Tag: Apple

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Supplier Report: 5/7/2016

sn_therooster_Ashes Sitoula

Oracle picks up another company while their lawsuits with HPE and Google pick up steam. Meanwhile, IBM opens up their new quantum platform to the masses (I am still waiting for my login).

Teradata ditches their CEO after announcing a $46M loss in the marketing space as EMC CEO Joe Tucci says goodbye at EMC World.

IBM

  • IBM Launches Quantum Computing As Free Cloud Service

    In IBM’s vision, online access will pave the way for future developments and spark interest for the new technology. Depending on how well versed people are in quantum technology and their overall technology background, IBM will determine how much access people receive to the processor, according to the manager of IBM’s experimental quantum computing group, Jerry Chow. He explained for The New York Times that the online quantum computing simulator is meant to be educational, but it could also “be the beginnings of a larger framework.”

    http://www.itechpost.com/articles/17852/20160505/ibm-launches-quantum-computing-free-cloud-service.htm

    Note: This is a true 360 degree video, click in the video to change the camera view

  • IBM’s iPhone app will help 20 million Americans keep their sight

    Why might the app make a difference? “The process for managing patient information today is still very much a manual process for many cataract surgeons,” explained Chang. “With this app, surgeons will now have the ability to access each patient’s surgical information in one place, receive intuitive feedback for IOL selection, and help improve future procedures while driving greater efficiencies in managing patient flow; an incredible benefit for practices.”

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3067292/apple-ios/ibms-iphone-app-will-help-20-million-americans-keep-their-sight.html

  • IBM To Downsize Rochester Campus

    The tech company from Armonk, New York will be selling off upwards of one million square-feet of its Rochester campus. However, no personnel changes are expected to occur, according to a statement by Tory Johnson, the senior location executive for IBM’s Rochester site.

    http://tcbmag.com/News/Recent-News/2016/May/IBM-To-Downsize-Rochester-Campus

Oracle

  • Oracle Buys Utility-Focused Cloud Firm Opower for $532 Million

    That rapid growth made Opower an attractive acquisition target for Oracle, which itself has a large business division targeting the utilities sector. By adding Opower to its existing energy industry portfolio, Oracle said it will become “the largest provider of mission-critical cloud services” to a sector valued at $2.3 trillion.

    http://www.cio-today.com/article/index.php?story_id=010000BLD85W
    More:
    Can Oracle buy its way into the cloud?

    It stands to reason that traditional enterprise vendors — Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and SAP — would have at least a shot at that new business. But it’s no slam dunk, largely because of customers’ past experiences with those vendors, Rymer said.

    “It’s no secret that a lot of people don’t like dealing with Oracle, and there are similar relationship horror stories about all the big enterprise vendors,” he said. “A lot of folks say, ‘We don’t want the same kind of relationship we have with them now.'”

    AWS, Azure and Google all promise something more flexible, and for some customers the trade-off is worthwhile even if it means more work.

    “The big enterprise vendors understand enterprises,” Rymer said. “I think they have a chance, but we’ll see how that tension plays out.”

    http://www.cio.com/article/3064658/can-oracle-buy-its-way-into-the-cloud.html

  • Alphabet Inc To Face Off Against Oracle Corporation Next Week In $8.8 Billion Lawsuit

    The case between these two tech giants previously went on trial in 2012, but the jury made no progress. If the new jury, in the trial that is scheduled to begin on Monday, rules in favor of Oracle concerning the fair-use copyright, then it will consider the damages.

    After the initial trial, William Alsup, a United States District Judge, gave the verdict that the material in the issue in case at hand is not supposed to be subject to copyright. However, a federal appeals court reversed this ruling, arguing that the structure of any programming language can be protected.

    http://www.vanguardtribune.com/2016/05/06/alphabet-inc-nasdaqgoogl-face-off-oracle-corporation-nyseorcl-next-week-8-8-billion-lawsuit/122886/

  • HP Fires Back at Oracle Copyright Suit

    HPE’s lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher pointed to Oracle’s litigation targeting Terix in a court filing Friday asking U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California to dismiss the case against HPE. “Oracle seeks to hold [HPE] responsible for Terix’s conduct based on vague allegations of conspiracy and control,” wrote Gibson Dunn partner Blaine Evanson. “While Oracle recounts what Terix did to infringe Oracle’s copyrights, it fails to plausibly allege facts demonstrating how HPE knew that Terix was infringing, what steps HPE took to encourage Terix to infringe, or that HPE had the ability to control Terix.”

    http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202756534913/HP-Fires-Back-at-Oracle-Copyright-Suit?slreturn=20160406110805

  • Oracle Needs More Time

    If you ask me to name one company that’s going to be hit the worst during the massive shift towards cloud computing, I would say “Oracle” (NYSE:ORCL) in a heartbeat. Their entire business line was once dependent on companies managing their own infrastructure; as part of that model, Oracle made billions selling them hardware and software designed specifically for their needs.

    Today, as significant portions of the enterprise segment look towards TCO (total cost of operation) reduction and global accessibility in the form of what cloud computing offers, Oracle stands in an ever-widening gap. Even their core databases business – of which they are still king – are increasingly under attack from the likes of Microsoft and Amazon. This is something I’ve already spoken about in Oracle’s Rite Of Passage Has Come.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3971084-oracle-needs-time
    sn_oracle_2016_q3_earnings

Storage (EMC | Dell | Infinidat | NetApp )

  • EMC World 2016: Joe Tucci bows out as EMC looks to the future

    “If you look at the magnitude of data processed and the need for this to be interpreted in real-time, the outcome is a new style of computing,” he added. “We have to change not only very rapidly but very dramatically and on a personal note, it’s been an incredible journey.

    “I thank our partners and customers as this will be the last time I stand here at EMC World as EMC Corporation CEO and Chairman.”

    http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/599096/emc-world-2016-joe-tucci-bows-emc-looks-future/

  • EMC & Dell execs outline integration plan to create Dell Technologies

    The final hurdles the team face are the Chinese regulators, the one remaining body to have not signed off on the merger to date. While Chinese regulators have proven to be a difficulty for other organizations in the past, Read and Elias claim it should be a relatively simple process for the team. Read highlighted the fact that all other regulatory bodies had signed off on the deal 100% with no condition attached, it was a good sign when considering the Chinese regulatory process.

    http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2016/05/06/emc-dell-execs-outline-integration-plan-to-create-dell-technologies-2/

  • Michael Dell roasts HP at EMC World

    “Our competitors like HP are shrinking their way to success,” he said. “Wait, you can’t shrink your way to success. That is not even a real thing! But they’re doing it. They are getting smaller. They are separating their edge from their core with far less revenue, less innovation in R&D, less software, a smaller supply chain, losing share in each of their businesses to Dell, even right now during this period.

    http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2456674/michael-dell-roasts-hp-at-emc-world

  • Tucci and Dell on Partner Strategy

Other

  • Google handed patients’ files without permission: Up to 1.6million records – including names and medical history – passed on in NHS deal with web giant

    Trust managers approached Google to develop the app and then handed over the patient files after signing an ‘information-sharing agreement’ last year. Neither the trust nor Google needed to ask patients’ permission beforehand because the NHS is obliged to pass on some anonymous medical information if it is intended for research purposes to improve care.

    Also:

    Under the arrangement, Google’s DeepMind has access to the details of all patients who have stayed overnight at Barnet, Chase Farm or Royal Free Hospitals or attended A&E over the past five years. It is not clear exactly how many patients this covers. The company will also be given information on a monthly basis relating to all inpatients and those attending casualty until 2017.

    Although patients can theoretically opt out of their information being passed on in such a way, they would firstly need to be aware such arrangements exist. They would then need to contact the hospital’s data protection officer in writing to make a specific request.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3571433/Google-s-artificial-intelligence-access-private-medical-records-1-6million-NHS-patients-five-years-agreed-data-sharing-deal.html?ito=social-facebook

  • Canonical founder: “OpenStack no lifeline for legacy tech suppliers”

    “What do customers want? They don’t want to get locked in to someone’s database as a service they happen to have dumped on OpenStack,” he said.“They want database as a service and they want it on every public cloud and on private cloud. They’re not going to get it just on OpenStack.”

    http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450295156/Canonical-founder-OpenStack-no-lifeline-for-legacy-tech-suppliers

  • Here’s why Apple’s partnership with SAP is amazingly strategic and smart

    SAP is going to develop a bunch of custom business applications for iOS devices, iPads and iPhones, as well as release tools so that SAP’s 2.5-million member global developers can write their own custom iOS apps using Apple’s new programming language, Swift.

    In return, Apple gets access to SAP’s enormous worldwide salesforce to help it sell devices to SAP’s roughly 310,000 worldwide customers, most of whom are large enterprise businesses with thousands of employees.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-sap-partnership-is-smart-2016-5

  • Teradata names new CEO

    On a day when Teradata reported a net loss of $46 million in the first quarter of 2016 — a loss of 36 cents per diluted share — the data warehousing and analytics company also announced that its board of directors has elected one of its own, Victor Lund, as the company’s president and chief executive.

    The first quarter’s net loss contrasts with its net income of $22 million, or 15 cents per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2015. Lund succeeds Mike Koehler who has stepped down as Teradata’s president, CEO and board director, effective immediately, the Miami Twp. company said.

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/teradata-names-new-ceo/nrHZL/

  • Review: HPE’s machine learning cloud overpromises, underdelivers
    Feels like something I mentioned on Episode 22.

    Overall, Haven OnDemand services are comparable to the Watson services in Bluemix — that is, mostly applications of machine learning, which you can call from your own applications and apply to your own data. There’s clearly some experience behind the text and search services from HPE IDOL and KeyView, but many of the other services show rough edges.

    For example, I was disappointed by the prediction service’s limitation to binary classification problems. In its defense, however, it is still in a preview stage, and it attempts to automate the entire binary classification process, including parts that other services leave up to the analyst. Similarly, I was disappointed to discover that the image recognition service has only been trained against a database of corporate logos — and doesn’t even have the excuse of being in preview.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3063099/artificial-intelligence/review-hpes-machine-learning-cloud-overpromises-underdelivers.html

Photo: Ashes Sitoula

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News You Can Use: 4/27/2016

sn_mushroom_Aaron Burden

  • Stop Treating Your Employees Like Mushrooms
    What is a “mushroom”?

    You’ve probably heard the expression “feeling like a mushroom,” which is to say feeling kept in the dark, left uninformed and fed a bunch of sh–. Think shittake mushrooms.

    Why is it bad:

    1. 1 in 4 employees surveyed has quit, or knows someone who has quit, due to a lack of transparency and communication in the workplace
    2. Only 10 percent of employees surveyed were aware of their company’s progress in real time.
    3. More than 4 out of 5 employees surveyed wanted to hear more frequently from their bosses about how their company was doing.
    4. More than 90 percent of employees surveyed said they would rather hear bad news than no news.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274279

  • Apple’s organizational cross roads

    Apple employs what is known as a “unitary organizational form” — U-form for short — which is also known as a “functional organization.” In broad strokes, a U-form organization is organized around expertise, not products: in the case of Apple, that means design is one group (under Ive), product marketing is another (under Schiller), and operations a third (under Williams, who is also Chief Operating Officer). Other areas of expertise represented by the members of Apple’s executive team include Software Engineering (Craig Federighi), Hardware Engineering (Dan Riccio), and Hardware Technologies (Johny Srouji).

    What is most striking about that list is what it does not include: the words iPhone, iPad, Mac, orWatch. Apple’s products instead cut across the organization in a way that enforces coordination amongst the various teams.

    https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroads/

  • Future trends of procurement every customer-centric industry should know

    2) Adopt a Nimble Approach to Strategic Decision Making

    The past complexities of supply chain management resulted in rigid contracts and raised the cost of switching vendors. This concept needs to be replaced with a flexible yet dependable sourcing model that focuses on reducing supplier proximity for enhanced visibility. This less extended approach will condense the product lifecycle and bring the vendors closer to the companies.

    http://www.sourcingfocus.com/site/opinionsitem/future_trends_of_procurement_every_customer-centric_industry_should_kn/

  • Your Office Has Its Own Microbiome, And It Comes From Your Coworkers’ Skin

    The people who inhabit an office have some influence, too. Across all nine offices, human skin bacterial communities “were the largest identifiable source” in the samples. About 25% to 30% of office microbes come from human skin. Even grosser? “The human nasal microbiome also appeared to be a small but consistent source of office surface microbial communities.” (Memo to staff: Stop picking your nose.)

    http://www.fastcoexist.com/3059111/your-office-has-its-own-microbiome-and-it-comes-from-your-coworkers-skin

  • 4 ways to apply SLAs to shadow IT

    By creating specific SLAs for shadow IT and including these non-IT delivered capabilities in operating level standards, IT can align overall goals and targets with shared objectives, such as 100 percent compliance with change and release management procedures. “For external functions (to the extent possible) align SLAs within underpinning contracts to defined outcomes compatible with SLAs,” advises Wright. “And where SLAs are non-negotiable establish responsibilities and supporting organization objectives or OLAs for shadow and core IT to provide an effective bridge from the non-negotiable SLA to the required outcome.”

    http://www.cio.com/article/3059270/it-industry/4-ways-to-apply-slas-to-shadow-it.html

  • 6 Prophetic Supply Chain Quotable Quotes

    “If you had to wait a week for Google to respond, would you use it?” Dominic Thomas, VP Business Consulting, Kinaxis and Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine 2016 Provider ‘Pro to Know’

    I was fortunate enough to hear Dominic present and when this line came out I committed it to memory. My immediate thought was the supply chain planning community is either extremely patient or has surrendered to Excel and legacy planning systems. This gets back to starting your supply chain conversation. Today asking a supply chain question like, ‘what’s the impact of a 20% demand increase?’ could mean another meeting while those who have to answer try and piece the response together. I didn’t include it as one of the quotes but I once heard a supply chain executive say, “It takes me three weeks to get the wrong answer.” Future supply chain planning processes should no longer include ‘waiting’ as one of the squares on the Visio flowchart.

    http://blog.kinaxis.com/2016/04/6-prophetic-supply-chain-quotable-quotes/

  • How Do Con Artists Fool People? They Listen.

    We tend to think con artists are smooth talkers and persuasive sellers, but listening is their most essential quality, says Maria Konnikova, who has written a new book on con artistry. Here she discusses the case of Victor Lustig, a Frenchman who sold the Eiffel Tower twice for scrap metal to two different buyers. Too embarrassed at being taken in, the buyers never reported Lustig.

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Supplier Report: 3/19/2016

sn_MexicanStandoff

I know this is going to come as a surprise to frequent readers… IBM bought another company. GASP! How could we have predicted such a move?

IBM purchased Optevia, a British CRM integration company that is based in the UK. Their focus has historically been government-based CRM configurations… so this is a very specific acquisition and I am curious to see how this asset will play globally.

Microsoft is trying to play nice and win friends, and that means the (formerly) mean kid on the block is giving away free cake SQL seats. HPE and Dell are looking to sell off a few unwanted assets (and by assets I mean whole companies).

Apple is taking business away from Amazon and giving it to Google.  Microsoft and Amazon are teaming up to go after Oracle (on hosting and software).  IBM’s Watson is under attack from one of its founders.

IBM

  • Is the Latest Acquisition by IBM a Game Changer?

    The addition of Optevia is likely to benefit IBM considering the fact that its current SaaS CRM products lack focus on public sector entities right now. Optevia, being a specialist in the field will provide IBM with much needed diversification and potential growth in its cloud portfolio.

    http://www.businessfinancenews.com/28272-is-the-latest-acquisition-by-ibm-a-game-changer/
    Related:
    IBM buys CRM SaaS firm – no, not Salesforce

    It’s an interesting purchase. Consulting giant Accenture last year bought Salesforce partners Tquila and Cloud Sherpas, also on G-Cloud. Salesforce, of course, is the fastest-growing and best known of the CRM-as-a-service lot.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/18/ibm_buys_microsoft_dynamics_crm_partner/

  • IBM is battling hard to save Vodafone’s $1-billion outsourcing deal

    “Even if IBM does retain most of the contract, the renewed deal will come at the cost of margins. They are being forced to fight on price as well,” said one of the sources. As of now, Vodafone hands out $190-200 million of annual business to IBM.

    http://www.businessinsider.in/IBM-is-battling-hard-to-save-Vodafones-1-billion-outsourcing-deal/articleshow/51424229.cms

  • IBM Board Paid Itself $4.9 Million

    IBM’s board members are A.J.P. Belda, W.R. Brody, K.I. Chenault, M.L. Eskew, D.N. Farr, A. Gorsky, S.A. Jackson, A.N. Liveris, W.J. McNerney Jr., J.W. Owens, J.E. Spero, S. Taurel and P. Voser.

    http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2016/03/11/ibm-board-paid-itself-4-9-million/

  • Watch out Watson, Google’s DeepMind is getting smarter…

    For AI researchers and Go aficionados, it is as big a moment as 1997, when Garry Kasparov lost a chess match to Deep Blue, a supercomputer built by IBM. It is much harder to program a computer to play Go than chess—the sheer number of options in every move makes the sort of “brute-force” approach adopted by IBM unfeasible. But DeepMind has managed it. After the match its program, called AlphaGo, was awarded the top professional rank by the Korean Baduk Association (“baduk” being the Korean word for Go.) And it has entered the world rankings in 4th place (see chart).

    http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21694883-alphagos-masters-taught-it-game-electrifying-match-shows-what

  • IBM quietly built the world’s largest digital agency — here’s how it got there (good summary of all of their marketing moves)

    Unlike the competition, iX isn’t trying to ‘bolt on digital’. IBM is not alone in recognizing the business requirements for digital transformation agencies. France-based advertising-agency holding group Publicis Groupe, for example, bought US-based digital-marketing consultancy Sapient for $3.7 billion in 2014, creating what it called the “largest and most advanced” platform focused exclusively on digital transformation.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-quietly-built-the-worlds-largest-digital-agency-heres-how-it-got-there-2016-3

  • IBM server sales surge, closes in on leaders HPE, Dell

    Strong growth for IBM’s Power systems and double-digit growth for its z System mainframes have seen IBM record 8.9% server revenue growth in Q4 of 2015, helping it close the gap slightly leaders HPE and Dell. IBM saw its market share rise from 13.7% in Q4, 2014 to 14.1% according to the latest figures from IDC. However, its growth spurt wasn’t enough to oust the incumbents from their top spots, with Dell also recording growth – at 5.3% – which enabled it to hold on to its 16.7% market share, while HPE declined 2.1% but still holds the lead with 24.9% market share, down from 26.8% a year ago.

    https://datacenternews.asia/story/ibm-server-sales-surge-closes-leaders-hpe-dell/

Microsoft

  • Microsoft offering free SQL Server licenses to help customers “break free from Oracle”

    Microsoft has decided to offer free SQL Server licenses for its customers to help with migrating away from Oracle database software. It’s positioning this sale as an opportunity to “break free from Oracle”. This offer is only available to Software Assurance subscribers, which is an enterprise licensing agreement that Microsoft offers to large customers.

    http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-offering-free-sql-server-licenses-to-help-customers-break-free-from-oracle
    But what is the maintenance impact year-over-year? 🙂

  • Microsoft loves open source? Only when it’s convenient

    But while this has been going on, you’re not hearing about another part of Microsoft. Simultaneous with the Eclipse and SQL Server announcements, Microsoft announced it had successfully extracted patent licenses out of Wistron of Taiwan for its use of Android and out of Rakuten of Japan for use of Linux and Android. Though there’s been something of a lull in patent aggression lately, it has a long history and generates a significant revenue stream.

    Yes, that’s right: With one face, Microsoft wants us to forgive and forget the “cancer” comments, the dirty tricks, and the standards fixing. Even as the body of SCO lays slightly warm following the Redmond-financed fight against Linux, Microsoft wants us to overlook more than a decade of hostility and accept it as a full-status community member because it showed up with code, cash, and compliments. But with the other face, Microsoft wants members of the Android and Linux communities where it claims membership to pay up crates of cash for patent licenses or face destructive litigation.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042699/open-source-tools/microsoft-loves-open-source-only-when-its-convenient.html

  • What Is Sony’s Incentive To Play Nice With Microsoft For PS4-Xbox One Crossplay?
    I know it is odd to have a gaming item on here, but since we are talking about Microsoft’s embrace of open source and the fact that Sony is kicking their butts in the console market, this is a public relations move…

    For Microsoft to suddenly say “hey guys, don’t worry, you can play all your favorite multiplatform games with your friends on PS4 if you buy an Xbox” helps Microsoft, who is behind, but not Sony, who is ahead. But of course Sony has to agree to this partnership for it to exist at all. If they don’t, Microsoft gets to say “Sony, why are you standing in the way of progress?” but I’m not sure Sony has an adequate reason to agree to this partnership outside of “being nice.” They’re in the lead by a mile, so why let Xbox One get a foothold to try and close the gap by opening up their 35 million PS4 owners as potential playmates for XB1 owners?

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/03/15/what-is-sonys-incentive-to-play-nice-with-microsoft-for-ps4-xbox-one-crossplay/#e6671632fd31

Dell | EMC

  • Dell plans sale of non-core assets to reduce EMC buy debt

    The document is bullish on the synergies that will flow from Dell and EMC merging. But it also points out that Dell will soon have US$59.1bn of debt, which will mean it won’t be flush with cash for the next little while. The document says Denali Holding Inc (DHI), the company that owns Dell, “… has an objective of reducing its indebtedness in the first 18-24 months after completion of the merger and achieving an investment grade credit rating for such indebtedness. The cash necessary to achieve that objective is expected to come from divestitures of non-core businesses of the DHI Group, including EMC, cash flows from operations of the DHI Group and cash generated by reductions in the working capital needed to operate the DHI Group.”

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/15/dell_plans_sale_of_noncore_assets_to_reduce_emc_buy_debt/

  • Dell Aims To Grab Share From Cisco, HPE, Juniper With Aggressive New Rebate

    The Round Rock, Texas-based company introduced a 15 percent back-end rebate that effectively more than doubles similar existing rebates and encourages partners to take market share from Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, according to Cheryl Cook, Dell’s vice president of global channels and alliances.

    http://www.crn.com/news/networking/300080014/dell-aims-to-grab-share-from-cisco-hpe-juniper-with-aggressive-new-rebate.htm

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

Oracle

  • Microsoft attacks Oracle with SQL Server 2016 ‘free’ licences

    Microsoft is attempting to lure companies to SQL Server 2016 by offering ‘free licences,’ but there is a catch, as customers need to be part of Microsoft’s Software Assurance licencing scheme.This initiative is directed at those organisations which are running applications or workloads on non-Microsoft commercial relational database management systems and offers free SQL Server licences and help to migrate applications. When we look at the web page where the company has detailed the launch, we are able to see what it is planning to do with the free licences.

    http://theusbport.com/microsoft-attacks-oracle-sql-server-2016-free-licences/6189

  • Oracle Earnings: Can Rising Cloud Make Up For Legacy Fall?

    “The stock is down 1.1% since (fiscal 2016’s second-quarter) earnings, outperforming the S&P 500, down 4.0%, given the general rotation out of growth stocks into more value names like Oracle,” wrote Nomura analyst Frederick Grieb in a research note Thursday. “While metrics for cloud revenue growth have been solid, investors remain concerned by what the potential cost will be to the legacy business, as well as the potential impact to margins during the transition.”

    http://www.investors.com/news/technology/can-oracle-puff-up-cloud-faster-than-losing-legacy-software-wind/

  • Oracle Corporation: Cloud Growth a Stark Warning for Its Rivals

    The highlight of the entire earnings call was the remarkable growth in the cloud business. Revenue from cloud solutions, which includes both software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), grew by 57% year-over-year (YoY) to $583 million. Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle, commenting on the revenue growth from cloud services stated: “This dramatic revenue increase drove our non-GAAP SaaS and PaaS gross margins up to 51% in Q3 as compared with 43% in Q2. Our cloud business is now in a hyper-growth phase.”

    http://www.businessfinancenews.com/28233-oracle-corporation-cloud-growth-a-stark-warning-for-its-rivals/
    Related:
    Larry Ellison explains why Microsoft and Amazon are going for Oracle’s throat

    Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Corporate VP Takeshi Numoto tells Business Insider that its offer has generated a lot of excitement among Oracle customers: “The level of frustration I’ve seen in their customers has been very high.”

    Meanwhile, at the very moment Ellison was downplaying Amazon, the company had issued a press release announcing that, during the beta phase alone, it had already moved 1,000 databases to AWS.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-on-microsoft-amazon-offers-2016-3

  • Oracle says Oregon is obstructing its pursuit of information

    Oracle claims that Senior Vice President Ken Glueck and Brian Shipley, Gov. Kate Brown’s then-chief of staff, reached a deal late last year to settle all litigation. Oracle would drop its suits and give the state $25 million worth of products and services. Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has said only she has the authority to settle the lawsuits, not the governor.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/health-care-inc/2016/03/oracle-says-oregon-is-obstructing-its-pursuit-of.html

Other

  • Former Executive on IBM’s Watson to Start Own A.I. Firm

    But for Mr. Pratt, leaving to start Noodle meant being able to build a new analytics and A.I. business from the ground up. The company will be based in San Francisco and Bangalore, relying on teams around the world to handle workloads.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/business/dealbook/former-head-of-ibms-watson-unit-to-start-own-ai-firm.html?_r=0

  • Check Out Amazon’s New Secret Weapon for Winning the Cloud Computing Wars

    AWS vice president Adam Selipsky told The Wall Street Journal that “many hundreds” of companies have used an earlier version of the new tool to migrate more than 1,000 databases. “You can clearly see that we’re now getting into the meat of enterprise adoption of the cloud,” he told The Journal.

    Last week, Microsoft said the next version of its own database program would include a similar tool. But Amazon’s head start and experience should continue to pay off, according to Hottovy.

    http://www.thestreet.com/story/13495642/1/amazon-adds-to-appeal-of-its-cloud-computing-platform.html

  • Apple Signs On With Google, Cuts Spending With AWS

    Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, which last November hired VMware co-founder and former CEO Diane Greene to lead its cloud business, is said to be aggressively forming partnerships and swinging deals to bring in large enterprise customers. Last month, Google signed up Spotify, which runs part of its streaming music service on AWS, as a cloud customer.

    http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300080062/cloud-makes-for-strange-bedfellows-apple-signs-on-with-google-cuts-spending-with-aws.htm

  • Tableau Acquires HyPer in a Quest to Enhance Database Computing

    Tableau Software has announced the acquisition of HyPer, which is a high-performance database system. HyPer was initially developed as a research project in Technical University of Munich (TUM). Tableau plans to start a research and development center in Munich with the help of key personnel, and expand its research work on high-performance computing. The idea is to integrate HyPer’s technology into Tableau’s products. This will help its customers with faster transaction processing, and in improving the analytics results generated by its own software.

    http://www.martechadvisor.com/news/tableau-acquires-hyper-in-a-quest-to-enhance-database-computing/

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News You Can Use: 2/24/2016

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  • Why the FBI’s request to Apple will affect civil rights for a generation

    Apple is being asked to specifically create new software to circumvent their security controls. They aren’t being asked to use existing capabilities, since those no longer work. The FBI wants a new version of the operating system designed to allow the FBI to brute force attack the phone.

    The FBI is using a highly emotional, nationally infamous terrorism case as justification for the request.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3034229/ios/why-the-fbis-request-to-apple-will-affect-civil-rights-for-a-generation.html#tk.rss_all

    Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter And Yahoo Quietly Add Their Support To Apple’s Fight Against FBI

    The statement from RGS says: “It is extremely important to deter terrorists and criminals and to help law enforcement by processing legal orders for information in order to keep us all safe. But technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users’ information secure. RGS companies remain committed to providing law enforcement with the help it needs while protecting the security of their customers and their customers’ information.”

    The RGS coalition is made up of 10 major U.S. technology companies: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Dropbox, Evernote, LinkedIn and AOL.

    http://www.ibtimes.com/microsoft-facebook-twitter-yahoo-quietly-add-their-support-apples-fight-against-fbi-2312503

  • Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser on the Next Industrial Revolution

    S+B: What does it mean to have every product you make incorporate sensors and be connected in the cloud? Is this your way of approaching manufacturing in every one of your diverse businesses?

    KAESER: That’s exactly what it is. We’ve got energy generation. We’ve got energy management. We’ve got automation for manufacturing, and products for industries like oil and gas, food and beverage, mining, all that good stuff. And there are vertical software applications for certain industries. Those applications are all based on hardware that provides data through sensors. We look at that data, analyze it, and then make applications out of it. Think about turbines for a utility. We help the utility company analyze how much service its power plants need based on fuel consumption, the utilization rates, and the maintenance data.

    http://www.strategy-business.com/article/Siemens-CEO-Joe-Kaeser-on-the-Next-Industrial-Revolution?gko=efd41

  • How to Motivate Millennials, By Millennials

    1. Be liberal with trust, autonomy and creative freedom.
    Millennials seek job environments where they are trusted by their supervisors and given the creative freedom and flexibility to make decisions and find their own path to success. Millennials are not drawn to instructions like those found with Ikea furniture — just give them the plywood, glue, a vision and a due date.

    Also, one myth that should be dispelled about millennials is that they hop from job to job, because they are aimless or disloyal. Indeed, they do change jobs more often than most, but in most cases, it is because they are impatient with systems that stifle their ability to innovate, be empowered and ultimately stay happy. Gottstein attributes the fact that she has stayed with The Go Game for almost six years (a long time by millennial standards) because her bosses trust and provide her with a space to be creative and grow.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270764

  • Cover Letters Are Dead: Do This Instead

    Most companies today recruit online and receive applications through software systems that often don’t include a section for a cover letter,” she says. “Some industries, particularly those in Silicon Valley, receive a large amount of applications. The pace at which companies need talent has also grown exponentially, so finding the right person quickly is very important

    They are suggesting adding a summary to your resume and highlight accomplishments.
    http://www.fastcompany.com/3056444/the-future-of-work/cover-letters-are-dead-do-this-instead

  • Getting the most out of conferences

    I see conferences as an important mechanism for expanding the universe of smart people you can have conversations with. In fact, most conference organizers have their value proposition all wrong. The primary benefit of attendance lies not in listening to best-selling keynoters. Does one really have to fly eight hours and spend thousands of dollars for information that could be collected simply by reading a book, listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video? No, but by attending a conference, you gain the benefit of those outside-the-lecture-hall conversations with smart people working hard on the same kinds of problems you are.

    Unfortunately, the way most conferences are designed today, the only places you can meet your peers are in the bathroom or during the overly compressed “feeding times.” Neither is the optimal venue for meaningful experience exchange or executive development.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3033809/leadership-management/getting-the-most-out-of-conferences.html#tk.rss_all

  • The Most Innovative Companies of 2016
    Buzzfeed… Really?
    http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies
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Supplier Report: 10/17/2015

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Everybody is talking about EMC. Meg is. Ginny is. The news (clearly) is.  Nobody knows what the end picture will look like, but wow… that sure is a chunk of debt (interest payments alone are $2.5B annually).

While attention is focused on EMC, IBM is about to release their Q3 results.  Could this be the bottom for their losses?

Microsoft is making grounds in the cloud space against Amazon while Red Hat announces a new acquisition in Ansible.

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  • Dell-EMC: What Storage Customers Should Do

    This shouldn’t panic users, but users — especially big ones and those whose software or infrastructure stacks are dependent on particular Dell or EMC products —  should take the year or so that it will take before Dell-EMC is fully baked to reevaluate their infrastructure vendor list and product choices. One of my close friends, who runs storage at a company that spends several million dollars a year with EMC told me he got an email from senior management asking how the deal might affect their company; their plan is to add another storage vendor to hedge their bets.

    http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage/dell-emc-what-storage-customers-should-do/a/d-id/1322681

  • Why Did VMware (VMW) Plunge 8.1% on EMC-Dell Deal?

    An important thing to note here is that Dell will not be offering the regular trading stocks for VMware. Instead, the company will be issuing tracking stock that would reflect the performance of the trading stock. This will entitle EMC shareholders to have only economic interest in the trading stock but not own them (that is no voting rights or dividends). The absence of rights also makes some analysts speculate that the tracking stock might likely trade at a discount to the trading stock.

    http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/193486/why-did-vmware-vmw-plunge-81-on-emcdell-deal

  • EMC acquisition: Is it a good deal for Dell?

    Both vendors have acquired higher value software, although VMware eclipses all the software deals of Dell such as SecureWorks and Quest. Yet for the deal to work, its needs to benefit from economies of scale and this will probably mean a reduction in headcount and product portfolio where there is duplication. Mid-level marketing, sales and administrative tasks are also ripe for some cost cutting. But nobody should expect a repeat of the bloodbath happening at HP which says it expects to cut 58,000 jobs by end of fiscal year 2015. Dell is already pretty lean as is EMC. The federation model of EMC also means that that headline staffing numbers are relatively svelte as it stands.

    http://www.channelpro.co.uk/opinion/9496/emc-acquisition-is-it-a-good-deal-for-dell

HP Enterprises

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Photo: Frank Park