SourceCast: Episode 17: You Should Have Known Better
SourceCast: Episode 16: Artificially Intelligent
SourceCast: Episode 15: If you want it good, it takes time
Supplier Report: 1/30/2016
Another week, another IBM acquisition. IBM announced that they are purchasing marketing firm Resource/Ammirati to “address surging client demand for the next great customer experience”… how noble of them. While IBM is picking up new companies, rumor has it that they are planning to let go of employees in the GTS space. The job eliminations could be up to 30,000 positions (but there is no way that they will cut that many heads in one year… right?).
EMC/VMWare announced up to 800 staff cuts in the VMWare space while they are attempting to assure banks and investors that the Dell acquisition is on target.
Oracle is doing what Oracle does best… trolling other companies. Oracle released Google’s sensitive financial data to the news which Google is (rightly) quite upset about. Oracle’s attorney said Google should blame themselves. Oh yeah they also finally killed off the Java plug in.
Finally… Xerox is pulling a HP and announced a split/spinoff due to pressure from Carl Icahn.
IBM
- IBM Dishes on Acquisition Plans for Digital Marketing Company
The objective of the move, we’re told, is to combine the companies’ strategic, creative and technology talents to address rising demand from businesses seeking to “reinvent themselves for the digital economy and provide differentiated experiences to their customers.”
http://mobilemarketingwatch.com/ibm-dishes-on-acquisition-plans-for-digital-marketing-company-64986/
More Information on the acquisition:
IBM Plans to Acquire Resource/Ammirati to Address Surging Client Demand for the Next Great Customer ExperienceAs one of the top, digitally-led creative agencies in the US, Columbus, Ohio-based Resource/Ammirati will help IBM build on the success in North America and join over 10,000 IBM iX employees to support demand for its services in this fast-growing market. Resource/Ammirati’s 300+ associates across its offices in Columbus, Chicago and New York will continue to serve a diverse roster of clients spanning consumer goods, retail and financial services companies such as Birchbox, DSW, Nationwide, Nestlé, Newell Rubbermaid, North American Breweries, Shaw Industries, Sherwin Williams, Toys “R”Us and White Castle, among others.
http://www.finchannel.com/index.php/technology/item/53862-ibm-plans-to-acquire-resource-ammirati-to-address-surging-client-demand-for-the-next-great-customer-experience
Comments:
I find this buy very interesting… considering some of the marketing moves Oracle made last week and the fact that Teradata is looking to sell of their marketing platform, this is an area to watch in the next few months. - IBM CEO Rometty Getting $4.5 Million Bonus for 2015
Ms. Rometty’s total earnings for the year won’t be clear until IBM discloses the value of certain equity grants, but her bonus was $900,000 more than the $3.6 million she earned last year. The IBM CEO’s base pay for 2016 remains unchanged at $1.6 million, with $13.3 million in long-term incentive stock awards, the company said Thursday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/01/29/ibm-ceo-rometty-getting-4-5m-bonus-for-2015.html
- Axe to fall on staff at IBM’s Global Technology Services ‘this Friday’
Global Technology Services, which builds networking infrastructure and provides high-availability systems among other things, is part of the IT titan’s Global Services division, which employs about 190,000 people worldwide.
Lee Conrad, an ex-IBMer and national coordinator of the Alliance@IBM union, said on Monday that staff had told him that up to 20 per cent of the GTS workforce is at risk. “I have received information that a resource action will happen this Friday,” he told journalists via email.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/26/ibm_gts_layoffs/
Additional News:As layoff rumors surface, IBM cuts severance pay allowance
IBM, which has reported a loss in revenue for 15 consecutive quarters, is reportedly gearing up for layoffs this week. The move comes less that a week after Big Blue cut severance pay allowances from as much as six months pay to one month.http://wraltechwire.com/as-layoff-rumors-surface-ibm-cuts-severance-pay-allowance/15278005/
- IBM Refreshes LinuxONE, Expands Platform’s Ecosystem
IBM LinuxONE recently ported the Go programming language, which was developed by Google. Go is designed for building simple, reliable and efficient software, making it easier for developers to combine the software tools they know and love with the speed, security and scale offered by LinuxONE. IBM will begin contributing code to the Go community in the summer.
http://www.eweek.com/cloud/ibm-refreshes-linuxone-expands-platforms-ecosystem.html
- IBM Closes Weather Co. Purchase, Names David Kenny New Head Of Watson Platform
As part of the deal, IBM is making some changes: First, the Weather Company’s cloud platform will now run on IBM’s Cloud data centers (recall that it once was a big client of AWS). That platform will now power all of IBM’s wider push into data services and Watson’s Internet of Things business. This will bring a massively bigger amount of data into the mix, covering what IBM describes as billions of IoT sensors.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/29/ibm-watson-weather-company-sale/?ncid=rss
Oracle
- Oracle Corporation (ORCL) to Kill of Java Browser Plugin – Why this is good for everyone
“Oracle plans to deprecate the Java browser plugin in JDK 9,” the Java Platform Group said on their blog. “This technology will be removed from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release.” Oracle does not plan to provide additional browser-specific plugins as such plugins would require application developers to write browser-specific applets for each browser they wish to support. Moreover, without a cross-browser API, Oracle would only be able to offer a subset of the required functionality, different from one browser to the next, impacting both application developers and users.”
- Google Should Blame Itself for Confidential Info Leak: Atty for Oracle Corporation
Oracle’s attorney, Annette Hurst fired back at Google after the search engine giant criticized her for disclosing extremely sensitive information during a court hearing on January 14.
According to Google, Atty. Hurst improperly revealed “extremely sensitive information” from documents that were marked “Attorney’s Eyes Only.” The search engine giant said the “public disclosure could have significant negative effects” on its business.
EMC | Dell
- VMware Cuts 800 Jobs As Merger Doubts Linger
The layoffs were announced Tuesday as VMware released its fourth-quarter earnings. The company expects the cuts to cost between $55 million and $65 million.
While VMware operates as a separate, independent company from EMC, its stock has dropped more than 40% since the Dell takeover was announced late last year. EMC has itself launched layoffs that will cost about $250 million.
http://ww2.cfo.com/the-cloud/2016/01/vmware-cuts-800-jobs-merger-doubts-linger/
- EMC has a shoddy year
“I was disappointed that we fell a bit short on revenue, which was $7.01 billion essentially flat year-on-year,” Tucci said. “However, I would like to point out that it follows 24 consecutive quarters of reported year-on-year top line growth. An accomplishment that very few our technology peers matched.”
http://www.microscope.co.uk/news/4500272044/EMC-has-a-shoddy-year
- EMC slams concerns Dell cannot raise takeover cash
Tucci: “We have a binding solid merger agreement in place. We are highly confident of the contractual terms we have in place [and] that we will meet those contractual terms. There are significant penalties in place both ways if this doesn’t happen. The banks are fully committed and, again, what does that mean? It means that the banks have told us they can raise the money.”
http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2443771/emc-slams-concerns-dell-cannot-raise-takeover-cash
Other
- Xerox Planning Spinoff, Under Pressure From Carl Icahn
A large part of the spinoff will incorporate Affiliated Computer Services, the business outsourcing company that Xerox bought for $6.4 billion in 2010, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before the plan was announced.
The remaining company would be focused on office supply products like copiers, scanners and fax machines, the person said.
- Western Digital acquires over 100 IBM patents
The patents acquired by Western Digital were in distributed storage, object storage, and emerging non-volatile memory. The parties did not disclose how much the deal was worth.
http://www.interaksyon.com/infotech/western-digital-acquires-over-100-ibm-patents
Supplier Report: 12/26/2015
We are half-way through the holidays, and our favorite suppliers (thankfully) didn’t make too much noise going into the break.
The tone of the articles are shifting away from “what we did” and are focused on “what we are going to do”.
IBM is going leverage BlockChain, HPE is going make some awesome computer called “The Machine”, Dell is going to figure out a way to pay for EMC (maybe)… and Amazon is going to take over your house?
IBM
- IBM’s Opportunity In The Telecom Industry And Rivalry With Intel
IBM is targeting the CSPs (communication service providers), such as telecom operators, cable service providers, satellite broadcasting operators, content and applications service providers and cloud service providers, to help them generate revenue from the big data value chain. Internal telecom data combined with third-party data has tremendous potential that CSPs can exploit to drive their revenues with the help of advanced analytics. Third-party data include data from various social media like Facebook and Twitter.
As I said above, the challenges telcos are facing today are resulting in softer revenue growth and decreasing profit margin. The only way to boost revenue growth and profit margin is adopting business-focused big data initiatives. Well, what is a business-focused big data initiative? The answer is building customer focus and improving operational efficiencies for expanding revenue and profitability via prudent use of big data analytics and other solutions.
- Why Box Needs Friends Like IBM And Salesforce
Things must be going pretty well: Last Friday, the two announced a “long-term commitment” that could last at least a decade. Box hasn’t actually generated much in the way of new revenue from its IBM relationship yet, but it has at least 100 deals in the pipeline and could close some of them during its current quarter (which ends January 2016).
- Blockchain – Goldman and IBM care, should you?
Why is this even a topic for a DCD conference that focuses solely on infrastructure? Because “it points to two important factors: first, it demonstrates how quickly technology innovation can go from largely unheard of to attracting business start-ups and investors,” says Bruce Taylor, DCD executive vice president. “That has an impact on full-stack infrastructure planning – even if small right now. Secondly, it suggests a new cloud model that wasn’t even in the lexicon two years ago, but may be a massive boost in decentralized computing productivity.”
http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/events/blockchain-goldman-and-ibm-care-should-you/95402.article
- TCS, Cognizant at top of outsourcing industry; snatch market share from IBM, Accenture
More significantly, the performances Cognizant, which is US based but has most of its 219,000 employees in India, and TCS also comfortably eclipsed that of global technology behemoths such as IBM and Accenture during the same period, according to data compiled from company reports and regulatory filings. “India’s Top 5 providers have been gaining market share over the last several years. Within the set, there are growth variations with some growing faster. That said, the battle is now shifting to who can adapt faster to ‘as a service economy’. This is such a potent shift that can tilt the scales and create a new set of winners in services industry,” said Dinesh Goel, partner and India head at outsourcing advisory and research firm ISG.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- Can HPE’s “The Machine” Deliver?
When HP announced The Machine in Las Vegas in 2014, it presented the project as a near-complete overhaul of traditional computer architecture. Gone were the CPU-centric architecture, the slow copper communications, and the messy hierarchy of traditional memory. In their place, specialized computing cores, speedy light-carrying photonic connections, and a massive store of dense, energy-efficient memristor memory. The resulting computer, its designers say, will be efficient enough to manipulate petabyte-scale data sets in an unprecedented fashion, expanding what companies and scientists can accomplish in areas such as graph theory, predictive analytics, and deep learning in a way that could improve our daily lives.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/can-hpes-the-machine-deliver
EMC | Dell
- Dell filing shows why it really needs the EMC merger — it lost money last year and revenue is shrinking
Annual revenues went from $56.9 billion in its fiscal year ended February 1, 2013, to $58.1 billion in its fiscal year ended January 30, 2015. But they haven’t bounced back to the 2012 peak of $62.1 billion in the fiscal year ended February 3, 2012.
For the six months ended July 31, 2015, revenues were down about 6% compared to the year-ago quarter, from $29.5 billion to $27.5 billion.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/dell-reveals-losses-revenue-shrinking-2015-12
- Dell to Spin Off Security Division (more on SecureWorks)
“While SecureWorks has shown both expansion in its top line, and gross margin, it also posted increasing losses,” TechCrunch noted. “Investors have shown smaller appetite for company’s going public that fail to show falling losses and increasing revenues.”
People familiar with the matter have said the business could be valued at $2 billion because of the healthy growth rate, the WSJ said.
http://ww2.cfo.com/credit-capital/2015/12/dell-spin-off-security-division/
Oracle
- Oracle to build new cloud campus in Austin, Texas
Oracle plans to build a 295-unit apartment complex next to the new campus to give employees affordable living options. The company has also acquired an Austin-based startup called StackEngine Inc. for developing its Oracle Public Cloud domain.
Jobs at the new campus will be primarily sales-oriented, including direct selling, lead qualification, prospecting and technical support. The company plans to hire a lot of recent university graduates and people early in their career.
http://presstelegraph.com/2015/12/24/oracle-to-build-new-cloud-campus-in-austin-texas.html
- Oracle Settles ‘Deceptive Java Updates’ issue with FTC
FTC said that Oracle failed to disclose the security issue to consumers. Even if the issue was disclosed to customers, it was inadequate, the FTC added. Oracle acquired Java in 2010. The older versions of Java have been targeted by hackers as it has many security loopholes. Oracle has provided updates and plugged the security loopholes in Java. However, the older version of Java, before SE version 6, update 10, were still causing security issues. Oracle will be required to inform customers about the security risks involved with running older versions of Java SE.
Other
- Here’s how Amazon plans to run your home — before IBM, Microsoft get there
Amazon’s platform will compete directly with Microsoft’s, adding a dimension to the two companies’ cloud rivalry. Microsoft has had more time to work on its Internet of Things platform, but Amazon Web Services has far more cloud customers.
- NetApp buys SolidFire for $870 million in cash
Hardware company NetApp will buy SolidFire, a startup known for selling fast all-flash storage hardware, for $870 million in cash. The deal is considered to be an important one in the storage market especially when EMC has taken up flash by acquiring XtremIO and DSSD.
Not only EMC, Cisco has also purchased all-flash storage maker Whiptail in 2013. Though NetApp announced about its first all-flash storage hardware product two years back only, the company is not especially known for flash storage.
http://northerncalifornian.com/content/55462-netapp-buys-solidfire-870-million-cash
- Red Hat CEO: ‘State of the Red Hat Union is secure’
As we think about 2016 and beyond, it’s critical to recognize that we are building tomorrow’s IT legacy today. The next generation of technologists will inherit the decisions we make now just like we are dealing now with the legacy decisions made by the generation before us. Taking short-cuts and making decisions that get you up and running today – especially if it promises to save you some money – may be tempting. But, it needs to be a balance. You don’t want to be locked into technology you can’t escape – many enterprises are now confronting this pain from decisions made many years ago.
http://wraltechwire.com/red-hat-ceo-state-of-the-red-hat-union-is-secure-/15191748/