Supplier Report: 9/8/2017
HPE had a crazy week where they finally cast off their software division, they purchased a cloud migration company, and saw their stock jump in value. As all of these good things occured, Meg Whiteman announced another simplification of HPE’s strategy called HPE Next. So I am not the one to say it, many IT journalists highlighted that’s what the last two years were supposed to be.
IBM is making smart moves as they committed to spending $240M with MIT on AI projects over the next decade. Big Blue also secured the US Army for another 33 months on their secure cloud platform.
Locally, Microsoft announced they are closing their Philadelphia Reactor office after 16 months. Philly might have a shot at a massive rebound as Amazon is looking for a city to create a 2nd HQ.
Acquisitions
- HPE Shopping Spree Continues With Purchase of This Cloud Specialist
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise said Tuesday that it will acquire Cloud Technology Partners, a Boston-based company that helps business customers plan and build cloud computing capabilities.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Seven-year-old CTP works with businesses to determine which cloud technology—be it from Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google, or the non-vendor aligned OpenStack—is best for the customer’s needs. It then helps corporate customers plan out how they will run their information technology on that cloud (or clouds, if spread out across multiple vendors).
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise to complete software spin-off
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (HPE.N) completed the spin-off of much of its software business early on Friday, closing the door on the disastrous 2011 acquisition of British firm Autonomy and narrowing the company’s focus to data center hardware and software.
The enterprise software businesses, which include the widely used ArcSight security platform, have been merged with Micro Focus International Plc (MCRO.L), a British software company. HPE was formed when the company once known as Hewlett-Packard split into HPE and HP Inc in November 2015.
- 10 of the most-funded startups to fail in 2017
Juicero shut down after launching just 16 months prior. The company managed to raise more than $118 million from prominent VCs like Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and even Campbell Soup Company.
Yet the company suffered greatly from a Bloomberg article that revealed the company’s proprietary juice packs did not require the $400 machine and could be squeezed by hand. Raised $118.5 million in 4 Rounds from 17 Investors.
https://techcrunch.com/gallery/10-of-the-most-funded-startups-to-fail-in-2017/?ncid=rss
- Amazon is looking for a 2nd headquarter city, a ‘full equal to Seattle’
At full-capacity, the site would be expected to be of similar, or even bigger, size to the Seattle operation, which today is a major cornerstone of Seattle’s business life, employing 40,000 people, covering 8.1 million square feet with 33 buildings including 24 restaurants. HQ2, as Amazon is calling the new headquarters, is expected to employ 50,000 and will get $5 billion in investment, the company said.
“We expect HQ2 [the name Amazon is using] to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, in a statement. “Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We’re excited to find a second home.”
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/07/amazon-is-looking-for-a-2nd-headquarter-city-a-full-equal-to-seattle/?ncid=rss
No, I am not biased at all… - Is Symantec getting ready to buy Splunk?
Clark definitely plans to go whale hunting to regain Symantec’s long-lost security position. Symantec expects to grow 3 percent to 5 percent in 2018. Compare that to Splunk, which projects to grow upwards of 20 percent this year and generate $1.2 billion revenues, up from $950 million last year, and it’s not hard to see why Clark is interested.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/06/is-symantec-getting-ready-to-buy-splunk/?ncid=rss
Artificial Intelligence
- Oracle adds new AI, data tools for harnessing connected devices
The Digital Twin capability is rolling out alongside new AI features designed to ease the task of analyzing operational data. Oracle executive Bhagat Nainani told VentureBeat that they provide drag-and-drop controls, which should help accommodate regular business workers. Users can harness the tools to look for operational anomalies and predict potential technical problems in advance.
These features are joined by several offerings that focus on more specialized tasks. The first is Digital Thread, a framework that Oracle has built to simplify the flow of operational data among a company’s backend systems. The rest are prepackaged solutions that apply existing IoT Cloud services to automating field support, fleet management and factory work.
https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/08/31/oracle-adds-new-ai-data-tools-harnessing-connected-devices/
- IBM and MIT pen 10-year, $240M AI research partnership
IBM and MIT came together today to sign a 10-year, $240 million partnership agreement that establishes the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab at the prestigious Cambridge, MA academic institution.
The lab will be co-chaired by Dario Gil, IBM Research VP of AI and Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of MIT’s School of Engineering.
Big Blue intends to invest $240 million into the lab where IBM researchers and MIT students and faculty will work side by side to conduct advanced AI research. As to what happens to the IP that the partnership produces, the sides were a bit murky about that.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/06/ibm-and-mit-pen-10-year-240m-ai-research-partnership/?ncid=rss
Smart move by IBM… get the future thinkers to get hooked on their platform early.
Cloud
- Army Re-Ups with IBM for $135 Million in Cloud Services
The 33-month, $135 million contract represents a successful re-compete of work that LOGSA signed with IBM in September 2012. Under that managed services agreement, the Army pays only for cloud services that it actually consumes. The efficiencies created by this arrangement have enabled the Army to avoid about $15 million per year in operational costs – a significant yield for the Army and taxpayers.
Datacenter
- Oracle cuts hundreds of hardware jobs in Silicon Valley amid cloud push
Oracle Corp. is cutting 983 jobs, mostly in its hardware division in Santa Clara, the Mercury News reported, citing filings with the state labor department. The cuts come as Oracle is adding thousands of jobs globally in its cloud computing division and follow hardware layoffs earlier this year.
The Redwood City-based company is cutting 615 jobs in its hardware division in Santa Clara and the rest in its Solaris operating system division, the Mercury News reported. Oracle declined to comment on the layoffs to the publication.
- Dell Technologies Announces Multi-Year Agreement with GE
Dell Technologies announces that GE, the world’s largest digital industrial company, has signed a multi-year commitment to use Dell Inc. infrastructure and end-user computing solutions to support GE’s ongoing digital transformation efforts. Under the agreement, Dell Inc. becomes the primary IT infrastructure supplier for GE. The deal is one of the largest non-government contracts in Dell Technologies, Dell or EMC history.
GE will use Dell EMC servers, storage, backup and related professional services, enabling the company to enhance the reliability and efficiency of its IT infrastructure with automated and flash-optimized solutions. In addition, GE will use Dell client solutions and peripherals to drive workforce transformation and an improved end-user experience for GE employees worldwide.
http://www.fox34.com/story/36309393/dell-technologies-announces-multi-year-agreement-with-ge
Other
- Follow-up: Yes, Google Uses Its Power to Quash Ideas It Doesn’t Like—I Know Because It Happened to Me
After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.
With that, I published a story headlined, “Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Suffers,” that included bits of conversation from the meeting.
Google never challenged the accuracy of the reporting. Instead, a Google spokesperson told me that I needed to unpublish the story because the meeting had been confidential, and the information discussed there had been subject to a non-disclosure agreement between Google and Forbes. (I had signed no such agreement, hadn’t been told the meeting was confidential, and had identified myself as a journalist.)
It escalated quickly from there. I was told by my higher-ups at Forbes that Google representatives called them saying that the article was problematic and had to come down. The implication was that it might have consequences for Forbes, a troubling possibility given how much traffic came through Google searches and Google News.
http://gizmodo.com/yes-google-uses-its-power-to-quash-ideas-it-doesn-t-li-1798646437
- Wells Fargo Admits To Nearly Twice As Many Possible Fake Accounts — 3.5 Million
On Thursday, the bank acknowledged it had created more bogus customer accounts than previously estimated. An outside review discovered that 1.4 million more potentially unauthorized accounts were opened between January 2009 and September 2016.
That brings the total to 3.5 million potentially fake accounts — two-thirds more than the 2.1 million the bank had previously acknowledged.
- Should Procurement Be Negotiating Harder With Oracle?
But as a procurement person, of course we were drawn to the size of Ms Wilson’s bonus. So just short of 10% of the value of the deal went straight into the pockets of the Oracle sales person. Now we don’t begrudge Ms Wilson her reward and reading some of the details (fascinating for anyone interested in employment law, software or sales commissions) we tend to agree with her case. We also resisted the temptation to stalk her through LinkedIn and ask for a loan.
However, just think about those amounts as a procurement person. If Wilson had merely received her basic salary, and Pearson had negotiated well, the firm might have got another million dollars on their bottom line that year and Oracle could still have made the same profit. With a typical company P/E ratio of 15, that gives a shareholder value of some $13 million that Pearson lost by failing to drive Oracle down by that $800K on the price.
http://spendmatters.com/uk/procurement-negotiating-harder-oracle/
- Microsoft closes Philly ‘Reactor’ for innovators after just 15 months
The Microsoft Reactor Philadelphia — one of only three in the nation — hosted about 100 programs with 3,200 participants over its 15-month existence. Its departure is a setback for a city seeking to modernize its economy with a vibrant high-tech sector.
Microsoft spokesman Curtis Lee said Friday that the Reactor will close because of a corporate restructuring, but the company will remain active with the Science Center and its partners, promoting skills for women and minorities and supporting entrepreneurs and tech companies in Philadelphia.The Reactor programs in New York and San Francisco will continue unchanged, Lee said.
Photo: Redd Angelo
SourceCast: Episode 84: Google’s Garbage
SourceCast: Episode 83: Trump vs. Amazon
Supplier Report: 7/7/2017
Microsoft is looking to reduce their sales force by 3000 heads in order to streamline cloud sales. Several reports are stating that this is not a cost cutting move by Microsoft, but rather a refocus.
Some news outlets are questioning IBM’s understanding of potential problems widespread AI implementation could cause. IBM’s position of AI acting as job-enhancers instead of an instrument of elimination is coming under fire.
More stories of inappropriate behavior of Silicon Valley leadership are making the news. It this really a systematic cultural issue or perception caused by a handful of bad people?
Acquisitions
- Baidu acquires natural language startup Kitt.ai, maker of chatbot engine ChatFlow
China’s search giant Baidu has made another acquisition to continue its push into artificial intelligence, and specifically to help it carve out a place for itself as a platform for developers who want to create chatbots and other services based on natural language technology.
Baidu has acquired Kitt.ai, a profitable startup based out of Seattle that has developed a framework to build and power chatbots and voice-based applications across multiple platforms and devices (presumably named after this Kitt).
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/05/baidu-acquires-natural-language-startup-kitt-ai-maker-of-chatbot-engine-chatflow/
Baidu forms global alliance to accelerate AI adoption in self-driving carsRather than produce self-driving cars itself, Baidu is banking on the open-source platform to “export its technology capability and integrate resources” for a “win-win situation” as artificial intelligence is set to reshape the entire car manufacturing industry, said Lu Qi, chief operating officer of the Nasdaq-listed Baidu.
- Cisco is relieved the FTC stepped in to protect it from its competitor
The problem is Broadcom makes a lot of chips for all sorts of networking products, and one of its big customers is Cisco. Right from the start, Broadcom said it would sell off Broadcom’s general networking equipment business. It didn’t want to give the impression that it was competing with its customers. It wanted Brocade for its storage business.
But Cisco wasn’t exactly comfortable with that idea and the FTC agreed. Broadcom proposed one more restriction: it said it would also “firewall off” the chip-making unit working with Cisco products from Brocade. It agreed that any information about the chips it manufacturers for Cisco cannot somehow find their way into the hands of the Brocade unit, to be used to compete against Cisco.
http://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-happy-ftc-will-limit-broadcom-with-brocade-2017-7
- Forrester: Apple Should Buy IBM (LMAO)
A critical weapon in this war is natural language processing, a form of artificial intelligence. NLP enables machines to accurately understand the human voice, make sense of personal requests, and form credible answers. Amazon leads with Alexa, Google is a close second with Google Home, and Microsoft’s entry is Cortana. Apple’s perpetually annoying and undependable Siri has fallen behind.
Artificial Intelligence
- IBM Is Clueless About AI Risks
“The crux of its argument is that IBM knows more about AI and about economics than the ‘fearful prophets’ and that any mention of risks is a dangerous, Luddite fallacy,” said Russell.
On the economics of employment risks, Russell pointed to several “fearful prophets,” including Nobel laureates Robert Shiller, Mike Spence, and Paul Krugman; Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum; and Larry Summers, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton. “I don’t think one can dismiss their arguments with ad hominem insults,” said Russell. As these thinkers have taken great pains to point out, the pending automation revolution is poised to eliminate countless jobs and displace workers.
http://gizmodo.com/ibm-is-clueless-about-ai-risks-1796549532
- Why old tech is scarier than Hollywood AI
“We have the sci-fi depictions of sentient networks that will turn against us, but the problem is, we’ve already built something way too complex for us to be able to manage as a society,” according to Wendy Nather, principal security strategist at Duo Security. “This is a very shaky foundation that we have to clean out and redo.”
- Salesforce ‘Einstein’ AI can tell when people are angry in texts and emails
The Einstein Intent tool allows programmers to understand the intent of customer inquiries, which could make it easier to automatically route leads, escalate service cases or personalize a marketing campaign through a custom app. This could be particularly useful for prioritizing customer service inquiries.
Traditional keyword-based tools have trouble with complex wording or sarcasm, but this tool is designed to deal with these.
http://www.netimperative.com/2017/07/salesforce-einstein-ai-can-tell-people-angry-texts-emails/
Cloud
- Microsoft reorganizing its sales organization around cloud strategy
Bloomberg reported Friday that Microsoft will cut some jobs and move others around in a reorganization directly impacting two separate divisions of the company. The Worldwide Commercial Business group, led by Judson Althoff, and the global sales and marketing group, led by Jean-Philippe Courtois, will be affected by moves that Bloomberg called “some of the most significant in the sales force in years.”
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/report-microsoft-reorganizing-sales-organization-around-cloud-strategy/
WSJ cuts right to the point: Microsoft to Cut Sales Jobs Next WeekThe exact number of layoffs is unclear, though they will hit staff in offices around the world, this person said. Microsoft more than 121,000 employees at the end of March, the last time the company disclosed its head count.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-to-cut-sales-jobs-next-week-1498866092
Microsoft plans up to 3,000 job cuts in a sales staff overhaul to fuel cloud growthThe job cuts amount to less that 10 percent of the company’s total sales force, and about 75 percent of them will be outside the U.S., the company said.
“Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC. “Today, we are taking steps to notify some employees that their jobs are under consideration or that their positions will be eliminated. Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re-deployment in others.”
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/06/microsoft-will-layoff-thousands-of-employees.html
- This chart shows how painful the shift to cloud computing is for IBM and Oracle
The two technology vendors are set to lose out considerably in IT budgets over the next three years as the result of the shift to cloud, according to the June AlphaWise/Morgan Stanley CIO report. CIOs expect that 46% of their workloads will be in the cloud by the end of 2020, while only 34% will be on-premise.
Between now and then, the 100 US and European CIOs surveyed expect to decrease spending on IBM by 13%, and to decrease spending on Oracle by 11%.
Other
- Europe Is Becoming a Bigger Problem for Silicon Valley
Just Friday, Germany approved new legislation imposing €50 million fines on social-media companies that fail to quickly remove hate speech and terrorist content—over strident opposition from Facebook Inc. and other tech companies, which advocate self-regulation to tackle those problems. That step followed the €2.42 billion ($2.76 billion) fine that the European Union’s executive arm levied this week against Alphabet Inc.’s Google for abusing its dominance as a search engine.
Also
One factor in the policing has been tech firms’ disruption of traditional industrial giants in Europe. In response, many legacy players have lobbied for new rules and tougher enforcement against the interlopers—and found open ears. European telecom firms, angry about seeing their revenue from text messages undercut by chat apps, were among the first to advocate new legislation to mandate a “level playing field.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-is-becoming-a-bigger-problem-for-silicon-valley-1498849603
- Amazon Plans to Join Red Hat and GE in Boston’s Hottest Tech Hub
Seattle-based Amazon, a giant in retail and cloud computing, will take 150,000 square feet former warehouse right by the Fort Point Channel, which separates Boston from South Boston, according to the report.
This week, Red Hat (RHAT) officially launched a new engineering lab and briefing center in South Boston. And part of the reason Progress Software bought Kinvey, an application development specialist, is to use that company as a downtown Boston center. Progress, itself, is based in the Boston suburbs.
- Dave McClure resigns as general partner of 500 Startups funds
Dave McClure has resigned as a general partner of all funds and entities managed by 500 Startups, the seed investment group he founded in 2010, Axios has learned. The move comes after several women accused McClure of inappropriate behavior.
https://www.axios.com/exclusive-dave-mcclure-resigns-as-general-partner-of-500-startups-2452701900.html
McClure: I’m a Creep. I’m Sorry.I made advances towards multiple women in work-related situations, where it was clearly inappropriate. I put people in compromising and inappropriate situations, and I selfishly took advantage of those situations where I should have known better. My behavior was inexcusable and wrong.
- Samsung Reduces Its Global Workforce Due To Restructuring
Samsung, one of the largest electronics company in the world, was forced to reduce its global workforce due to the restructuring of its business operations in China, based on company data. The data shows that the electronics giant has reduced the number of its employees in 2016 by 5.2 percent, from 325,677 down to 308,745. In its South Korean home base, Samsung has cut down its workforce by 3.8 percent and is now down to 93,204 while it slashed the number of its employees abroad by 5.8 percent and is now currently 215,541. It was in China where the largest workforce reduction was implemented in 2016 where the labor force was slashed down by 17.5 percent and is now down to just 37, 070. However, the North and South American workforce experienced an increase in employee numbers by 8.5 percent, and now count 25,988 employees.
https://www.androidheadlines.com/2017/07/samsung-reduces-global-workforce-due-restructuring.html
Photo: Alexandre Chambon