Tag: HPE

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Supplier Report: 1/28/2017

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. As Amazon’s AWS services continue to dominate the cloud sector, many analysts are reporting their lack of SaaS offerings as the chink in their armor.

Amazon is not alone in their weakness, poor sales is rumored to be forcing Oracle to eliminate jobs in the traditional software areas as they start to build up for their fight against AWS.

IBM’s good news regarding cloud growth is coming at a cost as the company announced a major reorganization in the cloud and power divisions.

Acquisitions

  • AppDynamics Acquired for $3.7 Billion

    What AppDynamics gives Cisco is a tool for monitoring the performance of applications, regardless the application delivery platform. The idea is to find issues and deal with them before they become a big problem for end users. The worst case is a full outage, but there are countless other issues that can cause slow-downs and other headaches, as every user is keenly aware. As it monitors these applications, AppDynamics is gathering tons of data about the applications, the connections to other systems, the devices being used to connect to the application and so forth. All of this data is a natural byproduct of the monitoring process — and could have great value when combined with other network information.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/25/cisco-appdynamics-3-7-billion-deal-all-about-the-data/?ncid=rss

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise makes second acquisition in a week

    Cloud Cruiser makes software that helps large companies visualize how and where their IT budget is being spent across different business units and different technology platforms. Its software can analyze changes in spending and ways specific business units might be able to save money.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/01/24/hewlett-packard-enterprise-makes-second.html
    HPE Acquires Cloud Cruiser In Stepped Up Flexible Capacity Hybrid Cloud Pay-As-You-Go Offensive

    The Flexible Capacity services offering allows customers to buy HPE private cloud infrastructure as a service based on the same monthly, fixed-fee, pay-as-you-go model that has fueled public cloud adoption. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

    http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300083513/hpe-acquires-cloud-cruiser-in-stepped-up-flexible-capacity-hybrid-cloud-pay-as-you-go-offensive.htm

  • IBM Acquires Agile 3, Makers Of A Security Dashboard For Business Leaders

    Agile 3, founded in 2009, offers a suite of products that help business leaders make decisions about security threats facing their companies through intuitive visualizations and analytics. The software design is heavily influenced by service-oriented architecture principles.

    Agile 3’s founder, Raghu Varadan, had been IBM’s chief architect for its SOA Center of Excellence, and was responsible for implementing service-oriented architecture solutions for the IBM Global Business Services division’s largest customers.

    http://www.crn.com/news/security/300083507/ibm-acquires-agile-3-makers-of-a-security-dashboard-for-business-leaders.htm

  • Yahoo surprises no one by pushing back its Verizon acquisition close date

    Yahoo has continued to work with Verizon on integration planning for the sale of its core business. In terms of timing, Yahoo had previously stated that it expected to close the transaction in Q1. However, given work required to meet closing conditions, the transaction is now expected to close in Q2 of 2017. The company is working expeditiously to close the transaction as soon as practicable in Q2.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/23/yahoo-unsurprisingly-pushes-back-its-verizon-acquisition-closing-date/?ncid=rss

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM adds support for Google’s Tensorflow to its PowerAI machine learning framework

    While TensorFlow has only been available for a little over a year, it has quickly become the most popular open source machine learning project on GitHub. IBM’s PowerAI already supported other frameworks and libraries like CAFFETheano, Torch, cuDNN, and NVIDIA DIGITS, but Tensorflow support was sorely missing from this lineup.

    IBM clearly sees the combination of PowerAI with Nvidia’s NVLink interface and Pascal P100 GPU accelerators as a way to differentiate itself from the competition — and in this case, the competition it is gunning for is clearly Intel (though it’s worth noting that Intel and Google also recently teamed up to improve TensorFlow performance on its CPUs).

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/26/ibm-adds-support-for-googles-tensorflow-to-its-powerai-deep-learning-framework/?ncid=rss

  • Apple joins Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft in AI initiative

    The Partnership on AI was officially unveiled back in September 2016. At the time, Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft were the only founding members. Apple, Twitter, Intel and Baidu didn’t participate in the initiative.

    But Apple was already enthusiastic about the project, so today’s news is more about formalizing the company’s involvement. Siri co-founder and CTO Tom Gruber is going to represent Apple. You can find the full board of trustees on the partnership’s website.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/27/apple-joins-amazon-facebook-google-ibm-and-microsoft-in-ai-initiative/?ncid=rss

  • Will A.I. Allow Humans to Realize Our Full Potential?

Cloud

  • IBM’s SoftLayer is having a meltdown – and customers aren’t happy

    “Since IBM came along there have been loads of outages, planned and otherwise,” our reader in the field told us.

    “In the three years of service prior to this we had only one outage, in the six months after they took over we have had one outage that knocked out their AMS [Amsterdam] data center for four hours, [and] their entire global virtual server platform has had to be rebooted three times on separate occasions.”

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/26/ibm_softlayer_having_meltdown/

  • IBM Shakes Up Cloud Division in Executive Reorg

    Vice president and director of IBM research Arvind Krishna has been named senior vice president of Hybrid Cloud, which is a merger between the analytics business formerly run by Picciano, and the cloud division formerly run by LeBlanc. Krishna will report to John Kelly, senior vice president of Cognitive Solutions and IBM Research.

    http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/ibm-shakes-up-cloud-division-in-executive-reorg

  • How Long Can Amazon’s AWS Retain the IaaS Crown?

    During the most recent quarter Amazon reported $3.231 billion in quarterly revenues while Microsoft’s annualized cloud revenues exceeded $13 billion. At first glance, it would appear that both these companies are running neck and neck when it comes to earnings from cloud, but Microsoft has a huge bonus package in the form of its SaaS product, Office 365, which is experiencing strong growth.

    Though Azure is certainly growing at a healthy rate, it has a long way to go before it can compete at the same level as the IaaS offering from Amazon. Amazon has no such SaaS product lineup but still leads the race in terms of revenue thanks to its strength in IaaS. The company’s single-segment focus has helped Amazon add service after service and keep cutting prices, but still expand revenues – and margins along with it.

    http://www.gurufocus.com/news/475709/how-long-can-amazons-aws-retain-the-iaas-crown

  • Oracle outlines plans to take on Amazon in cloud

    “Oracle should be congratulated for its enthusiasm and the proactive way it is pursuing the cloud market,” says Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT, adding that the company was late to the market. Oracle has taken a similar approach to Microsoft and IBM in offering services across all three layers of cloud: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. “They still have a massive install base of customers that want cloud services. The question is whether they will choose Oracle as their cloud vendor as opposed to vendors they may be currently working with, or choosing to go with a more established, more innovative vendor.” King adds Oracle’s cloud will appeal most to existing customers, but he questions how the company will be able to attract net new brands.

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/3158725/cloud-computing/oracle-outlines-plans-to-take-on-amazon-in-cloud.html

Datacenter

  • HP Inc announces moderate price hike across products

    “HP is increasing the list price of its products in India. As a standard business practice, the company regularly reviews pricing and makes adjustments accordingly, based on a variety of factors including currency movement and commodities prices. Actual price increases will vary by product,” Rajiv Srivastava, Managing Director, HP Inc. India, told IANS.

    http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/hp-inc-announces-moderate-price-hike-across-products/516580/

  • Infinidat slims down in UK: Storage upstart has just handful of Brit staff

    Infinidat has slimmed its UK office from 17 heads to just four since January 2016, and has not won a new customer in that time, we’re told.

    We’ve heard that Infinidat has four UK customers: BrightSolid, Pulsant, BT and Barclays. BT, its biggest client worldwide followed by Barclays, is the most active, and is looked after by a director for enterprise sales. There are three technical and professional services people alongside him in the London office. Thirteen others have been let go.

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/26/infinidat_slims_down_in_uk/

Software/SaaS

  • Why Salesforce is the new BlackBerry

    Earlier last year, Salesforce announced that it beat Q1 earnings following a 20 percent pricing increase. Its thousands of embedded (read: captive) users have had no choice but to pay up. Soon, however, a new generation of automated CRMs will emerge as a viable alternative, bringing intelligence and ease-of-use to a category of “dumb” CRM databases. They’ll offer products that are easily configured, always up-to-date, and entirely automated – delivering a delightful user experience in a tech landscape known for the opposite.

    Like BlackBerry, the disruption will happen much faster than Salesforce expects.

    http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2017/01/20/salesforce-new-blackberry/

  • OpenText completes $1.62-billion Dell acquisition

    The deal includes the Documentum enterprise content management platform and Dell’s enterprise content management division.

    With the acquisition, 5,000 customers, 2,000 employees and more than 300 partners join OpenText, the company said.

    http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/news-story/7080349-opentext-completes-1-62-billion-dell-acquisition/

  • Oracle Is ‘Toast,’ Layoffs In Sparc Business

    According to a report by Mercury News as part of statutory obligation, Oracle has intimated the Employment Development Department that it would lay off 450 employees in its Santa Clara systems division. According to the report, those affected include hardware and software developers along with managers, technicians and administrative assistants.

    Also:

    With the layoff reports, the analyst feels the reason for optimism on Oracle has proven to be completely wrong. The analyst also pointed to the industry’s belief that more layoffs in California, Colorado and Massachusetts are on the cards, with the guesstimate at 1,500

    https://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/17/01/8932929/chowdhry-oracle-is-toast-layoffs-in-sparc-business

Other

  • Follow-up: US alleges systemic employment discrimination at Oracle

    The U.S. government says Oracle routinely and systemically pays white men more than women and minorities and that it favors Asian candidates over others in product development and technical roles.

    The investigation was triggered by a regular compliance review by the government. As a federal contractor, Oracle is prohibited from engaging in discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3158841/legal/us-alleges-systemic-employment-discrimination-at-oracle.html

  • Avaya says bankruptcy is a step toward software and services

    Networking and collaboration vendor Avaya declared bankruptcy last Thursday, calling the move part of its transition from a hardware to a software and services company.

    It plans to keep operating during the bankruptcy thanks to its cash from operations and US$725 million in financing that still needs approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Avaya said its foreign affiliates aren’t included in the filing and won’t be affected.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3159579/networking/avaya-says-bankruptcy-is-a-step-toward-software-and-services.html

  • Microsoft reportedly plans to lay off about 700 workers next week

    “The upcoming cuts won’t be specific to any single group, but will be spread across the company’s worldwide offices and business units, including sales, marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more,” Business Insider said it was told by its source. “The goals of these rotating smaller layoffs is not to reduce costs but to update skills in various units.”

    http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/01/20/microsoft-layoffs-january-2017.html

  • Cisco debuts its own smart whiteboard priced to compete with the Google Jamboard

    The Spark Board works with fingers or a stylus and saves automatically. The system is priced to compete with Google’s Jamboard (which puts it significantly below Microsoft’s $8,999 Surface Hub) at $4,990 for the 55-inch version due out at the end of the month. A 70-inch version is due out before year’s end, priced at $9,990.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/24/cisco-spark-board/?ncid=rss

  • Verizon fourth quarter earnings fall short of analyst expectations

    Verizon this morning reported adjusted fourth quarter earnings of 86 cents per share, on revenue of $32.3 billion.

    On the earnings side, that falls short of what Wall Street analysts had expected — EPS of 89 cents per share and $32.1 billion in revenue. That also marks a 5.6 percent revenue decline from the fourth quarter of 2015.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/24/verizon-q4-earnings/?ncid=rss

Photo: Annette Beetge

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Supplier Report: 1/21/2017

2017 is finally in full swing… I uncovered 7 acquisitions this week by major IT suppliers. It seems like a great time to be in the AI game, everybody wants to buy a tiny cognitive firm…

As AI profit grows, IBM is experiencing decline in their traditional sweet spots like storage. Blue’s cloud profits are also increasing, but Amazon is growing exponentially faster than competitors like Google and Microsoft.

IBM and Microsoft both got victories by having certain platforms reach new levels of government certification and clearance. Take the wins where you can get them!

Acquisitions

  • HP Enterprise just bought a $1 billion startup for $650 million

    At the time of SimpliVity’s last fundraising, in March 2015, the company had declared that it was valued at “more than $1 billion.” All in all, SimpliVity had raised $276 million from investors like Kleiner Perkins, Accel, and Waypoint Capital.

    By buying SimpliVity, HP Enterprise takes the startup’s capabilities and adds it to their own — crucial as the company moves to compete with the combined Dell EMC juggernaut, following the close of their mega-merger. Dell EMC, for its part, has been investing heavily in the market, and resells Nutanix hardware to its customers.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-enterprise-buys-simplivity-2017-1
    Related:
    Nutanix Evolving Beyond Dell Relationship, Says Pacific Crest

    Kurtz spoke with CFO Duston Williams and also chief marking officer Howard Ting, along with a group of investors, and came away with the impression that the company is taking steps that could offset some of its reliance on privately held Dell, which sells Nutanix equipment and has made up 10% of sales.

    http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2017/01/17/nutanix-evolving-beyond-dell-relationship-says-pacific-crest/

  • Microsoft acquires Simplygon to boost 3D innovation

    This is part of Microsoft’s “3D for everyone” strategy that will be the focus in the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update. According to Tsunoda, Simplygon, a company with reputable expertise in 3D, could help Microsoft simplify the process of capturing creating, and sharing 3D information. Microsoft’s new online creator community, Remix3D.com, and the new Paint 3D application codenamed “Beihai” will be complemented by Simplygon technology.

    Among the most important new features implemented into the Windows 10 Creators Update is a wide range of 3D capabilities that cater to creative types, according to Digital Trends. In the next version of Windows 10, in fact, 3D will take a central role, with the ability to scan objects and import them into the new Paint 3D app as 3D objects. It will also be possible to share these objects to the new Remix 3D community sharing site and interact with them using Windows Holographic and HoloLens.

    http://www.itechpost.com/articles/75272/20170118/microsoft-buys-simplygon-boost-3d-strategy.htm

  • Salesforce’s Quip acquires startup Unity&Variety

    Quip, the productivity platform that Salesforce acquired last year, announced its Friday that the firm Unity&Variety will be joining its team.

    The small Unity&Variety design team — which includes Joey Flynn, Drew Hamlin and Andy Chung — will help Quip “build the next generation of productivity tools,” Quip announced via Twitter. They’ll work on adding creative and visual elements to Quip, according to Salesforce. Has produced at least one public app, the game Pinchworm.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/salesforces-quip-acquires-startup-unity-variety/

  • Why Salesforce Acquired Twin Prime

    Salesforce (CRM) continued its buyout spree in December 2016 with its acquisition of Twin Prime, a startup focused on ML (machine learning) that facilitates enhanced performance of mobile apps. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

    http://marketrealist.com/2017/01/salesforce-acquired-twin-prime/

  • Microsoft just bought an AI startup that can outperform Facebook and Google (Thanks JD!)

    The Verge covered Maluuba in the summer of 2016, when the startup shared the results of an AI system that could read and comprehend text with near human capability, outperforming similar systems shown off by Google and Facebook. Along with acquiring the company, Microsoft has also established closer ties with Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer in the field of deep learning who served as an advisor to Maluuba, and will now become and advisor to Microsoft’s AI division.

    http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/13/14266398/microsoft-acquires-maluuba-ai-deep-learning-yoshua-bengio

  • Google acquires Fabric developer platform and team from Twitter

    Google is taking over Twitter’s mobile app developer platform Fabric, as well as its Crashlytics crash reporting system, Answers mobile app analytics, Digits SMS login system and FastLane development automation system. Twitter launched Fabric as a modular SDK in 2014 to allow developers to pick and choose different tools to improve their apps, and it now serves apps reaching 2.5 billion users built by 580,000 developers.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/18/google-twitter-fabric/?ncid=rss
    Twitter is definitely trying to slim down to look more attractive for acquisition.

  • Oracle Snaps Up Apiary, a Little API Company with Big Customers

    Oracle says it is buying Apiary, a company that specializes in managing and monitoring application programming interfaces, or APIs, which offer standard ways to connect software applications. Both software giants and large Fortune 500 companies are scrambling to add expertise in building, monitoring, and documenting these crucial pieces of technology.

    http://fortune.com/2017/01/19/oracle-buys-apiary/

Artificial Intelligence

Cloud

  • Oracle and Google Refine Their Cloud Pitches to Take On Amazon

    Companies with consumer DNA are not used to providing in-person or telephone support simply because the economics won’t support that expense. That’s why Amazon had to re-boot to approach these sorts of businesses by, for example, cultivating relationships with big systems integrators like Cap Gemini and Accenture that have worked with big businesses for decades.

    Now Google must do the same. When it comes to big customers, Driscoll said: “Sometimes you need to take a client to dinner and talk to them—especially when they’re spending a few million dollars a year with you.”

    http://fortune.com/2017/01/17/oracle-microsoft-amazon-google-cloud-pitches/

  • Microsoft cloud gets Pentagon’s top security rating

    The Pentagon has given the highest security rating for unclassified data to Microsoft’s federal cloud offerings, Azure Government and a Defense Department-specific iteration of Office 365. The Microsoft services were granted Level 5 provisional authority to operate certification.

    According to Microsoft, the rating makes it the first and only cloud provider that can offer a complete DOD cloud solution that is approved at that security level for controlled unclassified information (CUI).

    https://fcw.com/articles/2017/01/13/dod-azure-secure-cloud.aspx

  • IBM Analytics: A Unique Positioning within the Cloud Computing Industry

    IBM’s strength lies in its relationships with the largest companies in the world, most of whom are already its clients. IBM also knows that the bulk of these companies will prefer the hybrid cloud model so they retain a greater measure of control over their data; in addition, there are those who will not move out of their private clouds.

    In order to leverage that strength, IBM Analytics has decided to take the deployment-agnostic route for its analytics business. That way, they don’t rub their existing clients the wrong way, but are also there to support those clients who are seriously looking at public cloud as an option.

    http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/14/ibm-analytics-unique-positioning-within-cloud-computing-industry/

  • Why IaaS Growth is Critical to Cloud Computing

    The first wave of cloud growth came from basic software applications moving to the cloud. The second, and larger wave will come from things like AI-based applications, the globally connected Internet of Things, cloud gaming, virtual reality and other forward technologies.

    And to support that kind of environment, IaaS must necessarily continue to grow at the current pace, or faster. The more we move into cloud the more cloud we need – to move into! SaaS proliferation supported by IaaS expansion is the engine for cloud growth – this year and for the next several years.

    http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/16/infrastructure-service-iaas-growth-critical-cloud-computing/

  • IBM Re-Ups with U.S. Army for $62M Cloud Deal

    According to the Army, the project required Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Impact Level 5 (IL-5) Provisional Authorization to manage controlled, unclassified information. IBM is the only company to be authorized by DISA at IL-5 to run Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions on government premises. IBM announced the accreditation in February which included a condition limiting the initial number of tenants in the cloud; according to today’s announcement, that condition was removed in September.

    http://www.enterprisetech.com/2017/01/18/ibm-re-ups-u-s-army-62m-cloud-deal/

Datacenter

  • 50TB hand made storage array (10 gb/s write speeds )
  • IBM is letting storage hardware revenues slip gently off into the night

    IBM’s results announcement material said that storage HW revenues were down 10 per cent on the year. Our calculation is that they are thus $718.2m, compared to $768m a year ago. In the fourth 2010 quarter Big Blue’s storage hardware revenues were $1.2bn; six years later they are $718m, a 40.2 per cent drop.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/20/ibm_storage_hw_revenues_same_old_same_old/

Software/SaaS

  • Oracle’s Strategy to Hit $10 Billion in SaaS Revenues

    For a lot of enterprises, a single-vendor solution for SaaS products is preferable, and that’s how Oracle wants to position itself. Microsoft is taking baby steps towards that same goal as well as it uses its strength in one SaaS area (Office 365) to strengthen another (Dynamics 365.) Both companies know that the head-on approach to taking on a segment leader like Salesforce is not the best solution.

    http://www.gurufocus.com/news/472820/oracles-strategy-to-hit-10-billion-in-saas-revenues

  • Proposed CEO of the Enlarged Micro Focus Group

    The Board is now pleased to announce that Chris Hsu, currently Chief Operating Officer of HPE and Executive Vice President of HPE Software, will become CEO of the Enlarged Group following completion of the transaction. This appoinment will further strengthen the Board and Executive management of the Enlarged Group. As part of its succession plan the Board was fortunate to have multiple internal candidates that were well qualified for the role.

    http://military-technologies.net/2017/01/17/proposed-ceo-of-the-enlarged-micro-focus-group/

Other

  • Oracle latest tech firm sued by Department of Labor

    The legal complaint asks the court to order the cancellation of all of Oracle’s federal contracts unless it prohibits discriminatory hiring practices and makes up for lost compensation and employment benefits to those affected.

    “The complaint is politically motivated, based on false allegations, and wholly without merit,” Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Oracle, said in a statement provided to CNNMoney. “Oracle values diversity and inclusion, and is a responsible equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.”

    http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/18/technology/oracle-lawsuit-labor-department/

  • Adobe and Salesforce among best US workplaces in the technology sector

    The rankings are based on employee feedback about how frequently they experience behaviors that create a great workplace, taking into consideration factors such as the quality of the employee benefits programme, support for a work-life balance, transparency of communication, degree of collaboration, and the opportunity for professional development. The rankings also take into account whether these experiences are consistent regardless of gender, race, ethnicity and job role.

    https://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/january-online-2017/edmunds-salesforce-ultimate-software-among-best-us-workplaces-technology-sector/

  • Salesforce Is Opening an Innovation Hub Near Amazon and Microsoft

    Salesforce announced plans for this expansion in October 2015, and still plans to double its local workforce in the new neighborhood to nearly 500 people. The new Bellevue Salesforce Engineering and Innovation Hub will even include “dedicated mindfulness areas.”

    http://fortune.com/2017/01/18/salesforce-innovation-hub-seattle/

  • A new CEO for DocuSign

    Effective this week, Daniel Springer is taking the reigns and former CEO Keith Krach is moving to a chairman role.

    With a reported valuation of more than $3 billion, 14-year-old DocuSign is said to be scaling, with speculation that it’s nearing its long-awaited IPO. Though he couldn’t comment on timing, Springer happens to have experience with IPOs — he brought Responsys public in 2011 and later helped it get acquired by Oracle.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/18/a-new-ceo-for-docusign/?ncid=rss

  • IBM: Revenues Will Grow In 2017

    To revamp growth, the company has invested over $30 billion in five key growth areas: Analytics, Cloud, Mobile, Security and Social. These areas offer incredible potential that is beginning to be captured. From today’s earnings’ release, we can see that year over year, Analytics grew 9% to $19.5 billion, Cloud 35% to $13.7 billion, Mobile 35% to $4.1 billion and Security 14% to $2 billion (Social, though, fell by 10% to $1 billion). Revenues generated by these areas have grown to $32.8 billion and now represent 41% of the company’s total revenues. Such growth is impressive considering that, in 2010, strategic imperatives represented only 13% of total revenues. Growth is slowing down because the segments are becoming larger, but these growth rates are still more appropriate for a tech start-up rather than for a giant like IBM.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/4038136-ibm-revenues-will-grow-2017

Photo: Josh Willink

Posted on

Supplier Report: 12/3/2016

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Amazon is all over the news this week as they are introducing more AI/machine learning tools, more industry specific platforms, and more flexible GPU pricing.

Last week there were rumors that IBM was having issues with their cloud hosting financials, but they bounced back this week by securing American Airlines as a Bluemix customer and also bringing more focus on their blockchain solutions.

HPE is… just confusing me with every public action and comment they make.

Acquisitions

  • SUSE Acquires HPE OpenStack Cloud Technology and Talent

    Linux vendor SUSE is acquiring OpenStack cloud and Cloud Foundry Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technology and staff from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in a deal announced on November 30. Financial terms of the acquisition are not being publicly disclosed and the deal is set to close in the first quarter of 2017.

    http://www.eweek.com/cloud/suse-acquires-hpe-openstack-cloud-technology-and-talent.html

  • IBM closes acquisition of financial consulting firm Promontory (old news)

    The firm’s statement continues, “The acquisition complements IBM’s Industry Platforms business, formed to develop open vertical platforms – the first comprehensive ‘as a service’ offerings designed from the ground up for individual industries. These platforms will integrate IBM Cloud, Watson and capabilities from across digital ecosystems of specialized providers, and serve multiple clients in an industry – delivering dramatically reduced costs for outcomes spanning speed, quality, audit-ability, security and transparency.”

    http://www.consultancy.uk/news/12849/ibm-closes-acquisition-of-financial-consulting-firm-promontory

  • Twitter buys startup Yes, Inc. and scores a new VP of product in the process

    The new VP of Product, Keith Coleman, steps into the role as part of Twitter’s purchase of seven-person mobile app startup Yes, Inc., where he served as CEO. Prior to that gig, the exec worked as a product manager for another little startup called Google.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/01/twitter-vp/?ncid=rss

  • Fitbit is buying troubled smartwatch maker Pebble for around $40 million

    A source close to the company told TechCrunch that watch maker Citizen was interested in purchasing Pebble for $740 million in 2015. This deal failed and before the launch of the Pebble 2 Intel made an offer for $70 million. The CEO, Eric Migicovsky refused both offers. Our source said that Fitbit is now paying between $34 and $40 million for the company and is “barely covering their debts.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/30/fitbit-pebble/?ncid=rss
    I am putting this news item on the report as now there is one less IoT/wearable company that could be making health related devices
    Related News:
    Smartwatches wear out their welcome with Motorola

    Android Wear has had a rough year. What started with a promising announcement of Android Wear 2.0 at Google I/O has ended with a delayed launch, an utter lack of new models and now, a disillusioned manufacturer. In an interview with the Verge, Shakil Barkat, Motorola’s head of global product development, said in no uncertain terms that the company has soured on smartwatches and doesn’t “see enough pull in the market” to release a new model anytime soon.

    http://www.greenbot.com/article/3146360/android/smartwatches-wear-out-their-welcome-with-motorola.html

  • Can CSC spin-merger help HPE strike the infrastructure-services balance?

    “With ES moving out, it gives us the opportunity to partner far more with the likes of [professional services company] Accenture,” he said.

    Also:
    HPE VP Alistair Winner says this:

    When asked if HPE is still primarily a product and hardware company, Alastair answered resolutely, “No.”

    He said where once customers just wanted to buy gear from them and move on, “now customers are saying, ‘Actually, I don’t want to buy gear anymore. Help me consume it, whether that’s on premise or on the cloud.’”

    This is a total copout BS statement and Alistair needs to be called out on that.

    http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/11/29/can-csc-spin-merger-help-hpe-strike-infrastructure-services-balance-hpediscover/

Artificial Intelligence

  • AWS comes out swinging with A.I. services

    The three services being rolled out are Amazon Rekognition for image recognition; Amazon Polly for text-to-speech services; and Amazon Lex, the technology inside its smart device Alexa, offering speech recognition services.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3146089/artificial-intelligence/aws-comes-out-swinging-with-ai-services.html

  • Should Microsoft be your AI and machine learning platform?

    The cloud-based machine-learning marketplace is increasingly crowded, with competing services from the likes of Google, IBM and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Mike Gualtieri, VP at analyst house Forrester, said that while Microsoft offered simpler tools for firms building their own machine-learning models, the quality of the firm’s on-demand, pre-trained speech, vision and language recognition services would likely be less effective than Google’s because of the search giant’s access to huge amounts of training data.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/should-microsoft-be-your-ai-and-machine-learning-platform/

  • Pfizer to use IBM Watson to devise immunotherapies for cancer

    “With the incredible volume of data and literature available in this complex field, we believe that tapping into advanced technologies can help our scientific experts more rapidly identify novel combinations of immune-modulating agents,” said Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s president of worldwide research and development. “We are hopeful that by leveraging Watson’s cognitive capabilities in our drug discovery efforts, we will be able to bring promising new immuno-oncology therapeutics to patients more quickly.”

    http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20161201/NEWS/161209996

Cloud

  • How Amazon Web Services is luring banks to the cloud

    Jassy said the trend started at last year’s re:Invent, where Capital One Financial Chief Information Officer Rob Alexander talked publicly about recreating the consumer banking experience in the cloud. On Tuesday, Amazon said that over the next five years, Capital One will migrate “many core business and customer applications to AWS.”

    Intuit, whose tax and payroll software exposes it to strict regulations, has moved completely to Amazon’s cloud. And the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, is headed in that direction.

    http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/30/how-amazon-web-services-is-luring-banks-to-the-cloud.html

  • How to compare cloud costs between Amazon, Microsoft and Google

    One advantage of IaaS is that customers can spin resources up and down as needed. But the most expensive way to buy cloud-based virtual machines is to pay for them on-demand. If customers plan and commit to a long-term contract, they will save money.

    In AWS, the primary way to do this is by using Reserved Instances (RIs). “You get the discount in exchange for making a one-year or three-year commitment with the longer commitment giving a higher discount,” RightScale engineers explain. “If you also pay for some or all of that committed usage upfront, the discount gets larger.” RightScale says discounts of RIs compared to on-demand VMs range from 24% to 75%.

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/3145470/cloud-computing/how-to-compare-cloud-costs-between-amazon-microsoft-and-google.html

  • American Airlines selects IBM as its Cloud provider

    As part of the partnership, American Airlines will move select enterprise applications to IBM’s Cloud. The airline will be able to leverage the global footprint of IBM Cloud, which consists of more than 50 data centers spanning 17 countries, as well as a wide range of application development capabilities through IBM Bluemix. In addition the company will have access to IBM advanced analytics capabilities and technologies, all of which will enable the company to advance its enterprise into a cognitive infrastructure that offers greater resiliency and better customer experiences.

    https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/american-airlines-selects-ibm-as-its-cloud-provider

  • Amazon Web Services is rolling out a way to use to use just the GPU power you need

    That means companies can tap into just a sliver of GPU power, or a larger amount, on demand as they need it and pay for that amount. GPUs can run a ton of tasks in parallel and have a lot of advantages in certain compute situations, like rendering games. But some lightweight processes don’t necessary require a full GPU cluster, which running for a company — especially a smaller one — might become prohibitively expensive very quickly. The new product, introduced at AWS Re:Invent, is called Elastic GPU for EC2.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/30/amazon-web-services-is-rolling-out-a-way-to-use-to-use-just-the-gpu-power-you-need

  • Docker for AWS: Who’s it really for?

    The biggest clue as to who Docker for AWS is aimed at: its use of CloudFormation as its interface to AWS. Cloud Formation was created to allow AWS services to be stood up as a single unit, without the user needing intimate knowledge of how to configure each piece. Configuring services like Elastic Load Balancing or CloudWatch isn’t a trivial process, and most AWS components have a learning curve associated with them.

    Docker for AWS reduces the overall learning curve for those who want to use Docker—and Docker Swarm—on AWS. But users can also manually configure a setup later on if the need arises.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3145696/application-development/docker-for-aws-whos-it-really-for.html

Datacenter

  • Here’s More Bad News for Tech Hardware Makers

    Spending by small and medium businesses (SMBs) on laptops, PCs, peripherals, and other hardware will show a just a 1.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next four years compared to 6.6% growth in software spending, and 3.8% growth in IT services spending, according to IDC.

    http://fortune.com/2016/11/28/tech-hardware/
    sn_spending_growth
    Note: This article is a bit of a mess. Cloud is not called out specifically but is probably included in business services, which includes outsourcing.

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise Demonstrates World’s First Memory-Driven Computing Architecture

    “We have achieved a major milestone with The Machine research project — one of the largest and most complex research projects in our company’s history,” said Antonio Neri, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Group at HPE. “With this prototype, we have demonstrated the potential of Memory-Driven Computing and also opened the door to immediate innovation. Our customers and the industry as a whole can expect to benefit from these advancements as we continue our pursuit of game-changing technologies.”

    https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/news-archive/press-release/2016/11/1287610-hewlett-packard-enterprise-demonstrates-worlds-first-memory-driven-computing-architecture.html

Software/SaaS

  • IBM is continuing its blockchain push

    Putting blockchain to use for real-world transactions is likely not that far off. If working groups’ tests are successful, firms could be using it to transact real value as early as the end of this year and we could see widespread industry application within the next few years.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-is-continuing-its-blockchain-push-2016-12
    sn_blockchain

Other

  • Why Have IBM’s Global Business Services Failed to Grow?

    The government remained tight-lipped about the specifics of what was discussed, but did say that among the topics of discussion was the IT skills gap and the Digital Single Market – an initiative to ensure people and businesses across the continent can access digital services seamlessly and are subject to the same rules and regulations.

    http://marketrealist.com/2016/11/ibms-global-business-services-failed-grow-2/

Photo: vedanti

Posted on

Supplier Report: 11/19/2016

sn_open_alvaro-serrano

IT suppliers are looking to get more open. Microsoft not only joined Elon Musk’s OpenAI, they also join the Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation… remember when Ballmer called linux a cancer?

But even as Microsoft and Google promote their open technology, they are targeting SaaS as the main driver for future growth. While the infrastructure may be open, their SaaS offerings will be decidedly less so. Smaller companies like Slack are promoting a more connected world, but will Microsoft shut that business model down?

And who will be the big winner in this open world of closed ecosystems?  Probably Amazon. They seem to be winning most of the hosting business (ala the $400M agreement with SalesForce).

Acquisitions

  • Samsung is buying Harman for $8B to further its connected car push

    Terms of the deal will see Samsung pay $112.00 per share. That’s a healthy premium on Harman’s current share price of $87.65, and it gives the deal a total value of approximately $8 billion. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2017, at which time Harman will become a standalone subsidiary of Samsung. Dinesh Paliwal will continue to lead the firm as its Chairman, President and CEO, both Harman and Samsung said.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/13/samsung-harman/?ncid=rss

  • Verizon buys LQD WiFi to expand its IoT strategy into “smart cities”

    Verizon today has made another acquisition to build out its IoT business: the carrier has purchased LQD WiFi, a developer of outdoor interactive displays that provide WiFi connectivity along with news, emergency alerts and community information. They also act as sensors collecting crowd, weather and other data.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/14/verizon-buys-lqd-wifi-to-expand-its-iot-strategy-into-smart-cities/?ncid=rss

  • Ex-Autonomy CFO Indicted For Alleged Fraud In H.P. Acquisition

    A federal grand jury in San Francisco has indicted the former chief financial officer of a British software maker on charges he engaged in fraud to artificially increase the company’s share price and make it attractive to Hewlett-Packard.

    The grand jury indicted former Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain on Thursday on wire fraud and conspiracy charges.

    Hussain’s attorney, John Keker, said his client defrauded no one and acted at all times with the highest standards of honesty and competence.

    http://fortune.com/2016/11/11/hp-autonomy-fraud/
    I honestly did not expect anything like this to happen.

  • Is Netflix Disney’s next big buy and is Reed Hastings its next CEO?

    And, despite its rosy Q3 numbers, Netflix ultimately needs a buyer.  As I recently wrote, Netflix faces fundamental long-term existential business challenges of its own.  Its singular content-focused subscription-based business model can’t compete with the complex multi-faceted, multi revenue-streamed business models of AT&T, Amazon, YouTube (Google), Verizon, Apple and Amazon.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/13/is-netflix-disneys-next-big-buy-and-is-reed-hastings-its-next-ceo/?ncid=rss

  • HPE Eyeing Purchase of SimpliVity (HPE)

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE), is rumored to have its eye on leading hyperconvergence infrastructure (HCI) vendor SimpliVity. The Westborough, Mass.-based niche market leader is estimated to go for $3.8 billion to $3.9 billion, reports the Register. The rumored price stands at quadruple the company’s valuation in its latest series of funding in March 2015.

    http://www.cnmeonline.com/news/dell-emc-unveils-new-additions-to-its-all-flash-portfolio/

  • AOL lays off 500 employees as Verizon-Yahoo acquisition looms

    The cuts, which Armstrong said would consolidate recent AOL acquisitions, presage the type of staffing changes that could affect Yahoo in early 2017 as Verizon closes its $4.8 billion acquisition of the Silicon Valley icon.

    https://news.fastcompany.com/aol-lays-off-500-employees-as-verizon-yahoo-acquisition-looms-4025323

Artificial Intelligence

  • Microsoft teams up with Elon Musk’s OpenAI project (thanks JD!)

    OpenAI will also make Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform, in part because of its existing support for AI workloads with the help of Azure Batch and Azure Machine Learning, as well as Microsoft’s work on its recently rebranded Cognitive Toolkit. Microsoft also offers developers access to a high-powered GPU-centric virtual machine for these kind of machine learning workloads. These N-Series machines are still in beta, but OpenAI has been an early adopter of them and Microsoft  says they will become generally available in December.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/microsoft-teams-up-with-elon-musks-openai-project/
    sn_elon

  • MIT students and others teaching IBM Watson about cybersecurity

    Several universities involved with that project began having students train the system within the past several weeks, explained IBM Watson’s Jeb Linton, chief security architect.

    “We’re ramping up from the phase where we have a little over 30 people selecting documents and annotating documents, to the phase where we’re… a much larger group by bringing in these college students,” Linton explained.

    “It’s very much an interactive process. You put the machine-learning process into Watson and see what you get from it. I wouldn’t say anything has really surprised us so far,” Linton said. “We added in a level of complexity a few months ago that was a little less than optimal, and we trimmed some of that complexity back out.”

    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/mit-students-and-others-to-teach-ibm-watson-about-cybersecurity/

  • IBM’s Watson would do a better job at being a bank teller than most current staff

    Watson can take all of a bank’s rules and regulations and data about customer’s requirements and behaviours and provide an intelligent interface for customers to get things done with the confidence that Watson understood what the customer wanted and also understood what the bank could provide to satisfy those requirements.

    Not surprisingly however, banks worldwide are not investing in innovations like cognitive computing. Innovation is often lumped in the general IT budget and often forms a tiny part of that spend. By viewing it in the same category as buying computers or complying with regulatory requirements, the overall value and benefit is much harder to see.

    http://theconversation.com/ibms-watson-would-do-a-better-job-at-being-a-bank-teller-than-most-current-staff-68725

Cloud

  • Microsoft, Amazon turn to wind energy to power cloud data centers

    Microsoft is also pushing for more renewable energy sources. Referring to the new agreement, Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said “these agreements represent progress toward our goal of improving the energy mix at our data centers.”

    http://www.ciodive.com/news/microsoft-amazon-turn-to-wind-energy-to-power-cloud-data-centers/430405/
    Microsoft now runs one data center entirely on wind power

    Microsoft has a stated goal of using 50 percent renewable energy in its data centers across the U.S. by 2018, and it just took a big step forward in that plan, purchasing additional 237 megawatts of wind energy capacity.

    In the process, this helps allow its Cheyenne, Wyoming, data center run entirely on wind power and brings the company’s total wind capacity to 500 megawatts across the U.S.

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/3142785/data-center/microsoft-now-runs-one-data-center-entirely-on-wind-power.html

  • Google’s cloud GPU undercuts, outperforms AWS, Microsoft

    Google’s plan to stand apart from the competition is to be more granular. Amazon’s machine-learning-oriented GPU instances are rented by the hour and come in a discrete instance type. Google, however, is planning to allow users to “attach up to 8 GPU dies to any non-shared-core machine,” regardless of instance type.

    Even more critical, Google’s GPU pricing will follow its existing model: by the minute, same as Google’s VMs. This isn’t about consistency alone; it also reflects how GPU-powered machine learning is actually used. If a machine learning application employs only GPUs for training, it makes sense to be able to toggle off the GPU when it’s not needed instead of changing instance types.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3142028/cloud-computing/googles-cloud-gpu-undercuts-outperforms-aws-microsoft.html

Datacenter

  • Dell EMC unveils new additions to its all-flash portfolio

    The deployment of the new Data Domain Cloud Tier software within Data Domain, according to Dell EMC, increases the total volume of data that can be managed through a single appliance by 200 percent, with a maximum logical capacity of 150PB. Data Domain Cloud Tier establishes Data Domain as the only protection storage to natively tier de-duplicated data to public, private, or hybrid clouds for long-term retention, including Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage and Virtustream Storage Cloud.

    http://www.cnmeonline.com/news/dell-emc-unveils-new-additions-to-its-all-flash-portfolio/

  • NetApp tops 2Q profit forecasts

    On a per-share basis, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said it had net income of 38 cents. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 60 cents per share.

    The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 54 cents per share.

    http://sports.yahoo.com/news/netapp-tops-2q-profit-forecasts-211649286.html

  • Infinidat’s energy efficient offerings

    Below is an Infographic that takes a bottoms up look at INFINIDAT’s InfiniBox and how its underlying technology drives more efficiency than any other array on the market today. InfiniBox keeps your data center footprint from sprawling out of control and keeps your power costs low by taking only 2kW/TB to operate.

    http://www.infinidat.com/blog/infinibox-energy-efficient-storage/
    sn_infinidat_greenstorage

Software/SaaS

  • In five years, SaaS will be the cloud that matters

    Over time, more “infrastructure” services will become software services. Because once it’s SaaS, the boundaries between infrastructure, platform, and software don’t matter to the IT customer—it’s merely a service. That’s a mental shift from IT’s on-premises view, where the boundaries matter in how IT delivers the ultimate service. Those boundaries will still exist for the provider, but won’t be IT’s concern.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3142407/iaas/in-five-years-saas-will-be-the-cloud-that-matters.html

  • Why the next great SaaS company will look nothing like Salesforce

    Conversely, once a startup’s product is being used every day like Slack, it may start keeping more information within it and over time wean people off whatever they were using before (Outlook, Sharepoint, etc).

    The game-changer could well be artificial intelligence: if AI software could extract signal from the unstructured product feedback in Intercom or the sales forecasting information in Clari, the data in those systems could become more valuable than the limited fields captured in today’s systems of record.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/13/why-the-next-great-saas-company-will-look-nothing-like-salesforce/

  • Is Google crashing the Microsoft open source party?

    So Microsoft’s move is a giant retraction of that sentiment, one which it has been trying to undo for the past couple of years with various announcements regarding a more open approach to Linux and the open source community.

    Unlike Microsoft, Google has already established itself as having a pedigree in open source and so its joining of the .NET Foundation isn’t a huge surprise.

    Google is already an active contributor and joining the Technical Steering Group just expands its participation.

    The Alphabet subsidiary has already begun labeling itself as the ‘Open Cloud’ and Microsoft has revealed that it needs to be a bit more willing to work with the open source community because of its growing popularity.

    http://www.cbronline.com/news/enterprise-it/software/google-crashing-microsoft-open-source-party/
    sn_silval_dunno

Other

  • Salesforce’s Benioff thinks Microsoft is up to its old tricks again

    “The message was ‘Why don’t you meet with Scott Guthrie? He runs Azure and would really like to walk you through the details of your business because maybe we could get Salesforce to run on Azure’… and I’m like OK, and it was clear also that he was someone not in our business, he was running Azure.”

    Benioff notes a few weeks later Guthrie was suddenly promoted to also run Microsoft’s CRM business, which is a direct competitor to Salesforce and not long after Salesforce was disinvited from a Microsoft customer event without prior notice.

    https://mspoweruser.com/salesforces-benioff-thinks-microsoft-is-up-to-its-old-tricks-again/

  • Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is done cozying up to Microsoft — now he’s BFFs with Amazon

    Instead, Benioff has turned to Amazon this year, striking a number of major deals. In May, Salesforce announced a $400 million deal to use AWS, while Amazon rolled out Salesforce’s software company-wide. Salesforce said Amazon added even more Salesforce services this quarter, during the call with investors.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-stops-cozying-up-to-microsoft-befriends-amazon-2016-11

  • You Can Thank Twitter For Trump, According To Salesforce CEO

    I think it’s a great company, I think it’s a great CEO. I think it has a huge vision and has a unique position in the world. As evidenced by this election, I think it’s more important than ever… Without Twitter, I don’t think you would have President-elect Trump. I mean, that’s reality. He said it very well. He said, “I have a beautiful Twitter account.”

    http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/11/you-can-thank-twitter-for-trump-according-to-salesforce-ceo/

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise to outsource global IT team to CSC borg

    “To ensure that all three companies are successful going forward, HPE intends to partner with ES/CSC to receive IT services through an IT Services Agreement that includes IT infrastructure and application development/support. This will result in a majority of our IT family moving to ES/CSC, which will become a leading provider of independent IT services in the world,” Spradley and Nefkens stated in the memo.

    The HPE contract is in addition to outsourced service provision for HP Inc, and Micro Focus, which by next summer will be the new home of HPE’s Software business.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/16/hpe_to_outsource_global_it_team_to_csc_borg/
    I believe this is called “eating your own dogfood”

Photo: Álvaro Serrano

Posted on

Supplier Report: 10/22/2016

sn_amusement_robroy

Big IT firms are clearly focused on the cloud, but as these companies grow out their infrastructure, we will focus on the differences between the cloud providers and try to find sweet spots.

SalesForce had some very sensitive M&A information leaked.  Will Pega Systems and Tableau get bought or was this some kind of trick to drive up stock prices?

And are the days of the Chinese factory workers numbered?

Acquisitions

  • Wipro To Buy Salesforce Superstar Appirio for $500 Million

    Business process services goliath Wipro says it will spend half a billion dollars to purchase cloud services powerhouse Appirio so it can improve its market share and position around Salesforce and Workday.

    The $500 million all-cash acquisition is expected to close by the end of the year, according to a statement. Wipro did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

    http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300082500/wipro-to-buy-salesforce-superstar-appirio-for-500-million.htm

  • Salesforce.Com, Inc To Buy Tableau Software Inc (NYSE:DATA) Shortly After Declining Twitter Inc Buyout

    Tableau Software Inc. explored a potential sale in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter, as technology companies scramble for partners amid a wave of mergers in the industry.

    The Seattle company was working on a potential sale as recently as this summer before the effort stalled, the people said.

    The Wall Street Journal reported on the document in a front-page article Wednesday that pushed up shares of Tableau as much as 7%, giving it a market value of nearly $4 billion.

    http://www.nasdaq.com/article/software-maker-tableau-explored-a-sale–wsj-20161020-00076

  • HP Enterprise services merger with CSC could ‘mean more churn’ for company’s federal contractors

    “The combination of these two companies will create a new company with billions in global revenue, including a sizable U.S. federal government business,” it added. “However, the government sector of the new, yet unnamed company may be impacted by the cost take-outs planned by the merger and the distraction of yet another major company reorganization.”

    http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2016/10/20/report-hp-enterprise-services-merger-with-csc.html

  • Salesforce’s M&A Target List Had 14 Names, But Not Twitter Inc

    Citing an internal presentation allegedly obtained from former Secretary of State and Salesforce Director Colin Powell the WSJ lists 14 companies, including Marketo, Adobe Systems, Hubspot, PegaSystems, Demandware, Tableau, and LinkedIn, as possible candidates.

    According to the presentation, Box and Zendesk were mentioned as well, but their chief executives had less interest. The presentation, which was marked “draft and confidential” and titled “M&A Target Review,” is a 60-slide document which identified 14 possible acquisition targets.

    http://www.valuewalk.com/2016/10/salesforces-list-14-names-not-twitter/

Artificial Intelligence

  • DeepMind’s differentiable neural computer helps you navigate the subway with its memory

    DeepMind’s technique merges notions of memory with more traditional neural networks using a “controller.” The controller saves information by either storing it in a new location or overwriting a previously occupied location. Throughout this process, an association between the information is formed via the timeline of when new data was written in.

    The controller uses that same chronology along with the actual content of what has been saved to retrieve information. The framework created is navigable and proves itself effective for drawing insights from graph data structures.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/13/__trashed-2/

  • Fighting Diabetes with Watson: Medtronic and IBM Health
  • No More Humans: Foxconn Deploys 40,000 Robots In China

    Dai said currently Foxconn can produce 10,000 robots annually. In the future, those robots are all potential replacements for human labor. For the Kunshan factory alone, Foxconn has cut 60,000 employees.

    Prior to this, labor costs in mainland China were lower than robots; therefore, Foxconn maintained nearly one million workers. However, with the increase of labor costs and the younger generation’s lack of interest in production line work, many companies have launched huge investments in automation.

    https://www.chinatechnews.com/2016/10/13/24329-no-more-humans-foxconn-deploys-40000-robots-in-china
    What I predicted in this post is starting to come true

  • IBM Watson Will Run On IBM and IBM Alone

    You’ve got to give UBS analyst Steven Milunovich major props. During IBM’s earnings call on Monday, he asked whether IBM Watson, the company’s golden child, will run on rival Amazon Web Services—and he was promptly shot down. “No. Watson runs on our cloud, and our technology will run on IBM’s cloud,” IBM chief financial officer Martin Schroeter responded tersely.

    http://fortune.com/2016/10/17/ibm-watson-belongs-to-ibm/

Cloud

Datacenter

  • IBM and other giants to reform servers and make them faster

    Servers current circuitry is not fast enough, and International Business Machines Corp. has promised to speed the data transfer in servers up to ten times. The group hopes more companies will be part of the team to improve servers speed. Standard microprocessors are getting faster, but their performance is usually delayed because they need to fetch data from nearby memory chips, graphic chips or other elements used to handle certain tasks.

    http://www.pulseheadlines.com/ibm-giants-reform-servers-faster/52692/

  • Lenovo’s attack plan against Dell EMC? A partnership with Nimble Storage

    The Chinese company, which has what it calls its “dual” headquarters in Morrisville and its server division in Research Triangle Park, just signed a deal with Nimble that allows it to sell Nimble’s all-flash array technology, as well as to use the firm’s predictive analytics capabilities.

    Also:

    And it’s a segment of the business that has seen major change, particularly as its relationship with longtime partner EMC severed completely when rival technology firm Dell acquired it. Since Dell announced the buy last year, Lenovo has been working to fill the gap. McRae says it’s been a systematic effort.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2016/10/17/lenovo-nimble-storage-partnership.html

Other

  • IBM Shares Fall Despite Higher-Than-Expected Sales

    Revenue from those areas, which the company calls “strategic imperatives,” rose 16% to $8 billion in the third quarter. Cloud revenue jumped 44% compared with a 30% rise in the second quarter, it said. However, shares of IBM, which reported its 18th straight quarter of declining revenue, were down 3.1% at $150.60 in after-market trading.

    http://fortune.com/2016/10/18/ibm-shares-fall-beat-estimates/
    sn_ibm_realist_2016_10

  • HP: We’ll Put Laid-Off Workers on Contract

    In light of massive job cuts, HP Inc. has indicated to Business Insider that it may offer affected workers the opportunity to continue their roles as employees at contract agencies. The company stated, “HP has a strong record of success in placing employees in outsourced roles to mitigate the headcount number.” HP has a track record of shifting employees to positions as contract workers from before its 2015 split with Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

    http://www.investopedia.com/news/hp-well-put-laidoff-workers-contract-hpq/

  • HP Enterprise announces more layoffs as cloud business struggles

    The layoffs in the Stackato may indicate HPE is further retreating from the ultra-competitive cloud market amidst tough competition from AWS and Microsoft. Last year, HPE pulled the plug on its Helion hybrid cloud offering. In August, Bill Hilf, HPE’s current cloud leader,announced he was leaving the company to “pursue other opportunities.”

    http://www.ciodive.com/news/hp-enterprise-announces-more-layoffs-as-cloud-business-struggles/428563/

  • Microsoft employees love Satya Nadella a lot more than they did Steve Ballmer

    Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella looks especially good, by the report’s reckoning. At the close of 2013, the final days of former chief executive Steve Ballmer’s reign, Microsoft only gave a 51% rating for CEO approval. Nadella took the reigns in February 2014, and the CEO approval rating hit 88% by the end of 2015.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-employees-love-satya-nadella-2016-10

  • Broadcom, Harris Vet Bill Miller Joins NetApp as CIO

    Bill Miller, former senior vice president and chief information officer at Broadcom, has joined NetApp in the same role of CIO and will be responsible for both the company’s information technology organization and ongoing transformation initiatives.

    http://www.govconexecutive.com/2016/10/broadcom-harris-vet-bill-miller-joins-netapp-as-cio/

Photo: Rob Roy