Tag: IBM

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/9/2015

sn_nileriver

IBM made headlines this week with the news that they are selling off Rivermine to Tangoe, allowing the company to focus on big data and strengthening Tangoe’s market-share in the TEM space. Big data and analysis continues to be the major theme with IBM at the moment with news of a partnership with Facebook to improve targeted ads to users. More importantly, it was announced that cancer centers will be using Watson to scan genetic reports for cancer trends.

EMC is starting to think about a post physical storage world while HP can’t move past their Autonomy purchase.

IBM

  • More on the IBM selling Rivermine to Tangoe:

    From an IBM perspective, it will be curious to see if the divestiture allows a refocusing of developing on the other Emptoris assets, including what Spend Matters believes would be a helpful re-platforming of the Emptoris product line to more effectively compete with where other competitive upstream suite solutions (e.g., BravoSolution, Iasta/Selectica, SciQuest, Ivalua, GEP) have headed or are going. For generic sourcing suites, single stack – and ideally a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) model – is the future; spanning sourcing, supplier management, contract management, analytics and more.

    http://spendmatters.com/2015/05/08/ibmemptoris-divests-rivermine-tangoe-picks-up-10m-tem-business-vendor-and-market-analysis/

    PS: There is another important point in the post:

    Now, it appears that a single provider will have the upper hand in terms of market share if not breadth of solution (it will also likely create less pricing pressure on TEM solutions generally, although IBM was never in the business of lowering prices).

  • IBM and Facebook just partnered up:

    Marketers and brand managers will be able to leverage Facebook’s customer insights from its rich user base and Custom Audience (an ad targeting feature) along with IBM’s marketing cloud and analytics capabilities to offer more personalized and targeted advertisements for users. Furthermore, the combined capabilities of Facebook and IBM will allow brands to strategically select users that are more likely to respond to advertisements thereby allowing them to communicate more effectively.

    http://www.investing.com/analysis/facebook—ibm-join-forces-to-develop-marketing-solutions-251078

  • 14 Centers to Use IBM Watson for Cancer Genetics

    Oncologists will upload the DNA fingerprint of a patient’s tumor, which indicates which genes are mutated and possibly driving the malignancy. Watson will then look for actionable targets, matching them to approved and experimental cancer drugs and even non-cancer drugs (if Watson decides the latter interface with a biological pathway driving a malignancy). The centers will pay a subscription fee for Watson, which IBM did not disclose.

    http://hitconsultant.net/2015/05/08/14-centers-use-ibm-watson-cancer-genetics/

    Also in Watson news, IBM is planning more cloud capabilities for the system:

    Watson Hybrid Cloud will use Watson Explorer—a cognitive computing exploration capability for the enterprise—as the on-premises platform for the application development, combining enterprise data sources into the application through a scalable environment that keeps utilized data local, private and secure, IBM said.

    http://www.eweek.com/cloud/ibm-gives-watson-new-hybrid-cloud-capabilities.html

  • SAP, IBM to integrate their HR solutions

    With availability planned for mid-2015, the first offering from this alliance includes a planned integration between the SuccessFactors Employee Central solution and IBM Kenexa’s cloud-based HR software Talent Acquisition Suite. This integration is expected to enable IBM customers to move their HR information systems (HRIS) to the cloud with the leading core HR solution from SuccessFactors, an SAP company, while helping to protect their recruiting investments, and provide customers of SuccessFactors Employee Central with a broader set of options for recruiting, assessment and onboarding of candidates.

    http://www.firstpost.com/business/sap-ibm-integrate-hr-solutions-2234852.html

  • How IBM is monetizing Watson:

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/102643778

EMC

HP

Here is a funny footnote about HP the last few weeks: I build this report on saved Google alerts dumped to RSS feeds.  For HP, Carly Fiorina’s presidential hopes have dominated the news cycle (thousands of articles), completely choking out actual business news. 

  • Thought this story was going away?  Wrong.  HP sues Autonomy founder for $5bn

    What’s striking about all of this is that when news of HP’s Autonomy quest surfaced—the plan leaked before the announcement—the near-universal reaction was that HP, which was struggling with a low-margin PC business and trying to bulk up its software and systems portfolios, was overpaying for interesting but perhaps not world-beating technology. Autonomy’s multi-media search technology worked across audio, and video, not just text, for example. It also had an augmented reality business.

    http://fortune.com/2015/05/05/hp-autonomy-legal-war/?xid=timehp-popular

Other

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/2/2015

sn_steak

The big news this week is SalesForce potentially being up for sale.  There were hundreds of articles discussing potential buyers with IBM, Oracle, HP, and Microsoft being the only viable contenders.

Speaking of Oracle and HP, outside of the Saleforce news, there wasn’t much new information posted (same recycled stories).  Sometimes you are looking for the sizzle and the steak, so focus was shifted to other suppliers this week like EMC and Red Hat.

IBM

  • Apple and IBM are looking to get iPads in the hands of the elderly:

    The collaboration calls for Apple to provide iPads and IBM to deliver apps and analytics software to connect millions of Japanese seniors with services, healthcare, community and their families under the national Post Office Watch service. IBM will write software that alerts Post Office Watch customers to take their medicine, provide them with exercise and diet information and assist with tasks such as grocery shopping.

    http://thevarguy.com/business-technology-solution-sales/050115/apple-ibm-japan-post-supply-tablets-elderly-japanese

  • IBM introduces new quantum computing chip:

    IBM’s new chip is the first to integrate the basic devices needed to build a quantum computer, known as qubits, into a 2-D grid. Researchers think one of the best routes to making a practical quantum computer would involve creating grids of hundreds or thousands of qubits working together. The circuits of IBM’s chip are made from metals that become superconducting when cooled to extremely low temperatures. The chip operates at only a fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

    http://www.technologyreview.com/news/537041/ibm-shows-off-a-quantum-computing-chip/

  • IBM boosts divident by 18%

    The increase will cost the company an extra $197.7 million a quarter and brings the dividend yield to about 3%.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-boosts-quarterly-dividend-18-1430232709

  • Cloud is not a high margin business:

    AWS, which many thought was running at break-even or possibly at a loss, turns out to be for Amazon a $5 billion business generating a third of the company’s total profits. That’s good, right? Not if it establishes a benchmark for typical-to-good cloud service provider performance. In fact it suggests that some companies — IBM especially — are going to have a very difficult time finding success in the cloud.

    http://betanews.com/2015/04/28/aws-shows-cloud-is-not-a-high-margin-business/

  • Interesting “what if” post of IBM buying TCS…

    It’s simple – make a move on the largest, most aggressive and dynamic of the Indian-heritage providers:  TCS.   Together, they would crush the market across all aspects of delivery, all verticals, all technologies because their individual forays in the As-a-Service world could play off each other and get scale even quicker.  They would have skill at massive scale and could undercut the competition on key deals – almost at will – if they needed to.

    http://www.horsesforsources.com/ibm-tcs_042515

EMC

Other

Posted on

Supplier Report: 4/25/2015

amazon_bot

Amazon Web Service’s announcement of their value and performance is forcing the other suppliers to react.  There was a substantial amount of articles for each supplier this week comparing their performance and strategy against Amazon’s.

Cloud growth and SaaS expansion is the loose theme of the week. Oracle is looking to have 95% of their products available via SaaS by October.  IBM continues to grow SoftLayer internationally and focus on methods of connecting (and gathering data from) everything.

IBM

  • IBM “pushing boundaries” of IoT with Peugeot tie up

    As part of the new partnership – which will last for seven years – IBM and PSA will work with partners to develop connected solutions and services, which they hope to take out to their business customers and consumers.”The number of cars connected worldwide is expected to grow significantly to a quarter billion by 2020,” IBM said. “Until now, however, most of the innovations available have primarily focused on smartphone apps, navigation and roadside assistance. IBM and PSA will share the responsibilities of developing, selling and marketing, as well as delivering and implementing connected services with new and existing clients.”

    http://www.channelnomics.com/channelnomics-us/news/2405305/ibm-pushing-boundaries-of-iot-with-peugeot-tie-up

  • Hortonworks, IBM and Pivotal to Support Open Data Platform in Their Big Data Solutions

    The ODP initiative is an industry effort focused on simplifying the adoption of Apache Hadoop for the enterprise, and enabling big data solutions. It will also provide a set of tools and methods for the group members to create and test their offerings based on the ODP Core platform.

    http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/04/hortonworks-odp

  • IBM is Canada’s Most Attractive Employer

    Recruitment and HR services company Randstad Canada awarded IBM with the title at a ceremony held at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.

    http://www.techvibes.com/blog/canadas-most-attractive-employer-2015-04-24

  • IBM sentenced to pay 6.5 million as contractual damages for failed CRM solution (thought this would be interesting to share)

    In 2004, IBM won a call to tender launched by MAIF in relation to the rebuilding of its Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) by integrating new software. On December 14, 2004, a contract was concluded between IBM and MAIF, pursuant to which IBM was to provide, for a fixed price of €7,302,822, software that was compliant with the scope determined by the parties and a strict schedule. These commitments were defined as an obligation of result, whose breach can only be justified by an external cause such as force majeure or the other party’s default. However, the project fell behind shortly afterwards.

    http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ibm-sentenced-to-pay-65-million-as-cont-90381/

  • IBM is helping Chinese company make company and patent acquisitions:

    IBM has announced plans “to help a little-known Chinese company (Teamsun) absorb and build upon key technologies” that IBM licenses, according to the New York Times. The buyer knows what to do with that intellectual property: its advisor, Shen Changxiang, is the former supervisor of the cybersecurity of China’s strategic missile arsenal, was in charge of computer security research for China’s increasingly potent navy, and is a long-time critic of his nation’s reliance on U.S. technology. Teamsun makes no secret of its goal: eliminating the need to buy American products. IBM wants access to China’s market for its “rope”, and the price it is willing to pay is teaching China how to make its own.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/lenin-was-right_928054.html

  • IBM opens a SoftLayer center in the Netherlands

    The company said the new datacentre, located in Almere just outside Amsterdam, will double SoftLayer capacity in the region and provide customers with more in-country options for data storage and geographically isolated services.

    http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2015/04/23/ibm-adds-second-softlayer-datacentre-in-the-netherlands/

Oracle

  • Oracle CEO Hurd Plans to Lift Almost All Products Into Cloud

    Around 65 percent of Oracle’s products are available on the cloud today, Hurd said in the interview, held on Thursday. That will climb to 95 percent by the time the company holds its annual Oracle OpenWorld conference in October, he said.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-24/oracle-ceo-hurd-plans-to-lift-almost-all-products-into-cloud

  • Oracle CEO Mark Hurd cuts loose at Boston College executive event

    On SalesForce: “It’s just a fact: Their earnings, the reason they have a very high earnings ratio, is because they don’t make any money…. There’s no cash flow. So when you look for a category that says ‘cash flow multiplier,’ it says ‘n/a.’ What are they worth right now? $35 billion? Who cares? It’s absurd. But they’re quote-unquote, ‘cool.’ And people ask me for real numbers, they ask, ‘Well, what’s your cash flow?’… What are we worth right now, $190 billion, $180, something like that? And we have to do it with real numbers. It’s crazy, just crazy.”

    http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/bottom_line/2015/04/oracle-ceo-mark-hurd-cuts-loose-at-boston-college.html

HP

Other

Posted on

Supplier Report: 4/18/2015

sn_thedoctor

IBM had an extremely health-focused week by announcing two acquisitions in the health space and making headlines with Watson’s medical diagnostic abilities.  IBM also deepened their Apple partnership with the announcement that they will collect medical related information from i-devices.

Oracle continues their braggadocios ways with claims of overtaking competitor SalesForce in the coming months while HP underwhelms with their new logo design.

IBM

Oracle

HP

Other

  • Article about CEO pay (Microsoft’s Nadella is top paid)
    http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/04/microsoft-ceo-top-paid-ceo-us/
  • EMC Acquires Hybrid Cloud Encryption Company

    CloudLink, a 20-employee firm based in Ottowa, encrypts workloads across multiple cloud platforms including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM SoftLayer and EMC subsidiary VMware’s vCLoud Air and other vCloud powered clouds, according to CloudLink’s web site.

    http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300076560/emc-acquires-hybrid-cloud-encryption-company.htm

  • This is timely: After SaaS: Opportunities for Next-Gen CRM

    The CRM market is ripe for disruption and the combination of the mobile-social revolution and the demand created by sellers of peer-to-peer marketplaces is creating a perfect storm. For a while, Salesforce would likely ignore the threat of a company providing such service much the way its predecessors ignored Salesforce. This will result in many opportunities for marketplaces and their developers to innovate and create value.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sophiecharlotte-moatti/after-saas-opportunities-_b_7067632.html

  • A Closer Look At Tableau’s Customer Base Growth

    Tableau had approximately 4,400 customers by the end of 2010 and this increased to 26,000 in 2014. [1] We expect this number to be north of the 60,000 mark by the end of our forecast period, facilitated by a strong sales and marketing team that is striving for expansion in domestic and international markets. Tableau’s focus on innovative products and its popularity in the market also will be a deciding factor in achieving the predicted growth. There could be a 10% downside to our price estimate if the number of customers do not grow beyond 54,000. This could happen if the business intelligence and analytics market becomes overcrowded with competing big and emerging small innovative players.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3070416-a-closer-look-at-tableaus-customer-base-growth

Posted on

Supplier Report: 4/11/2015

sn_spring

This week feels like yesterday’s news.  Many of the major IBM stories are updates and rehash from the last few weeks – however they did release news on a breakthrough in tape storage. 64-year-old tape storage technology.

Bad week for HP.  PC sales are down and they are exiting the public cloud sector due to not wanting to go head to head with Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM.

IBM

Oracle

HP

Other