IBM

[CityFarmer]

Will Lenovo success?

Fujitsu looking to buy IBM's server business: WSJ

Japan's Fujitsu Ltd is considering buying International Business Machines Corp's low-end server business, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Fujitsu and IBM could not be reached for comment.

Recent reports have identified Lenovo Group Ltd and Dell Inc as potential buyers of the x86 server unit, which powers corporate data centers.

Lenovo and IBM failed to reach an agreement last year over the business after differing on pricing.

Ref: Reuters, Business Times Breaking News

[CityFarmer]

Will Lenovo success?

Fujitsu looking to buy IBM's server business: WSJ

Japan's Fujitsu Ltd is considering buying International Business Machines Corp's low-end server business, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Fujitsu and IBM could not be reached for comment.

Recent reports have identified Lenovo Group Ltd and Dell Inc as potential buyers of the x86 server unit, which powers corporate data centers.

Lenovo and IBM failed to reach an agreement last year over the business after differing on pricing.

Ref: Reuters, Business Times Breaking News

Yes, Lenovo got it.

Lenovo buys IBM’s server business for S$2.9 billion

BEIJING — China’s Lenovo Group, the world’s largest PC maker, has agreed to buy International Business Machines’ (IBM’s) low-end server business in a long-awaited deal valued at about US$2.3 billion (S$2.9 billion), the biggest tech acquisition by a Chinese company.

Lenovo will pay US$2.07 billion in cash and the rest with stock of the company, it said in a statement yesterday.
http://www.todayonline.com/business/leno...29-billion

[CityFarmer]

Big data technology and usage is getting "bigger". Will it become a disruptive technology in near future...

AT&T, IBM in big data tie-up
19 Feb 2014 00:22

[NEW YORK]AT&T and IBM announced plans on Tuesday to join forces to help cities, utilities and others use big data analytics to better manage their infrastructure.

The companies said in a joint statement they will "combine their analytic platforms, cloud, and security technologies with privacy in mind to gain more insights on data collected from machines in a variety of industries."

The new project will focus initially on helping city governments and midsize utilities analyze vast quantities of data, including from mass transit vehicles, utility meters, and video cameras.

"As a result, cities may be able to better evaluate patterns and trends to improve urban planning and utilities can better manage their equipment to reduce costs," the statement said.
...

Ref: Business Times Breaking News

[orangetea]

IBM is putting its recent Israeli security acquisition Trusteer to good use. The $1bn buyout of the Israeli financial security startup is giving IBM "a large footprint on the client side, and helping them with client cyber security, especially as IBM expands its cloud offering," said Trusteer CTO Amit Klein.

IBM, of course, is no stranger to security; IBM offers more than 100 cloud security products alone, for example. But Trusteer is helping IBM bump up its security portfolio, said Brendan Hannigan, general manager of IBM's security systems division. "Trusteer's expertise and superior technology in enterprise endpoint defense and advanced malware prevention will help our clients across all industries address the constantly evolving threats they are facing."

Established in 2006, Trusteer now has about 300 employees, and is one of the largest security firms working in the online banking space; among its customers are institutions like Bank of America, Société Générale, INGDirect, HSBC, NatWest, and The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Although banks are generally conservative institutions, they were among the first to offer online services, going back to the 1980s. In 2006, said Klein, Trusteer CEO Mickey Boodaei "saw that banks were having a big problem securing transactions over their networks, with many systems open to attack by sophisticated computer data thieves."

Early versions of internet-based banking were rife with security holes, allowing hackers to use tricks like keylogging, screenshooting, and financial malware — "especially MitB, man in the browser sytems," hijacking clients' computers to conduct phony transactions, said Klein — to steal. Boodaei "saw a great opportunity for Trusteer's technology in the banking space," Klein said.

That technology was delivered in the form of Trusteer's Rapport, which banks could incorporate into their client apps and web sites to prevent MitB attacks. Using behavioral algorithms that analyze the structure of malware strains (many of which have a great deal in common), Rapport prevents malware from taking control of a client's browser, and in addition prevents clients from connecting to phishing sites that look for all the world like the bank's site, but aren't.

In 2010, Trusteer released Pinpoint, which, when deployed on a network, detects if there are any malware-infected devices present. Clients who try to connect to the site using malware — it could be a legitimate customer with an actual account — are flagged and booted off the network, with bank officials able to decide what action to take (like reporting the fraudster's IP address to police). Unlike Rapport, Pinpoint does not need to be deployed on the client side at all.

Both Rapport and Pinpoint, said Klein, have been installed "tens of millions of times all around the world". Over the last several years, he said, Trusteer has moved into mobile security, developing versions of its technology for mobile banking apps, and last year came out with Apex, specifically designed for enterprise, that among other things protects systems from exploitations of application vulnerabilities, institutes security procedures for employee logins, and prevents employees from using login credentials on sites outside the entreprise network.

Taken together, Trusteer's stable of applications constitute a full set of online defense technologies, for deployment in online banking, or any cloud environment, said Klein. "We have both client-side and server-side defense systems, so it's easy to see why IBM would be interested in what we do. I think IBM is getting a signifcant footprint in the client side and consumer side, and this is important to them right now," said Klein. "We are now part of the IBM family and our solutions are being implemented both within and outside the company, and are continuing to develop solutions to protect companies and clients on networks and in the cloud."

[CityFarmer]

Will the transformation put IBM back on growth path? It should be, not because of Mrs Ginni Rometty, but Mr. Buffett...

(not vested)

IBM falls short in its year of transformation

NEW YORK — Mrs Ginni Rometty, Chief Executive Officer of International Business Machines Corp (IBM), said the firm did not meet expectations last year and must address its struggling hardware businesses.

“We must acknowledge that, while 2013 was an important year of transformation, our performance did not meet our expectations,” Mrs Rometty,who is also Chairman, said in a letter to investors in the company’s annual report.

IBM has struggled in a shift to the cloud era, where data and information are delivered online instead of being stored on-site.

Falling demand for hardware and weak sales in growth markets have caused revenue to fall in the past seven quarters, prompting the CEO to sell assets, fire and furlough workers, buy back shares and cut taxes to help meet profit goals.

“While we continue to remix to higher value, we must also address parts of the business that are holding us back,” she said.

IBM’s sales fell 5 per cent last year, and the stock was the only decliner in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. That led top executives to forgo annual bonuses and shrink the firm’s headcount for the first time in a decade.

With no bonus, Mrs Rometty’s pay last year, calculated using US Securities and Exchange Commission rules, fell 14 per cent from a year earlier to US$14 million (S$17.7 million).

“The committee believes Mrs Rometty performed well in shifting investments into key segments of the portfolio and advancing innovative solutions, creating a strong foundation for transformation in 2014,” said the company.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/business/ibm-...sformation

[CityFarmer]

It supplements IBM offering to its customers...

IBM buys Internet marketing firm Silverpop
11 Apr 2014 06:50
[SAN FRANCISCO] IBM on Thursday announced that it is buying Internet marketing firm Silverpop to enhance its portfolio of services for businesses out to target potential customers.

The technology veteran did not disclose financial terms of the deal to acquire Atlanta-based Silverpop, which specializes in pinpointing marketing messages based on real-time online activities from Web surfing to mobile device use or social networking.

"By engineering a solution that uniquely delivers personalization through automation, our team has solved one of the most complex challenges facing marketers today," Silverpop chief executive Bill Nussey said in a release.

Better targeted marketing translate into less annoying 'spam' messages, IBM reasoned.

Silverpop and its easy-to-use tools will be added to IBM's suite of software offered as services in the Internet "cloud." "Now, nearly any marketing, commerce or customer service professional from any business will have the ability to deliver the kinds of personalized customer experiences that make a measurable impact on the brand experience and the bottom line," IBM industry cloud services general manager Craig Hayman said in a release.

The take-over, if approved by regulators, was expected to be completed by mid-year. - AFP

Source: Business Times Breaking News

[sgd]

it's the "in thing" but I see it's not a good thing, the computer company that offers hardware products and also cloud, their hardware sales are going to die. If everybody buys cloud service nobody will need to buy anymore servers and big ticket servers are where the money is made. This really is a stupid thing that is going to kill themselves.

microsoft is offering cloud service for exchange emails, you pay $6 for a mailbox which comes with 25gb of storage space if you have 1000 users in your organization that's only $6k. Who then is going to need to buy a powerful server with additional 50-75 terabytes of storage with redundancies that is going to cost hundred thousands of dollars.

[CityFarmer]

it's the "in thing" but I see it's not a good thing, the computer company that offers hardware products and also cloud, their hardware sales are going to die. If everybody buys cloud service nobody will need to buy anymore servers and big ticket servers are where the money is made. This really is a stupid thing that is going to kill themselves.

microsoft is offering cloud service for exchange emails, you pay $6 for a mailbox which comes with 25gb of storage space if you have 1000 users in your organization that's only $6k. Who then is going to need to buy a powerful server with additional 50-75 terabytes of storage with redundancies that is going to cost hundred thousands of dollars.

Cloud computing needs the hard back-end storages and servers too. A consolidated order by the cloud computing service provider, make more sense to IBM.

The internet marketing tool, together with other software tools, will bring a more comprehensive package to IBM customers.

(not vested)

[Clement]

it's the "in thing" but I see it's not a good thing, the computer company that offers hardware products and also cloud, their hardware sales are going to die. If everybody buys cloud service nobody will need to buy anymore servers and big ticket servers are where the money is made. This really is a stupid thing that is going to kill themselves.

microsoft is offering cloud service for exchange emails, you pay $6 for a mailbox which comes with 25gb of storage space if you have 1000 users in your organization that's only $6k. Who then is going to need to buy a powerful server with additional 50-75 terabytes of storage with redundancies that is going to cost hundred thousands of dollars.

Well, as they always say in tech "if you don't eat your own lunch, someone else will".

[sgd]

it's the "in thing" but I see it's not a good thing, the computer company that offers hardware products and also cloud, their hardware sales are going to die. If everybody buys cloud service nobody will need to buy anymore servers and big ticket servers are where the money is made. This really is a stupid thing that is going to kill themselves.

microsoft is offering cloud service for exchange emails, you pay $6 for a mailbox which comes with 25gb of storage space if you have 1000 users in your organization that's only $6k. Who then is going to need to buy a powerful server with additional 50-75 terabytes of storage with redundancies that is going to cost hundred thousands of dollars.

Cloud computing needs the hard back-end storages and servers too. A consolidated order by the cloud computing service provider, make more sense to IBM.

The internet marketing tool, together with other software tools, will bring a more comprehensive package to IBM customers.

(not vested)

A typical cloud company if you get a chance to tour their premises you can see they use the cheapest low end "blade" servers they ship over hundred of such servers bought from china and use software to "combine them" together to form a giant cloud. Then they offer utility ( pay as you use ) to potential customers that's how they operate. It's all low cost and equipment is also cheap.

Storage there's even more cheap option these days heard of iscsi? everything can run over a network cable these days no need to buy expensive storage that requires fiber links.