SourceCast: Episode 13: You Get What You Pay For
Supplier Report: 1/23/2016
IBM has added another feather in their video stream capabilities cap with with purchase of Ustream. Considering that they recently picked up Clearleap and we should start paying attention to what IBM is doing with video services.
Investors are paying attention to EMC due to concerns that Dell might not be able to muster up the $40-50B needed to make this acquisition a reality.
Oracle is in their own reality as they file a lawsuit against the State of Oregon for a failed healthcare portal implementation. They are also in the news for claiming cloud market leader Amazon is not “enterprise” enough for most businesses.
Keep an eye out for something between Splunk and IBM, there are rumors floating around…
IBM
- IBM buys Upstream to boost cloud-based video streaming services
IBM claimed that the division will allow the firm to target the cloud-based video streaming software and services market, which is estimated to be worth a hefty $105bn.
Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president at IBM Cloud, outlined Big Blue’s ambitions for the video streaming market, saying that video has become a “first-class data type in business that requires accelerated performance and powerful analytics that allows clients to extract meaningful insights”.
This comes after IBM announced the purchase of ClearLeap during the week of 12/12/2015. Clearleap that allows streaming video to scale.
More Information:
Coincidentally, IBM also announced the launch of its Cloud Video Services unit that includes previously acquired Clearleap, Cleversafe and Aspera along with 1,000 video related patents it has accumulated since 1995. The graphic at the top of this story explains the component parts for what IBM believes will be a $105 billion market opportunity by 2019.
IBM and video? You have to see this in a wider context. Video is a very fast growing part of enterprise content. It is also a resource hog that requires significant data management effort. However, it has been something off a Cinderella in the enterprise. This acquisition and launch change that perception. More compelling, video is a very good use case for Watson based analytics solutions.
https://diginomica.com/2016/01/21/ibm-acquires-ustream-expects-video-to-lose-its-cinderella-status/
- IBM profit forecast pulls stock to 5-year low
While sales of the new services, bundled together under the heading “strategic imperatives,” increased 16 percent to $28.9 billion in 2015, the company forecast profit this year far below analysts’ projections.
Operating earnings will be at least $13.50 a share in 2016, chief financial officer Martin Schroeter said Tuesday. That’s less than the $15 a share predicted by analysts. Currency fluctuations will affect operating earnings by more than $1 a share, he said.
- Execs: Strategic shift is paying off for IBM
That’s in spite of announcing for, the 15th consecutive quarter, falling revenue. IBM (NYSE: IBM), which was down nearly 5 percent during Wednesday morning trading, has been in a period of transition for the past few years, putting less focus on hardware and more focus (and investment dollars) into cloud, analytics, mobile, social media and security. Those strategic areas were up 26 percent for the year, making up a combined $29 billion and representing about 35 percent of the revenue. Cloud alone rose 43 percent to $10.2 billion for the year.
- IBM inks $40 million deal to transform the way people withdraw from ATMs
BTI Payments, which is a White Label ATM (WLA) operator, has entrusted IBM to transform its IT Infrastructure and deploy and manage an incremental 4,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATM) across the country.
This IT Infrastructure transformation will help reduce operational and capital expenditure while adding business value.
EMC | Dell
- Two big risks could torpedo Dell-EMC deal
Dell and its Silver Lake backers must now be worried that the deal will be dead in the water before it happens. They have to raise $40bn – $50bn in debt to finance the EMC acquisition. If that debt-raising exercise fails, because investment groups and organisations can’t see EMC shareholders accepting the tracking stock, and can’t also see why they should finance Dell/Silverlake buying EMC for 30 per cent more than it’s worth, then the whole deal could fall apart.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/21/two_big_risk_torpedoes_could_screw_dellemc_deal/
HP Inc | Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- Trial date set for Hewlett-Packard multi-billion fraud case
Hewlett-Packard and Autonomy are to continue their long running $10 billion takeover dispute for a further two years, with a 2018 London trial set to see the two companies fight over $5.1 billion.
- Whitman: We’re doing OK, despite economic slowdown
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/21/whitman-were-doing-ok-despite-economic-slowdown.html
Oracle
- Oracle Jabs Again in Legal Fight with Oregon
Oracle responded with its own lawsuit last year that alleged certain Oregon officials purposely sabotaged the project for political reasons and shifted the blame to Oracle. The technology giant alleged in its new lawsuit that its company executives and staff members representing Oregon governor Kate Brown agreed to settle all of the lawsuits on Oct. 19.
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/oracle-sues-oregon-healthcare-settlement/
- Amazon’s Cloud Is Not Enterprise-Ready, Says Oracle Exec
I love it when Oracle talks trash…“My conclusion is it’s easier to add cloud tech to an enterprise company than to add enterprise stuff to a cloud company,” he said. “I’m a legitimate convert because I thought this through before I joined up here.” Before joining Oracle in late 2014, Magnusson drove development of Google GOOG 2.62% App Engine.
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/oracle-exec-says-aws-not-enterprise-ready/
Other
- Why IBM and Oracle Plunged in 2015 While Microsoft Soared 19% Higher
Ending on a positive note, we’re left with Redmond’s finest. Under Nadella, Microsoft has embraced many strategies that would have been unthinkable under Ballmer, and with good results. Despite a flagging PC market and a dead-end entry into the mobile market, Microsoft has found a way back to earnings growth and stabilizing revenues.
Like Oracle, the company is betting heavily on cloud computing. Unlike the database giant, Microsoft has found a big winner in its Windows Azure cloud-computing platform, which is an almost unchallenged No. 2 in that fast-growing market. Oracle is not even on the radar yet. So Microsoft is getting results from Nadella’s new strategy already, giving investors a strong return in 2015.
- Google’s new managed containers are brought to you by Red Hat
So Red Hat is in bed with Microsoft, and now Google… very interesting.Google and Red Hat are touting several advantages of their collaboration, including the fact that OpenShift could complement and expand the use of Kubernetes, Google’s container management and orchestration system. Kubernetes has fast become a standard-issue item on most cloud platforms with containers, and Red Hat is the No. 2 contributor to that project, behind Google.
- Splunk outperforms after analyst predicts major deal with IBM
Northland analyst Tim Klasell heard from a “few industry sources” that Splunk and IBM are “moving closer together” and could agree to a meaningful partnership over time. The analyst told investors in a research note that IBM is getting close to a “big move to improve its ties” with Splunk. While Klasell did not know the financial details, he believes such a partnership could be a “nice tailwind” for Splunk to sign larger deals. The analyst has an Outperform rating on Splunk with an $80 price target.
SourceCast: Episode 11: Back to the news
Supplier Report: 1/9/2016
We are back to work and the news is flowing! It is a new year and that means changes. IBM announced the departure of three long-time executives while Oracle quietly snapped up two companies.
The realities of the Dell/EMC merger are hitting EMC with the announcement of job eliminations. IBM is also expected to announce job reductions in the GTS space.
Meanwhile, HPE is opening a private bar in London…
IBM
- Why IBM just lost three key executives
That, in fact, is just what apparently happened at IBM in December, when it reportedly lost Steve Mills, the 43-year company veteran who was most recently executive vice president of IBM Software and Systems, along with Danny Sabbah, its chief technology officer for cloud, and Brendan Hannigan, general manager of IBM Security.
Bottom line? “Keep an eye on these three,” Enderle said. “The fact they left together suggests they have something else they want to do together, and given their powerful skillset, that ‘something’ could be really interesting.”
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3020616/why-ibm-just-lost-three-key-executives.html
More on Steve Mills:
http://fortune.com/2016/01/06/ibms-steve-mills-retires/ - More IBM job cuts to services unit expected by Alliance
In one form or another, the workers group Alliance@IBM is bracing for downsizing in the Global Technology Services unit at IBM Corp. “We’re hearing rumors of (GTS) being sold off,” said Lee Conrad, national coordinator of Alliance@IBM. “As with everything inside IBM, we don’t get confirmation until just before it happens. If the company says anything, they will wait until the last moment.” Sale or not, Conrad said cuts to the GTS units most likely will happen sometime this month.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/money/2016/01/07/more-ibm-job-cuts-services-unit-expected-alliance/78405848/
More on Alliance who is also folding:After trying since 1999 to turn IBM into a union shop, the Alliance@IBM, a Communications Workers of America local, is “suspending” its organizing efforts. The Alliance, which had 400 dues-paying members at its peak, now has about 200.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3019552/it-industry/ibm-union-calls-it-quits.html
- IBM cuts new Watson deals that push it deeper into health
Medtronics:IBM and Medtronic are using Watson’s analytics as the back-end for an app which they say could help the roughly 400 million people in the world with diabetes.
SoftBank:
Rometti was also joined by the president of Softbank, to talk about how the companies will combine Watson’s analytics with Softbank’s Pepper robot to market services to businesses.
Pepper is already being used by Nestle in about a hundred of its stores, where it greets customers, asks them what type of coffee they like and makes recommendations for the type of coffee machine they might want to buy. But Pepper can gather all kinds of data, including how many people interact with it, their gender, and even their emotion. The idea is to take all that data and use it to hone marketing and sales strategies.
- IBM’s Watson flexes muscles with Under Armour partnership
Powered by Watson technology, Under Armour’s application, UA Record, aggregates and analyzes an individual’s health and fitness data to provide personalized coaching and advice. A few examples include the app telling a user the average steps taken daily and bed time for a person their age.
- Ginni Rometty 2016 CES Keynote speech
What exactly is that leather “thing” she is wearing? That isn’t a jacket.
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/01/07/ibm-ceo-artificially-intelligent-computers-will-change-who-you/21293693/
Oracle
- Oracle purchases AddThis for $200M
Oracle continues to ramp up its business in the area of marketing tech. Today the enterprise software giant announced that it has acquired AddThis, which makes sharing features (i.e., those buttons on web pages that let you share stories or follow accounts on Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and audience tracking technology for online publishers and marketers. AddThis says it currently covers activity data for 1.9 billion monthly unique visitors and over 15 million mobile and desktop web domains.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/05/oracle-addthis/
I want to make a connection. Two months ago, we covered the news that TeraData is getting out of the marketing cloud space, with Oracle looking to purchase more marketing assets, could they be a possible buyer? - Oracle also quietly purchased StackEngine two weeks ago…
StackEngine was founded just last year by a couple of industry veterans. In fact, it emerged from stealth in October, 2014 with a plan to operationalize Docker, the open source container system. While Docker has been a hot commodity for the last several years, StackEngine recognized that it lacked an administrative layer for IT pros to manage their containers.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/22/oracle-stackengine-acquisition-part-of-expanding-cloud-strategy/
- Is Oracle’s ‘supergraphic’ a super problem?
Oracle has a giant sight up on their building in San Jose just in time for the Super Bowl, city officials are not pleased:“They will have to take the sign down,” Cheryl Wessling, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement, said Friday after this newspaper contacted her department about the colorful sign that can be seen as far away as Interstate 280.
http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_29361163/oracles-new-super-bowl-sign-is-illegal-san
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise on Track to Dominate the Flash Storage Market
He further went to say that HPE will dominate the flash storage market as its latest series of all-flash storage arrays, the 3PAR StoreSev Storage family, makes storage affordable for businesses. The cost will fall to $1.50 per GB as compared to $2 per GB. New Zealand and Australia were identified by Mr. Davis as the leaders in flash adoption in the Asia-Pacific region, but early indicators point towards increased adoption in Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong.
- HPE’s London boozer dubbed the ‘Hewlett You Inn?’
This is an absolutely useless article, but… HPE has a private drinking club in London?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/06/hpe_boozer_poll_result/
EMC | Dell
- EMC tightens grip on converged infrastructure subsidiary VCE as job cuts loom
According to sources cited by The Register, VCE is also expected to announce job cuts with around 250 staff likely to be let go this week.
According to the source, the cuts will hit all levels including some senior managers; this move would make sense as EMC brings VCE closer to its own operations, perhaps believing that it can cut costs.
- Feeling jitters as Dell-EMC marriage approaches
How will the two cultures mesh? “EMC was built on engineering innovation and high-touch sales” that require lots of personal attention, says Peter Bell, who spent a decade at the company and is now a venture capitalist at Highland Capital Partners in California. (EMC chief executive Joe Tucci is known to keep the last day of every quarter free so that he can make phone calls to customers and help personally close deals that are hanging in the balance.) That meant fat profit margins for EMC, and hefty earnings for its workers.
In contrast, “Michael Dell knows how to run a big business in a low-cost way. He knows how to compete in a commodity business, and he knows there’s a lot of cost to be taken out of EMC,” Bell says. Not surprisingly, that has created a lot of anxiety among EMC employees.
http://www.betaboston.com/news/2016/01/08/feeling-jitters-as-dell-emc-marriage-approaches-2/
Other
- Why Red Hat, Inc. Gained 20% in 2015
Shares of Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) gained 19.8% in 2015, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. Lifted by three fantastic quarterly reports to overcome the general market jitters in August, the open-source software veteran is finding its sea legs and growing into its nosebleed price to earnings ratios.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/06/why-red-hat-inc-gained-20-in-2015.aspx
- What’s in Store for Big Data in 2016?
(On Teradata) Organizations hit reset on Hadoop. As Hadoop and related open source technologies move beyond knowledge gathering and the hype abates, enterprises will hit the reset button on (not abandon) their Hadoop deployments to address lessons learned — particularly around governance, data integration, security and reliability.
https://adtmag.com/articles/2016/01/06/2016-big-data-predictions.aspx
Photo: Thomas Ulrich
Supplier Report: 12/26/2015
We are half-way through the holidays, and our favorite suppliers (thankfully) didn’t make too much noise going into the break.
The tone of the articles are shifting away from “what we did” and are focused on “what we are going to do”.
IBM is going leverage BlockChain, HPE is going make some awesome computer called “The Machine”, Dell is going to figure out a way to pay for EMC (maybe)… and Amazon is going to take over your house?
IBM
- IBM’s Opportunity In The Telecom Industry And Rivalry With Intel
IBM is targeting the CSPs (communication service providers), such as telecom operators, cable service providers, satellite broadcasting operators, content and applications service providers and cloud service providers, to help them generate revenue from the big data value chain. Internal telecom data combined with third-party data has tremendous potential that CSPs can exploit to drive their revenues with the help of advanced analytics. Third-party data include data from various social media like Facebook and Twitter.
As I said above, the challenges telcos are facing today are resulting in softer revenue growth and decreasing profit margin. The only way to boost revenue growth and profit margin is adopting business-focused big data initiatives. Well, what is a business-focused big data initiative? The answer is building customer focus and improving operational efficiencies for expanding revenue and profitability via prudent use of big data analytics and other solutions.
- Why Box Needs Friends Like IBM And Salesforce
Things must be going pretty well: Last Friday, the two announced a “long-term commitment” that could last at least a decade. Box hasn’t actually generated much in the way of new revenue from its IBM relationship yet, but it has at least 100 deals in the pipeline and could close some of them during its current quarter (which ends January 2016).
- Blockchain – Goldman and IBM care, should you?
Why is this even a topic for a DCD conference that focuses solely on infrastructure? Because “it points to two important factors: first, it demonstrates how quickly technology innovation can go from largely unheard of to attracting business start-ups and investors,” says Bruce Taylor, DCD executive vice president. “That has an impact on full-stack infrastructure planning – even if small right now. Secondly, it suggests a new cloud model that wasn’t even in the lexicon two years ago, but may be a massive boost in decentralized computing productivity.”
http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/events/blockchain-goldman-and-ibm-care-should-you/95402.article
- TCS, Cognizant at top of outsourcing industry; snatch market share from IBM, Accenture
More significantly, the performances Cognizant, which is US based but has most of its 219,000 employees in India, and TCS also comfortably eclipsed that of global technology behemoths such as IBM and Accenture during the same period, according to data compiled from company reports and regulatory filings. “India’s Top 5 providers have been gaining market share over the last several years. Within the set, there are growth variations with some growing faster. That said, the battle is now shifting to who can adapt faster to ‘as a service economy’. This is such a potent shift that can tilt the scales and create a new set of winners in services industry,” said Dinesh Goel, partner and India head at outsourcing advisory and research firm ISG.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- Can HPE’s “The Machine” Deliver?
When HP announced The Machine in Las Vegas in 2014, it presented the project as a near-complete overhaul of traditional computer architecture. Gone were the CPU-centric architecture, the slow copper communications, and the messy hierarchy of traditional memory. In their place, specialized computing cores, speedy light-carrying photonic connections, and a massive store of dense, energy-efficient memristor memory. The resulting computer, its designers say, will be efficient enough to manipulate petabyte-scale data sets in an unprecedented fashion, expanding what companies and scientists can accomplish in areas such as graph theory, predictive analytics, and deep learning in a way that could improve our daily lives.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/can-hpes-the-machine-deliver
EMC | Dell
- Dell filing shows why it really needs the EMC merger — it lost money last year and revenue is shrinking
Annual revenues went from $56.9 billion in its fiscal year ended February 1, 2013, to $58.1 billion in its fiscal year ended January 30, 2015. But they haven’t bounced back to the 2012 peak of $62.1 billion in the fiscal year ended February 3, 2012.
For the six months ended July 31, 2015, revenues were down about 6% compared to the year-ago quarter, from $29.5 billion to $27.5 billion.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/dell-reveals-losses-revenue-shrinking-2015-12
- Dell to Spin Off Security Division (more on SecureWorks)
“While SecureWorks has shown both expansion in its top line, and gross margin, it also posted increasing losses,” TechCrunch noted. “Investors have shown smaller appetite for company’s going public that fail to show falling losses and increasing revenues.”
People familiar with the matter have said the business could be valued at $2 billion because of the healthy growth rate, the WSJ said.
http://ww2.cfo.com/credit-capital/2015/12/dell-spin-off-security-division/
Oracle
- Oracle to build new cloud campus in Austin, Texas
Oracle plans to build a 295-unit apartment complex next to the new campus to give employees affordable living options. The company has also acquired an Austin-based startup called StackEngine Inc. for developing its Oracle Public Cloud domain.
Jobs at the new campus will be primarily sales-oriented, including direct selling, lead qualification, prospecting and technical support. The company plans to hire a lot of recent university graduates and people early in their career.
http://presstelegraph.com/2015/12/24/oracle-to-build-new-cloud-campus-in-austin-texas.html
- Oracle Settles ‘Deceptive Java Updates’ issue with FTC
FTC said that Oracle failed to disclose the security issue to consumers. Even if the issue was disclosed to customers, it was inadequate, the FTC added. Oracle acquired Java in 2010. The older versions of Java have been targeted by hackers as it has many security loopholes. Oracle has provided updates and plugged the security loopholes in Java. However, the older version of Java, before SE version 6, update 10, were still causing security issues. Oracle will be required to inform customers about the security risks involved with running older versions of Java SE.
Other
- Here’s how Amazon plans to run your home — before IBM, Microsoft get there
Amazon’s platform will compete directly with Microsoft’s, adding a dimension to the two companies’ cloud rivalry. Microsoft has had more time to work on its Internet of Things platform, but Amazon Web Services has far more cloud customers.
- NetApp buys SolidFire for $870 million in cash
Hardware company NetApp will buy SolidFire, a startup known for selling fast all-flash storage hardware, for $870 million in cash. The deal is considered to be an important one in the storage market especially when EMC has taken up flash by acquiring XtremIO and DSSD.
Not only EMC, Cisco has also purchased all-flash storage maker Whiptail in 2013. Though NetApp announced about its first all-flash storage hardware product two years back only, the company is not especially known for flash storage.
http://northerncalifornian.com/content/55462-netapp-buys-solidfire-870-million-cash
- Red Hat CEO: ‘State of the Red Hat Union is secure’
As we think about 2016 and beyond, it’s critical to recognize that we are building tomorrow’s IT legacy today. The next generation of technologists will inherit the decisions we make now just like we are dealing now with the legacy decisions made by the generation before us. Taking short-cuts and making decisions that get you up and running today – especially if it promises to save you some money – may be tempting. But, it needs to be a balance. You don’t want to be locked into technology you can’t escape – many enterprises are now confronting this pain from decisions made many years ago.
http://wraltechwire.com/red-hat-ceo-state-of-the-red-hat-union-is-secure-/15191748/