As the nation celebrates its birthday, most companies are taking a break from major news (although some didn’t). It is more of the same as we enjoy a long weekend.
IBM’s big data is transcending the hype and people are expecting great things, so great that Watson and his automated cousins could eliminate 47% of US jobs over the coming decades (because that’s not an alarmist factoid to get more readers).
Oracle is still talking about deep cost reductions to compete with Amazon, while HP keeps singing their breakup song (and released a monstrous 316 page exchange commission report). Speaking of reports, there are more stating EMC had a good Q1 in traditional storage (which has been consistent with reports over the last few weeks).
There was an office chat about how SAS is beloved by their employees and I found an article discussing that culture. Xerox apparently has the opposite situation…recently being named the 5th worst company to work for.
IBM
- Watson’s next feat? Taking on cancer
Among the most ambitious projects is a partnership with 14 cancer centers to use Watson to help choose therapies based on a tumor’s genetic fingerprints. Doctors have known for years that some treatments work miraculously on some patients but not at all on others due to genetics. But the expense and complexity in identifying genetic mutations and matching them up with potential therapies has made it difficult for more than a handful of patients to benefit from this new approach. The service is scheduled to launch later this year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons-next-feat-taking-on-cancer/
- But it isn’t all wonder and good news, the same article states:
While there’s much debate about the extent to which technology is destroying jobs, recent research has driven concern. A 2013 paper by economists at the University of Oxford calculated the probability of 702 occupations being automated or “roboticized” out of existence and found that a startling 47 percent of American jobs — from paralegals to taxi drivers — could disappear in coming years. Similar research by MIT business professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee has shown that this trend may be accelerating and that we are at the dawn of a “second machine age.”
- New Report Shows the Internet of Things’ Economic Impact Could Surpass Its Hype — But There’s Just One Problem
While a host of devices such as smartphones, wearable technologies, connected industrial equipment, automobiles, and smart agriculture sensors can collect massive amounts of data, the McKinsey report notes that most of the information currently being collected isn’t being put to use: “Most IoT data collected today are not used, and the data that are used are not fully exploited. A critical challenge is to use the flood of big data generated by IoT devices for prediction and optimization.” McKinsey isn’t the only organization to discover this. IBM (NYSE:IBM) says 90% of data collected by smart IoT devices goes completely unused, and that the data starts losing its value just a few seconds after being gathered.
- IBM explains its new (mobile) philosophy
Matt Candy, managing partner, Europe IBM Interactive Experience, global business services, is one of the brand’s major spokespeople on the topic, and he believes that digital media is changing the way in which businesses and consumers interact: ‘The last, best experience that anyone has becomes the minimum expectation for the experiences they have everywhere. These experiences transcend industry – this shift is changing the challenge that brands face when interacting with the customer. Traditional boundaries are dead, it’s time for businesses to focus on human-to-human interactions. This makes experience the new competitive battleground in which businesses will have to work.
http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/news/b2b/36371/-ibm-explains-its-new-philosophy.aspx#.VZXhfPlVhBc
- GlobalFoundries Takeover of IBM Chip Unit Is Official
The two companies announced last October that IBM would pay GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion to take over its money-losing chip unit, which includes the plant in Essex. But the deal had to clear hurdles first. Because GlobalFoundries is owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, it needed to obtain clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency panel charged with reviewing major business deals to safeguard national security. The companies announced Monday that the committee had approved the deal.
Oracle
- Will Oracle Corporation’s New Cloud Push Pay-Off?
A few days ago, Ellison and a few other Oracle execs announced the introduction of the company’s new, comprehensive “PaaS [Platform-as-a-Service] Launch and Cloud File Sharing and Collaboration” suite of services. Ellison didn’t hold back when asked what the objective of Oracle’s new Cloud Platform hopes to accomplish, saying “Our new archive storage service goes head-to-head with Amazon Glacier and it’s one-tenth their price.”
Hewlett Packard
- HP says channel crucial post-split, outlines potential risks
In the document, HP said the successful execution of its indirect strategy is integral to the financial performance of both companies. HP said in both its fiscal 2013 and 2014, its top-ten global disties and resellers collectively accounted for 12 percent and eight percent of HP’s sales. “Our financial results could be materially adversely affected due to distribution channel conflicts or if the financial conditions of our channel partners were to weaken,” the document states. “Our results of operations may be adversely affected by any conflicts that might arise between our various distribution channels or the loss or deterioration of any alliance or distribution arrangement.
- Here is the full 316 page Form 10 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/~/media/Files/H/HP-IR/documents/reports/2015/01-07-2015-form-10.pdf - HP LOSES ITS ENTERPRISE CHIEF
Now, it seems that even more changes are ahead for the company, and they may directly affect the new HP Enterprise unit. Reports on Tuesday (June 30) revealed that the company’s current head of its Enterprise Group, Bill Veghte, has stepped down from his post to “pursue a new opportunity,” according to a statement from the company.
http://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2015/hp-loses-its-enterprise-chief/#.VZXorvlVhBc
EMC
- Snapshot: EMC Leads Disk Storage Systems in Q1 Sales
http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/07/02/snapshot-emc-leads-disk-storage-systems–in-q1-sales.aspx
Other
- Marc Benioff blasts SAP CEO: “He’s scared of Salesforce”
On Thursday, during an event in SAP’s home country Germany, Benioff said Bill McDermott, the CEO of the $US90 billion German software maker, recently snubbed Benioff’s outreach efforts. “We offered an olive branch to them. I’ve told Bill I’ve wanted to have a deeper relationship with them. Yes we’re competitors, we should also be partners,” Benioff said, according to Bloomberg. “He’s scared of Salesforce.”
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-on-sap-ceo-bill-mcdermott-2015-7
- Xerox is the 5th worst company to work for
Under Burns’ leadership, the company’s earnings have declined from more than $1.3 billion in 2011 to $992 million in 2014, a 25% drop. These figures support recurring employee complaints about leadership — only 32% of surveyed employees approved of Burns. Many employees also complained about a culture of favoritism in the company, saying that personal relationships are more important than work ethic when it comes to promotions and raises. Another recurring complaint was related to compensation. Employees cited low pay and years without cost of living raises as reasons for the company’s high turnover. Less than a third of Xerox employees would recommend a job at the company to a friend.
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/06/29/the-worst-companies-to-work-for/3/
- Xerox Is Not the Problem, the Whole IT Services Industry Is
If we look at it from a labor perspective (Xerox should be pretty bad considering it is the fifth worst company to work for), we do see that the company does have low expenses per employee. Annualizing results from last quarter, Xerox pays about $7,100 per employee per quarter, and squeezes out about $5 in revenue for every dollar spent on labor (including general expenses). Accenture, surprisingly, spends even less per employee per quarter at about $4,100, earning about $5.56 per dollar spent on labor.
http://247wallst.com/services/2015/07/02/xerox-is-not-the-problem-the-whole-it-services-industry-is/
- What’s Wrong With Software Licensing Models?
http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/video/300077310/whats-wrong-with-software-licensing-models.htm - This is an old article that Bobby C mentioned this week, but considering how customers are down on SAS, I thought I would find it:
HOW SAS BECAME THE WORLD’S BEST PLACE TO WORK
At 70 years old, Goodnight holds the conviction that “what makes his organization work are the new ideas that come out of his employee’s brains.” He therefore holds his employees in the highest esteem. So while he fully anticipated that the recession would constrain the firm’s short-term revenues, he instinctively knew that his team would produce breakthrough products while his competitors were cutting costs.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3004953/how-sas-became-worlds-best-place-work
