SourceCast: Episode 13: You Get What You Pay For
Supplier Report: 1/23/2016
IBM has added another feather in their video stream capabilities cap with with purchase of Ustream. Considering that they recently picked up Clearleap and we should start paying attention to what IBM is doing with video services.
Investors are paying attention to EMC due to concerns that Dell might not be able to muster up the $40-50B needed to make this acquisition a reality.
Oracle is in their own reality as they file a lawsuit against the State of Oregon for a failed healthcare portal implementation. They are also in the news for claiming cloud market leader Amazon is not “enterprise” enough for most businesses.
Keep an eye out for something between Splunk and IBM, there are rumors floating around…
IBM
- IBM buys Upstream to boost cloud-based video streaming services
IBM claimed that the division will allow the firm to target the cloud-based video streaming software and services market, which is estimated to be worth a hefty $105bn.
Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president at IBM Cloud, outlined Big Blue’s ambitions for the video streaming market, saying that video has become a “first-class data type in business that requires accelerated performance and powerful analytics that allows clients to extract meaningful insights”.
This comes after IBM announced the purchase of ClearLeap during the week of 12/12/2015. Clearleap that allows streaming video to scale.
More Information:
Coincidentally, IBM also announced the launch of its Cloud Video Services unit that includes previously acquired Clearleap, Cleversafe and Aspera along with 1,000 video related patents it has accumulated since 1995. The graphic at the top of this story explains the component parts for what IBM believes will be a $105 billion market opportunity by 2019.
IBM and video? You have to see this in a wider context. Video is a very fast growing part of enterprise content. It is also a resource hog that requires significant data management effort. However, it has been something off a Cinderella in the enterprise. This acquisition and launch change that perception. More compelling, video is a very good use case for Watson based analytics solutions.
https://diginomica.com/2016/01/21/ibm-acquires-ustream-expects-video-to-lose-its-cinderella-status/
- IBM profit forecast pulls stock to 5-year low
While sales of the new services, bundled together under the heading “strategic imperatives,” increased 16 percent to $28.9 billion in 2015, the company forecast profit this year far below analysts’ projections.
Operating earnings will be at least $13.50 a share in 2016, chief financial officer Martin Schroeter said Tuesday. That’s less than the $15 a share predicted by analysts. Currency fluctuations will affect operating earnings by more than $1 a share, he said.
- Execs: Strategic shift is paying off for IBM
That’s in spite of announcing for, the 15th consecutive quarter, falling revenue. IBM (NYSE: IBM), which was down nearly 5 percent during Wednesday morning trading, has been in a period of transition for the past few years, putting less focus on hardware and more focus (and investment dollars) into cloud, analytics, mobile, social media and security. Those strategic areas were up 26 percent for the year, making up a combined $29 billion and representing about 35 percent of the revenue. Cloud alone rose 43 percent to $10.2 billion for the year.
- IBM inks $40 million deal to transform the way people withdraw from ATMs
BTI Payments, which is a White Label ATM (WLA) operator, has entrusted IBM to transform its IT Infrastructure and deploy and manage an incremental 4,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATM) across the country.
This IT Infrastructure transformation will help reduce operational and capital expenditure while adding business value.
EMC | Dell
- Two big risks could torpedo Dell-EMC deal
Dell and its Silver Lake backers must now be worried that the deal will be dead in the water before it happens. They have to raise $40bn – $50bn in debt to finance the EMC acquisition. If that debt-raising exercise fails, because investment groups and organisations can’t see EMC shareholders accepting the tracking stock, and can’t also see why they should finance Dell/Silverlake buying EMC for 30 per cent more than it’s worth, then the whole deal could fall apart.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/21/two_big_risk_torpedoes_could_screw_dellemc_deal/
HP Inc | Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- Trial date set for Hewlett-Packard multi-billion fraud case
Hewlett-Packard and Autonomy are to continue their long running $10 billion takeover dispute for a further two years, with a 2018 London trial set to see the two companies fight over $5.1 billion.
- Whitman: We’re doing OK, despite economic slowdown
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/21/whitman-were-doing-ok-despite-economic-slowdown.html
Oracle
- Oracle Jabs Again in Legal Fight with Oregon
Oracle responded with its own lawsuit last year that alleged certain Oregon officials purposely sabotaged the project for political reasons and shifted the blame to Oracle. The technology giant alleged in its new lawsuit that its company executives and staff members representing Oregon governor Kate Brown agreed to settle all of the lawsuits on Oct. 19.
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/oracle-sues-oregon-healthcare-settlement/
- Amazon’s Cloud Is Not Enterprise-Ready, Says Oracle Exec
I love it when Oracle talks trash…“My conclusion is it’s easier to add cloud tech to an enterprise company than to add enterprise stuff to a cloud company,” he said. “I’m a legitimate convert because I thought this through before I joined up here.” Before joining Oracle in late 2014, Magnusson drove development of Google GOOG 2.62% App Engine.
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/oracle-exec-says-aws-not-enterprise-ready/
Other
- Why IBM and Oracle Plunged in 2015 While Microsoft Soared 19% Higher
Ending on a positive note, we’re left with Redmond’s finest. Under Nadella, Microsoft has embraced many strategies that would have been unthinkable under Ballmer, and with good results. Despite a flagging PC market and a dead-end entry into the mobile market, Microsoft has found a way back to earnings growth and stabilizing revenues.
Like Oracle, the company is betting heavily on cloud computing. Unlike the database giant, Microsoft has found a big winner in its Windows Azure cloud-computing platform, which is an almost unchallenged No. 2 in that fast-growing market. Oracle is not even on the radar yet. So Microsoft is getting results from Nadella’s new strategy already, giving investors a strong return in 2015.
- Google’s new managed containers are brought to you by Red Hat
So Red Hat is in bed with Microsoft, and now Google… very interesting.Google and Red Hat are touting several advantages of their collaboration, including the fact that OpenShift could complement and expand the use of Kubernetes, Google’s container management and orchestration system. Kubernetes has fast become a standard-issue item on most cloud platforms with containers, and Red Hat is the No. 2 contributor to that project, behind Google.
- Splunk outperforms after analyst predicts major deal with IBM
Northland analyst Tim Klasell heard from a “few industry sources” that Splunk and IBM are “moving closer together” and could agree to a meaningful partnership over time. The analyst told investors in a research note that IBM is getting close to a “big move to improve its ties” with Splunk. While Klasell did not know the financial details, he believes such a partnership could be a “nice tailwind” for Splunk to sign larger deals. The analyst has an Outperform rating on Splunk with an $80 price target.
SourceCast: Episode 12: Don’t Touch It Twice
SourceCast: Episode 11: Back to the news
Supplier Report: 1/16/2016
IBM is looking for trouble… or at least fraud. The company purchased Iris Analytics, a company that developed a real-time fraud engine for machine learning. I guess Watson really will be Watson-esque. IBM also topped US patent creation list (again).
HPI did not have good news during the holidays, PC sales slipped (except for Apple), while HPE looks to sell of their stake in MPhasis ($1B).
EMC has a new CIO and Microsoft dropped their cloud fees to be more competitive with Amazon.
IBM
- IBM buys fraud sniffing biz for real-time protection
IBM has assimilated a German payment fraud prevention business, IRIS Analytics, a provider of a real-time fraud analytics engine using machine learning algorithms, for undisclosed terms.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/15/ibm_slurps_up_fraud_detection_biz_for_realtime_protection/
- IBM tops US patent list again
The computer company was granted 7,355 patents in the US. According to its statement, IBM inventors generated more than 2,000 patents in areas related to cognitive computing and the company’s cloud platform.
http://ipprotheinternet.com/ipprotheinternetnews/article.php?article_id=4738
- IBM Introduces Dynamic Pricing to Help Retailers Navigate Online Price Wars
“At any given moment, a retailer is no more than one click away from losing a customer online. IBM Dynamic Pricing executes real-time pricing recommendations at the scale and speed needed to ensure competitiveness in a volatile shopping environment,” saidStephen Mello, Vice President, IBM eCommerce & Merchandising. “This intuitive and dynamic pricing system improves visibility into what’s happening in the market, allowing retailers to make decisions that are best for their businesses and customers alike.”
- IBM’s Profits Hit An All-Time High
While stagnant on a nominal basis, IBM’s per-share profitability has hit an historical high in the most recent trailing 12-month period. This improvement can be attributed to two factors: value-accretive share buybacks and the firm’s shift in focus to less asset-intensive businesses. Uncertainty remains as to how soon the company will be able to generate revenue growth, but growth in profits and cash flow are arguably more important to valuation.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3810366-ibms-profits-hit-an-all-time-high
More on this:
Outstanding! In fact, IBM’s profit per share increase works out to roughly a 9% compound annual growth rate of profits since 2006 and the most recent trailing twelve-month figure is the highest in the company’s history.
HP Inc | Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- Apple leads holiday PC shipments despite market contraction
Market leaders Lenovo, HP Inc. and Dell all faced decreases, with Lenovo’s shipments declining to 15.4 million from 16.1 million, HP’s dipping to 14.2 million from 15.4 million and Dell’s dimming to 10.2 million from 10.8 million. The fourth quarter marked the fifth straight quarter of worldwide PC declines, and Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said holiday sales “did not boost” the market.
http://www.forextv.com/market-news/apple-leads-holiday-pc-shipments-despite-market-contraction/
- HP Inc. Is Cheap, But Is That Enough?
In the medium to longer term, it’s also worth thinking about whether the strong improvements in battery life enabled by newer generations of chips will continue to extend the refresh cycle over time. Think about it – old laptops that had 2-3 hour battery life to start with left you with battery anxiety within a few years. Now that smaller, more power-efficient laptops can get double or triple that battery life, there may not be as much need for personal users to replace laptops as quickly. This article from Digital Trends demonstrates the rapid improvements in battery life over just the past few years – and indications are that Intel’s Skylake chips will continue the trend of Haswell and Broadwell toward greater efficiency.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3803146-hp-inc-is-cheap-but-is-that-enough
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to Sell ($1B) Stake in Mphasis?
Hewlett-Packard purchased Mphasis when it acquired Electronic Data Systems in 2008 for approximately $13.9 billion. At the time, the company’s Technology Solutions Group segment shifted its outsourcing services operations and a part of its consulting and integration activities to Electronic Data. The Indian company has since functioned as an independent subsidiary of Hewlett Packard. The sale of Mphasis comes at a time when the company is attempting to restructure its IT consulting and services group. Hewlett-Packard stated that it was planning to shed around 25,000 to 30,000 jobs in its enterprise business.
http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/203493/hewlett-packard-enterprise-hpe-to-sell-stake-in-mphasis
EMC | Dell
- EMC gets new CIO in midst of Dell purchase
ML Krakauer took the reins as EMC’s CIO last week, replacing Vic Bhagat, who joined EMC as CIO in 2013.
http://www.ciodive.com/news/emc-gets-new-cio-in-midst-of-dell-purchase/411931/
- How Will EMC’s Once Pivotal Ambitions Play Out?
To be fair, that may never have been Pivotal’s vision, though there’s little question that EMC and VMware had to offer their customers a reason to stick with their more expensive, proprietary solutions instead of rushing to Amazon. Whether they succeeded with that is unclear, but we’ll leave it to Michael Dell to craft the rest of that story. Pivotal, on the other hand, may have the chance to write its own story if reports of its immanent IPO are true. In the mean time, it went shopping — but more on that later.
http://www.cmswire.com/information-management/how-will-emcs-once-pivotal-ambitions-play-out/
- EMC exec reacts to criticism of proposed Dell merger
“Vinod is a smart venture capitalist and I don’t doubt his ability to recognize innovation in startups, but his view on our ability to innovate at scale is not entirely accurate,” according to a Tuesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ” … As a roughly $80B entity, Dell+EMC will need more than just one source and method of innovation. Our model provides exactly that.”
- EMC’s Stock Fell 14% in 2015
the share price of EMC fell 14% in 2015 from $29.83 to $25.68. Its share price fell 6.2% on October 21, 2015, as it reported an 8.3% YoY (year-over-year) drop in EPS (earnings per share) in its 3Q15 earnings results. Its reported revenues of $6.1 billion were in line with analyst estimates.
Other
- Microsoft Drops Prices For Some Azure Instances By Up To 17%
Microsoft has long said it would match AWS’s prices for compute, storage and bandwidth. Earlier this month, Amazon dropped the priceof some of its general purpose, compute- and memory-optimized EC2 machines. It doesn’t come as a major surprise then that Microsoft is now also dropping the prices for some of its virtual machines by between 10 and 17 percent.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/14/microsoft-drops-prices-for-some-azure-instances-by-up-to-17/
Photo: Greg Rakozy