Tag: IBM

Posted on

Supplier Report: 8/1/2015

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IBM continues their healthcare focus with a relationship with CVS.  The more information Watson has about health behavior, the more powerful and useful it will become.  With Watson growing, IBM continues to focus on big data and segmented marketing to engage a fragmented customer base.

While IBM figures out how to leverage big data, HP is responding to negative feedback about their dress code.  As their employee’s dress is making news, key departures are also making headlines as the company starts to officially split into two.

EMC had a strong endorsement regarding VMWare this week, while a competitor has opted to remove themselves from the game.

IBM

  • IBM, CVS bring Watson to health care

    Under a deal expected to be announced Thursday, the companies will work to develop a system that would be able to provide better personalization of care, prevent the use of unneeded and costly interventions, and even predict health declines for a wide range of conditions including heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

    http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20150801/business/150809962/

  • IBM Big Data Evangelist James Kobielus Talks Analytics and Staying Flexible

    The data scientist will become the core application developer in this new order of things. The assets they build and maintain—big data clusters, statistical models, machine learning algorithms, and so on—are becoming the chief intellectual property that drives recommendation engines, decision automation, next best actions, and so forth within cloud, mobile, social, Internet of Things, marketing automation, and other business and consumer apps. Consequently, the data scientist is rapidly evolving away from a high-skilled R&D function performed by premium university-educated talent toward an operational function that will need to be scaled and automated to a high degree by less pricey data-center IT staff positions who’ll need to be on call 24×7. Data scientist skills will rapidly become commoditized, just as low-level programming and system administration jobs became years ago. Like it or not, data scientists will be grown in the future through trade schools, vocational education programs, and other channels that will certify large numbers of freshly minted personnel who won’t require a 4-year college degree in mathematics, statistics, or some highly statistically oriented domain specialty.

    https://icrunchdatanews.com/ibm-big-data-evangelist-james-kobielus-talks-analytics-staying-flexible/

  • Here is the reference article James Kobielus wrote:
    Customer Segmentation: The Fine Line Between Profiling and Personalization

    It’s the ultimate oxymoron: pigeonholing with personalization. But it’s not as if this technology is only being used to individually tweak bulk messages for maximum impact. It’s also providing tools that help people (e.g., your account reps) to listen and interact with other people (i.e., your customers) in a more human fashion. As the cited article notes, IBM customer USAA uses Watson Engagement Advisor to guide personalized interactions with returning US veterans who are trying to navigate the confusing fields of healthcare insurance options. As the article states, “In an instant, a good customer service rep identifies your personal pain and tailors a response using both institutional knowledge and their own memory, which has been built by hundreds of customer calls a day. Watson’s performance in the USAA pilot suggests that a cognitive computing system has the potential to become, in a scatter of months, what the smartest, wisest clerk in the bank becomes after a career.”

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/customer-segmentation-fine-line-between-profiling-james-kobielus

  • Will IBM acquisition boost Cloud data services?

    The cloud database arena is projected to be worth US$14 billion by 2019, with IBM claiming open source databases like MongoDB to be a significant part – “and rapidly growing portion” – of this sector. Thousands of clients across a variety of industries, including retail, IoT, higher education, marketing services and ecommerce have created over 100,000 databases with Compose.

    http://www.reseller.co.nz/article/580868/will-ibm-acquisition-boost-cloud-data-services

  • IBM Recycles 97% of End-of-Life Products

    In its other waste and recycling accomplishments, IBM sent 86 percent of the nonhazardous waste it generated worldwide in 2014 to be recycled, and purchased recycled plastics for use in products such that 12.1 percent of purchased plastic by weight were recycled resins.

    http://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/07/31/ibm-recycles-97-of-end-of-life-products/

  • The death of IBM? https://soundcloud.com/drericjackson/ep-11-mike-dauber-on-venture-enterprise-investing-finding-the-next-cisco-ibm

Hewlett Packard

  • The Great Dress-Code Debate rages at HP

    “According to HP, men should avoid turning up to the office in T-shirts with no collars, faded or torn jeans, shorts, baseball caps and other headwear, sportswear, and sandals and other open shoes. Women are advised not to wear short skirts, faded or torn jeans, low-cut dresses, sandals, crazy high heels, and too much jewelry.” Not surprisingly, to have one the region’s high-tech legends issue such an uncool edict sent legions of programmers, developers, product manager, venture capitalists, founders and co-founders into a veritable tizzy. Even more embarrassing, techies took to the Twittersphere to ridicule HP’s fuddy-duddy dictum while rival companies dangled job offers before HP’s disgruntled masses, promising them they could wear whatever the heck they wanted to wear to work.

    http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/07/31/the-great-dress-code-debate-rages-at-hp/

  • HP’s head of corporate HR responds with a video (yes I know this has nothing to do with business, but I appreciate the conversation and HP getting feisty)
    http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/07/hewlett-packard_video_what_dre.html
  • Paul Chapman Named as CIO of Box
    HP execs continue to flee the company…

    While at HP, Chapman was also one of the key people in defining the future for HP Enterprise, as Hewlett Packard announced that the firm will be split into two.

    http://www.cloudwards.net/news/paul-chapman-named-as-cio-of-box-9225/

  • HP scoops up cloudy app-dev platform Stackato

    Stackato consists of a Platform-as-a-Service rooted in the open source PaaS Cloud Foundry and utilizes Docker for its Linux Containers. Stackato will be incorporated into HP Development Platform, the vendor’s version of the Cloud Foundry PaaS launched in 2014.

    http://tvnewsroom.org/newslines/business/hp-scoops-up-cloudy-app-dev-platform-stackato-60827/

EMC

  • U2 Finds What It’s Looking For in EMC Storage (this is a horrible headline – can’t let it slide)

    During its iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE concert tour, U2 decided it might be a good idea to capture every concert in a digital format. To that end, U2 engaged EMC to deploy an all-Flash array version of VNXe 3200 storage system and its Data Domain backup systems.

    http://thevarguy.com/computer-technology-hardware-solutions-and-news/073115/u2-finds-what-its-looking-emc-storage

  • Confirmed: Cisco has killed its EMC-killer product and laid off the team

    The official shuttering of Invicta confirmed an earlier report by Chris Mellor at The Register that Cisco had thrown in the towel and laid off nearly all of the Whiptail staff.  Whiptail made a flash-storage product that competed head to head with EMC’s line of flash storage. Flash storage is when data-center computer servers use the same super-fast storage used by smartphones, tablets, and thumb drives. Cisco and EMC were once close partners and had a successful joint business where they sold Cisco’s UCS computer servers blended with EMC’s storage and software from EMC’s subsidiary VMware.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/cisco-killed-its-emc-killer-product-2015-7

Other

  • Citrix CEO to Step Down as Company Considers Shedding GoTo Unit

    Citrix Systems President and CEO Mark Templeton plans to retire and officials will review what to do with the vendor’s GoTo online collaboration portfolio as activist investor Elliott Management grows its influence over the company. The company also is making changes on the board of directors, including appointing Jesse Cohn, senior portfolio manager at Elliott, as an independent member. In addition, Citrix officials will search for another independent board member who is agreeable to Elliott and who will replace another board member when appointed.

    http://www.thestreet.com/story/13240114/1/citrix-red-hat-boost-startup-culture-in-raleigh-nc.html

Posted on

Supplier Report: 7/25/2015

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Mergers and acquisitions was a major news theme (again) this week.  IBM announced they were acquiring DB startup company Compose.  The HP/EMC rumors started up again, while Mr. Tucci expressed his desire to keep his company whole (not splitting off VMWare).   Speaking of HP –  they sold off a part of their troubled Autonomy business.

IBM

EMC

  • Why EMC has no plans to split itself up

    “Splitting this federation or spinning off VMware is not a good idea,” said EMC Joe Tucci during an earnings call with analysts Wednesday. “I firmly believe that we are better together. A lot better together.”

    http://fortune.com/2015/07/22/emc-earnings-split-up/

  • EMC’s turbulent trifecta temporarily ties Tucci to top table
    The person who wrote this headline must be so proud of themselves (oh… British publication, of course)

    “The companies that will be successful are the ones that are able to truly transform themselves. The board and management, we’re focussed on assuring and we are deeply engaged in making sure we have a very successful transformation. We have a number of options, really good options, and we have important next-generation winning technologies, great assets, and we have great people,” he continued. [The post also mentions the fabled HP/EMC merger]

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/23/tuccis_turbulent_trifecta/

  • EMC to cut jobs in Q4 2015 to reduce costs by $850M

    EMC will cut $50 million through tighter spending and job cuts in the fourth quarter of this year. The company will increase the size of cost savings in each quarter until it reaches an annual rate of $850 million starting in 2017 by reducing other expenses, as well, in part by canceling underperforming products and closing facilities.

    http://www.infotechlead.com/networking/emc-to-cut-jobs-in-q4-2015-to-reduce-costs-by-850-mn-32532

  • Big Changes in Store for Storage

    According to a recent outlook from Wikibon, we are on the cusp of a digital extinction event as today’s complex network storage architectures give way to more nimble server-side solutions. The firm predicts that within 10 years, 90 percent of storage revenues will flow toward server SAN or hyperscale server SAN solutions, marking a 150 percent annual growth rate from today’s current market estimate of about $1 billion. At best, traditional SAN and NAS may eke out meager existences within long-term data retention infrastructure in which the frequency of data access is low but metadata retrieval is fairly steady.

    http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/infrastructure/big-changes-in-store-for-storage.html

  • EMC Corp Sticking To Its Guns

    Right or wrong, EMC is committed to its path of evolving into a leading provider of “IT-as-a-service”. Likewise, the company remains committed to an operating structure that is going to continue to frustrate some investors, as it believes (correctly, in my view) that VMware (NYSE:VMW), Pivotal, and other components are vital to its future strategy.

    http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/emc-corporation-emc-sticking-to-its-guns-363253/

Hewlett Packard

Other

  • Dell is closely studying the EMC playbook

    “I think what [EMC CEO Joe] Tucci has done with VMWare is a good example of that, where you can take something that people don’t fully understand, buried in the portfolio, and unlock it while still having a partnership with the mothership,” said Durban, who sits on the Dell board of directors.

    http://fortune.com/2015/07/17/dell-is-closely-studying-the-emc-playbook/

  • Salesforce Positioned as a Leader in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation

    Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the Customer Success Platform and world’s #1 CRM company, today announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned Salesforce as a Leader in its July 2015 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation (SFA). This is the ninth consecutive year that Salesforce has appeared in the Leaders quadrant.

    http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/salesforce-positioned-as-a-leader-in-the-2015-magic-quadrant-for-sales-force-automation-300117584.html

  • Splunk Named a Leader in 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM

    “Splunk is the only security provider to improve on completeness of vision in the Gartner 2015 SIEM Magic Quadrant which we believe serves as the latest evidence that Splunk remains at the forefront of solving advanced and emerging SIEM use cases,” said Haiyan Song, senior vice president of security markets, Splunk. “Splunk is growing well beyond the SIEM market rate, as an increasing number of companies recognize the value of taking an analytics-driven approach to security with Splunk as the nerve center. And with our recent acquisition of Caspida, Splunk is adding machine learning-based user behavioral analytics and extending our analytics-enabled SIEM to better detect advanced and insider threats.”

    https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/splunk-named-leader-2015-gartner-120000738.html

Photo: Kristina Alexanderson, Flickr

Posted on

Supplier Report: 7/18/2015

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Photo: Andrea Vallejos, Flickr

The press was focused on big data and the transformation of the classic IT companies from legacy business to the newer cloud/SaaS model.  Between IBM’s new tiny chip set, the ever increasing abilities of Watson, and the propagation of SoftLayer, IBM’s business model seems on track.  So on track that Seeking Alpha wonders if they should spin off their legacy consulting and software model.

Oracle seems to emulating IBM with their partnership with Xamarin. Meanwhile, EMC finalized their purchase of Virtustream and released an interesting blog on their own thoughts on big data.

IBM

Oracle

  • Oracle’s second largest workforce is in India

    “Of the 120,000 workforce we have globally, 31,000 are in India, making it the second largest after our employees’ strength in the US,” Oracle president Thomas Kurian told reporters at an event here.

    http://www.infotechlead.com/hr/oracles-second-largest-workforce-is-in-india-32271

  • Oracle Abandons Its Largest Copyright Damages Theory Against Rimini Street

    In a recent Court filing, in response to challenges raised by Rimini Street, Oracle abandoned its biggest damages theory of copyright infringement for its PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel-branded software products based on fair market value, measured by hypothetical license or income approach, to “streamline” the issues for trial. Accordingly, Oracle has withdrawn the $210 million damages associated with its fair market value theory. Oracle’s primary remaining copyright damages theory in the case is for lost profits, where Rimini Street asserts Oracle’s theory is without merit due to a complete lack of proof of causation.

    http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150716006624/en/Oracle-Abandons-Largest-Copyright-Damages-Theory-Rimini

  • ERP Cloud Could Be The Next Big Thing For Oracle Corporation

    Ebbeck noted that customers that have already adopted some cloud services from Oracle and would likely come back for ERP cloud. The other area of potential growth is among the existing on-premise install base. Ebbeck stated that ERP cloud simplifies the IT environments and eliminates the usually time-consuming and expensive on-premise software upgrades.

    http://investcorrectly.com/20150715/erp-cloud-next-big-thing-oracle-corporation-nyseorcl/

  • Oracle Teams Up with Xamarin for Expanding Cloud Business

    Oracle recently announced its partnership with California based software company, Xamarin in order to build its cloud platform. Xamarin, known for its mobile development platform for enterprises, will offer a software development kit for Oracle’s cloud-based mobile applications under the new deal.

    http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/181296/oracle-teams-up-with-xamarin-for-expanding-cloud-business

EMC

  • Understanding the Dimensions of Your Big Data Strategy

    One of the key differences between big data analytics and classic business intelligence is the way by which big data demands real-time decision making in applications to force a different decision in stride based on predictive modeling.  Modern third-platform applications rely on analytics to decide what to do now with machine data, personal information, geospatial information, and other criteria that are statistically significant in making a decision.  This requires the technology capability to integrate analytics and applications, but equally importantly, it requires business support to change business decisions in real-time based on analytics recommendations called by mission critical applications.  As such, business adoption relies on business analysis to identify key business moments that can be driven by analytics.

    https://infocus.emc.com/joe_dossantos/dont-pull-the-trunk-of-your-big-data-elephant/?cmp=soc-cor-glbl-us-sprinklr-TWITTER-Data%20Lakes-Big%20Data-EMCcorp-208668228

  • EMC Finalizes $1.2 Billion Virtustream Buy

    EMC  announced it has completed the acquisition of Virtustream. Virtustream represents a transformational element of EMC’s strategy to help customers move all applications to cloud-based IT environments. The all-cash transaction is expected to have no material impact to EMC financial results in 2015 and is expected to be additive to revenues and accretive to EPS in 2016. Operational details of the new EMC Federation business formed by Virtustream will be announced later this quarter.

    http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/news/2015/07/emc-finalizes-1-2-billion-virtustream-buy.aspx

 

Posted on

Supplier Report: 7/11/2015

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Photo: JD Hancock, Flickr

IBM has created a microprocessor that has components the same size as a strand of DNA.  While IBM makes smaller chips, EMC has become a smaller company by selling off Syncplicity (a file sharing company).

Reports are coming out that Oracle is bullying customers with usage breach notices due to their missed performance goals last quarter.   Speaking of performance goals, looks like cloud costs are going up (Microsoft and IBM are raising prices in certain areas) – is the race to the bottom over?

IBM

  • IBM Just Created the World’s Smallest, Most Powerful Chip; Here’s Why You Should Care

    At the most basic level, IBM’s processor, which it worked on with GlobalFoundries, Samsung, and the State University of New York (SUNY), has far smaller transistors than any other processor on the planet. That means that when the chip eventually appears in future smartphones, computers, and other pieces of technology, those gadgets will be faster and more energy-efficient.

    https://www.yahoo.com/tech/ibm-just-created-the-worlds-smallest-most-123665085589.html

  • There are ALOT of articles about this chip.  For instance:
    The Best Thing About IBM’s Super-Chip? It’s Not From Intel
    http://www.wired.com/2015/07/ibm-seven-nanometer-chip/
  • IBM prepares software to better read an ‘intelligent grid’

    Enter Opus, which is meant to merge IBM’s long history of expertise in analytics with utility know-how into a single picture meant to project supply and demand — all with the goal of wasting less energy and helping to realize a more distributed reality that does not impair reliability or undermine industry profits.

    http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060021311

  • IBM Rolls Out Docker-Based Container Services
    This is a follow-up to a post from a few weeks back:

    Containers give developers the flexibility to build once and move applications without the need to rewrite or redeploy their code. IBM Containers, based on Docker and built on Bluemix, IBM’s platform-as-a-service, are intended to provide a more efficient environment that enables faster integration and access to analytics, big data and security services. Enterprises will now be able to use the combination of IBM, Docker, Cloud Foundry, and OpenStack to create a new generation of portable distributed applications.

    http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/News-Flashes/IBM-Rolls-Out-Docker-Based-Container-Services-105040.aspx

  • IBM Named a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays

    This inclusion comes a month after IBM was identified as the number one worldwide solid-state array vendor in unit shipments and petabytes of data delivered for 2014 in Gartner’s Market Share Analysis: SSDs and Solid-State Arrays Worldwide Report for 2014, by Joseph Unsworth and John Monroe, published May 1, 2015.2 In 2014 IBM sold more than 2,100 FlashSystems, totaling more than 62 petabytes (PB) of storage capacity, according to IBM.

    http://www.finchannel.com/index.php/technology/item/46327-ibm-named-a-leader-in-gartner-s-magic-quadrant-for-solid-state-arrays

Oracle

  • Oracle ‘breach notice’ bullies enterprise clients into cloud service, consultant claims

    If Oracle thinks the customer is really abusing the terms, it whips out the “breach notice,” which warns a customer that they are in violation and must stop using all Oracle software in 30 days. That’s risky, because it allows the customer to walk away from its Oracle contracts.

    http://thestack.com/oracle-breach-notice-cloud-services-100715
    More on the subject:
    http://www.businessinsider.com/oracles-cloud-sales-2015-7?r=UK

  • Oracle Pursuing ‘Generational’ Change In IT, Cantor Says

    Oracle conceives this “push of IT resources into the cloud as a ‘generational change’ that only comes along once every 20–25 years,” the analysts at Cantor explain. This is why management is working hard in expanding the cloud business. However, the experts believe this change will be particularly complicated for Oracle, given that it “continues to offer on-premise solutions,” and holds a broad portfolio of solutions across a wide array of product categories. Therefore, the company “does not want to provide a particular timeframe for when the headwind from the transition is over,” the analysts explain, but management is “unrelenting in its view that the shift to the cloud is positive for the long-term economics of Oracle’s business model.”

    http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/15/07/5661493/oracle-pursuing-generational-change-in-it-cantor-says

Hewlett Packard

EMC

  • EMC offloads file-sharing business

    EMC has sold off its file-sharing arm Syncplicity just three years after it snapped the business up, claiming the technology is no longer core to its portfolio. Private investment firm Skyview Capital has bought the business from EMC, although the latter will retain “a financial interest” in the company, although it did not disclose exactly what that would be.

    http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2417109/emc-offloads-file-sharing-business

Other

  • Surprise! The cost of cloud is about to rise

    However, one change could cost some customers big time. In the past, a customer using an entry-level Virtual Server Instance in SoftLayer paid $35 per 5TB of outbound bandwidth. That rate is now $35 per 250GB. The charge for 5TB of outbound bandwidth now $615. That’s a hefty raise, which a source close to IBM confirmed, adding that most SoftLayer customers will likely see their costs decline. SoftLayer, unlike its rivals, does not charge for data transfer within its own private network even between zones.

    http://fortune.com/2015/07/06/cost-of-cloud-rising/

  • Why Salesforce.com Keeps Picking on SAP

    Long-term, these German ambitions look like an effort to properly diversify. Roughly 68% of Salesforce revenue is sourced in the United States versus 18.3% from all of Europe. By contrast, no territory accounts for more than a third of SAP revenue. Oracle is not quite as diversified, but it still gets less than half of its revenue from the U.S. market.

    http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/070815/why-salesforcecom-keeps-picking-sap-crm-orcl-sap.aspx

  • The worst CRM in the word is… not salesforce.
    IT IS EXCEL.  People need to stop using excel for contact management lists.
    http://www.business2community.com/sales-management/%E2%80%8Band-the-worst-crm-in-the-world-ishint-it-is-not-salesforce-01268557
  • Drought of data scientists hurting business

    Alec Gardner said, “Organisations that consider appointing a data scientist or a team of data analysts may find that they can derive much deeper and more varied insights from their data. This will let them recommend improvements in areas of the business such as supply chain and logistics, product or service development, or customer acquisition.

    http://idm.net.au/article/0010529-drought-data-scientists-hurting-business

  • Jim Whitehurst – Red Hat Summit 2015 – Keynote:
  • Is OpenStack ready for primetime?

    OpenStack was introduced in 2010 as a project of NASA, who dropped out in 2013, and Rackspace. In 2011 Ubuntu adopted OpenStack and became the first “vendor” to integrate with the platform. In 2012 Red Hat began a project to integrate with OpenStack and introduced commercial support by July 2013. Over time many other organisations have joined the foundation as sponsors and contributors. Recently released OpenStack Kilo (version 11) has approximately 400 new features and was the product of almost 1500 contributors.  However, there is a downside to the open source model: lots of developers with lots of ideas about what should be included breeds complexity.

    http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2015/jul/07/openstack-ready-prime-time/

  • Splunk Buys Security Startup Caspida For $190M

    Like everyone, Splunk has watched the growing number of breaches over the last year, and its customers have been asking for better security detection tools to help battle these threats, many of which use with compromised credentials. This kind of attack is difficult to detect with conventional security techniques looking for signatures or rules. If someone comes in through the front door using valid credentials, there are no rules or patterns. They look like a valid user, Song explained.

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/09/splunk-buys-security-startup-caspida-for-190m/?ncid=rss