SourceCast: Episode 14: Canary in a Coal Mine
Supplier Report: 1/30/2016
Another week, another IBM acquisition. IBM announced that they are purchasing marketing firm Resource/Ammirati to “address surging client demand for the next great customer experience”… how noble of them. While IBM is picking up new companies, rumor has it that they are planning to let go of employees in the GTS space. The job eliminations could be up to 30,000 positions (but there is no way that they will cut that many heads in one year… right?).
EMC/VMWare announced up to 800 staff cuts in the VMWare space while they are attempting to assure banks and investors that the Dell acquisition is on target.
Oracle is doing what Oracle does best… trolling other companies. Oracle released Google’s sensitive financial data to the news which Google is (rightly) quite upset about. Oracle’s attorney said Google should blame themselves. Oh yeah they also finally killed off the Java plug in.
Finally… Xerox is pulling a HP and announced a split/spinoff due to pressure from Carl Icahn.
IBM
- IBM Dishes on Acquisition Plans for Digital Marketing Company
The objective of the move, we’re told, is to combine the companies’ strategic, creative and technology talents to address rising demand from businesses seeking to “reinvent themselves for the digital economy and provide differentiated experiences to their customers.”
http://mobilemarketingwatch.com/ibm-dishes-on-acquisition-plans-for-digital-marketing-company-64986/
More Information on the acquisition:
IBM Plans to Acquire Resource/Ammirati to Address Surging Client Demand for the Next Great Customer ExperienceAs one of the top, digitally-led creative agencies in the US, Columbus, Ohio-based Resource/Ammirati will help IBM build on the success in North America and join over 10,000 IBM iX employees to support demand for its services in this fast-growing market. Resource/Ammirati’s 300+ associates across its offices in Columbus, Chicago and New York will continue to serve a diverse roster of clients spanning consumer goods, retail and financial services companies such as Birchbox, DSW, Nationwide, Nestlé, Newell Rubbermaid, North American Breweries, Shaw Industries, Sherwin Williams, Toys “R”Us and White Castle, among others.
http://www.finchannel.com/index.php/technology/item/53862-ibm-plans-to-acquire-resource-ammirati-to-address-surging-client-demand-for-the-next-great-customer-experience
Comments:
I find this buy very interesting… considering some of the marketing moves Oracle made last week and the fact that Teradata is looking to sell of their marketing platform, this is an area to watch in the next few months. - IBM CEO Rometty Getting $4.5 Million Bonus for 2015
Ms. Rometty’s total earnings for the year won’t be clear until IBM discloses the value of certain equity grants, but her bonus was $900,000 more than the $3.6 million she earned last year. The IBM CEO’s base pay for 2016 remains unchanged at $1.6 million, with $13.3 million in long-term incentive stock awards, the company said Thursday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/01/29/ibm-ceo-rometty-getting-4-5m-bonus-for-2015.html
- Axe to fall on staff at IBM’s Global Technology Services ‘this Friday’
Global Technology Services, which builds networking infrastructure and provides high-availability systems among other things, is part of the IT titan’s Global Services division, which employs about 190,000 people worldwide.
Lee Conrad, an ex-IBMer and national coordinator of the Alliance@IBM union, said on Monday that staff had told him that up to 20 per cent of the GTS workforce is at risk. “I have received information that a resource action will happen this Friday,” he told journalists via email.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/26/ibm_gts_layoffs/
Additional News:As layoff rumors surface, IBM cuts severance pay allowance
IBM, which has reported a loss in revenue for 15 consecutive quarters, is reportedly gearing up for layoffs this week. The move comes less that a week after Big Blue cut severance pay allowances from as much as six months pay to one month.http://wraltechwire.com/as-layoff-rumors-surface-ibm-cuts-severance-pay-allowance/15278005/
- IBM Refreshes LinuxONE, Expands Platform’s Ecosystem
IBM LinuxONE recently ported the Go programming language, which was developed by Google. Go is designed for building simple, reliable and efficient software, making it easier for developers to combine the software tools they know and love with the speed, security and scale offered by LinuxONE. IBM will begin contributing code to the Go community in the summer.
http://www.eweek.com/cloud/ibm-refreshes-linuxone-expands-platforms-ecosystem.html
- IBM Closes Weather Co. Purchase, Names David Kenny New Head Of Watson Platform
As part of the deal, IBM is making some changes: First, the Weather Company’s cloud platform will now run on IBM’s Cloud data centers (recall that it once was a big client of AWS). That platform will now power all of IBM’s wider push into data services and Watson’s Internet of Things business. This will bring a massively bigger amount of data into the mix, covering what IBM describes as billions of IoT sensors.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/29/ibm-watson-weather-company-sale/?ncid=rss
Oracle
- Oracle Corporation (ORCL) to Kill of Java Browser Plugin – Why this is good for everyone
“Oracle plans to deprecate the Java browser plugin in JDK 9,” the Java Platform Group said on their blog. “This technology will be removed from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release.” Oracle does not plan to provide additional browser-specific plugins as such plugins would require application developers to write browser-specific applets for each browser they wish to support. Moreover, without a cross-browser API, Oracle would only be able to offer a subset of the required functionality, different from one browser to the next, impacting both application developers and users.”
- Google Should Blame Itself for Confidential Info Leak: Atty for Oracle Corporation
Oracle’s attorney, Annette Hurst fired back at Google after the search engine giant criticized her for disclosing extremely sensitive information during a court hearing on January 14.
According to Google, Atty. Hurst improperly revealed “extremely sensitive information” from documents that were marked “Attorney’s Eyes Only.” The search engine giant said the “public disclosure could have significant negative effects” on its business.
EMC | Dell
- VMware Cuts 800 Jobs As Merger Doubts Linger
The layoffs were announced Tuesday as VMware released its fourth-quarter earnings. The company expects the cuts to cost between $55 million and $65 million.
While VMware operates as a separate, independent company from EMC, its stock has dropped more than 40% since the Dell takeover was announced late last year. EMC has itself launched layoffs that will cost about $250 million.
http://ww2.cfo.com/the-cloud/2016/01/vmware-cuts-800-jobs-merger-doubts-linger/
- EMC has a shoddy year
“I was disappointed that we fell a bit short on revenue, which was $7.01 billion essentially flat year-on-year,” Tucci said. “However, I would like to point out that it follows 24 consecutive quarters of reported year-on-year top line growth. An accomplishment that very few our technology peers matched.”
http://www.microscope.co.uk/news/4500272044/EMC-has-a-shoddy-year
- EMC slams concerns Dell cannot raise takeover cash
Tucci: “We have a binding solid merger agreement in place. We are highly confident of the contractual terms we have in place [and] that we will meet those contractual terms. There are significant penalties in place both ways if this doesn’t happen. The banks are fully committed and, again, what does that mean? It means that the banks have told us they can raise the money.”
http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2443771/emc-slams-concerns-dell-cannot-raise-takeover-cash
Other
- Xerox Planning Spinoff, Under Pressure From Carl Icahn
A large part of the spinoff will incorporate Affiliated Computer Services, the business outsourcing company that Xerox bought for $6.4 billion in 2010, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before the plan was announced.
The remaining company would be focused on office supply products like copiers, scanners and fax machines, the person said.
- Western Digital acquires over 100 IBM patents
The patents acquired by Western Digital were in distributed storage, object storage, and emerging non-volatile memory. The parties did not disclose how much the deal was worth.
http://www.interaksyon.com/infotech/western-digital-acquires-over-100-ibm-patents
SourceCast: Episode 13: You Get What You Pay For
Supplier Report: 1/23/2016
IBM has added another feather in their video stream capabilities cap with with purchase of Ustream. Considering that they recently picked up Clearleap and we should start paying attention to what IBM is doing with video services.
Investors are paying attention to EMC due to concerns that Dell might not be able to muster up the $40-50B needed to make this acquisition a reality.
Oracle is in their own reality as they file a lawsuit against the State of Oregon for a failed healthcare portal implementation. They are also in the news for claiming cloud market leader Amazon is not “enterprise” enough for most businesses.
Keep an eye out for something between Splunk and IBM, there are rumors floating around…
IBM
- IBM buys Upstream to boost cloud-based video streaming services
IBM claimed that the division will allow the firm to target the cloud-based video streaming software and services market, which is estimated to be worth a hefty $105bn.
Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president at IBM Cloud, outlined Big Blue’s ambitions for the video streaming market, saying that video has become a “first-class data type in business that requires accelerated performance and powerful analytics that allows clients to extract meaningful insights”.
This comes after IBM announced the purchase of ClearLeap during the week of 12/12/2015. Clearleap that allows streaming video to scale.
More Information:
Coincidentally, IBM also announced the launch of its Cloud Video Services unit that includes previously acquired Clearleap, Cleversafe and Aspera along with 1,000 video related patents it has accumulated since 1995. The graphic at the top of this story explains the component parts for what IBM believes will be a $105 billion market opportunity by 2019.
IBM and video? You have to see this in a wider context. Video is a very fast growing part of enterprise content. It is also a resource hog that requires significant data management effort. However, it has been something off a Cinderella in the enterprise. This acquisition and launch change that perception. More compelling, video is a very good use case for Watson based analytics solutions.
https://diginomica.com/2016/01/21/ibm-acquires-ustream-expects-video-to-lose-its-cinderella-status/
- IBM profit forecast pulls stock to 5-year low
While sales of the new services, bundled together under the heading “strategic imperatives,” increased 16 percent to $28.9 billion in 2015, the company forecast profit this year far below analysts’ projections.
Operating earnings will be at least $13.50 a share in 2016, chief financial officer Martin Schroeter said Tuesday. That’s less than the $15 a share predicted by analysts. Currency fluctuations will affect operating earnings by more than $1 a share, he said.
- Execs: Strategic shift is paying off for IBM
That’s in spite of announcing for, the 15th consecutive quarter, falling revenue. IBM (NYSE: IBM), which was down nearly 5 percent during Wednesday morning trading, has been in a period of transition for the past few years, putting less focus on hardware and more focus (and investment dollars) into cloud, analytics, mobile, social media and security. Those strategic areas were up 26 percent for the year, making up a combined $29 billion and representing about 35 percent of the revenue. Cloud alone rose 43 percent to $10.2 billion for the year.
- IBM inks $40 million deal to transform the way people withdraw from ATMs
BTI Payments, which is a White Label ATM (WLA) operator, has entrusted IBM to transform its IT Infrastructure and deploy and manage an incremental 4,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATM) across the country.
This IT Infrastructure transformation will help reduce operational and capital expenditure while adding business value.
EMC | Dell
- Two big risks could torpedo Dell-EMC deal
Dell and its Silver Lake backers must now be worried that the deal will be dead in the water before it happens. They have to raise $40bn – $50bn in debt to finance the EMC acquisition. If that debt-raising exercise fails, because investment groups and organisations can’t see EMC shareholders accepting the tracking stock, and can’t also see why they should finance Dell/Silverlake buying EMC for 30 per cent more than it’s worth, then the whole deal could fall apart.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/21/two_big_risk_torpedoes_could_screw_dellemc_deal/
HP Inc | Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- Trial date set for Hewlett-Packard multi-billion fraud case
Hewlett-Packard and Autonomy are to continue their long running $10 billion takeover dispute for a further two years, with a 2018 London trial set to see the two companies fight over $5.1 billion.
- Whitman: We’re doing OK, despite economic slowdown
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/21/whitman-were-doing-ok-despite-economic-slowdown.html
Oracle
- Oracle Jabs Again in Legal Fight with Oregon
Oracle responded with its own lawsuit last year that alleged certain Oregon officials purposely sabotaged the project for political reasons and shifted the blame to Oracle. The technology giant alleged in its new lawsuit that its company executives and staff members representing Oregon governor Kate Brown agreed to settle all of the lawsuits on Oct. 19.
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/oracle-sues-oregon-healthcare-settlement/
- Amazon’s Cloud Is Not Enterprise-Ready, Says Oracle Exec
I love it when Oracle talks trash…“My conclusion is it’s easier to add cloud tech to an enterprise company than to add enterprise stuff to a cloud company,” he said. “I’m a legitimate convert because I thought this through before I joined up here.” Before joining Oracle in late 2014, Magnusson drove development of Google GOOG 2.62% App Engine.
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/oracle-exec-says-aws-not-enterprise-ready/
Other
- Why IBM and Oracle Plunged in 2015 While Microsoft Soared 19% Higher
Ending on a positive note, we’re left with Redmond’s finest. Under Nadella, Microsoft has embraced many strategies that would have been unthinkable under Ballmer, and with good results. Despite a flagging PC market and a dead-end entry into the mobile market, Microsoft has found a way back to earnings growth and stabilizing revenues.
Like Oracle, the company is betting heavily on cloud computing. Unlike the database giant, Microsoft has found a big winner in its Windows Azure cloud-computing platform, which is an almost unchallenged No. 2 in that fast-growing market. Oracle is not even on the radar yet. So Microsoft is getting results from Nadella’s new strategy already, giving investors a strong return in 2015.
- Google’s new managed containers are brought to you by Red Hat
So Red Hat is in bed with Microsoft, and now Google… very interesting.Google and Red Hat are touting several advantages of their collaboration, including the fact that OpenShift could complement and expand the use of Kubernetes, Google’s container management and orchestration system. Kubernetes has fast become a standard-issue item on most cloud platforms with containers, and Red Hat is the No. 2 contributor to that project, behind Google.
- Splunk outperforms after analyst predicts major deal with IBM
Northland analyst Tim Klasell heard from a “few industry sources” that Splunk and IBM are “moving closer together” and could agree to a meaningful partnership over time. The analyst told investors in a research note that IBM is getting close to a “big move to improve its ties” with Splunk. While Klasell did not know the financial details, he believes such a partnership could be a “nice tailwind” for Splunk to sign larger deals. The analyst has an Outperform rating on Splunk with an $80 price target.
SourceCast: Episode 12: Don’t Touch It Twice
