's modem revenue, he continued, "fell significantly below our expectations due to weaker smartphone demand."

Read this: Intel's shares plunge 8% as it misses on revenue and earnings and warns trouble in China could mean more pain to come

The chip maker said it saw $200 million less in modem revenue than it expected in the quarter. Intel didn't blame Apple, but the iPhone maker is the major customer for Intel's communications chips (we asked Intel which other smartphone makers buy its modems, but have not received a response).  And Apple has already warned that its holiday iPhone sales were disappointing.

Apple pays $17 per modem for the Intel communications chips that go into the iPhone XS Max, research firm IHS Markit reported last year. Tech Insights estimated Apple pays about $23 for the modems.

$200 million buys a lot of modems

If you assume that the $200 million shortfall was all due entirely to Apple and that Intel charges around $17 a modem, the chip maker would have sold 11.8 million fewer communications chips to the iPhone maker than it expected, which likely works out to be about the same number of phones. If you use the $23 figure for modem costs, the shortfall is about 8.7 million units.

Either figure would represent a significant portion of Apple's quarterly iPhone sales. In the last four holiday quarters, Apple has sold between 74 million and 78 million smartphones. An 8.7 million shortfall would represent about 11% of typical holiday sales for the company. A 11.8 million shortfall would be about 16%.

Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors that Apple's holiday revenue would be about 7.6% lower than it had previously forecast, thanks in part weak iPhone sales, particularly in China.

Just how many iPhones Apple actually sold last quarter and just how far those sales fell short of expectations may never be exactly known. The company controversially announced in November that it would discontinue disclosing the number of devices it sells.

An Intel representative declined to confirm the price it charges for its modems or to name other customers who purchase them. Representatives for Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

• Read more about Apple:
• Here's why Apple's China situation is at 'code red,' and why it needs to take dramatic action to plug up a key weakness in the business
• Apple needs to get serious about video. Here are 3 Hollywood studios it could buy to boost its new streaming service.
• Hey Apple, what happens on iPhones doesn't stay there, and your 'clever' CES ad is promoting a dangerous illusion
• Longtime Apple analyst Gene Munster thinks the company should be valued less like a tech company and more like Coca-Cola. Here's why that could be good for shareholders.

SEE ALSO: Longtime Apple analyst Gene Munster thinks the iPhone maker will reclaim its crown as the best tech stock in 2019. Here's why.

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NOW WATCH: All smartphones look the same today for 2 key reasons

• IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says IBM will become the biggest player in a new cloud computing market that she says will be worth $1 trillion.
• That market is called hybrid computing — the term for the combination of data center and cloud computing infrastructure, which is appealing especially to the largest enterprises. 
• She says that the massive $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat will set IBM up for success.
• And she's absolutely right in that all signs point to this being the next big thing in the tech industry.

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says IBM will become the biggest player in a new cloud computing market that she says will be worth $1 trillion.

Or so Rometty told Maria Bartiromo on "Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria" in an interview from Davos, Switzerland.

The market is called hybrid cloud, and Rometty went so far as to call it "Chapter 2"— as in, the next chapter in the rise of cloud computing.

"That’s a $1 trillion market, 'Chapter 2.' We will be number one in what the world calls hybrid cloud. That is 'Chapter 2' and we’ll be number one," Rometty said.

Read: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella describes 2 new kinds of software that will change everything for businesses

Hybrid cloud computing is where companies use a combination of cloud computing and their own private data centers and want it all to work together. 

Rometty described public cloud — the market that Amazon Web Services dominates, with Microsoft Azure in second place — as "Chapter 1." She says that this market, where developers rent functionally unlimited supercomputing power from large-scale data centers, is the "low-hanging fruit." 

"I really believe for most enterprises, 'Chapter 1' was easy things that they moved [into the cloud]. Pretty low-hanging fruit, and if you size it, 20 percent is what’s moved to the cloud," she said.

"The other 80 [percent] now becomes not just more complex, it’s got a different complexion," she said. Customers are worried about their most important and sensitive data, she says, and want to keep everything on their own servers. 

Rometty could be right

Rometty may be right that the hybrid cloud will become the next trillion-dollar market for enterprises. Companies will spend $3.8 trillion on their tech in 2019, Gartner predicts, including their hardware, software, cloud and consulting services.

Companies like IBM, HP, Oracle, Red Hat and Microsoft who grew up selling hardware and/or software before the cloud computing era love that idea. Hybrid computing means that they can continue to sell hardware and software while also selling cloud services. It's the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario. 

She's also right that its going to be the next big thing. 

Even mighty Amazon Web Services, which had no traditional hardware or software business, has begun to go after hybrid computing. It has partnered with VMware to help it reach those companies who aren't ready to put everything into the cloud and unplug their data centers.

And in November, Amazon even announced its first-ever hardware device that companies can run in their own data centers to help them do hybrid computing. 

Rometty also explained that the pending $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, expected to close later this year, was done to help IBM capture this new trillion-dollar hybrid market, she said. Red Hat's software, especially its flagship Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system, is popular both in the data center and in clouds like Amazon's or Microsoft's. With Red Hat in its portfolio, IBM will have a foothold in both worlds, and can help customers bridge the divide.

A new vision for IBM

Whether Rometty paid too much or not for Red Hat is a matter of debate, but she couldn't afford to take the risk of IBM being shoved aside in the hybrid computing market.

"Chapter 1," to use Rometty's language, hurt traditional hardware and software companies like IBM. Some didn't survive as standalone companies at all, as seen in Dell's mega-acquisition of EMC. 

IBM has spent most of the last seven years watching its annual revenues shrink as its customers bought less software, hardware and consulting services for their own data centers, and opted to use clouds like AWS or Microsoft Azure.

Rometty became CEO in 2012, which means the company has basically been shrinking during entire her reign — although sometimes that reduction was deliberate as she's ditched underperforming business units while turning the venerable company towards new, growth markets instead.

Earlier this week, Rometty finally enjoyed a moment of triumph when the company reported it's first annual revenue growth since 2011.

But, deliberate or not, the shrinking IBM also means she's spent the last seven years talking about painful turnarounds, and reinvention, while also trying to evangelize a new vision for the company.

Her declaration about IBM's position in hybrid computing maybe prescient, or it may be bravado. After all, Microsoft is the acknowledged second-place player in cloud computing after Amazon, and its claim to fame is hybrid computing, too, not to mention the Office 365 cloud productivity suite. 

But with a year of growth finally under her belt, she's certainly earned a moment to plant her flag for what's come next.

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NOW WATCH: I went on Beyoncé's 22-day diet — and I lost 15 pounds

• A Venezuelan official has threatened to cut the power at the American embassy in Caracas as tensions between the two countries spike ahead of a looming January 26 showdown.
• On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump expressed support for opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who is being broadly recognized as Venezuela's interim leader in place of the increasingly isolated President Nicolás Maduro.
• Trump's announcement angered Maduro, who quickly tried to sever diplomatic ties, giving US officials until January 26 to leave the country.
• US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that his diplomatic team is not going anywhere since the US doesn't recognize Maduro's authority.
• Diosdado Cabello, a close Maduro ally, hit back by saying the electricity and gas will be cut off from the American embassy.
• The State Department on Thursday ordered some US government workers to leave Venezuela and said U.S. citizens should consider leaving the country, Reuters reports.
• “We are taking this action based on our current assessment of the security situation in Venezuela. We have no plans to close the embassy,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

A top Venezuelan official and close ally to Nicolás Maduro threatened to cut the electricity off the American embassy complex in Caracas as tensions between both countries escalate.

The threat is a direct response to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's decision to keep US diplomats on the ground in the face of Maduro's insistence that the US officials leave Venezuela within 72 hours. The order came after President Donald Trump expressed support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

Guaidó, president of Venezuela's National Assembly, was named interim president of the country on Wednesday, following days of protests against Maduro, who promptly rejected the proclamation and condemned the US.

“They say they don’t recognize Nicolas,” said Diosado Cabello, the official who threatened to cut power off, according to Bloomberg. “OK. Maybe the electricity will go out in that neighborhood, or the gas won’t arrive. If there are no diplomatic relations, no problems.”

The US Embassy occupies a 27-acre mountainside site in the Colinas de Valle Arriba area, overlooking Las Mercedes. It is a five-story complex comprising about 95,000 square-feet and, aside from occupying the high ground, the building's capacity to resist force is unclear.

Read more: Nicolás Maduro tells US diplomats to leave Venezuela within 72 hours after Trump recognizes opposition leader as interim president

It is also unclear what would happen if US staff have not evacuated by Maduro's deadline on January 26, but a test of wills is coming.

Any expulsion by force would likely trigger a reaction from the US and other nations which could range from tighter sanctions to, as Trump suggested on Wednesday, military options.

On Wednesday Pompeo raised the stakes, insisting his US staff wouldn't leave. Addressing the Venezuelan armed forces directly, Pompeo said the US expects the continued protection "welfare and well-being of all Venezuelan citizens, as well as U.S. and other foreign citizens in Venezuela."

"The United States will take appropriate actions to hold accountable anyone who endangers the safety and security of our mission and its personnel," he warned.

The State Department on Thursday ordered some US government workers to leave Venezuela and said US citizens should consider leaving the country, Reuters reported

“We are taking this action based on our current assessment of the security situation in Venezuela. We have no plans to close the embassy,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin — an ally and financial backer of Venezuela's government under Maduro — spoke to Maduro on Thursday and expressed his continued support. Russia's Prime Minister and former President Dmitry Medvedev also condemned the US for recognizing Guaidó.

"How would the American people respond, for example, to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives declaring herself the new president against the backdrop of the government shutdown? But when it happens somewhere else, this is viewed as common practice #Venezuela," Medvedev tweeted.

SEE ALSO: Venezuela’s uprising against Maduro may put Trump's musings about military intervention to the test

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NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'