Tag: Microsoft

Posted on

Supplier Report: 1/16/2016

sn_bigstar_Greg Rakozy

IBM is looking for trouble… or at least fraud.  The company purchased Iris Analytics, a company that developed a real-time fraud engine for machine learning.  I guess Watson really will be Watson-esque. IBM also topped US patent creation list (again).

HPI did not have good news during the holidays, PC sales slipped (except for Apple), while HPE looks to sell of their stake in MPhasis ($1B).

EMC has a new CIO and Microsoft dropped their cloud fees to be more competitive with Amazon.

IBM

HP Inc | Hewlett Packard Enterprise

  • Apple leads holiday PC shipments despite market contraction

    Market leaders Lenovo, HP Inc. and Dell all faced decreases, with Lenovo’s shipments declining to 15.4 million from 16.1 million, HP’s dipping to 14.2 million from 15.4 million and Dell’s dimming to 10.2 million from 10.8 million. The fourth quarter marked the fifth straight quarter of worldwide PC declines, and Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said holiday sales “did not boost” the market.

    http://www.forextv.com/market-news/apple-leads-holiday-pc-shipments-despite-market-contraction/

  • HP Inc. Is Cheap, But Is That Enough?

    In the medium to longer term, it’s also worth thinking about whether the strong improvements in battery life enabled by newer generations of chips will continue to extend the refresh cycle over time. Think about it – old laptops that had 2-3 hour battery life to start with left you with battery anxiety within a few years. Now that smaller, more power-efficient laptops can get double or triple that battery life, there may not be as much need for personal users to replace laptops as quickly. This article from Digital Trends demonstrates the rapid improvements in battery life over just the past few years – and indications are that Intel’s Skylake chips will continue the trend of Haswell and Broadwell toward greater efficiency.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3803146-hp-inc-is-cheap-but-is-that-enough

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to Sell ($1B) Stake in Mphasis?

    Hewlett-Packard purchased Mphasis when it acquired Electronic Data Systems in 2008 for approximately $13.9 billion. At the time, the company’s Technology Solutions Group segment shifted its outsourcing services operations and a part of its consulting and integration activities to Electronic Data. The Indian company has since functioned as an independent subsidiary of Hewlett Packard. The sale of Mphasis comes at a time when the company is attempting to restructure its IT consulting and services group. Hewlett-Packard stated that it was planning to shed around 25,000 to 30,000 jobs in its enterprise business.

    http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/203493/hewlett-packard-enterprise-hpe-to-sell-stake-in-mphasis

EMC | Dell

Other

Photo: Greg Rakozy

Posted on

Supplier Report: 11/7/2015

sn_edisonbulb_JoshByers

IBM purchased another company named Gravitant this week.  It helps customers select cloud services from a variety of providers (and is a cloud service itself).  I know I keep saying this, but IBM is consistent with their purchases: Cloud, Analytics (Big Data), and IoT.  Now I want to see all the pieces put together.

And when you have it all together, then you break it apart.  HPE announced the departure of their CIO on the first official business day as Hewlett Packard Enterprises.  The market seems to be down on HPE at the moment, while their sister company HP Inc gained on their opening day despite concerns about the health of the PC and printer markets.

The Dell/EMC acquisition continues to befuddle me.  Rumor has it that Dell is looking to sell off $10B in assets (wise move) to pay down their massive debt.  They are also looking to rush a startup that EMC and VMWare (and GE) created called Pivotal to IPO to help generate additional funds.  So… Dell goes private and loves it, they are buying EMC and taking them private (presumably), but they are KEEPING VMWare public, and starting another company with the EMC asset and doing an IPO… that made my fingers hurt.

IBM

  • IBM’s Shopping Spree Continues As It Buys Cloud Brokerage Firm Gravitant

    With Gravitant, it gets cloud brokerage, which helps companies manage cloud purchases across multiple suppliers. IBM plans to fold the new bauble into its IBM Global Technology Services unit. In addition, IBM Cloud plans to add the capabilities to its growing SaaS catalogue.

    That’s like a two for one sale because Gravitant gets sold as an old fashioned service offering, and also as a SaaS product, which plays well into IBM’s overall strategy.

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/03/ibms-shopping-spree-continues-as-it-buys-cloud-brokerage-firm-gravitant/

  • The Mainframe Is a Vampire

    If you looked at the recent IBM numbers, which were pretty painful but in line with what generally happens when a company is adapting to a major industry change, you saw one bright light: their mainframe business was growing faster than the server segment in general is growing.

    In fact, with the massive growth of web services, it has been hard for the server segment to get out of the low single digits. But once you adjusted for currency fluctuations, mainframes (IBM’s System Z) were up a whopping 20 percent. That’d be impressive server growth in a good year, for what has been a really soft year for servers, 20 percent growth is outstanding.

    http://www.datamation.com/commentary/the-mainframe-is-a-vampire.html

  • Why the IBM – Weather Company purchase is a big deal (shameless plug: I cover this topic on the SourceCast podcast episode #3, which will go live tomorrow… so visit again!)

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-11-05/ibm-to-buy-weather-company-why-that-s-a-big-deal
  • IBM Watson is going to change how you think about the weather (Here is a non-video article that says similar (internet of) things)

    The focus at IBM is not so much in getting Watson involved in making better weather forecasts, but in putting the world’s most famous supercomputer to work in mining epic amounts of data in order to help businesses come up with actionable insights about the weather on both a real-time and long-term basis.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/11/05/ibm-watson-is-going-to-change-how-you-think-about-the-weather/

EMC/Dell

  • Pivotal IPO Could Make Dell-EMC Deal Even More Complicated

    As a reminder, EMC owns 80 percent of VMware, which is operated and traded as an independent company. When Dell agreed to buy EMC for $67 billion last month the deal included VMware, which Dell has said it wants to continue operating in the same fashion.

    Pivotal is itself a joint venture of EMC and VMware along with GE (which owns around 10 percent). The plan could call for EMC to sell about 20 percent of its ownership stake as an IPO, which is similar to what it did when it took VMware public in 2007, according to the re/code article.

    If this is true, it’s just another case of this deal getting ever more muddled with multiple layers of ownership, all pointing back to Dell, which if this closes is the ultimate decider here. Let’s not forget, however that EMC has a clause in its agreement that if it gets a better offer than the $67 billion that Dell offered it, it could take that deal.

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/03/pivotal-ipo-could-make-dell-emc-deal-even-more-complicated/

  • Dell planning to sell off $10 billion in assets (rumor)
    It is too early to say I called it, but keep watching for news like this…

    Reuters reports the PC vendor is planning this to reduce the heavy debt load it will be taking on to buy data storage company EMC for around £44 billion. In 2007, EMC sold 19 percent of VMware shares in an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. A successful Pivotal IPO could potentially raise billions in new capital

    http://financialspots.com/2015/11/04/dell-planning-to-sell-off-10-billion-in-assets-rumour/

    Here is more information on the sell off providing possible asset targets:

    Unnamed sources told Reuters that Dell will take on about $49.5 billion after it completes the $67 billion acquisition of EMC and its federated companies sometime next year. Selling such assets as its Quest software business (for systems management), SonicWall (network security) and AppAssure (data backup) will help the company reduce the debt load, according to the sources.

    http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/dell-reportedly-to-sell-software-assets-to-ease-debt-from-emc-deal.html

Hewlett Packard (HPE & HPI)
Note: I suspect my coverage of HP Inc will dwindle with time, but for now, I will cover both companies.  

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise Loses CIO As It Charts New Course

    Ralph Loura, who had served as chief information officer of the enterprise business of HP for the past 15 months, has left the company. “I had an impact while there [and] I helped design the new op model for IT, and designed myself out of it because it was what the new company needed (move from a federated model with group CIOs, to a unified/centralized model with a single CIO),” he wrote to CRN.

    http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300078699/hewlett-packard-enterprises-loses-cio-as-it-splits-from-the-former-hp.htm

  • Why JPMorgan Is Cautious On HP Inc (HPQ)

    The skeptical view taken by the firm comes on the back of PC data, which is hardly reassuring. Seagate and Western Digital both guided for a decline in HDD TAM for the fourth quarter. Intel reported a 19% YoY decline in its PC shipments for 3QFY15 worse than the 10% decline witnessed in 2QFY15. Desktops and Notebooks posted even worse numbers and there is scarcely anything notable that stirs confidence. While HDD companies see signs of stabilization, analysts at JPMorgan are far from convinced and expect more macro instability.

    http://www.businessfinancenews.com/25953-why-jpmorgan-is-cautious-on-hp-inc-hpq/

    However, On Monday, the stock market reacted like this (per USA Today):

    HPQ, which sells PCs and printers, soared 13%, to $13.83; HPE, responsible for commercial computer systems, software and services,  fell 1.6% $14.49. Both stocks are trading on the S&P 500.

Other

  • Why Billionaire Trader Stan Druckenmiller Believes In Amazon And Not IBM

    “We are in a bubble in what I would call short term behavior,” Druckenmiller said. To reinforce the point Druckenmiller gave a negative assessment of IBM, which he said has missed earnings only three times over the past nine years and is in the process of buying back billions in stock, and a bullish view on Amazon.com… the difference? While IBM is cutting R&D spending against a shrinking base of sales, Amazon has doubled that spending as a percentage of sales even as they’ve grown at double digit rates. “I love Amazon. They are investing on the future,” Druckenmiller said, before quipping, “Bezos is a serial monopolist.”

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2015/11/03/billionaire-trader-stan-druckenmiller-says-hes-long-growth-stocks-short-value-stocks/

  • Will NoSQL be the undoing of Oracle’s database reign?

    What’s most interesting in all this is how database popularity, broadly measured, compares with Gartner’s newly released Operational Database Magic Quadrant. TechRepublic contributor Janakiram MSV has captured five big takeaways from Gartner’s report, but here’s a sixth:The database vendors that embrace NoSQL are destined to be the long-term winners.

    Photo: DB-Engines
    Photo: DB-Engines

    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/will-nosql-be-the-undoing-of-oracles-database-reign/

  • Why Did Microsoft Corporation Paint Its Cloud Red?

    As part of the deal, Microsoft will feature Red Hat’s Linux as a “preferred” option for enterprise computing jobs on Azure. The deal comes in as a surprise for many as the companies have historically had differing stances on software patents and usage. Red Hat has always encouraged open-source softwares that can be distributed widely and can be modified. Microsoft, on the other hand, has been against it. Interesting to note is the fact that a separate technical team will be built from employees of both companies to solve the customer issues more efficiently.

    http://www.businessfinancenews.com/25978-why-did-microsoft-corporation-paint-its-cloud-red/

  • Teradata Plans to Sell Its $200 Million Marketing Application Business. Any Takers?

    According to financial statements within the Teradata announcement, Marketing Applications revenue was down about 9% this year, which is surprising in a generally strong martech market but in line with the rest of Teradata’s business. Teradata told me separately that their marketing cloud business grew 22% year-on-year this quarter, suggesting that the decline came in the older, on-premise products and/or related services. As you may know, Teradata’s marketing applications business was a mashup of the original Teradata marketing products, developed over the past 20 years and largely on-premise, and the Aprimo cloud-based systems acquired for $525 million in 2010. The Aprimo group was dominant in the years immediately following the acquisition but control shifted back to the older Teradata team more recently. One bit of evidence: the Aprimo brand was dropped in 2013.

    http://customerthink.com/teradata-plans-to-sell-its-200-million-marketing-application-business-any-takers/

Photo: Josh Byers

Posted on

Supplier Report: 10/17/2015

sn_watch_FrankPark

Everybody is talking about EMC. Meg is. Ginny is. The news (clearly) is.  Nobody knows what the end picture will look like, but wow… that sure is a chunk of debt (interest payments alone are $2.5B annually).

While attention is focused on EMC, IBM is about to release their Q3 results.  Could this be the bottom for their losses?

Microsoft is making grounds in the cloud space against Amazon while Red Hat announces a new acquisition in Ansible.

IBM

EMC

  • Dell-EMC: What Storage Customers Should Do

    This shouldn’t panic users, but users — especially big ones and those whose software or infrastructure stacks are dependent on particular Dell or EMC products —  should take the year or so that it will take before Dell-EMC is fully baked to reevaluate their infrastructure vendor list and product choices. One of my close friends, who runs storage at a company that spends several million dollars a year with EMC told me he got an email from senior management asking how the deal might affect their company; their plan is to add another storage vendor to hedge their bets.

    http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage/dell-emc-what-storage-customers-should-do/a/d-id/1322681

  • Why Did VMware (VMW) Plunge 8.1% on EMC-Dell Deal?

    An important thing to note here is that Dell will not be offering the regular trading stocks for VMware. Instead, the company will be issuing tracking stock that would reflect the performance of the trading stock. This will entitle EMC shareholders to have only economic interest in the trading stock but not own them (that is no voting rights or dividends). The absence of rights also makes some analysts speculate that the tracking stock might likely trade at a discount to the trading stock.

    http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/193486/why-did-vmware-vmw-plunge-81-on-emcdell-deal

  • EMC acquisition: Is it a good deal for Dell?

    Both vendors have acquired higher value software, although VMware eclipses all the software deals of Dell such as SecureWorks and Quest. Yet for the deal to work, its needs to benefit from economies of scale and this will probably mean a reduction in headcount and product portfolio where there is duplication. Mid-level marketing, sales and administrative tasks are also ripe for some cost cutting. But nobody should expect a repeat of the bloodbath happening at HP which says it expects to cut 58,000 jobs by end of fiscal year 2015. Dell is already pretty lean as is EMC. The federation model of EMC also means that that headline staffing numbers are relatively svelte as it stands.

    http://www.channelpro.co.uk/opinion/9496/emc-acquisition-is-it-a-good-deal-for-dell

HP Enterprises

Other

Photo: Frank Park

Posted on

Supplier Report: 10/10/2015

sn_axe_danedwards

It was a very interesting news week.  The big talk going into the weekend is that Dell is making a play for EMC.  Dell would have to borrow a substantial amount of money to make this happen, and the rumor is that they are only interested in certain pieces, potentially breaking up Joe’s empire.

Speaking of empire building, Amazon is coming on strong this week with the announcement of their own IoT environment strategy AND a strategic partnership with Accenture to sell services.  This is a very interesting combination that demonstrates Amazon’s desire to overtake the enterprise market.

Microsoft also made waves with their laptop announcement.  As Microsoft unleashes their own products and hardware to go against Apple, what is left for HP Inc, Lenovo, and Dell?

Oh yeah, and IBM is creating AI to eliminate everybody’s job… just kidding (or so Ginny says).

IBM

EMC

  • Wait… there is EMC talks that don’t involve divesting or mergers with HP?

    The details surrounding this proposed merger are still very sketchy, with CNBC reporting that Dell would have to pay north of $27 a share, and the WSJ suggesting that Dell may only be interested in “parts” of EMC. Regardless, if Dell acquires EMC or picks off its best parts, there isn’t much investment upside beyond the short-term buyout pop that is likely already priced in EMC stock. However, if EMC acquires Dell, it could be a different story. Further, the Dell and EMC merger would be bad for the likes of HP and IBM.

    http://investorplace.com/2015/10/dell-emc-merger-great-fit-bad-hp-ibm/

  • More on the potential merger:

Hewlett Packard

  • Apple Can’t Kill Microsoft But It’s Crushing HP

    PC sales have declined as consumers flock to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Android devices instead. Gartner’s data is just the latest example of the personal computer’s secular fall and is bad news for Lenovo, the top PC maker with 20% market share, and Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), the PC maker in second place. Weak PC sales have been killing Hewlett-Packard as shares are off more than 26% year to date. Microsoft has done reasonably well with its shares up 4.23% year to date, as the company’s Office and Server products are more than offsetting Windows’ decline. Investors can only hope Hewlett-Packard’s additional layoffs and cost control measures will turn things around for the giant.

    http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/apple-cant-kill-microsoft-but-its-crushing-hp-376244/

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