SourceCast: Episode 06: Sharing is Caring
Supplier Report: 11/28/2015
Sometimes this supplier news cycle feels like this Ferris wheel, it keeps going around and around, but nothing is moving forward. And that is to be expected during a holiday week, but there were a few interesting gems that stood out.
Dell continues to have issue with the EMC acquisition. VMWare stockholders are not pleased with the financial engineering happening to make Virtuastream a reality… and they are starting to make demands.
HPI is having some growing pains in the printer market while sister company HPE is doing… ok (they found a new dance partner at Microsoft).
Big Blue had 17% growth in the security products market this year and Ginni is letting customers know what a grave threat hackers are.
IBM
- IBM’s CEO On Hackers: ‘Cyber Crime Is The Greatest Threat To Every Company In The World’
We believe that data is the phenomenon of our time. It is the world’s new natural resource. It is the new basis of competitive advantage, and it is transforming every profession and industry. If all of this is true – even inevitable – then cyber crime, by definition, is the greatest threat to every profession, every industry, every company in the world.”
- IBM: A Heavyweight in the IT Consulting Space
IBM (IBM) is a global leader in the IT consulting space. It was founded in 1911 and is headquartered in New York. In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM as the second largest firm by number of employees and the fourth largest in terms of market cap. It was also rated the ninth most profitable firm and the 19th largest firm in terms of revenues. In the last few years, IBM shifted its focus on high-profit segments such a data analytics, business intelligence, cloud computing, and green solutions. It currently has a market cap of $133.8 billion.
http://marketrealist.com/2015/11/ibm-heavyweight-consulting-space/ - Why IBM spent billions buying technology it already had access to
“A couple of clients talked to IBM about weather data. If you think of the insurance industry as one example, one client told us that a single hail storm in the middle of Phoenix one year, and a hail storm that lasted only a few hours, caused more than $20 million in damages,” Suh said.
- IBM’s Watson Won’t Be Predicting Eruptions Anytime Soon
Unlike the weather analogy given in some of the articles reporting on IBM’s plans, geologic prediction isn’t going to be as easy as reading a bunch of sensors, because those sensors need to capture events going on deep underground. We might be able to add a pile of sensors at the surface, but in order to really understand (and then predict) the behavior of magmatic systems, those sensors will need to be put closer to the magma itself as it percolates kilometers underground. Throwing up a weather station, this is not.
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/ibms-watson-wont-be-predicting-eruptions-anytime-soon/
Hewlett Packard Enterprises
- HPE storage financials: Meh. Meg Whitman needs to make this right
Within HP’s* revenues for the fourth fiscal 2015 quarter, converged storage product revenues (3PAR, StoreOnce, and StoreAll) grew nine per cent while the traditional ones (EVA, MSA, & Tape) declined 19 per cent compared to the year-ago quarter.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/26/hp_results_q4_fy2015/ - HP Enterprise will maximize opportunities as Azure reseller
This certainly makes sense considering they gave up on their own cloud platform…As announced in the company’s quarterly earning call, the plan is to have Microsoft and HPE be “preferred” customers of each other’s products. HPE will likely sell server hardware to serve as on-premises nodes in the hybrid fabric that Microsoft has in mind for Azure.
HP Inc
- Lackluster Results Fueled Concerns Regarding Its Ability To Weather A Slowdown In The Printer And PC Markets
Dion Weisler, Chief Executive of HP stated that the printing business is much greater challenge than the PC business. The firm has been lowering printer prices to tackle stiff rivalry, particularly from Japanese printer makers Epson and Canon. However, the price reductions, coupled with the effect of a stronger dollar, have reduced the value of income from foreign markets. Weisler stated that the unintended result is that they are not getting the yield per unit they would have expected. HP revealed that revenue from printer supplies such as laser toner and ink cartridges fell 10% in the period. Supplies account for most of the profits for HP Inc.
- HP Inc reaches new low as shares slump
“We do not expect the landscape to improve in the near future and we will constantly assess how the market evolves,” he said. “In any case our market leadership and scale serve us well, but we have much more work to do on many dimensions.”
http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2436670/hp-inc-reaches-new-low-as-shares-slump
EMC
- Repercussions of the DELL-EMC Deal
Investors are demanding:EMC and VMware should withdraw the joint venture of Virtustream, given that VMware’s price has fallen since the announcement. This is damaging the implied value of the proposed stock, which Dell will use to pay for the deal.
Lastly, institutional investors have asked for an adjustment to the tracking stock rights. Tracking stocks are an equity offering issued by the parent company (Dell) to sell the minority interest in one of its profitable divisions (VMware) to the public.
http://marketrealist.com/2015/11/repercussions-dell-emc-deal/
- EMC to take a majority stake in Virtustream – report
Earlier this week Re/code reported that VMware and EMC shareholders have asked for Virtustream to be unwound, as it has been responsible for “further dragging down VMware shares”. Now, according to the Reuters report, which cited people familiar with the matter, EMC is going to take a majority stake in Virtustream and VMware would only have a minority share. This would mean EMC would assume Virtustream’s losses, the report said.
Other
- Where Are All The Enterprise Tech Buyers?
With Dell/EMC/VMware busy in their own deal, the number of smaller enterprise tech acquisitions will shrink even further. CB Insights points out here that, “There have only been 45 $100M+ exits in the first three quarters of 2015, which puts it on track to be the first year with less than 70 $100M+ exits since 2010.”
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/22/where-are-all-the-enterprise-tech-buyers/
Photo: Adrianna Calvo
Supplier Report: 11/21/2015
Michael Dell made an interesting comment this week stating that he does not plan to sell of EMC products or split the company up. It also doesn’t sound like he is going to sell of existing Dell assets either…makes you wonder how they are going to pay down that $49B in debt.
IBM wants you to use Watson to buy your children’s holiday gifts (and give them more information to learn about your own buying habits). They are also quietly focusing on processor chip sets.
HPE is trying to make a few friends while the Splunk CEO says goodbye to his.
IBM
- I was going to avoid posting this one, but there are so many articles about it:
Watson can help you find Christmas gifts…
The iOS app IBM Watson works by analysing millions of reviews, blogs and social media conversations on sites like Twitter to curate lists of the top trending products in gift categories such as toys, electronics, health and fitness.
- Is It Time to Buy IBM, or Is Big Blue Cutting Too Deeply?
The company has repurchased about 40% of its shares since 2005 and implemented numerous cost reduction efforts, including substantial layoffs in recent years, to grow earnings. For a while, these actions looked to be working. Diluted earnings per share nearly tripled from 2005 through 2013 and operating margins doubled to hit 20%. Even IBM’s stock was a winner, significantly outpacing the S&P 500 from 2005 through 2011.
Gauging innovation and company culture is difficult, but a Web site called Glassdoor.com aggregates employee reviews for thousands of companies. As seen below, IBM ranks low in overall stars, the percentage of employees who would recommend the company to a friend, and the percentage of employees who approve of the CEO.
- IBM Taps Nvidia Tesla GPUs to Speed Up Watson
IBM said that by using the Nvidia Tesla K80 GPUs—the flagship offering of the Nvidia Tesla Computing Platform—coupled with Watson’s Power-based architecture, Watson’s retrieve and rank API capabilities increased by 1.7 times its normal speed. This speed-up can further improve the cost/performance of Watson’s cloud-based services, IBM said.
http://www.eweek.com/database/ibm-taps-nvidia-tesla-gpus-to-speed-up-watson.html
- IBM Announces Strategic Collaboration With Xilinx To Take On Intel
The two companies have signed a private multi-year agreement through OpenPOWER Foundation, which will enable Xilinx programmable chips known as FPGAs to work with IBM’s Power processors and hence promote the IBM product. The move will also help develop open acceleration infrastructure, software and middleware, high performance computing (HPC), network functions virtualization (NFV) and big data analytics.
EMC/Dell
- Dells says there will be no EMC sell-off
“The portfolios of products are highly complementary. There are some overlaps in storage, but Dell product lines and EMC storage product lines are somewhat different. We are going from seven to nine [product lines], which is not a problem, and we’ll continue to enhance them.”
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/39265-dells-says-there-will-be-no-emc-sell-off
- How VMWare and EMC could dictate Dell’s federal future
This report reinforces what is already known: This merger has very little to do with Dell’s federal business. EMC and VMWare provide an almost infinitesimally small contribution to Dell’s contract mix and offer Dell no compelling reason to retain the services side it inherited when it bought Perot Systems in 2009.
What it does go onto reveal is that while Dell adds virtually nothing to its federal services offering with the merger and likely wouldn’t affect a decision to spinoff, it does open Dell up to broader federal market opportunity to sell products and solutions.
- Dell-EMC deal will ‘set back innovation,’ Sun co-founder Vinod Khosla says
EMC and Dell merging is a really good financial move for Michael, but it will set back innovation and distract from innovation,” said Khosla, now a prominent venture capitalist, in an onstage interview at the Structure conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Asked about the future for old-line technology companies like Cisco, IBM and Dell, Khosla was pessimistic. In his view, only about half of those tech titans will stick around in the future. What’s more, he said, innovation from those companies has been seriously lacking.
Hewlett Packard Enterprises
- Microsoft And HPE Team Up, Announce CPM Offerings
The tech giants announced the availability of their Cloud Productivity and Mobility Solution Offerings (CPM), which will create transformational consulting services and business applications for Windows 10. In particular, CPM will provide consulting services for Windows 10, new cloud and mobility consulting services and industry-specific vertical applications.
http://www.econotimes.com/Microsoft-And-HP-Team-Up-Announce-CPM-Offerings-118600
This is interesting: HPE is the business arm moving away from the desktop experience, yet they get the consulting partnership instead of HP Inc who is building machines with Windows 10. - HP Enterprise, Intel come together to deliver IoT solutions
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s IoT solutions combined with the Intel IoT Platform and product portfolio will deliver new products that will sit at the edge and collect, process, as well as analyse data from sensors and devices. These new systems are designed to sit outside of the traditional data centre and will feature Intel Core” i5 and Intel Atom. processors.
- HP Enterprise launches all-flash datacentre storage
HP Enterprise claimed the new line-up can improve Oracle workload database performance by up to 75 per cent without the need for companies to switch architecture, making it a flexible addition to a company’s network. Additionally, HP Enterprise said the new tools will cost half the amount of some unnamed rival products, making them an attractive option for businesses wanting to make the move to all-flash arrays without high outlays.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/server/25607/hp-enterprise-launches-all-flash-datacentre-storage
Other
- Splunk CEO resigns on back of strong Q3
Godfrey Sullivan has resigned as Splunk CEO. Sullivan ends his seven year reign in charge of the Big Data software company on the back of its Q3 2015 financial results. Although he is stepping down as CEO, he will remain nonexecutive chairman, with Douglas Merrit operating as its new president and CEO.
http://www.cbronline.com/news/big-data/software/splunk-ceo-resigns-on-back-of-strong-q3-4733124
SourceCast: Episode 05: Following the Trends
Supplier Report: 11/14/2015
EMC and Dell are in some rough waters with the IRS. Will their creative use of “tracking shares” be able to keep their deal afloat or will it crash and sink the mega-purchase?
On the topic of purchases, IBM finalized the acquisition of two companies: Meteorix & Cleversafe. Outside of that news, it was a fairly quiet week for big blue, with standard articles (at this point) of the medical research potential of Watson.
Oracle is getting good press about their cloud attempts and the fact that they are going after Amazon hard. Will they win? Who knows, but the spectators are excited to see this fight happen.
IBM
- IBM adds two new company acquisitions
They finalized Meteorix:Yesterday, IBM announced that it has closed a deal to acquire Meteorix LLC, a premier Workday services partner.
They also finalized the acquisition of Cleversafe
Last week, IBM announced that it closed a deal to acquire Cleversafe, Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances. According to a statement from IBM, the acquisition will strengthen IBM’s leadership positions in storage and hybrid cloud and support clients’ drive to next generation mobile, social and analytics applications.
http://wraltechwire.com/ibm-adds-two-new-company-acquisitions/15102318/
- Watson to help kids battling rare diseases
IBM’s cognitive learning platform will be integrated into Boston Children’s Hospital to help researchers at the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research in their study of steroid-resistant neophrotic syndrome (SRNS), a rare genetic form of kidney disease. Watson will first scour all available literature and related information on SRNS, then be used to process genomic data from patients at Boston Children’s to help researchers identify and develop treatment options for the disease.
http://www.mhealthnews.com/news/watson-help-kids-battling-rare-diseases
- More Partners Sign On to IBM Cloud
Meanwhile, IBM said HCL would use its Bluemix to develop IoT sensors deployed to collect and exchange data from networks of sensors. HCL is developing IoT networks as an adjunct to its flagship IT services and “enterprise digitalization” businesses.
http://www.enterprisetech.com/2015/11/12/more-partners-sign-on-to-ibm-cloud/
- IBM, Apple, and Watson: You are about to become obsolete
I like this post due to the insights of a former employee versus his thoughts about their current state.As this first set of sessions ended we had the guy running Watson speak on the fact that—for many professions—the professionals don’t know what they need to know. For instance, even attorneys that specialize don’t know the majority of the laws that define their specialty, let alone all of them. At the core of the IBM Watson effort and its general analytics push is to fix that problem. The time is coming when any professional that doesn’t have access to, and know how to use a tool like Watson will have inadequate skills to gain employment in the developed world.
http://techspective.net/2015/11/13/ibm-apple-and-watson-you-are-about-to-become-obsolete/
- Switch to Macs from PCs reportedly saves IBM US$270 per user
While 40 percent of IBM’s PC users call the helpdesk for troubleshooting, on average only 5 percent of the company’s Mac user do the same, according to Previn. “The longer this program runs, the more compelling the business case becomes,” he says. “I can confidently say that every Mac that we buy is making and saving IBM money.”
EMC
- Dell targets simpler cloud experience with EMC
Kelly points out that many of Dell’s and EMC’s businesses are complementary. For example, EMC storage and Dell servers aid the adoption of converged infrastructure and hybrid cloud; EMC’s RSA controls for identity assurance, fraud detection and data protection; security analytics; and GRC capabilities with Dell’s SecureWorks network security and managed security services; AirWatch mobile device, application and content management with KACE systems and device management; and the Pivotal open cloud platform and agile software development tools with the Boomi platform as a service.
http://www.networksasia.net/article/dell-targets-simpler-cloud-experience-emc.1447295769
- Dell’s EMC Acquisition In Danger Over Tax Problems – ($9B Tax Bill)
The use of this ‘tracking stock’ is intended to offset the amount of debt Dell would have to take on, and also help it avoid avoid a heavy tax bill. But it depends on the American IRS interprets the use of this tracking stock. According to the report, tracking stocks were commonly used during the dot.com boom years in the 1990s, and its use in the deal could invite scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.
“Dell’s plan to create tracking shares in a company it does not yet own (that’s VMware) would, if successful, amount to a clever threading of a needle in US tax laws,” said Re/code. “It is intended as neither a distribution of shares nor the spinoff of a subsidiary, both of which are typically taxable events. Instead, EMC shareholders will face taxes in the range of 20 percent to 40 percent for the gains on the cash and the value of the tracking shares.”
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/e-enterprise/merger-acquisition/dell-emc-tax-problems-180378
Read More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/10/emc-us-ma-dell-idUSL3N1354VS20151110
Oracle
- Oracle’s Cloud Prospects Look Positive
Oracle has embarked on an aggressive strategy to win market share in the cloud market. However, the company is a late entrant and questions have surfaced on whether Oracle could succeed against early entrants such as Microsoft and market leader Amazon who established themselves in the cloud market years earlier than Oracle.
Credit: Wall Street Journal
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3675736-oracles-cloud-prospects-look-positive - Oracle Is About to Eat Amazon’s Lunch
Now, Oracle is acting as much out of envy and perhaps even desperation as anything else. While AMZN stock has doubled in 2015 despite a rough market, ORCL stock is down over 11%. And longer term, Oracle stock is up just 40% or so in the last five years vs. over 290% for Amazon stock and 70% for the broader S&P 500 in the same period.
But with some $56 billion in cash and investments and a will to roll out an ambitious suite of cloud products, AMZN investors should be looking over their shoulder at Oracle as it ramps up in the next six months.
http://investorplace.com/2015/11/amzn-stock-amazon-web-services-oracle/
Other
- Why Meg Whitman’s ‘Hmm …’ emails make HP managers scramble
So she told the whole company they were to follow a new rule. If they saw an issue they were to “escalate in 24 hours and resolve it in 48 hours. If that problem is not solved in 48, everyone has the right to send me an email. I’m an expert forwarder. When I forward an email on, things get done,” she said.
http://www.businessinsider.com/employees-fear-meg-whitman-hmm-email-2015-11
- Red Hat enhances containers across open hybrid cloud
“The datacenter is heterogeneous, and the cloud is hybrid”, said Paul Cormier, president of products and technologies at Red Hat. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has been there for close to two years, and many enterprise customers are finding the benefits of deploying workloads on Linux in the public cloud. These offerings help developers to build and integrate faster and adaptable applications with familiar, supported open source tools with significantly less “ramp-up” time and a unified experience across hybrid architectures.
http://observerleader.com/2015/11/red-hat-enhances-containers-across-open-hybrid-cloud/
- A Closer Look At Microsoft And Red Hat Partnership
Meanwhile, Red Hat has gone through interesting times. Canonical Ubuntu gave it a tough competition as the most preferred Linux distribution in the public cloud. Minimalistic, container-optimized operating systems such as CoreOS and RancherOS started to gain popularity. Red Hat’s ambitious plan to repeat the magic with OpenStack, the open source cloud management platform, didn’t translate due to the lack of enterprise adoption. OpenShift, Red Hat’s PaaS was going through a major revamp to embrace containers and Kubernetes. The virtualization market has been shrinking, and there was enough pressure from VMware in this market. Given that Red Hat doesn’t have its own public cloud, its success comes from making RHEL a ubiquitous OS for enterprise workloads across multiple clouds. These factors forced Red Hat to consider partnering with Microsoft.
- Teradata Cuts Ties With The Marketing Stack
Some speculate private equity investors will step in and divest key marketing assets, similar to the path eBay Enterprise took. Others suggest any number of enterprise companies could serve as potential acquirers.
“Aprimo [a campaign manager Teradata bought for $525 million in 2010] was a good acquisition for them and they’ve done a lot with the marketing piece,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research. “If you’re a company that wants to build out marketing apps on top of a database and analytics, it would make sense for that.”
http://adexchanger.com/digital-marketing-2/teradata-cuts-ties-with-the-marketing-stack/
Photo: The Pic Pac