Tag: Sas

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Supplier Report: 10/8/2016

sn_city_pedro-lastra

Nobody wants to buy Twitter, but that isn’t stopping SalesForce, Google, and Microsoft with moving forward with their long term plans.

Internet of Things is trending this week as Microsoft is quietly shutting down their fitness band division, but will they buy FitBit (and what would they do with all of that data)? IBM is dropping $200M on a new IoT HQ in Germany.

There were also a few interesting team-ups this week: VMWare and Amazon on some potential VMWare options on AWS and IBM and AT&T deepening their relationship via cloud services.

Acquisitions

  • Plat.One acquisition marks start of $2B IoT investment plan for SAP

    SAP has bought IoT software developer Plat.One, marking the start of a plan to invest US$2 billion in the internet of things over the next five years.

    Some of those billions will be spent on the creation of IoT development labs around the world, SAP said Wednesday. It already has plans for such labs in Berlin, Johannesburg, Munich, Palo Alto, Shanghai and São Leopoldo in Brazil.

    The company is also rolling out a series of “jump-start” and “accelerator” IoT software packages for particular industries, to help them monitor and control equipment.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/3124442/internet-of-things/platone-acquisition-marks-start-of-2b-iot-investment-plan-for-sap.html#tk.rss_all

  • Salesforce snaps up Krux for $700M on eve of Dreamforce

    On the eve of Dreamforce, his company’s annual developers shindig, Salesforce agreed on Monday to acquire Krux, a marketing-data start-up, for $700 million in stock and cash. Krux, which already has a partnership with Salesforce, is expected to bolster Salesforce’s ability to better identify and serve its cloud-software customers.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/10/03/salesforce-snaps-up-krux-700m-eve-dreamforce/91490708/

  • Salesforce Investors Could Derail a Potential Deal for Twitter

    During a CNBC interview on Wednesday with Jim Cramer, Benioff neither confirmed nor denied Salesforce’s interest in Twitter, but didn’t exactly sound as if a deal is certain. “We have to look at everything, we’re going to pass on most things,” he said. Salesforce, which was down over 7% at one point, pared its losses a little following Benioff’s remarks.

    The fact that Twitter is already often used as a marketing and customer service vehicle by many companies — including, presumably, many Salesforce clients — probably isn’t lost on Benioff. Salesforce likely sees value in integrating Twitter with its Marketing Cloud (online marketing automation) and Service Cloud (customer service and enterprise collaboration) software. It also could leverage data on Twitter activity to give clients a better understanding of their customers, as well as engage with them more effectively.

    https://www.thestreet.com/story/13843028/1/salesforce-investors-could-derail-a-potential-deal-for-twitter.html
    Salesforce Should Leave This Bird in the Bush

    A Wall Street Journal report late Tuesday makes clear that Salesforce is still very interested. CEO Marc Benioff has reportedly been talking up Twitter behind closed doors—going so far as to describe the troubled microblogging service an “unpolished gem” at one gathering. Salesforce shares fell another 5% as a result. In all, the prospect of buying Twitter has erased nearly $5 billion in Salesforce’s market value.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/salesforce-should-leave-this-bird-in-the-bush-1475696224

  • Should Microsoft Buy Fitbit?

    Fitbit isn’t for sale, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be bought. There wasn’t a “For Sale” sign hanging on Skype, Yammer, and more recently LinkedIn when Microsoft cracked open its huge pocketbook to snap up niche leaders. This makes Fitbit a logical target for a company with a history of multi-billion dollar purchases and a market leader that is attainable. Fitbit’s present enterprise value of $2.5 billion would be a light bite for Microsoft, even with a reasonable premium on top of that.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/06/should-microsoft-buy-fitbit.aspx

  • Oracle Threatens to End NetSuite Deal

    On Friday, Oracle announced that it extended the expiration data of its tender offer for NetSuite to Nov. 4, having already extended the date to Oct. 6 last month “to facilitate the completion of outstanding antitrust reviews.” In September, Oracle received the final antitrust clearance needed, from the U.S. Department of Justice.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-to-call-off-netsuite-deal-unless-shareholder-support-increases-1475849434

Artificial Intelligence

Cloud

Datacenter

  • The Job Cuts Begin: Dell Confirms Layoffs

    “Most cuts are overlap, none strategic and/or not part of the new Dell EMC program. To me very normal and a must once the two firms begin to integrate, gel, morph and then execute as a new technology powerhouse with a focused team that [has] the ‘right’ skill sets to address this new world,” Shepard wrote.

    http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300082351/the-job-cuts-begin-dell-confirms-layoffs.htm

  • Why Red Hat, Inc. Gained 11% in September

    The open-source software specialist saw second-quarter earnings rise 17% year over year, based on 17% stronger sales. Both of these figures were above Wall Street’s consensus estimates. Application development tools led the way with 33% higher sales, and Red Hat customers’ adoption of long-term support subscriptions is pacing ahead of the basic revenue growth.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/07/why-red-hat-inc-gained-11-in-september.aspx

Software/SaaS

  • Oracle Will Keep Posting Growth in the SaaS Space

    As we discussed earlier in this series, Microsoft (MSFT) emerged as the leader of overall enterprise SaaS (software-as-a-service) space, and Salesforce (CRM) continues to rule the CRM (customer relationship management) space. It was the Oracle’s dominance in ERP (enterprise resource planning), the segment that grew the most in the SaaS space, that led it to register the highest growth in the SaaS space in 2Q16.

    http://marketrealist.com/2016/10/oracle-will-continue-post-growth-saas-space/

Other

  • IBM Brand Value Collapses 19%

    The failure of IBM’s turnaround continues to smother the business. IBM’s shares are off 17% in the past two years, against a 9% improvement in the S&P 500. IBM’s revenue in 2011 was $106.9 billion. In 2015, the figure fell to $81.7 billion.

    http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2016/10/05/ibm-brand-value-collapses-19/

  • SAS CEO Dr Jim Goodnight on the power of big data, literacy and philanthropy

    “We spend 25 per cent of our revenues on R and D every year, which is more than any other major software company,” says Goodnight, who was a statistics professor at the North Caroline State University when he started working on software for agriculture.

    http://www.cio.co.nz/article/607926/sas-ceo-dr-jim-goodnight-on-the-power-of-big-data-literacy-and-philanthropy/

  • Coupa up 87% in software IPO

    But they’re still not profitable. For the six months ending in July, Coupa lost $24.3 million, which compares to a loss of $25.1 million in the same period last year. Yet revenue is growing, up to $53.2 million from $31.6 million in the same time frames.

    CEO Rob Bernshteyn tells us they are more focused on their margins than profitability right now. “For every dollar we burned, we created well over a dollar in recurring revenue,” he told TechCrunch. He says he’s looking to “build this business for the long-term.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/06/coupa-up-87-in-software-ipo/?ncid=rss

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Supplier Report: 2/6/2016

sn_news_Matt Popovich

For a company that was not expected to making many acquisitions in 2016, IBM sure has been busy.  They purchased three marketing firms this week… 3! These purchases bring to light that IBM currently has marketing department with over 10,000 employees (and growing).

While IBM conceives of new and better ways to sell you things, EMC is getting sued.  There are at least 3 (because it is the magic number) stockholder lawsuits in flight all stating that EMC and Dell are misleading stockholders with their financial math.

I am officially giving Microsoft their own section on the report and I picked a good week.  Microsoft purchased keyboard app maker SwiftKey not only for the popular app, but because of the predictive system it developed to aid with their AI goals. Microsoft also announced attempts to create underwater data centers for improved global performance and for environmental (cooling) reasons.

IBM

  • IBM Signs Agreement to Acquire Aperto to Meet Growing Client Need for Digital Transformation

    ARMONK, N.Y., Feb. 2,2016 /PRNewswire/ IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Aperto a digital agency with headquarters in Berlin. Upon completion of this transaction, Aperto will to join the IBM Interactive Experience (IBM iX) team, supporting IBM’s growth in the largest economy in Europe.

    Aperto’s 300-plus employees will continue to serve its roster of clients, which currently includes companies such as Airbus Group, Volkswagen and Siemens.

    http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwgeeks/article/IBM-Signs-Agreement-to-Acquire-Aperto-to-Meet-Growing-Client-Need-for-Digital-Transformation-20160202
    After reading that press release, I still had no idea what this company did, so I went to their website:

    Our ability to connect today’s three core disciplines – technology, strategy and creativity – at the highest level is what makes us the “Right-Service Agency For The Digital Age”. We guide the digital transformation of companies and organizations by pioneering ground-breaking marketing solutions, products and business models.

    We know that today no agency can do everything. Tasks and projects are becoming more complex as new technologies and specializations emerge. Those who still promise ‘Full-Service’ end up delivering only half the possible results. That’s why we concentrate on what our clients really need to be successful. This constant focus on the right priorities is what we call ‘Right-Service’.

    Okay…

  • IBM To Acquire ecx.io To Better Customer Experience
    So they bought ANOTHER customer experience firm in Europe. This is the THIRD in a week.

    Upon close of this transaction, ecx.io will bring 200 employees specialized in designing and implementing commerce and digital marketing services and platforms to IBM iX. Clients will benefit from this range of capabilities, combined with the strategy, analytics, cloud and cognitive depth of IBM.

    http://www.teleanalysis.com/corporate/ibm-to-acquire-ecx-io-to-better-customer-experience-20761.html
    So we are clear…
    IBM now has 10,000 people working on advertising

    IBM doesn’t talk as much about its digital agency business as it does about its machine-learning cloud service “Watson.” But the company is clearly ramping its efforts up in this market for 2016. The talent wars for top designers are brutal, so IBM is shopping.

    http://www.dailynewsx.com/news/business-news/ibm-now-has-10000-people-working-on-advertising-13369.html

  • ​IBM unveils 25 new services with quadruple Cloud play

    The hybrid cloud services can be deployed across multiple cloud providers and are based on open source technologies and open ecosystems that include company and third-party data.

    In addition to the expansion, the tech giant also introduced four new cloud data services; IBM Compose Enterprise, IBM Graph, IBM Predictive Analytics and IBM Analytics Exchange.

    “Data is the common thread within the enterprise, regardless of where its source might be,” says Derek Schoettle, General Manager, Analytics Platform and Cloud Data Services, IBM.

    http://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/593445/ibm-unveils-25-new-services-quadruple-cloud-play/

  • IBM Is Blowing Up Its Annual Performance Review

    That maxim, it seems, also applies to IBM’s annual performance review—a 10-year-old system called Personal Business Commitments. The program will be replaced with a brand new approach this week, one that gives more opportunity to shift employee goals throughout the year and includes more frequent feedback.

    Additionally…

    There is no single measure of an employee’s performance like before. “In the old system, there was one score. People [got] sort of obsessed by that,” Gherson said. “In the new system, there are five scores. It leads to a much richer, more balanced discussion.”

    http://fortune.com/2016/02/01/ibm-employee-performance-reviews/

  • Why IBM Is Buying a Digital Marketing Agency
    To follow up last week’s post on IBM purchasing digital marketing company Resource/Ammirati…

    Since March 2014, IBM iX has quietly doubled its workforce to 10,000 specialists in everything from e-commerce advice to mobile development—including 1,000 creative design professionals branding experts. IBM iX’s hiring spree has been fueled by the company’s strategic partnerships with Apple (with which it is building industry specific mobile apps), Box (content management and workflow), Facebook (marketing intelligence), and Twitter (data analytics).

    And though it already ranks as the world’s largest digital agency, ahead of boutique firms like SapientNitro and Razorfish, the group wants even more of that work. This week, IBM iX signaled that intention with its plan to add another 300 creative experts through the acquisition of 35-year-old interactive media specialist Resource/Ammirati.

    http://fortune.com/2016/01/29/ibm-resource-ammirati/

EMC | Dell

  • Lawyer flings class action sueball at EMC over Dell merger

    It also says that prospectus opinion from Morgan Stanley on the deal “fails to disclose an “adjusted July Case” which was used as the basis for many of its analyses,” and similar analysis by Evercore “ails to disclose EMC’s “2.x Plan”, the calculation of fully diluted shares, and the equity value at the unaffected price for both EMC and VMware.”

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/03/lawyer_sues_emc_dell_merger/
    Actually, it is 3 lawsuits…
    Dell-EMC Deal Facing 3 More Shareholder Suits

    All of them allege EMC is shortchanging investors. Arguing that the merger agreement was adopted in violation of the fiduciary duties of EMC’s board of directors, they are turning to the courts for injunctive relief to enjoin the merger, as well as other remedies.

    http://www.cmswire.com/information-management/dell-emc-deal-facing-3-more-shareholder-suits/

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • HPE chases risky business with Autonomy and Stonebraker tech

    “We’re not just analysing risk events,” said Garber, “but giving organisations the tools to take action on them as well.”

    According to a 2015 Morgan Stanley report, cited by Garber, financial services firms have lost $260bn to regulators for breaches of compliance from 2009 to 2015.

    Asked how much of that HPE reckoned it would have saved (and, indeed, earned) Garber declined to offer a figure, but stated that actually the company was looking at a much wider area than just financial services.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/04/hpe_chases_risky_business_customers/

  • HPE Acquires Data Protection Software Developer Trilead

    Trilead, an Altendorf, Switzerland-based developer of low-cost data protection software for VMware vSphere and ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualized environments, put a statement on its website home page that it was acquired by HPE. Neither the timing of the acquisition nor the purchase price was addressed in the statement.

    http://www.crn.com/news/storage/300079597/hpe-acquires-data-protection-software-developer-trilead.htm

Microsoft

  • Microsoft tests underwater data center

    Microsoft said its reasons for experimenting with underwater data centres were twofold.

    Firstly, half the world’s population is located within 125 miles (200km) of the coast so data centres in the sea would reduce latency – the time its takes data to travel from its source to customers.

    But there were also environmental reasons for the trial. Putting the data centre in the ocean eliminated the need for cooling and, in future, if such centres could be colocated with offshore renewable energy sources, they could also produce zero emissions, according to Microsoft.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35472189

  • Microsoft Corporation To Become Second Largest Cloud Player

    Analysts are betting big time on this strategy for Cloud revenues to grow at the Redmond Company. Thus Microsoft Exchange and Outlook are actually driving the revenues for Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) digital cloud services.

    http://insidestocktrader.com/microsoft-corporations-nasdaqmsft-to-become-second-largest-cloud-player/851406/

  • Microsoft Acquires SwiftKey to Advance AI Goals

    SwiftKey’s predictive technology aligns with Microsoft’s interest in developing intelligent systems that can work more on users’ behalf and under their control, he added. That likely means artificial intelligence systems.

    Microsoft is shelling out $250 million, according to the Financial Times. It will fold SwiftKey’s employees into its stable, and they apparently will report to Shum.

    http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/83072.html

Other

  • Analytics software maker SAS puts 2015 revenue at near $3.2B

    Cary-based SAS Institute Inc. said Tuesday its revenues were almost $3.2 billion in 2015. That was 2 percent more than 2014.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/2/analytics-software-maker-sas-puts-2015-revenue-at-/

  • Tableau Software Inc (DATA) Plunges 35% On Disappointing Earnings

    Tableau Software delivered a weaker-than-expected quarter with very little upside to revenue as they beat the high-end of guidance by $2.8M vs their four-quarter average of $14.9M. The company reported 42% revenue growth with billings growth of 36%, compared to the 64% and 54% in Q3/15, respectively. Much of the focus will center around the revenue/billings deceleration and the guidance, which will be given on the call. The prior 2016 revenue outlook was $845M-$865M. The stock is down 30%+ in the after-market.

    http://www.valuewalk.com/2016/02/tableau-software-inc-data-plunges/

  • Teradataaaaargghh! How to go from years in the black right into the red

    Teradata is suffering from competition, the cloud and new style Big Data analytics, which collectively makes its kit seem expensive and dated. Although it’s moved into Big Data analytics, that market is not taking off fast enough and the Internet of Things data analytics boom is still nascent. Companies like HDS are entering the analytics market and increasing the competitive pressure.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/04/teradata_full_year_loss/
    What happened was that its Marketing Applications unit didn’t deliver the goods. In fact, it experienced an approximate $45m operating loss in 2015.
    sn_teradata_annual_crm

Photo: Matt Popovich

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Supplier News: 8/29/2015

sn_brokenship_Leeroy

An interesting week with suppliers in light of the market turbulence .  One would assume that there would be a great deal of financial performance information this week, but that was not the case (okay, there were a few interesting tidbits, see below).

IBM had a heavy cloud/IoT news cycle this week, the topic of containers come up in a few different media outlets.  EMC is starting to push back on OpenStack cloud concepts they adopted along with the other tech firms a few months ago.  Meanwhile, HP is just trying to make this split work.

IBM

  • IBM Invests $3 Billion and Hires 2,000 for IoT Unit
    Now there is number on how much they are willing to spend to start using data from mobile devices (via their deal with Apple), twitter communications with devices, and wearables to funnel that information into Watson and their analytics engines.

    Plans are to use resources to accelerate IoT deployments across a wide variety of verticals and closely collaborate between business groups such as Analytics; Systems and Technology (STG); the Watson Business Unit; and its Cloud and Services groups.

    http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/5666/ibm-invests-3-billion-and-hires-2-000-for-iot-unit

  • IBM takes on tough task of deploying containers across clouds

    Sets or clusters of containers can be scheduled and run on a given cloud with tools like the newly available Google Container Engine as well as Google-backed Kubernetes or the Amazon Container Service. But now developers have their eye on the next frontier: Deploying container clusters across different clouds—something IBM says it has accomplished. A team at IBM Research working with Moustafa AbdelBaky, a PhD candidate at Rutgers University’s Discovery Informatics Institute, used open-source technology called CometCloud as the basis of this work, which he calls C-Ports.

    http://fortune.com/2015/08/27/ibm-deploys-containers-across-clouds/
    Note: See what the IBM developers have to say about containers in the Reddit post below. 

  • IBM Watson, Using Speech Analysis Techniques, Correctly Identifies Patients At-Risk For Psychosis

    Having previously collaborated with Dr. Guillermo Cecchi in analyzing speech transcripts of patients high on ecstasy and meth, Dr. Gillinder Bedi wanted to do a similar study of psychotic patients. So Bedi, who is a research scientist at NY State Psychiatric Institute, asked Columbia Medical School researchers if they had any transcripts of people at high-risk for psychosis. In fact, they did have records for 34 at risk people (between the ages of 14 and 27). These 34 patients had been followed for two and a half years, during which time five had developed psychosis. Next, Cecchi applied machine learning and natural language processing analyses to the transcripts from the 34 patients to identify specific features that might predict psychosis.

    http://www.medicaldaily.com/ibm-watson-using-speech-analysis-techniques-correctly-identifies-patients-risk-349794

  • IBM launches Blue Box Cloud in data-centers

    Blue Box means IT departments can manage their OpenStack-based private clouds wherever the company (or offices, for a multi-location organisation) is based, to boost their public, private and hybrid infrastuctures. “Implementing Cloudsoft AMP on Blue Box Cloud across IBM Cloud datacentres will allow us to meet the increased demand from customers for hybrid cloud solutions built on OpenStack,” Duncan Johnston-Watt, chief executive of Cloudsoft, which is now taking advantage of Blue Box, said.

    http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/it-infrastructure/5312/ibm-launches-blue-box-cloud-in-datacentres

  • IBM developers get brutalized on a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA)
    I was reading this one in real time, and I felt bad for the guys.  It is interesting (when they were actually answering questions and not defending Lotus Notes – wow btw -there is substantial amount of hate for Lotus on the internet) to hear about their development priorities and some of the cultural aspects of working for the company.  
    https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ilzey/were_a_bunch_of_developers_from_ibm_ask_us/

EMC

  • EMC and Intel clash over OpenStack’s future direction

    Bias, who is also a director of the OpenStack Foundation, warned that the platform has so many different configuration options that it risked becoming fragmented and losing interoperability among different implementations of OpenStack. His recommendation is that OpenStack should have a base reference architecture against which specific implementations can be tested and verified, one of several steps he said that the platform needs to take.

    http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2423761/openstack-s-future-direction-causes-heated-community-debate

  • Pivotal appoints new CEO

    Pivotal, the cloud-computing spinout of EMC Corp. and VMware Inc., promoted Rob Mee as chief executive officer to replace Paul Maritz, who was appointed executive chairman of Pivotal’s board. Pivotal, backed by EMC, VMware and General Electric Co., was set up in 2012 to tap surging demand for Internet-based programs, after EMC acquired Pivotal Labs the same year. Mee co-founded the original entity, which specialized in developing tools to change how engineers build software. The technology has become a critical component of Pivotal’s business, which involves carrying out complex projects with customers, while training their engineers to write software in a more modern way.

    http://www.marketswired.com/emc-corp-nyseemc-appointed-new-ceo/225401/

Oracle

  • Oracle, still clueless about security

    Oracle’s chief security officer, Mary Ann Davidson, recently ticked off almost everyone in the security business. She proclaimed that you had to do security “expertise in-house because security is a core element of software development and you cannot outsource it.” She continued, “Whom do you think is more trustworthy? Who has a greater incentive to do the job right — someone who builds something, or someone who builds FUD around what others build?”

    http://www.cio.com/article/2975920/security/oracle-still-clueless-about-security.html#tk.rss_all

  • IBM And Oracle: A Comparison Of Economic Earnings
    Relative valuations
    As of writing, the market was valuing the two companies at:IBM: $138 billion
    Oracle: $154 billion.

    Now Oracle has a net cash position of about $10 billion, so backing this out, the market is valuing Oracle at $145 billion at about 11x economic earnings.

    On the other hand, IBM has net debt of about $6 billion (this excludes the financing segment; financing functions like a bank and debt in it is offset by loan/lease receivables; of course, a reader will point out that in the end debt is debt, however, in my opinion it is reasonable to exclude financing debt for the purposes of this discussion). So factoring this in, the market is valuing IBM at about $144 billion, or about 9.5x economic earnings.

    That is, there’s about a 10% difference in relative valuations.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3468516-ibm-and-oracle-a-comparison-of-economic-earnings

Hewlett Packard

  • PCs not dead despite difficulties ahead: HP chief

    http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/21/pcs-not-dead-despite-difficulties-ahead-hp-chief.html
  • Cisco Goes After HP in Contract Fight

    Cisco sued Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court after HP missed an Aug. 1 payment deadline. HP claims it doesn’t owe Cisco anything, according to the suit, and in fact, has demanded a refund.Cisco, represented by Winston & Strawn partners Krista Enns and J. Erik Connolly, is suing for breach of contract and declaratory relief. An attorney hasn’t entered an appearance for HP, but the company was represented by McKool Smith principal Robert Elkin in pre-litigation negotiations that began last year and have grown increasingly contentious, according to Cisco’s complaint.

    http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202735796401/Cisco-Goes-After-HP-in-Contract-Fight?slreturn=20150728135546

  • HP Already Operating as Two Companies, More Restructuring (Layoffs?) Coming

    Following a self-imposed three-day shutdown earlier this month, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has divided its internal systems to effectively operate as two separate companies–one focused on PCs and printers and another on enterprise business–more than two months ahead of its November 1 formal split date. HP chief executive Meg Whitman, speaking on the vendor’s earnings call late last week, said the operations and IT systems were “successfully split,” as of August 1 and included the input of customers and partners.

    http://thevarguy.com/business-technology-solution-sales/082415/hp-already-operating-two-companies-more-restructuring-layoffs-com

  • HP to Cut More Jobs

    Hewlett-Packard (HP) plans to reduce a further 5% of its workforce in addition to the 55,000 jobs it already plans to eliminate.

    http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/5645/hp-to-cut-more-jobs

  • What happened to HP?
    [Interesting breakdown of their business decisions over the last 15 years]

    2010- Five years of revenue gains and a hefty increase in stock growth over this period helped lead the technology firm into a brighter era. In the annual report for HP’s 2009 fiscal year Hurd wrote, “Over the last five years, HP has become a much more agile company, able to adapt and benefit from changing market conditions. In fiscal 2009, we gained share in key markets and continued to invest for growth in research and development, acquisitions, and sales coverage.” But it did not last. Hurd was accused of sexual harassment. While he was cleared of wrongdoing for that accusation, Hurd was found to have submitted false expense reports to hide a relationship.

    http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/what-happened-to-hp–1302804

Other

  • The Onion Router is being cut up and making security pros cry

    IBM claims there were around 180,000 malicious traffic “events” in the USA between January 1 and May 10 this year, with 150,000 in the Netherlands, and more than 50,000 in each of Romania, France, Luxembourg and Uruguay. While the rise of ransom-ware is worrying, the biggest attacks emanating from TOR exit nodes are familiar old favorites: SQL injection, vulnerability scanning, and denial-of-service.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/26/big_blue_biz_better_block_tor/

  • Podcast: Industry Leaders on the Promise & Peril of NSCI

    Five senior executives from Cray, HP, IBM, Intel and SGI weigh in on the new National Strategic Computing Initiative’s (NSCI) prospects in this exclusive HPCwire podcast. Discussion ranged widely from the need for long-term funding for leading edge technology, to the software industry’s past slowness to get involved with advancing hardware technology development, to fostering new HPC talent – even on whether the creation of a U.S. Department of IT makes sense.

    http://www.hpcwire.com/2015/08/27/podcast-industry-leaders-on-the-promise-peril-of-nsci/

  • SAS named a leader in 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools

    The report’s authors note that, “Gartner estimates that the data integration tool market was worth approximately $2.4 billion in constant currency at the end of 2014, an increase of 6.9% from 2013. The growth rate is above the average for the enterprise software market as a whole, as data integration capability continues to be considered of critical importance for addressing the diversity of problems and emerging requirements. A projected five-year compound annual growth rate of approximately 7.7% will bring the total to more than $3.4 billion by 2019.

    http://ameinfo.com/technology/innovation/sas-named-a-leader-in-2015-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-data-integration-tools/

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Supplier Report: 7/4/2015

sn_philadelphia_4oJ

As the nation celebrates its birthday, most companies are taking a break from major news (although some didn’t).  It is more of the same as we enjoy a long weekend.

IBM’s big data is transcending the hype and people are expecting great things, so great that Watson and his automated cousins could eliminate 47% of US jobs over the coming decades (because that’s not an alarmist factoid to get more readers).

Oracle is still talking about deep cost reductions to compete with Amazon, while HP keeps singing their breakup song (and released a monstrous 316 page exchange commission report). Speaking of reports, there are more stating EMC had a good Q1 in traditional storage (which has been consistent with reports over the last few weeks).

There was an office chat about how SAS is beloved by their employees and I found an article discussing that culture. Xerox apparently has the opposite situation…recently being named the 5th worst company to work for.

IBM

  • Watson’s next feat? Taking on cancer

    Among the most ambitious projects is a partnership with 14 cancer centers to use Watson to help choose therapies based on a tumor’s genetic fingerprints. Doctors have known for years that some treatments work miraculously on some patients but not at all on others due to genetics. But the expense and complexity in identifying genetic mutations and matching them up with potential therapies has made it difficult for more than a handful of patients to benefit from this new approach. The service is scheduled to launch later this year.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons-next-feat-taking-on-cancer/

  • But it isn’t all wonder and good news, the same article states:

    While there’s much debate about the extent to which technology is destroying jobs, recent research has driven concern. A 2013 paper by economists at the University of Oxford calculated the probability of 702 occupations being automated or “roboticized” out of existence and found that a startling 47 percent of American jobs — from paralegals to taxi drivers — could disappear in coming years. Similar research by MIT business professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee has shown that this trend may be accelerating and that we are at the dawn of a “second machine age.”

  • New Report Shows the Internet of Things’ Economic Impact Could Surpass Its Hype — But There’s Just One Problem

    While a host of devices such as smartphones, wearable technologies, connected industrial equipment, automobiles, and smart agriculture sensors can collect massive amounts of data, the McKinsey report notes that most of the information currently being collected isn’t being put to use: “Most IoT data collected today are not used, and the data that are used are not fully exploited. A critical challenge is to use the flood of big data generated by IoT devices for prediction and optimization.” McKinsey isn’t the only organization to discover this. IBM (NYSE:IBM) says 90% of data collected by smart IoT devices goes completely unused, and that the data starts losing its value just a few seconds after being gathered.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/07/01/new-report-shows-the-internet-of-things-economic-i.aspx

  • IBM explains its new (mobile) philosophy

    Matt Candy, managing partner, Europe IBM Interactive Experience, global business services, is one of the brand’s major spokespeople on the topic, and he believes that digital media is changing the way in which businesses and consumers interact: ‘The last, best experience that anyone has becomes the minimum expectation for the experiences they have everywhere. These experiences transcend industry – this shift is changing the challenge that brands face when interacting with the customer. Traditional boundaries are dead, it’s time for businesses to focus on human-to-human interactions. This makes experience the new competitive battleground in which businesses will have to work. 

    http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/news/b2b/36371/-ibm-explains-its-new-philosophy.aspx#.VZXhfPlVhBc

  • GlobalFoundries Takeover of IBM Chip Unit Is Official

    The two companies announced last October that IBM would pay GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion to take over its money-losing chip unit, which includes the plant in Essex. But the deal had to clear hurdles first. Because GlobalFoundries is owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, it needed to obtain clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency panel charged with reviewing major business deals to safeguard national security. The companies announced Monday that the committee had approved the deal.

    http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2015/07/01/globalfoundries-takeover-of-ibm-chip-unit-official

Oracle

  • Will Oracle Corporation’s New Cloud Push Pay-Off?

    A few days ago, Ellison and a few other Oracle execs announced the introduction of the company’s new, comprehensive “PaaS [Platform-as-a-Service] Launch and Cloud File Sharing and Collaboration” suite of services. Ellison didn’t hold back when asked what the objective of Oracle’s new Cloud Platform hopes to accomplish, saying “Our new archive storage service goes head-to-head with Amazon Glacier and it’s one-tenth their price.”

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/27/will-oracle-corporations-new-cloud-push-pay-off.aspx

Hewlett Packard

EMC

Other

  • Marc Benioff blasts SAP CEO: “He’s scared of Salesforce”

    On Thursday, during an event in SAP’s home country Germany, Benioff said Bill McDermott, the CEO of the $US90 billion German software maker, recently snubbed Benioff’s outreach efforts. “We offered an olive branch to them. I’ve told Bill I’ve wanted to have a deeper relationship with them. Yes we’re competitors, we should also be partners,” Benioff said, according to Bloomberg. “He’s scared of Salesforce.”

    http://www.businessinsider.com.au/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-on-sap-ceo-bill-mcdermott-2015-7

  • Xerox is the 5th worst company to work for

    Under Burns’ leadership, the company’s earnings have declined from more than $1.3 billion in 2011 to $992 million in 2014, a 25% drop. These figures support recurring employee complaints about leadership — only 32% of surveyed employees approved of Burns. Many employees also complained about a culture of favoritism in the company, saying that personal relationships are more important than work ethic when it comes to promotions and raises. Another recurring complaint was related to compensation. Employees cited low pay and years without cost of living raises as reasons for the company’s high turnover. Less than a third of Xerox employees would recommend a job at the company to a friend.

    http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/06/29/the-worst-companies-to-work-for/3/

  • Xerox Is Not the Problem, the Whole IT Services Industry Is

    If we look at it from a labor perspective (Xerox should be pretty bad considering it is the fifth worst company to work for), we do see that the company does have low expenses per employee. Annualizing results from last quarter, Xerox pays about $7,100 per employee per quarter, and squeezes out about $5 in revenue for every dollar spent on labor (including general expenses). Accenture, surprisingly, spends even less per employee per quarter at about $4,100, earning about $5.56 per dollar spent on labor.

    http://247wallst.com/services/2015/07/02/xerox-is-not-the-problem-the-whole-it-services-industry-is/

  • What’s Wrong With Software Licensing Models?

    http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/video/300077310/whats-wrong-with-software-licensing-models.htm
  • This is an old article that Bobby C mentioned this week, but considering how customers are down on SAS, I thought I would find it:

    HOW SAS BECAME THE WORLD’S BEST PLACE TO WORK

    At 70 years old, Goodnight holds the conviction that “what makes his organization work are the new ideas that come out of his employee’s brains.” He therefore holds his employees in the highest esteem. So while he fully anticipated that the recession would constrain the firm’s short-term revenues, he instinctively knew that his team would produce breakthrough products while his competitors were cutting costs.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3004953/how-sas-became-worlds-best-place-work

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/16/2015

sn_theprisoner2

IBM news continues to be dominated by Watson Health.  Nothing new was announced this week, but analysts are catching up with the news and highlighting the trends.

Oracle and EMC continue their less-than-graceful transition to the cloud.  Oracle is looking at lower cost (from their own hardware) Open Stack framework, while EMC also focuses on bringing a more flexible cloud solution to market.

And just because… Verizon buys AOL (for their content like Huffington Post and TechCrunch…probably).

IBM

Oracle

  • Oracle Trying On OpenStack For Size

    Still, even if Oracle can define $7 billion of its revenue as “cloud” this year, it would still represent less than 20% of last year’s $38.3 billion in revenue. Having its own true cloud, built on an open source infrastructure like OpenStack, would accelerate the move to true cloud economics. So might buying a profitable, growing OpenStack cloud provider like Rackspace(NYSE:RAX), but that’s purely speculation

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3183236-oracle-trying-on-openstack-for-size

  • The incredible rags-to-riches story of Oracle founder Larry Ellison

    “The very first version was Oracle Version 2,” he admitted at a customer conference last year. Their ploy worked. Oracle’s first customer was a big one: the CIA. It later became the most popular database ever sold. That success paid off for Ellison — according to the Wall Street Journal, he was the highest paid executive in the US before he stepped down as CEO in 2014.

    http://www.businessinsider.com.au/rags-to-riches-story-of-larry-ellison-2015-5

  • In Google Versus Oracle, Obama’s Administration is Torn

    It’s a complicated and very technical issue, something that is not necessarily the forte of the Supreme Court. The fight over what is defensible as copyrighted work or not is far from resolved at any level, this is just the most high-profile manifestation of it. If the Supreme Court does take the case and rule on it one way or another, it could have a lot of long-term implications for how patents and trademarks on API code are treated. If Oracle wins, expect plenty more claims of ownership and a lot of litigation to come, at least in the short term. If Google wins, there will be less of that. That’s why Google’s argument includes the idea that without that code, the company wouldn’t have succeeded, meaning that innovation would be slowed if Oracle were to win.

    http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2015/05/15/obama-torn-over-google-googl-vs-oracle-orcl-court-fight/

EMC

  • Why ‘Project Horizon’ spells long-term gains for EMC

    According to Clarke, Project Horizon is a “big departure” for EMC from the extensive ECM platform it has become associated with over the past few years. “With one of the largest portfolios of ECM capabilities, its platform has often been criticized as being too complex and expensive to implement,” Clarke claims. “By contrast, Project Horizon is built on Pivotal Cloud Foundry and will offer a choice of cloud deployments.

    http://www.reseller.co.nz/article/575000/insight-why-project-horizon-spells-long-term-gains-emc/

  • EMC “eating its young” to survive say analysts

    Above all, Furrier suggested, “They need to take care of their current situation — they need to get out of the box business.” In the current competitive market, Furrier advocated that EMC “build an OS for the data center and enterprise,” despite the disruption this might cause. Furthermore, Furrier put forward the notion that “EMC has to become a utility platform with a business model that can compete in the current era.” The “game-changing moves” that EMC needs to make, said Furrier, should be “real-time, API-based” and include “unlimited compute.”

    http://siliconangle.com/blog/2015/05/11/emc-eating-its-young-to-survive-say-analysts-emcworld/

  • EMC: Rise of third platform could spell end for businesses unwilling to adapt

    As alluded to by Goulden, the rise of the Information Generation and their preference for third-platform apps and services poses a major challenge for enterprises, which will need to adapt the way they work to the way this group of users likes to consume services.

    http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500246008/EMC-claims-rise-of-third-platform-could-spell-end-for-businesses-unwilling-to-adapt

Other