Supplier Report: 11/29/2014

IBM

Oracle

Slow news week for Oracle.  There were a couple of terrible press releases for work overseas, but that is about it.  

HP

Other

  • Can you run a business from a mobile phone?

    There’s no question that the mobile phone has become an essential tool for decision makers at all levels. But can it serve as the only tool? A survey of 511 executives conducted by Forbes Insights for Google last year found found that nine out of ten executives used smartphones for business, even while they were in the office. And here’s the clincher: 10 percent  said smartphones were their exclusive device for day-to-day basis for decision making.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2014/11/24/can-you-run-a-business-entirely-from-a-mobile-phone/

  • Concerns about Splunk’s earnings:

    Splunk differs from the traditional sense of big data in that it’s analyzing machines rather than businesses and industries. Splunk’s software gathers and analyzes data found on websites, servers, networks, mobile devices, and so on. It then sells that data to enterprise customers for the purpose of mitigating security risk, preventing fraud, improving service performance, and reducing operating costs.

    Meanwhile, big data peer Tableau trades at less than 15 times trailing-12-month sales, and roughly 10 times next year’s expected sales of $551 million. In addition to being a cheaper stock relative to sales, Tableau is growing faster. During Tableau’s last quarter, it grew revenue 71% year over year and is expected to grow revenue by 41% in 2015, both of which are greater than Splunk’s year-over-year performance.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/11/28/what-concerns-me-most-about-splunk-inc-after-earni.aspx

  • Tableau software showing serious gains:

    Tableau also announced it has reached more than 5,000 customer accounts in the EMEA region. Customer accounts include Audi AG, Switzerland Global Enterprise, St. George´s Healthcare NHS Trust, and French banking firm BNP Paribas.

    http://www.financial-news.co.uk/25389/2014/11/tableau-software-grows-100-in-emea-20141128082500/

Supplier Report: 11/22/2014

paperwork_flickr

IBM

  • There is alot of news about IBM’s “BlueMix” Platform as a Service (PaaS) this week.

    Another Bluemix addition that goes hand-in-hand with Dedicated is what IBM called a Private API catalog, a collection of APIs that allow developers to connect their existing on-premise systems with IBM’s Bluemix. An organization can in effect republish its data through Bluemix and make it available as a service, either to other internal developers or external third parties. A company that can’t or doesn’t want to move its data into the cloud at all, even to an isolated instance like Bluemix Dedicated, could use this as a halfway-house solution.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/2851129/paas/ibm-spins-up-a-new-bare-metal-private-paas.html

  • IBM is going after email with a freemium model.
    They are talking about merging email with social tools, instant messaging, file sharing, and calendars in one tool.  Sounds similar to what Microsoft tried to do with the Outlook relaunch last year.
    http://www.techzone360.com/topics/techzone/articles/2014/11/20/394009-ibm-launch-innovative-new-email-service.htm

Oracle

HP

Other

Supplier Report: 11/15/2014

Photo: Tim Parkinson, Flickr

IBM

  1. IBM sells US Government $325M in supercomputers (they are the fastest computers ever made):
    http://www.crn.com/news/components-peripherals/300074813/ibm-cheers-325m-supercomputer-and-openpower-cpu-win.htm
  2. IBM CFO: Not all revenue is good revenue:

    “In just the last 10 years, we were split 30, 33 and 36 hardware, software and services and now our hardware business just last year was down to seven percent of our profit, and services was nearly half and software was nearly the other half,” he explains.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2014/11/ibm-cfo-schroeter-all-revenue-is-not-good-revenue.html

  3. Apparently this is big news: Ginni Rometty was granted membership to Augusta golf course. (She was denied 2 years ago, there is like 60 articles on this topic).
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/56436d16-6b6e-11e4-ae52-00144feabdc0.html
  4. IBM Watson group introducing mobile health app:

    However, the abundance of data about our health and health concerns creates a problem: how do we manage it all? That’s where Watson comes in. Watson’s cognitive computing abilities sort through all that data and finds exactly what you need based on your medical history and genetic information.

    http://www.techtimes.com/articles/20172/20141113/ibms-watson-wants-to-help-you-manage-your-health.htm

  5. IBM Study: IT Departments Build Shared Value, Shared Belief with Business Leaders
    Credit: IBMhttp://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03627usen/GBE03627USEN.PDF
  6. IBM’s heavy SoftLayer push beings – offering $10,000 credits and free access to BlueMix apps:
    http://www.cloudwedge.com/4891-ibm-offers-startups-10k-per-month-in-softlayer-credits/They are specifically targeting start-ups (giving them free support and mentoring as well)
    http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/11/10/ibm-wants-startups-on-its-cloud/

Oracle

  1. Oracle allowing SAP to pay only $349M in a $1.3B legal copyright (TomorrowNow) settlement:
    http://www.nasdaq.com/article/oracle-settles-for-sap-to-pay-359m-in-copyright-suit-analyst-blog-cm414331
  2. Monopoly claim against Oracle can proceed:

    Sun released its UNIX-based Solaris operating system in 1992. Sun provided end users free updates of its copyrighted, proprietary Solaris system, bug fixes and firmware for free. But that ended in 2011, when Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems, and required customers to sign exclusive contracts tying them to Oracle support services.

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/11/12/oracle-not-off-the-hook-in-monopoly-case.htm

  3. Oracle’s corporate pay system still under fire:

    Oracle took great troubles in the previous year to face complaints about how much it paid top executives of the firm. Larry Ellison, founder of oracle even took a pay cut. Yet the firm investors persist to signal their condemnation of the firm’s compensation performs. For the third year in line, more investors voted beside than for a nonbinding suggestion to support the pay awarded to firm executives.

    http://www.streetwisereport.com/will-oracle-corporation-nyseorcl-skyrocket-on-pay-cuts-adobe-systems-incorporated-nasdaqadbe-channeladvisor-corp-nyseecom/16098/

HP

  1. HP under fire for Israeli support at the Palestine borders:

    The company supplies products and services to the Israeli “Ministry of Defense” and the Israeli Navy, and maintains a presence in an illegal West Bank settlement. It also supplies and maintains a high-tech system of ID controls at Israel’s brutal and sadistic network of racist checkpoints in the West Bank.

    http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/hp-spins-israeli-checkpoints-role-reducing-friction-palestinians

  2. HP releases mobile device management system (focus is on mid and small sized companies):

    Rather than confining the use of IT management services in the cloud to smartphones and tablets, Park says the time has come to simplify the management of all mobile computing devices. While large enterprise IT organizations usually have dedicated solutions to manage devices, Park notes that the average SMB organization is now being overwhelmed because every employee now has multiple devices to be managed.

    http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/it-unmasked/hp-unfurls-mobile-device-management-service-in-the-cloud.html

Other

  1. There has been a security flaw in Windows since Win05 that was just recently patched:
    http://www.businessinsider.com.au/microsoft-fixes-19-year-old-bug-in-windows-2014-11
    PS: If this is another shell shock situation, forget my name 🙂 [NOTE: It was patched in May]
  2. SalesForce drops $640M on San Francisco office:
    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/salesforce-signs-agreement-to-purchase-50-fremont-street-building-expanding-worldwide-headquarters-in-san-francisco-2014-11-12
  3. Microsoft’s SaaS Cloud Strategy is working:
    They are avoiding a hardware show-down with Amazon and Google and pushing their SaaS product line and making smart partnerships with companies like DropBox and SalesForce.
    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/11/10/this-is-why-microsoft-corporation-will-win-the-clo.aspx

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