Supplier Report: 12/6/2014

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IBM

Oracle

HP

Other

  • How much did Microsoft lose on the BN Nook deal?

    That aside, the deal was announced 977 days ago, and an un-adjusted $180.4 million loss over that period works out to $188,331 per day. That is both a lot of money, and not much money at all. In real terms, burning nearly $200,000 per day is quite expensive. For Microsoft, however, the total loss amounts to a minute percentage of its ready cash, not to mention its quarterly net income, making the figure inconsequential.

    http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/04/heres-how-much-money-microsoft-lost-per-day-on-the-nook-deal/

  • How one woman helped Lenovo go global (story how they picked up desktop IBM business and a nice story about learning to do business with other cultures)
    http://fortune.com/2014/12/01/the-woman-who-helped-lenovo-go-global/
  • 2015 acquisition predictions (they are still calling for an HP-EMC merger)
    http://www.zdnet.com/article/2015-it-vendor-upheaval-ahead/
  • Tableau to spend 28% of revenue on research. CEO Christian Chabot on their direction:

    Here’s an amazing thing you can do with Tableau Online [the company’s first cloud foray]. You can just be at your desk. Let’s say you’re a teacher or a nurse or a journalist—you’re some inspired and critical-thinking person, but you definitely wouldn’t call yourself an analyst and you definitely wouldn’t call yourself an IT person. There you are, sitting with a spreadsheet full of data, with every article, or every student with every test they’ve ever taken, or every patient and every shift and every covering nurse. You can open Tableau’s software, and you can create an interactive, visual summary of everything going on. How patients are falling in and out of beds. Which students appear to be at risk. Or which articles on which days are producing the highest click-through rates.

    http://fortune.com/2014/12/02/tableau-software-ceo-research/

Supplier Report: 11/29/2014

IBM

Oracle

Slow news week for Oracle.  There were a couple of terrible press releases for work overseas, but that is about it.  

HP

Other

  • Can you run a business from a mobile phone?

    There’s no question that the mobile phone has become an essential tool for decision makers at all levels. But can it serve as the only tool? A survey of 511 executives conducted by Forbes Insights for Google last year found found that nine out of ten executives used smartphones for business, even while they were in the office. And here’s the clincher: 10 percent  said smartphones were their exclusive device for day-to-day basis for decision making.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2014/11/24/can-you-run-a-business-entirely-from-a-mobile-phone/

  • Concerns about Splunk’s earnings:

    Splunk differs from the traditional sense of big data in that it’s analyzing machines rather than businesses and industries. Splunk’s software gathers and analyzes data found on websites, servers, networks, mobile devices, and so on. It then sells that data to enterprise customers for the purpose of mitigating security risk, preventing fraud, improving service performance, and reducing operating costs.

    Meanwhile, big data peer Tableau trades at less than 15 times trailing-12-month sales, and roughly 10 times next year’s expected sales of $551 million. In addition to being a cheaper stock relative to sales, Tableau is growing faster. During Tableau’s last quarter, it grew revenue 71% year over year and is expected to grow revenue by 41% in 2015, both of which are greater than Splunk’s year-over-year performance.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/11/28/what-concerns-me-most-about-splunk-inc-after-earni.aspx

  • Tableau software showing serious gains:

    Tableau also announced it has reached more than 5,000 customer accounts in the EMEA region. Customer accounts include Audi AG, Switzerland Global Enterprise, St. George´s Healthcare NHS Trust, and French banking firm BNP Paribas.

    http://www.financial-news.co.uk/25389/2014/11/tableau-software-grows-100-in-emea-20141128082500/

Supplier Report: 11/8/2014

Photo: The Atlantic

IBM

  1. The first output of the Apple and IBM deal:

    Apple enterprise users can now get direct product support through the enterprise partnership unveiled by IBM and Apple in July.

    http://www.eweek.com/mobile/first-fruits-of-apple-ibm-deal-applecare-for-enterprise-services.html

  2. IBM cloud services are gaining a stronger market hold:

    The latest global analysis from Synergy Research Group ranks IBM as the top hybrid and private cloud provider for the enterprise and positions the company among the top three providers in the cloud market for the third quarter of 2014.

    http://www.eweek.com/cloud/ibm-tracks-cloud-deals-to-top-ranking.html

  3. IBM Intelligent Cloud Security Portfolio:

    According to a new IBM study of nearly 150 Chief Information Security Information Officers (CISOs), while 85 percent say their organizations are now moving to cloud, almost half expect a major cloud provider to experience a security breach. Despite these concerns, critical workloads processing customer and sensitive data are still moving to the cloud.

    https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/45326.wss

  4. Can IBM before relevant again?
    This article kind of sums up the themes presented on this report the last month: IBM’s issues, the corporate break ups of Symantec and HP, and the growing cloud focus.  Good read.
    http://www.ecoustics.com/articles/ibm-relevant-sorting-biggest-basket/
  5. Korea is now getting an IBM cloud center (doesn’t say if it is under the SoftLayer umbrella)
    http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/11/07/2014110701265.html
  6. IBM cuts 50,000 jobs in India and will replace Global Services lead:
    Erich Clementi will be replaced as of Jan. 1 by Martin Jetter, who heads IBM’s operations in Japan.
    http://wraltechwire.com/as-ibm-reportedly-cuts-50-000-india-jobs-ceo-replaces-global-services-leader/14146112/

Oracle

  1. How did Larry Ellison make is fortune?

    IBM researcher Edward Codd inspired him with a research paper titled “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.” IBM didn’t see the potential in the product and essentially allowed Ellison and the co-founders of Software Development Laboratories, a forerunner to Oracle, to build the first commercial relational database system.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/11/05/heres-how-the-second-richest-tech-geek-made-his-bi.aspx

HP

  1. HP is building a data driven operating system from scratch:
    http://sdtimes.com/hps-plan-new-operating-system-speed-less-energy/
  2. Lots of news about HP creating a smart watch (yawn)
    http://www.bidnessetc.com/28411-hp-teams-up-with-micheal-bastian-to-make-classy-wearables/
  3. Another heavy news cycle on HP’s 3D printer and scanner release that was covered last week.
    http://seekingalpha.com/article/2658555-3d-printing-revolutionary-industry-terrible-investment

Other

  1. A breakdown of the pressures EMC is facing to split.

    Greenlight Capital Inc., the $10 billion firm run by David Einhorn, today disclosed a new “medium-sized” stake in EMC. The hedge fund said Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based EMC is trading at a “sizable discount to the sum of its parts” because of its structure, where businesses ranging from enterprise storage, software virtualization and cloud infrastructure trade under the parent company.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-05/emc-gets-einhorn-investment-adding-to-activist-pressures.html

  2. Michael Dell continues to talk a big game since going private:

    Dell said HP’s move to split into two separate companies was to help shareholders, not customers. Concerning IBM, he said, “To be in the end-to-end solutions business you have to have both ends. Or else it’s the end. We think it’s very important to have the complete solution.”

    http://www.crn.com/news/data-center/300074692/michael-dell-slams-hp-ibm-as-dell-world-gets-under-way.htm

  3. Tableau’s CEO says company’s biggest issue is getting talent:
    https://gigaom.com/2014/11/06/tableau-ceo-says-the-companys-biggest-challenge-now-is-talent/

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