Tag: EMC

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Supplier Report: 7/9/2016

sn_sparkle_Matt Hoffman

Nothing Earth-shattering occurred this week in IT supplier news, but that did give the news media time to collect their thoughts on the last few weeks of massive news stories.

One interesting tidbit is news that IBM formed a new company with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to address medical supply chain costs.

There is also a follow-up to a news item from this week’s podcast regarding a potential open source fork in Java EE.

IBM

  • Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation versus International Business Machines Corporation Head to Head Compare

    Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation has a substantially higher fundamental rating then International Business Machines Corporation which has an impact on the head-to-head comparison. The CML Star Rating is an objective, quantifiable measure of a company’s operating and financial condition. The rating is computed by measuring numerous elements of the company’s current financial data and their associated changes over time.

    http://news.cmlviz.com/2016/07/08/cognizant-technology-solutions-corporation-and-international-business-machines-corporation-head-to-head-compare.html
    sn_cog_ibm_compare_2016

  • Healthcare Supply Chain to Get the Watson Treatment

    The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and IBM announced on Thursday the formation of an independent company, Pensiamo, to tackle one of healthcare’s fastest-growing expenses, supply chain costs.

    Under pressure to control costs, a vital element of the move to value-based care, providers need to understand costs down to individual patients the companies said.

    http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/healthcare-supply-chain-get-watson-treatment

  • IBM to hire Microsoft veteran Karan Bajwa

    Karan Bajwa was instrumental in establishing Microsoft’s Azure and Office 365 business in India. IBM aims to enhance transformational deals in India with the appointment of Karan Bajwa. Earlier, Karan Bajwa had a stint with IBM and was based out of Singapore.

    http://www.infotechlead.com/hr/ibm-hire-microsoft-veteran-karan-bajwa-40890

  • Better Buy: HP vs. IBM

    HP is overly reliant on PCs and printers, both dying industries in their current form. HP’s innovative tablets and 3D printers should give shareholders some hope, but there remain too many uncertainties and obstacles to overcome. Second, IBM’s migration into cloud, AI, and IoT analytics sales offers limitless upside, as each category is further along the growth curve than HP’s tablets or 3D printers. Investor patience is necessary in either case, but IBM will reward that patience before HP manages to.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/04/better-buy-hp-vs-ibm.aspx

Microsoft

  • Jhonsa: Microsoft’s Latest Moves Ought to Make SAP and Oracle a Little Nervous

    On Wednesday, the company said it’s doubling down on its business app efforts by putting all of its apps into one product line, launching new business apps and integrating the products with other Microsoft offerings, including the widely-used Office 365.

    While the solution isn’t going to eat SAP and Oracle’s lunch, it should make the enterprise software giants a little nervous, as it leaves Microsoft well-positioned to add to recent share gains.

    https://www.thestreet.com/story/13631263/1/jhonsa-microsoft-rsquo-s-latest-moves-ought-to-make-sap-and-oracle-a-little-nervous.html

  • Microsoft leadership shake-up as veteran exec departs

    Microsoft on Thursday announced a shake-up in its top ranks, including the departure of longtime chief operating officer Kevin Turner for a new job.

    Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said that five executives will divide the duties held by Turner, who played a pivotal role over the past decade as Microsoft shifted from packaged software to programs offered as services in the internet cloud to a gamut of connected devices.

    Turner will remain at Microsoft to aid with the transition through this month, then leave to become chief executive officer at global financial firm Citadel Securities, according to Nadella.

    https://www.yahoo.com/tech/microsoft-leadership-shake-veteran-exec-departs-171217916.html
    Microsoft’s Nadella Reshapes Top Management as Turner Leaves

    Other executives already reporting to Nadella will take on parts of Turner’s job, with Chris Capossela leading worldwide marketing, Kurt DelBene leading IT and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood taking over the sales and marketing team’s finance group, which had been separate.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-07/microsoft-s-nadella-reshapes-management-team-as-turner-leaves

  • Microsoft’s biggest acquisitions: from disaster to so-so

    Most recently, that meant buying LinkedIn in a shocker of a $26.2 billion deal that also ranks as Microsoft’s biggest ever. Before that, Microsoft made huge purchases in the form of Nokia, “Minecraft” developer Mojang, Skype, and lots of others.

    Some of them added valuable new business software to Microsoft’s portfolio. Some of them flamed out, big-time. At least once, a police raid was involved.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-biggest-acquisitions-ever-2016-7

  • Microsoft challenges Google Hangouts with free ‘Skype Meetings’ service
    When are we going to see Skype and Lync merge so enterprise users have access to these features?

    Microsoft today released a new free tool called Skype Meetings that allows small businesses and others to have audio and video meetings, challenging Google Hangouts and other free videoconference services.

    Skype Meetings is for businesses that do not already have an Office 365 subscription and is basically a light version of Skype for Business. The program allows virtual meetings of up to 10 people initially and three people after the first 60 days. Skype for Business can support as many as 250 people in a meeting.

    http://www.geekwire.com/2016/skype-meetings/

Storage (EMC | Dell )

  • EMC-Dell deal gets thumbs-up from key shareholder group

    EMC Corp. picked up an important endorsement for its proposed merger with Dell this week when the proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis advised EMC shareholders to vote in favor of the deal.

    Glass Lewis is a powerful voice among shareholders, as the second-largest proxy advisory firm in the world. It provides guidance to its clients, large institutional investors managing more than $25 trillion in assets, on how they should vote on corporate governance issues.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2016/07/07/emc-dell-deal-gets-thumbs-up-from-key-shareholder.html

Oracle

  • Java EE followers devise plan to seize control from Oracle

    The main reason behind this split according to Java EE advocates is Oracle’s perceived disinterest in the platform. According to them, lack of support from Oracle will leave them with no option but to move forward with their own improvements.

    Java EE 8 with HTTP 2.0 and HTML5 support is reportedly being readied for June 2017 release. But the Java EE advocates say that Oracle will miss this date. So they have formed two groups to enhance Java EE on their own, outside of the jurisdiction of Oracle and the formal JCP (Java Community Process).

    The two groups are Java EE Guardians and MicroProfile.io, will work independently from Oracle and will build extensions to accommodate microservices in Java EE. Red Hat and IBM have joined in as contributors to MicroProfile.io. Payara, which has built a drop-in replacement for the open-source GlassFish Java EE application server that Oracle has reduced its attention to, is participating as well.

    http://www.techworm.net/2016/07/java-ee-followers-devise-plan-seize-control-oracle.html

Other

  • Inside Google And Microsoft’s Race To Catch Amazon In The Trillion-Dollar Cloud

    Google did not have the DNA to create a giant new operation focused solely on selling technology services to other businesses.

    That’s why Greene’s name kept coming up. As Google came to terms with the opportunity, Page asked her to take over the company’s cloud computing efforts. She demurred. Soon enough, other executives and fellow board members followed up with her. It was finally Urs Hölzle, one of Google’s earliest engineers and the man most responsible for building Google’s computing infrastructure, who persuaded Greene to take the job, as the two of them walked their dogs together in the Stanford hills.

    There was one wrinkle: Greene was busy with a new, secretive startup called Bebop, which was developing tech to power easy-to-use business-software applications. So in November of last year, Google acquired Bebop for $380 million and named Greene the head of Google Cloud Platform, giving her the reins to build a salesforce and revamp a unit that spent $10 billion on growth in 2015. The appointment thrust Greene into an unusual role: As an Alphabet board member, she is, in some sense, Page’s boss. As head of cloud computing, she works for Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who reports to Page.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2016/07/06/trillion-dollar-race-for-the-cloud/#3f38ebc06080

Photo: Matt Hoffman

Posted on

Supplier Report: 7/2/2016

sn_throwrock_Felix Russell-Saw

This week the various arms of HP have caught my attention.  They successfully defeated Oracle over their Itanium dispute and have been awarded $3B.

In the wake of that news, HPE CEO Meg Whitman announced a massive restructuring (again) as their long time CTO Martin Fink is on his way out along with their COO. Meanwhile, HP Inc announced the purchase of a 3D scanning company.

With the sell off of the Autonomy products, the divestiture of their consulting services to CSC, and now with this $3B win, both HP companies have some cash, and I want to know what their grand strategy is.

In other news, IBM is doubling down on block-chain technology with their Bluemix Garage initiative, Microsoft has 350 million windows 10 devices active, and Oracle is trying their hardest to kill Java.

IBM

  • IBM and Cisco to combine collaboration tools

    IBM’s Verse email platform and Connections collaboration suite are a good match for Cisco products like the Spark messaging app and WebEx conferencing service, so the two vendors have found ways to integrate them, company officials say. All this will happen in the cloud. They’ll demonstrate the first examples next month at the Cisco Live conference.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/3090100/ibm-and-cisco-will-make-watson-into-a-virtual-workmate.html
    IBM and Cisco team up on enterprise collaboration to stave off rivals like Slack and Microsoft

    The bigger picture in this latest IBM and Cisco deal is that both companies are feeling the heat of competition from a wide range of rivals, some big and some actually quite small.

    They include standalone services from popular startups like Slack, Quip, Trello and Asana; as well as those offered by large companies like Microsoft and Citrix, which not only build their own solutions but have been aggressive acquirers of those startups that have built popular enterprise productivity tools.

    It’s a mark of how far we’ve come in the tech world that some of these products from much smaller outfits can give huge IT businesses a run for their money.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/30/ibm-and-cisco-team-up-on-enterprise-collaboration-to-stave-off-rivals-like-slack-microsoft-and-more/

  • IBM storage has a new boss: The same one it had six years ago

    At IBM Walsh has a disparate set of products to look after, including FlashSystem, SVC, Storwize, XIV and the DS8000 line. FlashSystem is popular, while the others could be characterised unkindly as fading stars – or, more sympathetically, as long-lived survivors facing the challenges of public cloud storage, software-defined storage, server SANs and hyper-converged systems.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/01/ibm_storage_new_boss_ed_walsh/

  • IBM Launches NYC Bluemix Garage With Former Azure Exec

    The design element is what made a difference for Murray. For example, one of the Bluemix Garage engagements Murray sat in on was a small startup out of San Francisco that had a complete idea and knew exactly what it wanted to build. IBM had the company come to the garage for a design thinking workshop to help it visualize what it was trying to solve and what experience it wanted its end users to have. And the design workshop, the startup abandoned the idea it initially had because it realized that what it was trying to build wasn’t really what it was trying to solve.

    http://www.eweek.com/developer/ibm-launches-nyc-bluemix-garage-with-former-azure-exec.html
    Can IBM Really Make a Business Out of Blockchain?

    According to Jerry Cuomo, vice president of blockchain and cloud at IBM, the plan will succeed because the company offers a full-suite of tools that allow developers to get up and running quickly while also benefiting from a mentoring environment at the Bluemix Garage. The garage moniker is supposed to exude a Silicon Valley-esque vibe, where people throw around ideas with markers on whiteboards and Post-It Notes.

    http://fortune.com/2016/06/28/ibm-blockchain/?iid=leftrail

  • Why IBM Will Soar While Apple Stumbles

    Unfortunately, these great strengths may have become toxic. Its culture has become highly secretive. Suppliers may only refer to Apple by a specially assigned code name. They win new contracts without knowing why and what Apple plans to do with their technology and then lose them again without knowing what they did wrong.

    http://fortune.com/2016/06/30/ibm-apple-soar-stumble/

Microsoft

Oracle

  • Oracle (ORCL) Loses Itanium Lawsuit Worth $3 Billion to HPE

    Oracle and HPE have been embroiled in a legal tangle involving software for Itanium chip-based servers over the last five years. HP Enterprise had asked for $3 billion in compensation from Oracle for allegedly causing a decline in the demand for its Itanium based products.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/oracle-orcl-loses-itanium-lawsuit-141002455.html
    Of course, Oracle vows to contest the ruling…

  • How Oracle’s business as usual is threatening to kill Java

    Oracle employees that worked on Java EE have told others in the community that they have been ordered to work on other things. There has also been open talk of some Java EE developers “forking” the Java platform, breaking off with their own implementation and abandoning compatibility with the 20-year-old software platform acquired by Oracle with the takeover of Sun Microsystems six years ago. Yet Oracle remains silent about its plans for Java EE even as members of the governing body overseeing the Java standard have demanded a statement from the company.

    http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2016/07/oracle-killing-java-ee/
    bye_felicia

Storage ( EMC | Dell )

  • Why states like Massachusetts are trying to curb noncompete pacts

    Noncompete pacts were only one ingredient in the recipe that worked against Massachusetts and to the advantage of Silicon Valley, where employees can depart and start their own companies mostly without fear of a lawsuit. But they mattered. In California, companies are generally prohibited from enforcing noncompete agreements because of a worker-friendly statute from the 19th century.

    https://www.boston.com/jobs/jobs-news/2016/06/28/states-like-massachusetts-trying-curb-noncompete-pacts

  • Dell Promises ‘Seamless’ Deal Registration For Partners On First Day After EMC Merger

    In a letter to partners Tuesday, Marius Haas, Dell chief commercial officer and president of enterprise solutions, said the company is “driving to maintain the partner and customer experience you have come to expect today, and at the onset of day one, provide seamless deal registration and intact sales coverage plans.”

    “I do not think it will be seamless,” said a top executive at one large Dell and EMC solution provider, who did not want to be named. “Nothing in life ever is.”

    http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300081182/dell-promises-seamless-deal-registration-for-partners-on-first-day-after-emc-merger.htm

  • Data Protection: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

    The key findings of the survey of IT decision makers at 2,200 organizations included:

    • incidents of traditional data loss and disruption are down since 2014, but new challenges mean 13% more businesses experienced loss overall;
    • over half of businesses fail to protect data in the cloud despite more than 80% indicating they will rely on SaaS-based business applications;
    • 36% have lost data in the last year as the result of a security breach;
    • 73% are not very confident they can protect flash storage environments;
    • the average cost of data loss is more than $914,000.

    http://it-tna.com/2016/06/29/data-protection-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • Whitman lifts lid on big HPE reorganization
    The CTO and COO are leaving as part of this reorg…

    Whitman also said that HPE would merge its Hewlett Packard Labs research arm into its enterprise group, which is focused on selling data center gear. The idea is to better align research projects with products and services that can eventually be sold, she explained. Antonio Neri, executive vice president and general manager of the HPE enterprise group, will lead Hewlett Packard Labs.

    As for the restructurings, Whitman wrote that it would consolidate its sales teams into one big global sales unit under its enterprise group. HPE will do a similar reshuffling with its marketing departments and will consolidate staff from e-commerce, product marketing, and customer relations group into one big marketing unit.

    http://fortune.com/2016/06/27/hewlett-packard-enterprise-martin-fink-meg-whitman/

  • HP launches PC as a service, buys 3D scanning specialists

    HP Inc said it has launched PCs as a service, simplifying PC lifecycle management. HP Device as a Service (DaaS) is designed to help take the stress out of acquiring, deploying and managing technology, with one single contract across devices and services, and no upfront investment. The programme is globally scalable, meaning customers can easily evolve their hardware infrastructure to adapt to changing workforces.

    Separately, HP is buying German companies David Vision Systems and David 3D Solutions, which make 3-D scanning technology, the Wall Street Journal reported. No financial terms were disclosed.

    http://www.telecompaper.com/news/hp-launches-pc-as-a-service-buys-3d-scanning-specialists–1151217

  • HP, Apple top list of tech companies fighting forced labor risk

    Forced laborers may be charged high recruitment fees to get jobs, be trapped in debt servitude, deprived of their passports or other documents, or made to work excessive hours for low pay, the report said.

    HP, Apple, Intel Corp, Cisco Systems Inc and Microsoft scored highest on the list of 20 publicly traded ICT companies. At the bottom were Keyence, BOE Technology and Canon.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hp-apple-top-list-tech-181308055.html

Other

  • What sets Red Hat apart from the Valley

    The Red Hat Summit marked 10 years since Red Hat’s acquisition of JBoss, and today it remains a cornerstone of the company’s offerings. Last year, Red Hat purchased Ansible, the provisioning system that competes with Chef and Puppet. In both the case of Ansible and of 3scale, Red Hat seized a smaller firm that was doing quite well, yet hadn’t taken over the market mindshare the way their public and near-public competitors had.

    Why is it that Red Hat seems to be more successful with technology acquisitions than, say, an HPE, which took on companies like Mercury, Autonomy and even Compaq? Red Hat CFO Frank Calderoni said that these successes come from disciplined acquisitions goals.

    http://sdtimes.com/sd-times-blog-sets-red-hat-apart-valley/

  • Salesforce is way behind Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP in one important area of its business

    Market-research firm Cowen Group pointed out in a note published on Thursday that Salesforce generates a substantially lower percentage of revenue from international regions compared to other software makers.

    As seen in the chart below, Salesforce gets only 32% of its revenue from outside the US, lagging behind SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, which all generate over half of their sales from overseas.

    sn_salesforce_intern
    http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-overseas-sales-lags-oracle-microsoft-and-sap-2016-6?r=UK&IR=T

Photo: Felix Russell-Saw

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/14/2016

sn_train_tunnel_Stefan Kunze

This week IBM continues to tout the multi-function applications of Watson in medical, cybersecurity, and international areas, while their dance partner Apple woos SAP (who also has a relationship with IBM)… so three way dance?

VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger isn’t going anywhere if you were wondering, but many outlets did report he was on his way out.  But Oracle is definitely (maybe) out as the database of choice at Salesforce who is rumored to be favoring an open source platform.

HP Inc announced a venture funding unit. While sister company HPE’s CEO Meg Whitman once famously stated “we can’t buy all the start-ups”, HP Inc is trying to get a piece of the action.

IBM

  • IBM’s Watson is going to cybersecurity school

    Now IBM aims to accelerate the training process. This fall, it will begin working with students at universities including California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, Penn State, MIT, New York University and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County along with Canada’s universities of New Brunswick, Ottawa and Waterloo.

    Over the course of a year, the program aims to feed up to 15,000 new documents into Watson every month, including threat intelligence reports, cybercrime strategies, threat databases and materials from IBM’s own X-Force research library. X-Force represents 20 years of security research, including details on 8 million spam and phishing attacks and more than 100,000 documented vulnerabilities.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3067961/security/ibms-watson-is-going-to-cybersecurity-school.html

  • IBM’s Watson aims to make hospital stays suck a whole lot less

    Using feedback from parents and patients, Watson will help the hospital identify anxieties and provide on-demand reassurance and a more-personalized service to young patients, as well as reminding parents about follow-up appointments and aftercare. IBM envisions a variety of other potential applications including matching patients to clinical studies, monitoring admission patterns to help with bed planning and helping manage chronic illnesses through educational applications.

    http://www.cnet.com/news/ibms-watson-aims-to-make-being-in-hospital-suck-a-whole-lot-less/

  • IBM Cloud signs new enterprise deals

    IBM announced that Kimberly-Clark, maker of Kleenex and Huggies, has adopted IBM Cloud and IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) Platform to create intelligent facilities management app that helps clients better monitor and manage restrooms remotely, lowering costs and improving consumer experiences.

    Utilizing IBM Watson IoT Platform, facilities managers collect data and alerts from sensors integrated into restroom amenities, from soap dispensers to air fresheners, as well as non-amenities like entrance doors.

    http://www.infotechlead.com/cloud/ibm-cloud-signs-new-enterprise-deals-39844

  • Why IBM Is Excited About the ‘Special Partnership’ Between Apple, SAP

    Now that Apple has teamed up with SAP too, IBM’s consulting teams can work on an even broader range of mobile apps that link more closely to SAP’s widely used array of back-office systems, van Kralingen said.

    She describes these relationships as more “strategically intense and more open” than previous alliances, and suggests we brace for more.

    http://fortune.com/2016/05/06/why-ibm-is-excited-about-the-special-partnership-between-apple-sap/

  • IBM’s AI ‘Watson’ set to launch Korean version

    “Watson is already learning Korean through TV programs, movies and newspapers,” an IBM employee said. “We will be available to move up the process with the help of SK C&C.”

    IBM and SK C&C will develop a Korean application program interface (API) that will allow Watson to change natural language, data search, conversation and documents into Korean.

    http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2016/05/325_204396.html

  • Groupon is calling IBM patent trolls

    The lawsuit concerns IBM’s WebSphere Commerce platform, which Groupon said lets merchants send messages to customers with GPS-enabled devices based on their real-time locations and their use of social media.

    Groupon said the platform infringes a December 2010 patent, and argued it deserves royalties based on the “billions of dollars” of revenue that IBM has received through its infringement.

    “IBM, a relic of once-great 20th Century technology firms, has now resorted to usurping the intellectual property of companies born this millennium,” Groupon said in its lawsuit.

    http://www.itnews.com.au/news/groupon-sues-ibm-over-alleged-patent-infringement-419300

Microsoft

  • Microsoft Acquires IoT Company Solair To Power Azure IoT Suite

    Microsoft Corporation has acquired Solair, an Italian company specialized in Internet of Things (IoT) services for the enterprise in a number of industries, including manufacturing, retail, food, and transportation. Solair’s IoT customization and deployment solutions, built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, are engineered to help businesses in any industry utilize IoT to run more efficiently and profitably.

    http://amigobulls.com/articles/microsoft-acquires-iot-company-solair-to-power-azure-iot-suite

  • Microsoft’s All-Time Revenue Just Topped $1 Trillion

    “You might expect a company to announce a milestone like this and bask in this incredible accomplishment — but not Microsoft. It chose to stay silent as it faces increased public scrutiny for holding $108.3 billion in earnings offshore (an incredible 41% of its all time profit) and its history of tax dodging at home in Washington State.”

    http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/05/microsoft-struts-into-the-1-trillion-club/

  • Microsoft is way behind in mobile, and here’s how it’s catching up

    But in mobile computing, the struggle is real, and Microsoft is an afterthought. Windows commands just 4 percent market share, way behind Google’s Android at 62 percent and Apple’s (AAPL) iOS at 28 percent, according to Net Market Share. Microsoft has grown its share slightly from 2.6 percent at the end of 2015.

    Improving Microsoft’s image as a serious mobile player won’t be easy. In July, just over a year after acquiring Nokia’s handset business for $7.2 billion, marking a head-first dive head into mobile phones, Microsoft wrote off the entire purchase and announced 7,800 layoffs, mostly in the phone division.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstories/microsoft-is-way-behind-in-mobile-and-heres-how-its-catching-up/ar-BBsIXrj

Storage [EMC | Dell | Infinidat | NetApp]

  • INFINIDAT Reports 213% Year Over Year Sales Growth in Q1 2016

    “Our quarterly sales growth continues at a triple-digit pace and is a direct result of our expansion across sales channels and around the globe,” said Moshe Yanai, INFINIDAT Founder and CEO. “This growth also includes repeat sales from our existing customer base, proving our ability to deliver on the promise of a high performance, scalable and reliable storage solution. With the InfiniBox storage array, companies are finding that they can reduce their total cost of ownership and better utilize their most important asset — their information — for a greater competitive advantage.”

    http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160510006068/en/INFINIDAT-Reports-213-Year-Year-Sales-Growth

  • Dell Technologies must trim fat on ‘obese’ channel – analyst

    “Joe [Tucci, EMC’s CEO] has been very committed to the idea of a federation, whereas Michael was very careful not to mention a federation, but to talk about a ‘family’,” he said.

    “So there is a bit of an issue there. I have never liked the idea of a federation. By making it a ‘family’ there is a risk of problems in bringing them all together. Each division has its own CEO and they will have to work more closely together than they ever had in the past. There was one remarkable absence at EMC World – Pat Gelsinger [VMware’s CEO]. A lot of the other [EMC Federation CEOs] were not there, but VMware is the cash engine for funding this deal. For Pat not to be there was a little telling.”

    http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2457406/dell-technologies-must-trim-fat-on-obese-channel-analyst

  • The CEO of $25 billion VMware denies a report that he’s stepping down amid a huge leadership brain drain

    “I categorically deny it. EMC categorically denies it. And Dell categorically denies it. So there’s absolutely no merit or substance to the rumor whatsoever. And my intention is to stay here and Michael’s intention is to stay here, as well,” Gelsinger said, referring to Dell CEO Michael Dell, at the Jefferies Technology Conference held Wednesday.

    Also:

    Gelsinger’s remarks clear a lot of air around his job, which has long been rumored to be next in line to be canned, following a series of leadership departures at VMware. Just over the past few months, the company’s COO, CTO, and CFO have all left, in addition to a bunch of VP-level star executives. With Dell soon expected to merge with EMC, which owns 81% of VMware, it seemed only reasonable that the company’s entire management would get overhauled.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/vmware-ceo-pat-gelsinger-denies-rumors-of-him-stepping-down-2016-5

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • HP rolls out a new corporate venture unit

    In a brief meeting at Disrupt NY yesterday, Bolwell gave us a few details about HP Tech Ventures’ plans. The idea is to focus primarily on seed and Series A deals that serve HP Inc. strategically. The team will focus on five areas, including: 3D printing and the broader ecosystem that supports it; immersive experiences, including both augmented reality and virtual reality; smart machines, including home and commercial robots; and the Internet of Things.

    http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/10/hp-rolls-out-a-new-corporate-venture-unit/
    Note: This connects to Episode 22 of the Podcast, and Whiteman’s comments about not being able to buy up all the start-ups.

  • The OpenText – HP Deal: You’re Asking the Wrong Question

    It’s too early to answer all the questions we may have about the acquisition. For example, we don’t know TeamSite’s positioning against OpenText Web Experience Management (a.k.a. Vignette) and OpenText Web Site Management (a.k.a. RedDot). We will be finding that out in the coming weeks though.

    My goal here wasn’t to tell HP customers that this acquisition will put them in an ideal position. The goal was to compare the real life alternatives and determine whether this acquisition was a step in the right direction.

    Judging from what we know about OpenText today, I’d argue it was.

    http://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/the-opentext-hp-deal-youre-asking-the-wrong-question/

  • HP Inc’s five pillar vision
    Uh… I only count 4.
    http://www.dqindia.com/hp-incs-five-pillar-vision/
  • Assessing HP Inc. After The Split

    HPQ now faces hard times, with bad macro circumstances, overall marginality and revenues decrease. Right now, the company plans to reduce its costs by making significant job cuts in order to show somewhat bottom line growth. However, such measures are not about long-term strategy. If revenues of major segments continue to decrease, then the company would need something to change the way we see it today. This can be done by bringing in something new (distinguishing product item, or even product line). Otherwise, there’s a cause for concern.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3973627-assessing-hp-inc-split
    sn_HPI_q1_2016

Oracle

  • More information on the Google/Oracle Java lawsuit

    At issue is Google’s use of 37 so-called application program interfaces, or APIs, from Java in its Android mobile operating system. APIs are snippets of code that enable an app, website or program to work with other bits of software.

    When building Android, Google used Java APIs because programmers were familiar with the programming language, and many programs used it. Oracle says Google should have licensed the APIs from Java’s creator, Sun Microsystems Inc., which Oracle later acquired. Google says it acted under a doctrine allowing “fair use” of small amounts of copyright material.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-and-google-head-back-to-court-1462616948

  • Why Salesforce.com, Inc.’s Plan to Ditch Oracle Corporation is Brilliant

    Another advantage of PostgreSQL is a more seamless ability to distribute the technology across data centers than ORCL. This is increasingly important since the European Union is forcing U.S. companies to keep customer data in the country where that data was collected. CRM understands timely compliance with these standards could mean more business with European customers.

    That’d be real nice for CRM. In its last three fiscal years, revenue from Europe has remained stagnant as a percentage of revenue, languishing between 17% and 18% of total sales.

    But perhaps the most visible reason for Salesforce to make the shift from ORCL is the fact that the two companies are direct competitors, with Oracle aggressively branching out into the same sort of sales pipeline software offerings that made CRM famous.

    http://investorplace.com/2016/05/salesforce-crm-oracle-orcl/
    Also:
    Salesforce, inc. (CRM) AWS Deal Might Turn Out Into A Kind Of Merger Deal
    For those expecting Oracle to buy Salesforce… maybe not:

    He further mentioned that over this year, we could further expect other part of Salesforce’s infrastructure to be moved to AWS too. He stated that the IoT cloud would utilize Amazon’s Aurora database, and it is the perfect fit for IoT. The reason he mentioned was that this database has the flexibility of AWS’ offering, which has the ability to scale up and down according to the uncontrolled exponential growth.

    He expects that in the future, Salesforce might also shift its data centers towards certain geographies to AWS. This would be a win-win situation for both, would mean cost savings for the former while would be a marquee win for the latter.

    http://www.thecountrycaller.com/32328-salesforce-inc-nyse-crm-aws-deal-might-turn-out-into-a-kind-of-merger-deal-piper-jaffray/

Other

  • Top 2016 Cybersecurity Reports Out From AT&T, Cisco, Dell, Google, IBM, McAfee, Symantec And Verizon

    The IBM Security division produces their annual X-Force Cyber Security Intelligence Index Report based on operational data collected from thousands of devices monitored in over 100 countries. The report looks at the global cyber threatscape and which industries face the greatest risk. The 2016 report provides many valuable insights — including the fact that 60% of all attacks suffered by IBM customers were carried out by ‘insiders’.

    Takeaway: The healthcare industry was the one most frequently attacked, speeding straight past financial services and manufacturing

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemorgan/2016/05/09/top-2016-cybersecurity-reports-out-from-att-cisco-dell-google-ibm-mcafee-symantec-and-verizon/#25c0dbdd3edb

  • For the First Time, India’s Very Own Operating System Indus Beats Apple, Microsoft
    What exact defines “beats”

    According to data from Counterpoint Research with ET, Indus OS had a 5.6% share of the total smartphone market during January-March. This is more than double of Apple’s iOS which was at no. 5 with 2.5% share.

    http://daily.bhaskar.com/news-tsf/TOP-operating-system-indus-more-popular-than-apple-microsoft-in-india-5319066-NOR.html

  • Salesforce just bought a startup for ‘tens of millions’ of dollars, adding to its buying spree

    According to Dow Jones Business News, Salesforce just acquired a data-automation startup called Implisit Insights for “tens of millions” of dollars, citing people familiar with the matter. Implisit, based in Israel, has raised $3.3 million in funding so far, according to CrunchBase.

    Implisit Insights is a software maker that helps sales people make faster and better decisions based on the data stored in its customer database. It could predict the best possible deals and identify those most at risk of losing, while providing recommended actions to improve the sales process, according to its website.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-buys-implisit-insights-2016-5

  • Google Has Raked In $21 Billion In Android Profit, Oracle Says

    Google has earned $21 billion in profit from more than 3 billion activations of Android-based smartphones, Oracle‘s (ORCL) lawyer said in opening arguments in the second trial pitting the database maker against the Internet search giant.

    http://www.investors.com/news/technology/google-has-raked-in-21b-in-android-profit-says-oracle/

  • Will Teradata Reverse Its Fortune with New CEO?

    Teradata aims to transform itself by means of a new CEO, the sale of its TMA business, and increased strategic initiatives in the cloud and IoT space. For the time being, the market is viewing the company’s fiscal 1Q16 results and Victor Lund’s appointment as new CEO positively.

    http://marketrealist.com/2016/05/will-teradata-reverse-fortune-new-ceo/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 4/30/2016

sn_lemons_Erol Ahmed

In supplier news, the press likes to make groupings of four (like Gartner’s magic quadrants). This week, the press calls EMC, IBM, Oracle, and HPE the 4 horsemen of the legacy IT apocalypse (clever title, but the article fails to make any new observations).  We also learn who the 4 major players are in the cloud space (there should be absolutely no surprises to readers of this blog)

When we look past these blocks of 4, we learn about blockchains, using DNA as a storage vehicle, and why healthcare is a major target for cybercrime.

IBM

  • Big Blue’s big blockchain bet

    So Friday’s announcement is that IBM has chosen “the good builds,” run a battery of tests, certified that the framework is secure, and is now widely distributing its version of the code to developers.

    The company also announced Friday that it was graduating its own cloud-based blockchain services from experimental to beta. In other words, IBM is offering to securely run a company’s blockchain network within its own ecosystem so developers can focus on creating applications for the tech.

    http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/29/ibm-announces-blockchain-services.html

  • Don’t Worry About IBM’s Mainframe Sales Collapse

    While sales of mainframe systems represent a relatively small portion of IBM’s total sales, once related hardware, software, and services are included, the mainframe accounts for a major part of IBM’s profits. Back in 2012, an analyst from Bernstein Research estimated that the mainframe ultimately accounted for a quarter of IBM’s revenue and nearly half of its profits. IBM’s business has changed since then, with the company undergoing a transformation, but the mainframe remains a key part of IBM.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/27/dont-worry-about-ibms-mainframe-sales-collapse.aspx

Microsoft

  • Why Microsoft is buying 10 million strands of DNA

    “Today, the vast majority of digital data is stored on media that has a finite shelf life and periodically needs to be re-encoded. DNA is a promising storage media, as it has a known shelf life of several thousand years, offers a permanent storage format and can be read for continuously decreasing costs,” Emily M. Leproust, CEO of Twist Bioscience, said in a press release. “Our silicon-based DNA synthesis platform offers unmatched scale and product quality that vastly accelerates the ability to write DNA at a cost enabling data storage. We are thrilled to work with Microsoft, and University of Washington researchers, to address the growing challenge of digital data storage.”

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-microsoft-is-buying-10-million-strands-of-dna/

  • Microsoft and Google Set to End All Legal Proceedings Against Each Other

    This formal announcement came just two days after the European Union levied a formal antitrust complaint against Android, but according to the statement given to Recode both companies said that their deal about this collaboration was still in progress. But this isn’t the first time Microsoft and Google have entered a collaboration agreement to end these legal complaints against each other. The two companies ended a legal battle over Android patents last year.

    http://wccftech.com/microsoft-google-legal-proceedings/

Oracle

  • Oracle Buys Textura

    Textura’s cloud services process $3.4 billion in payments for over 6,000 projects each month, helping keep projects on time and under budget while reducing risk for developers, contractors and subcontractors. Textura offers its cloud services in a consumption model preferred by the engineering and construction industry whereby the companies involved pay based on project activity. Further, usage of Textura’s cloud services creates a network effect that benefits all participants as more than 85,000 general and subcontractors are connected to the platform.

    http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/158589/
    More:

    In 2014, Textura and Allin became the target of famous short seller Andrew Left of Citron Research. (Citron and Left will forever be known as for taking down Valeant, though he’s had plenty of other targets, like Mobileye.)

    In Left’s classic style, Citron issued a scathing report on Textura filled with words like “fraud” and “fraudulent.” Left took issue with things like how the company was reporting revenue and how it was predicting its profit trajectory.

    Citron also called out Allin for not disclosing a previous CEO role he had at a company called Patron Systems a decade ago. Patron’s business at the time was based around a proposed deal to buy security company Trustwave, but the purchase never happened, Allin resigned, and Patron went bankrupt a few years later, reports Crain’s Chicago Business editor John Pletz.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-buys-textura-founder-gains-58-million-2016-4

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Wanna walk the plank voluntarily? You got it

    Around a quarter of the 780 ITO staff earmarked for redundancy were supposed to leave at the end of this month but company insiders told us not all of those plans were followed through.

    One told us, “A fair few people about have been ‘spared’ from the current redundancies. Lots of messing them about though, [some were] told they were going [in April] and then told last week that actually they weren’t.”

    The earliest termination date is 31 July (last day at work would be 29 July) but staff that volunteer to leave need to have everything signed and sealed by mid-May.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/27/hpe_voluntary_redundancy_track_opened

Storage [EMC |Dell |Infinidat]

  • EMC Faces Growing Competition from Flash Storage Providers

    EMC’s Information Infrastructure segment’s revenues fell by 6% YoY to $3.8 billion whereas revenues from RSA and Information Storage fell by 8.1% and 5.9% YoY, respectively. Revenues from EMC’s Enterprise Content division also fell by 2.9% YoY.

    Revenues for EMC were impacted due to sluggish demand for traditional data storage products. As shown in the above chart, VMware’s (VMW) revenues rose by 4.8% YoY to $1,583 billion in 1Q16. EMC’s Pivotal segment reported revenues of $83 million, a massive increase of 56% YoY.

    http://marketrealist.com/2016/04/emc-faces-growing-competition-flash-storage-providers/

  • Exclusive: VMware Cloud Chief Exits

    Fathers’s exit is not a huge surprise given that the company’s cloud efforts have been in flux for more than a year. That picture got even fuzzier in October when Dell and VMware parent company EMC disclosed their planned $67 billion merger. There was significant overlap in the three companies’ cloud strategies that muddied the waters further.

    http://fortune.com/2016/04/27/exclusive-vmware-cloud-chief-exits/

  • Leading Cloud Provider Triple C Selects INFINIDAT to Expand Operations and Speed Customer Transitions to the Cloud

    “INFINIDAT’s storage solutions enable us to achieve significant financial savings, along with increased capacity to address dramatically expanding storage volumes and customers’ availability requirements,” said Erez Rozenbaum, director of cloud engineering at Triple C. “The major challenge for cloud-based storage is how to handle data at scale. With InfiniBox, we can meet the highest SLA business objectives set by the company for both private and public cloud services.”

    http://www.cso.com.au/mediareleases/27190/leading-cloud-provider-triple-c-selects-infinidat/

Other

  • Former Aprimo to be Sold

    The buyer is an affiliate of Marlin Equity Partners. Teradata has been negotiating the sale of the unit since late last year as it shifts emphasis. You can view the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by clicking here.

    Aprimo was founded in Indianapolis by Bill Godfrey.

    Teradata acquired Aprimo in 2011 for $525 million. At the time, Teradata touted the move for the cloud-based company as a “milestone” event and it led to the launch of its new applications business unit that has been managed in Indy.

    In 2013, it transitioned from the name Aprimo to Teradata Applications.

    Teradata says either party can terminate the purchase agreement if the acquisition is not complete by October 22.

    http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/31823283/former-aprimo-to-be-sold-for-90-million

  • AWS, Google, Microsoft and IBM pull away from pack in race for cloud market share

    “This is a market that is so big and is growing so rapidly that companies can be growing by 10-30% per year and might feel good about themselves and yet they’d still be losing market share,” said John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “The big question for them is whether or not they are building a sustainable and profitable business. This can be done by focusing on specific regions or specific services, but the bulk of the market demands huge scale, a broad footprint, very deep pockets and a long-term corporate focus.”

    http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2016/04/29/aws-google-microsoft-and-ibm-pull-away-from-pack-in-race-for-cloud-market-share/
    sn_cloudgrowth

  • Why cybercriminals attack healthcare more than any other industry

    [Health records] typically contain credit card data, email addresses, social security numbers, employment information and medical history records – much of which will remain valid for years, if not decades. Cyberthieves are using that data to launch spear-phishing attacks, commit fraud and steal medical identities.

    https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/04/26/why-cybercriminals-attack-healthcare-more-than-any-other-industry/

  • EMC, IBM, HP Enterprise, and Oracle: Four Horses Of The Legacy Tech Apocalypse

    The cloud computing “wars” are “entering a new phase,” and it will hurt traditional IT vendors such as SAP, Oracle and IBM, according to a report published in April by JP Morgan analysts Mark Murphy, Doug Anmuth, Sterling Auty, Rod Hall, and Philip Cusick.

    Their survey of more than 207 chief information officers at companies with an annual budget of at least $600 million found that Microsoft will remain the dominant IT vendor ahead of Amazon, IBM and others. JP Morgan believes that Microsoft will be the only vendor not to lose market share as the so-called public cloud grows at a 20% annual rate through 2021.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2016/04/25/emc-ibm-hp-enterprise-and-oracle-four-horses-of-the-legacy-tech-apocalypse/#7556fe4a542d

Photo: Erol Ahmed