Infinidat Archives - The Source

December 10, 2016December 9, 2016

Supplier Report: 12/10/2016

AWS continues to grow and gain customers. As their competition finds ways to differentiate themselves, Google opened their Deepmind training environment up to the masses and announced they will run their data-centers on 100% renewable energy by the end of 2017.

Speaking of data-centers… Verizon is selling theirs to Equinix for almost $4B to raise cash. Interesting number considering they are spending just over $4B on Yahoo (which I maintain they don’t need since they already own AOL).

President-elect Donald Trump announced the formation of an economic council and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty was the sole technology CEO in the group… good for IBM, bad for an economy that is driven by technological innovation.

Acquisitions

Equinix to Buy Some Verizon Data Centers for $3.6 Billion

Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam said at an investor conference Tuesday that Verizon didn’t have very much scale in data centers so it was better to sell them and put that money to better use. The carrier wants to “trim the branches of the tree so the tree can be stronger,” Mr. McAdam said.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/equinix-to-buy-some-verizon-data-centers-for-3-6-billion-1481034980
Oracle Corporation (ORCL) Aims To Benefit From NetSuite Inc (N) Acquisition

Derrick Wood, Cowen analyst highlighted that Oracle did not offer any financial commentary related to the acquisition and the news is likely to come along with earnings report later this month. “NetSuite will be organized as a separate Global Business Unit (GBU) within ORCL, with Jim McGeever being the President and COO of the unit reporting to Mark Hurd. ORCL confirmed its commitment and support for N’s products with plans for investment in sales and distribution, R&D, international expansion and verticalization,” commented Mr. Wood.

http://www.thecountrycaller.com/52336-oracle-corporation-orcl-aims-to-benefit-from-netsuite-inc-n-acquisition/
Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition approved by regulators, but there’s a catch

In order to receive the approval of those in Europe, Microsoft said that it is doing several things over the next 5 years to preserve competition: ensuring that LinkedIn competitors will still receive access to participate in Office Add-in and promotional opportunities in the Office Store, not entering into agreements with PC manufacturers to pre-install a Windows LinkedIn application or tile that would “favor LinkedIn on an exclusive basis,” and more.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/06/microsofts-linkedin-acquisition-approved-by-regulators-but-theres-a-catch/

Artificial Intelligence

Google DeepMind Makes AI Training Platform Publicly Available

DeepMind is putting the entire source code for its training environment — which it previously called Labyrinth and has now renamed as DeepMind Lab — on the open-source depository GitHub, the company said Monday. Anyone will be able to download the code and customize it to help train their own artificial intelligence systems. They will also be able to create new game levels for DeepMind Lab and upload these to GitHub.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-05/google-deepmind-makes-ai-training-platform-publicly-available
Zo is Microsoft’s latest AI chatbot
Microsoft is attempting to do another chatbot after the unfortunate racist hacking of Tay a few months ago…

And now, it seems like Microsoft is ready to introduce its next chatbot. Meet Zo — the software giant’s latest take on chatbots powered by artificial intelligence. The chatbot was spotted by Twitter user Tom Hounsell, and users can give it a try right now. At the moment, Zo is only available on Kik which is definitely an interesting platform to choose. Unlike Tay, Zo isn’t yet available on Twitter and that’s not really a surprise after what happened earlier this year. However, the app will likely come to Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat once it’s officially announced.

https://mspoweruser.com/zo-microsofts-latest-ai-chatbot/
IBM creates Watson-powered robot for eldercare assistance

IBM MERA combines Watson AI with a technology called CameraVitals, developed at Rice University, that calculates vital signs using recorded video of a person’s facial expressions. The MERA runs on the IBM Cloud and uses a Softbank Pepper robot interface to estimate an individual’s vital signs, including heart and breathing measurements in a non-invasive manner. It can view and respond if a person has fallen, alerting the caregiver that a patient may be in distress.

https://thestack.com/world/2016/12/09/ibm-creates-watson-powered-robot-for-eldercare-assistance/

Cloud

Google says it will hit 100% renewable energy by 2017

While it’s not quite there, Google says it will cross the 100% mark next year due to its commitments to purchase enough direct wind and solar-sourced power to match its annual consumption for the year. Google isn’t being solely charitable with this drive to adopt green power, either; it notes in a blog post that solar, wind and renewables as a general category is becoming the cheapest source of power around, meaning that as its data center operation costs grow with an increasing investment in cloud-based services, it makes the most fiscal sense for Google to continue to invest in creating new renewable sources to help meet its growing demand.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/06/google-says-it-will-hit-100-renewable-energy-by-2017/?ncid=rss
AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud – Best Prices and Discounts

The charge rate is influenced by a lot of factors such as storage, networking and computing power so users need to pay attention to those details before choosing a cloud service. The most important thing users need to pay attention to is discounts, because all providers offer up different discounts.

http://neurogadget.net/2016/12/04/aws-vs-azure-vs-google-cloud-best-prices-discounts/48329
AWS Launches Managed DDoS Protection

Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels announced Amazon Shield, new layers of protection designed against service interruptions like the cyber attack that took down top websites and affected some Amazon Web Services customers in October.

“This will really help you protect yourselves even against the largest and most sophisticated attacks we’ve seen,” he said on Thursday at AWS re:Invent, a conference in Las Vegas that drew 32,000 attendees.

http://mspmentor.net/cloud-computing/aws-launches-managed-ddos-protection
Can Oracle Really Beat AWS?

However, Oracle’s biggest risk is that despite its platform and software strength it might gradually become irrelevant with the new waves of open source software hitting the enterprise shores. A well-defined cloud strategy which would help it leverage its strengths can save it in the long run. I believe offering customers the chance to deploy containers on bare-metal is such a strategy. Why? Well, as I said, I believe containers will be used extensively in the cloud IaaS space going forward.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4028650-can-oracle-really-beat-aws
Netflix to Hand Over Infrastructure Management to Amazon Cloud Service

ZDNET reported Netflix CPO, Neil Hunt, gave a presentation at AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas yesterday, revealing that AWS will now manage the entire infrastructure of the world’s leading online TV network, particularly where it is not Netflix-specific. With this, the streaming titan’s development team can rather focus on providing features that can deliver “most compelling service” to its subscribers.

http://www.thecountrycaller.com/37901-netflix-to-hand-over-infrastructure-management-to-amazon-cloud-service/
Connectria Certifies Microsoft Azure Hosted HIPAA Compliance

“Connectria has supported customers in Azure for the past two years,” said Rich Waidmann, Connectria President and CEO of Connectria Hosting. “We’re excited to now enable customers to host HIPAA Compliant environments in Microsoft Azure. Our extensive background in HIPAA Compliance, combined with our close partnership with Microsoft, will help ensure that healthcare providers and healthcare software companies can meet their HIPAA requirements when they store electronic PHI in Microsoft’s Azure Cloud.”

http://hitinfrastructure.com/news/connectria-certifies-microsoft-azure-hosted-hipaa-compliance

Datacenter

Infinidat CEO Moshe Yanai on providing speedy, affordable, reliable storage

We think the trend in 2017 is the rise in “hyper storage”. That is ultra-high density, enterprise-class, software defined, flexible storage for the cloud and enterprise data centers.

One of the main characteristics of that will be that it will run on any hardware — it does not have to be proprietary, or hard wired into a particular model. People want to see a hardware stack that can adapt to any media type.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/storage-q-a-infinidat-ceo-moshe-yanai/
Dell posts $2B loss, but sees accelerating growth

Dell said legacy revenues were flat but that the addition of EMC increased total revenue by 28 percent. Officials cautioned that the consolidation with EMC and its operating companies makes year-over-year comparisons extremely difficult, adding that the discontinuity is likely to continue for several years. As a quasi-public company, Dell isn’t required to issue guidance on future revenues or profits.

Dell said it has already cut the $57.4 billion in debt it incurred at the time of the acquisition of EMC to $50.5 billion. The recent divestiture of its software, services and content management divisions added $7 billion to its cash hoard, enabling the company to accelerate the payment of its debt obligation and end the quarter with $15 billion in cash.

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/12/08/dell-posts-2b-loss-sees-accelerating-growth/

Software/SaaS

Slack and Google announce partnership focused on better integrating their services

One of the new integrations is a Google Drive Bot that will post comments and requests for access into Slack. Recipients can then approve or reject requests from Slack, or settle comments, or they can launch Google Docs to work with the files directly.

Slack will also allow users to preview Google Docs files in the app itself, and, when shared, Slack will check the permissions on the file. If you’re sharing with people who don’t have access currently, Slack will prompt you to update your sharing settings.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/07/slack-and-google-announce-partnership-focused-on-better-integrating-their-services/?ncid=rss
Microsoft’s Plans for LinkedIn Sound Awful
This article is a little dramatic… but it does provide a solid overview of potentially new features.

Tying a LinkedIn identity into Outlook and MS Office is more problematic. Let’s say I tie my LinkedIn ID to my Outlook account here at New York. Next week I am fired after fabricating several interviews and many key facts for my post “Why Google, Facebook, and Apple Are Merging Right Now at This Very Second.” When I eventually find a new job writing for one of the web’s fastest growing sites, PatriotNewsTruth.net, how will I disconnect my LinkedIn ID and my old Outlook account and connect it with my new one? Will an Outlook admin need to do it? Why did I link my LinkedIn profile to my Outlook account anyway, considering Outlook is widely only used by people at work, and LinkedIn is mainly a place to look for other jobs?

http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/12/holy-christ-microsofts-plans-for-linkedin-sound-awful.html

Other

There’s only one tech CEO on Trump’s economic advisory team

Rometty is an interesting choice for a lot of reasons. She’s not from the center of the tech universe, Silicon Valley. IBM is headquartered in New York. We don’t know if she knows Trump personally or not, but as a fellow New Yorker, its likely they’ve at least hobnobbed a time or two.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-only-tech-ceo-on-trumps-advisory-team-is-not-from-silicon-valley-2016-12
“Bullsh*t and spin”: Autonomy founder mocks HP’s $5B fraud suit against him

HP originally paid Lynch $730 million for his stake in Autonomy. Now its trying to recover that money and what it thinks it overpaid for the big data company. HP ended up having to write-down nearly $9 billion of the $11 billion buyout after Autonomy fell apart in its arms. Lynch is countersuing for $160 million, claiming the fraud suit ruined his reputation.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/05/fraudtonomy/?ncid=rss
Two top EMCers bail from Dell EMC

The two are Core Technologies Division President Guy Churchward and Emerging Technologies Division President CJ Desai.

Churchward was responsible for products spanning the bulk of EMC revenues; Avamar, Data Domain, Networker, RecoverPoint, Spanning, Unity, ViPR, VMAX, VNX, VPLEX, and XtremIO. Desai looked after Isilon and IsilonSD Edge, ECS, DSSD and ScaleIO.

This leaves Chad Sakac, rently promoted as President of Converged Platforms (Vblocks, VxRail, VxRack, XC Appliances) as the sole remaining Tucci-era product business line manager of consequence.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/07/two_senior_product_line_execs_leave_emc/
Nadella confirms Microsoft isn’t stepping away from Windows phones

What we are going to do is focus that effort on places where we have differentiation. If you take Windows Phone, where we are differentiated in Windows phone is it’s manageability, it’s security, it’s continuing capability that is the ability to have a phone that in fact can even act like a PC. So, we are going to double down on those points of differentiation. In fact, the HP X3, which came out recently, is perhaps a great example of a differentiated device built using the Windows phone platform and that sort of points for the direction. We will keep looking at different forms, different functions that we can bring to mobile devices, while also supporting our software across a variety of devices. So, that’s the approach you will see us take.

http://windowsreport.com/microsoft-windows-phone-future/
A look at the X3:

Photo: Matt Palmer

November 19, 2016November 19, 2016

Supplier Report: 11/19/2016

IT suppliers are looking to get more open. Microsoft not only joined Elon Musk’s OpenAI, they also join the Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation… remember when Ballmer called linux a cancer?

But even as Microsoft and Google promote their open technology, they are targeting SaaS as the main driver for future growth. While the infrastructure may be open, their SaaS offerings will be decidedly less so. Smaller companies like Slack are promoting a more connected world, but will Microsoft shut that business model down?

And who will be the big winner in this open world of closed ecosystems? Probably Amazon. They seem to be winning most of the hosting business (ala the $400M agreement with SalesForce).

Acquisitions

Samsung is buying Harman for $8B to further its connected car push

Terms of the deal will see Samsung pay $112.00 per share. That’s a healthy premium on Harman’s current share price of $87.65, and it gives the deal a total value of approximately $8 billion. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2017, at which time Harman will become a standalone subsidiary of Samsung. Dinesh Paliwal will continue to lead the firm as its Chairman, President and CEO, both Harman and Samsung said.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/13/samsung-harman/?ncid=rss
Verizon buys LQD WiFi to expand its IoT strategy into “smart cities”

Verizon today has made another acquisition to build out its IoT business: the carrier has purchased LQD WiFi, a developer of outdoor interactive displays that provide WiFi connectivity along with news, emergency alerts and community information. They also act as sensors collecting crowd, weather and other data.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/14/verizon-buys-lqd-wifi-to-expand-its-iot-strategy-into-smart-cities/?ncid=rss
Ex-Autonomy CFO Indicted For Alleged Fraud In H.P. Acquisition

A federal grand jury in San Francisco has indicted the former chief financial officer of a British software maker on charges he engaged in fraud to artificially increase the company’s share price and make it attractive to Hewlett-Packard.

The grand jury indicted former Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain on Thursday on wire fraud and conspiracy charges.

Hussain’s attorney, John Keker, said his client defrauded no one and acted at all times with the highest standards of honesty and competence.

http://fortune.com/2016/11/11/hp-autonomy-fraud/
I honestly did not expect anything like this to happen.
Is Netflix Disney’s next big buy and is Reed Hastings its next CEO?

And, despite its rosy Q3 numbers, Netflix ultimately needs a buyer. As I recently wrote, Netflix faces fundamental long-term existential business challenges of its own. Its singular content-focused subscription-based business model can’t compete with the complex multi-faceted, multi revenue-streamed business models of AT&T, Amazon, YouTube (Google), Verizon, Apple and Amazon.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/13/is-netflix-disneys-next-big-buy-and-is-reed-hastings-its-next-ceo/?ncid=rss
HPE Eyeing Purchase of SimpliVity (HPE)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE), is rumored to have its eye on leading hyperconvergence infrastructure (HCI) vendor SimpliVity. The Westborough, Mass.-based niche market leader is estimated to go for $3.8 billion to $3.9 billion, reports the Register. The rumored price stands at quadruple the company’s valuation in its latest series of funding in March 2015.

http://www.cnmeonline.com/news/dell-emc-unveils-new-additions-to-its-all-flash-portfolio/
AOL lays off 500 employees as Verizon-Yahoo acquisition looms

The cuts, which Armstrong said would consolidate recent AOL acquisitions, presage the type of staffing changes that could affect Yahoo in early 2017 as Verizon closes its $4.8 billion acquisition of the Silicon Valley icon.

https://news.fastcompany.com/aol-lays-off-500-employees-as-verizon-yahoo-acquisition-looms-4025323

Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft teams up with Elon Musk’s OpenAI project (thanks JD!)

OpenAI will also make Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform, in part because of its existing support for AI workloads with the help of Azure Batch and Azure Machine Learning, as well as Microsoft’s work on its recently rebranded Cognitive Toolkit. Microsoft also offers developers access to a high-powered GPU-centric virtual machine for these kind of machine learning workloads. These N-Series machines are still in beta, but OpenAI has been an early adopter of them and Microsoft says they will become generally available in December.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/microsoft-teams-up-with-elon-musks-openai-project/
MIT students and others teaching IBM Watson about cybersecurity

Several universities involved with that project began having students train the system within the past several weeks, explained IBM Watson’s Jeb Linton, chief security architect.

“We’re ramping up from the phase where we have a little over 30 people selecting documents and annotating documents, to the phase where we’re… a much larger group by bringing in these college students,” Linton explained.

“It’s very much an interactive process. You put the machine-learning process into Watson and see what you get from it. I wouldn’t say anything has really surprised us so far,” Linton said. “We added in a level of complexity a few months ago that was a little less than optimal, and we trimmed some of that complexity back out.”

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/mit-students-and-others-to-teach-ibm-watson-about-cybersecurity/
IBM’s Watson would do a better job at being a bank teller than most current staff

Watson can take all of a bank’s rules and regulations and data about customer’s requirements and behaviours and provide an intelligent interface for customers to get things done with the confidence that Watson understood what the customer wanted and also understood what the bank could provide to satisfy those requirements.

Not surprisingly however, banks worldwide are not investing in innovations like cognitive computing. Innovation is often lumped in the general IT budget and often forms a tiny part of that spend. By viewing it in the same category as buying computers or complying with regulatory requirements, the overall value and benefit is much harder to see.

http://theconversation.com/ibms-watson-would-do-a-better-job-at-being-a-bank-teller-than-most-current-staff-68725

Cloud

Microsoft, Amazon turn to wind energy to power cloud data centers

Microsoft is also pushing for more renewable energy sources. Referring to the new agreement, Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said “these agreements represent progress toward our goal of improving the energy mix at our data centers.”

http://www.ciodive.com/news/microsoft-amazon-turn-to-wind-energy-to-power-cloud-data-centers/430405/
Microsoft now runs one data center entirely on wind power

Microsoft has a stated goal of using 50 percent renewable energy in its data centers across the U.S. by 2018, and it just took a big step forward in that plan, purchasing additional 237 megawatts of wind energy capacity.

In the process, this helps allow its Cheyenne, Wyoming, data center run entirely on wind power and brings the company’s total wind capacity to 500 megawatts across the U.S.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/3142785/data-center/microsoft-now-runs-one-data-center-entirely-on-wind-power.html
Google’s cloud GPU undercuts, outperforms AWS, Microsoft

Google’s plan to stand apart from the competition is to be more granular. Amazon’s machine-learning-oriented GPU instances are rented by the hour and come in a discrete instance type. Google, however, is planning to allow users to “attach up to 8 GPU dies to any non-shared-core machine,” regardless of instance type.

Even more critical, Google’s GPU pricing will follow its existing model: by the minute, same as Google’s VMs. This isn’t about consistency alone; it also reflects how GPU-powered machine learning is actually used. If a machine learning application employs only GPUs for training, it makes sense to be able to toggle off the GPU when it’s not needed instead of changing instance types.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3142028/cloud-computing/googles-cloud-gpu-undercuts-outperforms-aws-microsoft.html

Datacenter

Dell EMC unveils new additions to its all-flash portfolio

The deployment of the new Data Domain Cloud Tier software within Data Domain, according to Dell EMC, increases the total volume of data that can be managed through a single appliance by 200 percent, with a maximum logical capacity of 150PB. Data Domain Cloud Tier establishes Data Domain as the only protection storage to natively tier de-duplicated data to public, private, or hybrid clouds for long-term retention, including Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage and Virtustream Storage Cloud.

http://www.cnmeonline.com/news/dell-emc-unveils-new-additions-to-its-all-flash-portfolio/
NetApp tops 2Q profit forecasts

On a per-share basis, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said it had net income of 38 cents. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 60 cents per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 54 cents per share.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/netapp-tops-2q-profit-forecasts-211649286.html
Infinidat’s energy efficient offerings

Below is an Infographic that takes a bottoms up look at INFINIDAT’s InfiniBox and how its underlying technology drives more efficiency than any other array on the market today. InfiniBox keeps your data center footprint from sprawling out of control and keeps your power costs low by taking only 2kW/TB to operate.

http://www.infinidat.com/blog/infinibox-energy-efficient-storage/

Software/SaaS

In five years, SaaS will be the cloud that matters

Over time, more “infrastructure” services will become software services. Because once it’s SaaS, the boundaries between infrastructure, platform, and software don’t matter to the IT customer—it’s merely a service. That’s a mental shift from IT’s on-premises view, where the boundaries matter in how IT delivers the ultimate service. Those boundaries will still exist for the provider, but won’t be IT’s concern.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3142407/iaas/in-five-years-saas-will-be-the-cloud-that-matters.html
Why the next great SaaS company will look nothing like Salesforce

Conversely, once a startup’s product is being used every day like Slack, it may start keeping more information within it and over time wean people off whatever they were using before (Outlook, Sharepoint, etc).

The game-changer could well be artificial intelligence: if AI software could extract signal from the unstructured product feedback in Intercom or the sales forecasting information in Clari, the data in those systems could become more valuable than the limited fields captured in today’s systems of record.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/13/why-the-next-great-saas-company-will-look-nothing-like-salesforce/
Is Google crashing the Microsoft open source party?

So Microsoft’s move is a giant retraction of that sentiment, one which it has been trying to undo for the past couple of years with various announcements regarding a more open approach to Linux and the open source community.

Unlike Microsoft, Google has already established itself as having a pedigree in open source and so its joining of the .NET Foundation isn’t a huge surprise.

Google is already an active contributor and joining the Technical Steering Group just expands its participation.

The Alphabet subsidiary has already begun labeling itself as the ‘Open Cloud’ and Microsoft has revealed that it needs to be a bit more willing to work with the open source community because of its growing popularity.

http://www.cbronline.com/news/enterprise-it/software/google-crashing-microsoft-open-source-party/

Other

Salesforce’s Benioff thinks Microsoft is up to its old tricks again

“The message was ‘Why don’t you meet with Scott Guthrie? He runs Azure and would really like to walk you through the details of your business because maybe we could get Salesforce to run on Azure’… and I’m like OK, and it was clear also that he was someone not in our business, he was running Azure.”

Benioff notes a few weeks later Guthrie was suddenly promoted to also run Microsoft’s CRM business, which is a direct competitor to Salesforce and not long after Salesforce was disinvited from a Microsoft customer event without prior notice.

https://mspoweruser.com/salesforces-benioff-thinks-microsoft-is-up-to-its-old-tricks-again/
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is done cozying up to Microsoft — now he’s BFFs with Amazon

Instead, Benioff has turned to Amazon this year, striking a number of major deals. In May, Salesforce announced a $400 million deal to use AWS, while Amazon rolled out Salesforce’s software company-wide. Salesforce said Amazon added even more Salesforce services this quarter, during the call with investors.

http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-stops-cozying-up-to-microsoft-befriends-amazon-2016-11
You Can Thank Twitter For Trump, According To Salesforce CEO

I think it’s a great company, I think it’s a great CEO. I think it has a huge vision and has a unique position in the world. As evidenced by this election, I think it’s more important than ever… Without Twitter, I don’t think you would have President-elect Trump. I mean, that’s reality. He said it very well. He said, “I have a beautiful Twitter account.”

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/11/you-can-thank-twitter-for-trump-according-to-salesforce-ceo/
Hewlett Packard Enterprise to outsource global IT team to CSC borg

“To ensure that all three companies are successful going forward, HPE intends to partner with ES/CSC to receive IT services through an IT Services Agreement that includes IT infrastructure and application development/support. This will result in a majority of our IT family moving to ES/CSC, which will become a leading provider of independent IT services in the world,” Spradley and Nefkens stated in the memo.

The HPE contract is in addition to outsourced service provision for HP Inc, and Micro Focus, which by next summer will be the new home of HPE’s Software business.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/16/hpe_to_outsource_global_it_team_to_csc_borg/
I believe this is called “eating your own dogfood”

Photo: Álvaro Serrano

May 14, 2016May 14, 2016

Supplier Report: 5/14/2016

This week IBM continues to tout the multi-function applications of Watson in medical, cybersecurity, and international areas, while their dance partner Apple woos SAP (who also has a relationship with IBM)… so three way dance?

VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger isn’t going anywhere if you were wondering, but many outlets did report he was on his way out. But Oracle is definitely (maybe) out as the database of choice at Salesforce who is rumored to be favoring an open source platform.

HP Inc announced a venture funding unit. While sister company HPE’s CEO Meg Whitman once famously stated “we can’t buy all the start-ups”, HP Inc is trying to get a piece of the action.

IBM

IBM’s Watson is going to cybersecurity school

Now IBM aims to accelerate the training process. This fall, it will begin working with students at universities including California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, Penn State, MIT, New York University and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County along with Canada’s universities of New Brunswick, Ottawa and Waterloo.

Over the course of a year, the program aims to feed up to 15,000 new documents into Watson every month, including threat intelligence reports, cybercrime strategies, threat databases and materials from IBM’s own X-Force research library. X-Force represents 20 years of security research, including details on 8 million spam and phishing attacks and more than 100,000 documented vulnerabilities.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3067961/security/ibms-watson-is-going-to-cybersecurity-school.html
IBM’s Watson aims to make hospital stays suck a whole lot less

Using feedback from parents and patients, Watson will help the hospital identify anxieties and provide on-demand reassurance and a more-personalized service to young patients, as well as reminding parents about follow-up appointments and aftercare. IBM envisions a variety of other potential applications including matching patients to clinical studies, monitoring admission patterns to help with bed planning and helping manage chronic illnesses through educational applications.

http://www.cnet.com/news/ibms-watson-aims-to-make-being-in-hospital-suck-a-whole-lot-less/
IBM Cloud signs new enterprise deals

IBM announced that Kimberly-Clark, maker of Kleenex and Huggies, has adopted IBM Cloud and IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) Platform to create intelligent facilities management app that helps clients better monitor and manage restrooms remotely, lowering costs and improving consumer experiences.

Utilizing IBM Watson IoT Platform, facilities managers collect data and alerts from sensors integrated into restroom amenities, from soap dispensers to air fresheners, as well as non-amenities like entrance doors.

http://www.infotechlead.com/cloud/ibm-cloud-signs-new-enterprise-deals-39844
Why IBM Is Excited About the ‘Special Partnership’ Between Apple, SAP

Now that Apple has teamed up with SAP too, IBM’s consulting teams can work on an even broader range of mobile apps that link more closely to SAP’s widely used array of back-office systems, van Kralingen said.

She describes these relationships as more “strategically intense and more open” than previous alliances, and suggests we brace for more.

http://fortune.com/2016/05/06/why-ibm-is-excited-about-the-special-partnership-between-apple-sap/
IBM’s AI ‘Watson’ set to launch Korean version

“Watson is already learning Korean through TV programs, movies and newspapers,” an IBM employee said. “We will be available to move up the process with the help of SK C&C.”

IBM and SK C&C will develop a Korean application program interface (API) that will allow Watson to change natural language, data search, conversation and documents into Korean.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2016/05/325_204396.html
Groupon is calling IBM patent trolls

The lawsuit concerns IBM’s WebSphere Commerce platform, which Groupon said lets merchants send messages to customers with GPS-enabled devices based on their real-time locations and their use of social media.

Groupon said the platform infringes a December 2010 patent, and argued it deserves royalties based on the “billions of dollars” of revenue that IBM has received through its infringement.

“IBM, a relic of once-great 20th Century technology firms, has now resorted to usurping the intellectual property of companies born this millennium,” Groupon said in its lawsuit.

http://www.itnews.com.au/news/groupon-sues-ibm-over-alleged-patent-infringement-419300

Microsoft

Microsoft Acquires IoT Company Solair To Power Azure IoT Suite

Microsoft Corporation has acquired Solair, an Italian company specialized in Internet of Things (IoT) services for the enterprise in a number of industries, including manufacturing, retail, food, and transportation. Solair’s IoT customization and deployment solutions, built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, are engineered to help businesses in any industry utilize IoT to run more efficiently and profitably.

http://amigobulls.com/articles/microsoft-acquires-iot-company-solair-to-power-azure-iot-suite
Microsoft’s All-Time Revenue Just Topped $1 Trillion

“You might expect a company to announce a milestone like this and bask in this incredible accomplishment — but not Microsoft. It chose to stay silent as it faces increased public scrutiny for holding $108.3 billion in earnings offshore (an incredible 41% of its all time profit) and its history of tax dodging at home in Washington State.”

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/05/microsoft-struts-into-the-1-trillion-club/
Microsoft is way behind in mobile, and here’s how it’s catching up

But in mobile computing, the struggle is real, and Microsoft is an afterthought. Windows commands just 4 percent market share, way behind Google’s Android at 62 percent and Apple’s (AAPL) iOS at 28 percent, according to Net Market Share. Microsoft has grown its share slightly from 2.6 percent at the end of 2015.

Improving Microsoft’s image as a serious mobile player won’t be easy. In July, just over a year after acquiring Nokia’s handset business for $7.2 billion, marking a head-first dive head into mobile phones, Microsoft wrote off the entire purchase and announced 7,800 layoffs, mostly in the phone division.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstories/microsoft-is-way-behind-in-mobile-and-heres-how-its-catching-up/ar-BBsIXrj

Storage [EMC | Dell | Infinidat | NetApp]

INFINIDAT Reports 213% Year Over Year Sales Growth in Q1 2016

“Our quarterly sales growth continues at a triple-digit pace and is a direct result of our expansion across sales channels and around the globe,” said Moshe Yanai, INFINIDAT Founder and CEO. “This growth also includes repeat sales from our existing customer base, proving our ability to deliver on the promise of a high performance, scalable and reliable storage solution. With the InfiniBox storage array, companies are finding that they can reduce their total cost of ownership and better utilize their most important asset — their information — for a greater competitive advantage.”

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160510006068/en/INFINIDAT-Reports-213-Year-Year-Sales-Growth
Dell Technologies must trim fat on ‘obese’ channel – analyst

“Joe [Tucci, EMC’s CEO] has been very committed to the idea of a federation, whereas Michael was very careful not to mention a federation, but to talk about a ‘family’,” he said.

“So there is a bit of an issue there. I have never liked the idea of a federation. By making it a ‘family’ there is a risk of problems in bringing them all together. Each division has its own CEO and they will have to work more closely together than they ever had in the past. There was one remarkable absence at EMC World – Pat Gelsinger [VMware’s CEO]. A lot of the other [EMC Federation CEOs] were not there, but VMware is the cash engine for funding this deal. For Pat not to be there was a little telling.”

http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2457406/dell-technologies-must-trim-fat-on-obese-channel-analyst
The CEO of $25 billion VMware denies a report that he’s stepping down amid a huge leadership brain drain

“I categorically deny it. EMC categorically denies it. And Dell categorically denies it. So there’s absolutely no merit or substance to the rumor whatsoever. And my intention is to stay here and Michael’s intention is to stay here, as well,” Gelsinger said, referring to Dell CEO Michael Dell, at the Jefferies Technology Conference held Wednesday.

Also:

Gelsinger’s remarks clear a lot of air around his job, which has long been rumored to be next in line to be canned, following a series of leadership departures at VMware. Just over the past few months, the company’s COO, CTO, and CFO have all left, in addition to a bunch of VP-level star executives. With Dell soon expected to merge with EMC, which owns 81% of VMware, it seemed only reasonable that the company’s entire management would get overhauled.

http://www.businessinsider.com/vmware-ceo-pat-gelsinger-denies-rumors-of-him-stepping-down-2016-5

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

HP rolls out a new corporate venture unit

In a brief meeting at Disrupt NY yesterday, Bolwell gave us a few details about HP Tech Ventures’ plans. The idea is to focus primarily on seed and Series A deals that serve HP Inc. strategically. The team will focus on five areas, including: 3D printing and the broader ecosystem that supports it; immersive experiences, including both augmented reality and virtual reality; smart machines, including home and commercial robots; and the Internet of Things.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/10/hp-rolls-out-a-new-corporate-venture-unit/
Note: This connects to Episode 22 of the Podcast, and Whiteman’s comments about not being able to buy up all the start-ups.
The OpenText – HP Deal: You’re Asking the Wrong Question

It’s too early to answer all the questions we may have about the acquisition. For example, we don’t know TeamSite’s positioning against OpenText Web Experience Management (a.k.a. Vignette) and OpenText Web Site Management (a.k.a. RedDot). We will be finding that out in the coming weeks though.

My goal here wasn’t to tell HP customers that this acquisition will put them in an ideal position. The goal was to compare the real life alternatives and determine whether this acquisition was a step in the right direction.

Judging from what we know about OpenText today, I’d argue it was.

http://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/the-opentext-hp-deal-youre-asking-the-wrong-question/
HP Inc’s five pillar vision
Uh… I only count 4.
http://www.dqindia.com/hp-incs-five-pillar-vision/
Assessing HP Inc. After The Split

HPQ now faces hard times, with bad macro circumstances, overall marginality and revenues decrease. Right now, the company plans to reduce its costs by making significant job cuts in order to show somewhat bottom line growth. However, such measures are not about long-term strategy. If revenues of major segments continue to decrease, then the company would need something to change the way we see it today. This can be done by bringing in something new (distinguishing product item, or even product line). Otherwise, there’s a cause for concern.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3973627-assessing-hp-inc-split

Oracle

More information on the Google/Oracle Java lawsuit

At issue is Google’s use of 37 so-called application program interfaces, or APIs, from Java in its Android mobile operating system. APIs are snippets of code that enable an app, website or program to work with other bits of software.

When building Android, Google used Java APIs because programmers were familiar with the programming language, and many programs used it. Oracle says Google should have licensed the APIs from Java’s creator, Sun Microsystems Inc., which Oracle later acquired. Google says it acted under a doctrine allowing “fair use” of small amounts of copyright material.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-and-google-head-back-to-court-1462616948
Why Salesforce.com, Inc.’s Plan to Ditch Oracle Corporation is Brilliant

Another advantage of PostgreSQL is a more seamless ability to distribute the technology across data centers than ORCL. This is increasingly important since the European Union is forcing U.S. companies to keep customer data in the country where that data was collected. CRM understands timely compliance with these standards could mean more business with European customers.

That’d be real nice for CRM. In its last three fiscal years, revenue from Europe has remained stagnant as a percentage of revenue, languishing between 17% and 18% of total sales.

But perhaps the most visible reason for Salesforce to make the shift from ORCL is the fact that the two companies are direct competitors, with Oracle aggressively branching out into the same sort of sales pipeline software offerings that made CRM famous.

http://investorplace.com/2016/05/salesforce-crm-oracle-orcl/
Also:
Salesforce, inc. (CRM) AWS Deal Might Turn Out Into A Kind Of Merger Deal
For those expecting Oracle to buy Salesforce… maybe not:

He further mentioned that over this year, we could further expect other part of Salesforce’s infrastructure to be moved to AWS too. He stated that the IoT cloud would utilize Amazon’s Aurora database, and it is the perfect fit for IoT. The reason he mentioned was that this database has the flexibility of AWS’ offering, which has the ability to scale up and down according to the uncontrolled exponential growth.

He expects that in the future, Salesforce might also shift its data centers towards certain geographies to AWS. This would be a win-win situation for both, would mean cost savings for the former while would be a marquee win for the latter.

http://www.thecountrycaller.com/32328-salesforce-inc-nyse-crm-aws-deal-might-turn-out-into-a-kind-of-merger-deal-piper-jaffray/

Other

Top 2016 Cybersecurity Reports Out From AT&T, Cisco, Dell, Google, IBM, McAfee, Symantec And Verizon

The IBM Security division produces their annual X-Force Cyber Security Intelligence Index Report based on operational data collected from thousands of devices monitored in over 100 countries. The report looks at the global cyber threatscape and which industries face the greatest risk. The 2016 report provides many valuable insights — including the fact that 60% of all attacks suffered by IBM customers were carried out by ‘insiders’.

Takeaway: The healthcare industry was the one most frequently attacked, speeding straight past financial services and manufacturing

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemorgan/2016/05/09/top-2016-cybersecurity-reports-out-from-att-cisco-dell-google-ibm-mcafee-symantec-and-verizon/#25c0dbdd3edb
For the First Time, India’s Very Own Operating System Indus Beats Apple, Microsoft
What exact defines “beats”

According to data from Counterpoint Research with ET, Indus OS had a 5.6% share of the total smartphone market during January-March. This is more than double of Apple’s iOS which was at no. 5 with 2.5% share.

http://daily.bhaskar.com/news-tsf/TOP-operating-system-indus-more-popular-than-apple-microsoft-in-india-5319066-NOR.html
Salesforce just bought a startup for ‘tens of millions’ of dollars, adding to its buying spree

According to Dow Jones Business News, Salesforce just acquired a data-automation startup called Implisit Insights for “tens of millions” of dollars, citing people familiar with the matter. Implisit, based in Israel, has raised $3.3 million in funding so far, according to CrunchBase.

Implisit Insights is a software maker that helps sales people make faster and better decisions based on the data stored in its customer database. It could predict the best possible deals and identify those most at risk of losing, while providing recommended actions to improve the sales process, according to its website.

http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-buys-implisit-insights-2016-5
Google Has Raked In $21 Billion In Android Profit, Oracle Says

Google has earned $21 billion in profit from more than 3 billion activations of Android-based smartphones, Oracle‘s (ORCL) lawyer said in opening arguments in the second trial pitting the database maker against the Internet search giant.

http://www.investors.com/news/technology/google-has-raked-in-21b-in-android-profit-says-oracle/
Will Teradata Reverse Its Fortune with New CEO?

Teradata aims to transform itself by means of a new CEO, the sale of its TMA business, and increased strategic initiatives in the cloud and IoT space. For the time being, the market is viewing the company’s fiscal 1Q16 results and Victor Lund’s appointment as new CEO positively.

http://marketrealist.com/2016/05/will-teradata-reverse-fortune-new-ceo/

April 30, 2016April 29, 2016

Supplier Report: 4/30/2016

In supplier news, the press likes to make groupings of four (like Gartner’s magic quadrants). This week, the press calls EMC, IBM, Oracle, and HPE the 4 horsemen of the legacy IT apocalypse (clever title, but the article fails to make any new observations). We also learn who the 4 major players are in the cloud space (there should be absolutely no surprises to readers of this blog)

When we look past these blocks of 4, we learn about blockchains, using DNA as a storage vehicle, and why healthcare is a major target for cybercrime.

IBM

Big Blue’s big blockchain bet

So Friday’s announcement is that IBM has chosen “the good builds,” run a battery of tests, certified that the framework is secure, and is now widely distributing its version of the code to developers.

The company also announced Friday that it was graduating its own cloud-based blockchain services from experimental to beta. In other words, IBM is offering to securely run a company’s blockchain network within its own ecosystem so developers can focus on creating applications for the tech.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/29/ibm-announces-blockchain-services.html
Don’t Worry About IBM’s Mainframe Sales Collapse

While sales of mainframe systems represent a relatively small portion of IBM’s total sales, once related hardware, software, and services are included, the mainframe accounts for a major part of IBM’s profits. Back in 2012, an analyst from Bernstein Research estimated that the mainframe ultimately accounted for a quarter of IBM’s revenue and nearly half of its profits. IBM’s business has changed since then, with the company undergoing a transformation, but the mainframe remains a key part of IBM.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/27/dont-worry-about-ibms-mainframe-sales-collapse.aspx

Microsoft

Why Microsoft is buying 10 million strands of DNA

“Today, the vast majority of digital data is stored on media that has a finite shelf life and periodically needs to be re-encoded. DNA is a promising storage media, as it has a known shelf life of several thousand years, offers a permanent storage format and can be read for continuously decreasing costs,” Emily M. Leproust, CEO of Twist Bioscience, said in a press release. “Our silicon-based DNA synthesis platform offers unmatched scale and product quality that vastly accelerates the ability to write DNA at a cost enabling data storage. We are thrilled to work with Microsoft, and University of Washington researchers, to address the growing challenge of digital data storage.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-microsoft-is-buying-10-million-strands-of-dna/
Microsoft and Google Set to End All Legal Proceedings Against Each Other

This formal announcement came just two days after the European Union levied a formal antitrust complaint against Android, but according to the statement given to Recode both companies said that their deal about this collaboration was still in progress. But this isn’t the first time Microsoft and Google have entered a collaboration agreement to end these legal complaints against each other. The two companies ended a legal battle over Android patents last year.

http://wccftech.com/microsoft-google-legal-proceedings/

Oracle

Oracle Buys Textura

Textura’s cloud services process $3.4 billion in payments for over 6,000 projects each month, helping keep projects on time and under budget while reducing risk for developers, contractors and subcontractors. Textura offers its cloud services in a consumption model preferred by the engineering and construction industry whereby the companies involved pay based on project activity. Further, usage of Textura’s cloud services creates a network effect that benefits all participants as more than 85,000 general and subcontractors are connected to the platform.

http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/158589/
More:

In 2014, Textura and Allin became the target of famous short seller Andrew Left of Citron Research. (Citron and Left will forever be known as for taking down Valeant, though he’s had plenty of other targets, like Mobileye.)

In Left’s classic style, Citron issued a scathing report on Textura filled with words like “fraud” and “fraudulent.” Left took issue with things like how the company was reporting revenue and how it was predicting its profit trajectory.

Citron also called out Allin for not disclosing a previous CEO role he had at a company called Patron Systems a decade ago. Patron’s business at the time was based around a proposed deal to buy security company Trustwave, but the purchase never happened, Allin resigned, and Patron went bankrupt a few years later, reports Crain’s Chicago Business editor John Pletz.

http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-buys-textura-founder-gains-58-million-2016-4

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Wanna walk the plank voluntarily? You got it

Around a quarter of the 780 ITO staff earmarked for redundancy were supposed to leave at the end of this month but company insiders told us not all of those plans were followed through.

One told us, “A fair few people about have been ‘spared’ from the current redundancies. Lots of messing them about though, [some were] told they were going [in April] and then told last week that actually they weren’t.”

The earliest termination date is 31 July (last day at work would be 29 July) but staff that volunteer to leave need to have everything signed and sealed by mid-May.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/27/hpe_voluntary_redundancy_track_opened

Storage [EMC |Dell |Infinidat]

EMC Faces Growing Competition from Flash Storage Providers

EMC’s Information Infrastructure segment’s revenues fell by 6% YoY to $3.8 billion whereas revenues from RSA and Information Storage fell by 8.1% and 5.9% YoY, respectively. Revenues from EMC’s Enterprise Content division also fell by 2.9% YoY.

Revenues for EMC were impacted due to sluggish demand for traditional data storage products. As shown in the above chart, VMware’s (VMW) revenues rose by 4.8% YoY to $1,583 billion in 1Q16. EMC’s Pivotal segment reported revenues of $83 million, a massive increase of 56% YoY.

http://marketrealist.com/2016/04/emc-faces-growing-competition-flash-storage-providers/
Exclusive: VMware Cloud Chief Exits

Fathers’s exit is not a huge surprise given that the company’s cloud efforts have been in flux for more than a year. That picture got even fuzzier in October when Dell and VMware parent company EMC disclosed their planned $67 billion merger. There was significant overlap in the three companies’ cloud strategies that muddied the waters further.

http://fortune.com/2016/04/27/exclusive-vmware-cloud-chief-exits/
Leading Cloud Provider Triple C Selects INFINIDAT to Expand Operations and Speed Customer Transitions to the Cloud

“INFINIDAT’s storage solutions enable us to achieve significant financial savings, along with increased capacity to address dramatically expanding storage volumes and customers’ availability requirements,” said Erez Rozenbaum, director of cloud engineering at Triple C. “The major challenge for cloud-based storage is how to handle data at scale. With InfiniBox, we can meet the highest SLA business objectives set by the company for both private and public cloud services.”

http://www.cso.com.au/mediareleases/27190/leading-cloud-provider-triple-c-selects-infinidat/

Other

Former Aprimo to be Sold

The buyer is an affiliate of Marlin Equity Partners. Teradata has been negotiating the sale of the unit since late last year as it shifts emphasis. You can view the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by clicking here.

Aprimo was founded in Indianapolis by Bill Godfrey.

Teradata acquired Aprimo in 2011 for $525 million. At the time, Teradata touted the move for the cloud-based company as a “milestone” event and it led to the launch of its new applications business unit that has been managed in Indy.

In 2013, it transitioned from the name Aprimo to Teradata Applications.

Teradata says either party can terminate the purchase agreement if the acquisition is not complete by October 22.

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/31823283/former-aprimo-to-be-sold-for-90-million
AWS, Google, Microsoft and IBM pull away from pack in race for cloud market share

“This is a market that is so big and is growing so rapidly that companies can be growing by 10-30% per year and might feel good about themselves and yet they’d still be losing market share,” said John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “The big question for them is whether or not they are building a sustainable and profitable business. This can be done by focusing on specific regions or specific services, but the bulk of the market demands huge scale, a broad footprint, very deep pockets and a long-term corporate focus.”

http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2016/04/29/aws-google-microsoft-and-ibm-pull-away-from-pack-in-race-for-cloud-market-share/
Why cybercriminals attack healthcare more than any other industry

[Health records] typically contain credit card data, email addresses, social security numbers, employment information and medical history records – much of which will remain valid for years, if not decades. Cyberthieves are using that data to launch spear-phishing attacks, commit fraud and steal medical identities.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/04/26/why-cybercriminals-attack-healthcare-more-than-any-other-industry/
EMC, IBM, HP Enterprise, and Oracle: Four Horses Of The Legacy Tech Apocalypse

The cloud computing “wars” are “entering a new phase,” and it will hurt traditional IT vendors such as SAP, Oracle and IBM, according to a report published in April by JP Morgan analysts Mark Murphy, Doug Anmuth, Sterling Auty, Rod Hall, and Philip Cusick.

Their survey of more than 207 chief information officers at companies with an annual budget of at least $600 million found that Microsoft will remain the dominant IT vendor ahead of Amazon, IBM and others. JP Morgan believes that Microsoft will be the only vendor not to lose market share as the so-called public cloud grows at a 20% annual rate through 2021.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2016/04/25/emc-ibm-hp-enterprise-and-oracle-four-horses-of-the-legacy-tech-apocalypse/#7556fe4a542d

Photo: Erol Ahmed

April 9, 2016November 1, 2023

Supplier Report: 4/9/2016

There is alot of talk this week.

HPE’s Meg Whitman is talking about IBM’s Watson, EMC, and what you need to know about HPE’s success. Meanwhile, IBM is pushing out information about Watson this week. Specifically, what cognitive uses might be in store for big blue’s poster child. The storage industry is showing what happens to companies like NetApp with ever tightening margins.

IBM

IBM Watson CTO on What’s Ahead for Cognitive Computing

“This notion of creating ideas and inspiring new thoughts and new ways of asking questions is critical to so many things people do in the professional world with this. We got exposed to a lot of demand in healthcare in particular, especially around treatments for things like cancer.” For a complex disease like cancer, particularly one where the literature base is of staggering volume, there is no way for healthcare providers to keep pace with the latest research. It is here that Watson shines, High says. For doctors to keep pace with what is being published, it would take them 160 hours each week, just to keep pace with what’s new. Ultimately, he says, for this field, Watson is looking for new patterns, solutions, and treatments, and serving as an engine for doctors

http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/04/07/ibm-watson-cto-whats-ahead-cognitive-computing/
IBM partners with Pfizer to measure patents Parkinson’s symptoms in the home

A series of sensors have been developed by the team to give them 24/7 data on the day-to-day impact of living with the disease, improving on the partial diagnosis doctors can achieve through only partial observation whilst also eliminating the subjective nature of the people’s own experiences.

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/04/07/ibm-partners-pfizer-measure-patents-parkinson-s-symptoms-home
IBM Combines Blockchain Technology With Artificial Intelligence To Virtually Turn Back Time

One of the potential applications of the technology would be to create a register of IoT devices based on the blockchain, with artificial intelligence programs then used to perform automated self-diagnoses and more advanced functions, which could eventually lead to the ability of engineers and regulators to virtually rewind the clock to go back in time and see at what point a smart device failed and see exactly what went wrong.

http://www.ibtimes.com/ibm-combines-blockchain-technology-artificial-intelligence-virtually-turn-back-time-2349130
IBM partners with DocuSign to drive trust in the cloud

DocuSign is working with IBM Cloud – with a 47-data centre footprint – to provide customers with access to public, private, and hybrid cloud services. DocuSign’s APIs will also be available through Bluemix, which will be key to embedding eSignature and DTM functionalities within IBM’s Cloud platform.

http://www.itproportal.com/2016/04/07/ibm-partners-with-docusign-to-drive-trust-in-the-cloud/
IBM Hires AOL Vet Bob Lord as Chief Digital Officer

His experience on both the agency and technology side of advertising was likely a big selling point for IBM. Over the past few months, Big Blue’s been on a bit of a shopping spree, snapping up shops Aperto, ecx.io and Resource/Ammirati. The tech giant also owns The Weather Channel’s data and analytics assets.

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/ibm-hires-aol-vet-bob-lord-chief-digital-officer-170591

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

Meg Whitman tells IT leaders everything they need to know about HP Enterprise

Yes. So if you think about new companies that are starting, they’re running their IT infrastructure completely differently, and so we have to figure out how we can remain relevant to these young companies. And I’ll give you a couple of good examples there in a minute. But the vast majority of the total available market is in legacy infrastructure. I mean by definition, if you’ve been around more than five years, you have a legacy infrastructure. I think there is a tremendous opportunity for us to help companies with legacy infrastructures migrate to a better place for them, to be able to compete with these new younger companies that maybe have an entirely different infrastructure.

http://www.computerworld.in/interview/meg-whitman-tells-it-leaders-everything-they-need-know-about-hp-enterprise
Meg Whitman says IBM’s Watson is ‘not as far along’ as you might think

Listen, they’re [IBM] doing some very interesting things. They’re buying healthcare companies and stuff, but listen, our Vertica platform is remarkable as is our Haven OnDemand platform. I put us up against Watson every day of the week here. We’re in a lot of customers where actually from a Watson perspectiveit’s not as far along in terms of real-world applications as you might imagine from the advertising.

http://www.businessinsider.com/whitman-disses-ibms-watson-2016-4
EMC shrugs off HPE’s catty anti-merger ad campaign

The copy on the advert continued: “In today’s business environment driven by rapid change, you can’t afford to miss a beat. Soon EMC and Dell will be forced to turn their attention to integrating two separate organisations with different product lines and services. Will this distraction take their focus off your business?”

http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2453606/emc-shrugs-off-hpes-catty-anti-merger-ad-campaign
HP’s Whitman on investing in startups, particularly one Microsoft wanted to buy

Some have warned Whitman that integrating with startups like Mesosphere could help them grow to $1 billion quickly and give HPE only a small percentage of the startup’s equity. While true, she believes that increasing HPE’s relevancy to CIOs will result in increased sales of more traditional Hewlett Packard Enterprise offerings.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2016/04/hps-whitman-on-investing-in-startups-particularly.html
HPE Sells Controlling Stake In Mphasis To Blackstone For $825M

Under the terms of the deal, Blackstone has agreed to purchase at least 84 percent of HPE’s stake in Mphasis for $6.51 per share, HPE said in its statement. Blackstone will then purchase the remaining 16 percent stake that’s permitted under Indian law and subject to the outcome of a mandatory tender offer between the signing and closing of the deal, HPE said.

http://www.crn.com/news/managed-services/300080240/hpe-sells-controlling-stake-in-mphasis-to-blackstone-for-825m.htm

Microsoft

Microsoft Snags Oracle’s Main Man on Linux

Here’s a really interesting tidbit for software geeks: Wim Coekaerts, a long-time Oracle veteran who helped transform that company into a Linux power, is now a corporate vice president at Microsoft. Coekaerts started at Microsoft in March as corporate vice president of enterprise open source, according to his Linkedin profile. The news of his job change was first reported by ZDNet. Fortune reached out to Coekaerts, Oracle, and Microsoft for comment and will update this story as needed.

http://fortune.com/2016/04/01/microsoft-snags-oracles-linux-guru/

Oracle

Don’t Believe Everything You Read About Cloud Adoption
Didn’t I say this last week?

If companies such as Microsoft and Oracle are truly making huge inroads in enticing companies away from on-premise offerings, it will impact VMware’s earnings. VMware is the undisputed number one provider of the virtualization layer and is not offered as part of either the Microsoft or Oracle Cloud offerings. Going forward, if we see the cloud numbers from Oracle and Microsoft growing rapidly, but don’t see some kind of flattening or decline with VMware (and we haven’t so far), I’d suggest that means something is not quite adding up.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3963577-believe-everything-read-cloud-adoption

Storage ( EMC | Dell | Infinidat )

Infinidat adds predictive analytics to Infinibox OS. But what’s it mean?

Infinidat’s array is a hybrid, employing disk for bulk data storage and flash (SATA SSDs) for caching data. There are, Broido believes, at this point in time, no good cost and performance reasons for adopting an all-flash array architecture or a flash storage tier, not when it wins bake-offs by customers against all-flash array vendors’ products. The 10:1 to 25:1 cost/GB differential between nearline disk drives and SATA SSDs is to prevent Infinidat replacing disk with flash.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/07/infinidat_infinibox_os_adding_predictive_analytics/
Here’s What Dell and EMC Corp. Are Selling off as Acquisition Nears

EMC acquired California-based Documentum for $1.7 billion in 2003. Documentum’s software gives corporations a secure way to file and track documents. Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that the company generated $600 million in revenue and has profit margins of 30 percent or more.

Additionally…

SonicWALL, meanwhile, is a San Jose-based network security company that Dell acquired for about $1.2 billion in 2012. And Quest makes IT management software. It was acquired by Dell in 2012 for $2.36 billion.

http://austininno.streetwise.co/2016/04/07/dell-emc-merger-selling-documentum-2-other-units-for-billions/
NetApp ain’t all that: Flashy figures show HPE left ’em for dust

The disparity in revenues between HDS and EMC, Pure, IBM, HPE and NetApp is so great that HDS’ best hope may lie in acquiring an existing vendor. Ones that come to mind in the pure (no pun intended) all-flash area are Kaminario and Violin. Buying Nimble, Tegile or Tintri would bring in hybrid arrays which would muddy the waters of HDS’ existing integrated storage offerings from a marketing/product positioning perspective.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/01/extended_allflasharray_revenue_numbers/

Other

Google might adopt a key Apple technology in a big way

Amid an ongoing legal battle with Oracle over the Android operating system, Google is considering a big shift towards Apple’s very popular Swift programming language, reports The Next Web. The report says Google is considering making Swift a “first-class” language choice for programmers making apps for Android.

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-might-bring-swift-to-android-2016-4
Huge Opportunity in This ‘Future Predicting’ Sector

Multinational consulting firm McKinsey says Big Data services can allow consumers to capture $600 billion in economic surplus. That’s probably why tech heavyweights IBM, Accenture, Oracle, Microsoft, EMC and Cisco have spent tens of billions of dollars building up their Big Data platforms.

http://www.uncommonwisdomdaily.com/huge-opportunity-in-this-future-predicting-sector-22492

Photo: Ryan McGuire