In supplier news, the press likes to make groupings of four (like Gartner’s magic quadrants). This week, the press calls EMC, IBM, Oracle, and HPE the 4 horsemen of the legacy IT apocalypse (clever title, but the article fails to make any new observations). We also learn who the 4 major players are in the cloud space (there should be absolutely no surprises to readers of this blog)
When we look past these blocks of 4, we learn about blockchains, using DNA as a storage vehicle, and why healthcare is a major target for cybercrime.
IBM
- Big Blue’s big blockchain bet
So Friday’s announcement is that IBM has chosen “the good builds,” run a battery of tests, certified that the framework is secure, and is now widely distributing its version of the code to developers.
The company also announced Friday that it was graduating its own cloud-based blockchain services from experimental to beta. In other words, IBM is offering to securely run a company’s blockchain network within its own ecosystem so developers can focus on creating applications for the tech.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/29/ibm-announces-blockchain-services.html
- Don’t Worry About IBM’s Mainframe Sales Collapse
While sales of mainframe systems represent a relatively small portion of IBM’s total sales, once related hardware, software, and services are included, the mainframe accounts for a major part of IBM’s profits. Back in 2012, an analyst from Bernstein Research estimated that the mainframe ultimately accounted for a quarter of IBM’s revenue and nearly half of its profits. IBM’s business has changed since then, with the company undergoing a transformation, but the mainframe remains a key part of IBM.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/27/dont-worry-about-ibms-mainframe-sales-collapse.aspx
Microsoft
- Why Microsoft is buying 10 million strands of DNA
“Today, the vast majority of digital data is stored on media that has a finite shelf life and periodically needs to be re-encoded. DNA is a promising storage media, as it has a known shelf life of several thousand years, offers a permanent storage format and can be read for continuously decreasing costs,” Emily M. Leproust, CEO of Twist Bioscience, said in a press release. “Our silicon-based DNA synthesis platform offers unmatched scale and product quality that vastly accelerates the ability to write DNA at a cost enabling data storage. We are thrilled to work with Microsoft, and University of Washington researchers, to address the growing challenge of digital data storage.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-microsoft-is-buying-10-million-strands-of-dna/
- Microsoft and Google Set to End All Legal Proceedings Against Each Other
This formal announcement came just two days after the European Union levied a formal antitrust complaint against Android, but according to the statement given to Recode both companies said that their deal about this collaboration was still in progress. But this isn’t the first time Microsoft and Google have entered a collaboration agreement to end these legal complaints against each other. The two companies ended a legal battle over Android patents last year.
Oracle
- Oracle Buys Textura
Textura’s cloud services process $3.4 billion in payments for over 6,000 projects each month, helping keep projects on time and under budget while reducing risk for developers, contractors and subcontractors. Textura offers its cloud services in a consumption model preferred by the engineering and construction industry whereby the companies involved pay based on project activity. Further, usage of Textura’s cloud services creates a network effect that benefits all participants as more than 85,000 general and subcontractors are connected to the platform.
http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/158589/
More:In 2014, Textura and Allin became the target of famous short seller Andrew Left of Citron Research. (Citron and Left will forever be known as for taking down Valeant, though he’s had plenty of other targets, like Mobileye.)
In Left’s classic style, Citron issued a scathing report on Textura filled with words like “fraud” and “fraudulent.” Left took issue with things like how the company was reporting revenue and how it was predicting its profit trajectory.
Citron also called out Allin for not disclosing a previous CEO role he had at a company called Patron Systems a decade ago. Patron’s business at the time was based around a proposed deal to buy security company Trustwave, but the purchase never happened, Allin resigned, and Patron went bankrupt a few years later, reports Crain’s Chicago Business editor John Pletz.
http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-buys-textura-founder-gains-58-million-2016-4
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Wanna walk the plank voluntarily? You got it
Around a quarter of the 780 ITO staff earmarked for redundancy were supposed to leave at the end of this month but company insiders told us not all of those plans were followed through.
One told us, “A fair few people about have been ‘spared’ from the current redundancies. Lots of messing them about though, [some were] told they were going [in April] and then told last week that actually they weren’t.”
The earliest termination date is 31 July (last day at work would be 29 July) but staff that volunteer to leave need to have everything signed and sealed by mid-May.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/27/hpe_voluntary_redundancy_track_opened
Storage [EMC |Dell |Infinidat]
- EMC Faces Growing Competition from Flash Storage Providers
EMC’s Information Infrastructure segment’s revenues fell by 6% YoY to $3.8 billion whereas revenues from RSA and Information Storage fell by 8.1% and 5.9% YoY, respectively. Revenues from EMC’s Enterprise Content division also fell by 2.9% YoY.
Revenues for EMC were impacted due to sluggish demand for traditional data storage products. As shown in the above chart, VMware’s (VMW) revenues rose by 4.8% YoY to $1,583 billion in 1Q16. EMC’s Pivotal segment reported revenues of $83 million, a massive increase of 56% YoY.
http://marketrealist.com/2016/04/emc-faces-growing-competition-flash-storage-providers/
- Exclusive: VMware Cloud Chief Exits
Fathers’s exit is not a huge surprise given that the company’s cloud efforts have been in flux for more than a year. That picture got even fuzzier in October when Dell and VMware parent company EMC disclosed their planned $67 billion merger. There was significant overlap in the three companies’ cloud strategies that muddied the waters further.
http://fortune.com/2016/04/27/exclusive-vmware-cloud-chief-exits/
- Leading Cloud Provider Triple C Selects INFINIDAT to Expand Operations and Speed Customer Transitions to the Cloud
“INFINIDAT’s storage solutions enable us to achieve significant financial savings, along with increased capacity to address dramatically expanding storage volumes and customers’ availability requirements,” said Erez Rozenbaum, director of cloud engineering at Triple C. “The major challenge for cloud-based storage is how to handle data at scale. With InfiniBox, we can meet the highest SLA business objectives set by the company for both private and public cloud services.”
http://www.cso.com.au/mediareleases/27190/leading-cloud-provider-triple-c-selects-infinidat/
Other
- Former Aprimo to be Sold
The buyer is an affiliate of Marlin Equity Partners. Teradata has been negotiating the sale of the unit since late last year as it shifts emphasis. You can view the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by clicking here.
Aprimo was founded in Indianapolis by Bill Godfrey.
Teradata acquired Aprimo in 2011 for $525 million. At the time, Teradata touted the move for the cloud-based company as a “milestone” event and it led to the launch of its new applications business unit that has been managed in Indy.
In 2013, it transitioned from the name Aprimo to Teradata Applications.
Teradata says either party can terminate the purchase agreement if the acquisition is not complete by October 22.
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/31823283/former-aprimo-to-be-sold-for-90-million
- AWS, Google, Microsoft and IBM pull away from pack in race for cloud market share
“This is a market that is so big and is growing so rapidly that companies can be growing by 10-30% per year and might feel good about themselves and yet they’d still be losing market share,” said John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “The big question for them is whether or not they are building a sustainable and profitable business. This can be done by focusing on specific regions or specific services, but the bulk of the market demands huge scale, a broad footprint, very deep pockets and a long-term corporate focus.”
- Why cybercriminals attack healthcare more than any other industry
[Health records] typically contain credit card data, email addresses, social security numbers, employment information and medical history records – much of which will remain valid for years, if not decades. Cyberthieves are using that data to launch spear-phishing attacks, commit fraud and steal medical identities.
- EMC, IBM, HP Enterprise, and Oracle: Four Horses Of The Legacy Tech Apocalypse
The cloud computing “wars” are “entering a new phase,” and it will hurt traditional IT vendors such as SAP, Oracle and IBM, according to a report published in April by JP Morgan analysts Mark Murphy, Doug Anmuth, Sterling Auty, Rod Hall, and Philip Cusick.
Their survey of more than 207 chief information officers at companies with an annual budget of at least $600 million found that Microsoft will remain the dominant IT vendor ahead of Amazon, IBM and others. JP Morgan believes that Microsoft will be the only vendor not to lose market share as the so-called public cloud grows at a 20% annual rate through 2021.
Photo: Erol Ahmed
