SAP has announced plans to integrate Microsoft Teams into its suite of services to help customers migrate to the cloud.

The two tech firms share an existing strategic partnership which now includes a formalised plan to accelerate the adoption of SAP S/4HANA on Azure.

The extension of the partnership will focus on simplifying cloud journeys for SAP customers. The increase in adoption of video conferencing services last year saw Microsoft Teams surpass 75 million active users, and as a result, Microsoft and SAP have announced plans to build new integrations between Teams and SAP services, such as S/4HANA.

The integrations are planned for the middle of 2021 and the hope is that it boosts innovation, increases productivity and supports business growth.

«New ways of working, collaborating and interacting completely transform how we operate,» said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP. «By integrating Microsoft Teams across our solution portfolio, we will bring collaboration to the next level, jointly determining the future of work and enabling the frictionless enterprise.

«Our trusted partnership with Microsoft is focused on continuously advancing customer success. That’s why we are also expanding interoperability with Azure.»

The Azure expansion builds upon a partnership forged in 2016. The two firms want to introduce new capabilities around cloud automation for both HANA and Azure in order to simplify cloud migration and digital transformation – both of which are now priorities for businesses in all sectors around the world.

It will feature SAP, Microsoft and system integrator partners providing digital enterprise roadmaps for customers, which includes immediate and actionable reference architectures and technical guidance to aid their journey to the cloud.

There will also be increased investments in platform and infrastructure, such as further development of automated migrations, improved operations, monitoring and security.

«The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent,» said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. «By bringing together the power of Azure and Teams with SAP’s solutions, we will help more organisations harness the power of the cloud so they can more quickly adapt and innovate going forward.»

IBM has reported its sharpest revenue decline for five years with a 6% drop in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna remained bullish that IBM’s recent strategical changes would come good by the end of the year, but the company’s latest financial report was much lower than expected.

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IBM’s cloud business brought in $7.5 billion during Q4, a 10% increase from the previous quarter. Revenue from Red Hat also increased by 19%, and the firm revealed that its debt was reduced by $3.9 billion. However, this wasn’t enough to raise overall revenues, which dropped 6% with $20.4 billion brought in between October and December. 

«We made progress in 2020 growing our hybrid cloud platform as the foundation for our clients’ digital transformations while dealing with the broader uncertainty of the macro environment,» said Krishna. «The actions we are taking to focus on hybrid cloud and AI will take hold, giving us the confidence we can achieve revenue growth in 2021.»

IBM’s yearly figures were just as concerning, with revenue coming in at $73.6 billion, a 5% drop from 2019. Again, Red Hat and Cloud revenues were positive but not enough to change the overall financial outlook. 

The tech giant is a little bit of an anomaly in that its one of the few cloud providers to report such big losses during the pandemic. The likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google have posted increased revenues due to the greater need for cloud computing services, and newer challengers like Alibaba have also gained market share thanks to the so-called ‘new normal’. 

IBM and Krishna will rightly point to the company’s recent structural changes and acquisitions that are clearly long-term strategies. The acquisition of Red Hat is already providing revenues increases and the firm is an active buyer of hybrid cloud businesses – to date, Krishna’s tenure has seen nine acquisitions, which is roughly one for each month he has been in charge. 

Ultimately, the big play is the decision to split its operation into two business units. Krishna will focus on cloud computing and a new company will deal with its infrastructure business. The spin-off is set to be completed by the end of the year but IBM might have to weather more financial turbulence in the meantime. 

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Zoom has announced a plan to raise $1.75 billion (roughly £1.28 billion) for an underwritten public offering, which it expects to close on Friday. 

The price of the secondary share sale puts the company’s stock value up 10 times above where it debuted in 2019.

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In connection with the offering, Zoom has granted the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 735,294 shares of its Class A common stock at the public offering price. It is now assuming a share price of £337.71 based on Monday’s closing value. US bank J.P. Morgan will act as the sole book-running manager for the offering.

It is thought that the secondary sale will provide the company with more capital to make acquisition deals more attractive to potential targets. The firm has said it may use a portion of its net proceeds for «acquisitions and strategic investments». 

The video conferencing platform is seen as the breakout service of 2020, with mass adoption and 355% growth fueled by the greater need to work remotely. Alongside its IPO announcement, Zoom has also revealed that it sold one million Zoom Phone seats just before the product’s second anniversary. 

Zoom Phone is a core service in the company’s unified communications platform, along with Zoom Meetings, Zoom Chat, Zoom Rooms, and Zoom Video Webinars. It comes with features such as centralised management, contact centre integration, and global call routing.

Within the two-years that it has been generally available, it’s now used in dozens of countries and territories around the world.

«We are excited to see this level of uptake in such a short timeframe,» said Graeme Geddes, head of Zoom Phone. «Our customers have come to rely on Zoom to deliver amazing video and audio for them at scale, and they’re seeing tremendous value in consolidating and modernising their telephony services with us as well. This milestone really speaks to the level of trust we have built with our customers.»

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Intel has announced that CEO Bob Swan will step down from the company on 15 February, with VMware boss Pat Gelsinge set to return to the company as chief executive officer. 

Swan was named CEO in January 2019, having served as the interim CEO for seven months.

His time at the helm hasn’t been easy, with Intel suffering production delays and a loss of market share to rival AMD. Swan also oversaw the end of Intel’s 15-year partnership with Apple, which recently announced plans to use its own proprietary chips in MacBooks.

Critics of Swan have repeatedly pointed out that he lacked the technical expertise for the top job, having previously worked as the company’s CFO. This won’t be the case with Gelsinger, who served as Intel’s chief technology officer before moving to VMware. 

«I am thrilled to rejoin and lead Intel forward at this important time for the company, our industry and our nation,» said Gelsinger. «Having begun my career at Intel and learned at the feet of Grove, Noyce and Moore, it’s my privilege and honour to return in this leadership capacity.

«I believe Intel has significant potential to continue to reshape the future of technology and look forward to working with the incredibly talented global Intel team to accelerate innovation and create value for our customers and shareholders.» 

The CEO change is separate from the company’s financial results, it said, with fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expected to exceed prior guidance. «Strong progress» is said to have been made on its 7nm process node, which will surely be the first order of business for Gelsinger when he takes charge. 

Alan Priestly, Gartner’s VP of research, told IT Pro that Gelsinger will be «very familiar with the challenges facing Intel’s major customers (hardware and software) and their end-customers which will bring some new perspective to Intel’s senior management team – some of whom have not had OEM or end-customer experience.»

«While we have no detail on what drove the change of CEO, over the past couple of years Bob Swan has been working to broaden Intel’s market engagements, expanding its target TAM to a $300M – beyond just PCs and server,» Priestly continued.

«This has included new services related business such as mobility-as-a-service (Moovit acquisition, Mobileye partnerships etc). Swan also initiated the divestment of the company’s 5G discrete modem and NAND flash businesses both of which had been struggling to be profitable.»

IBM has appointed its former chief financial officer, Martin Schroeter, as the boss of its newly separated infrastructure business.

Schroeter will be initially tasked with oversing the formation of the ‘NewCo’ unit, following the company’s decision to spin off its managed infrastructure services business in October.

Following the appointment of Arvind Krishna, and 2019’s Red Hat acquisition, IBM will now focus its attention on the cloud market, with its new business, which has still yet to be named, focusing on the management and modernisation of global IT infrastructure.

«Martin is a world-class leader and is uniquely qualified to drive the long-term success of the new, independent company,» said Krishna. «Martin has the strategic vision and business judgement to realise NewCo’s enormous potential as the global leader in managed infrastructure services. He is an inspiring, results-driven executive and the right CEO to lead NewCo through the spin-off process and beyond.»

IBM have a history of promoting executives from within. Like Krishna, and his predecessor Ginni Rometty, the role of CEO has often gone to company veterans that have held a number of positions over a period of decades.

Schroeter, who joined in 1992, is returning to the company having left in June 2020. Before his departure, he held a number of executive roles in sales and marketing, most notably CFO of the company.

The Emotet Trojan was used to target over 100,000 users per day over December, placing it at the top of a list of the most dangerous malware threats facing businesses today.

That’s according to a new global index from security research firm Check Point, which revealed the malware has impacted 7% of organisations around the world during the last month of 2020, closely followed by banking trojan Trickbot and information-stealing virus Formbook, both impacting 4% of global companies.

All three viruses made a return to the index for December, although the sudden uptake of Emotet should be a cause for concern among businesses, Check Point has warned. It was originally developed as a banking malware, sneaking onto a target’s computer to steal sensitive information, but it has since evolved into one of the most costly and destructive malware variants available, according to Maya Horowitz, director of threat intelligence and research products at Check Point.

«It’s imperative that organisations are aware of the threat Emotet poses and that they have robust security systems in place to prevent a significant breach of their data,» said Horowitz.

Emotet was at the top of the Global Threat Index in September and October, and is best known as being a tool for opening access to infected computers for further ransomware operations. It is also thought to have been used by the criminal group known as Ryuk, said to be responsible for a number of attacks on healthcare facilities throughout the autumn.

Researchers believe that a brief lull in activity during November was the moment the Emotet malware was updated with new payloads and improved detection capabilities. The Check Point team believes the malware is now far more dangerous as a result.

The same is true for Hiddad, an Android malware variant which repackages legitimate apps and then releases them to a third-party store. Its main function is to display ads, but it can also gain access to key security details built into the operating system.

The most exploited vulnerability of the month was the MVPower DVR Remote Code Execution flaw, which affected 42% of organisations around the world during the month.

Amazon Web Services can no longer use the abbreviation ‘AWS’ as a logo in China after a Beijing court ruled in favour of a local software company.  

ActionSoft Science & Technology Development (AWS in China) have the rights to the trademark, according to a court verdict published 30 December, The Wall Street Journal reports. 

The verdict, made in May last year but only released in December, has decreed that Amazon can no longer use the term ‘AWS’ or any similar logos in China. The tech giant has also been ordered to pay compensation of 76.5 million Yuan (£812.5 million) to ActionSoft. 

Amazon still had ‘AWS’ on its Chinese cloud services website as of Tuesday, according to the WSJ. However, a disclaimer at the bottom of the page notes that ‘AWS’ is used as an abbreviation and «is not displayed herein as a trademark».

In a statement, Amazon said it invented cloud services and made them popular around the world under the AWS name long before «any other company».

«Amazon was the first to use the AWS logo in China to sell cloud services by many years,» a spokesperson for the company said. «We strongly disagree with the court’s ruling and have appealed the case to the Supreme People’s Court.»

However, this is disputed by the court ruling which cites China’s official trademark database. It states that ActionSoft registered ‘AWS’ for cloud computing services in 2004, while Amazon only did so in China in 2012. 

Despite being the biggest cloud provider in the world, Amazon is only the fifth largest in China, far behind the likes of Alibaba and Tencent, with a market share of only 7.2%.

Trademark disputes between US and Chinese companies are quite common; Apple settled an iPad dispute in 2012 that allowed it to continue selling the tablet in China, while Facebook, Starbucks and even basketball legend Michael Jordan have battled with Chinese firms over naming rights.

The majority of IT leaders in the US and UK don’t believe their company’s infrastructure is fit for the future, according to a survey by IBM. 

The company’s ‘The State of IT Transformation’ study found that 60% of CIOs and CTOs in America and the UK felt their company’s modernisation programme wasn’t ready yet. 

The survey questioned 380 IT decision-makers, with almost a quarter (24%) admitting that their company had only just started its migration programmes. 

CIOs and CTOs around the world have been under significant pressure to maintain or modernise their IT systems amid the coronavirus outbreak. Cloud migrations have been at the forefront of most business plans throughout the pandemic and this has ramped up demand for skilled professionals and greater security controls. 

60% of respondents suggested they expected this increased demand for cloud infrastructure to be permanent, and nearly all (95%) said they were looking for public, hybrid or private cloud strategies. Most of those also said they were doing so ‘aggressively’, according to IBM. 

However, the study highlighted a stark difference in attitude between IT leaders in the US and the UK. Approximately 56% of American respondents said they were ‘aggressively’ moving their IT infrastructure to hybrid cloud models, while British respondents appeared to be less active in the market, with only 38% describing their approach as ‘aggressive’. 

There were also contrasting answers when it came to changes brought about by COVID-19. Around 56% of US CIOs and CTOs said their infrastructures were ‘completely prepared’ for the challenges of lockdowns and remote working, but only 23% of those based in the UK could say the same.

A shortage of skilled workers seems to be a large part of the issue, with 40% of the respondents revealing that they didn’t feel their teams had the right skillsets to meet their company’s IT ambitions. As a result, more than 75% said they will be relying more on trusted partners to provide managed infrastructure services.

Around 67% of CIOs and CTOs also cited a need for increased ‘infrastructure flexibility’ in the digital transformation plans. This was followed by the need for a competitive advantage (61%), meeting client demands (45%) and general cost savings (58%). 

2020 will undoubtedly be remembered for the coronavirus pandemic, but it should also be marked as the year cloud services and the SaaS market kept the world ticking over.

The sudden shift to mass remote working presented a lot of software firms with an opportunity to show what they could do to a wider audience. For example, very few had heard of Zoom in January, but just two months later it was a household name. By the summer, so many of us were using it that the company had reported 355% growth year-on-year and many businesses were starting to worry about “video-call fatigue”. 

That wasn’t the only issue Zoom users worried about, initially, as the sudden attention on the video conferencing platform also unearthed some critical security flaws. A lack of end-to-end encryption and the ease with which unwanted guests could access meeting IDs created a bit of a PR nightmare.  

Despite these faults, the firm grew and grew and the simplest explanation for its rapid rise is that it was offered as a free service. Businesses need to stay connected with employees and Zoom allowed them to do that without adding an extra cost. So far, the company’s success is tied to the coronavirus pandemic, but it may live on long after COVID-19. 

“The pandemic forced many organisations to implement remote working overnight,” explains Rob Harrison, UK MD at SAP Concur. “With employees unable to travel to the office, activities such as expense claims and invoice processing became more difficult for those organisations still using paper-based processes. 

“Cloud-based tools helped organisations to continue their operations with minimal disruption, despite having no access to the office. Now that both organisations and employees have seen the lifeline that these tools can provide, we are likely to see continued investment in cloud-based systems.” 

SaaS (Software as a saviour) 

The switch to remote working was so swift and large that, by July, Gartner predicted the Software as a service (SaaS) market would grow from $104.7 billion in 2019 to $120.9 billion by 2021. The organisation’s vice president of research, Sid Nag, said the cloud had “delivered exactly what it was supposed to” by meeting customers’ demand for remote software.

The benefits of cloud computing and remote working software have been obvious to the tech industry for years, but the rest of the world needed a little more convincing. So when COVID-19 hit and we all went inside, collaboration services like G Suite or Office 365 suddenly saw a rapid increase of users. 

This was particularly true for communications platforms. In the first three months of 2020, as the pandemic spread around the west, Microsoft Teams usage surged to 44 million active daily users. This jumped up to 75 million a couple of months later partly because, as rival firm Slack pointed out, it was bundled into a subscription service, so users had it whether they specifically wanted it or not. 

Slack referred to Microsoft Teams as a “weak copycat product” in an anti-competition complaint it filed with the European Commission (EC). But the year ended with Slack being acquired by Salesforce after failing to match the pandemic growth of other collaboration services, while Microsoft Teams continued to grow. 

The acquisition of Slack by Salesforce capped off a brilliant year for the SaaS giant. The company made changes to its business during the first half of the year – “reallocating resources”, as CEO Marc Benioff phrased it – making certain roles redundant while investing in more digital ones. The firm saw 29% growth in Q2 and announced plans to hire 12,000 new workers over the next year. 

Given what Salesforce provides, this is as good an indication of the growth of the software market. And, despite news of a vaccine, now that world has seen what it can do, it may never go back.

IBM’s board of directors has elected the company’s CEO, Arvind Krishna, as its chairman, as it continues to revamp its business model.

Krishna again succeeds former CEO Ginni Rometty, who is set to completely retire from the company on 31 December 2020.

Rometty’s departure as CEO was announced back in January along with Krishna’s appointment to the helm. He officially took charge in April and the company has made seismic changes during his brief time in charge.

Krishna previously oversaw IBM’s cloud and cognitive software divisions and also played an integral role in its acquisition of Red Hat. The tech giant has prioritised hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence services and will spin off its managed infrastructure business by the end of 2021.

How long these changes have been in the works is unknown, but they have undoubtedly been pushed by the spread of the coronavirus and the resulting mass acceleration of migrations to the cloud.

In January, the firm pinned its first quarter of growth for more than a year on the uptick in its cloud division, with 2019 Q4 results showing a 21% rise in total cloud revenue, at $6.8 billion. Over the next 12 months, the company continued to invest and prioritise cloud, particularly hybrid cloud services, with a number of announcements made in October.

The month began with IBM expanding its partnership with SAP to help customers move into hybrid cloud environments. The firm also announced a new partnership with telecoms provider AT&T for 5G-based hybrid cloud architecture, and a blockchain platform with R3 that works across IBM’s Cloud Hyber Protect Service.

IBM is still a year away from its deadline to spin off its legacy business, which suggests that it will continue to invest and release more hybrid-cloud based applications. So far, its decision to focus on cloud services has been vindicated by its quarterly reports – for 2020 Q3, total cloud revenue was up 19%, year-over-year, at $24.4 billion.