Category Archives: News & Analysis

Big Data, Edge Up Sports, Illya Tabakh, Lauri Saft, News & Analysis, NFL, Vendor

Edge Up Sports taps IBM Watson to give fantasy football a cognitive computing boost

Edge Up is using Watson to improve fantasy football decision-making

Edge Up is using Watson to improve fantasy football decision-making

Fantasy football analytics provider Edge Up Sports is partnering with IBM to deploy a Watson-based service that helps users manage the performance of their teams.

Edge Up, which will launch alongside the upcoming NFL season, bills itself as a one-stop shop of insights for users to supplement their current fantasy platforms, providing analysis of additional information like NFL players’ Twitter activity and coach statistics.

The company has enlisted IBM’s Watson-as-a-Service to bring some of the platform’s cognitive capabilities to bear on some of the more nuanced elements involved in how a team performs, like the emotional preparedness of a team, or how well players sustain hits on the field.

“Edge Up grabs vast amounts of available NFL data, and with the help of Watson, team general managers are able to make informed decisions and adjustments to their fantasy football roster picks,” said Edge Up Sports chief executive Illya Tabakh.

“By leveraging Watson technologies, we’re excited to be able to transform the way fantasy football is played, and provide a platform that is assisting team owners with the necessary analysis and insights that could increase their chances in winning their league.”

The companies said combining more data points and automating the analysis of how teams performance will help reduce the amount of time users need to spend on fantasy football decision-making.

“The purpose of opening up IBM Watson capabilities to our Ecosystem Partners via an open developer platform is to accelerate creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and Edge Up Sports is a perfect example,” said Lauri Saft, vice president, IBM Watson.

Adidas Group, Caterpillar, Charles Phillips, Columbia Sportswear, ERP, GT Nexus, Infor, Levi Strauss & Co., M&A, Maersk, News & Analysis, Pfizer, Sean Feeney, Software as a service, Supply Chain Management, UPS, Vendor

Infor buys GT Nexus to strengthen manufacturing ERP cloud

Infor has acquired GT Nexus to boost its supply chain management capabilities

Infor has acquired GT Nexus to boost its supply chain management capabilities

Infor said this week it plans to acquire supply chain management cloud software vendor for $675m, a move the company expects will strengthen and broaden the capabilities of its ERP software.

GT Nexus’ cloud-based supply chain management software is particularly popular with manufacturer and retailers. The company claims to have over 25,000 customers including the likes of Adidas Group, Caterpillar, Columbia Sportswear, Levi Strauss & Co., Maersk, Pfizer, and UPS.

Infor said the acquisition would strengthen its portfolio as the retail industry continues to shift towards contract-based manufacturing, where much of the activity and commercial production takes place outside the brand owner’s operations (and ERP platform).

The company said GT Nexus and Infor CloudSuite have very similar architectures, making them relateively straightforward to integrate.

“Together, Infor and GT Nexus will provide customers with unprecedented visibility into their supply chains to manage production and monitor goods in transit and at rest,” said Charles Phillips, chief executive of Infor. “In a complex, high velocity supply chain, all partners need to know what was ordered, when it was built, where it is in transit, if the order has changed, and has it cleared customs. Specialization and speed are moving the future of manufacturing into the commerce cloud.”

Sean Feeney, chief executive of GT Nexus said: “Infor is a great home for GT Nexus, and we’re excited to join forces with a company with a strong manufacturing, retail, and supply chain pedigree.”

Hootsuite, IBM, News & Analysis, Vendor

Hootsuite, IBM strike cloud deal

IBM and Hootsuite are teaming up on social media skills development

IBM and Hootsuite are teaming up on social media skills development

Hootsuite will deploy its App Directory service on SoftLayer infrastructure, the companies announced this week. The two companies also intend to team up to create a university programme aimed at fostering social media analysis skills development.

The social media tool provider has previously teamed up with IBM in the past – it integrated IBM’s marketing automation service, Silverpop, with App Directory – but the latest deal will see Hootsuite move its service onto SoftLayer’s IaaS.

“IBM Cloud offers high performance, granular control and flexibility. When you couple that with its globally integrated footprint, we will have the ability to move data between datacentres efficiently which will provide resiliency, flexibility and control,” said Aaron Budge, vice president of operations and IT at Hootsuite.

“We have had a great relationship with IBM for more than two years and are excited about expanding our relationship with new product integrations and the ability to leverage IBM technology,” Budge said.

The two companies are also joining forces to develop a no-charge university program that pairs IBM’s Academic Initiative with Hootsuite’s Higher Education Program, which blends analytics and cloud training with social media skill development. The move will see the two companies offer students and faculty at participating universities access to IBM and Hootsuite technical experts and technology.

“The partnership between IBM and Hootsuite will blend analytics and social technologies to provide students and professionals the skills they need for social marketing,” said Randy Hlavac, a lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and a member of IBM’s Academic Initiative.

“Utilizing IBM Cloud and Analytic solutions, students are able to gain deep market knowledge. The Hootsuite tools will utilize this insight and allow students to test messaging immediately and deliver the most engaging content globally,” Hlavac said.

Aeris, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Digi International, Fujitsu, IMC, Inmarsat, Intel, Internet of Things, Iridium, KORE, M2M, News & Analysis, Nighthawk Controls, Numerex, ORBCOMM, Rose Schooler, Synapse Wireless, Telecom Italia, Telit, Verizon, Wipro, Wyless

Intel, Wipro join IoT, M2M trade body to boost deployments

Intel and Wipro are joining the IMC

Intel and Wipro are joining the IMC

Intel and Wipro have this week joined the International M2M Council (IMC), a global trade association set up to represent Internet of Things vendors and service providers and boost volume IoT deployments.

The trade body, which does advocates on behalf of IoT vendors and service providers, claims to have over 10,000 members and is on track to grow by another 5,000 by the year’s end. In addition to Intel and Wipro companies on the IMC board of governors include Aeris, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Digi International, Inmarsat, Iridium, KORE, Nighthawk Controls, Numerex, ORBCOMM, Synapse Wireless, Telecom Italia, Telit, Verizon, and Wyless.

“The IMC’s focus on business results suits our role as a provider of end-to-end IoT solutions very well,” said Vijay Anand V.R., practice director, IoT Business, Wipro Digital, who has also joined the IMC Board

“This trade group also has a truly global footprint that fits our business model and aspirations.”

Rose Schooler, vice president of the IoT Strategy Office at Intel, who also sits on the IMC board of governors said: “The IMC is an industry-leading professional organisation that is reaching out to adopters of IoT technology on a broad scale. The organisation is gaining an average of 275 new members per week – members that are developing, buying, and deploying IoT solutions. Clearly, there is a demand in the market to learn more.”

Both Intel and Wipro have accelerated their IoT efforts over the past few months. Earlier this year enterprise vendor Software AG and outsourcing giant Wipro teamed up to offer a platform for streaming analytics generated by Internet of Things sensors and devices.

Intel has also ramped up its collaborations in the space, teaming with Fujitsu in May this year to develop Internet of Things solutions for manufacturing, retail and public sector clients.

Alphabet, Google, Larry Page, M&A, News & Analysis, Sergey Brin, Vendor

Google creates Alphabet to address bloat, heterogeneity

Google's holding company is intended to help it more effectively manage a growing and increasingly broad set of businesses

Google’s holding company is intended to help it more effectively manage a growing and increasingly broad set of businesses

Google has taken the decision to form a new holding company, Alphabet, of which its biggest component will be Google with its internet and cloud services. The move is likely to appeal to investors who don’t want expensive experiments and general sprawl bringing down its share price.

The company’s chief executive Larry Page revealed the news in a blog post this week.

“We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.”

“Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.”

Alphabet is a holding company that will include Google, the largest of its components, which will retain the internet-centric services it provides (including YouTube, Search, Maps, and its cloud services). But its other projects and divisions including Nest, Google X, Research, Fibre, and it venture capital arms (Ventures and Capital) will be spun out and operate under the broader Alphabet umbrella.

Page will serve as chief executive of Alphabet and Sergey Brin as its president. Sundar Pichai, who has led product development and engineering efforts for its internet businesses, will be bumped up to lead Google as chief executive.

“This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead.”

“Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related. Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well.”

Andy Tait, EMC, News & Analysis, Public Sector, VMware

Cost, flexibility driving UK public sector to cloud

The UK public sector is warming to cloud

The UK public sector is warming to cloud

A recent survey of over 600 UK decision makers suggests over three quarters (85 per cent) of UK public sector employees are using some form of public cloud services.

The VMware-sponsored research sheds some light on adoption drivers, with cost savings looking like the most frequently cited. More than a third of respondents (34 per cent) said affordability was the main reason for choosing to buy cloud services in their department, followed by ease of use (23 per cent).

“The findings from this research are very positive for the public sector. Line of businesses are using public cloud services to drive efficiencies across the organisation – both for employees to access data inside the organisation, and to speed the delivery of citizen-focused services, for example passport applications, that fluctuate at times throughout the year,” said Andy Tait, head of public sector strategy, VMware.

While cloud services aren’t always cheaper than their legacy alternatives it is perhaps unsurprising that affordability is one of the leading drivers of cloud uptake in the public sector given increased budgetary pressure and savings requirements being placed on departments.

Still, the research highlights a growing IT security issue. The survey results show just under two-thirds of (60 per cent) of public sector respondents use some form of public cloud services, whether offered by IT or not.

“In order for the UK public sector to drive efficiencies in a secure, flexible, agile and compliant manner, business users need to look at embracing a hybrid cloud strategy that can provide portability of workloads, one set of management tools and deliver services such as disaster recovery and built in security – without the cost of having to investing in unnecessary resources and tools,” Tait said.

Americas, BSS, Ericsson, Hugo Cruz, Icon Americas, M&A, News & Analysis, OSS, Sergio Quiroga da Cunha

Ericsson buys system integrator to shore up IT consultancy services in LATAM

Ericsson is boosting its OSS/BSS activities in LATAM

Ericsson is boosting its OSS/BSS activities in LATAM

Ericsson announced plans to acquire Guatemala-based Icon Americas, a consulting and systems integration firm, for an undisclosed sum. The company said the move would bolster its expertise in telecoms software.

Founded in 1996, Icon Americas specializes in providing application development and maintenance (ADM) services, specifically in the area of billing and charging for telecom operators.

Ericsson said the acquisition, which will see Icon Americas’ 250 employees join the networking giant, will boost its portfolio of consulting services around OSS/BSS solutions in the region.

Sergio Quiroga da Cunha, head of Ericsson in Latin America and Caribbean said: “IT services is an area of strategic importance to Ericsson – not just in Latin America but globally. The acquisition of Icon Americas will improve our ability to provide IT and ADM services to customers in Latin America, thereby strengthening our end-to-end position in OSS/BSS.”

Hugo Cruz, founder and chief executive of Icon Americas said: “We are excited to be joining the Ericsson team as its global scale and presence enable us to apply our expertise to a much wider range of customers.”

Big Data, IBM, John Kelly, M&A, Merge, News & Analysis, Vendor, Watson

IBM bolsters Watson Healthcare capabilities with $1bn Merge acquisition

IBM is bolstering its Watson Health Cloud with the Merge acquisition

IBM is bolstering its Watson Health Cloud with the Merge acquisition

IBM announced its intention to acquire Merge Healthcare, a medical imaging and processing platform provider, which it plans to integrate with Watson. The company said the move would bolster the cognitive computing cloud’s clinical and medical capabilities.

Merge claims its technology is used at more than 7,500 US healthcare sites and many of the world’s largest clinical research institutes and pharmaceutical firms to manage and process medical images.

IBM said it plans to integrate Merge’s medical image handling technologies with the Watson Health Cloud. The company said the move would enable it to extend Watson’s analytics to medical images and create a consolidated platform to store, analyse and suggest treatments based on them, as well as cross-reference the images against a growing trove of lab results, electronic health records, clinical studies and other healthcare-related research and data.

“As a proven leader in delivering healthcare solutions for over 20 years, Merge is a tremendous addition to the Watson Health platform.  Healthcare will be one of IBM’s biggest growth areas over the next 10 years, which is why  we are making a major investment to drive industry transformation and to facilitate a higher quality of care,” said John Kelly, senior vice president, IBM Research and Solutions Portfolio.

“Watson’s powerful cognitive and analytic capabilities, coupled with those from Merge and our other major strategic acquisitions, position IBM to partner with healthcare providers, research institutions, biomedical companies, insurers and other organizations committed to changing the very nature of health and healthcare in the 21st century. Giving Watson ‘eyes’ on medical images unlocks entirely new possibilities for the industry.”

“Medical images are some of the most complicated data sets imaginable, and there is perhaps no more important area in which researchers can apply machine learning and cognitive computing.  That’s the real promise of cognitive computing and its artificial intelligence components – helping to make us healthier and to improve the quality of our lives,” he added.

IBM sees huge potential for its Watson service in healthcare, and has moved to back that belief with a flurry of acquisitions and partnerships.

Earlier this year it bought Phytel, which provides cloud-based software that helps healthcare providers and care teams coordinate activities across medical facilities by automating certain aspects of patient care, and acquired Explorys, a provider of cognitive cloud-based analytics that provides insights for care facilities derived from datasets derived from numerous and diverse financial, operational and medical record systems.

It also announced a partnership with Apple that is seeing IBM offer its Watson Health Cloud platform as a storage and analytics service for HealthKit data aggregated from iOS devices, and open the platform up for health and fitness app developers as well as medical researchers.

Alex Polvi, Boris Renski, CoreOS, Docker, Google, Kubernetes, Linux containers, News & Analysis, Open Source, OpenStack, Vendor

Mirantis, CoreOS deliver Kubernetes on OpenStack

Mirantis and CoreOS are partnering on Kubernetes integration with OpenStack

Mirantis and CoreOS are partnering on Kubernetes integration with OpenStack

Pure-play OpenStack vendor Mirantis has teamed with CoreOS to integrate its distribution of the open source cloud software with Tectonic, CoreOS’ commercial Kubernetes distribution.

Tectonic blends Kubernetes, an open source container deployment management service, and the CoreOS software portfolio in an integrated package, including a management console for workflows and dashboards, an integrated registry to build and share Linux containers, and additional tools to automate deployment and customize rolling updates. It runs on-premises or in public and private clouds.

The two companies said the move would improve support and manageability of containers running on OpenStack and bolster their mutual hybrid cloud capabilities.

“Mirantis and CoreOS share a vision of helping DevOps teams create better software faster. Putting Kubernetes on top of OpenStack gives them flexibility in how they build their applications, letting them innovate quickly,” said Mirantis chief marketing officer and co-founder Boris Renski.

“We are thrilled to be working with Google and CoreOS, and look forward to hearing more from them about how enterprises can leverage containers with OpenStack at OpenStack Silicon Valley.”

The move comes nearly half a year after Mirantis announced it would partner with Google to get vanilla Kubernetes integrated with its OpenStack distribution and double down on support for containers more broadly, efforts that have seemingly accelerated since Google announced the official 1.0 launch of Kubernetes last month.

“Now that Kubernetes is production-ready, companies using Tectonic and Mirantis OpenStack can have a Google-like infrastructure at their fingertips,” said Alex Polvi, chief executive of CoreOS. “Mirantis possesses a deep understanding of open source software and their commitment to the open source ecosystem around OpenStack is second to none. It was natural to work with Mirantis to help customers see the benefits of Kubernetes on OpenStack.”

EMC, Joe Tucci, M&A, News & Analysis, Virtualisation, VMware

Report: EMC mulls selling itself to its subsidiary VMware

EMC might be selling itself to VMware in a move that could see the child become the parent

EMC might be selling itself to VMware in a move that could see the child become the parent

Storage giant EMC is reportedly considering a buyout by its virtualization-focused subsidiary, VMware, at the behest of activist investor Elliott Manage according to multiple reports.

The deal according to Re/Code, which first reported the news, would work like this: VMware would issue between $50bn and $55bn in new share, with about $30bn going towards cancelling EMC’s stake in VMware, and the remaining shares in VMware issues to current EMC stakeholders.

While no deal has been agreed or confirmed by spokespeople at EMC, VMware and Elliott Management it is clear the EMC Federation is under increasing pressure to split up and drastically reorganize its operations, something that has been on the cards for a couple of years now amidst flat or declining revenues and a bloating portfolio of products and services.

Elliott has made no secret of its desire to see EMC balkanize the Federation – EMC, VMware and Pivotal – into autonomous entities with more streamlined product portfolios, much like its support of Citrix’s reorganization and divestiture(s).

The market’s reaction to the potential acquisition was mixed, with VMware’s share price dropping from $93.43 to $85.72 per share in the space of just over an hour after the news broke, levelling off at $86.65 per share by the close of trading yesterday. EMC shares, however, rose from about $25.93 per share to $27.05 during the same period, closing at $26.85.

A deal that would see EMC and VMware combine into one entity wouldn’t be too far fetched given EMC’s more recent acquisition streak – namely, software companies that bolster its software-defined storage and enterprise software capabilities. VMware, an embedded component of today’s datacenters, complements that strategy nicely, but with the news sending VMware’s share price downward it doesn’t seem the market favours the child becoming the parent.

In a call with analysts in July EMC chairman and chief executive Joe Tucci rejected the possibility of a split, but emphasized a transformation that puts cloud technology (like VMware’s) at its core.

“Undoubtedly everybody on this call believes deeply that one of the biggest transitions every company has to do is move to the cloud. We talked about digital transformation which I think is an even bigger market where the Internet of Things and all of that falls in. But just take where we live in datacentres. And datacentres are moving to cloud technologies, both private and managed.”

“Obviously, if you were doing that, would you rather do that as just VMware, just EMC, just Pivotal with their past or are you a lot stronger in front of a customer’s doing it together? So, do I think we’re much stronger? The answer is absolutely. So I think splitting this federation or spinning off VMware is not a good idea. I firmly believe that we are better together, a lot better together.”