IBM had quite a week – they defeated Groupon on a patent infringement case, they are scoring big deals with several companies, and they are in the middle of one of their best mainframe sales periods in years.
In contrast, Amazon reported strong earnings and experienced another stock surge thanks to AWS (again). Can a company like IBM compete against an growing blob of a corporation with no set form or limits?
And can any of us compete against the growing employment threat of AI? (Forbes doesn’t think so).
Acquisitions
- Qualcomm Scraps $44 Billion NXP Deal After China Inaction
The transaction failed after a series of trade moves by the Trump administration, including tariffs on numerous Chinese goods, and retaliatory measures from China.
Trade experts had said China appeared to be withholding approval of the Qualcomm deal to gain negotiating leverage. Eight other jurisdictions, including the United States, had already approved Qualcomm’s purchase of the Dutch chip maker. China was the exception, dragging the review process out to more than 20 months.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/technology/qualcomm-nxp-china-deadline.html
- Slack is buying, and shutting down, HipChat and Stride
Atlassian VP of Product Management, Joff Redfern, confirmed the news in a blog post, calling it the “best way forward” for its existing customers. It’s about as real of an example of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” as you can get; even Atlassian’s own employees will be moved over to using Slack.
According to an FAQ about the change, Stride and HipChat’s last day will be February 15th, 2019 — or a bit shy of seven months from the date of the announcement. So if you’re a customer on either one of those platforms, you’ve got time to figure things out.
Artificial Intelligence
- AI And RPA Will Absolutely, Positively Threaten Your Job (Thanks JD!)
McKinsey & Co. predicts that AI (broadly defined) will eliminate 77,000,000 jobs over the next 20 years: “our scenarios suggest that by 2030, 75 million to 375 million workers (3 to 14 percent of the global workforce) will need to switch occupational categories.” Bloomberg has developed a tool to help you determine if you’re likely to be automated. According to Bloomberg’s research (based in part on research conducted at the University of Oxford), “nearly half of all U.S. jobs may be at risk in the coming decades, with lower-paid occupations among the most vulnerable.” Compensation and benefits managers, auditors, accountants, credit analysts, loan officers, sales representatives, truck drivers, administrative services managers and even dental hygienists are at high risk and “most likely to be automated.” Some good news? The same research suggests that physicians, surgeons, lawyers, financial managers, pharmacists, teachers and computer and information systems managers are among the professions least likely to be automated. Note that the timing for all this varies. Some analysts believe significant professional displacement will occur by 2030, while others believe it will take longer. (It won’t take longer.)
- Anthem Expands $500M Deal with IBM with Focus on IT Automation, AI
Under the expanded agreement, IBM will provide Anthem with enterprise services for its mainframe and data center server and storage infrastructure management. In addition, IBM will work with Anthem towards creating an AI environment which will allow for an automated infrastructure providing 24/7 digital capabilities. This will bring greater value and access to Anthem’s consumers, care providers, and employees, Anthem said.
IBM and Anthem will also continue to work together on IT automation. Since 2015, the two companies’ have implemented over 130 bots, automating over 70 percent of the monthly high volume repetitive tasks. This includes bots that can identify when a server is reaching capacity to shift workloads to other less utilized servers ensuring that work is not impacted. This capability has improved systems availability as well as freed up resources to work on higher-value projects, Anthem said in a press release.
- IBM Watson recommended ‘unsafe’ cancer treatments, according to internal documents
The data, obtained by Stat News from slide decks shared by IBM Watson Health’s deputy chief health officer last summer, revealed that IBM Watson suggested “unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations” for cancer treatment. This specifically had to do with IBM’s Watson for Oncology product, which customers said was “often inaccurate.”
According to the internal slide deck, the problem stems from this Watson product being trained on a small number of “synthetic,” hypothetical cancer patients, rather than real-world cases. The accuracy of any AI is dependent on being trained on a large dataset—the larger and more accurate the dataset, the better. Watson’s recommendations were based on expert advice from specialists on each cancer type but not masses of actual cancer treatment cases. The result has been recommendations that are not on part with national treatment guidelines, according to Stat News.
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/watson-unsafe-cancer-treatments/
Cloud
- Google Cloud wants to be No. 1. Two small problems: Amazon and Microsoft
Urs Hölzle, the senior vice president for technical infrastructure at Google, is one of the company’s cloud veterans. At a conference keynote address Tuesday, he explained how one of the biggest problems facing business right now is the disorganization that comes with using a mix of different cloud services. He said 8 out of 10 companies use more than one cloud service.
At the same company, different services can be “in different clouds, which creates a lot of unnecessary complexity and work” for developers, said Hölzle. “And that’s not going away overnight.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Google-Cloud-wants-to-be-No-1-Two-small-13101723.php
Software/SaaS
- Oracle Blockchain Opens for Business
Oracle had been testing the new blockchain platform in pilot programs with early adopting customers in recent months. After seeing success in the trials, Oracle decided to bring the offering into full production.
One customer, Solar Site Design, a solar energy equipment supplier, has been using the blockchain service to keep tamper-proof records related to solar projects. Another customer, Arab Jordan Investment Bank, has been using it to simplify their electronic fund transfers. Yet another, Certified Origins, an olive oil producer, has been using it for food safety and supply chain tracking.
Datacenter/Hardware
- IBM Is Enjoying the Strongest Mainframe Cycle in Years
Systemwide encryption is a key feature in a world where cybersecurity is only becoming more important. IBM’s security business, which includes a portion of mainframe sales, is one of its “strategic imperatives” that will drive growth for years to come. Security revenue jumped 79% in the second quarter, reaching $1 billion.
One other reason for strong mainframe growth: IBM is winning what it calls “emerging workloads.” Those include areas like blockchain and machine learning. Around 60% of MIPS (million instructions per second, a measure of processing power) shipped went toward these specialty workloads, and total MIPS shipped tripled in the second quarter.
On top of selling systems to existing customers, IBM is adding some new mainframe customers as well. Kavanaugh pointed to a U.S. managed-care provider, a Canadian university, an Italian electronics distributor, and an African bank as examples of new customers embracing the platform. A cloud-ready version of the z14 launched earlier this year, designed to fit into a standard data center, could help IBM win even more new business.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/23/ibm-is-enjoying-the-strongest-mainframe-cycle-in-y.aspx
Other
- IBM Wins $83 Million From Groupon in E-Commerce Patents Case
IBM sued Groupon for $167 million, accusing it of building its online coupon business on the back of the IBM e-commerce inventions without permission. Midway through their first full day of deliberations in Wilmington, Delaware, jurors sided with IBM, finding that Groupon infringed the patents intentionally. The ruling means the judge can increase the damages award.
“IBM invests nearly $6 billion annually in research and development, producing innovations for society,” IBM spokesman Doug Shelton said after the verdict. “We rely on our patents to protect our innovations.”
- Amazon ‘terrifies me as a company,’ says a valuation professor
“You find it overvalued but you cannot bet against it because this is a disruption machine,” he said. “I’m not even sure what business the company is in anymore. It’s a platform that can be used pretty much to disrupt any business. And that’s what’s being priced in.”
Amazon’s total revenue, which includes sales from Whole Foods, increased 39 percent year-over-year. Its North America revenue jumped 44 percent to $32.1 billion, while international sales grew 27 percent to $14.6 billion. The company’s cloud business grew nearly 49 percent year-over-year, with Amazon Web Services generating $6.11 billion in revenue.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/27/amazon-terrifies-me-as-a-company-says-dean-of-valuation.html
