Tag: Xerox

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Supplier Report: 1/31/2020


Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Google is once again in the news for negative reasons. The company quietly rolled out changes to their search results that could mislead users to click on ads. After a media backlash, the search giant reversed course.

The drama between Xerox and HP continues as Xerox refuses to take no for an answer. HP is blaming Carl Icahn for the aggressive (and seemingly never-ending) acquisition attempts.

Finally, India has taken umbrage with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos due to Washington Post coverage of the Indian Government and for Amazon’s investment strategies in the country.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Xerox wants to replace HP board that rejected takeover bid

    Xerox and HP have been playing a highly public game of tit for tat in recent months. Xerox wants very much to combine with HP, and offered $34 billion, an offer HP summarily rejected at the end of last year. Xerox threatened to take it to shareholders.

    HP was none too pleased with this latest move by Xerox. “We believe these nominations are a self-serving tactic by Xerox to advance its proposal, that significantly undervalues HP and creates meaningful risk to the detriment of HP shareholders,” HP fired back in a statement today emailed to TechCrunch.

    It went on to blame Xerox shareholder Carl Icahn for the continued pressure. “We believe that Xerox’s proposal and nominations are being driven by Carl Icahn, and his large ownership position in Xerox means that his interests are not aligned with those of other HP shareholders. Due to Mr. Icahn’s ownership position, he would disproportionately benefit from an acquisition of HP by Xerox at a price that undervalues HP,” the company stated.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/xerox-wants-to-replace-hp-board-that-rejected-takeover-bid/

  • Hedge Funds Are Oddly Silent in Toshiba Buyout Drama

    Here’s a quick recap: As part of its Toshiba Next Plan, the company said in November that it planned to buy out shareholders in three subsidiaries for $1.8 billion, one of them being chip-equipment maker NuFlare Technology Inc. Tokyo-based Hoya Corp. put in a higher, unsolicited bid for NuFlare, seeking a minimum 66.7% stake. Toshiba Machine Co., which partly owns NuFlare, brushed off the hostile approach and went with the lower bid.

    On Tuesday, a fund backed by activist investor Yoshiaki Murakami launched a tender offer for a 44% stake in Toshiba Machine, in an apparent effort to disrupt the consolidation. Toshiba Machine shares had surged as much as 19% Friday after the company said Murakami planned a bid. They fell Tuesday after the offer — a 12% premium to Thursday’s closing price — was lower than some investors expected.

    Yet shareholders at each of the companies — including the hedge funds that own Toshiba Corp. stock — seem to be the losers and no one is saying anything about it.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-21/hedge-funds-are-oddly-silent-in-toshiba-buyout-drama

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics

  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai calls for ‘sensible regulation’ of AI

    Of course, this call for “balance” leaves some questions about how tight of regulation Pichai is talking about. He doesn’t specifically rebuff the White House’s recent calls for a light touch. Nor does he suggest the EU’s more comprehensive proposals go too far.

    Instead he makes clear that having the international community come to an agreement on regulatory issues is key. Then seems to suggest that Alphabet’s own internal handling of AI could serve as a guideline. He claims that the rules and systems put in place by the company help it avoid bias, and prioritize the safety and privacy of people. Though, it is debatable how successful Alphabet has been on those fronts. He also says the company will not deploy AI “to support mass surveillance or violate human rights.” And while Google does not sell facial recognition software that could easily be abused (unlike some of its competitors), there is serious concern that Google and its ilk pose a broad threat to human rights.

    https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/20/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-ai-regulation-editorial/

Cloud

  • Epic Systems, a major medical records vendor, is warning customers it will stop working with Google Cloud

    Privately held Epic is one of the largest electronic medical record companies in the U.S. It sells its products, which include a digital equivalent of the traditional doctor’s paper medical chart as well as billing tools, into the largest hospital systems in the U.S. Epic installations are major undertakings, and can end up costing billions of dollars overall. Once installed, they become a core part of a hospital’s information systems and are seldom dislodged.

    Epic’s decision is a blow to Google’s efforts to find new customer segments for its cloud products, as the company lags well behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure in market share for cloud computing. The company is hoping to catch up by landing big-name customers such as Mayo Clinic, and by stressing its artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/epic-systems-warns-customers-it-will-stop-supporting-google-cloud.html

Security/Privacy

  • Hospitals Give Tech Giants Access to Detailed Medical Records

    The scope of data sharing in these and other recently reported agreements reveals a powerful new role that hospitals play—as brokers to technology companies racing into the $3 trillion health-care sector. Rapid digitization of health records and privacy laws enabling companies to swap patient data have positioned hospitals as a primary arbiter of how such sensitive data is shared.

    “Hospitals are massive containers of patient data,” said Lisa Bari, a consultant and former lead for health information technology for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center.

    Hospitals can share patient data as long as they follow federal privacy laws, which contain limited consumer protections, she said. “The data belongs to whoever has it.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-give-tech-giants-access-to-detailed-medical-records-11579516200

Software/SaaS

  • SAP’s new CEOs on the threat from Oracle: ‘We are winning market share’

    The German tech giant was the subject of criticism from some customers over a decision to end support for software running on third-party databases like Oracle. Late last year, Oracle’s technology chief Larry Ellison fired criticism of his own at the firm, claiming SAP’s customer base was “up for grabs.”

    In Oracle’s second-quarter earnings call, Ellison said one of SAP’s biggest customers would go live on Oracle’s enterprise resource planning platform (ERP) in 2020. ERP is a piece of software used by firms to manage their business and automate back office functions.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/24/sap-co-ceos-on-the-threat-from-oracle-we-are-winning-market-share.html

  • Many SAP customers ‘in a bind’ says DSAG 2020 investment report but there are reasons to be cheerful

    When it comes to SAP Cloud solutions in general, 14 percent of respondents plan “large and medium-sized” investments in SuccessFactors, 13 percent in SAP Analytics Cloud, and 11 percent in C/4HANA. Ariba, Integrated Business Planning, and Concur remain in the single digits. Only SAP Analytics Cloud shows an upward trend. After the number of companies willing to make “large and medium-sized” investments rose six percent to nine percent last year, this year it has again increased four percent to 13 percent. “SAP user companies continue to invest in SAP’s cloud solutions, to expand and grow their processes outside the core. This needs to be able to happen as a standardized, uniform process, without modifications. It’s our role as DSAG, in discussion with SAP, to ensure that out-of-the-box integration and harmonized data models continue. This will then facilitate the deployment of a rapid growth product like SAP Analytics Cloud,” explains Marco Lenck.

    https://diginomica.com/many-sap-customers-bind-says-dsag-2020-investment-report-there-are-reasons-be-cheerful

  • How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

    The new layout for search result is ugly at first glance — but then Google was always ugly until relatively recently. I very quickly learned to unconsciously take in the information from the top favicon and URL-esque info without it really distracting me.

    …Which is basically the problem. Google’s using that same design language to identify its ads instead of much more obvious, visually distinct methods. It’s consistent, I guess, but it also feels deceptive.

    Recode’s Peter Kafka recently interviewed Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti, and Peretti said something really insightful: what if Google’s ads really aren’t that good? What if Google is just taking credit for clicks on ads just because people would have been searching for that stuff anyway? I’ve been thinking about it all day: what if Google ads actually aren’t that effective and the only reason they make so much is billions of people use Google?

    https://www.theverge.com/tech/2020/1/24/21079696/google-serp-design-change-altavisa-ads-trust
    Google’s latest user-hostile design change makes ads and search results look identical

    Now a user of Google’s search engine has — essentially — only a favicon between them and an unintended ad click. Squint or you’ll click it.

    This visual trickery may be fractionally less confusing in a small screen mobile environment — where Google debuted the change last year. But on a desktop screen these favicons are truly minuscule. And where to click to get actual information starts to feel like a total lottery.

    A lottery that’s being stacked in Google’s favor because confused users are likely to end up clicking more ad links than they otherwise would, meaning it cashes in at the expense of web users’ time and energy.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/squint-and-youll-click-it/

    Update: Google backtracks on search results design

    Google on Friday responded to criticism that recent changes to its search results have blurred the lines between ads and regular results, saying it will be experimenting with different designs.

    As a part of a mid-January redesign to desktop search results, the company made paid links look more like unpaid results. The word “Ad” in bold text appears next to the advertisements, which typically are listed first and are therefore more likely to be clicked on and generate ad revenue for Google.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/24/google-will-iterate-the-design-that-made-it-harder-to-tell-ads-from-search-results.html

Other

  • ‘Amazon Empire’ Documentary Shows How Jeff Bezos Took Over Everything

    Politicians, regulators, and commentators are not as clear-eyed about what to do with Amazon. Some want to break it up, others say that antitrust action won’t work, and others still talk of nationalizing the company. Or even worse, incorporating the company into a socialist system (gasp) by taking a close look at how Amazon’s central planning might help us design non-market solutions to problems that Amazon claims to solve today (i.e. matching people to their individual tastes at the highest possible quality for the lowest possible cost).

    Amazon is rapidly metastasizing into an invisible infrastructure that mediates our economy, politics, social relations, and culture. It is important we have a clear understanding of that and reject its rosy PR about simply wanting to provide goods to customers cheaply (and profitably).

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kzbxg/amazon-empire-documentary-shows-how-jeff-bezos-took-over-everything

  • India Targets Jeff Bezos Over Amazon and Washington Post

    On the same day, Mr. Modi’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, dismissed Mr. Bezos’ announcement of a fresh $1 billion investment to help small businesses in the country. “It is not as if they are doing a favor to India,” Mr. Goyal told reporters. He then referred to the antitrust investigation of Amazon and its chief rival that Indian regulators opened the day before Mr. Bezos arrived.

    Although both men later tempered their remarks, the double-barreled assault on The Post and Amazon is reminiscent of President Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Mr. Bezos, The Post’s coverage of his administration, and Amazon — often all in the same tweet.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/technology/india-amazon-bezos-washington-post.html

  • IBM Sales Expected to Dip Despite Red Hat Purchase: What to Watch

    IBM is expected to report adjusted earnings per share of $4.69 for the quarter ended Dec. 31, down from $4.87 for the same period last year, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet. Adjusted net income should be around $4.19 billion, down from $4.42 billion in the year-prior quarter, the analysts expect.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-sales-expected-to-dip-despite-red-hat-purchase-what-to-watch-11579602600

  • Trend: Layoffs hit Q&A startup Quora

    “[W]e need to reduce our burn rate to a sustainable level from which we can focus on pursuing the mission and growing the business over the long term. We do not want to be dependent on outside capital, so self-reliance and careful management of our resources are crucial to our future,” D’Angelo wrote.

    Over the past several weeks, layoffs have been hitting startups, including several in SoftBank’s portfolio as well as Mozilla and, just today, genetic testing startup 23andMe.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/layoffs-hit-qa-startup-quora/

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Supplier Report: 11/15/2019


Photo by Andres Urena on Unsplash

Xerox is looking to combine with HP Inc, which brings me back to the early days of this blog. There were rumors that HP Inc and Xerox were going to merge way back in 2015 but then Xerox got involved with Fuji Film and then they were no longer involved with Fuji Film. I am not sure how this deal would work considering Xerox wants to acquire HP which has the bigger market cap.

Google’s growing pains continue as critics ponder why the company is pushing so hard to get into hardware while the Government investigates them.

After years of fending off Microsoft, Slack is looking vulnerable due to poor paid growth projections. Everybody seems to be loving Microsoft at the moment, but they know how to be aggressive when they want to be, and they seem to want Slack out of the way.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • HP confirms it has received a proposal from Xerox about being acquired

    The Wall Street Journal got things rolling earlier today when it published a report that Xerox was interested in the printer company, reporting the offer could be for more than $27 billion. That’s a lot of money and the company has to at least consider it (assuming it’s accurate).

    HP acknowledged there are ongoing discussions between the two companies and that it received an offer letter from Xerox yesterday. What’s odd about this particular deal is that HP is the company with a much larger market cap of $29 billion, while Xerox is just a tad over $8 billion. The canary is eating the cat here.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/06/hp-confirms-it-is-having-discussions-with-xerox-about-being-acquired/
    Xerox to Sell Stake in Joint Venture to Fujifilm for About $2.3 Billion

    Xerox has agreed to sell its 25% stake in the venture, Fuji Xerox, to Fujifilm as part of a deal that will bring Xerox total proceeds of $2.3 billion, the companies said.

    Xerox has also agreed to sell a majority stake in a smaller joint venture to an affiliate of Fuji Xerox and extended the timeline of an agreement allowing Fujifilm to be a major supplier to Xerox, the companies said.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/xerox-to-sell-stake-in-joint-venture-to-fujifilm-for-2-2-billion-11572931801

  • Workday to acquire online procurement platform Scout RFP for $540M

    The acquisition builds on top of Workday’s existing procurement solutions, Workday Procurement and Workday Inventory, but Workday chief product product officer Petros Dermetzis wrote in a blog post announcing the deal that Scout gives the company a more complete solution for customers.

    “With increased importance around the supplier as a strategic asset, the acquisition of Scout RFP will help accelerate Workday’s ability to deliver a comprehensive source-to-pay solution with a best-in-class strategic sourcing offering, elevating the office of procurement in strategic importance and transforming the procurement function,” he wrote.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/04/workday-to-acquire-online-procurement-platform-scout-rfp-for-540m/

  • T-Mobile’s latest merger gambit isn’t subtle

    The three programs T-Mobile announced are contingent on the merger. The company will only provide these services if it is able to complete its merger with Sprint. These programs are each cleverly designed to give T-Mobile instant rebuttals to potential criticisms of the merger. They’re so well-crafted that I can’t help but applaud how genius they are as pieces of propaganda. Even calling them “propaganda” makes me the asshole!

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/8/20954479/t-mobiles-5g-publicity-stunt-firefighters-merger-sprint

Artificial Intelligence

  • OpenAI has published the text-generating AI it said was too dangerous to share

    GPT-2 is part of a new breed of text-generation systems that have impressed experts with their ability to generate coherent text from minimal prompts. The system was trained on eight million text documents scraped from the web and responds to text snippets supplied by users. Feed it a fake headline, for example, and it will write a news story; give it the first line of a poem and it’ll supply a whole verse.

    It’s tricky to convey exactly how good GPT-2’s output is but the model frequently produces eerily cogent writing that can often give the appearance of intelligence (though that’s not to say what GPT-2 is doing involves anything we’d recognize as cognition.) But play around with the system long enough and its limitations become clear. It particularly suffers with the challenge of long-term coherence; for example, consistently using the names and attributes of characters in a story, or sticking to a single subject in a news article.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/7/20953040/openai-text-generation-ai-gpt-2-full-model-release-1-5b-parameters

  • Google’s AI education tool makes it easy to train models for your projects

    Google’s Teachable Machine is no longer just a handy lesson in AI — you can now put it to work. The tech giant has launched Teachable Machine 2.0 with the ability to use your machine learning model in apps, websites and other projects. You can upload your model if you need it to work online, or save it if you’d rather have it on-device. You could create your own Not Hotdog app without having to craft an AI system by hand.

    Teachable Machine can also accept more than just images. You can train AI models based on sound and poses in addition to the usual image data (including photos, not just webcam images). Want to determine whether or not your music is metal enough? Now you can. The system also lets you upload your own data sets if you have some on hand, and can train more than three classes per model if necessary.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/07/google-teachable-machine-2/

Cloud

  • Indeed says Deloitte, IBM, Accenture top hirers for blockchain staff

    The report observed that software roles make up the highest percentage of crypto and blockchain jobs. Deloitte, IBM, Accenture, Cisco and Collins Aerospace are the top five companies hiring for crypto and blockchain roles. Another consultancy, EY, comes in at number six. But the proliferation of blockchain technology is not limited to one industry and startups are popping up everywhere.

    The data covered both blockchain and cryptocurrencies, and the top six appear to be firmly in the enterprise blockchain camp. One startup – ConsenSys – falls into both sectors. Earlier in the year it was in the top ten but has now fallen to number 13 on the list of top hirers.

    https://www.ledgerinsights.com/indeed-says-deloitte-ibm-accenture-top-hirers-for-blockchain-staff/

Security/Privacy

  • With a Laser, Researchers Say They Can Hack Alexa, Google Home or Siri

    Researchers in Japan and at the University of Michigan said Monday that they had found a way to take over Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri devices from hundreds of feet away by shining laser pointers, and even flashlights, at the devices’ microphones.

    In one case, they said, they opened a garage door by shining a laser beam at a voice assistant that was connected to it. They also climbed 140 feet to the top of a bell tower at the University of Michigan and successfully controlled a Google Home device on the fourth floor of an office building 230 feet away. And by focusing their lasers using a telephoto lens, they said, they were able to hijack a voice assistant more than 350 feet away.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/technology/digital-assistant-laser-hack.html

  • Google’s cybersecurity project ‘Chronicle’ is in trouble

    The employees Motherboard talked to said people have been leaving the company due to “a distant CEO” and “a lack of clarity about Chronicle’s future.” A former employee called Gillett a figurehead who didn’t care what everyone did outside of money matters. Sales and engineering people have apparently been finding other roles in Google or leaving the company entirely, because they have no product roadmap.

    Gillett himself already left for another role inside Google, while co-founder and chief security Mike Wiacek exited the tech giant. “Chronicle had one of the most healthy and vibrant corporate cultures I could imagine. Things were never perfect, but that’s important,” Wiacek wrote in his farewell note. Motherboard says Will Robinson, the Chief Technology Officer, also announced internally that he’s leaving the company.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/09/google-chronicle-trouble/

Software/SaaS

  • Microsoft reveals the future of OneNote and it’s all about Fluid and desktop

    So what does this mean for the separate OneNote for Windows 10 app? Hodes didn’t reveal exactly what Microsoft is planning, but Mike Tholfsen, a Microsoft product manager, says “there will still be a Desktop and separate Windows 10 app.” It’s hard to imagine that two OneNote apps will exist to confuse Windows 10 users, but Microsoft does still have two Skype apps. It’s far more likely that at some point Microsoft will put development of this dedicated version on hold, as the company will start installing OneNote 2016 by default with Office 365 installs in March.

    Microsoft experimented with universal Office apps for Windows 10, but the company put these apps on hold last year. “We are currently prioritizing development for the iOS and Android versions of our apps; and on Windows, we are prioritizing Win32 and web versions of our apps,” explained a Microsoft spokesperson at the time.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/7/20953691/microsoft-onenote-to-do-integration-fluid-framework-future-features-ignite-2019

  • Slack continues to sink as analysts worry Microsoft will kill it

    The Microsoft threat is a big reason why Slack’s stock, which debuted in late June through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, has plunged in the past few months. It’s a classic David vs. Goliath story — except that most investors don’t believe Slack has a big enough rock to slay the giant from Redmond, Washington.

    Slack shares fell 2% Friday and dipped below $20, hitting an all-time low that is 25% below the stock’s reference price of $24 on the day of its Wall Street debut. The stock has plummeted more than 50% from its peak of $42, which it reached on its first day of trading.

    The company reported a big loss and slowing sales growth in September, news that spooked investors.

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/08/investing/slack-stock-microsoft-teams/index.html

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Why Google, a software giant, is spending billions to get into gadgets

    Despite the billions Google has spent to get into hardware, the tech giant is still a small player in gadgets. Its Android smartphone operating software is in more than three times the number of global devices as Apple’s, but Google continues pushing its Pixel-brand phones, a laggard in market share. Advances in hardware like GPS and radar mean gadget makers are increasingly the gatekeepers for companies that make software for mobile phones. In terms of data collection, having customers using both the device and the operating system is akin to owning the mall rather than just the department store in it.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/04/googles-hardware-dreams-havent-yet-yielded-home-run/

 

Posted on

Supplier Report: 1/30/2016

sn_window_Julien Sister

Another week, another IBM acquisition. IBM announced that they are purchasing marketing firm Resource/Ammirati to “address surging client demand for the next great customer experience”… how noble of them.  While IBM is picking up new companies, rumor has it that they are planning to let go of employees in the GTS space.  The job eliminations could be up to 30,000 positions (but  there is no way that they will cut that many heads in one year… right?).

EMC/VMWare announced up to 800 staff cuts in the VMWare space while they are attempting to assure banks and investors that the Dell acquisition is on target.

Oracle is doing what Oracle does best… trolling other companies.  Oracle released Google’s sensitive financial data to the news which Google is (rightly) quite upset about.  Oracle’s attorney said Google should blame themselves.  Oh yeah they also finally killed off the Java plug in.

Finally… Xerox is pulling a HP and announced a split/spinoff due to pressure from Carl Icahn.

IBM

  • IBM Dishes on Acquisition Plans for Digital Marketing Company

    The objective of the move, we’re told, is to combine the companies’ strategic, creative and technology talents to address rising demand from businesses seeking to “reinvent themselves for the digital economy and provide differentiated experiences to their customers.”

    http://mobilemarketingwatch.com/ibm-dishes-on-acquisition-plans-for-digital-marketing-company-64986/
    More Information on the acquisition:
    IBM Plans to Acquire Resource/Ammirati to Address Surging Client Demand for the Next Great Customer Experience

    As one of the top, digitally-led creative agencies in the US, Columbus, Ohio-based Resource/Ammirati will help IBM build on the success in North America and join over 10,000 IBM iX employees to support demand for its services in this fast-growing market. Resource/Ammirati’s 300+ associates across its offices in Columbus, Chicago and New York will continue to serve a diverse roster of clients spanning consumer goods, retail and financial services companies such as Birchbox, DSW, Nationwide, Nestlé, Newell Rubbermaid, North American Breweries, Shaw Industries, Sherwin Williams, Toys “R”Us and White Castle, among others.

    http://www.finchannel.com/index.php/technology/item/53862-ibm-plans-to-acquire-resource-ammirati-to-address-surging-client-demand-for-the-next-great-customer-experience
    Comments:
    I find this buy very interesting… considering some of the marketing moves Oracle made last week and the fact that Teradata is looking to sell of their marketing platform, this is an area to watch in the next few months.

  • IBM CEO Rometty Getting $4.5 Million Bonus for 2015

    Ms. Rometty’s total earnings for the year won’t be clear until IBM discloses the value of certain equity grants, but her bonus was $900,000 more than the $3.6 million she earned last year. The IBM CEO’s base pay for 2016 remains unchanged at $1.6 million, with $13.3 million in long-term incentive stock awards, the company said Thursday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/01/29/ibm-ceo-rometty-getting-4-5m-bonus-for-2015.html

  • Axe to fall on staff at IBM’s Global Technology Services ‘this Friday’

    Global Technology Services, which builds networking infrastructure and provides high-availability systems among other things, is part of the IT titan’s Global Services division, which employs about 190,000 people worldwide.

    Lee Conrad, an ex-IBMer and national coordinator of the Alliance@IBM union, said on Monday that staff had told him that up to 20 per cent of the GTS workforce is at risk. “I have received information that a resource action will happen this Friday,” he told journalists via email.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/26/ibm_gts_layoffs/
    Additional News:

    As layoff rumors surface, IBM cuts severance pay allowance
    IBM, which has reported a loss in revenue for 15 consecutive quarters, is reportedly gearing up for layoffs this week. The move comes less that a week after Big Blue cut severance pay allowances from as much as six months pay to one month.

    http://wraltechwire.com/as-layoff-rumors-surface-ibm-cuts-severance-pay-allowance/15278005/

  • IBM Refreshes LinuxONE, Expands Platform’s Ecosystem

    IBM LinuxONE recently ported the Go programming language, which was developed by Google. Go is designed for building simple, reliable and efficient software, making it easier for developers to combine the software tools they know and love with the speed, security and scale offered by LinuxONE. IBM will begin contributing code to the Go community in the summer.

    http://www.eweek.com/cloud/ibm-refreshes-linuxone-expands-platforms-ecosystem.html

  • IBM Closes Weather Co. Purchase, Names David Kenny New Head Of Watson Platform

    As part of the deal, IBM is making some changes: First, the Weather Company’s cloud platform will now run on IBM’s Cloud data centers (recall that it once was a big client of AWS). That platform will now power all of IBM’s wider push into data services and Watson’s Internet of Things business. This will bring a massively bigger amount of data into the mix, covering what IBM describes as billions of IoT sensors.

    http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/29/ibm-watson-weather-company-sale/?ncid=rss

Oracle

  • Oracle Corporation (ORCL) to Kill of Java Browser Plugin – Why this is good for everyone

    “Oracle plans to deprecate the Java browser plugin in JDK 9,” the Java Platform Group said on their blog. “This technology will be removed from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release.” Oracle does not plan to provide additional browser-specific plugins as such plugins would require application developers to write browser-specific applets for each browser they wish to support. Moreover, without a cross-browser API, Oracle would only be able to offer a subset of the required functionality, different from one browser to the next, impacting both application developers and users.”

    http://ir.net/news/stock-news/123425/oracle-corporation-orcl-to-kill-of-java-browser-plugin-why-this-is-good-for-everyone/

  • Google Should Blame Itself for Confidential Info Leak: Atty for Oracle Corporation

    Oracle’s attorney, Annette Hurst fired back at Google after the search engine giant criticized her for disclosing extremely sensitive information during a court hearing on January 14.

    According to Google, Atty. Hurst improperly revealed “extremely sensitive information” from documents that were marked “Attorney’s Eyes Only.” The search engine giant said the “public disclosure could have significant negative effects” on its business.

    http://www.opptrends.com/2016/01/google-should-blame-itself-for-confidential-info-leak-atty-for-oracle/

EMC | Dell

  • VMware Cuts 800 Jobs As Merger Doubts Linger

    The layoffs were announced Tuesday as VMware released its fourth-quarter earnings. The company expects the cuts to cost between $55 million and $65 million.

    While VMware operates as a separate, independent company from EMC, its stock has dropped more than 40% since the Dell takeover was announced late last year. EMC has itself launched layoffs that will cost about $250 million.

    http://ww2.cfo.com/the-cloud/2016/01/vmware-cuts-800-jobs-merger-doubts-linger/

  • EMC has a shoddy year

    “I was disappointed that we fell a bit short on revenue, which was $7.01 billion essentially flat year-on-year,” Tucci said. “However, I would like to point out that it follows 24 consecutive quarters of reported year-on-year top line growth. An accomplishment that very few our technology peers matched.”

    http://www.microscope.co.uk/news/4500272044/EMC-has-a-shoddy-year

  • EMC slams concerns Dell cannot raise takeover cash

    Tucci: “We have a binding solid merger agreement in place. We are highly confident of the contractual terms we have in place [and] that we will meet those contractual terms. There are significant penalties in place both ways if this doesn’t happen. The banks are fully committed and, again, what does that mean? It means that the banks have told us they can raise the money.”

    http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2443771/emc-slams-concerns-dell-cannot-raise-takeover-cash

Other

Posted on

Supplier Report: 7/4/2015

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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