Microsoft Archives - Page 40 of 41

October 3, 2015October 4, 2015

Supplier Report: 10/3/2015

IBM’s long term plan of IoT, Big Data, and Analytics seems to be getting some traction even during a rough Q3. HP is fighting the ghosts of old decisions as they finalize their big split. While HP celebrates their split, EMC is telling the world they have no intention to follow that strategy.

IBM

IBM Is Fading Back Toward Major Support

As October begins, it appears IBM is headed for its third straight lower monthly low. This current downtrend, which began on July 21 with a huge downside gap, has dropped shares nearly 20%. Late last month, the initial down leg of the post-earnings breakdown found support near $140. IBM began to rebound on Aug. 26, but the upside was well-contained. With very light bullish interest, despite the steep decline from the summer highs, the stock was unable to move past its massive Aug. 24 opening gap. Shares have been trading in a tight range since while the major indices went on to recover most of the mid-August selloff. The significant lagging action continues to weigh on Big Blue and will likely drive it lower in the near term.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13309491/1/ibm-is-fading-back-toward-major-support.html
IBM’s IoT Investments Are About To Pay Off

A recent IDC survey found that nearly 75% of IoT market makers are planning to deploy or have already deployed IoT systems in the next year. This proves that IoT is moving from the planning stage to the action stage, bringing the technology to life. The survey also found that of all industries tied to IoT, transportation and healthcare are furthest along, ready to deploy IoT technologies soonest.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3536076-ibms-iot-investments-are-about-to-pay-off
IBM acquires Meteorix to expand HR service offering

Acquiring Meteorix will make IBM one of the most experienced Workday service providers in the world, the company said, allowing it to better implement the services on behalf of customers thanks to the firm’s team of 200 consultants who specialise in delivering high-value services, while IBM will continue to focus on boosting the sales of Workday.

http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/hr/5397/ibm-acquires-meteorix-to-expand-hr-service-offering
Analytics are better with shared storage and not scale-out, says IBM

[With] Spectrum Scale Native RAID, the cluster data is managed using higher-level erasure codes to protect against multiple disk failures while offering significant disk savings over the 3x replication found in typical HDFS installations. ESS stores data using declustered RAID6 with support for either 2-fault or 3-fault disk fault tolerance… ESS distributes the data and parity information evenly across all disks in the system [which] allows for storage rebuilds triggered by a disk failure to complete faster than traditional RAID rebuilds by distributing the work across many disks rather than just a few.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/02/ibm_analytics_better_shared_storage_not_scaleout/
IBM: Nanotube Breakthrough Will Create Low Power, Faster CPUs

Big Blue is claiming it can not only build carbon nanotube transistors, a claim widely acknowledged as feasible, but it can also connect the nanotubes to other processor components and circuitry, a claim no one else has made so far.

http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/ibm-nanotube-breakthrough-will-create-low-power-faster-cpus/d/d-id/1322455

Hewlett Packard

Autonomy’s Mike Lynch Sues Hewlett-Packard Company For $150M In Damages
The never-ending story continues!
http://www.bidnessetc.com/54054-autonomys-mike-lynch-sues-hewlettpackard-company-hpq-for-150m-in-damages-re/
If Ray Lane hated HP’s Autonomy move so much, how did it happen?

Given Lane and Lesjak’s reticence you have to wonder how and why the deal got pushed through. Current HP chief executive and chairman Meg Whitman was on the board then, as were current directors Marc Andreessen (co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz) and Rajiv Gupta (former chairman of Delphi Automotive).

http://fortune.com/2015/09/28/how-did-hp-autonomy-deal-happen/
HP unveils commercial PC strategy ahead of split

HP has three strategies for its personal systems business. The first is core, or delivering the best price-to-feature. The second is growth, which includes delivering innovative form factors and designs, such as two-in-one convertibles. And the last is the future and to bring disruptive technologies to market, like HP Sprout.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/hp-unveils-commercial-pc-strategy-ahead-of-split-1305422

EMC

EMC executive says breaking up company would be wrong thing to do

We strongly believe breaking up is the wrong thing to do. We think having a better federation is the right way to create value,” David Goulden, Chief Executive of EMC Information Infrastructure, the company’s biggest division, told the Code/Enterprise Series conference in New York.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/29/us-emc-us-breakup-idUSKCN0RT2YQ20150929
EMC’s Most Vitriolic Competitor Is About to Go Public

So, how do EMC and Pure stack up on sales? Pure is growing fast. It hit $174 million in revenue in its Fiscal 2015 (ending Jan. 31), more than four times its $43 million top line in 2014 and an order of magnitude removed from its $6 million in 2013 revenue, according to its S-1.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2015/09/28/emc-vs-pure-storage-ipo-highlights-flash-storage-competitors/

Oracle

Oracle Thumbs Nose At Shareholders On CEO Pay… Again

In an earlier article for Fortune I wrote that, reversing years of ignoring shareholder dissatisfaction with pay, Oracle announced in 2014 that it would reduce stock option grants to Ellison and to Hurd and Catz, seemingly in response to the negative Say on Pay votes. But while that did lead to a pay decrease for Ellison, this was just a miniscule 5% cut because while his options went down he received a $30 million performance stock award that almost made up for it. His pay went from $67 million to $64 million. Performance stock awards for Hurd and Catz more than made up for any reduction in stock options boosting their pay from $37 million each in 2014 to $53 million this year.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3540186-oracle-thumbs-nose-at-shareholders-on-ceo-pay-again
Oracle leads Integrated Platform systems with 54% share

http://www.infotechlead.com/it-statistics/oracle-leads-integrated-platform-systems-with-54-share-34617

Other

Why Microsoft Should Fear Apple & IBM (MSFT)

For a company the size of Apple, $25 billion doesn’t seem like a lot, but it shows just how far the company has come after partnering with IBM last year and receiving heavy criticism in years past for essentially having no enterprise presence whatsoever.

http://investorplace.com/2015/10/apple-ibm-might-cause-havoc-microsoft-stock/
Time for Hadoop to ‘grow up and get real’

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2015/09/30/time-for-hadoop-to-grow-up-and-get-real-bigdatanyc/

Photo: Aaron Burden, StockSnap

September 26, 2015September 25, 2015

Supplier Report: 9/26/2015

It was another big week for IBM and Watson with the announcement of Watson offices moving to Silicon Valley. IBM wants to be close to the disruptions and maybe cause a few. But as businesses expand into the unfamiliar world of AI, cloud, and SaaS, are they locking themselves into environment they can’t get out of easily?

As datacenters and server budgets shrink, is there an exit strategy to the externally hosted ecosystem?

IBM

IBM Watson sharpens its cognitive skills: New APIs help make it more ‘human’

As part of this announcement, IBM also said it will expand the company’s presence in Silicon Valley and the greater Bay Area with a new Watson Hub, South of Market in San Francisco. IBM believes it will put them closer to, and increase collaboration with, the local start ups, developers, venture capital groups, established businesses and academic experts the company is currently working with to take cognitive computing into new markets. The location will also serve as the new global headquarters for IBM Commerce, a high-growth industry opportunity for IBM and Watson. The facility is scheduled to open in early 2016.

http://www.firstpost.com/business/ibm-watson-sharpens-its-cognitive-skills-new-apis-help-make-it-more-human-2445566.html
Watson to become a huge sales engine…

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-09-24/ibm-s-watson-said-to-become-huge-engine-for-sales
Massachusetts gives IBM a $2.5M tax break for absolutely no reason whatsoever

IBM has promised to create 500 new jobs in exchange for its tax break. If they don’t, there will be hell to pay … or at least they’ll have to give back some of the $2.5 million.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2986116/big-data-business-intelligence/massachusetts-gives-ibm-a-2-5m-tax-break-for-absolutely-no-reason-whatsoever.html
IBM boosts security of bring your own cloud apps

The technology helps a company discover the cloud-based apps its employees are using on their computers and mobile devices and then helps roll out a safer way of using them, without impacting productivity. Hosted on IBM Cloud, the solution scans a company’s network to find the apps being used, which are then analysed using deep threat analytics from IBM X-Force.

http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/it-infrastructure/security/5376/ibm-boosts-security-of-bring-your-own-cloud-apps

EMC

Cloud takes a bite out of backup boss EMC’s top line in Q2

The storage titan saw its quarterly sales drop 16.9 per cent annually to $414.4m, and its share of the market came in more than six points lower than in the corresponding period last year. Second-placed Symantec – whose $104.5m revenue accounted for 14.4 per cent of the worldwide total – endured a decline of a comparatively modest 3.7 per cent

They added:

“Focus continues to shift away from hardware-centric, on-premise PBBA systems to hybrid/gateway systems,” she said. “The results [of this] are greater emphasis on backup and deduplication software, the ability to tier or push data to the cloud, and the increasing commoditisation of hardware, all of which require market participants to adjust product portfolios accordingly.”

http://www.channelnomics.eu/channelnomics-eu/news/2426707/cloud-takes-a-bite-out-of-backup-boss-emcs-top-line-in-q2

Hewlett Packard

HP sidesteps specifics on Autonomy’s Cambridge future
As HP starts shedding assets from failed acquisitions (EDS), what happens with the Autonomy product line will be interesting considering the back story on the purchase.
http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/hi-tech/hp-sidesteps-specifics-autonomy%E2%80%99s-cambridge-future
Hewlett-Packard could snap up Stratasys, analyst writes

Tech website ZDnet has a post on the report from Jefferies analyst Jason North, who argued that Stratasys would be the best fit for H-P, which has said it’s open to acquisitions in 3-D printing. Stratasys already has strong tech in the 3-D printing sector and, unlike competitors, has a well-developed reseller network.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/morning_roundup/2015/09/hewlett-packard-could-snap-up-stratasys-analyst.html
HP’s Personal Systems Performance in 3Q15

http://marketrealist.com/2015/09/how-did-hps-personal-systems-performed-in-fiscal-3q15/

Other

Oracle: Taking on AWS head on in cloud

“When you own a hardware company, which Amazon doesn’t, that puts you in a very advantageous position, clearly you don’t abuse that position but we can control margins as tightly as Amazon.

http://www.cbronline.com/news/cloud/public/oracle-taking-on-aws-head-on-in-cloud-4678422
Did Microsoft Corporation Just Become the Best Growth and Income Stock in Tech?

IBM’s cloud results are solid, but Microsoft has taken its cloud sales to a whole, new level. Thanks to its emphasis on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivered via the cloud, Microsoft is on track to generate more than $8 billion in sales annually, putting it squarely at the top of the cloud provider list. Now toss in its 16% dividend hike and annual yield of 3.25%, and Microsoft should also top a growth and income investors buy list.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/23/did-microsoft-corporation-just-become-the-best-gro.aspx
The Long Term Strategic Problem of a Lock-In Strategy

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting story about how Apple creates a “happy trap” with its products so that once people buy-in to the Apple eco-system, they can’t move out without an acceptable amount of pain. This is called a lock-in strategy. IBM’s dominance in the computing space up till almost the end of the 1980s was a showcase of how incredibly profitable and successful this can be. Personally, I’m not a fan of the lock-in strategy. Firms like Oracle pursue this strategy aggressively in the very real hope of gaining a similar result, and they likely will. Tactically, it is brilliant, but IBM’s near failure in the late 1980s was also the result of this same strategy, which showcases that it can also be deadly to the companies that use it.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/unfiltered-opinion/the-long-term-strategic-problem-of-a-lock-in-strategy.html
Red Hat To Be First $2 Billion Open Source Company

Red Hat turned in solid financial results this week as its quarterly subscription revenue rose 13% or $504 million for the second quarter of its fiscal 2016 as CEO Jim Whitehurst and the company’s new CFO, Frank Calderoni, staked out a future for the company in the cloud operations.

http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/platform-as-a-service/red-hat-to-be-first-$2-billion-open-source-company/d/d-id/1322297
Splunk’s Marc Olesen: The man offering 100% uptime SLAs in the cloud

Can anything in technology be 100% certain? Olesen seems to think so. It’s a convincing pitch. For one, Amazon Web Service’s has effective failover strategies in place. Splunk is using its own product to monitor performance and incidents, which Olesen says gives him and his team additional assurances.

http://diginomica.com/2015/09/25/splunks-marc-olesen-the-man-offering-100-uptime-slas-in-the-cloud/
Hadoop is slowly eating conventional analytics

The major Hadoop vendors say Hadoop is not an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) solution, nor does it replace EDW solutions. That’s because Hadoop providers want to co-sell with Teradata and IBM Netezza, despite hawking products that are increasingly eating into the market established by the big incumbents.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2985538/application-development/hadoop-is-slowly-eating-conventional-analytics.html

Here is an interesting white paper on the topic:
http://gsl.azurewebsites.net/Portals/0/Users/dewitt/Papers/Hadoop/cacm2010.pdf

August 8, 2015August 8, 2015

Supplier Report: 8/8/2015

IBM is making headlines with their one billion dollar purchase of healthcare imaging company Merge. Merge will help Watson learn to look at medical images. That picture ability could very well be developed at on a Mac as IBM agreed to purchase 200,000 Apple computers to replace more than half of their current workforce’s systems.

EMC might get bought by VMware (you heard that right) in some attempt to reorganize post-Tucci. Informatica is going private again taking investment funds from SalesForce and Microsoft.

IBM

IBM is buying Merge for $1B

IBM’s deal with Merge will give them access to over 7,500 U.S. healthcare-related websites. They view the platform as giving them the ability to create more personalized approaches to gather data, analyzing, diagnosing and monitoring specifically in orthopedics, cardiology and radiology.

http://www.morningticker.com/2015/08/ibm-buys-medical-image-company-merge-healthcare/
With $1B Merge buy, IBM hopes to open Watson’s eyes to medical imagery

Right now, Watson can parse unstructured mathematical data and can employ natural language processing to read large data sets in written form. But IBM researchers estimate that medical images account for at least 90 percent of all medical data today, and images aren’t currently something Watson can work with. Using Merge’s software and datasets, Watson will be able to scan medical images, like X-rays, brain scans, or dermatological images, and compare them to a database of historical images, in order to detect anomalies or historical correlations.

http://mobihealthnews.com/45887/with-1b-merge-buy-ibm-hopes-to-open-watsons-eyes-to-medical-imagery/
IBM’s Mac-Friendly Cloud Service Targets Enterprise IT

This new offering from IBM MobileFirst Managed Mobility Services is designed to help large enterprises incorporate Macs within their IT infrastructures – a rising requirement, as more clients adopt or allow the use of Macs by their employees. Shipments of Macs are growing faster than the industry average, and the Mac has outgrown the PC industry every year for the last decade.

http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/it-strategy/ibms-mac-friendly-cloud-service-targets-enterprise-it/d/d-id/1321629
IBM is full of hot air (US gives IBM $4.5M on Methane research)

IBM will work closely with Princeton and Harvard universities to develop “An Intelligent Multi-modal Methane Measurement System” to enable low-cost methane sensing to improve on existing methods that tend to use lots of energy and costly processes.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/money/companies/ibm/2015/08/07/us-grants-ibm-45-million-methane-research/31276843/
Over half of IBM’s 380,000 workers could soon be on MacBooks (I was right, it was over 100,000K)
http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/5/9099451/ibm-apple-enterprise-macbooks

EMC

VMware to acquire EMC?

Inverting the company to make VMware the pinnacle would send a message that says storage hardware is not the future and virtualisation/cloud (whatever that means) is where the world is headed. How would the partner relationship be affected? I suspect potentially less than in the case of an EMC acquisition as VMware would be selling storage and co-operating with partners, so called co-optition.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vmware-acquire-emc-chris-m-evans
EMC II, VMware and the future: Unpicking the house that Joe built

There’s a case to be made that part of the reason for the Federation structure was that Tucci could not pick a single successor who would obtain the respect of the others and keep the EMC house that Joe had built in one piece. Only Joe could hold the whole caboodle together, and so the Federation came into being, with David, Pat, and Paul all getting CEO rank – and real, or near-as-dammit CEO responsibility – under Joe’s control.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/06/emc_federation_future_musings/

Other

A first: Microsoft inches past IBM in annual revenue
Microsoft revenues now stand at $93.58 billion annually, compared to $92.79 billion for IBM.
http://fortune.com/2015/08/05/microsoft-inches-past-ibm-in-revenue/
Gartner Seeing Steady Increase in Inquiries About Cancelling Maintenance Agreements with ERP Vendors

“Enterprise software licensees are struggling with the low value and poor service received from increasingly expensive vendor annual maintenance fees and this report verifies that many licensees are actively considering independent support options,” said Seth Ravin, CEO, Rimini Street. “Rimini Street offers Oracle and SAP licensees a more robust service offering, a more responsive service model, exceptional client value and the ability to free up funds to drive innovations the business needs today. We are proud to have already helped nearly 1,100 clients, including more than 100 Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 100 organizations, achieve maximum value from their IT investments.”

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150805006713/en/Gartner-Steady-Increase-Inquiries-Cancelling-Maintenance-Agreements
Microsoft and Salesforce take a piece of Informatica

Informatica has been taken back into private hands at a price of $5.3 billion (around £3.42 billion, or AU$7.18 billion) that was part funded by Microsoft and Salesforce. It isn’t a surprise that Microsoft and Salesforce are on the purchase bandwagon given that both already do a fair bit of work with Informatica on data integration technology and Informatica’s cloud tools are built on Amazon Web Services.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/microsoft-and-salesforce-take-a-piece-of-informatica-1301320
We should drop the term ‘big data’, experts suggest

Teradata Corp chief technology officer Stephen Brobst said that one of the biggest mistakes companies make is that they tend to put too much focus on the technology. “It’s not just about the technology; it’s more about value creation. Big data initiatives should not be technology-led; they should be led by value creation,” he said at a roundtable discussion in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/tech-gadgets/article/we-should-drop-the-term-big-data-experts-suggest

May 23, 2015May 23, 2015

Supplier Report: 5/23/2015

Several companies are moving into the OpenStack cloud platform. In last week’s report, I covered Oracle’s openstack plans, this week both IBM and EMC released offerings as well.

HP’s recent performance earnings indicate that the company is in a slump. Down 21% from this time last year, the company seems to be in a daze before its historical split.

The rumors of Salesforce being purchased reached a peak with reports that Microsoft making a $55B offer for the company, which was rejected due to SalesForce wanting something closer to $70B.

IBM

Unusual IBM Breach Could Make Coverage Ruling An Outlier

In a closely watched case, the Connecticut high court unanimously found Monday that Federal Insurance Co. and Scottsdale Insurance Co. don’t have to cover losses stemming from a data breach that occurred when a cart holding computer tapes with IBM employees’ sensitive information fell out of the back of a transportation contractor’s van near a highway exit ramp. About 130 of the tapes, which contained the Social Security numbers, birth dates and contact information of 500,000 past and present IBM workers, were taken from the roadside by an unknown person.

http://www.law360.com/articles/657168/unusual-ibm-breach-could-make-coverage-case-an-outlier
IBM is bringing OpenStack to SoftLayer (Oracle last week and IBM this week)

Rather than using a single cloud provider, enterprises want to hedge their bets and spread workloads across multiple providers, or between a cloud provider and an in-house deployment. This year, 82 percent of organizations will adopt a multi-cloud strategy, up from 74 percent in 2014, according to a survey from cloud management services provider RightScale.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/575370/ibm-brings-openstack-its-softlayer-cloud/
Around 90 Inverclyde jobs axed as IBM moves roles to Bulgaria

Most of the affected workers are employed by agency Manpower on behalf of IBM, which refused to comment on the employees facing the cuts.

http://news.stv.tv/west-central/1321243-around-90-inverclyde-jobs-axed-as-ibm-moves-roles-to-bulgaria/
Dubuque officials say national IBM article was a ‘hatchet job’

Both articles cited the decline in workers from a peak of 1,300 to 625, as well as the state and local incentives offered prior to the company’s arrival. The articles also referenced a recent letter from U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that questioned company leaders’ request to hire workers on temporary foreign visas while laying off other employees.

http://www.thonline.com/news/dubuque/article_433b7c36-0015-11e5-8fae-0b042e6f27ae.html
And so it begins: The first IBM/Apple iWatch app:

Hospital RN is an app that allows nurses to do their jobs more efficiently by providing them with on-the-go data and alerts.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/wearables/apple-and-ibm-mobilefirst-apps-hit-the-apple-watch-1294759

EMC

EMC also offers two OpenStack solutions

EMC’s rapid acceleration into the OpenStack community and open source communities in general is in part due to its OpenStack Cloud reference architectures, its new software defined storage controller CoprHD, EMC {Code}, its newly launched EMC CloudFoundry Dojo, and EMC’s recent OPNFV Sponsorship. EMC also recently releases two new driers for the Kilo release, Cinder and Manila.

http://www.storagereview.com/emc_announces_two_new_openstack_solutions

Hewlett-Packard profit, sales drop ahead of split

The company, based in Palo Alto, California, said Thursday that net income in the fiscal second quarter fell 21 per cent to $US1 billion, or 55 US cents a share, from the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue fell 7 per cent to $US25.5 billion.

http://www.afr.com/technology/technology-companies/hewlettpackard-profit-sales-drop-ahead-of-split-20150521-gh76pw
HP is selling off server tech to China too

Hewlett-Packard is giving up control of $4.5 billion business in hopes of staying in the Chinese market, to an extent. It is selling 51 percent of its networking and server operations to the country to an arm of Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1366011-hp-joins-ibm-in-selling-off-server-tech-to-china/
HP storage revenues declining as the dithering continues (many companies like NetApp are taking a hit right now)

Overall storage revenues of $740m were 8.4 per cent down on the year-ago’s $808m. It wasn’t the worst part of HP’s Enterprise Group business, where revenues declined one per cent on the year to $6.6bn.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/22/hp_storage_hits_the_doldrums/

Other

Lenovo misses forecast due to Motorola and IBM server deals:

The Beijing-based company closed it’s $2.1 billion acquisition of IBMs server unit in October, and also its purchase of Motorola for $2.9 billion, adding to the lower profits for the year that ended on March 31st. Analysts however had forecast a net profit slightly higher at $857 million. Lenovo’s revenue in the 2014/2015 financial year rose 20% to $46.3 billion as the company expanded its share of the shrinking PC market to a fifth. In Q4, revenue rose 21% to $11.3 billion.

http://www.streetwisejournal.com/lenovo-misses-forecasts/10746/
Wipro, IBM, other India-based outsourcers captured 23% of top 100 deals in 2014

India-based outsourcers such as Wipro accounted for a large chunk of the global outsourcing contracts with 23 per cent share of the total contract value (TCV) of top 100 deals in 2014, research firm IDC said today.

http://www.financialexpress.com/article/companies/wipro-ibm-other-india-based-outsourcers-captured-23-of-top-100-deals-in-2014/74319/
Report: Microsoft, Salesforce were far apart on price in deal talks

The two sides failed to reach a deal and talks broke off, the financial news network reported. Microsoft was said to be willing to offer about $55 billion, while Salesforce is said to have held out for as much as $70 billion.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/report-microsoft-salesforce-were-far-apart-on-price-in-deal-talks/
Salesforce, Microsoft gain share in CRM market, SAP, Oracle,

IBM dipSalesforce.com has increased its share in the global CRM software market to 18.4 percent in 2014 from 16.3 percent in 2013. Microsoft increased the CRM software share to 6.2 percent from 5.8 percent. The share of IBM dropped to 3.8 percent from 3.9 percent.

http://www.infotechlead.com/it-statistics/salesforce-microsoft-gain-share-in-crm-market-sap-oracle-ibm-dip-30232

January 30, 2015February 1, 2015

Supplier Report: 1/30/2015

IBM
Even though IBM has refuted reports of a massive layoff, reports continue to come in. Something to keep an eye on.

[Note: The blogger who broke the story still maintains that major reductions (10k) have started]

Follow-up from last week: IBM Staff reductions much smaller than first reported:

“IBM does not comment on rumours, even ridiculous or baseless ones,” the company said in an email to Reuters. “If anyone had checked information readily available from our public earnings statements, or had simply asked us, they would know that IBM has already announced the company has just taken a $600-million charge for workforce rebalancing. This equates to several thousand people, a small fraction of what’s been reported.”

http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/big-blue-layoffs-much-smaller-than-reported-ibm/101320
IBM to introduce 12 new apple apps:

The apps will include functions for new industries like health care, energy and utilities, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said on the company’s earnings call Tuesday. New customers include Florida’s Miami-Dade County and teen retailer American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (AEO)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-27/apple-ibm-to-introduce-12-new-apps-for-business-this-quarter.html
IBM workforce rebalance may hit Indian staffers hard (potentially 5k employees):

According to multiple sources at IBM India, “The appraisal period is just getting over and the fear is that the number of employees who may be asked to leave this year could be higher than last year.” They added: “However, we don’t see any other metrics beyond the regular performance evaluation one for these exits.”

http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/ibm-workforce-rebalancing-might-hit-more-indian-staffers-115012800010_1.html

Oracle

Is Ellison overpaid?
Another scenario of investor shenanigans…

Jackson said that in their view, even if PGGM and Railways Pension do not own a massive stake in Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) between the both of them, they are representing the majority of shareholders in the company which may have these issues with the way the software company is run. She said that they could have partnered with other substantial shareholders, but PGGM and Railways Pension are the groups which have been consistently been bringing up these issues in the past years.

http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/is-oracle-corporation-orcls-ellison-overpaid-catherine-jackson-thinks-so-338531/
Oracle stock remains strong:

Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) dropped slightly amid mild profit booking and the last known price was $43.9 per share. The price decreased by -0.29 points or -0.66% which made the investors to buy on weakness. For the latest trading session, the net money flow was recorded at $19.39 million. The total upticks were valued at $78.32 million and the total downticks aggregated to $58.93 million, thereby putting the up/down ratio at 1.33, implying that stock remains inherently strong. The counter has seen a change in the share price of -0.66% on a weekly basis.In a big block trade which occurred today, the total uptick value was $27.18 million and the total downtick value was $13.89, resulting in an up/down ratio of 1.96. The net money flow for the block trade was calculated to be $13.3 million.

http://stafforddaily.com/oracle-corporation-witness-large-inflow-of-money/322095/

HP reveals more about what happens after the split…

It appears that Whitman got first dibs when it came to assembling her team for HP Enterprise. Roles for CFO, general counsel and chief marketing officer have yet to be filled at HP inc

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/hp-reveals-more-about-what-s-coming-after-split-1282247
More of the executive structure of the two companies:
http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300075496/hp-names-top-executive-lineup-for-its-two-new-fortune-50-companies.htm

Other

Now that Lenovo bagged IBM’s X86 server business, what now?
Company is looking at going after the storage market…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/26/with_ibm_x86_bagged_how_does_lenovo_view_the_storage_market/
Microsoft going after Tableau and other BI companies by offering free tools

The market for business intelligence and analytics software is projected to expand to $21.4 billion in 2018 from $14.8 billion in 2014, according to IDC, as companies look for ways to easily gain insights for reams of data being collected from other business applications, websites, mobile devices and sensors. The new Power BI will be able to pull data from all of those sources.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-27/microsoft-makes-data-analysis-tools-free-to-attract-customers.html