Supplier Report: 3/8/2019

Amazon was all over the news this week. There is still fall out from the company’s decision to pull back from NYC, there are grumblings about Bezos’ divorce impacting operations (and ownership), and they announced they are opening grocery stores… separate from the Whole Foods brand.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is introducing some very cool Excel scanning technology and Google is optimizing wind energy in their data-centers.

Acquisitions

  • Web Content-Recommendation Firm Outbrain to Acquire Native-Ad Specialist

    New York-based Outbrain has agreed to purchase the Cologne, Germany-based firm, in an all-stock transaction. The deal’s financial terms weren’t disclosed.

    The acquisition, which Outbrain says is its largest ever, is meant to help the company capture more of the market for native advertising, or ads that mimic the look and feel of the content around them. Ligatus operates a so-called supply-side platform that helps publishers sell native ads.

    Companies like Outbrain, whose recommendations often appear at the bottom of news articles, have faced criticism for promoting low-quality content.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/web-content-recommendation-firm-outbrain-to-acquire-native-ad-specialist-11551177120

Artificial Intelligence

  • Machine learning can boost the value of wind energy

    Using a neural network trained on widely available weather forecasts and historical turbine data, we configured the DeepMind system to predict wind power output 36 hours ahead of actual generation. Based on these predictions, our model recommends how to make optimal hourly delivery commitments to the power grid a full day in advance. This is important, because energy sources that can be scheduled (i.e. can deliver a set amount of electricity at a set time) are often more valuable to the grid.

    Although we continue to refine our algorithm, our use of machine learning across our wind farms has produced positive results. To date, machine learning has boosted the value of our wind energy by roughly 20 percent, compared to the baseline scenario of no time-based commitments to the grid.

    https://www.blog.google/technology/ai/machine-learning-can-boost-value-wind-energy/

Cloud

  • Lyft has to pay Amazon’s cloud at least $8 million a month until the end of 2021

    Buried in there is the revelation that Lyft is contractually obligated to pay at least $300 million to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s market-leading cloud-computing business, between January 2019 and December 2021. Some quick napkin math shows that — depending on when exactly the contract began in January 2019 and ends in December 2021 — Lyft is committed to spending between $8.33 million and $8.57 million a month on AWS, which hosts its entire app and platform.

    Notably, Lyft said that if its usage of Amazon’s cloud doesn’t hit or exceed that $300 million threshold, it’ll have to pay the difference. Lyft committed to spending at least $80 million in each of the three years of the deal, with the stipulation that it will spend $300 million in aggregate overall.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/lyft-ipo-amazon-web-services-2019-3

  • AWS chief Andy Jassy says it’s ‘really easy to cut prices’

    “It’s actually really easy to lower prices,” Jassy told Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Thursday. “It’s much harder to be able to afford to lower prices.” In the past decade, AWS has cut prices 70 times, he said.

    Other key areas where Amazon tries to stay ahead of the competition include geographic reach and the variety of tools that are available.

    “We’re much more focused on the long term than most companies,” Jassy said. “We are trying to build a business and a set of customer relationships that outlasts all of us. And as such, we think if we help our customers get more done and are successful on their own, even if it means lower margin percentages, over time we’ll drive more absolute margin dollars, and they’ll be more successful, and we’ll ultimately be more relevant.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/aws-ceo-andy-jassy-its-really-easy-to-lower-prices.html

    Hey Andy – tell that to Lyft

Software/SaaS

  • Microsoft Excel will now let you snap a picture of a spreadsheet and import it

    Microsoft is adding a very useful feature to its Excel mobile apps for iOS and Android. It allows Excel users to take a photo of a printed data table and convert it into a fully editable table in the app. This feature is rolling out initially in the Android Excel app, before making its way to iOS soon. Microsoft is using artificial intelligence to implement this feature, with image recognition so that Excel users don’t have to manually input hardcopy data. The feature will be available to Microsoft 365 users.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/1/18246429/microsoft-excel-covert-photos-data-tables-editable-table-ai-feature

  • Warren Buffett says he ditched his stake in Oracle because of his experience getting burned by IBM

    “[Cofounder and CTO] Larry Ellison’s done a fantastic job with Oracle. I mean I’ve followed it from the standpoint of reading about it. But I felt like I didn’t understand the business,”

    “Then, after I started buying it, I felt I still didn’t understand the business. I actually changed my mind in terms of understand and not in terms of evaluating it. I think, I mean, Oracle is a great business. But I don’t think, particularly after my experience with IBM, I don’t think I understand exactly where the cloud is going.

    “You know, I’ve been amazed at what Amazon has done there. And now Microsoft is doing it as well. So I don’t know where that game is going.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-oracle-ibm-2019-2

  • Accenture Works With Mastercard, Amazon to Boost Circular Supply Chain Using DLT

    Within the announced initiative, Accenture is collaborating with major global companies including cloud computing firm Amazon Web Services, blockchain supply chain firm Everledger, international development organization Mercy Corps and multinational financial services corporation Mastercard.

    According to the release, the new blockchain-enabled circular supply chain capability will allow customers to identify small-scale suppliers and growers on the supply chain and make rewards by using direct payments.

    Additionally, the new capability is designed to provide better management of inventory and waste elimination, transparency across the supply chain and authenticity of products.

    https://cointelegraph.com/news/accenture-works-with-mastercard-amazon-to-boost-circular-supply-chain-using-dlt

Datacenter/Hardware

  • HP Sales Rise, but Fall Short of Estimates

    HP Inc.’s sales missed Wall Street targets in the most recent quarter, weighed down by the weaker-than-expected sales of printing supplies to commercial customers. Revenue from the printing segment, which includes the supplies business, fell to $5.06 billion from $5.08 billion a year earlier.

    Meanwhile, sales in the personal-systems segment, which includes its PC business, rose 2.3% to $9.66 billion, also missing analysts’ expectations. Total units sold fell 3% from the year earlier, as notebook units sold declined 1% and sales of desktops fell 8%, HP said.

    Overall, HP reported a first-quarter profit of $803 million, or 51 cents a share, down 59% from the year earlier, when the Palo Alto, Calif., company got a boost from the U.S. tax overhaul. Excluding restructuring charges and other items, profit was in line with analysts’ estimates at 52 cents a share, up from 48 cents a share a year earlier.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/hp-sales-rise-but-fall-short-of-estimates-11551301659

Other

  • WeWork confirms it has laid off 300 employees

    Headquartered in New York, the layoffs were performance-related, part of the company’s routine process of shedding underperformers. Among the departments impacted by the cuts were WeWork’s engineering team, product and user experience design.

    “Over the past nine years, WeWork has grown into one of the largest global physical networks thanks to the hard work and dedication of our team,” the company said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “WeWork recently conducted a standard annual performance review process. Our global workforce is now more than 10,000 strong, and we remain committed to continuing to grow and scale in 2019, including hiring an additional 6,000 employees.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/wework-confirms-it-has-let-go-of-300-employees/

  • Amazon to Launch New Grocery-Store Business

    The new stores aren’t intended to compete directly with the more upscale Whole Foods stores and will offer a different variety of products, at a lower price point, these people said. Whole Foods doesn’t sell products with artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and sweeteners, among other quality standards.

    Suppliers with big brands have hoped to have inroads into Whole Foods since Amazon bought the chain nearly two years ago. While Whole Foods has gradually expanded the big brands it carries—such as Honey-Nut Cheerios and Michelob beer—a conventional grocer can carry a much larger assortment of items.

    Amazon has had mixed results with its food-delivery business, and it wants to better understand how it can cater to grocery shoppers, according to people briefed on the company’s strategy.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-launch-new-grocery-store-business-sources-say-11551461887?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

Photo by nrd on Unsplash

Supplier Report: 2/11/2017

It was an eclectic news week for IT suppliers.  Microsoft cut their cloud prices for certain services and is also starting to protect customers against patent trolls, promising to assist small companies should a nonsense lawsuit occur.

Google found themselves in federal court being asked to provide the FBI access to emails. The company hoped to use Microsoft’s successful defense in a similar trail as grounds to drop the request, but it was denied.  When Google isn’t in court, they are expanding the use of complex games to vet and teach their AI better ways to solve for problems.

Acquisitions

  • The Case For IBM Buying Nvidia, Xilinx, And Mellanox

    We know what you are thinking. This might be a good thing for IBM, but it might not be a good thing for Nvidia, Xilinx, and Mellanox, who are the key three hardware partners in the OpenPower consortium that IBM formed with the help of hyperscale datacenter operator Google back in August 2013. Fair enough. All three companies seem to be doing fine against their respective competition, and the OpenPower effort might be a tight enough coupling to get interesting and innovative systems to market. But, we might argue, this effort to build a flexible platform – for that is what the OpenPower consortium is ultimately about – could be significantly enhanced and accelerated by a tighter coupling of the core technologies created by all four of these companies. The fourth being, of course, the Power family of processors created by IBM, which would be married to Nvidia Tesla compute GPUs, Mellanox InfiniBand and Ethernet switching, and Xilinx UltraScale Virtex and Kintex FPGAs.

    https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/02/07/case-ibm-buying-nvidia-xilinx-mellanox/

Artificial Intelligence

  • DeepMind is using games to test AI aggression and cooperation

    The findings are important as humanity releases multiple AI into the world. It’s likely some will clash and try to either co-operate or sabotage one another. What happens, for instance, if an AI is managing traffic flow across the city, while another is trying to reduce carbon emissions in the state? The rules of the “game” which govern their behavior then become vital. Setting parameters, and being mindful of other agents, will be crucial if we’re to balance the global economy, public health and climate change.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/09/google-deepmind-ai-cooperation-research/

  • In major AI win, Libratus beats four top poker pros

    Marking a major step forward for artificial intelligence (AI), Libratus, an AI developed by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), has resoundingly beaten four of the best heads-up no-limit Texas hold’em poker players in the world in a marathon, 20-day competition.

    After 20 days and a collective 120,000 hands played, Libratus closed out the competition Monday leading the pros by a collective $1,766,250 in chips.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3164228/artificial-intelligence/in-major-ai-win-libratus-beats-four-top-poker-pros.html

Cloud

  • Senior Google Cloud Exec Departs After Reorg

    Schachter joined the Internet search giant in 2012 from Salesforce.com, according to his LinkedIn profile. Initially he worked on Google for Work, formerly the overall brand for Google applications and devices. It is now part of the Google Cloud group. Schachter was promoted to head Google Cloud’s sales effort two years ago.

    According to that story, there was a sales reorganization earlier this year in which Schachter got responsibility for North America sales while another executive took on Europe and the Middle East.

    http://fortune.com/2017/02/02/google-cloud-vp-leaves/

  • Microsoft cuts cloud prices again

    The Redmond., Wash., software group dropped prices by up to 61% on some of its products, though other offerings will not carry a discount.

    https://www.thestreet.com/story/13995452/1/microsoft-kicks-off-the-2017-cloud-wars-with-some-big-price-cuts.html

  • Microsoft Adds Patent Suit Protections For Cloud Customers

    Microsoft, the second-biggest cloud infrastructure services vendor behind Amazon.com Inc., will help customers fight back by offering them one of its own patents to deter or defeat such suits. The software giant will also expand a program in which Microsoft provides funds or legal resources to fend off claims, known as indemnification.

    http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing/microsoft-adds-patent-suit-protections-cloud-customers

Datacenter

Software/SaaS

  • Open source users: It’s time for extreme vetting

    Open source won. It won because it’s used everywhere now. But now we have a supply chain problem we need to start thinking about and that is, where did you get it and how is it being taken care of, because software doesn’t age well. This is something that you have to take care of and you have to pay attention to. You can’t just pull software into your project and you’re done.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3167527/linux/open-source-users-its-time-for-extreme-vetting.html

Other

  • IBM’s Marissa Mayer moment: Staff ordered to work in one of 6 main offices – or face the axe

    According to sources, the six “strategic” offices US marketing staff must work from are in: Austin, Texas; San Francisco, California; New York City, New York; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Atlanta, Georgia; and Raleigh, North Carolina. El Reg understands that employees will not get to choose a nearby office, but will instead be assigned a location based on where their team is predominantly situated. The first wave of workers were informed of the changes on Monday. The next wave will be instructed in early March, we’re told.

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/08/ibm_no_more_telecommuting/

  • Google told to hand over foreign emails in FBI search warrant ruling

    The ruling is notable because it goes against an appeals court judgement last year — recently upheld — pertaining to Microsoft customer data held in servers outside the US. In that instance a federal court ruled the company did not have to hand over data stored on its servers in Ireland to the US government, declining to “disregard the presumption against extraterritoriality,” as the judge put it.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/04/google-told-to-hand-over-foreign-emails-in-fbi-search-warrant-ruling/?ncid=rss

  • Oracle settling with ex-worker over alleged fiddling of cloud accounts

    In a joint submission Wednesday to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, lawyers for Oracle and the former employee Svetlana Blackburn asked for the vacation of a case management conference scheduled for Thursday, while submitting a notice of settlement to notify the court “that the lawsuit has been settled in principle, and to request thirty (30) days in which to file a dismissal.”

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/3168035/cloud-computing/oracle-settling-with-ex-worker-over-alleged-fiddling-of-cloud-accounts.html

Photo: Oliver Cole

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

Supplier Report: 10/15/2016

sn_clouds_tao-wen

Large IT companies are running into some M&A trouble. Verizon wants a discount on their Yahoo acquisition, Saleforce is trying to block the Microsoft’s purchase of Linkedin, and Oracle is struggling to make their purchase of Netsuite a reality.

Cloud was a big topic this week – Google has officially rebranded their cloud offerings as “Google Cloud” due to customer confusion (good move), IBM CEO Ginni Rometty explains her company’s position on blockchain (and discusses if AI can replace her), and VMWare is available on AWS.

HP Inc is cutting 4,000 jobs but former EMC CEO Joe Tucci found one!

Acquisitions

Artificial Intelligence

  • Could Watson Replace Ginni Rometty? What She’s Not Saying About AI, Jobs & Disruption

    IBM has bet it’s future on AI, cloud computing and data/information/knowledge management. All three areas are about reducing costs and improving productivity by decreasing human labor.Cloud computing, for example, could easily be described as the technology delivery model that kills software developers, applications support professionals and data center managers. There’s a straight line from the number of jobs IBM eliminates and its stock price. If Watsonbecomes a friendly assistant that charges for its pedantic services, IBM will fail. But if Watson enables large-scale labor replacement, IBM’s stock will rise.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveandriole/2016/10/10/could-watson-replace-ginni-rometty-what-shes-not-saying-about-ai-jobs-disruption/2/#60361b211579

  • Artificial intelligence positioned to be a game-changer (follow link for the video)

    One of the technologies just hatched is called Gabriel. It uses Google Glass to gather data about your surroundings and advises you how to react. It’s like an angel on your shoulder whispering advice or instructions. In this case trying to direct us how to win a game of ping pong but the possibilities go beyond bragging rights.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-artificial-intelligence-charlie-rose-robot-sofia/

Cloud

  • IBM wins $62 million contract to run private cloud pilot at Army’s Redstone Arsenal

    IBM won the work as a task order under the Army’s Private Cloud II indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract. The $62 million award includes one base year and four option years, during which the company will build, then own and operate a data center on Army property at Redstone Arsenal, near Huntsville, Alabama.

    http://federalnewsradio.com/army/2016/10/ibm-wins-62-million-contract-run-private-cloud-pilot-armys-redstone-arsenal/

  • VMware and AWS Announce New Hybrid Cloud Service, “VMware Cloud on AWS”

    Amazon and VMWare today announced a strategic alliance to build and deliver a seamlessly integrated hybrid offering that will give customers the full software-defined data center (SDDC) experience from the leader in the private cloud, running on the world’s most popular, trusted, and robust public cloud. VMware Cloud™ on AWS will enable customers to run applications across VMware vSphere®-based private, public, and hybrid cloud environments. Delivered, sold, and supported by VMware as an on-demand, elastically scalable service, VMware Cloud on AWS will allow VMware customers to use their existing VMware software and tools to leverage AWS’s global footprint and breadth of services, including storage, databases, analytics, and more

    http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161013006574/en/VMware-AWS-Announce-Hybrid-Cloud-Service-%E2%80%9CVMware

  • IBM CEO Rometty’s position on blockchain

    Good to hear IBM’s direct stance on the platform and what their vision is
  • IBM’s Cleversafe storage platform is becoming a cloud service

    Cleversafe’s innovation in object storage was to combine encryption with erasure coding and geographic dispersal of data. SecureSlice encrypts unstructured data, stores the key with the data, and then breaks up that data and puts it on several different storage nodes. In IBM Cloud Object Storage, those nodes can be in data centers spread across an entire continent.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/3130792/ibms-cleversafe-storage-platform-is-becoming-a-cloud-service.html

  • Google’s Diane Greene providing a status on Google’s cloud platform:
  • IBM says its new Cloud Object Storage allows easily moving and splitting data

    The service is built on technology dubbed SecureSlice, which combines encryption, erasure coding and geographic dispersal of data. Erasure coding is a form of data protection. IBM acquired the SecureSlice technology when it bought Cleversafe last year for $1.3 billion. The technology automatically encrypts each segment of data before it’s erasure-coded and dispersed, and the data can only be reassembled where it was originally received.

    http://www.geekwire.com/2016/ibm-says-new-cloud-object-storage-allows-easily-moving-splitting-data/

  • Amazon cloud boss Andy Jassy fires back at Oracle’s Larry Ellison, says stats were ‘made up’

    Instead, Jassy pointed to what analysts are saying about AWS. For example, Gartner said in its Magic Quadrant report last year that AWS is 10-times bigger than its next 14 competitors combined, while putting it at the top of the list against this year.

    Deutsche Bank also wrote in a recent note, “Oracle talked up its ‘next-gen’ infrastructure as a cheaper rival to AWS, but we don’t believe it will be competitive anytime soon.

    http://www.ctpost.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Amazon-cloud-boss-Andy-Jassy-fires-back-at-9970490.php

Datacenter

  • IBM, Google, others to unveil new open interface to take on Intel

    The new standard, called Open Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (OpenCAPI), is an open forum to provide a high bandwidth, low latency open interface design specification.

    The open interface will help corporate and cloud data centers to speed up big data, machine learning, analytics and other emerging workloads.

    The consortium plans to make the OpenCAPI specification available to the public before the end of the year and expects servers and related products based on the new standard in the second half of 2017, it said in a statement.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-technology-consortium-idUSKCN12E0C5

  • Dell shows off new logo…

    This looks like something Silicon Valley would do to make fun of an IT company.

Other

  • Joe Tucci Named Chairman of Bridge Growth Partners

    Bridge Growth Partners, LLC, a sector-focused, growth-oriented private equity firm, today announced that Joseph M. Tucci, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EMC Corporation and former Chairman of VMWare, has been named Chairman of the firm. Tucci has served on the firm’s Investment Committee and Advisory Board since Bridge Growth Partners was established in late 2013.

    http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161011005926/en/Joe-Tucci-Named-Chairman-Bridge-Growth-Partners

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise will have approximately $9 billion in net cash at the end of FY17

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise is expected to host analyst meeting event on October 18, and according to Mr. Hosseini, the management will surely divulge information regarding the high level of cash in the company’s balance sheet. Furthermore, the analyst expects insight regarding growth initiatives and the strategy used by the company in order to promote secular growth trends in key areas of business.

    http://www.thecountrycaller.com/22995-hewlett-packard-enterprise-co-hpe-liquidity-situation-continues-to-improve/

  • HP Inc will cut up to 4,000 jobs by 2019

    The world’s second-largest PC supplier has struggled in a dwindling market, and hopes the cutbacks will save the company between $200 to $300 million annually by 2020.

    However, HP will also incur an estimated $350 million to $500 million in restructuring costs.

    The announcement comes during a global decline in PC sales, dropping 5.7% in the third quarter compared to last year according to a report by Gartner. This represents the longest period of decline in the history of the PC industry.

    http://www.itpro.co.uk/strategy/27410/hp-will-cut-up-to-4000-jobs-by-2019

Photo: Tao Wen