Supplier Report: 5/2/2015

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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

Supplier Report: 4/25/2015

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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

Supplier Report: 4/18/2015

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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

Supplier Report: 4/11/2015

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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

The Supply Chain: 4/8/2015

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  • IBM actually sells off a portion of their supply chain software (not Emptoris) to LlamaSoft:

    Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Llamasoft said it will buy IBM’s LogicNet Plus, the Inventory and Product Flow Analyst, and IBM’s Transportation Analyst products. Llamasoft has been growing fast in recent years due to increased interest in the company’s specialties of supply chain modeling, analytics and optimization. Under the transaction, Llamasoft will absorb the IBM supply chain technology and support team.

    http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20150401-llamasoft-acquires-ibms-supply-chain-application-suite/

  • SAP Looks To Procurement Services Market To Boost Revenues, Protect Margins

    Corporate procurement services is a lucrative market that’s already served by software bigwigs like Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM). Research firm Frost & Sullivan estimates that the B2B online retail market will grow to $6.7 trillion by 2020 due to rapid adoption of online purchasing platforms. [2] Corporate procurement service providers stand to make billions of dollars in fees by providing cloud-based platforms and management services to facilitate such online purchases by big companies.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3046296-sap-looks-to-procurement-services-market-to-boost-revenues-protect-margins

  • SAP is also expanding their software offerings:

    By developing a product innovation platform, the connected products portfolio is capable of managing and integrating customer-driven engineering innovations by coordinating every ‘business function’ and ‘bill of material requirements.’ This portfolio will not only deliver considerable improvement over existing solutions but also develop new functionality, which will make manufacturing companies more responsive to customer demand.

    http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/169617/sap-brings-extended-solution-portfolio-for-improved-scm

  • Supply Chain as as source of compliance innovation (this doesn’t sound familiar does it?)

    To truly understand your compliance risk from all third parties, including those in the Supply Chain, you have to get out of the ivory tower and on the road. This is even truer when exploring innovation. You do not have hit the road with the “primary goal to be the inception point for innovation” but through such interactions, innovation can come about “organically”. There is little downside for a compliance practitioner to go and visit a Supply Chain partner and have a “face-to-face meeting simply to get to know the partner better and more precisely identify that partner’s needs.”

    http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/supply-chain-as-a-source-of-compliance-i-72976/
    This article gets a little to “ra-ra” and not enough real world example for my taste, but I like the idea.  

  • Here is another post detailing the shift from traditional procurement to a big data/business intelligence area (more of a POS/Retail view, but the concept is sound).
    http://www.internationalsupermarketnews.com/news/18577