SourceCast: Episode 20: Under Pressure
Supplier Report: 3/19/2016
I know this is going to come as a surprise to frequent readers… IBM bought another company. GASP! How could we have predicted such a move?
IBM purchased Optevia, a British CRM integration company that is based in the UK. Their focus has historically been government-based CRM configurations… so this is a very specific acquisition and I am curious to see how this asset will play globally.
Microsoft is trying to play nice and win friends, and that means the (formerly) mean kid on the block is giving away free cake SQL seats. HPE and Dell are looking to sell off a few unwanted assets (and by assets I mean whole companies).
Apple is taking business away from Amazon and giving it to Google. Microsoft and Amazon are teaming up to go after Oracle (on hosting and software). IBM’s Watson is under attack from one of its founders.
IBM
- Is the Latest Acquisition by IBM a Game Changer?
The addition of Optevia is likely to benefit IBM considering the fact that its current SaaS CRM products lack focus on public sector entities right now. Optevia, being a specialist in the field will provide IBM with much needed diversification and potential growth in its cloud portfolio.
http://www.businessfinancenews.com/28272-is-the-latest-acquisition-by-ibm-a-game-changer/
Related:
IBM buys CRM SaaS firm – no, not SalesforceIt’s an interesting purchase. Consulting giant Accenture last year bought Salesforce partners Tquila and Cloud Sherpas, also on G-Cloud. Salesforce, of course, is the fastest-growing and best known of the CRM-as-a-service lot.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/18/ibm_buys_microsoft_dynamics_crm_partner/
- IBM is battling hard to save Vodafone’s $1-billion outsourcing deal
“Even if IBM does retain most of the contract, the renewed deal will come at the cost of margins. They are being forced to fight on price as well,” said one of the sources. As of now, Vodafone hands out $190-200 million of annual business to IBM.
- IBM Board Paid Itself $4.9 Million
IBM’s board members are A.J.P. Belda, W.R. Brody, K.I. Chenault, M.L. Eskew, D.N. Farr, A. Gorsky, S.A. Jackson, A.N. Liveris, W.J. McNerney Jr., J.W. Owens, J.E. Spero, S. Taurel and P. Voser.
http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2016/03/11/ibm-board-paid-itself-4-9-million/
- Watch out Watson, Google’s DeepMind is getting smarter…
For AI researchers and Go aficionados, it is as big a moment as 1997, when Garry Kasparov lost a chess match to Deep Blue, a supercomputer built by IBM. It is much harder to program a computer to play Go than chess—the sheer number of options in every move makes the sort of “brute-force” approach adopted by IBM unfeasible. But DeepMind has managed it. After the match its program, called AlphaGo, was awarded the top professional rank by the Korean Baduk Association (“baduk” being the Korean word for Go.) And it has entered the world rankings in 4th place (see chart).
- IBM quietly built the world’s largest digital agency — here’s how it got there (good summary of all of their marketing moves)
Unlike the competition, iX isn’t trying to ‘bolt on digital’. IBM is not alone in recognizing the business requirements for digital transformation agencies. France-based advertising-agency holding group Publicis Groupe, for example, bought US-based digital-marketing consultancy Sapient for $3.7 billion in 2014, creating what it called the “largest and most advanced” platform focused exclusively on digital transformation.
- IBM server sales surge, closes in on leaders HPE, Dell
Strong growth for IBM’s Power systems and double-digit growth for its z System mainframes have seen IBM record 8.9% server revenue growth in Q4 of 2015, helping it close the gap slightly leaders HPE and Dell. IBM saw its market share rise from 13.7% in Q4, 2014 to 14.1% according to the latest figures from IDC. However, its growth spurt wasn’t enough to oust the incumbents from their top spots, with Dell also recording growth – at 5.3% – which enabled it to hold on to its 16.7% market share, while HPE declined 2.1% but still holds the lead with 24.9% market share, down from 26.8% a year ago.
https://datacenternews.asia/story/ibm-server-sales-surge-closes-leaders-hpe-dell/
Microsoft
- Microsoft offering free SQL Server licenses to help customers “break free from Oracle”
Microsoft has decided to offer free SQL Server licenses for its customers to help with migrating away from Oracle database software. It’s positioning this sale as an opportunity to “break free from Oracle”. This offer is only available to Software Assurance subscribers, which is an enterprise licensing agreement that Microsoft offers to large customers.
http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-offering-free-sql-server-licenses-to-help-customers-break-free-from-oracle
But what is the maintenance impact year-over-year? 🙂 - Microsoft loves open source? Only when it’s convenient
But while this has been going on, you’re not hearing about another part of Microsoft. Simultaneous with the Eclipse and SQL Server announcements, Microsoft announced it had successfully extracted patent licenses out of Wistron of Taiwan for its use of Android and out of Rakuten of Japan for use of Linux and Android. Though there’s been something of a lull in patent aggression lately, it has a long history and generates a significant revenue stream.
Yes, that’s right: With one face, Microsoft wants us to forgive and forget the “cancer” comments, the dirty tricks, and the standards fixing. Even as the body of SCO lays slightly warm following the Redmond-financed fight against Linux, Microsoft wants us to overlook more than a decade of hostility and accept it as a full-status community member because it showed up with code, cash, and compliments. But with the other face, Microsoft wants members of the Android and Linux communities where it claims membership to pay up crates of cash for patent licenses or face destructive litigation.
- What Is Sony’s Incentive To Play Nice With Microsoft For PS4-Xbox One Crossplay?
I know it is odd to have a gaming item on here, but since we are talking about Microsoft’s embrace of open source and the fact that Sony is kicking their butts in the console market, this is a public relations move…For Microsoft to suddenly say “hey guys, don’t worry, you can play all your favorite multiplatform games with your friends on PS4 if you buy an Xbox” helps Microsoft, who is behind, but not Sony, who is ahead. But of course Sony has to agree to this partnership for it to exist at all. If they don’t, Microsoft gets to say “Sony, why are you standing in the way of progress?” but I’m not sure Sony has an adequate reason to agree to this partnership outside of “being nice.” They’re in the lead by a mile, so why let Xbox One get a foothold to try and close the gap by opening up their 35 million PS4 owners as potential playmates for XB1 owners?
Dell | EMC
- Dell plans sale of non-core assets to reduce EMC buy debt
The document is bullish on the synergies that will flow from Dell and EMC merging. But it also points out that Dell will soon have US$59.1bn of debt, which will mean it won’t be flush with cash for the next little while. The document says Denali Holding Inc (DHI), the company that owns Dell, “… has an objective of reducing its indebtedness in the first 18-24 months after completion of the merger and achieving an investment grade credit rating for such indebtedness. The cash necessary to achieve that objective is expected to come from divestitures of non-core businesses of the DHI Group, including EMC, cash flows from operations of the DHI Group and cash generated by reductions in the working capital needed to operate the DHI Group.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/15/dell_plans_sale_of_noncore_assets_to_reduce_emc_buy_debt/
- Dell Aims To Grab Share From Cisco, HPE, Juniper With Aggressive New Rebate
The Round Rock, Texas-based company introduced a 15 percent back-end rebate that effectively more than doubles similar existing rebates and encourages partners to take market share from Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, according to Cheryl Cook, Dell’s vice president of global channels and alliances.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- Blackstone nears deal to buy HP Enterprise stake in India’s MphasiS
Financial details of the possible deal were not immediately known. Based on MphasiS’ stock price on Thursday, the HPE stake in the Bengaluru-headquartered company is valued at about US$940mil (RM3.8bil). The company’s total market value is about US$1.6bil (RM6.49bil).
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s flash storage strategy revealed
He says that early flash solution had a couple of issues. One, they were very expensive, and enterprises were not ready to replace disk in mainstream when flash was priced at par with disk. Another factor was that many of the flash solutions were not scalable and did not have the same reliability as the disk systems and there were big compromises to be made on data services.
- Where Hewlett Packard Enterprise Is Going With Security
Building in security from the ground up is also directly aligned with HPE’s x86 server business. The ability to secure from the infrastructure up to the application and the data layer is seen by Barsamian as being a key differentiator for HPE’s security business. She added that in the software-defined data center of the future, x86 sits not just under compute, but as the basis of software-defined storage and networking as well.
http://www.eweek.com/security/where-hewlett-packard-enterprise-is-going-with-security.html
- Letter: Does HP move foreshadow future?
I didn’t believe the newspaper stories until I received a legal letter confirming that the financial obligations of grandfathered Hewlett-Packard retirement plans were dumped entirely onto the new HP Inc. personal computer and printer business instead of it being shared equally with the newly split off Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. software and services business.
The good news is that these grandfathered plans appear to be fully funded.
The bad news is that a Wall Street reporter recently claimed that HP Inc. is financially “in a freefall.”
Oracle
- Microsoft attacks Oracle with SQL Server 2016 ‘free’ licences
Microsoft is attempting to lure companies to SQL Server 2016 by offering ‘free licences,’ but there is a catch, as customers need to be part of Microsoft’s Software Assurance licencing scheme.This initiative is directed at those organisations which are running applications or workloads on non-Microsoft commercial relational database management systems and offers free SQL Server licences and help to migrate applications. When we look at the web page where the company has detailed the launch, we are able to see what it is planning to do with the free licences.
http://theusbport.com/microsoft-attacks-oracle-sql-server-2016-free-licences/6189
- Oracle Earnings: Can Rising Cloud Make Up For Legacy Fall?
“The stock is down 1.1% since (fiscal 2016’s second-quarter) earnings, outperforming the S&P 500, down 4.0%, given the general rotation out of growth stocks into more value names like Oracle,” wrote Nomura analyst Frederick Grieb in a research note Thursday. “While metrics for cloud revenue growth have been solid, investors remain concerned by what the potential cost will be to the legacy business, as well as the potential impact to margins during the transition.”
- Oracle Corporation: Cloud Growth a Stark Warning for Its Rivals
The highlight of the entire earnings call was the remarkable growth in the cloud business. Revenue from cloud solutions, which includes both software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), grew by 57% year-over-year (YoY) to $583 million. Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle, commenting on the revenue growth from cloud services stated: “This dramatic revenue increase drove our non-GAAP SaaS and PaaS gross margins up to 51% in Q3 as compared with 43% in Q2. Our cloud business is now in a hyper-growth phase.”
http://www.businessfinancenews.com/28233-oracle-corporation-cloud-growth-a-stark-warning-for-its-rivals/
Related:
Larry Ellison explains why Microsoft and Amazon are going for Oracle’s throatMicrosoft Cloud and Enterprise Corporate VP Takeshi Numoto tells Business Insider that its offer has generated a lot of excitement among Oracle customers: “The level of frustration I’ve seen in their customers has been very high.”
Meanwhile, at the very moment Ellison was downplaying Amazon, the company had issued a press release announcing that, during the beta phase alone, it had already moved 1,000 databases to AWS.
http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-on-microsoft-amazon-offers-2016-3
- Oracle says Oregon is obstructing its pursuit of information
Oracle claims that Senior Vice President Ken Glueck and Brian Shipley, Gov. Kate Brown’s then-chief of staff, reached a deal late last year to settle all litigation. Oracle would drop its suits and give the state $25 million worth of products and services. Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has said only she has the authority to settle the lawsuits, not the governor.
Other
- Former Executive on IBM’s Watson to Start Own A.I. Firm
But for Mr. Pratt, leaving to start Noodle meant being able to build a new analytics and A.I. business from the ground up. The company will be based in San Francisco and Bangalore, relying on teams around the world to handle workloads.
- Check Out Amazon’s New Secret Weapon for Winning the Cloud Computing Wars
AWS vice president Adam Selipsky told The Wall Street Journal that “many hundreds” of companies have used an earlier version of the new tool to migrate more than 1,000 databases. “You can clearly see that we’re now getting into the meat of enterprise adoption of the cloud,” he told The Journal.
Last week, Microsoft said the next version of its own database program would include a similar tool. But Amazon’s head start and experience should continue to pay off, according to Hottovy.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/13495642/1/amazon-adds-to-appeal-of-its-cloud-computing-platform.html
- Apple Signs On With Google, Cuts Spending With AWS
Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, which last November hired VMware co-founder and former CEO Diane Greene to lead its cloud business, is said to be aggressively forming partnerships and swinging deals to bring in large enterprise customers. Last month, Google signed up Spotify, which runs part of its streaming music service on AWS, as a cloud customer.
- Tableau Acquires HyPer in a Quest to Enhance Database Computing
Tableau Software has announced the acquisition of HyPer, which is a high-performance database system. HyPer was initially developed as a research project in Technical University of Munich (TUM). Tableau plans to start a research and development center in Munich with the help of key personnel, and expand its research work on high-performance computing. The idea is to integrate HyPer’s technology into Tableau’s products. This will help its customers with faster transaction processing, and in improving the analytics results generated by its own software.
http://www.martechadvisor.com/news/tableau-acquires-hyper-in-a-quest-to-enhance-database-computing/
SourceCast: Episode 18: Eat Your Own Dog Food
Supplier Report: 3/5/2016
IBM is like an elevator at the moment… going both up and down. The company announced job cuts and job growth. IBM’s transformation is becoming more tangible as we can see the humans being impacted (10,000 jobs eliminated in GTS) and growth in others (Watson, Explorys, BI).
We can also see changes at EMC and Dell. The companies announced their combined leadership team post-acquisition as well as some changes in leadership for VMWare.
After HP INC’s bad news last week, the stock market offers some hope to Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Oracle’s hopes of being a solid #2 in the cloud space is evaporating with SAP coming on strong.
IBM
- Explorys added 80 people after IBM deal, expects more growth
Explorys has added about 80 new positions since it was acquired by IBM last May. Now the health care data analytics software company employs about 220 people.
That number is still growing: Explorys had 48 open positions as of Feb. 24, the vast majority of which will be based in Northeast Ohio. The company plans to hire at least 80 people this year, according to CEO Stephen McHale.
- IBM Cuts Jobs In ‘Workforce Rebalancing’
On March 2, he said he began getting hundreds of emails and hundreds of Facebook messages from employees that the layoff had begun. He said the messages conveyed that cuts were hitting GTS and the Global Business Services group, with some additional reports of cuts from the software group and the cloud business. The reports of cuts are coming from workers in the US, France, and the UK. Conrad said he expects to hear more about international layoffs next week, including some from Australia.
Also:
Job cuts are nothing new for IBM. The company was rumored to have engaged in a gigantic job-cut effort in early 2015, too, though no actual numbers were ever confirmed. IBM reduced its 2014 workforce by 12%, from 431,212 in 2013 to 379,592 in 2014, according to numbers provided in its 10-K report.
- IBM Plans to Sell ~$150M Worth of Lenovo Stock
Specifically, IBM will offer 182 million Lenovo shares with a price range of HK$6.26 – HK$6.42. The price is a 6.4 percent discount to Lenovo’s last closing price.
- IBM Creates Breach Response Team With Resilient Systems Acquisition
Last week it was a rumor, this week it is reality…IBM said it plans to use Resilient and its roughly 100 staff – among them security expert Bruce Schneier – as the cornerstone of a new unit called X-Force Incident Response Services, which is to help organisations plan for, manage and respond to cyberattacks, drawing on the skills of about 3,000 consultants and security researchers worldwide.
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/security/ibm-breach-response-resilient-acquisition-187098
- IBM’s Watson Provides Brainpower to Turner
“This solution addresses one of the timeless objectives of marketing leaders—infusing new levels of data and science into advertising decisions,” said Adam Steinberg, VP, IBM Cognitive Business Solutions. “Armed with deep, fact-based recommendations, Turner will hone the precision of every advertising recommendation, and in turn, lift the impact of the customers who place advertising on Turner’s award-winning programming.”
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/currency/ibms-watson-provides-brainpower-turner/154189
- Buffett Did Not Call IBM A Mistake
I wasn’t going to cover this, but there are so many posts saying Buffett called IBM a mistake.If there was anything of value said about IBM, it was that Buffett still thinks it will be worth more in 10 years than it is worth today and that he generally believes the turnaround effort will pan out. It’s worth noting that Charlie Munger, his erstwhile partner, isn’t particularly convinced of that outcome, though it sounds like he’s a far cry from saying IBM was a mistake, too.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3940386-buffett-call-ibm-mistake
- Did IBM Just Go ‘Full Patent Troll’?
In the suit, IBM accuses Groupon’s website and app of using technology built by Prodigy to display content, specifically ads, as well as client tracking technology that monitors “service selections while the client is shopping and then use that information when the client decides to make a purchase,”according to PC World.
http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2016/03/03/ibm-lawsuit-patent-trolls-groupon-over-prodigy-ip/
Dell | EMC
- VMware leadership changes continue as Dell-EMC deal looms
VMware announced Tuesday that its Chief Operating Officer Carl Eschenbach will resign. According to a Fortune report, Eschenbach is moving to become a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital. VMware representatives said Eschenbach’s duties will be distributed among several executives. Zane Rowe, EMC’s CFO, took the reins as VMware’s financial lead Tuesday. CFO Jonathan Chadwick, also co-COO, left VMware at the end of January, the same time the company announced plans to cut 800 jobs by the end of March or mid-April.
http://www.ciodive.com/news/vmware-leadership-changes-continue-as-dell-emc-deal-looms/414844/
- Michael Dell unveils leadership line-up for merged Dell-EMC
• Jeremy Burton, chief marketing officer
• Jeff Clarke, vice chairman of operations and client solutions
• Howard Elias and Rory Read, co-chief integration officers
• David Goulden, president of Enterprise Systems Group
• Marius Haas, chief commercial officer
• Steve Price, chief human resources officer
• Karen Quintos, chief customer officer
• Rich Rothberg, general counsel
• John Swainson, president of Dell Software
• Tom Sweet, chief financial officer
• Suresh Vaswani, president of Dell Services - EU clears Dell’s purchase of EMC
HP Inc | Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- Why HP Is Suffering A Slow Death
The first mistake was extreme outsourcing, which was supposed to cut cost and limit corporate size. But instead it ended up giving old HPQ’s advantage away to Asian PC and printer makes, piece-by-piece.
Then came a string of bad acquisitions– in an attempt to fight ‘the last war’ in a number of segments of the technology industry — which drained Hewlett-Packard’s resources. The purchase of Compaq Computer in 2001 was supposed to provide HP with a scale advantage in the PC market and allow it to compete effectively against Dell Computer, IBM, and all sorts of emerging Asian competitors. The purchase of near-bankrupt Palm in 2010 was supposed to help the company enter the fast growing mobile devices market, which began to replace PCs. And the acquisition of enterprise software maker Autonomy in 2011 (at a hefty price of $10.3 billion) pitted the company against three major competitors – Salesforce.com, Oracle, and IBM.
- HP Enterprise rises on reassuring demand
The Silicon Valley company, reporting its first quarterly results since it split in November from printer and personal computer maker HP Inc., on Thursday said net income in its first fiscal quarter fell 52%, including restructuring costs. Revenue declined 2.5%. Excluding the effects of a stronger dollar, however, the company said revenue rose 4%–the third consecutive quarter of growth on a constant currency basis–and both revenue and adjusted profit beat Wall Street expectations.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hp-enterprise-rises-on-reassuring-demand-2016-03-03
Oracle
- Oracle CEO Safra Catz advises ‘don’t eat dog food’
Larry is fond of saying we should eat our own dog food. First of all, don’t eat dog food. It’s bad for you. It’s dangerous. We eat our own cooking. That’s correct. We have to eat our own cooking. You know why? Because the entire scale of our business is to the point where I cannot meet the demands of all our customers unless I transform myself, meaning Oracle.
http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-ceo-advises-dont-eat-dog-food-2016-2
- Oracle Corporation Falls Victim to Hubris as SAP Overtakes Its Cloud Business
Not only has SAP outperformed Oracle recently, but since Bill McDermott took the CEO reigns in February 2010, SAP stock has increased 77%, outpacing Oracle which is up about 60% over the same period.
SAP beating Oracle in the cloud, it is doing so by taking a page out of Oracle’s own playbook — making savvy acquisitions. Over the past five years, the software giant has spent $16 billion acquiring SuccessFactors, Ariba, and most recently, Concur Technologies, a travel and expense software provider. All three company’s solutions already do or will run on HANA, SAP’s application server that includes an in-memory database management solution.
Other
- Want to edge out competitors? Hybrid cloud is key, new IBM study says
The IBM study, titled Growing Up Hybrid: Accelerating Digital Transformation, reported that organizations using hybrid cloud systems are almost three times as likely as their counterparts to monetize their data and the insights gained from data analysis. It also found these organizations five times as likely to use hybrid cloud for predictive intelligence and machine learning applications. Further, more than a third of hybrid cloud organizations polled said they were using their hybrid environments to develop Internet of Things applications.
- Salesforce CEO Benioff: ‘We Will Win In Georgia’ Against ‘Religious Liberty’ Bill
A year ago, Benioff contested a similar law in the Hoosier state, pulling his $8 billion (revenue) company out of hosting a money-generating conference there and offering to relocate employees. That time, Governor Mike Pence had already signed the bill into law. “We didn’t move fast enough,” Benioff says. But Benioff learned several tactics key for reversing Pence’s decision and prompting revisions to the bill.
Photo: Lena Bell
Supplier Report: 2/20/2016
We made jokes last week when IBM didn’t buy a company, I guess we can’t make the same joke twice. With their purchase of Truven, IBM has has solidified its place in the medical analysis world. The market is reacting well to the news, with IBM up 5% on the day of the announcement.
While IBM (finally) gets some good financial news, Dell is still in a waiting pattern for funding. News that the EU is set to approve the deal is looming as Michael Dell finalizes the loans from mostly Chinese financial institutions. Loans are not the only source of funds as Dell is looking to sell off assets, namely Perot Systems.
IBM
- IBM buying healthcare analytics firm Truven for $2.6B
Truven has over 8,500 clients, and will boost the size of Watson Health to over 5,000 employees. IBM: “Upon completion of the acquisition, IBM’s health cloud will house one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of health-related data, representing an aggregate of approximately 300 million patient lives acquired from three companies. IBM plans to integrate Truven’s extensive cloud-based data set spanning hundreds of different types of cost, claims, quality and outcomes information with its existing data sets.”
As a reminder of the health-related companies IBM has purchased in the last year:
The deal comes six months after one to buy top medical imaging software firm Merge Healthcare, and ten months after the purchases of patient data analysis software firm Phytel and clinical database provider Explorys. The Phytel/Explorys deals coincided with the launch of Watson Health, which aims to provide software/services that can deliver insights from large volumes of anonymized patient data.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/3118536-ibm-buying-healthcare-analytics-firm-truven-2_6b
Side Note: The street is reacting favorably to the news – IBM was up 5%. - IBM dangles $5 million prize for major breakthroughs using Watson
And by grand challenges, it’s thinking big — it lists past achievements like the moon landing, mapping the human genome, and addressing climate change. (That last one might still be up for grabs, by the way).
The contest is being launched Wednesday at the TED conference in Vancouver by Peter Diamandis, founder of XPrize, which is partnering with IBM on the project.
The winners will be announced at TED 2020 (assuming the event is still around then). Three winning teams will split $4.5 million of the prize money, an IBM spokeswoman said, meaning they could each pick up $1.5 million. The other $500,000 will help fund projects along the way. IBM is the one putting up all the cash.
- IBM Embraces Blockchain with New Bluemix Cloud Services and Code
Blockchain is a type of distributed database. It’s designed in a way that ensures that all transactions are public, yet no centralized party has exclusive control over them. The technology has become explosively popular because it powers Bitcoin, the open source, peer-to-peer payment system — although it can be used for much more than that.
IBM’s visions of blockchain are centered around IoT:
IBM is also promoting integration of blockchain apps with IoT devices for purposes that extend beyond payment. “Devices will be able to communicate to blockchain-based ledgers to update or validate smart contracts,” IBM says. “For example, as an IoT-connected package moves along multiple distribution points, the package location and temperature information could be updated on a blockchain. This allows all parties to share information and status of the package as it moves among multiple parties to ensure the terms of a contract are met.”
- IBM launchs z13 Mainframe computers with advanced cryptography functions
The z13s includes new cryptography hardware that can encrypt and decrypt data twice as fast as its predecessors for example. To speed up the z13s’ cryptography functions, the mainframe now features a faster cryptography co-processor card with more memory than IBM’s previous mid-range machines.
“This means clients can process twice as many high-volume, cryptographically-protected transactions as before without compromising performance,” the company says. “This equates to processing twice as many online or mobile device purchases
- IBM’s Rometty Slams Competitors With ‘Yesterday’s Business Model,’ Spotlights Cognitive Era As Future Disruptor
“You see two of them coming together on yesterday’s business model, and you see another one breaking up on yesterday’s business model,” Rometty said in a thinly veiled reference to the pending merger of Dell and EMC, and last year’s split of Hewlett-Packard into two companies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc.
Microsoft
- Microsoft Azure continues open source love affair
Following its earlier announcement of a partnership with Red Hat, Microsoft added Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 6.7 and 7.2 to the Azure Marketplace. That means developers who want to use the popular operating system now have an easy and Microsoft-approved path to get it running on Azure.
A majority of Azure Marketplace workloads are Linux-based, which is an interesting position for Microsoft’s cloud platform, considering the company’s previously dim view of the open source OS.
http://www.cio.com/article/3034269/microsoft-azure-continues-open-source-love-affair.html#tk.rss_all
Dell | EMC
- Apparently $45 billion doesn’t just grow on trees
“Between the date the merger agreement was entered into and the date of this proxy statement/prospectus, the market value of the VMware Class A common stock has declined, thereby reducing the implied value of the stock portion of the merger consideration,” the letter said.
“Changes in the market value of the VMware Class A common stock also will impact the amount of cash that holders of EMC common stock will receive in the merger in lieu of fractional shares of Class V Common Stock,” the letter continued.
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3034359/cloud-computing/the-dell-emc-merger-hits-some-snags.html
- EU set to clear Dell’s US$67 billion deal to buy EMC (sources)
Dell Inc, the world’s third-biggest maker of computers, is set to gain unconditional EU antitrust approval for its US$67 billion bid for data storage company EMC Corp, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. European Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso declined to comment on Thursday. The Commission is scheduled to give its ruling on the deal by Feb. 29.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/technology/eu-set-to-clear-dell-s-us/2528382.html
- Dell in talks to offload key assets, report says
Dell Inc. is in negotiations to sell Perot Systems Corp. to NTT Data Corp. of Japan, Reuters reports.
Round Rock-based Dell is trying to sell the IT consulting business to raise money to fund its $67 billion buyout of Massachusetts-based EMC Corp. Dell has asked for $5 billion for Perot Systems but worldwide market jitters appear to have dampened companies’ appetite for tech acquisitions.
Oracle
- Oracle to invest $400 million in India, says global CEO Safra Catz
It will be the largest campus outside the US and will seat 11,000 employees, which will be ready in the next five years, BusinessLine reports.
The company will also launch incubation centres. “I am particularly excited about the incubation centres which will house substantial software and technology capabilities, tools, and training to help launch new technology start-ups built utilising Java and the Oracle platform,” Catz added.
http://www.ibtimes.co.in/oracle-invest-400-million-india-says-global-ceo-safra-catz-666849
Other
- The CIO’s playbook for managing an SAP relationship
Too often I have witnessed companies prematurely forced into a negotiation as a result of an event created by SAP (e.g. audit) or their company (e.g. merger). These organizations are compelled to operate in a reactionary manner, and challenged to fully understand their existing relationship with SAP, resulting in uncertainty and doubt. In most cases, these situations result in below market commercial agreements, increased risk and strained relationships, both internally and with SAP.
On the other hand, I have also partnered with IT executives who recognize the need to anticipate such events and proactively undertake a detailed baseline and assessment of their SAP relationship well in advance of entertaining a commercial discussion.
- CIOs aren’t ready for Docker and container technology
Virtualization made computing more efficient by enabling companies to run multiple operating systems on a single server. But VMs only support one application per OS. Containers take server resource utilization much further by allowing developers to run an app in its own container, and run multiple containers on the same OS. Developers can also move containers between Linux servers or virtual machines (VMs) and make changes to apps or portions of apps, called microservices, without breaking the software and risking downtime. Proponents say containers facilitates greater agility in the age of constantly updated mobile and Web apps.
Photo: Luis Llerena