To start things off, here is an example of purchasing in a small scale: buying bed mattresses. While this has nothing to do with big suppliers, here is a small company trying to develop an alternative supply chain model for bedding (different materials, purchasing, and delivery model)
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/25/getting-in-bed-with-mattress-startup-casper/?ncid=fb&utm_campaign=fb
This is a great summary article that foreshadows the articles that follow:
Here is a quote:
“The megatrend is corporate America’s move to the cloud. It’s not just Amazon that IBM needs to worry about: In an August 2013 study of 15 cloud infrastructure providers, research firm Gartner rated IBM worst, behind Microsoft, Rackspace, and Verizon .”
** IBM **
Here is a review of their Edge conference from 2 weeks ago:
IBM scores a $1B contract to consolidate NSW’s transport and IT contracts. They beat Tata out for this work ($100 M per year for 10 years).
An interesting counter-point to IBM’s Analytics and “big data” efforts (hint: lack of customer focus)
ServiceNow Chief says big companies like IBM and EMC aren’t agile enough to compete in the cloud:
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/545989/_dinosaur_companies_don_t_agility_compete_cloud_servicenow_/
Commentary: I don’t agree with this article, but you all know my feelings on the term “cloud” to begin with and the marking that goes around it. What is interesting is seeing how the competition views two major companies we do business with and what their weak spots are. [Could be leverage points for us to use later]
IBM is betting heavily on Linux Enterprise (Power 8):
IBM stops selling netapps in favor of their own devices (no shock here):
Watson’s healthcare potential on display:
** HP **
There are several articles from different sources talking about why HP is a “hot stock”
HP cutting another 16000 jobs (this puts them up to 50,000 in total):
Combining these two news bits… Did HP Punk the market this week?
**Oracle **
Oracle contracting and visualization structures (read this one)
What Oracle’s copyright win over Google means:
There are a couple of articles of Oracle investing in IT talent development and domestic job placement…
** Other Notes **
Dell is now this top PC vendor in India
IBM’s watson designed BBQ sauce (AI is real)
Lots of companies are interested in RackSpace right now: (what is even more interesting is that Microsoft isn’t on the list since they have had close ties in the past).
** Summary **
Bottom line is that all of these companies are struggling with transforming and fitting into the new business models developing now for 5 years down the line. They all have a cloud focus, but what does that even mean?
Making CPU and environments on demand quick and easy (and cheap)?
Amazon is winning that game.
They need to focus on the customer experience and what the pain points are – and none of them are succeeding at the moment. IBM is trying some cloud based applications like Blue Works (and they seem to be expanded those type of offerings) – I see growth and potential in that. Couple that with Watson’s AI and you might have the next level business engine everyone trying to come up with.
Keep your eyes on the acquisitions and the changing software models in the year to come.