The Source

IBM

• How does EMC rank against IBM and other storage products:
  (EMC grew, IBM shrank)

  IBM has had a tough year, with a decline in revenues from the sale of external disk storage systems. Factory revenues fell by 12% over the prior year period to $1.8 billion through the first three quarters of 2014. As a result, its share fell from 11.6% last year to 10.4% in the comparable current year period. Furthermore, its revenues in the total disk storage systems market (internal plus external storage) declined by over 10% to $2.6 billion. Weakness in IBM’s standalone external storage systems was partially attributable to the termination of the IBM-NetApp deal in May this year.

  http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/01/02/how-emc-lines-up-against-netapp-hp-ibm-hitachi-in-storage-systems-market/

• SoftLayer launches three international data centers during the holidays
  

  …opened data centers in Tokyo and Mexico City on Dec. 22 and Frankfurt on Dec. 29. The three data centers represented the next step in IBM’s $1.2 billion investment to expand globally. They follow recent openings of SoftLayer data centers in Melbourne, Australia and Paris in October.

  http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/blog/techflash/2015/01/softlayer-launches-three-international-data.html

• Covered this a few weeks ago, but it is getting more press: IBM is the worst run company of 2014
  

  One of the company’s biggest problems in recent years was also largely self-induced — IBM wanted to simultaneously grow the lower margin cloud business and raise adjusted earnings to $20 per share by 2015. Following the company’s recent poor quarter, however, IBM said it would ditch that goal.

  http://247wallst.com/investing/2015/01/01/ibm-is-americas-worst-run-company-for-2014/

• IBM, HP, and Oracle have the oldest workforces in tech: (Alarmist headline, the median age is in the 30s – but interesting data)
  

  Among big companies, the only ones that sneak in under 30 are LinkedIn and Salesforce, each with a median employee age of 29, Facebook, at 28, and AOL, at 27.  In the data, gathered throughout 2014, HP employees topped the list, at 39, while IBM and Oracle were next in line, both with median ages of 38, followed by Dell and Monster.com at 37; and Sony Electronics at 36.

  http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/31/hp-ibm-and-oracle-have-the-oldest-workforces-in-tech-guess-whos-the-youngest/

• IBM needs to spend cash not return it
  Follow-up from a post from last week, I totally agree with this.
  http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/ibm-needs-to-spend-cash-not-return-it/?_r=0

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