Tag: Apple

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Supplier Report: 6/4/2016

sn_darkwalk_Tony Webster

The tables have turned for Oracle. A month ago they were suing Google for $8.8B dollars and now they are being sued by HPE for failure to comply with a contractual support commitment AND for potentially cooking their books in the cloud space.

SalesForce and IBM both announced that they are purchasing companies this week. But are these companies taking on too much debt?  SaleForce is already being called out for paying too much for DemandWare ($2.8B), but is cheap credit causing a bigger issue in the tech-world?

IBM

Microsoft

  • Microsoft and Facebook to build subsea cable across Atlantic

    MAREA will be the highest-capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic – featuring eight fiber pairs and an initial estimated design capacity of 160Tbps. The new 6,600 km submarine cable system, to be operated and managed by Telxius, will also be the first to connect the United States to southern Europe: from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao, Spain and then beyond to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This route is south of existing transatlantic cable systems that primarily land in the New York/New Jersey region. Being physically separate from these other cables helps ensure more resilient and reliable connections for our customers in the United States, Europe, and beyond.

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/server-cloud/2016/05/26/microsoft-and-facebook-to-build-subsea-cable-across-atlantic/

  • Microsoft faces blowback in China over unwanted Windows 10 upgrades

    Posts critical of Microsoft on microblog site Weibo relating to the Windows 10 upgrade, which Microsoft users must switch to, have grown to over 1.2 million in number, it said. “The company has abused its dominant market position and broken the market order for fair play,” Xinhua quoted Zhao Zhanling, a legal adviser with the Internet Society of China, as saying. He said users or consumer protection organizations had the right to file lawsuits against the company as Microsoft had not respected users’ right to know and choose, and may eventually profit from the unwanted upgrades.

    http://www.windowscentral.com/many-chinese-users-complain-about-unwanted-windows-10-upgrades-despite-massive-piracy

  • Microsoft just BANNED all your terrible passwords (there were hundreds of articles about this)

    The US technology firm has created a dynamically-updated list of terrible passwords, which it will not let you use when registering for an account online.

    Rather than provide some loose guidelines about password length and complexity, the Redmond firm will not let you use any of the commonly used passwords.

    The list of offenders will be continually updated based on new leaks, so when people start to shift to other easy-to-guess passwords – these will also be banned.

    http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/674107/Microsoft-Bans-Terrible-Insecure-Password

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • What Will HPE Sell Next?

    I’d say the smart money was on servers. When IBM sold off PCs, it couldn’t sustain its Intel-based server business and had to sell it to Lenovo — the firm that bought the PC business. So I guess HPE could try to sell servers to HP Inc., but HP Inc. is up to its eyeballs in debt already, thanks to being gifted with all of the company debt in the divestiture, so I doubt it has the resources to buy it.

    Next in line would be Oracle, because Mark Hurd knows the business and it would strengthen Oracle’s offering. However, Hurd also knows what it is worth, and I’ll bet it is less than Whitman is willing to accept.

    This is interesting:

    Maybe this should be titled “Death by CEO.” If you don’t buy it, just take a look at HP Inc.’s executive team.

    You’ll see two people who likely have the strongest inside knowledge of Meg Whitman’s plan: HP’s old CFO Cathie Lesjak, who is rather famous for either stopping or trying to stop some of HP’s biggest mistakes; and HP’s old head of HR, Tracy Keogh, who is out of Harvard and arguably the most qualified HR director in tech. Both of them left HPE, and probably not because they thought Whitman was a brilliant CEO. Just saying.

    http://www.technewsworld.com/story/83552.html?rss=1

  • Is There More Upside for Computer Sciences?

    HP Enterprise (ticker: HPE) gets to unload its slowly shrinking business of managing computer networks and focus on its growing business of selling networking hardware and software, along with specialized services. Computer Sciences (CSC) gets something big to squeeze costs out of. It has plenty of recent experience. Barron’s recommended shares of Computer Sciences nearly three years ago based on new chief Mike Lawrie’s work letting go of money-losing contracts and consolidating scattered departments to bring down costs (“Jockeying for Position in the Cloud,” Sept. 14, 2013). Shares have more than doubled since then, factoring in the spinoff of a government-services unit last year and dividends, including a $10.50 a share special.

    http://www.barrons.com/articles/is-there-more-upside-for-computer-sciences-1464409150

  • HP Enterprise takes Oracle to court, demands $3B

    In spite of the Itanium’s reputation, a 2010 settlement agreement between HP and Oracle obligated Oracle to offer its products on HP’s Itanium-based server platforms until HP discontinued them. Yet not long after that, Oracle announced it would no longer support the Itanium platform because HP was planning to shut it down eventually.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/hp-enterprise-takes-oracle-to-court-demands-3b/

  • HPE hunkers down on data center hardware

    What is interesting to us here at The Next Platform is that HPE is focusing down on the most core datacenter products it has, including servers, storage, switches, systems software (including operating systems and a smattering of management tools, databases, and other selected middleware), plus financing for the whole kit and caboodle for those customers who want to use other people’s money to fund their IT infrastructure. The resulting HPE after the spinout of Enterprise Services to CSC is going to be considerably smaller than the HPE that was just separated from the PC and printer business last year – about $33 billion in annual sales – but it is a good guess that this leaner HPE will be a lot more profitable. HPE will also not be going through round after round of restructurings in the services business, which it has endured since buying Compaq in 2001 and which accelerated in the wake of the acquisition of EDS in 2008.

    http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/05/27/hpe-hunkers-datacenter-hardware/

Oracle

  • Oracle Shares Fall After a Lawsuit Related to Cloud Computing Business

    Svetlana Blackburn, in a suit filed Wednesday in federal court in the Northern District of California, alleges her finance job in Oracle’s cloud-computing business “came to an abrupt end because she resisted, refused to engage in and threatened to blow the whistle on accounting practices she reasonably believed to be unlawful.”

    Also:

    Later on Thursday, Oracle was hit with another suit, this time a class-action case that cites Ms. Blackburn’s litigation and says the stock drop caused “significant losses and damages” to class members.

    An Oracle investor, Grover M. Klarfeld, sued on behalf of himself and “all others similarly situated.” His complaint accuses the company of violating federal securities laws by using “improper accounting practices to inflate the company’s cloud-computing revenues by millions of dollars.”

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-shares-fall-after-a-lawsuit-related-to-cloud-computing-business-1464908394

  • Oracle Says It Will Sue Former Employee Who Sued It
    Because… of course they will!

    The problem for Oracle, and other large enterprise technology companies, is that no one really believes their cloud sales figures. Reported numbers typically include lots of software and even hardware that most companies would not consider cloud at all, complicating comparisons between growth businesses and legacy businesses.

    http://fortune.com/2016/06/02/oracle-employee-lawsuit-cloud-sales/

Other

  • Google goes after Microsoft, Tableau, and others with a new free analytics tool

    The company has launched Data Studio, a free version of the data visualization tool it introduced as part of an analytics suite it unveiled earlier this year. It includes a wide variety of data connectors to let customers visualize data from Google AdWords, Google Sheets, and other Google products.

    It also integrates with BigQuery, and the company plans to launch a connector for SQL databases later this year.

    http://www.networksasia.net/article/google-goes-after-microsoft-tableau-and-others-new-free-analytics-tool.1464401634

  • Apple is working on an AI system that wipes the floor with Google and everyone else

    For example, imagine asking a computer to “Find a nearby Chinese restaurant with open parking and Wi-Fi that’s kid-friendly.” That’d trip up most assistants, but VocalIQ could handle it. The result? VocalIQ’s success rate was over 90%, while Google Now, Siri, and Cortana were only successful about 20% of the time, according to one source.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/how-apples-vocaliq-ai-works-2016-5?&platform=bi-androidapp

  • The Debt Problem Is Bigger Than You Think

    There’s two problems here, though. First, debt has been growing faster than cash. For example, over the last year, cash balances rose 1.8% while debt due in the next five years expanded by 17%, according to Bloomberg. S&P pegged those numbers at 1% and 15% for its sample. But the direction is the same, more debt growth than cash growth. This discrepancy can only go on for so long before it becomes a notable problem – if it hasn’t already.

    Second, all that new debt isn’t getting put to productive use. Indeed, capital spending has hardly been a bright spot in recent quarters, including the relatively weak first quarter of this year. True, a lot of the cash is being pushed toward stock buybacks, which makes sense in some situations. But certainly not in all situations. Dividend increases are another place some cash has been put to work, which makes a dividend investor like me happy. However for some companies, the cost of a dividend hike might not be worth the risk of the debt.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3978849-debt-problem-bigger-think

  • Salesforce Acquires Demandware for $2.8 Billion

    Demandware offers a variety of enterprise services through the cloud, including digital commerce, order management, predictive intelligence and point of sale. Prior to the acquisition, the company had counted several global brands among its clients, including Design Within Reach, Lands’ End, L’Oreal, and Marks & Spencer.

    http://www.toptechnews.com/article/index.php?story_id=0010000LHSIA
    Also:
    Salesforce: Overpaying For Demandware

    The only reason for a firm to pay a premium over the market value for another firm is if the acquiring firm believes there are significant synergies attainable through acquisition. As the deal is constructed, Salesforce is paying a premium of $27.01/share (from 5/31/16 close price), or slightly over $1 billion above market price. Salesforce has yet to make any mention of the dollar value of synergies between the two companies.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3979432-salesforce-overpaying-demandware

Photo: Tony Webster

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Supplier Report: 5/28/2016

sn_boatdogs_JesseOrrico

Google wins their big fight against all-seeing Sauron…err… Oracle. On the heels of defeat, Oracle vows to appeal.  While there is a party among developers, HPE is apparently celebrating yet ANOTHER split of their company…

This week HPE announced they are splitting their consulting services (formerly HP Enterprise Services, formerly Electronic Data Systems) and then merging that portion of the company with rivals CSC to form a new company.  That move is called a “spin merger” if you were wondering.

Rumor has it that SaleForce is being woo’ed by Amazon and IBM is still eliminating domestic jobs.

IBM

  • ‘No-one is safe’ as fresh round of job cuts hits Big Blue

    According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest cuts started as IBM quietly laid off staff from US offices in North Carolina, New York City and Colorado. Meanwhile, in the UK, staff from the firm’s Global Technology Services (GTS) have been informed that the corporate axe is expected to swing throughout the month of June, which will be the second round of redundancies to hit UK shores within three months. Additionally, in Australia, reports indicate nearly a dozen jobs were recently slashed from a Sales and Distribution (S&D) department.

    Additionally:

    The problem now faced by IBM, our source added, is that potential staff members in the targeted countries likely “don’t have the skills” equivalent to their US-UK counterparts. The source added: “Almost everyone believes they are on the next RA list. People are so busy looking for other jobs I would assume productivity has dropped overall by 10%. Its just crazy right now.”

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/inside-ibm-no-one-safe-fresh-round-job-cuts-hits-big-blue-1561781

  • IBM’s Big Problem: It’s Too Busy To Listen To Its Customers

    IBM has lost major contracts due to its inability to deliver what customers want. I’ve previously referenced the embarrassing CIA contract loss to Amazon, and besides the fact that IBM’s technology was woefully inadequate, one of the other factors that caused the company to lose was that it didn’t properly follow the bidding process.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3977286-ibms-big-problem-busy-listen-customers
    Also:
    Amazon Again Beats IBM For CIA Cloud Contract

    During the case, IBM lawyers had strongly objected to the representation that it had manipulated the bidding process to create a protest issue. But the court “does not see any other explanation for IBM’s final pricing strategy,” the ruling said.

    http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/infrastructure-as-a-service/amazon-again-beats-ibm-for-cia-cloud-contract/d/d-id/1112211?

  • What IBM Bought With $155 Billion

    Had IBM forgone its buybacks, one thing it might still have would be the aforementioned massive $155 billion pile of cash. If IBM had used its cash to pay down debt rather than repurchase shares, what might the company’s balance sheet look like? IBM’s debt is comprised mainly of Global Financing and Non-Global Financing debt. The Global Financing segment provides funding for IBM’s external customers, and charges customers a higher interest rate than the interest rates on its own borrowings. This borrowing is done knowing that it will be eventually repaid with interest. The non-Global Financing debt, “core debt,” makes up a much smaller portion of IBM’s total debt.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3977909-ibm-bought-155-billion

  • IBM May Never Catch Amazon in the Cloud, and That’s OK

    SoftLayer, IBM’s IaaS business, is dwarfed by AWS. The company has a goal of reaching $1 billion in IaaS revenue this year, but that would still make Amazon’s cloud-computing business about 10 times larger. Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler, who rates IBM stock a hold due to growth concerns, believes that IBM will never catch up with Amazon, or even Microsoft, in the cloud. In the public IaaS market, Sandler believes that IBM doesn’t have a chance.

    Additionally:

    While Amazon focuses on being the low-cost provider of IaaS services, IBM is going after the highest-value portions of the cloud computing market. The company’s cloud strategy is summed up well by what CEO Virginia Rometty said during a conference last year:
    “What’s important is that we grow in the right areas. Tech is littered with areas that you can have high growth and make no money. That’s not us.”

    http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/24/ibm-may-never-catch-amazon-in-the-cloud-and-thats.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004

Microsoft

  • Why Microsoft Corporation Sold Its Feature Phone Business

    Microsoft recently announced that it will sell its feature phone business for $350 million to Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile and a newly founded company called HMD Global. Microsoft originally obtained the unit through its $9.5 billion acquisition of Nokia’s handset unit in 2014.

    Additionally:

    Nonetheless, customers in certain markets still buy Nokia’s feature phones, which require monthly data fees and can last for weeks on a single charge. Research firm eMarketer estimates that only about 30% of mobile users in India use smartphones. Pew Research Center estimates that almost two-thirds of people across seven sub-Saharan African nations still use feature phones.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/20/why-microsoft-corporation-sold-its-feature-phone-b.aspx

Oracle

  • Google and Oracle’s Android copyright fight is up to a jury now

    The federal jury in San Francisco is now deciding whether Google’s use of copyrighted Java code constitutes fair use, an exemption that would free the company from having to pay Oracle damages.

    At issue is “declaring code” that’s part of 37 Java APIs Google used. Google says it simply used selected parts of Java to create something new in the form of Android.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3074413/google-and-oracles-android-copyright-fight-is-up-to-a-jury-now.html
    Update: Google Won!

    “Overall, this is a win for software development,” said Mitch Stoltz, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on copyright issues. “I think it’ll give software developers a bit more confidence that reimplementing APIs is not something that’s going to get them sued.” However, Stoltz pointed out that the appellate ruling still stands, and small developers could still face copyright lawsuits from tech behemoths.

    http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/jury-finds-googles-implementation-of-java-in-android-was-fair-use/
    Also:
    Tech World Hails Google’s Copyright Victory – As It Should

    The cause for celebration is the fair use finding, which does a lot to undo the damage from an appeals court ruling in 2014. That ruling, which overturned a judge’s finding that APIs cannot be copyrighted in the first place, triggered shock and disbelief among many in the tech community. They feared that giving Oracle rights to control the APIs would create a chilling effect as developers would be unsure about what they could and could not do to write code.

    http://fortune.com/2016/05/26/google-oracle-reaction/

Note: Oracle is expected to appeal this decision (again).  So this isn’t over. 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • HP Enterprise to Spin Off, Merge Services Business (the whole thing is being called a “spin merger”)

    The deal is expected to deliver $8.5 billion to HP Enterprise shareholders, which includes a 50% stake in the new company, a dividend of $1.5 billion, and the assumption of $2.5 billion in debt and other liabilities.

    Additionally:

    HP Enterprise said its enterprise services revenue was $4.7 billion in the quarter ended April 30, down 2% from a year ago. The enterprise services segment represented about 37% of HP Enterprise’s total revenue for the quarter.

    Ms. Whitman said on a conference call that the Computer Sciences deal would remove about two-thirds of its workforce, or about 100,000 employees. HP Enterprise’s services businesses include the former Electronic Data Systems businesses that Hewlett-Packard bought in 2008 for $13.9 billion.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/hp-enterprise-to-spin-off-merge-services-business-1464121433
    Additionally:

    Completion of the merger is anticipated by the end of March 2017, subject to shareholder and regulatory reviews and approvals. Following the transaction, CSC and HPE shareholders each will own approximately 50% of the new company’s shares. The transaction between CSC and HPE is anticipated to provide close to $8.5 billion to HPE’s shareholders on an after-tax basis. This includes an equity stake in the newly combined company valued at more than $4.5 billion, a cash dividend of $1.5 billion, and the assumption of $2.5 billion of debt and other liabilities related to the HPE Enterprise Services segment.

    http://www.appstechnews.com/news/2016/may/26/hpe-enterprise-services-segment-merge-csc/

  • But didn’t CSC just spin off a government IT focused business? (Yes)
    What to expect when the CSC-SRA International spinoff debuts on the New York Stock Exchange

    A combination of Falls Church-based Computer Sciences Corp.’s (NYSE: CSC) $4.06 billion North American Public Sector business spun off from the parent and the $1.39 billion Fairfax-based SRA International Inc., CSRA will be a next-generation, purely federal IT company devoted to migrating government agencies to cloud-based data center infrastructure and building advanced applications for its federal clients.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2015/11/what-to-expect-when-the-csc-sra-international.html
    But doesn’t HPE/EDS do government contracts? (Yes)

    “HP Enterprise Services has a very strong business in the federal government and what I’d say is post-close all options — and I underscore the word ‘all options’ — would be on the table,” Lawrie told analysts. “But that decision will be approached and looked at after we close the transaction.”

    BUT…

    Add to that the fact that CSC is legally prohibited from competing against CSRA for federal business over the next two years as a part of the split and it becomes hard to believe that CSC is going to hold on to this public sector asset. Public sector work would only make up about 11 percent of the total $26 billion new combined entity.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2016/05/csc-says-all-options-are-on-the-table-for-hps.html

  • HPE employees were ‘shocked’ but ‘glad to be rid of that boat anchor’

    HP ES was formed when HP bought EDS in 2008 for $13.9 billion. Many HP employees we talked to said the two companies, HP and EDS were never a good culture fit.

    As the person we talked to described it, “In my own experience, they were difficult to work with and never were fully integrated into HP.”

    http://www.businessinsider.in/Hewlett-Packard-Enterprise-employees-were-shocked-but-glad-to-be-rid-of-that-boat-anchor/articleshow/52440927.cms

Other

  • Is Amazon buying SalesForce?
    Follow-up to last week’s blog and podcast:

    Now if you put on your investment banker hat and look at strategic M&A options for Amazon to keep its AWS market share, there are not that many. It’s unlikely that Microsoft would slow down its efforts and of course merging with Amazon would be almost impossible. IBM has its own cloud ambitions, as does Google, and neither of them would be viable for M&A. So who is left? Yes, only one cloud play – Salesforce.com, which also happens to have the same deferred revenue model as Amazon.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazon-buying-salesforce-jiri-kram?trk=hp-feed-article-title
    Additionally:
    Marc Benioff responds to questions about a Microsoft takeover bid

    This is an incredible moment in history and as you can see Salesforce’s growth continues to accelerate and grow. I’ve now been working on this company for almost 18 years and I think that we’ve delivered fantastic results. As part of that, of course, I’m also making personal decisions as that goes and that’s what’s happening there.

    Sounds like they are willing to sell to SOMEONE – like a company they just signed an international hosting deal with perhaps?
    http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-responds-to-questions-about-a-microsoft-takeover-bid-2016-5

  • No, Apple isn’t the next BlackBerry — it’s the next Microsoft
    Last week they called Apple the next IBM, now it is the next Microsoft

    The lesson for Apple, and Apple shareholders, is that it’s not enough to have a ton of money and just throw around cash to solve every problem. It takes real vision, strategy, and execution, and a first-mover advantage is nice, too.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-the-next-microsoft-2016-5

  • Foxconn replaces ‘60,000 factory workers with robots’

    One factory has “reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots”, a government official told the South China Morning Post.

    Since September 2014, 505 factories across Dongguan, in the Guangdong province, have invested 4.2bn yuan (£430m) in robots, aiming to replace thousands of workers.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966

  • Verizon workers declare end to 44-day strike, claim “big gains”

    While there were about 165 Verizon Wireless employees involved in the strike, the vast majority of the union members are in Verizon’s wireline division. Verizon today said that the company “look[s] forward to having all of our employees soon back at work in their regular positions and doing what they do best—serving our customers.” Verizon also said it was able to obtain “meaningful changes and enhancements to the contracts that will better enable our wireline business unit to compete and succeed in the digital world.”

    http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/verizon-workers-declare-end-to-44-day-strike-claim-big-gains/

Photo: Jesse Orrico

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/21/2016

sn_dog_Stefan Stefancik

IBM announced a breakthrough in computer memory that could make RAM 50x faster with marginal cost increase.  Big Blue may have also developed a molecule that could help fight viruses.

While IBM fights viruses, Oracle is fighting Google. Oracle stated that they didn’t buy Sun just to sue Google, they also wanted to keep the company out of the hands of IBM. Oracle also told the courts that they discounted Java 97.5% to Amazon so the company would continue to use the language on their Kindle Readers (because it is so hard to compete with free).

EMC is raising at least $20B in bonds (maybe much more) while Swift was hacked (again) and is Apple the new IBM?

IBM

  • IBM says it’s designed a molecule that could fight off any human virus

    It’s exciting stuff: a macromolecule – a giant molecule made up of smaller units – has now been developed that could have the potential to block multiple types of viruses, despite the many variations involved. It’s still early days yet, but the results could lead to drugs that aren’t tricked by mutating virus strains.

    http://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-have-designed-a-molecule-that-could-fight-off-any-virus

  • IBM Makes Memory Breakthrough

    IBM researchers found a way to reliably store three bits of data per cell, up from previously being able to store just one bit per cell. According to Dr. eHaris Pozidis, manager of non-volatile memory research at IBM Research, Zurich, this progress is a big deal. “Reaching 3 bits per cell is a significant milestone because at this density the cost of PCM will be significantly less than DRAM and closer to flash.”

    IBM’s phase-change memory is not a commercial product at this point, and no timeline was given by the company for its potential release as such. Phase-change memory could eventually be used in mobile devices, potentially replacing both DRAM and NAND. In the data center, phase-change memory could be used to store databases, boosting performance compared to flash memory and lowering cost compared to DRAM.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/19/instant-analysis-ibm-makes-memory-breakthrough.aspx
    Here is the headline I was looking for (take note Fool.com):
    IBM’s new memory is over 50 times faster than flash and could soon be just as cheap
    http://www.sciencealert.com/ibm-s-new-memory-is-over-50-times-faster-than-flash-and-could-soon-be-just-as-cheap

  • A professor built an AI bot to make teaching easier. Will it replace him someday?

    Named Jill Watson, the virtual “teaching assistant” drew from previous forum data to help answer many routine, technical queries about the course, such as where people could find a certain video lesson or how they could organize meet-ups with one another. The most astonishing part: Students had no idea Jill was an AI. Goel didn’t reveal that fact until the day after the class’s final exam.

    http://qz.com/688048/a-professor-built-an-ai-bot-to-make-teaching-easier-will-it-replace-him-someday/

  • IBM Facing Same Fate As Verizon, Union Workers In Action Again?

    The speculations started when IBM has decided to close some of its site operations. According to Patch, “IBM plans to close its operations in Somers and move everyone and everything into the Armonk campus, and the company’s plan is to consolidate in North Castle and sell the huge campus on Route 100.”

    Although the Company officials told employees about the move on Monday and how the North Castle campus will be renovated and the Somers site will be sold, according to the same post, the move has created worry and anxiety for the affected stakeholders

    http://www.jobsnhire.com/articles/43040/20160518/ibm-facing-same-fate-verizon-union-workers-action-again.htm
    If I read correctly, this is more about sub-contractors (like food services) working in these buildings. As far as I can tell, IBM doesn’t have much of a union footprint outside of that shop in NY, and that was closed up in January…
    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3019552/it-industry/ibm-union-calls-it-quits.html

Storage [EMC | Dell | Infinidat | NetApp]

  • Dell said to get $80 billion of demand on bonds for EMC deal

    The company had received more than $80 billion of orders from investors by the time its bankers closed the books on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the transaction who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly. Dell had initially planned to raise about $16 billion. The company is weighing whether to increase the amount of debt it’s raising in the investment-grade bond market, one person with knowledge of the matter said Monday.

    Dell’s bond sale may be the largest since Anheuser-Busch InBev NV sold $46 billion of bonds in January to finance its takeover of SABMiller Plc, and is expected to launch on Tuesday, said one of the people. The offering comes on the heels of the busiest week for bond sales by blue-chip companies in the U.S and Europe since January. Top-rated issuers sold about $74 billion in the five-day period ending May 13, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

    http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/technology/dell-said-to-get-80-billion-of-demand-on-bonds-for-emc-deal-1.1829746
    Also:
    Dell Said to Offer Premium to Lure Buyers to EMC Bond Deal

    The longest part of the offering, debt maturing in 30 years, is being marketed at a yield of 6.25 percentage points above similar-maturity Treasuries, said a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. That’s three times more than the average spread on all U.S. corporate bonds of similar ratings and maturities, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch data.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-16/dell-said-to-offer-premium-to-lure-buyers-to-emc-bond-offering

Oracle

  • Oracle didn’t buy Sun just to sue Google but to keep it away from IBM, CEO says

    It bought Sun because it was afraid IBM was going to grab it, she said, as reported by Sarah Jeong, a reporter from Motherboard who is in court live tweeting the trial.

    Catz explained that Oracle bought Sun because so much of Oracle’s own product was based on Sun’s Java, and they were concerned about what would happen if someone else acquired Sun.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-bought-sun-because-of-ibm-not-google-2016-5

  • Oracle CEO claims it discounted Java by 97.5% to beat out Android on Amazon’s Paperwhite

    “Amazon… had used Java to create [the Kindle] reader for many years,” she said. “Then they had another product called the Kindle Fire and that one they used Android. They didn’t license Java at that time.

    “The way we look at different discounts and handle them with customers comes through an approval process that comes through me. I was made aware through that process that Amazon was going to [develop] the Kindle Fire with Android.

    “They were now considering a new product called the Paperwhite and they were considering whether to use Java for that or Android.

    “In order to compete with [Google], we ended up giving a 97.5 percent discount for the Paperwhite. Instead of what we would have historically offered them, because our competition was free, we had to offer them a cents on the dollar price.”

    http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/17/oracle-ceo-claims-it-discounted-java-by-97-5-to-beat-out-android-on-amazons-paperwhite/

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • HP Inc. CEO Dion Weisler banks on 3-D printing

    We think it actually democratizes manufacturing. Manufacturing today typically happens in faraway places, and that costs a lot of inventory, warehousing costs, costs of capital all are all tied up, and this enables you to move manufacturing much closer to where your customers are. So, companies like Nike, like BMW, like Johnson & Johnson are working with us as close technology partners and figuring out how they can build innovative products where complexity is essentially free … and bring breakthrough products to market.

    http://www.marketplace.org/2016/05/17/tech/hp-inc-ceo-dion-weisler-banks-3d-printing

  • Meg Whitman gets hands-on with $100M in Hewlett Packard Enterprise startup bets

    “By adopting companies to integrate into our solution, if another one comes along that is better for our customers, we move to that one and we’re not stuck having paid $200 million or $300 million for a company,” she said. “You can’t buy them all.”

    The $100 million HPE plans to invest in startups this year is roughly the same as it did last year. That’s about one-fifth to one-quarter what the two top Silicon Valley corporate venture units — Intel Capital and GV (formerly Google Ventures) invested last year.

    http://upstart.bizjournals.com/money/loot/2016/05/18/meg-whitman-gets-hands-on-with-100m-in-hewlett.html

Other

  • What did Google announce at 2016 I/O…
  • Apple is the new IBM

    Slowing sales of the iPhone have been driving Mr. Market’s dismay with Apple, along with a general sense that the company has become somewhat boring. Recent product launches have underwhelmed, offering iterations and optimizations of its existing portfolio rather than gadgets that create big new categories.

    Also:

    Of course, Berkshire Hathaway’s stake is actually just an acknowledgement of the direction Apple has been heading in for years under CEO Tim Cook. Since taking the helm in 2011, Cook has essentially been tasked with managing the transformation of Apple from a fast-growing company seemingly immune to the law of large numbers, to a more stately—but still incredibly profitable—corporate powerhouse that consistently showers shareholders with dividends and buybacks.

    http://qz.com/685284/apple-is-the-new-ibm/

  • Swift Is Hacked Again. The Bitcoin/Blockchain Fat Lady Sings.

    The significance of the second Swift failure is this. Trust-based systems, such as those upon which the current payments systems operate, are becoming more expensive to protect at a rapidly increasing rate. The horse race between hackers and firewall builders is being won by hackers in spite of the rapidly increasing spending on internet security.

    And these most recent hacks took banks’ money, not customer money. That is a game changer.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3975082-swift-hacked-bitcoin-blockchain-fat-lady-sings

Photo: Stefan Stefancik

Posted on

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

Posted on

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.