Supplier Report: 6/8/2014

** IBM **

Is there a looming IBM turn around?
IBM’s Platform as a service… (covers softlayer)
Subtle article about Softlayer but what I think is going to grow into a dominate framework for IBM in the coming years:
Concur and IBM are getting cozy…
** HP **
There are lots of articles about HP laptops and chromebooks this week.  They are going for low end sub-400 dollar devices.
There were many posts about their strategy to get into “big data” and “cloud” but nothing that hasn’t been said already.
** Career **
How to write an effective out of office…  (more of an affirmation than a tutorial)
Cutting thank you from your speeches:

Supplier Report: 5/31/2014

** IBM **

Why IBM is in decline:
“Yet for critics of IBM like BW, “Roadmap 2015” is precisely what is killing IBM.  According to BW, IBM’s soaring earnings per share and its share price are built on a foundation of declining revenues, capability-crippling offshoring, fading technical competence, sagging staff morale, debt-financed share buybacks, non-standard accounting practices, tax-reduction gadgets, a debt-equity ratio of around 174 percent, a broken business model and a flawed forward strategy.”
How IT Organizations can encourage collaboration
China looking to ditch IBM:
Magnetic Tape isn’t going away:
** HP **
Who has the worst CEO job: Whitman or Rometty?
HP struggling with Lenovo picking up IBM’s x86 business
** Commentary **
If you have been reading the last few months worth of these reports, IBM has been focusing alot on international government business.  A comment was made in several of these stories this week that IBM is struggling to get their former cash cow business in the US government.   It is an interesting dynamic if you have been paying attention that they have been getting alot of government business overseas.

Supplier Report: 5/26/2014

To start things off, here is an example of purchasing in a small scale: buying bed mattresses.  While this has nothing to do with big suppliers, here is a small company trying to develop an alternative supply chain model for bedding (different materials, purchasing, and delivery model)
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/25/getting-in-bed-with-mattress-startup-casper/?ncid=fb&utm_campaign=fb

This is a great summary article that foreshadows the articles that follow:
Here is a quote:
“The megatrend is corporate America’s move to the cloud. It’s not just Amazon that IBM needs to worry about: In an August 2013 study of 15 cloud infrastructure providers, research firm Gartner rated IBM worst, behind Microsoft, Rackspace, and Verizon .”
 
** IBM **
Here is a review of their Edge conference from 2 weeks ago:
IBM scores a $1B contract to consolidate NSW’s transport and IT contracts.  They beat Tata out for this work ($100 M per year for 10 years).
An interesting counter-point to IBM’s Analytics and “big data” efforts (hint: lack of customer focus)
ServiceNow Chief says big companies like IBM and EMC aren’t agile enough to compete in the cloud:
Commentary: I don’t agree with this article, but you all know my feelings on the term “cloud” to begin with and the marking that goes around it.  What is interesting is seeing how the competition views two major companies we do business with and what their weak spots are.  [Could be leverage points for us to use later]
IBM is betting heavily on Linux Enterprise (Power 8):
IBM stops selling netapps in favor of their own devices (no shock here):
Watson’s healthcare potential on display:
** HP **
There are several articles from different sources talking about why HP is a “hot stock”
HP cutting another 16000 jobs (this puts them up to 50,000 in total):
Combining these two news bits… Did HP Punk the market this week?
**Oracle **
Oracle contracting and visualization structures (read this one)
What Oracle’s copyright win over Google means:
There are a couple of articles of Oracle investing in IT talent development and domestic job placement…
** Other Notes **
Dell is now this top PC vendor in India
IBM’s watson designed BBQ sauce (AI is real)
Lots of companies are interested in RackSpace right now: (what is even more interesting is that Microsoft isn’t on the list since they have had close ties in the past).
** Summary **
Bottom line is that all of these companies are struggling with transforming and fitting into the new business models developing now for 5 years down the line.  They all have a cloud focus, but what does that even mean?
Making CPU and environments on demand quick and easy (and cheap)?
Amazon is winning that game. 
They need to focus on the customer experience and what the pain points are – and none of them are succeeding at the moment.  IBM is trying some cloud based applications like Blue Works (and they seem to be expanded those type of offerings) – I see growth and potential in that.  Couple that with Watson’s AI and you might have the next level business engine everyone trying to come up with.
Keep your eyes on the acquisitions and the changing software models in the year to come.

Supplier Report: 4/27/2014

** IBM **

IBM is reporting a 21% income drop in Q1 (this alludes to a comment made to me that they are not focusing on Quarter ends, but month end cycles…)
http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/focus/archive/2014/04/ibm-reports-21-income-drop-q1

IBM is expanding their US Federal Health Care business:
IBM is scoring business in the industrial space (day to day IT operational support – interesting to keep an eye on since we booted them out for doing this service for the network):
Using Watson for medical purposes:
IBM unleashing new power-servers with cloud focus on the market….
** HP **
HP is still struggling and the rise of Lenovo in the HW space is going to keep the pressure on:
** Sourcing ** (Read this!)
Advent of 3rd part software support driving legacy software feeds down
**Heartbleed **
Tech giants are backing a OpenSSL project to prevent another heartbleed – via the Linux foundation

Supplier Report: 4/13/2014

** IBM **

IBM buys Silverpop:
(It is a marketing company)
Flexible pricing model for mobile mainframe clients
Report that IBM is selling off their chip branch:
IBM building private cloud for coca-cola
** HP **
HP may be brought up on international fraud charges:
**Oracle**
Finally a story about Oracle’s culture: