Mergers and acquisitions was a major news theme (again) this week. IBM announced they were acquiring DB startup company Compose. The HP/EMC rumors started up again, while Mr. Tucci expressed his desire to keep his company whole (not splitting off VMWare). Speaking of HP – they sold off a part of their troubled Autonomy business.
IBM
- IBM Acquires Database-As-A-Service Startup Compose
While Compose started out as a MongoDB database specialist, the company now offers services around MongoDB, Elasticsearch, RethinkDB, Redis and PostgreSQL. The overall idea behind Compose is to allow mobile and web developers to create their apps without having to worry about their database backends.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/ibm-acquires-database-as-a-service-startup-compose/?ncid=rss
- Employees: More layoffs announced at IBM
This comes after a months long investigation into the job numbers at the Columbia facility and where the jobs are going. The company already lost some tax incentives from the state of Missouri back in May for not meeting the 800 jobs promised to the state.
http://www.abc17news.com/news/employees-more-layoffs-announced-at-ibm/34327968
- Why IBM Actually Had A Great Second Quarter
As IBM has continually been focusing on bulking up its product offerings (combining “add-on” solutions stemming from investments in “strategic imperatives” with its “older” offerings), customer stickiness is likely to continue increasing. This is due to the fact that when a company utilizes IBM’s solutions for a larger proportion of its IT needs, switching to a competitor’s solution would not only be an increasing inconvenience, but the level of operational disruption is likely to be greater as well. As a result, IBM should be able to continue to increase prices while still retaining its clientele. Ergo, overall profit margins are likely to continue expanding in the future.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3350435-why-ibm-actually-had-a-great-second-quarter
- IBM’s Cloud, Analytics Moves Haven’t Paid Off, Yet
“Long term, the company (IBM) is putting itself in a position to grow again,” Kreher told InformationWeek. “Near term, they are expanding profit margins as they shed lower-margin businesses … They are going to have lumpy results for the next few quarters.”
http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/ibms-cloud-analytics-moves-havent-paid-off-yet/d/d-id/1321409
- IBM’s supercomputer Watson now knows you and tells you the news
(Hmmm… I wonder how this could be useful)“With Watson we can cognitively filter the news according to the topics and entities that we are looking for,” reads the promo video.
- Apple and IBM release 10 new apps, incorporating analytics and iBeacons
The apps use technology like predictive analytics and are for business travelers and mortgage officers, among other professionals.
- IBM: Partnerships Are Necessary For Success In Big Data
http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/video/300077552/ibm-partnerships-are-necessary-for-success-in-big-data.htm
EMC
- Why EMC has no plans to split itself up
“Splitting this federation or spinning off VMware is not a good idea,” said EMC Joe Tucci during an earnings call with analysts Wednesday. “I firmly believe that we are better together. A lot better together.”
- EMC’s turbulent trifecta temporarily ties Tucci to top table
The person who wrote this headline must be so proud of themselves (oh… British publication, of course)“The companies that will be successful are the ones that are able to truly transform themselves. The board and management, we’re focussed on assuring and we are deeply engaged in making sure we have a very successful transformation. We have a number of options, really good options, and we have important next-generation winning technologies, great assets, and we have great people,” he continued. [The post also mentions the fabled HP/EMC merger]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/23/tuccis_turbulent_trifecta/
- EMC to cut jobs in Q4 2015 to reduce costs by $850M
EMC will cut $50 million through tighter spending and job cuts in the fourth quarter of this year. The company will increase the size of cost savings in each quarter until it reaches an annual rate of $850 million starting in 2017 by reducing other expenses, as well, in part by canceling underperforming products and closing facilities.
http://www.infotechlead.com/networking/emc-to-cut-jobs-in-q4-2015-to-reduce-costs-by-850-mn-32532
- Big Changes in Store for Storage
According to a recent outlook from Wikibon, we are on the cusp of a digital extinction event as today’s complex network storage architectures give way to more nimble server-side solutions. The firm predicts that within 10 years, 90 percent of storage revenues will flow toward server SAN or hyperscale server SAN solutions, marking a 150 percent annual growth rate from today’s current market estimate of about $1 billion. At best, traditional SAN and NAS may eke out meager existences within long-term data retention infrastructure in which the frequency of data access is low but metadata retrieval is fairly steady.
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/infrastructure/big-changes-in-store-for-storage.html
- EMC Corp Sticking To Its Guns
Right or wrong, EMC is committed to its path of evolving into a leading provider of “IT-as-a-service”. Likewise, the company remains committed to an operating structure that is going to continue to frustrate some investors, as it believes (correctly, in my view) that VMware (NYSE:VMW), Pivotal, and other components are vital to its future strategy.
http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/emc-corporation-emc-sticking-to-its-guns-363253/
Hewlett Packard
- HP study finds smartwatches could do more to keep user data safe
The smartwatches fell short when it came to encrypting data that’s sent to the cloud. While the wearables used SSL and TLS security protocols to encrypt information, some relied on SSL 2.0, an older version of the protocol that’s known to have security flaws. Additionally, 40 percent of the watches were vulnerable to POODLE attacks.
- Autonomy Unit iManage Exits HP With Buyout
The iManage business that has now fully exited HP provides a work management solution that targets legal, accounting, and financial services firms around the world. It claims to have 3,000 customers and says that it continued to grow in its last full fiscal year under HP ownership.
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/software/collaboration-suites/hp-autonomy-imanage-buyout-173052
Other
- Dell is closely studying the EMC playbook
“I think what [EMC CEO Joe] Tucci has done with VMWare is a good example of that, where you can take something that people don’t fully understand, buried in the portfolio, and unlock it while still having a partnership with the mothership,” said Durban, who sits on the Dell board of directors.
http://fortune.com/2015/07/17/dell-is-closely-studying-the-emc-playbook/
- Salesforce Positioned as a Leader in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation
Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the Customer Success Platform and world’s #1 CRM company, today announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned Salesforce as a Leader in its July 2015 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation (SFA). This is the ninth consecutive year that Salesforce has appeared in the Leaders quadrant.
- Splunk Named a Leader in 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM
“Splunk is the only security provider to improve on completeness of vision in the Gartner 2015 SIEM Magic Quadrant which we believe serves as the latest evidence that Splunk remains at the forefront of solving advanced and emerging SIEM use cases,” said Haiyan Song, senior vice president of security markets, Splunk. “Splunk is growing well beyond the SIEM market rate, as an increasing number of companies recognize the value of taking an analytics-driven approach to security with Splunk as the nerve center. And with our recent acquisition of Caspida, Splunk is adding machine learning-based user behavioral analytics and extending our analytics-enabled SIEM to better detect advanced and insider threats.”
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/splunk-named-leader-2015-gartner-120000738.html
Photo: Kristina Alexanderson, Flickr