Storage was a hot topic this week. IBM introduced new, more affordable offerings which resulted in a copious amount of articles.
Oracle’s legal battles are keeping them in the news. Their battles with Oregon and Google are still going and growing in complexity. HP is also getting sued for age discrimination.
Apple purchased personal health data company Gliimpse and Microsoft purchased AI scheduling tool Genee.
IBM
- Is Watson Smart Enough To Breathe Life Into IBM?
White believes that given IBM’s relative absence in the Enterprise SaaS solutions market, the deal is not likely to run into anti-trust roadblocks. He feels Workday’s growth in the SaaS space will complement IBM’s aim to provide a flexible cloud structure and help establish a noteworthy footprint in the space. Drexel Hamilton has a Buy rating and a 12-month target price of $186 on IBM. The stock closed at just above $159 in trading yesterday.
- IBM launches flash arrays for smaller enterprises, aims to court EMC, Dell customers
The company is also aiming a migration program designed to poach customers from the likes of Dell and EMC. IBM’s “Flash In” migration program is carried out by its various partners. Via Flash In, IBM is looking to integrate its systems with storage rivals or replace them.
IBM launched the Storwize V7000F and Storwize 5030F as mid-range and entry level flash systems. The systems come with Spectrum Virtualize, which is software designed for data compression, provisioning, and snapshots across various systems.
- IBM looks to take advantage of Dell EMC ‘disruption’
Channel players not already involved with IBM are also being invited to the party. “Business partners looking to add IBM as a strategic vendor will find a set of comprehensive benefits that compare very favourably to what they may experience today,” said IBM.
Up to 80 percent of IBM all-flash storage is sold by IBM Business Partners. “The IBM Flash In initiative will amplify the company’s all-flash offensive to help Business Partners reach new clients not currently served by IBM, and clients who may face potential disruption if there are product portfolio integrations with Dell and EMC,” the vendor said.
http://www.channelbiz.co.uk/2016/08/23/ibm-looks-to-take-advantage-of-dell-emc-disruption/
- IBM Named a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for its Flash Storage Solutions
IBM’s position as a leader comes after it announced the expansion of its FlashSystem portfolio, including DeepFlash andStorwize products, to help clients more quickly extract value from data for competitive advantage. Among the 380 patents that differentiate IBM’s flash products and services are its FlashCore and MicroLatency technologies. Clients rely on these technologies to quickly access the mounting volumes.
- It’s time for all-flash says IBM, but IT chiefs won’t necessarily agree
“As long as your working set size is within your available SSD [in a hybrid flash setup] then everything happening, on for example SQL Server, will be fine. The only time you need all-flash is if you have a large number of SQL datasets that you need access to; in effect requiring random access.”
He added: “Far too many people see it as a panacea but it’s a pointless way of storing lots of data.”
Oracle
- Is Oracle Funding an Anti-Google Group?
The company has stated that it is has funded the Google Transparency Project, which according to its website, “is a research initiative of the Campaign for Accountability, a 501(c)3 project that uses research, litigation and aggressive communications to expose how decisions made behind the doors of corporate boardrooms and government offices impact Americans’ lives.”
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13680655/1/is-oracle-funding-an-anti-google-group-tech-roundup.html
- Why Google Needs to Win the Android Case Against Oracle
So it’s important that these APIs remain neutral so companies can’t fleece the world at large every time they are used. Media reports indicate that courts have thus far ruled in favor of maintaining this neutrality of APIs. And that’s exactly why the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has repeatedly filed amicus curiae (friend/impartial advisor to the court) briefs so the courts hold that APIs aren’t copyrightable and to prevent Oracle from monetizing the Java API through its acquisition of Sun.
And in fact, the case revealed that it was Sun’s practice to allow companies to freely use Java APIs. Sun’s strategy in those days was to use this approach to extend Java’s reach as far as possible so more developers would build on it. The idea was that once the ecosystem gathered momentum, it would help Sun sell other products.
https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/228742/why-google-needs-to-win-the-android-case-against-oracle
- Oracle v. Oregon: Round 1 of Lawsuit Goes to State
Brown and her team denied any agreement had been reached, and the legal battle continues. One of the first decisions in the case was handed down this week in Oregon’s favor. Oracle had asserted that emails were withheld in a way that violated public record laws, but the judge left little doubt as to his decision, saying “Oracle is wrong, both on the law and the facts.”
Microsoft
- Microsoft announces free Windows Server licenses when migrating from VMware
To make more VMware customers switch to Hyper-V, Microsoft is announcing a new VMware migration offer where customers can get Windows Server Datacenter licenses for free when they buy Windows Server 2016 Datacenter and Software Assurance migrating from VMWare. From September 1, 2016, through June 30, 2017, customers who switch from VMware to Hyper-V can avail this offer. Basically, customers has to pay only for Software Assurance which provides benefits including new product version rights, deployment planning, technical and end-user training, support, and a unique set of technologies and services.
http://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-announces-free-windows-server-licenses-migrating-vmware/
- Microsoft buys AI scheduling tool Genee to make Office 365 smarter
The app works by being CCed in emails, and using natural language processing to parse the contents of the email to understand the key requirements for the meeting — and then automatically sending out a meeting invite on your behalf. So it’s arguably an early example of the AI-powered chatbots now springing up all over the place. There are a set of standard commands Genee understands by default but users can also create their own custom commands.
Microsoft notes the tool is “especially useful for large groups for when you don’t have access to someone’s calendar”. Genee’s co-founders, Ben Cheung and Charles Lee, “plan” to join the company, it adds.
- The marriage of Microsoft and Linux
What’s changed for Microsoft and open source in recent years is Microsoft has refocused on solving both its own and customers’ business problems. That means, first, Linux is treated as an equal to Windows. “Microsoft actually uses a lot of Linux in-house. It’s no longer everything has to be run on Windows internally.” Microsoft is doing this because “We’re solving business problems and we’re very pragmatic.”
http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-marriage-of-microsoft-and-linux/
Storage
- 5 Ways the Dell Purchase of EMC Will Benefit VMware
Simplification of the hardware and software stacks. Although the cloud will be a huge part of the future of IT, some companies will still want or need to run applications locally. That fact, combined with the general direction of IT toward simplification, means it’s easy to foresee a tighter integration between Dell, EMC and VMware to simplify application delivery.
https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2016/08/01/dell-purchase-of-emc.aspx
- Dell: EMC Buy Will End Legacy Perceptions Of Dell As A PC Company
While Dell does a lot more than PCs, the company from CEO Michael Dell on down still embraces its pedigree as a major PC vendor, Khan said. “Michael’s goal is to make Dell an end-to-end enterprise solutions company,” he said.
- EMC still hiring in Massachusetts even as Dell merger looms
Officials at EMC have been mum about the company’s headcount, especially in the wake of the merger announcement in October 2015. A spokeswoman for EMC declined to comment on the fact that the firm is still hiring in Massachusetts, saying only that “we’ve made it a practice of not disclosing the number of job openings at any given time.”
The job openings could also signal continued economic development in MetroWest communities, where EMC owns millions of square feet of property, employs thousands of workers and serves as a substantial pillar for the local economy.
Other
- Apple Acquires Personal Health Data Startup Gliimpse
Silicon Valley-based Gliimpse has built a personal health data platform that enables any American to collect, personalize, and share a picture of their health data. The company was started in 2013 by Anil Sethi and Karthik Hariharan. Sethi is a serial entrepreneur who has spent the past decade working with health startups, after taking his company Sequoia Software public in 2000. He got his start as a systems engineer at Apple in the late 1980s.
The acquisition happened earlier this year, but Apple has been characteristically quiet about it. The company has now confirmed the purchase, saying: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
- Is Focus on Shareholder Value Killing Manufacturing?
During the time that shareholder value and stock prices became more important than employees, the U.S. has suffered from:
- Growing Manufacturing Unemployment – From 2000 to 2010 manufacturing lost around 6 million jobs. Since the recovery from the Great Recession only 828,000 employees have been hired in manufacturing.
- Slowing GDP Growth – Since 2000, GDP growth has averaged a very weak 1.8%
Increasing Pay Gap – The wealthiest 1% have captured almost all of the growth in income since the 2008 crash. - Increasing Pay Gap – The wealthiest 1% have captured almost all of the growth in income since the 2008 crash.
- Increasing Offshoring – Outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to low-cost countries has been the most popular strategy, and EPI asserts that between 2000 and 2007 3.6 million manufacturing jobs were lost. After the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2014, another 1.4 million manufacturing jobs were lost.
- Growing Trade Deficit – Our total trade deficit has grown to $10 trillion in the last 30 years.
- Salesforce is suddenly hiring fewer people after spending nearly $4 billion buying companies this year
There are 30% fewer open jobs listed on Salesforce’s website over the past three months, with most of the job reductions occurring since early July, according to a note published on Friday by the market research firm Cowen and Company.
The firm notes that there have also been some “travel restrictions” within the company, citing unnamed sources.
http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-cuts-hiring-after-spending-4-billion-acquisitions-2016-8
- HP Is Running Out of Ink
After the spinoff from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) , 60% of HP’s revenue comes from personal computers and 40% from printing. Of the $1 billion in non-GAAP operating profit last quarter, 77% of the company’s came from printing. Printing had an operating margin of 17.3% and is the biggest contributor to HP’s profits. Printing supplies (ink) makes up 67% of printing revenue.
Meanwhile, Personal Systems, or the personal computer division, represents 23% of profits and carries a slender 3.5% operating margin. Systems generated a profit of $242 million in the second quarter. The division outperformed the market to achieve an overall market share of 19.4%, up 0.4 points.
The company has become number one in commercial PCs, with a market share of 24.6%. Total unit shipments fell 9% last quarter, however. Desktop revenue declined 13% and units shipped ddropped 10%.
http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/08/23/2016/hp-running-out-ink
- Is big data in big trouble?
If you are a technology buyer, you are probably looking beyond these earnings. You are paying attention to the other developments that occurred in this space this summer: Workday acquired Platfora in July, Qlik Tech got absorbed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in June. You might also have heard that Amazon is planning to release its business intelligence visualization solution next month, and you know that both Microsoft and Google already have products in this market.
Betting on one vendor for visualization and business intelligence is becoming increasingly difficult. Rather than worry about the earnings of the industry players, it’s better to focus on their approach and architectural vision instead.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/19/is-big-data-in-big-trouble/
- Tableau has hired longtime AWS executive Adam Selipsky as its CEO
Selipsky has spent more than a decade at AWS. Before that, he was an executive at RealNetworks, leading the video subscription and media player division.
The change is intriguing, particularly given Tableau’s recent financial troubles, said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT.
“Despite continuing customer growth, the company has been struggling, and its shares have lost a substantial percentage of their value in the past year,” King said.
http://www.cio.com/article/3110646/tableau-turns-to-aws-for-a-cloud-savvy-ceo.html
- Cisco wants to be a software company? Why customers should look beyond the hype
So what does it all mean? For Cisco, it all sounds like business as usual. It’s selling as much software as it ever did but that is simply bundled up in a way that shifts the business model away from selling monolithic hardware. This has been happening to lots of tech firms for at least the last decade as any PC hardware firm will attest. Equally, without the hardware and software integration, some of the need for platform-based firms such as Cisco would go away.
Cybersecurity is the perfect example of this trend, a sector in which buying security layers bundled up in boxes has given away to the concept of security as a layer in a software-defined network. The sheer complexity of managing hardware using distinct systems ensured the success of this model.
But what has really changed here is the way software has followed hardware in becoming a commodity. That is what the cloud is: a way of offering complex systems through a consistent set of standards and technologies that let anyone buy the same service for the same price. But the integration between the two remains complex when building network infrastructure, however unsexy that sounds to analysts. Cisco will continue to employ a lot of people who understand how to make the two gel.
- HP Sued for Alleged Age Bias in Mass Layoffs
HP slashed roughly 30,000 jobs in 2012 under CEO Meg Whitman, and has conducted smaller cuts since then. According to the complaint, workers over 40 were “significantly more likely” to have their jobs eliminated under the company’s reduction plan.
A spokesperson for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise denied that age was a consideration in the company’s layoffs. “The decision to implement a workforce reduction is always difficult,” the spokesperson said Monday in an emailed statement, “but we are confident that our decisions were based on legitimate factors unrelated to age.”
Photo: Maximilian Weisbecker
