Supplier Report: 4/11/2015

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This week feels like yesterday’s news.  Many of the major IBM stories are updates and rehash from the last few weeks – however they did release news on a breakthrough in tape storage. 64-year-old tape storage technology.

Bad week for HP.  PC sales are down and they are exiting the public cloud sector due to not wanting to go head to head with Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM.

IBM

Oracle

HP

Other

Supplier Report: 2/28/2015

Sony World Photography Competition Shortlist

Sony World Photography Competition Shortlist

IBM

  • IBM Pumps $4 Billion Into Cloud and Mobile Initiatives (thank you Kevin, huge story with hundreds of similar posts this week)…

    Among its new priorities, IBM has put particular emphasis on online, or cloud, services. It has said it invested $1.2 billion in data centers to augment those it acquired with SoftLayer Technologies in 2013. It also invested $1 billion to accelerate commercialization of its Watson data-analytics technology.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-pumps-4-billion-into-strategic-imperatives-1424959681

  • WebSphere (IBM) offers 31% better performance over WebLogic (Oracle)

    Enterprise IT vendor IBM today said its WebSphere Application Server 8.5.5.4 running on dual Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 v3 demonstrated 31 percent better performance on per core basis against 18800.76 SPECjEnterprise20101 EjOPS result from Oracle using WebLogic 12.1.3 Server running on Oracle Server X5-2 with dual Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 v3.

    http://www.infotechlead.com/networking/ibm-websphere-server-offers-31-best-performance-against-oracle-weblogic-28413

  • Jim Cramer: Don’t write off IBM, but I like SalesForce better

    TheStreet’s Jim Cramer says you can’t write off IBM because they’ve managed to reinvent themselves so many times. On Thursday the company announced it will spend $4 billion in 2015 on analytics, mobility, cloud computing and security. Cramer says IBM CEO Ginni Rometty is laying out a vision about the idea of social, mobile, media, and cloud computing becoming a larger part of the company. Right now it’s about 27 percent of the company and they want to take it to 40. But Cramer says if you take it to 40 it can’t be because the rest of IBM is doing so poorly. He says IBM is looking increasingly like an Accenture with a social/mobile component. Warren Buffett is a fan of IBM and while Cramer says he wouldn’t write IBM off, he certainly likes Salesforce a lot more than IBM

    http://www.thestreet.com/video/13060589/jim-cramer-i-dont-want-to-write-off-ibm-but-i-like-salesforce-better.html

  • IBM has out “mega-deal’ed” HP

    In December IBM announced a $1bn (£644m) deal with German airline Lufthansa, a win with global comms company WPP for $1.25bn (£800m), and said it had scored undisclosed deals thought to be worth more than £500m with media org Thomson Reuters and Dutch bank ABN AMRO.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/26/hp_can_eat_ibms_dust_says_anlalyst_report/

  • IBM Advances SoftLayer for Hybrid Cloud Growth

    Connected to the initial $1.2 billion investment in cloud services that IBM announced in 2014, the new computing capacity broadens the company’s cloud footprint in both Australia and Canada, bringing the SoftLayer portfolio to local doorsteps. The new cloud centers are each the second of their kind to be opened in their respective countries, giving customers the option for in-country data redundancy.

    http://www.eweek.com/cloud/ibm-advances-softlayer-for-hybrid-cloud-growth.html

Oracle

HP

  • The Battle of Two Tech Giants (HP vs. IBM)

    So where is the sunlight? The willingness of HP to act. Splitting your company into two pieces is a massive task. Recall what the EU wanted to do to Microsoft, and how that company reacted. But there are green shoots: The company’s guidance is weak, but we are still operating in a pre-split era, so operational performance isn’t the best barometer. Instead, the company has plenty of cash, and is making big moves: HP is said to be eyeing Aruba Networks as an acquisition and is shifting around its cloud leadership quickly after installing a new leader.

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/who-wins-the-battle-of-the-disrupted-tech-giants-hp-or-ibm/

  • HP scores large deal (billions) with Deutsche Bank

    The 10 year deal, which mainly covers Deutsche Bank’s wholesale banking, will see HP provide dedicated data centre services with the aim of reducing infrastructure costs for the bank.

    http://www.sharedserviceslink.com/news/deutsche-bank-and-hp-announce-multi-billion-dollar-agreement

  • HP Separation to Cost $1.3 Billion in 2015

    “Recall that we are separating into two Fortune 50 companies, I mean it’s sort of hard to imagine that there are two Fortune 50 companies embedded in HP,” Whitman said. “That has included an entire organizational design and selection process the IT strategy carve out financials and many other activities.”

    http://www.datamation.com/data-center/hp-separation-to-cost-1.3-billion-in-2015.html

  • HP reportedly mulling purchase of Aruba Networks

    The move would give HP, which already offers its own “converged campus networking” gear, a bigger footprint in wireless mobile, a hot market, that could grow even hotter as more businesses and consumers use Wi-Fi to take some of the pressure off overloaded cellular networks. This acquisition would be reminiscent of Cisco’s purchase of Meraki a little over two years ago for $1.2 billion.

    https://gigaom.com/2015/02/25/hp-reportedly-mulling-purchase-of-aruba-networks/

Other

  • Splunk’s Value Is in the Clouds; Investors Should Take Profits Now

    Cloud and big-data markets are driving profits higher for many software companies, but data analytics specialist Splunk (SPLK – Get Report) has struggled to grow its bottom line. While its revenue is growing at impressive rates, Splunk’s valuation remains a concern. And investors would be wise to take some of their profits off the table ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter results Thursday.

    http://www.thestreet.com/story/13056850/1/splunks-value-is-in-the-clouds-investors-should-take-profits-now.html

  • Gartner BI Magic Quadrant 2015 Spots Market Turmoil

    “Business-centric platforms such as Tableau Software, Qlik, and other emerging vendors have a more narrow set of capabilities, but are used more broadly for a range of BI and analytics functions — including reporting, for which they are not optimal… — primarily because they are easy to use and deploy,” Gartner writes in its report. In contrast, companies using more conventional, IT-centric platforms (such as Cognos or BusinessObjects) that have a broad range of BI capabilities say they apply them to narrow use-cases.

    http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/gartner-bi-magic-quadrant-2015-spots-market-turmoil/d/d-id/1319214

Supplier Report: 2/21/2015

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IBM

Oracle

  • Large Outflow of Money Witnessed in Oracle Corporation

    Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) managed to eke out gains of 0.02% in intraday trade. The share price increased by 0.01 points to $44.11. Till last observation, the net money flow was highly discomforting at a negative $(-12.61) million. The total inflow of $52.08 million in upticks was completely overshadowed by an outflow of $64.69 million in downticks, giving the up/down ratio a value of 0.81. The shares have seen a change of 0.41% in the past week.A block trade occurred in the counter in which the composite value of the upticks was $13.61 million and the composite value in downticks was $29.61 million. The resultant up/down ratio for the block exchange was 0.46. The block trade had a negative money flow of $(-16.01) million.

    http://stafforddaily.com/large-outflow-of-money-witnessed-in-oracle-corporation-2/347374/

  • More on Oracle’s pricing wars:

    The X5 is priced at a mere $562,000, reports Forbes. This would present a 40% discount to similar offerings by VCE, which is backed by Cisco and EMC. Cisco, Oracle, and EMC are among the biggest players in the server market, according to IDC. VCE dominates Infrastructure services segment with a 24% market share, generates $1.3 billion in revenue, and is also the biggest player in the general purpose segment of the server market. Oracle’s edge comes from its strength in software with a 50% chunk of the Platform segment that helped it generate as much as $1 billion revenue in 2QFY14.

    http://www.bidnessetc.com/34982-oracle-corporation-brings-aggressive-pricing-to-server-wars/

HP

Other

  • Philly 311 built on SalesForce technology:

    And that front-office focus is crucial, he added. “For the last 40 years we’ve seen massive investments in [information technology] that, frankly, have not paid off, which were all in the back office,” said Kundra, former chief information officer of the United States. “Now what you’re seeing in terms of the cities is that they’re making these investments in the front office and addressing the problems that citizens actually have.”

    http://gcn.com/articles/2015/02/20/philly-311.aspx

  • Enterprise and wearables:

    F&S puts the market for wearables in Asia Pacific as being worth $US8.5 billion and expects it to grow to $US37 billion over the next five years, a CAGR of around 34 percent. It expects uptake of wearables in enterprises to be much faster, with “volume shipments poised to grow at a CAGR of around 75 percent in the period 2014-2018.”

    http://www.whatech.com/managed-it-services/news/42329-hit446-enterprises-beware-or-be-aware-of-wearables

  • Yahoo is using Splunk for their Hadoop needs:

    Splunk Enterprise and Hunk help us gain insights into all of our data, whether it is streaming in real time or historical data at rest,” said Ian Flint, monitoring architect, Yahoo. “Hunk gives Yahoo deep visibility into our massive Hadoop data stores to help us continuously optimize operational performance. Insights we gain from Hunk help us save millions of dollars per year in hardware provisioning. Splunk Enterprise helps us to maximize revenue by giving product and business teams better insight into our customers, the user experience and any looming issues.”

    http://insidebigdata.com/2015/02/20/yahoo-selects-splunks-hunk-hadoop-analytics/

Supplier Report: 1/10/2015

sn_lightbulb_JosephDePalma_flickr

IBM

Oracle

  • Thomas Kurian is new Oracle president

    The appointment of Kurian, 48, comes in the wake of Larry Ellison moving over from the role of chief executive officer (CEO) of the $38-billion software, solutions and hardware company to that of executive chairman, having handed the reins of the company to Safra Catz and Mark Hurd. The Indian spokesperson of Oracle confirmed the elevation but declined to comment further.

    http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/thomas-kurian-is-new-oracle-president-115010900724_1.html

  • Oracle’s Data Domination

    Oracle Corporation has in over a year, gone through extensive acquisitions, Responsys, Comendium, Eloqua, Bluekai – to have a well-evolved cloud-based marketing platform in Data Cloud. Therefore, Oracle Corporations intention of building marketing solutions around its data-driven acquisitions will position it as a leader in this segment. As most technology companies begin to recognize ‘big data’ as the way forward and engage in different verticals of data analytics.

    http://www.opptrends.com/2015/01/oracle-corporation-nyseorcl-data-domination/

HP

  • Why the PC isn’t quite dead yet…
    I am going to take this a step further to get on my soapbox about computing.  I don’t get why people think desktop machines should go away.  For work purposes, when you expect people to go home and log back in, sure a laptop is a good solution (unless you buy cheap clients and access a remote desktop).  But for home use – I prefer a desktop.  I have a tablet for my mobile computing.  I want a nice monitor and a proper keyboard and decent place to sit when I sit down to work.  I rarely use the laptop screen (unless it is a 2nd screen) and I need a real keyboard.
    http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/ces-2015-why-the-pc-isnt-quite-dead-yet-20150107-12jvmn.html
  • Another example of HP failing to deliver on a services contract (covered the initial dispute a few weeks ago):

    Gov. Chris Christie’s administration is getting a $7.5 million refund from the information technology company hired nearly nine years ago to develop a massive software program intended to run New Jersey’s multi-billion-dollar network of social service programs, a state spokeswoman confirmed tonight.

    http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/01/it_company_will_refund_nj_75_million_but_will_not_deliver_on_contract_to_automate_social_service_pro.html

Other

Supplier Report: 1/3/2015

Photo: Tom Jutte, Flickr

Photo: Tom Jutte, Flickr

IBM

Oracle

  • Oracle Is Getting Ahead Of The Competition When It Comes To Data

    Not many people predicted that Oracle would buy Datalogix; in fact many thought that Facebook might scoop them up. Despite all the data Facebook has on consumers, they are a customer of Datalogix. It clearly signals a shift in direction for Oracle and draws some comparisons to LinkedIn’s acquisition of Bizo. Companies are looking for ways to combine targeting and attribution with data being the common component and the marketing cloud suites are seeking ways to address this.

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/02/oracle-and-salesforce/

  • Interesting post on banking RFP in India with Oracle (their tech supports many banks in India)
    http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/187/1257311/

HP

  • Same EMC article in the IBM section, but here is how HP performed:

    HP was the only other large company which gained share in the external storage market. Its share increased from 9.3% through the first three quarters last year to 9.6% this year, as its revenues grew by 1% to $1.6 billion. Similarly, the company’s revenues in the total disk storage systems market (which includes internal storage as well) also increased by 1% to $3.7 billion. HP’s revenues remained nearly flat over the prior year period due to higher demand in the mid-range market. However, HP gained share due to a comparatively higher decline faced by competing storage companies. HP’s management projects growth in enterprise storage segments such as converged storage, software-defined networks and cloud infrastructure, where the company can potentially excel in the coming quarters.

  • Interesting: Palm might be making a comback…
    HP sold off their Palm assets: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102305770 to a Chinese company (Alcatel Onetouch).
  • Not related to us, but an interesting data point.  HP’s 14-inch chromebook is one of Amazon’s top holiday sellers.  I think it is an indicator of where the future of tech is going.
    http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/577650/20141231/hp-laptop-chromebook-14-amazon.htm

Other

  • Is Splunk on solid financial footing?

    Splunk’s products, including Splunk Enterprise and Hunk, help these companies collect, index, and search, explore, monitor and analyze data regardless of format or source. They’re specifically tailored to parse data produced by software applications and electronic devices, including data on transactions, customer and user activities, and security threats. As a result, Splunk products aim to provide businesses with an ability to analyze data to find ways to improve service, increase sales, cut costs, and prevent hackers.

    From an investment perspective:

    Value investors will likely want to steer clear Splunk, but growth investors may want to think long term. Data is growing exponentially, so the need for data-driven business intelligence isn’t likely to fall. That may suggest that the investments Splunk is making today, may eventually translate into investor friendly profit. If so, then Splunk could prove to be a good fit for investors willing to accept a bit of risk in portfolios.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/30/is-splunk-on-solid-financial-ground.aspx