Archivo de la categoría: News & Analysis

Customer experience, Digital Marketing, Enterprise IT, IBM, News & Analysis

IBM acquires Salesforce consulting partner

IBMIBM has announced plans to acquire Salesforce specialist consulting business Bluewolf, which will bolster the Global Business Services Interactive Experience (iX) department.

IBM iX, marketed as a next-generation hybrid consultancy and digital agency, has been bolstering its ranks in recent months, as the Bluewolf deal is set to be the fourth since the turn of the year. In January the business bought US ad agency Resource/Ammirati, February saw the purchase of Berlin-based digital agency Aperto and earlier this month the acquisition of ecx.io, another digital marketing agency, was announced. While previous deals have taken IBM iX down the route of digital marketing and advertising, the Bluewolf deal takes the department back down more traditional IBM routes.

While it has not been announced when the deal will be completed, IBM hopes the deal will provide an edge in the market for medium-sized businesses and enterprise scale organizations. Bluewolf, which specializes in helping companies integrate Salesforce’s CRM services into their IT systems, is believed to be one of Salesforce’s oldest consulting partners, claiming to have delivered more than 9,500 successful worldwide.

“I’m so proud of Eric (Eric Berridge, Bluewolf CEO), who built Bluewolf from a start-up into a leader in Salesforce services,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce. “The powerful combination of our strategic partners, IBM and Bluewolf, will help clients transform and demonstrate the growing client demand for our Customer Success Platform.”

IBM said the acquisition of Bluewolf would give the Global Business Services division deeper consulting capabilities, as it continues efforts to differentiate the brand in a crowded market place. “There is no question that the consumer-grade experience has emerged as a fundamental element in modern business strategy,” said Bridget van Kralingen, SVP at IBM Global Business Services. “Meeting that expectation defines next-generation differentiation and competitive position, and with Bluewolf, we add expertise to scale that capability to the cloud-based capabilities of Salesforce.”

The series of acquisitions seemingly build on the trends more demanding customers and evolving consumer expectations on the digital landscape. An IBM survey stated 81% of C-suite leaders anticipate more digital and virtual engagement by 2020 and 66% anticipate a stronger focus on customers as individuals. It would appear IBM is attempting to get a jump-start on competitors through strategic acquisition, as opposed to organic growth and transformation.

cloud orchestration, Enterprise IT, hybrid cloud, Intel, News & Analysis

Intel backs software-defined-infrastructure to bolster position in hybrid cloud market

IntelIntel has backed the growth of software-defined infrastructure to bolster its management and orchestration position in the hybrid cloud market segment.

The company announced the launch of Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 product family, and the SSD DC D3700 and D3600 Series, alongside industry partnerships with VMware and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. To boost its open-source credentials, Intel will also be collaborating with open-source players CoreOS and Mirantis.

“Enterprises want to benefit from the efficiency and agility of cloud architecture and on their own terms – using the public cloud offerings, deploying their own private cloud, or both,” said Diane Bryant, GM of Intel’s Data Center Group. “The result is pent-up demand for software-defined infrastructure. Intel is investing to mature SDI (software-defined infrastructure) solutions and provide a faster path for businesses of all sizes to reap the benefits of the cloud.”

It would appear Intel is backing the growth of SDI as a means of building its position the management and orchestration market. As part of the Cloud for All initiative, Intel is investing in others in the industry to accelerate SDI-enabled clouds. A survey from 451 Research also provides weight to the Intel position as 67% of enterprises plan on increasing spend on SDI over the course of 2016.

The E5-2600 v4 product family also includes Resource Director Technology which it claims will aid customers to move to fully automated SDI-based clouds. The updated product offering will provide 20% more cores and cache than the prior generation, which could provide an improved orchestration position, according to the company.

As part of the collaboration with CoreOS and Mirantis, Intel will assist in merging together the technologies to create an open-source solution to orchestrate container and virtual machine-based applications. It would appear that alongside the move to differentiate the brand through a SDI product offering, Intel are seemingly joining the charge on open-source propositions, a growing trend throughout the cloud industry.

Internet of Things, IoT, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Microsoft steps up IoT credentials

Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft

Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft

Tech giant Microsoft has launched a number of updates and features for both its Azure and Office platforms, in a move to bolster its position in the intelligent apps and IoT space.

Speaking at Build 2016, the company launched the general availability of Azure Service Fabric and new IoT starter kits, as well as previews of new services to serverless compute for event-driven solutions, Azure Functions, and Power BI Embedded, which allows developers to embed reports and visualizations in any application.

“Microsoft is the only cloud vendor that supports the diverse needs of every organization and developer — from core infrastructure services to platform services and tools to software-as-a-service — for any language, across any platform,” said Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft.

“With 30 regions worldwide — more than every major cloud provider combined — Azure’s massive scale means developers and businesses alike can focus on creating the next generation of amazing applications, not their underlying cloud infrastructure. This makes our cloud the de facto choice for enterprises of today and tomorrow — and today, more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 agree.”

The launch of Azure Service Fabric will allow developers to decompose applications into microservices, for increased availability and scalability. The company claims the offering will handle application lifecycle management for constant uptime and easy application scaling, and builds on the growing popularity of microservices in the industry and is accompanied by the promise of open-source programming frameworks for Linux later in the year. As with a number of Microsoft’s announcements over recent weeks, open-source has been a prominent product position for the company at Build 2016.

The company also highlighted its IoT starter kit would be available for anyone with Windows or Linux experience to build prototypes which use all of Azure’s offerings. Prices for the kit range between $60 and $150, which could potentially open up a new market of students, academics and casual users for the company.

For the more complex IoT projects, the company have also previewed Azure Functions which will enable developers to create apps which will automatically respond to events in virtually any Azure or 3rd party service as well as on-premises systems. The preview is part of the greater trend of automated responses and reactions to events, and appears to be Microsoft’s response to AWS Lambda, which was launched in late 2014.

Qi Lu

Qi Lu, EVP of the Applications and Services Group at Microsoft

Outside of the Azure platform, the company also announced a number of product updates and features for Office. “In terms of reach, Office is one of the few platforms in the world that provides developers with access to over a billion users across a variety of devices,” said Qi Lu, EVP of the Applications and Services Group. “The opportunity to build on the Office platform has never been greater.”

“With new extensions and new connections to the Microsoft Graph — an intelligent fabric that applies machine learning to map the connections between people, content and interactions across Office 365 — developers are empowered to build intelligent apps that can transform the landscape of work,” said Lu.

Alongside Lu, Starbucks CTO Gerri Martin-Flickinger showcased how he has been using the platform to create an add-on which enables customers to send a gift-card through Outlook, and also schedule meetings at the nearest Starbucks. “Building on the Office platform is reaching our customers right on their desktop or device and extending the Starbucks Experience to them in new and compelling ways,” he said.

As part of the announcement, Microsoft previewed six new APIs for the Microsoft Graph which let developers link Office 365 data to third-party solutions. One of which automatically identifies a series of times a predefined group of people are available for a meeting.

data backup, Enterprise IT, Kroll Ontrack, News & Analysis

Cloud-based data backup solutions increasing in popularity – survey

Cloud data sharing conceptResearch from Kroll Ontrack has stated cloud-back backup solutions are increasing in popularity, though hardware based options still account for the majority.

The survey, which was only open to participants who have experienced loss of valuable data, highlighted 51% of respondents are still using hardware based options, though this figure is down from 68% in 2015. Cloud-based solutions are currently being considered by 23%, an increase from 18% over the last 12 months.

What could cause concern within the industry is that in instance of data loss, 86% of the respondents said they did have a backup in place, and 48% highlighted they backup the data on a daily basis. If these statistics are to be believed, why is data being lost on such a regular basis? 22% stated the backup was not operating correctly, 21% said the device was not included in backup procedures and 21% commented the backup was out of date.

“It’s no longer enough to have a backup solution where you just hope for the best,” said Robin England, Senior Research & Development Engineer, Kroll Ontrack. “As our survey results indicate year after year, conducting backups is just one step in an overall backup strategy.”

While security and data protection appears to be at the top of the agenda for most organizations, it would appear human indifference and negligence, as well as a shortage of resource are not backing up company claims. A number of organizations have cited recently one of the main challenges for enterprise organizations is the relaxed approach to security demonstrated by its employees.

The statistics also back this point up as 54% of respondents highlighted they did not have the time to effectively research and administer an effective backup solution. While the time factor is a significant barrier here, 24% of respondents said the cost was prohibitive which is down from 31% in 2015. When combined with the statistic that the number of respondents who do daily backups increased by six percentage points over the same period, the findings could imply that enterprise organizations are taking the process of data backup more seriously.

“Storage devices pack more and more data into smaller and more complex systems,” said England. “This not only requires IT teams to dedicate significant time to actually back up the data, but requires even more time to verify the backups worked properly. IT teams face a challenging balancing act when ensuring all of this is managed effectively.”

While the statistics are encouraging, it would still appear that human error and a lack of centralized oversight are the underlying causes for data loss.

data protection, EU regulations, Local Government, News & Analysis, Policy and Regulation

Socitm outlines concerns for local government ahead of new data protection regulations

Compliance ConceptThe Society of Information Technology Management, Socitm, has stated that local government bodies should review all information governance arrangements in light of changes to EU-US data protection policies.

In its latest briefing, Data protection: <Control><All><Delete>?, Socitm has recommended that all IT professionals update their information, security and data protection policies, as councils could face difficulty in remaining compliant under the new legislative framework.

Data protection has been a hot topic in recent months, following the European Court of Justice striking down the Safe Harbor agreement last year, as well criticisms of its replacement, the EU-US Privacy Shield. “Legal action in the wake of the Snowden revelations challenged the degree of protection for citizens’ data provided by Safe Harbor,” Socitm said in the statement. “New measures giving foreigners’ data some legal protection have been put in place, but it is not yet known whether the European authorities will consider that US privacy protection is now adequate.”

In recent weeks, Privacy activist Max Schrems, who has been linked to the initial downfall of Safe Harbour, said in a statement reacting to Privacy Shield, “Basically, the US openly confirms that it violates EU fundamental rights in at least six cases. The commission claims that there is no ‘bulk surveillance’ any more, when its own documents say the exact opposite.”

Socitm said in the statement that new European Data Protection Regulation will also update data laws in the UK, which currently don’t account for new technologies. The UK Data Protection Law was written in 1998, several years before the launch of social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, as well as the surge in data usage from both consumers and enterprise. Socitm stated that councils could be let in a vulnerable position when the regulations are brought in officially.

The regulations, a draft of which were released in January, stated that data protection legislation would have to be updated for the digital age, consumers would have to have access to their own data to understand how and where it is utilized, as well as increasing security standards for an individual’s data.

The fear here seems to be focused around the volume of changes that would need to be enforced once the new regulations are in place. It would appear Socitm is concerned that local councils will not be able to keep pace, leaving the councils in a non-compliant and susceptible position.

“Accommodating the changes will be a matter of amending existing processes rather than inventing new ones,” said Dr Andy Hopkirk, Head of Research at Socitm. “Some of the changes could be onerous and problematic. For example, councils will need to be able to deal correctly and completely with ‘right to be forgotten’ requests – perhaps the single greatest challenge in an almost ubiquitously networked and distributed computing world.”

AI, Artificial intelligence, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Microsoft pushes forward with AI despite Tay set-back

Microsoft To Layoff 18,000Microsoft has announced a number of updates for its advanced analytics and machine learning offerings as part of its ‘Conversation-as-a-Platform’ push.

Despite the company facing criticism after its twitter-inspired PR stunt Tay backfired last week, the company has pushed forward within the artificial intelligence space, updating its Cortana Intelligence Suite and releasing its Skype Bot Platform.

“As an industry, we are on the cusp of a new frontier that pairs the power of natural human language with advanced machine intelligence,” said Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, at the Build 2016 event. “At Microsoft, we call this Conversation-as-a-Platform, and it builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.”

The Cortana Intelligence Suite, formerly known as Cortana Analytics Suite, is built on the company’s on-going research into big data, machine learning, perception, analytics and intelligent bots. The offering allows developers to build apps and bots which interact with customers in a personalized way, but also react to real-world developments in real-time.

Microsoft also announced two new additions to the suite, Microsoft Cognitive Services, formerly known as Project Oxford and the Microsoft Bot Framework, both of which are still in preview.

The first, Microsoft Cognitive Services, has 22 APIs available for developers including emotion detection, speech analysis and Custom Recognition Intelligent Service. The face application programming interface made headlines last year, as the results of an app which estimated user ages was highly varied.

At the time, the team highlighted “the age and gender-recognition features are labelled as experimental features” and also said that despite the mistakes the app made, the fact that it trended on twitter meant that the volumes of data collected would aid the company in refining the technology over time.

The second, Microsoft Bot Framework, can be used in any programming language, enabling developers to build intelligent bots which can converse with customers in a variety of platforms including text/SMS, Office 365, and the web. The bots can also connect to social channels such as Twitter and Slack. The company claims that the bots can be utilized in a number of different complex scenarios though only simple ones, such as ordering a pizza or booking a hotel room, have been demoed so far.

The company also announced the launch of its Skype Bot Platform, enables developers to build bots which can interact with customers through Skype’s multiple forms of communication, including text, voice, video and 3-D interactive characters. The preview bots are very simple and limited for the moment, however once the bots are combined with the Cortana Intelligence Suite there could be potential for the bots to appear more human.

While it is early days for the Microsoft AI platforms, the team are riding the waves of both positive and negative headlines, seemingly leading the industry in the AI space. The company’s competitors are also pushing hard in the AI world, though the weight behind the announcements this week could imply that Microsoft are investing in a more serious manner than others in the industry.

Enterprise IT, Korea, News & Analysis, Private Cloud

Korean government prioritizes growth of cloud computing

Network ExpansionThe Korean government has announced a new policy to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing in the country, according to Business Korea.

Speaking at a cloud computing conference in Korea, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning have announced that it will be running a number of initiatives to increase the adoption of cloud computing from 6.4% to 13%, seemingly over the next twelve months. Over the same period, the government also plans to increase the number of Korean cloud companies from 353 to 500, as well as growing private cloud adoption in public institutions to at least 3%.

The Korean government has estimated that should the new initiatives be successful the domestic cloud market could be worth in excess of 1.1 trillion won, roughly £670 million. To support the growth of the industry, the government will also build a cloud computing support centre in Daegu City, which will provide guidance for public institutions who are making the transition.

While the government has laid bare its intentions for the industry in the country, it has not been stated how cloud computing is currently perceived by enterprise. The government has estimated that 6.4% of businesses in Korea currently utilize the cloud, whereas in the UK the figure is viewed as generally much higher. It has been estimated recently that 93% of enterprise in the UK have adopted the cloud.

In what could be seen as a move to encourage enterprise appetite for the cloud, the government has invited enterprises in need of cloud computing in various industries to join the deregulation task force currently led by IT firms in the private sector.

Alongside this announcement, the government has also prioritized the growth of SME’s through the adoption of cloud. In what appears to be a move to emulate companies such as Uber and AirBnB, Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning will work in collaboration with the Center for Creative Economy & Innovation to provide cloud software and infrastructure to smaller organizations who could otherwise not afford the technology.

In terms of international expansion of the Korean cloud computing industry, the government will once again provide assistance highlighting the Software-as-a-Service market. It believes the SaaS market is where the country has the greatest opportunity to compete on the international scale, as there is not an outright market leader for the moment. It also believes that the country is a good position to capitalize on the growing Infrastructure-as-a-Service market in South East Asia.

The success of all cloud initiatives could partly depend on the success of the government in engaging enterprise in the country and building the appetite for the technology, which is at a low adoption rate in comparison to other nations.

Brocade, News & Analysis

Brocade makes play for DevOps market with StackStorm acquisition

BrocadeNetworking vendor Brocade has acquired StackStorm, a start-up that builds software for automating datacentre operations.

StackStorm, which describes itself as an organization defined by the DevOps ideology, said on its blog that it will be joining Brocade to help accelerate the company’s efforts to bring DevOps style scalable open source automation to Brocade’s networking solutions. This is one of the first moves which Brocade has made to capitalize on the growing DevOps trends within the industry.

The company was launched in 2013 and left stealth mode in May 2014 promoting itself as a company which can streamline datacentre operations. The model itself is focused on incorporating a DevOps ideology into the datacentre, automating common tasks, claiming it can help companies run their facilities like Facebook, where a single person can be responsible for tens of thousands of servers, not just a couple of hundred.

On the Brocade blog, PG Menon, Senior Director of Technology & Strategy for Switching, Routing and Analytics said “Using StackStorm technology, Brocade customers will be able to bring DevOps methods to networking as well as experience many of the benefits of scale-out IT automation enjoyed by the Cloud Titans.

“Simply put, achieving business agility through DevOps methods for IT automation that also includes networking is no longer limited to Cloud Titans. Every IT shop will be able to realize those same benefits.”

While DevOps is seen as one of the strongest growing trends within the cloud industry, Brocade is building its business case on the fact that the use of DevOps is limited to tech giants at the top of the ladder such as Amazon and Facebook. The company aim to deliver the same agility to smaller organizations who cannot command the software manpower of the industry’s major players in designing and delivering DevOps-enabled business agility.

Under Brocade, the StackStorm technology will be extended to networking and new integrations will be developed for automation across IT domains such as storage, compute, and security. The StackStorm team also highlighted in its blog it anticipates investment from Brocade to increase the size of its team over the coming months.

containers, Microservices, News & Analysis

Containers and microservices starting to enter mainstream market – survey

MainstreamA recent survey from NGINX highlighted containers and microservices are two buzzwords which are starting to enter the mainstream market as companies target daily software releases.

While daily software releases are the ultimate goal within the industry, 70% of respondents highlighted that they are currently releasing new code only once a week, with only 28% reaching target. Barriers cited were a lack of automation tools, a constant trade-off between quality of code and expected speed of delivery, as well as a lack of central management, accountability, and collaboration tools.

Containers are now seemingly beginning to enter the mainstream as 69% of respondents said that they were either actively using or investigating the technology currently. Of the 20% using containers in production, more than a third are running more than 80% of their workloads on containers and more than half for mission-critical applications. The technology is also creating a new buyer audience for vendors, as 74% of respondents said developers were responsible for choosing development and delivery tools as opposed to heads of departments or managers.

Microservices tell a slightly different story, as while adoption levels are similar at approximately 70% currently using or investigating, the trend is weighted more towards small and medium organizations rather than the blue chips. Of the larger organizations, 26% are researching, 36% are currently using in development or production however 38% aren’t using microservices at all.

AWSThe survey also demonstrated AWS are continuing to dominate market share, accounting for 49%. Despite Google and Microsoft Azure grabbing headlines recently with a number of new client wins, acquisitions and product releases, the market seemingly still favours AWS with respondents highlighting an accessible price point as one of the most important factors when selecting a cloud provider.

Continuous integration and continuous delivery are becoming development best practices, as 27% of the respondents would now consider their organization to have a mature practise for continuous integration and delivery. On the other end of the scale, roughly a third said that they were keen to move forward with continuous integration and delivery but the necessary level of collaboration or understanding is not yet widespread in their organizations as of yet.

While the survey does demonstrate the integration of cloud-first technologies such as containers are moving beyond the early-adopter stage, it will be some time before such technologies become common place in large scale organizations were the wheels are slower to turn. Like the cloud business model, containers and microservices seem to be offering small and medium size operations the opportunity to compete with larger organizations budgets through technology innovation, agility and speed of deployment.

Dell, M&A, merger and acquisition, News & Analysis, NTT Data

NTT Data to acquire Dell Services for $3.06 billion

NTT DataJapan’s NTT Data is to acquire Dell’s IT Services business for $3.06 billion, in an effort to bolster its footprint in the North American region.

The announcement confirms speculation over recent months as to the future of the IT Services division, as Dell has been rumoured to be searching for a buyer for the business unit to aid financing of the EMC deal. Dell Services was initially formed through the acquisition of Perot Systems in 2009 for $3.9 billion. The new agreement with NTT Data will see Dell absorb an $800 million loss on the division and could indicate that financing the EMC acquisition is more difficult than initially expected.

In December, BCN reported Dell had been facing challenges in financing one of the biggest financial deals in history. For the $63 billion EMC acquisition to proceed, Dell has had to reduce its levels of debt with the Perot Systems business unit rumoured to be a favourite for sale.

The company will initially remain under the leadership of Suresh Vaswani, current President of Dell Services, who will continue to report to Dell CEO Michael Dell until the completion of the deal. It is believed that as part of the acquisition NTT Data will take on 28,000 Dell employees, though future leadership of the business has not been confirmed.

“NTT Data is pleased with the unique opportunity to acquire such high-calibre talent, and a corporate culture that shares common values with NTT Data, with emphasis on client first, foresight, teamwork and a commitment to innovation,” said Toshio Iwamoto, President and CEO of NTT Data Corporation. “Welcoming Dell Services to NTT DATA is expected to strengthen our leadership position in the IT Services market and initiates an important business relationship with Dell.”

NTT Data’s acquisition of the IT services division is the largest by the company to date and continues to bolster its North American footprint. Revenues for NTT Data in overseas markets has more than doubled since 2011 and in the same period the company has spent more than $600 million on acquisitions. The company has prioritized growth in the North America region, primarily targeting lucrative contracts in the healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance.

Since 2011 NTT Data has been proactive in bolstering its overseas business with a number of acquisitions throughout the world. In Europe it acquired companies including Everis and Value Team, in North America Optimal Solutions Integration and Carlisle & Gallagher were added, whereas iPay88 increased the company’s footprint in Malaysia.

“There are few acquisition targets in our market that provide this type of unique opportunity to increase our competitiveness and the depth of our market offerings,” said John McCain, CEO of NTT Data. “Dell Services is a very well-run business and we believe its employee base, long-standing client relationships, and the mix of long term and project-based work will enhance our portfolio.”

The deal could indicate that financing the EMC agreement has proved to be more difficult than initially expected. Dell Services as a business unit was reportedly to be valued in the region of $5 billion, which could highlight Dell’s urgency in completing the sale. If reports are correct, it would appear NTT Data has negotiated a good deal.