SourceCast: Episode 28: Consultation on consulting
Supplier Report: 5/28/2016
Google wins their big fight against all-seeing Sauron…err… Oracle. On the heels of defeat, Oracle vows to appeal. While there is a party among developers, HPE is apparently celebrating yet ANOTHER split of their company…
This week HPE announced they are splitting their consulting services (formerly HP Enterprise Services, formerly Electronic Data Systems) and then merging that portion of the company with rivals CSC to form a new company. That move is called a “spin merger” if you were wondering.
Rumor has it that SaleForce is being woo’ed by Amazon and IBM is still eliminating domestic jobs.
IBM
- ‘No-one is safe’ as fresh round of job cuts hits Big Blue
According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest cuts started as IBM quietly laid off staff from US offices in North Carolina, New York City and Colorado. Meanwhile, in the UK, staff from the firm’s Global Technology Services (GTS) have been informed that the corporate axe is expected to swing throughout the month of June, which will be the second round of redundancies to hit UK shores within three months. Additionally, in Australia, reports indicate nearly a dozen jobs were recently slashed from a Sales and Distribution (S&D) department.
Additionally:
The problem now faced by IBM, our source added, is that potential staff members in the targeted countries likely “don’t have the skills” equivalent to their US-UK counterparts. The source added: “Almost everyone believes they are on the next RA list. People are so busy looking for other jobs I would assume productivity has dropped overall by 10%. Its just crazy right now.”
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/inside-ibm-no-one-safe-fresh-round-job-cuts-hits-big-blue-1561781
- IBM’s Big Problem: It’s Too Busy To Listen To Its Customers
IBM has lost major contracts due to its inability to deliver what customers want. I’ve previously referenced the embarrassing CIA contract loss to Amazon, and besides the fact that IBM’s technology was woefully inadequate, one of the other factors that caused the company to lose was that it didn’t properly follow the bidding process.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3977286-ibms-big-problem-busy-listen-customers
Also:
Amazon Again Beats IBM For CIA Cloud ContractDuring the case, IBM lawyers had strongly objected to the representation that it had manipulated the bidding process to create a protest issue. But the court “does not see any other explanation for IBM’s final pricing strategy,” the ruling said.
- What IBM Bought With $155 Billion
Had IBM forgone its buybacks, one thing it might still have would be the aforementioned massive $155 billion pile of cash. If IBM had used its cash to pay down debt rather than repurchase shares, what might the company’s balance sheet look like? IBM’s debt is comprised mainly of Global Financing and Non-Global Financing debt. The Global Financing segment provides funding for IBM’s external customers, and charges customers a higher interest rate than the interest rates on its own borrowings. This borrowing is done knowing that it will be eventually repaid with interest. The non-Global Financing debt, “core debt,” makes up a much smaller portion of IBM’s total debt.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3977909-ibm-bought-155-billion
- IBM May Never Catch Amazon in the Cloud, and That’s OK
SoftLayer, IBM’s IaaS business, is dwarfed by AWS. The company has a goal of reaching $1 billion in IaaS revenue this year, but that would still make Amazon’s cloud-computing business about 10 times larger. Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler, who rates IBM stock a hold due to growth concerns, believes that IBM will never catch up with Amazon, or even Microsoft, in the cloud. In the public IaaS market, Sandler believes that IBM doesn’t have a chance.
Additionally:
While Amazon focuses on being the low-cost provider of IaaS services, IBM is going after the highest-value portions of the cloud computing market. The company’s cloud strategy is summed up well by what CEO Virginia Rometty said during a conference last year:
“What’s important is that we grow in the right areas. Tech is littered with areas that you can have high growth and make no money. That’s not us.”
Microsoft
- Why Microsoft Corporation Sold Its Feature Phone Business
Microsoft recently announced that it will sell its feature phone business for $350 million to Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile and a newly founded company called HMD Global. Microsoft originally obtained the unit through its $9.5 billion acquisition of Nokia’s handset unit in 2014.
Additionally:
Nonetheless, customers in certain markets still buy Nokia’s feature phones, which require monthly data fees and can last for weeks on a single charge. Research firm eMarketer estimates that only about 30% of mobile users in India use smartphones. Pew Research Center estimates that almost two-thirds of people across seven sub-Saharan African nations still use feature phones.
Oracle
- Google and Oracle’s Android copyright fight is up to a jury now
The federal jury in San Francisco is now deciding whether Google’s use of copyrighted Java code constitutes fair use, an exemption that would free the company from having to pay Oracle damages.
At issue is “declaring code” that’s part of 37 Java APIs Google used. Google says it simply used selected parts of Java to create something new in the form of Android.
http://www.cio.com/article/3074413/google-and-oracles-android-copyright-fight-is-up-to-a-jury-now.html
Update: Google Won!“Overall, this is a win for software development,” said Mitch Stoltz, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on copyright issues. “I think it’ll give software developers a bit more confidence that reimplementing APIs is not something that’s going to get them sued.” However, Stoltz pointed out that the appellate ruling still stands, and small developers could still face copyright lawsuits from tech behemoths.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/jury-finds-googles-implementation-of-java-in-android-was-fair-use/
Also:
Tech World Hails Google’s Copyright Victory – As It ShouldThe cause for celebration is the fair use finding, which does a lot to undo the damage from an appeals court ruling in 2014. That ruling, which overturned a judge’s finding that APIs cannot be copyrighted in the first place, triggered shock and disbelief among many in the tech community. They feared that giving Oracle rights to control the APIs would create a chilling effect as developers would be unsure about what they could and could not do to write code.
Note: Oracle is expected to appeal this decision (again). So this isn’t over.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- HP Enterprise to Spin Off, Merge Services Business (the whole thing is being called a “spin merger”)
The deal is expected to deliver $8.5 billion to HP Enterprise shareholders, which includes a 50% stake in the new company, a dividend of $1.5 billion, and the assumption of $2.5 billion in debt and other liabilities.
Additionally:
HP Enterprise said its enterprise services revenue was $4.7 billion in the quarter ended April 30, down 2% from a year ago. The enterprise services segment represented about 37% of HP Enterprise’s total revenue for the quarter.
Ms. Whitman said on a conference call that the Computer Sciences deal would remove about two-thirds of its workforce, or about 100,000 employees. HP Enterprise’s services businesses include the former Electronic Data Systems businesses that Hewlett-Packard bought in 2008 for $13.9 billion.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/hp-enterprise-to-spin-off-merge-services-business-1464121433
Additionally:Completion of the merger is anticipated by the end of March 2017, subject to shareholder and regulatory reviews and approvals. Following the transaction, CSC and HPE shareholders each will own approximately 50% of the new company’s shares. The transaction between CSC and HPE is anticipated to provide close to $8.5 billion to HPE’s shareholders on an after-tax basis. This includes an equity stake in the newly combined company valued at more than $4.5 billion, a cash dividend of $1.5 billion, and the assumption of $2.5 billion of debt and other liabilities related to the HPE Enterprise Services segment.
http://www.appstechnews.com/news/2016/may/26/hpe-enterprise-services-segment-merge-csc/
- But didn’t CSC just spin off a government IT focused business? (Yes)
What to expect when the CSC-SRA International spinoff debuts on the New York Stock ExchangeA combination of Falls Church-based Computer Sciences Corp.’s (NYSE: CSC) $4.06 billion North American Public Sector business spun off from the parent and the $1.39 billion Fairfax-based SRA International Inc., CSRA will be a next-generation, purely federal IT company devoted to migrating government agencies to cloud-based data center infrastructure and building advanced applications for its federal clients.
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2015/11/what-to-expect-when-the-csc-sra-international.html
But doesn’t HPE/EDS do government contracts? (Yes)“HP Enterprise Services has a very strong business in the federal government and what I’d say is post-close all options — and I underscore the word ‘all options’ — would be on the table,” Lawrie told analysts. “But that decision will be approached and looked at after we close the transaction.”
BUT…
Add to that the fact that CSC is legally prohibited from competing against CSRA for federal business over the next two years as a part of the split and it becomes hard to believe that CSC is going to hold on to this public sector asset. Public sector work would only make up about 11 percent of the total $26 billion new combined entity.
- HPE employees were ‘shocked’ but ‘glad to be rid of that boat anchor’
HP ES was formed when HP bought EDS in 2008 for $13.9 billion. Many HP employees we talked to said the two companies, HP and EDS were never a good culture fit.
As the person we talked to described it, “In my own experience, they were difficult to work with and never were fully integrated into HP.”
Other
- Is Amazon buying SalesForce?
Follow-up to last week’s blog and podcast:Now if you put on your investment banker hat and look at strategic M&A options for Amazon to keep its AWS market share, there are not that many. It’s unlikely that Microsoft would slow down its efforts and of course merging with Amazon would be almost impossible. IBM has its own cloud ambitions, as does Google, and neither of them would be viable for M&A. So who is left? Yes, only one cloud play – Salesforce.com, which also happens to have the same deferred revenue model as Amazon.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazon-buying-salesforce-jiri-kram?trk=hp-feed-article-title
Additionally:
Marc Benioff responds to questions about a Microsoft takeover bidThis is an incredible moment in history and as you can see Salesforce’s growth continues to accelerate and grow. I’ve now been working on this company for almost 18 years and I think that we’ve delivered fantastic results. As part of that, of course, I’m also making personal decisions as that goes and that’s what’s happening there.
Sounds like they are willing to sell to SOMEONE – like a company they just signed an international hosting deal with perhaps?
http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-responds-to-questions-about-a-microsoft-takeover-bid-2016-5 - No, Apple isn’t the next BlackBerry — it’s the next Microsoft
Last week they called Apple the next IBM, now it is the next MicrosoftThe lesson for Apple, and Apple shareholders, is that it’s not enough to have a ton of money and just throw around cash to solve every problem. It takes real vision, strategy, and execution, and a first-mover advantage is nice, too.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-the-next-microsoft-2016-5
- Foxconn replaces ‘60,000 factory workers with robots’
One factory has “reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots”, a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Since September 2014, 505 factories across Dongguan, in the Guangdong province, have invested 4.2bn yuan (£430m) in robots, aiming to replace thousands of workers.
- Verizon workers declare end to 44-day strike, claim “big gains”
While there were about 165 Verizon Wireless employees involved in the strike, the vast majority of the union members are in Verizon’s wireline division. Verizon today said that the company “look[s] forward to having all of our employees soon back at work in their regular positions and doing what they do best—serving our customers.” Verizon also said it was able to obtain “meaningful changes and enhancements to the contracts that will better enable our wireline business unit to compete and succeed in the digital world.”
Photo: Jesse Orrico
Supplier Report: 5/21/2016
IBM announced a breakthrough in computer memory that could make RAM 50x faster with marginal cost increase. Big Blue may have also developed a molecule that could help fight viruses.
While IBM fights viruses, Oracle is fighting Google. Oracle stated that they didn’t buy Sun just to sue Google, they also wanted to keep the company out of the hands of IBM. Oracle also told the courts that they discounted Java 97.5% to Amazon so the company would continue to use the language on their Kindle Readers (because it is so hard to compete with free).
EMC is raising at least $20B in bonds (maybe much more) while Swift was hacked (again) and is Apple the new IBM?
IBM
- IBM says it’s designed a molecule that could fight off any human virus
It’s exciting stuff: a macromolecule – a giant molecule made up of smaller units – has now been developed that could have the potential to block multiple types of viruses, despite the many variations involved. It’s still early days yet, but the results could lead to drugs that aren’t tricked by mutating virus strains.
http://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-have-designed-a-molecule-that-could-fight-off-any-virus
- IBM Makes Memory Breakthrough
IBM researchers found a way to reliably store three bits of data per cell, up from previously being able to store just one bit per cell. According to Dr. eHaris Pozidis, manager of non-volatile memory research at IBM Research, Zurich, this progress is a big deal. “Reaching 3 bits per cell is a significant milestone because at this density the cost of PCM will be significantly less than DRAM and closer to flash.”
IBM’s phase-change memory is not a commercial product at this point, and no timeline was given by the company for its potential release as such. Phase-change memory could eventually be used in mobile devices, potentially replacing both DRAM and NAND. In the data center, phase-change memory could be used to store databases, boosting performance compared to flash memory and lowering cost compared to DRAM.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/19/instant-analysis-ibm-makes-memory-breakthrough.aspx
Here is the headline I was looking for (take note Fool.com):
IBM’s new memory is over 50 times faster than flash and could soon be just as cheap
http://www.sciencealert.com/ibm-s-new-memory-is-over-50-times-faster-than-flash-and-could-soon-be-just-as-cheap - A professor built an AI bot to make teaching easier. Will it replace him someday?
Named Jill Watson, the virtual “teaching assistant” drew from previous forum data to help answer many routine, technical queries about the course, such as where people could find a certain video lesson or how they could organize meet-ups with one another. The most astonishing part: Students had no idea Jill was an AI. Goel didn’t reveal that fact until the day after the class’s final exam.
- IBM Facing Same Fate As Verizon, Union Workers In Action Again?
The speculations started when IBM has decided to close some of its site operations. According to Patch, “IBM plans to close its operations in Somers and move everyone and everything into the Armonk campus, and the company’s plan is to consolidate in North Castle and sell the huge campus on Route 100.”
Although the Company officials told employees about the move on Monday and how the North Castle campus will be renovated and the Somers site will be sold, according to the same post, the move has created worry and anxiety for the affected stakeholders
http://www.jobsnhire.com/articles/43040/20160518/ibm-facing-same-fate-verizon-union-workers-action-again.htm
If I read correctly, this is more about sub-contractors (like food services) working in these buildings. As far as I can tell, IBM doesn’t have much of a union footprint outside of that shop in NY, and that was closed up in January…
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3019552/it-industry/ibm-union-calls-it-quits.html
Storage [EMC | Dell | Infinidat | NetApp]
- Dell said to get $80 billion of demand on bonds for EMC deal
The company had received more than $80 billion of orders from investors by the time its bankers closed the books on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the transaction who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly. Dell had initially planned to raise about $16 billion. The company is weighing whether to increase the amount of debt it’s raising in the investment-grade bond market, one person with knowledge of the matter said Monday.
Dell’s bond sale may be the largest since Anheuser-Busch InBev NV sold $46 billion of bonds in January to finance its takeover of SABMiller Plc, and is expected to launch on Tuesday, said one of the people. The offering comes on the heels of the busiest week for bond sales by blue-chip companies in the U.S and Europe since January. Top-rated issuers sold about $74 billion in the five-day period ending May 13, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/technology/dell-said-to-get-80-billion-of-demand-on-bonds-for-emc-deal-1.1829746
Also:
Dell Said to Offer Premium to Lure Buyers to EMC Bond DealThe longest part of the offering, debt maturing in 30 years, is being marketed at a yield of 6.25 percentage points above similar-maturity Treasuries, said a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. That’s three times more than the average spread on all U.S. corporate bonds of similar ratings and maturities, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch data.
Oracle
- Oracle didn’t buy Sun just to sue Google but to keep it away from IBM, CEO says
It bought Sun because it was afraid IBM was going to grab it, she said, as reported by Sarah Jeong, a reporter from Motherboard who is in court live tweeting the trial.
Catz explained that Oracle bought Sun because so much of Oracle’s own product was based on Sun’s Java, and they were concerned about what would happen if someone else acquired Sun.
http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-bought-sun-because-of-ibm-not-google-2016-5
- Oracle CEO claims it discounted Java by 97.5% to beat out Android on Amazon’s Paperwhite
“Amazon… had used Java to create [the Kindle] reader for many years,” she said. “Then they had another product called the Kindle Fire and that one they used Android. They didn’t license Java at that time.
“The way we look at different discounts and handle them with customers comes through an approval process that comes through me. I was made aware through that process that Amazon was going to [develop] the Kindle Fire with Android.
“They were now considering a new product called the Paperwhite and they were considering whether to use Java for that or Android.
“In order to compete with [Google], we ended up giving a 97.5 percent discount for the Paperwhite. Instead of what we would have historically offered them, because our competition was free, we had to offer them a cents on the dollar price.”
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- HP Inc. CEO Dion Weisler banks on 3-D printing
We think it actually democratizes manufacturing. Manufacturing today typically happens in faraway places, and that costs a lot of inventory, warehousing costs, costs of capital all are all tied up, and this enables you to move manufacturing much closer to where your customers are. So, companies like Nike, like BMW, like Johnson & Johnson are working with us as close technology partners and figuring out how they can build innovative products where complexity is essentially free … and bring breakthrough products to market.
http://www.marketplace.org/2016/05/17/tech/hp-inc-ceo-dion-weisler-banks-3d-printing
- Meg Whitman gets hands-on with $100M in Hewlett Packard Enterprise startup bets
“By adopting companies to integrate into our solution, if another one comes along that is better for our customers, we move to that one and we’re not stuck having paid $200 million or $300 million for a company,” she said. “You can’t buy them all.”
The $100 million HPE plans to invest in startups this year is roughly the same as it did last year. That’s about one-fifth to one-quarter what the two top Silicon Valley corporate venture units — Intel Capital and GV (formerly Google Ventures) invested last year.
Other
- What did Google announce at 2016 I/O…
- Apple is the new IBM
Slowing sales of the iPhone have been driving Mr. Market’s dismay with Apple, along with a general sense that the company has become somewhat boring. Recent product launches have underwhelmed, offering iterations and optimizations of its existing portfolio rather than gadgets that create big new categories.
Also:
Of course, Berkshire Hathaway’s stake is actually just an acknowledgement of the direction Apple has been heading in for years under CEO Tim Cook. Since taking the helm in 2011, Cook has essentially been tasked with managing the transformation of Apple from a fast-growing company seemingly immune to the law of large numbers, to a more stately—but still incredibly profitable—corporate powerhouse that consistently showers shareholders with dividends and buybacks.
- Swift Is Hacked Again. The Bitcoin/Blockchain Fat Lady Sings.
The significance of the second Swift failure is this. Trust-based systems, such as those upon which the current payments systems operate, are becoming more expensive to protect at a rapidly increasing rate. The horse race between hackers and firewall builders is being won by hackers in spite of the rapidly increasing spending on internet security.
And these most recent hacks took banks’ money, not customer money. That is a game changer.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3975082-swift-hacked-bitcoin-blockchain-fat-lady-sings
Photo: Stefan Stefancik
Supplier Report: 5/14/2016
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.
- 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.
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.”
- 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
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.
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
- 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.
- 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/
Supplier Report: 5/7/2016
Oracle picks up another company while their lawsuits with HPE and Google pick up steam. Meanwhile, IBM opens up their new quantum platform to the masses (I am still waiting for my login).
Teradata ditches their CEO after announcing a $46M loss in the marketing space as EMC CEO Joe Tucci says goodbye at EMC World.
IBM
- IBM Launches Quantum Computing As Free Cloud Service
In IBM’s vision, online access will pave the way for future developments and spark interest for the new technology. Depending on how well versed people are in quantum technology and their overall technology background, IBM will determine how much access people receive to the processor, according to the manager of IBM’s experimental quantum computing group, Jerry Chow. He explained for The New York Times that the online quantum computing simulator is meant to be educational, but it could also “be the beginnings of a larger framework.”
http://www.itechpost.com/articles/17852/20160505/ibm-launches-quantum-computing-free-cloud-service.htm
Note: This is a true 360 degree video, click in the video to change the camera view - IBM’s iPhone app will help 20 million Americans keep their sight
Why might the app make a difference? “The process for managing patient information today is still very much a manual process for many cataract surgeons,” explained Chang. “With this app, surgeons will now have the ability to access each patient’s surgical information in one place, receive intuitive feedback for IOL selection, and help improve future procedures while driving greater efficiencies in managing patient flow; an incredible benefit for practices.”
- IBM To Downsize Rochester Campus
The tech company from Armonk, New York will be selling off upwards of one million square-feet of its Rochester campus. However, no personnel changes are expected to occur, according to a statement by Tory Johnson, the senior location executive for IBM’s Rochester site.
http://tcbmag.com/News/Recent-News/2016/May/IBM-To-Downsize-Rochester-Campus
Oracle
- Oracle Buys Utility-Focused Cloud Firm Opower for $532 Million
That rapid growth made Opower an attractive acquisition target for Oracle, which itself has a large business division targeting the utilities sector. By adding Opower to its existing energy industry portfolio, Oracle said it will become “the largest provider of mission-critical cloud services” to a sector valued at $2.3 trillion.
http://www.cio-today.com/article/index.php?story_id=010000BLD85W
More:
Can Oracle buy its way into the cloud?It stands to reason that traditional enterprise vendors — Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and SAP — would have at least a shot at that new business. But it’s no slam dunk, largely because of customers’ past experiences with those vendors, Rymer said.
“It’s no secret that a lot of people don’t like dealing with Oracle, and there are similar relationship horror stories about all the big enterprise vendors,” he said. “A lot of folks say, ‘We don’t want the same kind of relationship we have with them now.'”
AWS, Azure and Google all promise something more flexible, and for some customers the trade-off is worthwhile even if it means more work.
“The big enterprise vendors understand enterprises,” Rymer said. “I think they have a chance, but we’ll see how that tension plays out.”
http://www.cio.com/article/3064658/can-oracle-buy-its-way-into-the-cloud.html
- Alphabet Inc To Face Off Against Oracle Corporation Next Week In $8.8 Billion Lawsuit
The case between these two tech giants previously went on trial in 2012, but the jury made no progress. If the new jury, in the trial that is scheduled to begin on Monday, rules in favor of Oracle concerning the fair-use copyright, then it will consider the damages.
After the initial trial, William Alsup, a United States District Judge, gave the verdict that the material in the issue in case at hand is not supposed to be subject to copyright. However, a federal appeals court reversed this ruling, arguing that the structure of any programming language can be protected.
- HP Fires Back at Oracle Copyright Suit
HPE’s lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher pointed to Oracle’s litigation targeting Terix in a court filing Friday asking U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California to dismiss the case against HPE. “Oracle seeks to hold [HPE] responsible for Terix’s conduct based on vague allegations of conspiracy and control,” wrote Gibson Dunn partner Blaine Evanson. “While Oracle recounts what Terix did to infringe Oracle’s copyrights, it fails to plausibly allege facts demonstrating how HPE knew that Terix was infringing, what steps HPE took to encourage Terix to infringe, or that HPE had the ability to control Terix.”
- Oracle Needs More Time
If you ask me to name one company that’s going to be hit the worst during the massive shift towards cloud computing, I would say “Oracle” (NYSE:ORCL) in a heartbeat. Their entire business line was once dependent on companies managing their own infrastructure; as part of that model, Oracle made billions selling them hardware and software designed specifically for their needs.
Today, as significant portions of the enterprise segment look towards TCO (total cost of operation) reduction and global accessibility in the form of what cloud computing offers, Oracle stands in an ever-widening gap. Even their core databases business – of which they are still king – are increasingly under attack from the likes of Microsoft and Amazon. This is something I’ve already spoken about in Oracle’s Rite Of Passage Has Come.
Storage (EMC | Dell | Infinidat | NetApp )
- EMC World 2016: Joe Tucci bows out as EMC looks to the future
“If you look at the magnitude of data processed and the need for this to be interpreted in real-time, the outcome is a new style of computing,” he added. “We have to change not only very rapidly but very dramatically and on a personal note, it’s been an incredible journey.
“I thank our partners and customers as this will be the last time I stand here at EMC World as EMC Corporation CEO and Chairman.”
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/599096/emc-world-2016-joe-tucci-bows-emc-looks-future/
- EMC & Dell execs outline integration plan to create Dell Technologies
The final hurdles the team face are the Chinese regulators, the one remaining body to have not signed off on the merger to date. While Chinese regulators have proven to be a difficulty for other organizations in the past, Read and Elias claim it should be a relatively simple process for the team. Read highlighted the fact that all other regulatory bodies had signed off on the deal 100% with no condition attached, it was a good sign when considering the Chinese regulatory process.
- Michael Dell roasts HP at EMC World
“Our competitors like HP are shrinking their way to success,” he said. “Wait, you can’t shrink your way to success. That is not even a real thing! But they’re doing it. They are getting smaller. They are separating their edge from their core with far less revenue, less innovation in R&D, less software, a smaller supply chain, losing share in each of their businesses to Dell, even right now during this period.
http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2456674/michael-dell-roasts-hp-at-emc-world
- Tucci and Dell on Partner Strategy
Other
- Google handed patients’ files without permission: Up to 1.6million records – including names and medical history – passed on in NHS deal with web giant
Trust managers approached Google to develop the app and then handed over the patient files after signing an ‘information-sharing agreement’ last year. Neither the trust nor Google needed to ask patients’ permission beforehand because the NHS is obliged to pass on some anonymous medical information if it is intended for research purposes to improve care.
Also:
Under the arrangement, Google’s DeepMind has access to the details of all patients who have stayed overnight at Barnet, Chase Farm or Royal Free Hospitals or attended A&E over the past five years. It is not clear exactly how many patients this covers. The company will also be given information on a monthly basis relating to all inpatients and those attending casualty until 2017.
Although patients can theoretically opt out of their information being passed on in such a way, they would firstly need to be aware such arrangements exist. They would then need to contact the hospital’s data protection officer in writing to make a specific request.
- Canonical founder: “OpenStack no lifeline for legacy tech suppliers”
“What do customers want? They don’t want to get locked in to someone’s database as a service they happen to have dumped on OpenStack,” he said.“They want database as a service and they want it on every public cloud and on private cloud. They’re not going to get it just on OpenStack.”
- Here’s why Apple’s partnership with SAP is amazingly strategic and smart
SAP is going to develop a bunch of custom business applications for iOS devices, iPads and iPhones, as well as release tools so that SAP’s 2.5-million member global developers can write their own custom iOS apps using Apple’s new programming language, Swift.
In return, Apple gets access to SAP’s enormous worldwide salesforce to help it sell devices to SAP’s roughly 310,000 worldwide customers, most of whom are large enterprise businesses with thousands of employees.
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-sap-partnership-is-smart-2016-5
- Teradata names new CEO
On a day when Teradata reported a net loss of $46 million in the first quarter of 2016 — a loss of 36 cents per diluted share — the data warehousing and analytics company also announced that its board of directors has elected one of its own, Victor Lund, as the company’s president and chief executive.
The first quarter’s net loss contrasts with its net income of $22 million, or 15 cents per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2015. Lund succeeds Mike Koehler who has stepped down as Teradata’s president, CEO and board director, effective immediately, the Miami Twp. company said.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/teradata-names-new-ceo/nrHZL/
- Review: HPE’s machine learning cloud overpromises, underdelivers
Feels like something I mentioned on Episode 22.Overall, Haven OnDemand services are comparable to the Watson services in Bluemix — that is, mostly applications of machine learning, which you can call from your own applications and apply to your own data. There’s clearly some experience behind the text and search services from HPE IDOL and KeyView, but many of the other services show rough edges.
For example, I was disappointed by the prediction service’s limitation to binary classification problems. In its defense, however, it is still in a preview stage, and it attempts to automate the entire binary classification process, including parts that other services leave up to the analyst. Similarly, I was disappointed to discover that the image recognition service has only been trained against a database of corporate logos — and doesn’t even have the excuse of being in preview.
Photo: Ashes Sitoula