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.
- 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.”
- 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.
- 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.
Cloud
- Cloud Pricing and Performance Questions Add to IT Buyer Uncertainty
The RBC test results come as IT executives face confusion over exactly what constitutes “cloud” and how different providers account for it. “If you’re trying to figure out which vendor to go with for cloud services, claims about being number one in the market or having high cloud revenue should be ignored,” Gartner Vice President David Mitchell Smith told a group of CIOs gathered in Orlando for the researchers annual enterprise IT convention. “You can’t compare these things because there are no standards.”
- What’s better: Amazon’s Availability Zones vs. Microsoft Azure’s regions
AWS uses what are called Availability Zones (AZs) as the basis for its cloud. Each region in AWS is made up of at least two AZs. Microsoft, instead, just uses regions; it does not guarantee that each region will have multiple data centers. It’s a fundamental difference in the way these IaaS platforms are constructed. And it begs the question: Is one way better than the other?
Also:
AZs come with some downsides though, Wray adds. If an AZ has an outage, many customers have designed their workloads fail over to another AZ in that same region. If all of the customers in the downed AZ transfer workloads to the healthy AZ, that could theoretically create a crowded AZ, which could impact performance.
- Rival tech companies trade hostility for hugs
The cloud storage market is dominated by a few major firms: AWS, Microsoft, IBM and Google collectively control well more than half the worldwide cloud infrastructure services market, Synergy Research Group estimates. Analysts at Forrester predict that AWS will produce $12 billion this year, more than half of all the revenue the entire public cloud market is expected to generate.
- CIA CIO: Amazon Web Services is key to developing secure apps
In time, the migration to cloud storage is expected to decrease DHS’s reliance on in-house data centers. This shift is also augmented by a growth in effective security technology layered over those same vendor-built cloud systems, said Edwards, who specifically referenced Amazon Web Services’ increased ability to meet the agency’s high bar for defenses.
https://www.cyberscoop.com/cia-cio-amazon-web-services-key-developing-secure-apps/
- The downside of the cloud: Netflix is down, so is Spotify and Twitter
Netflix and Twitter were amongst an array of websites and services taken down this morning by a DDoS attack. This list of sites and services also appears to have included SoundCloud, Disqus, PayPal, Spotify, and Reddit. Spotify reported issues to the public starting at 8AM Central time this morning, the 21st of October, 2016.
http://www.slashgear.com/netflix-is-down-so-is-spotify-and-twitter-21461133/
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/
- 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
