SourceCast: Episode 41: Know thy Enemy
Supplier Report: 9/17/2016
It is a dynamic time in the world of IT. Nothing is assured, nothing stays the same.
Dell Technologies announced a sell off of their enterprise content management unit to help pay off the massive debt incurred purchasing EMC. What does this mean for Documentum and the other products? Some experts think OpenText will invest in the product, more seem to think it is DOA.
As artificial intelligence becomes more wide-spread, IBM and Google, who at the moment are not really in competition with each other, will most likely find themselves as rivals. Not only in AI, but also in cloud hosting and blockchain solutions.
HP Inc had themselves a good week. They purchased Samsung’s print division for $1.05B and also switched to a Microsoft CRM solution which the press can’t seem to stop talking about. How will Microsoft reward HPI for such an act?
Acquisitions
- OpenText to buy Dell EMC’s enterprise content unit for $1.62B
Canadian business software maker OpenText Corp said it agreed to buy Dell-EMC’s enterprise content division for $1.62 billion to beef up its offerings for large businesses.
Barclays, which acted as a financial adviser, has provided a $1 billion debt commitment for the deal, OpenText said on Monday.
The deal is expected to immediately add to earnings, the company said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3785394/OpenText-buy-Dell-EMCs-enterprise-content-unit-1-62-bln.html
Documentum’s Fate at OpenText: New Life or Certain Death?That doesn’t seem to be the case. According to an informal CMSWire’s poll, more than 60 percent of responders believe OpenText is interested in product revenues only and won’t be investing in further development.
- Salesforce to Acquire Cambridge Messaging Startup HeyWire
This time it’s HeyWire, a Cambridge-based messaging startup that lets businesses receive text messages through 1-800 numbers and other business lines from customers.
HeyWire CEO and co-founder Meredith Flynn-Ripley wrote in a Wednesday blog post that Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the company. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/09/07/salesforce-to-acquire-cambridge-messaging-startup-heywire/
- Salesforce (CRM) on an Acquisition Spree, Buys Gravitytank
Salesforce’s latest acquisition is Gravitytank, a Chicago-based consulting agency. The deal was announced through Gravitytank’s website.
A Salesforce representative confirmed the transaction but declined to disclose the price.
http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-buys-gravitytank-2016-9
- Verizon buys Sensity and launches farm pilot with sensor tech
Sensity, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., has focused on using energy-efficient LED lighting to help cities build an IoT platform on city streetlights. The platform can include the use of various sensors on a streetlight pole to monitor weather and city services ranging from parking to public safety.
- Is Google Eyeing An Acquisition Of Box After Forming A New Partnership?
Recode also highlighted a part of the what was included in Google and Box’s press release. The two companies will “work together to develop and deliver next-generation intelligence to Box users searching for content on Google Springboard.”
Google Springboard is Google’s new search engine built specifically for enterprise customers.
As such, investors should be questioning if the partnership is a precursor to a Google acquisition of Box. According to Recode, the answer isn’t just a “maybe” but “probably not.”
Artificial Intelligence
- The Growing Rivalry Between Google And IBM
Today, IBM and Google are very different businesses. While Google offers products directly to consumers, IBM mostly designs powerful systems for enterprises. Google makes the bulk of its money through advertising, while IBM has a large and highly qualified sales force that can service demanding customers.
To be sure, in many ways, IBM and Google are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to focus, business model and operational structure. Still in conversations with both companies, I can’t help but feel them eyeing each other somewhat warily. After all, while their businesses may be far apart, they are both competing for the same technological high ground.
- War for Artificial Intelligence: IBM’s Blockchain Push May Anticipate Google’s Ambush
The vocal advocacy of IBM in the Blockchain space stands in stark contrast to Google’s almost complete silence on the subject. Prussian military theorist Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz in his treatise ‘On War’ wrote that “surprise plays a much greater role in strategy than in tactics,” and of course the famous 孙子 (Sun Tzu) is remembered by the words “when the enemy is close at hand and remains quiet, he is relying on the natural strength of his position.” To assume that Google is doing nothing in the Semantic Blockchain space is naïve. Let us look forward with anticipation, and, for some, perhaps dread, to what eventually Google plans to roll out.
- AI can make your money work for you
Advances in AI will create a robo-accountant that knows your spending better than you do. By analyzing your purchase history, it will constantly move money between your checking, savings, investments and credit cards. This way, your checking account’s balance is always in the narrow “sweet spot:” high enough to avoid fees, but not so high that you miss out on investment yield.
Right now, finding that sweet spot is time-consuming and anxiety-inducing. In time, the robo-accountant will know when you’re likely to splurge. It will know when your car will need a repair, when your electric bill will spike. It will know when you’re actually better off carrying a balance on your credit card than paying your bank’s minimum-balance fee.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/08/ai-can-make-your-money-work-for-you/?ncid=rss
Cloud
- Blockchain: Transformational Technology for Health Care
Take a standard health plan/provider agreement, or in risk-based relationships, provider/provider agreements, where each provides the other with a paper contract. Each entity loads the agreement into their separate systems, and it defines their relationship. The payor also has a contract with each person who has purchased a health plan. Using Blockchain, the health plan and provider could translate the wide variety of agreements needed to contracts on the Blockchain so everyone has visibility, and clarity exists for both the provider and the member. So when a transaction is processed, the Blockchain checks the authorization, and everyone can view the status, history and next steps. This transaction payment information could also be connected with the clinical service details to provide a holistic view of the patient’s interaction. Storing the information to create this holistic view in Blockchain would create a foundation that enables interoperability and innovation across the industry.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blockchain-transformational-technology-health-care-bruce-broussard
- How Microsoft Is Winning the War in the Cloud
In fact, it’s Microsoft’s forays into the cloud that will continue to generate its profit growth as things like traditional software and computer hardware sales fall by the wayside. The company has made big investments — as much as $10 billion on a data center for the development of its Azure cloud system. And these investments are going to pay off as the cloud continues to redefine how the world does business and stores its data.
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13726671/1/how-microsoft-is-winning-the-war-in-the-cloud.html
- Comparing Cloud Vendors: A Primer For IT
But the Forrester authors, without commenting on the nature of the Google cloud (which launches two billion containers a week), said most enterprise developers “are not yet ready to ‘run like Google.’ They need more packaged data and database migration services, and more confidence that their core business apps are ready to run on the Google Cloud Platform.”
- Does Oracle’s Cloud Growth Come at a Cost?
On the flip side of the strong growth in cloud, the company has been seeing a slowdown in its software licensing business. So the question in investors’ minds that management will have to answer is whether the company is sacrificing the higher-margin licensing business with the focus on growing its cloud business. If so, will cloud margins down the road be sufficient to offset the declines in licensing? If not, why is licensing slowing as cloud picks up? Tough spot for Oracle management, any way one looks at it.
http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/09/15/2016/does-oracles-cloud-growth-come-cost
Datacenter
- Oracle Killer, New Threat Face Database King
Oracle was initially slow to jump into the cloud industry because it contradicted what it was doing, which was offering businesses the hardware and software solutions to manage their own IT infrastructures. Cloud is essentially antithetical to that business model – even antagonistic, one might say. But after it realized its mistake it quickly ramped up its cloud business and is now strongly in the SaaS and PaaS segment, although not as much in the infrastructure game where Amazon is the undisputed leader.
But Amazon was having none of that. Consequently, it launched Amazon Aurora in late 2014, also known as the Oracle Killer. Aurora is a relational database engine that directly competes with Oracle’s database products. If Oracle is the king of databases, then Aurora is the mysterious assassin whose only job is to take the king’s life.
To make Aurora’s job easier, Amazon structured the service so no upfront license fee needs to be paid. In effect, it made it a pay as-you-go service.
http://www.gurufocus.com/news/441918/oracle-killer-new-threat-face-database-king
- Chinese Giant Huawei to Attack Server Market
To be fair, Huawei is not “new” to servers: it’s been building them for years and is ranked as the fourth largest server provider as measured by units sold by Gartner IT . What’s different now is that, on August 31, the company said it will build servers targeting the public and private clouds, as well as telecom-focused data centers.
http://fortune.com/2016/09/12/huawei-to-attack-server-market/
- Dell Technologies ‘to cut up to 3,000 jobs after $67 billion EMC deal’
PC and cloud vendor Dell will reportedly slash between 2,000 to 3,000 jobs after acquiring data storage company EMC.
Most of the job cuts will be in the United States and will happen later this year, according to Bloomberg, which cites people familiar with the company’s plans.
Dell did tell sister site Channel Pro this week that it would merge its sales channel with that of EMC’s. Tim Griffin, VP & GM UK at Dell EMC, said: “Today we have two channel programmes. The intent is to have a single channel for February 2017.”
Dell is hoping the cuts will help create cost savings of about $1.7 billion in the first 18 months after the transaction, but is largely focused on using the deal to boost sales by several times that amount.
The new company has 140,000 employees.
- Cisco exec churn: Enterprise chief Soderbery out
Soderbery said he has no current plans and Cisco said of his departure: “We thank Rob for his important role helping Cisco identify Enterprise needs and address them with world-class networking products and solutions, and we wish him all the best for the future.”
- Why Meg Whitman is breaking the one-time symbol of Silicon Valley into pieces
These spinoffs have provided needed capital as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise realigns itself with a narrower focus. Last year it bolstered its hardware business by acquiring for $3 billion Aruba Networks, the second-largest provider of company Wi-Fi networks behind Cisco. And last month HPE announced a $275 million purchase of Silicon Graphics, which sells fast servers and storage systems.
Software/SaaS
- Microsoft Beats Out Rivals for HP Software Deal
As part of a six-year contract—the dollar value of which they would not disclose—HP HPQ 0.17% plans to roll out the product to about 6,500 HP salespeople and 20,000 support personnel. Total HP headcount is about 50,000 (plus another 6,000 coming aboard as part of its just-signed deal to buy Samsung’s printer unit).
http://fortune.com/2016/09/12/microsoft-beats-rivals-for-hp-software-deal/
What is HP Inc going to get from Microsoft for this deal?
Other
- Despite all the trash-talking, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says he still loves Larry Ellison
“Business is a lot like tennis. You get on the court with your friends, you play as hard as you can, you get really upset, you say crazy things, you go off the court, you go and have lunch and have a glass of wine and remember how much you love them.
I love Larry Ellison, he’s a great mentor to me, he’s been a great friend, and probably there is no one in the industry who has done more for me than Larry Ellison, and I’m very grateful to him.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/marc-benioff-loves-larry-ellison-2016-9
- It is official: HP buying Samsung Electronics’ printer business for $1.05B
HP Inc. said Monday that it is the largest print acquisition in the company’s history and will help it go from traditional copiers to multifunction printers. HP also said the deal will strengthen its position in laser printing, which it established with Canon.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/HP-buying-Samsung-Electronics-printer-business-9216916.php
Samsung had a printer unit? And does HPI really need to buy their 4% market share?
Oh wait… CRN has an answer for me:An HP acquisition of the Samsung printer business would take out a competitor and give HP strength in different geographies, said Martin Wolf, president of martinwolf M&A Advisors of Walnut Creek, Calif., one of the top channel investment advisory deal makers.
http://www.crn.com/news/components-peripherals/300082020/report-samsung-is-considering-selling-printer-business-to-hp-in-1-8b-deal.htm
And then there is this news…
HP Inc. Goes Old School With Plans to Sell Copy MachinesStill, Enrique Lores, HP’s president of imaging and printing, voiced optimism for the initiative. Copy machines still account for $55 billion in annual sales, which could be lucrative if the company gained a sizable share.
- Wells Fargo fires 5,300 employees for opening 2M fake accounts in customers’ names
Wells Fargo says that it has been rooting out employees who ran this con for the past two years, having caught 5,300 of them so far (the bank employs 265,000 people). The fake accounts — savings, checking, credit/debit cards — were opened in the names of existing Wells Fargo customers, who had their accounts raided to create balances in the new accounts, and were then hit with fees that cleaned them out.
http://boingboing.net/2016/09/09/wells-fargo-fires-5300-employ.html
Photo: Ryan Johnston
Supplier Report: 9/3/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is said to be close to selling off their software assets… all of them. Thoma Bravo is rumored to be a front runner to purchase a portfolio valued between $8-10 billion dollars.
While HPE transitions back to a hardware-only company with their own designs on storage, datacenters, and AI; they face increasing and varied competition from IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
Meanwhile a Chinese company known for mobile phones is about to get very serious about IT hardware and EMC is officially going to become Dell Technology next week.
IBM
- IBM swings axe through staff, humming contently about cloud and AI
Lee Conrad, an ex-IBMer who today runs the Watching IBM Facebook page, has been sharing messages from long-serving staffers laid off this week, some of whom claim their jobs are effectively being shifted overseas to India, China and Costa Rica.
Some axed workers say their last day will be at the end of November, allowing IBM to avoid paying into their 401K retirement savings pot for the year. Big Blue will only cough up the cash if you are an employee on December 15. This comes after the biz slashed its severance payouts to a maximum of one month of pay.
- IBM expands cloud footprint in Korea
Located outside Seoul in Pangyo, the new data center is designed to support growing cloud adoption and customer demand across the country.
According to IDC, an information technology research firm, the public cloud services market in Korea is expected to grow from USD445 million in 2015 to approximately $1B in 2019.
The new facility in Pangyo is IBM´s ninth cloud data center in the Asia-Pacific region, and part of the company´s growing global network of 47 cloud data centers.
http://www.financial-news.co.uk/36745/2016/08/ibm-expands-cloud-footprint-in-korea-20160826082900/
- Can IBM Win The Storage War Against Dell-EMC?
IBM said last year that it will invest $1 billion over the next five years to win the software-defined storage space. Although breaking EMC’s dominance isn’t an easy task from a technological point of view, I believe the potential disruption resulting from product portfolio integration of Dell and EMC could help IBM get closer to EMC due to certain advantages IBM enjoys in the enterprise software market.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4002896-can-ibm-win-storage-war-dell-emc
- IBM and VMware extend public cloud tech deal
Further moves to strengthen the partnership see a VMware Cloud Foundation compatibility with IBM aiming to make it faster to deploy VMware’s products in an on-premise environment to IBM’s cloud.
The aim is to make it much easier for customers to be able to use VMware’s products in an IBM Cloud and for an IBM Cloud user to use VMware’s products.
Partnerships like this are becoming increasingly common as vendors look for a collaborative approach to the cloud market in order to differentiate themselves from the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform that lead the market.
http://www.cbronline.com/news/cloud/public/ibm-and-vmware-extend-public-cloud-tech-deal-4992298
Comment: This is interesting, IBM is clearing going after EMC storage, yet making partnership deals with VMWare. - Hybrid Clouds Dominate — Enable Companies to Innovate, Exceed Expectations
The IBM study, “Tailoring hybrid cloud: Designing the right mix for innovation, efficiency and growth,” is based on in-person interviews and surveys of more than 1,000 C-suite executives from 18 industries. Conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), the study finds that the top reasons executives cite for adopting hybrid cloud solutions are: lowering total cost of ownership (54 percent), facilitating innovation (42 percent), enhancing operational efficiencies (42 percent) and enabling them to more readily meet customer expectations (40 percent).
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP INC
- HP: Gloomy Outlook Despite Increased PC Sales
Cathie Lesjak, the chief financial officer of HP, pointed out that one of the major reasons that the tech company is projecting downbeat earnings for the fourth quarter regardless of the stabilizing PC sales was that it has been pumping in a lot of money to boost its higher-end printers’ sales. The objective is to sell more of these in locations where individuals print more, which could result in more sales for printer supplies and other related services.
The HP CFO said, “We think that is the right investment to make.“ Even though the boost in investments will put some pressure on the present quarter, Lesjak promised that it will “pay dividends in supply revenue in the future.”
http://www.themarketdigest.org/201608/hp-gloomy-outlook-despite-increased-pc-sales/3146061/
- HPE is betting big on AI to fuel your apps and analytics
Companies can use HPE Vertica 8 on data residing on premises, in private and public clouds, and in Hadoop data lakes. With its in-database machine learning capabilities, they can natively create and deploy R-based machine learning models directly within the software.
Improvements to data movement and orchestration let users load data as much as 700 percent faster than before, HPE said. Those gains are possible for hundreds of thousands of columns. Vertica 8 also makes it easier to load data from Amazon S3 and includes comprehensive visual monitoring of Apache Kafka data streams.
http://www.cio.com/article/3113986/hpe-is-betting-big-on-ai-to-fuel-your-apps-and-analytics.html
- HPE CIO tackles tough ‘spin merge’ with CSC
While Spradley is laser focused on the services separation, HPE has seemed anything but focused in recent years. There have been ill-conceived acquisitions (Compaq, EDS and Autonomy), scandals (pretexting and Mark Hurd) and architecture missteps (such as Itanium). And that’s independent of the secular trends, including the shifts to public cloud software offered by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google, a tech evolution to which the company has struggled to adjust.
HPE’s micro and macro challenges might seem like drudgery to CIOs whose primary occupations include building digital products and services to drive business innovation. Such CIOs would rather experiment with blockchain, stitch together APIs and host hackathons than divest and spin off assets and staff.
- HP Enterprise (HPE) Stock Gains on Potential Software Division Sale
Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) were up in mid-afternoon trading on Thursday as the Palo Alto, CA-based technology infrastructure company is in discussions to sell its software division to buyout firm Thoma Bravo in a deal that it hopes could bring in between $8 billion and $10 billion, sources told Reuters.
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13692527/1/hp-enterprise-hpe-stock-gains-on-potential-software-division-sale.html
Looks like we have a buyer…
Oracle
- Oracle’s Database 12c R2: Boom, bust, or meh upgrade cycle ahead?
In other words, this upgrade cycle for Oracle will be different from previous database rollouts. For starters, more of Oracle’s revenue will be subscription based. In addition, there are more competitors than ever for Oracle. It’s quite possible that SAP, which is using its HANA platform to prod customers to move off of Oracle databases, and Oracle are fighting yesterday’s war.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/oracles-database-12c-r2-boom-bust-or-meh-upgrade-cycle-ahead/
Storage
- NetApp a leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant SSA report
According to a recent report from the market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), NetApp registered an impressive revenue growth of 238.2 per cent year over year, which was 2.7 times faster than the all flash array market as a whole.
http://www.canindia.com/netapp-a-leader-in-gartner-magic-quadrant-ssa-report/
- $67B EMC sale to Dell cleared; to close next week
Approval from China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) was the last hurdle for the acquisition to clear after EMC shareholders voted in favor of the agreement in July. According to Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, the merger will be beneficial for both companies, using the power of 140,000 employees worldwide to achieve scales of economies as the company moves into new and growing technology markets.
Other
- Huawei Plots to Seize Another Tech Industry
Huawei is training its sights on selling computing gear for the world’s biggest data centers, which are the invisible locomotives of the digital world. These giant buildings packed with racks of computing equipment and miles of data-carrying cables enable every moment in the digital world, from the Facebook photo you shared this morning to the databases managing Walmart’s supply chain.
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-08-31/huawei-of-china-plots-to-seize-market-for-data-center-gear
I totally predicted this situation in Episode 37 of SourceCast - Party Over At Salesforce.com With Terrible Q2 Earnings
Let’s look at what really matters: deferred revenues and billings. Deferred revenue missed at $3.82 billion versus $3.88 billion consensus, and billingsmissed at $1.86 billion versus $1.89 billion consensus. “This is a slight miss” you say, but billings have been beating estimates at an accelerating pace in recent quarters, which sent the stock soaring – one must view everything in context. Last quarter, the company beat billings by 12.9%, by 6.1% two quarters ago, and by 1.8% three quarters ago – so clearly, there is an acceleration that got the market really excited. To the best of my knowledge, billings never missed before (at least in recent years). When you go from that kind of bullish dynamic to a miss, trouble ensues – don’t blame me, that’s just how the market works.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4003466-party-salesforce-com-terrible-q2-earnings
- Salesforce To Launch AI Product, Einstein
The company is hoping Einstein, the Artificial Intelligence product it is working on introducing to the world, will propel her to fresher growth.
Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference hold in San Francisco and the event typically draws around 170,000 attendees. The company believes this will be the perfect time and place to formally make the big announcement.
It could be recalled that Salesforce acquired a handful of artificial intelligence companies in the last two years and Forbes believes this coming announcement explains those decisions. Other companies to have towed the same path in the past include Google and Microsoft.
http://stocknewsusa.com/2016/08/26/salesforce-launch-ai-product-einstein-stocks-rise-announcement/
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff indicates his rivalry with Microsoft is back on
Their purchase of Quip is a direct threat against Microsoft…“We have to have productivity built in. All of our applications need to have core productivity applications, whether it is email, like with Salesforce Inbox or spreadsheets or word processors like Quip, live documents. All of that has to be an integrated part of what we are doing. We believe that strongly. We have obviously done a lot of great work with Microsoft as well, with their products. We have now our own product in this category. And this is going to be really important for us going forward and it’s the reason that we bought Quip.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforces-marc-benioff-ups-rivalry-with-microsoft-2016-9?r=UK&IR=T
- Why the container community is wrong to whine about Docker
Predictably, everyone wants in on this Docker action, though few are as honest about that interest as Red Hat’s Riek. Though he stresses he doesn’t speak for Red Hat, it’s not hard to believe that his concerns would be widespread within the open source giant, not to mention other vendors. Declaring “containers as the future of the Linux OS and application-centric IT,” Riek questions “the aggressive way that Docker Inc is trying to control the Docker open source project.”
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-the-container-community-is-wrong-to-whine-about-docker/
Photo: Blake Richard Verdoorn
Supplier Report: 8/27/2016
Storage was a hot topic this week. IBM introduced new, more affordable offerings which resulted in a copious amount of articles.
Oracle’s legal battles are keeping them in the news. Their battles with Oregon and Google are still going and growing in complexity. HP is also getting sued for age discrimination.
Apple purchased personal health data company Gliimpse and Microsoft purchased AI scheduling tool Genee.
IBM
- Is Watson Smart Enough To Breathe Life Into IBM?
White believes that given IBM’s relative absence in the Enterprise SaaS solutions market, the deal is not likely to run into anti-trust roadblocks. He feels Workday’s growth in the SaaS space will complement IBM’s aim to provide a flexible cloud structure and help establish a noteworthy footprint in the space. Drexel Hamilton has a Buy rating and a 12-month target price of $186 on IBM. The stock closed at just above $159 in trading yesterday.
- IBM launches flash arrays for smaller enterprises, aims to court EMC, Dell customers
The company is also aiming a migration program designed to poach customers from the likes of Dell and EMC. IBM’s “Flash In” migration program is carried out by its various partners. Via Flash In, IBM is looking to integrate its systems with storage rivals or replace them.
IBM launched the Storwize V7000F and Storwize 5030F as mid-range and entry level flash systems. The systems come with Spectrum Virtualize, which is software designed for data compression, provisioning, and snapshots across various systems.
- IBM looks to take advantage of Dell EMC ‘disruption’
Channel players not already involved with IBM are also being invited to the party. “Business partners looking to add IBM as a strategic vendor will find a set of comprehensive benefits that compare very favourably to what they may experience today,” said IBM.
Up to 80 percent of IBM all-flash storage is sold by IBM Business Partners. “The IBM Flash In initiative will amplify the company’s all-flash offensive to help Business Partners reach new clients not currently served by IBM, and clients who may face potential disruption if there are product portfolio integrations with Dell and EMC,” the vendor said.
http://www.channelbiz.co.uk/2016/08/23/ibm-looks-to-take-advantage-of-dell-emc-disruption/
- IBM Named a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for its Flash Storage Solutions
IBM’s position as a leader comes after it announced the expansion of its FlashSystem portfolio, including DeepFlash andStorwize products, to help clients more quickly extract value from data for competitive advantage. Among the 380 patents that differentiate IBM’s flash products and services are its FlashCore and MicroLatency technologies. Clients rely on these technologies to quickly access the mounting volumes.
- It’s time for all-flash says IBM, but IT chiefs won’t necessarily agree
“As long as your working set size is within your available SSD [in a hybrid flash setup] then everything happening, on for example SQL Server, will be fine. The only time you need all-flash is if you have a large number of SQL datasets that you need access to; in effect requiring random access.”
He added: “Far too many people see it as a panacea but it’s a pointless way of storing lots of data.”
Oracle
- Is Oracle Funding an Anti-Google Group?
The company has stated that it is has funded the Google Transparency Project, which according to its website, “is a research initiative of the Campaign for Accountability, a 501(c)3 project that uses research, litigation and aggressive communications to expose how decisions made behind the doors of corporate boardrooms and government offices impact Americans’ lives.”
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13680655/1/is-oracle-funding-an-anti-google-group-tech-roundup.html
- Why Google Needs to Win the Android Case Against Oracle
So it’s important that these APIs remain neutral so companies can’t fleece the world at large every time they are used. Media reports indicate that courts have thus far ruled in favor of maintaining this neutrality of APIs. And that’s exactly why the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has repeatedly filed amicus curiae (friend/impartial advisor to the court) briefs so the courts hold that APIs aren’t copyrightable and to prevent Oracle from monetizing the Java API through its acquisition of Sun.
And in fact, the case revealed that it was Sun’s practice to allow companies to freely use Java APIs. Sun’s strategy in those days was to use this approach to extend Java’s reach as far as possible so more developers would build on it. The idea was that once the ecosystem gathered momentum, it would help Sun sell other products.
https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/228742/why-google-needs-to-win-the-android-case-against-oracle
- Oracle v. Oregon: Round 1 of Lawsuit Goes to State
Brown and her team denied any agreement had been reached, and the legal battle continues. One of the first decisions in the case was handed down this week in Oregon’s favor. Oracle had asserted that emails were withheld in a way that violated public record laws, but the judge left little doubt as to his decision, saying “Oracle is wrong, both on the law and the facts.”
Microsoft
- Microsoft announces free Windows Server licenses when migrating from VMware
To make more VMware customers switch to Hyper-V, Microsoft is announcing a new VMware migration offer where customers can get Windows Server Datacenter licenses for free when they buy Windows Server 2016 Datacenter and Software Assurance migrating from VMWare. From September 1, 2016, through June 30, 2017, customers who switch from VMware to Hyper-V can avail this offer. Basically, customers has to pay only for Software Assurance which provides benefits including new product version rights, deployment planning, technical and end-user training, support, and a unique set of technologies and services.
http://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-announces-free-windows-server-licenses-migrating-vmware/
- Microsoft buys AI scheduling tool Genee to make Office 365 smarter
The app works by being CCed in emails, and using natural language processing to parse the contents of the email to understand the key requirements for the meeting — and then automatically sending out a meeting invite on your behalf. So it’s arguably an early example of the AI-powered chatbots now springing up all over the place. There are a set of standard commands Genee understands by default but users can also create their own custom commands.
Microsoft notes the tool is “especially useful for large groups for when you don’t have access to someone’s calendar”. Genee’s co-founders, Ben Cheung and Charles Lee, “plan” to join the company, it adds.
- The marriage of Microsoft and Linux
What’s changed for Microsoft and open source in recent years is Microsoft has refocused on solving both its own and customers’ business problems. That means, first, Linux is treated as an equal to Windows. “Microsoft actually uses a lot of Linux in-house. It’s no longer everything has to be run on Windows internally.” Microsoft is doing this because “We’re solving business problems and we’re very pragmatic.”
http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-marriage-of-microsoft-and-linux/
Storage
- 5 Ways the Dell Purchase of EMC Will Benefit VMware
Simplification of the hardware and software stacks. Although the cloud will be a huge part of the future of IT, some companies will still want or need to run applications locally. That fact, combined with the general direction of IT toward simplification, means it’s easy to foresee a tighter integration between Dell, EMC and VMware to simplify application delivery.
https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2016/08/01/dell-purchase-of-emc.aspx
- Dell: EMC Buy Will End Legacy Perceptions Of Dell As A PC Company
While Dell does a lot more than PCs, the company from CEO Michael Dell on down still embraces its pedigree as a major PC vendor, Khan said. “Michael’s goal is to make Dell an end-to-end enterprise solutions company,” he said.
- EMC still hiring in Massachusetts even as Dell merger looms
Officials at EMC have been mum about the company’s headcount, especially in the wake of the merger announcement in October 2015. A spokeswoman for EMC declined to comment on the fact that the firm is still hiring in Massachusetts, saying only that “we’ve made it a practice of not disclosing the number of job openings at any given time.”
The job openings could also signal continued economic development in MetroWest communities, where EMC owns millions of square feet of property, employs thousands of workers and serves as a substantial pillar for the local economy.
Other
- Apple Acquires Personal Health Data Startup Gliimpse
Silicon Valley-based Gliimpse has built a personal health data platform that enables any American to collect, personalize, and share a picture of their health data. The company was started in 2013 by Anil Sethi and Karthik Hariharan. Sethi is a serial entrepreneur who has spent the past decade working with health startups, after taking his company Sequoia Software public in 2000. He got his start as a systems engineer at Apple in the late 1980s.
The acquisition happened earlier this year, but Apple has been characteristically quiet about it. The company has now confirmed the purchase, saying: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
- Is Focus on Shareholder Value Killing Manufacturing?
During the time that shareholder value and stock prices became more important than employees, the U.S. has suffered from:
- Growing Manufacturing Unemployment – From 2000 to 2010 manufacturing lost around 6 million jobs. Since the recovery from the Great Recession only 828,000 employees have been hired in manufacturing.
- Slowing GDP Growth – Since 2000, GDP growth has averaged a very weak 1.8%
Increasing Pay Gap – The wealthiest 1% have captured almost all of the growth in income since the 2008 crash. - Increasing Pay Gap – The wealthiest 1% have captured almost all of the growth in income since the 2008 crash.
- Increasing Offshoring – Outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to low-cost countries has been the most popular strategy, and EPI asserts that between 2000 and 2007 3.6 million manufacturing jobs were lost. After the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2014, another 1.4 million manufacturing jobs were lost.
- Growing Trade Deficit – Our total trade deficit has grown to $10 trillion in the last 30 years.
- Salesforce is suddenly hiring fewer people after spending nearly $4 billion buying companies this year
There are 30% fewer open jobs listed on Salesforce’s website over the past three months, with most of the job reductions occurring since early July, according to a note published on Friday by the market research firm Cowen and Company.
The firm notes that there have also been some “travel restrictions” within the company, citing unnamed sources.
http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-cuts-hiring-after-spending-4-billion-acquisitions-2016-8
- HP Is Running Out of Ink
After the spinoff from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) , 60% of HP’s revenue comes from personal computers and 40% from printing. Of the $1 billion in non-GAAP operating profit last quarter, 77% of the company’s came from printing. Printing had an operating margin of 17.3% and is the biggest contributor to HP’s profits. Printing supplies (ink) makes up 67% of printing revenue.
Meanwhile, Personal Systems, or the personal computer division, represents 23% of profits and carries a slender 3.5% operating margin. Systems generated a profit of $242 million in the second quarter. The division outperformed the market to achieve an overall market share of 19.4%, up 0.4 points.
The company has become number one in commercial PCs, with a market share of 24.6%. Total unit shipments fell 9% last quarter, however. Desktop revenue declined 13% and units shipped ddropped 10%.
http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/08/23/2016/hp-running-out-ink
- Is big data in big trouble?
If you are a technology buyer, you are probably looking beyond these earnings. You are paying attention to the other developments that occurred in this space this summer: Workday acquired Platfora in July, Qlik Tech got absorbed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in June. You might also have heard that Amazon is planning to release its business intelligence visualization solution next month, and you know that both Microsoft and Google already have products in this market.
Betting on one vendor for visualization and business intelligence is becoming increasingly difficult. Rather than worry about the earnings of the industry players, it’s better to focus on their approach and architectural vision instead.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/19/is-big-data-in-big-trouble/
- Tableau has hired longtime AWS executive Adam Selipsky as its CEO
Selipsky has spent more than a decade at AWS. Before that, he was an executive at RealNetworks, leading the video subscription and media player division.
The change is intriguing, particularly given Tableau’s recent financial troubles, said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT.
“Despite continuing customer growth, the company has been struggling, and its shares have lost a substantial percentage of their value in the past year,” King said.
http://www.cio.com/article/3110646/tableau-turns-to-aws-for-a-cloud-savvy-ceo.html
- Cisco wants to be a software company? Why customers should look beyond the hype
So what does it all mean? For Cisco, it all sounds like business as usual. It’s selling as much software as it ever did but that is simply bundled up in a way that shifts the business model away from selling monolithic hardware. This has been happening to lots of tech firms for at least the last decade as any PC hardware firm will attest. Equally, without the hardware and software integration, some of the need for platform-based firms such as Cisco would go away.
Cybersecurity is the perfect example of this trend, a sector in which buying security layers bundled up in boxes has given away to the concept of security as a layer in a software-defined network. The sheer complexity of managing hardware using distinct systems ensured the success of this model.
But what has really changed here is the way software has followed hardware in becoming a commodity. That is what the cloud is: a way of offering complex systems through a consistent set of standards and technologies that let anyone buy the same service for the same price. But the integration between the two remains complex when building network infrastructure, however unsexy that sounds to analysts. Cisco will continue to employ a lot of people who understand how to make the two gel.
- HP Sued for Alleged Age Bias in Mass Layoffs
HP slashed roughly 30,000 jobs in 2012 under CEO Meg Whitman, and has conducted smaller cuts since then. According to the complaint, workers over 40 were “significantly more likely” to have their jobs eliminated under the company’s reduction plan.
A spokesperson for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise denied that age was a consideration in the company’s layoffs. “The decision to implement a workforce reduction is always difficult,” the spokesperson said Monday in an emailed statement, “but we are confident that our decisions were based on legitimate factors unrelated to age.”
Photo: Maximilian Weisbecker
Supplier Report: 8/6/2016
Yet another week where M&A dominates the news.
Verizon bought another company (Fleetmatics), SalesForce purchased Quip, and there are rumors that HPE might be up for sale (all of it or some of it). IBM is showing interest in purchasing point of sale company Revel.
IBM is also actually responsible for some technology news this week. Their health AI systems are starting to target cancer symptoms as a means of early detection. They also maybe created an artificial neuron for super computers.
IBM
- IBM IC detects cancer before symptoms appear
“The societal impact of this research is that it could enable physicians to detect cancer early…when there are more possibilities of being cured,” Stolovitzky said. “We wanted this research to be in the area of cancer and also the area of detecting DNA and viruses like Zika. Everything reduces down to the same thing: being able to have a small and affordable diagnostic tool that can detect minute quantities of biomarker particles that tell physicians something about a person’s health.”scale of biology
- IBM is reportedly in talks to buy point-of-sale software firm Revel Systems
Bloomberg reports IBM (IBM) is in early talks to acquire Revel Systems, provider of an iPad-based point-of-sale (POS) hardware and software system for merchants.
Revel competes with Square, PayPal (PYPL) , NCR (NCR) and others in the iPad POS market; its customers include Cinnabon, Chobani, and Popeyes. It has 750 employees, and was valued at more than $500 million in a $13.5 million 2015 funding round.
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13660304/1/verizon-makes-a-telematics-acquisition-ibm-reportedly-mulls-a-retail-acquisition.html
Is IBM Setting Up To Buy Revel Systems?With a Revel acquisition, IBM could theoretically refill a hole in its product line that has existed since the firm sold its point-of-sale business to Toshiba for $800 million in 2012. Revel, on the other hand, could possibly find itself with a soft exit from a market where funding rounds are getting fewer and further between.
http://www.pymnts.com/news/point-of-sale/2016/ibm-acquire-revel-rumors/
- IBM creates first-ever artificial neurons that behave like the real thing
IBM researchers in Switzerland have created an artificial neuron that behaves just like the real thing. For the first time in history, artificial phase-change neurons have been grouped together (in a population of 500 synthesized in a lab) to process a neurological signal in more or less the same way that biological neurons transmit messages. They can be made exceptionally small and are similar in power and energy usage to biological neurons, and can even produce results with random variations, also just like biological neurons.
http://inhabitat.com/ibm-creates-first-ever-artificial-neurons-that-behave-like-the-real-thing/
- IBM’s Wager on Open Source Is Still Paying Off
“It became apparent that open source could be the de facto standards we needed to be the engine to go out and drive things,” Moore said in his keynote at ApacheCon. “[The contributions] were bets; we didn’t know how this was going to come out, and we didn’t know if open source would grow, we knew there would be roadblocks and things we’d have to overcome along the way, but it had promise. We thought this would be the way of the future.”
https://www.linux.com/news/ibms-wager-open-source-still-paying
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc
- Is Hewlett Packard Enterprise up for sale?
As explained by author Kevin McLaughlin, “a buyout would allow HPE, currently the world’s largest seller of servers and storage systems, to streamline outside the glare of public scrutiny.”
Following McLaughlin’s claims, shares in the company spiked seven percent on the stock exchange, yet closed around 3.5 percent as more details of the potential deal emerged.
According to Reuters, the firms are focused on acquiring certain software assets from the vendor, worth somewhere between $US6 billion and $US8 billion, rather than the entire company.
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/604318/hewlett-packard-enterprise-up-sale/
HPE Reportedly Considers Going PrivateReuters reported last week that sources familiar with the HPE private equity discussion said that buyout firms are focused on acquiring some software assets that HPE has been considering divesting, and that those are worth between $6 billion and $8 billion.
The Reuters report added that the deal was for just the software assets and not the entire company. HPE’s software assets include technology gained in acquisitions such as Vertica Systems, Autonomy, and Mercury. The technologies include data analytics, cloud orchestration, and systems management. That group hasn’t been paying off as strongly as the company’s hardware business has.
http://www.informationweek.com/software/hpe-reportedly-considers-going-private/d/d-id/1326467
$40 billion buyout rumour persists as HPE cloud chief and storage boss leave companyA number of key executives are to leave Hewlett Packard Enterprise, with the top-level departures coming at a time when rumours abound that the company is subject to a $40 billion takeover attempt.
Head of Cloud Bill Hilf, along with Manish Goel, HPE’s storage boss, are set to leave the company for pastures new. However, the reshuffle did not stop there, with Robert Vriji, managing director of sales for the Americas also set to leave, as well as the high-profile retirement of Martin Fink, CTO and head of HP Labs. Fink will retire at the end of the year.
- PE Firms Looking to Acquire Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software Assets Worth $6B-$8B
Private equity firms, including KKR NYSEKK, Apollo and Carlyle Group are seeking to acquire certain software assets from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, according to sources reported by Reuters on Friday. Earlier in the day, The Information reported those firms might make a bid for all of HPE.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise declined comment on the report, while KKR, Apollo and Carlyle did not comment.
http://www.benzinga.com/news/16/07/8282979/bemzingas-weekend-m-a-chatter
Storage
- INFINIDAT Reports 60% Quarter Over Quarter Growth in Q2
INFINIDAT continued to achieve significant sales traction in key vertical markets in Q2, reporting that 32 percent of sales was to leading firms in the finance sector, 28 percent was in technology, telecommunications and cloud services, and 24 percent was in healthcare and life sciences. INFINIDAT added several new customers in Q2, including BT (world-leading communications services provider), HMSA/Hawaii Medical Service Association (health insurer), Triple C (cloud services provider), and Credit Andorra (financial services).
http://www.cso.com.au/mediareleases/27834/infinidat-reports-60-quarter-over-quarter-growth/
- How Dell Raised $67 Billion for the Biggest Tech Deal Ever
Some of Dell’s own potential banks balked early on, arguing that they simply could not sell enough junk bonds to finance the deal, and other lenders refused to participate if they could not easily resell some of the loans to other investors.
Then Dell, Silver Lake and the bankers came up with an idea, pushed hard by Mr. Durban: Sell more high-rated loans and bonds, a questionable idea for a junk-rated company like Dell.
Other
- Oracle’s Latest Purchase Opens the Door for More Pricey Tech Deals
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies like Salesforce, which deliver software over the Internet, are of particular interest because that sales delivery model is becoming more successful with corporate customers. Neeraj Agrawal, a general partner with Battery Ventures, estimates that SaaS—as hot as it’s been—still represents just 15% of current software market, but he suggests that won’t be the case for long.
- Verizon buys Fleetmatics for $2.4B in cash to step up in telematics
More generally, the acquisition of Fleetmatics points to ways that Verizon is continuing to use its balance sheet to finance investments into newer areas to offset continuing declines in its core, legacy business of basic phone services. As that market has become increasingly commoditized and people turn to other, digitised forms of communication away from traditional voice services, Verizon is hoping to invest into newer areas to move beyond “dumb pipe” status to keep its margins up, and revenues growing.
While its acquisition of AOL (and now Yahoo) will help Verizon scale up its media, advertising and content operations, Fleetmatics is pointing straight to Verizon’s ambitions in enterprise services, and specifically enterprise mobility.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/01/verizon-buys-fleetmatics-for-2-4b-in-cash-to-step-up-in-telematics
- Salesforce buys word processing app Quip for $750M
It’s not clear why Quip — which was growing and in the enviable position of being very selective about taking funding from VCs — decided to sell up to Salesforce. But it’s an interesting turn in the ongoing consolidation that we’ve seen in the enterprise market, and how that is transforming the bigger companies that are doing the buying.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/01/salesforce-buys-word-processing-app-quip-for-750m/
- AWS prints money for Amazon, but can Microsoft, Google and IBM catch up?
As revealed last week, the AWS division of Amazon reported 58 percent year-to-year growth to almost $US2.9 billion, supported by continued operating efficiency that enabled the business to reach $US718 million in operating profit.
Worldwide Cloud infrastructure services expenditure grew 52.3 percent year on year in Q2 2016, with Canalys findings pitching AWS as the leading Cloud infrastructure services provider, accounting for 30.4 percent of total spend.
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/604414/aws-prints-money-amazon-can-microsoft-google-ibm-catch-up/
- Is the End Near for Tableau Software Inc?
Data visualization company, Tableau is scheduled to report second quarter earnings tonight, after the market closes. The stock is perpetually one of the most beaten down during earnings season. After Q4 earnings, shares dropped nearly 50%, only to drop an additional 10% following Q1 earnings. Early indications appear as if they are heading in the same direction ahead of tonight’s report. Just this week Deutsche Bank downgraded the stock to “hold” from “buy” on concerns of slow margin growth. For Tableau to stop the slow bleed, it will have to convince investors that this and future quarters can generate sustainable growth.
http://www.valuewalk.com/2016/08/tableau-software-inc-data-shortsell-earnings/
- Teradata: Could This Be The Start Of Something Big?
At this point, TDC has more than $7.20/share in cash although 98% of the cash is offshore. It also has long-term debt of $552 million. The current enterprise value is $3.44 billion which produces an EV/S for the current year of 1.49X. Based on the company’s current projection, the free cash flow yield for TDC will be 8% or so. The company indicated that there is potential upside to the free cash flow estimate based on the year-ending profile of assets and liabilities, particularly A/R. The company has a P/E of 12X current year non-GAAP earnings. Stock-based comp is quite low at around 10% of reported non-GAAP earnings. The other adjusting items have to do with one-time charges related to the disposition of the company’s marketing assets business as well as reorganization costs. With those kind of valuation metrics, there is plenty of upside if the company’s efforts to re-invent itself are even marginally successful. With that level of valuation, the company presents a very attractive acquisition target to both strategic and private equity investors. In the wake of the company’s guidance for the next two quarters, I think downside exposure is very limited as well.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3994915-teradata-start-something-big
Big Data acquisitions: All about the enterpriseWhy would Teradata execute a services play not just once, but twice? Ultimately, it would seem to come down to Enterprise sales. Implementing big data — and doing it successfully — is still hard, and experienced consulting shops/Systems Integrators (SIs) can make enterprise customers feel a lot more confident moving forward with it. That puts them in the perfect position to recommend tools and technologies. So, having a manageably small, but geographically distributed, services organization can be very helpful to Teradata indeed.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/big-data-acquisitions-all-about-the-enterprise/
Photo: Phoebe Dill