Archivo de la categoría: News & Analysis

News & Analysis, Oracle, PaaS, Platform as a service, Quarterlies, quarterly results, Saas, Software as a service

Software and platforms as a service driving our growth says Oracle

OracleOracle’s latest quarterly results show the increasing strategic of importance of revenue from cloud software and platforms as a service, according to the vendor. Chairman Larry Ellison also claimed the sales figures show Oracle will soon overtake Salesforce as the top selling cloud operator.

The official figures for Oracle’s fiscal 2016 Q1 period show that total revenues were $8.4 billion, which represent a two per cent fall in US dollars but a seven per cent rise in constant currency. Oracle attributed the fall to the current strength of the US dollar.

However, a clearer pattern emerged in the nature of software sales, when benchmarking all sales in US dollars. While revenues for on premise software were down two per cent (in US dollars) at $6.5 billion, the total cloud revenues were up by 29 per cent at $611 million. The revenue from Cloud software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) was $451 million, which represents a 34 per cent increase in sales. Cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) revenues, at $160 million, rose 16 per cent in the same period.

Meanwhile, Oracle’s total hardware revenue figure for the period, $1.1 billion, also indicated a decline, of three per cent. Using the same US dollar benchmark, Oracle’s services revenues for the period more or less stagnated, at $862 million, a rise of one per cent.

Growth is being driven by SaaS and PaaS, according to Oracle CEO Safra Catz. “Cloud subscription contracts almost tripled in the quarter,” said Catz, “as our cloud business scales-up, we plan to double our SaaS and PaaS cloud margins over the next two years. Rapidly growing cloud revenue combined with a doubling of cloud margins will have a huge impact on growth going forward.”

Oracle’s cloud revenue growth rate is being driven by a year-over-year bookings rise of over 150 per cent in Q1, reported Oracle’s other joint CEO Mark Hurd. “Our increasing revenue growth rate is in sharp contrast to our primary cloud competitor’s revenue growth rates, which are on their way down.”

Oracle is still on target to book up to $2.0 billion of new SaaS and PaaS business this fiscal year, claimed executive chairman Larry Ellison. “That means Oracle would sell between 50 per cent more and double the amount of new cloud business that Salesforce plans to sell in their current fiscal year. Oracle is the world’s second largest SaaS and PaaS company, but we are rapidly closing in on number one.”

connected car, IBM, Internet of Things, IoT cloud, News & Analysis

New IBM cloud service could help car makers to internet things and cut emissions

connected-car-normal

IBM has launched a cloud service that aims to harness the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) so that car makers can cut the costs of production, ownership and pollution.

The new IBM Cloud could help the likes of BMW and Mercedes to make better use of the mass of data created by all the intelligent sensors in a car and use this intelligence to make car drivers more efficient. The service aggregates data about the machines, the drivers and the passengers. IBM claims it could cut carbon emissions by helping cut fuel consumption through promoting better driving techniques, smarter route choices and sensible loading.

On the supplier side, the improved intelligence, says IBM, could help vehicle manufacturers to lower both the cost of production and ownership, through techniques such as predictive vehicle maintenance, real-time engine diagnostics and chassis stress analysis.

The IBM Internet of Things (IoT) for Automotive system is available on IBM Cloud’s SoftLayer infrastructure. IBM says it will analyse primary and secondary sources of intelligence. In addition to primary sources, such as geolocation data collected in the car, it will use external sources such as the car maker’s customer data and vehicle history. It will also use data from parking providers.

Automotive supplier Continental uses IBM MessageSight and IBM InfoSphere Streams, components of the IBM IoT for Automotive solution, to help manage complex data streams and apply analytics to its eHorizon system. This allows vehicle electronics to anticipate road conditions using digital mapping and crowd sourced data.

According to Telefonica’s 2013 Connected Car Industry Report, nine in ten new cars will be equipped with extensive connectivity services by 2020. IBM’s mission is to make sense of all the masses of big data and put it to good use, said IBM’s general manager for global automotive industry Dirk Wollschlaeger. “We have the potential to change how we interact with our vehicles,” said Wollschlaeger.

Corporate, HP, News & Analysis, redundancies, restructure

Hewlett-Packard to decimate its workforce as major split announced

HPHewlett-Packard is to cut 10 per cent of its workforce, which could mean up to 30,000 redundancies, as plans to divide the company in two unfold.

The losses will come when Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) splits from the printer and PC business. The jobs cull will cost $2.7bn to carry out but will save the same amount in running costs every year, says HP.

The new structure proposed by chief executive Meg Whitman would steer HP Enterprise’s focus onto enterprises and government agencies while the PC and printing divisions would concentrate primarily on the consumer market.

Details have not been released about where the job cuts will be made, but Whitman told Wall Street analysts that the plan involves changing the nature of the workforce. The proportion of workers in what HPE calls ‘low-cost locations’ is expected to rise from today’s figure of around 42 per cent to to 60 per cent by 2018.

“We’ve done a significant amount of work over the past few years to take costs out and simplify processes,” Meg Whitman told a meeting of shareholders and Wall Street analysts, “these final actions will eliminate the need for any future corporate restructuring.”

Since the height of the dot com boom in 2000 Hewlett Packard’s stock has lost 60 per cent of its value. However, Hewlett-Packard remains one of the world’s largest technology companies, with revenues this year expected to top $50bn.

Earlier this year HP cut 55,000 jobs. These will not be the last of the job cuts, predicted Charles King, analyst at the Silicon Valley IT consulting firm Pund-IT. “The number is sadly larger than some people might have expected, but I think it’s a reflection of how much trouble HP has been having with its services,” said King.

Azure, cloud security, Gemalto, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Gemalto’s cloud-based encryption now available in Microsoft Azure marketplace

Mobile securitySecurity vendor Gemalto is to sell its SafeNet ProtectV encryption system on the Azure Marketplace. This means Microsoft’s Azure users will find it easier to encrypt and protect data and applications in the cloud and meet compliance regulations, it claims.

Gemalto says SafeNet ProtectV simplifies the protection of data. It encrypts each virtual machine created in the cloud in its entirety and extends this protection to attached storage volumes. By automating this process it saves users from the aggregated admin burden of configuring each virtual machine individually. Though the process is automated, SafeNet ProtectV allows customers to separate security administration duties. This means security enforcers can exert ‘granular’ levels of control and establish clear accountability with audit trails and detailed compliance reporting, it claims.

Maryland-based SafeNet was bought by Gemalto in August 2014 for US$890 million. SafeNet technology protects 80 per cent of the world’s intra-bank fund transfers and it employs 550 cryptographic engineers. Gemalto specialises in the protection of data, digital identities, payments, and transactions, at all points from the point of sale to the data centre.

The cloud infrastructure services market is on target to be a $42.7 billion industry in the next four years, said Gemalto’s encryption product VP Todd Moore. But, he said, that momentum will only be maintained if cloud services like Azure can meet the top levels of security and compliance.

“Easy implements of strong data protection and security in the cloud are a major consideration when moving sensitive workloads,” said Moore. Gemalto’s strategy is to make robust encryption frameworks simple so companies can move to the cloud with confidence – and ProtectV provides the audit controls, according to Moore.

Adding companies with cloud-based data encryption, like Gemalto, will convince more companies that it’s safe to use the cloud, according to Nicole Herskowitz, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft Azure. “Azure Marketplace provides customers with choice, flexibility and access,” said Herskowitz.

Accenture, acquisition, cloud migration, Cloud Sherpas, M&A, News & Analysis

Accenture to buy Cloud Sherpas to help enterprise clients navigate the cloud

Accenture is to acquire advisory firm Cloud Sherpas, for an undisclosed fee, in a bid to beef up its cloud consultancy as more enterprises seek help with their hybrid computing strategies.

If concluded, the takeover will add 1,100 new staff to Accenture’s newly created Cloud First Applications team, which helps enterprises make their first moves towards a shared computing model.

Atlanta-based Cloud Sherpas has a similar mission statement, offering to guide enterprises through their cloud migrations. Since its creation in 2007 it has grown a global presence with offices in Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and the UK. With its main focus on helping companies to adopt off-premise software-as-a-service (SaaS) systems, its major technology partnerships are with Google, Salesforce and ServiceNow.

Cloud Sherpas has been recognised as a Salesforce Global Strategic Consulting Partner and is one of four ServiceNow Master Partners in the world. It has won Google’s Work Partner of the Year on four occasions.

Accenture, one of Salesforce’s first global partners, currently has 2,700 certified professionals. The acquisition of Cloud Sherpas could bring a further 500 certified professionals to its team. It claims to run 13,000 cloud computing projects, with a clientele that includes three-quarters of the Fortune Global 100. It has a total of 17,000 cloud computing professionals.

“Cloud Sherpas was born in the cloud and we are perfectly aligned with Accenture’s cloud first agenda,” said Cloud Sherpas’ CEO David Northington, “The new organisation should prove a good fit for Accenture’s cloud first push.”

Accenture needs the new intake in order to keep up with the rapid pace of cloud adoption by enterprises, according to Paul Daugherty, chief technology officer of Accenture: “We’ve reached a tipping point as our clients rapidly adopt cloud systems.”

Salesforce president Keith Block welcomed the combination of the firm’s two strategic partners. “It’s proof positive of the momentum around our customer success platform,” said Block.

Ctera, Data management, Enterprise IT, HP, News & Analysis, Storage, Storage as a Service

Ctera now integrated with HP’s hybrid cloud manager

Cloud storageCtera Networks says it has integrated its storage and data management systems with HP’s cloud service automation (HP CSA) as it seeks way to simplify the management of enterprise file services across hybrid clouds.

The HP CSA ‘architecture’ now officially recognises and includes Ctera’s Enterprise File Services platform. The logic of the collaboration is that as the HP service helps companies build private and hybrid clouds they will need tighter data management in order to deliver new services to enterprise users, according to the vendors.

Ctera, which specialises in remote site storage, data protection, file synchronisation, file sharing and mobile collaboration services, has moved to make it easier to get those services on HP’s systems. According to Ctera, the new services can now be run on any organization’s HP CSA managed private or virtual private cloud infrastructure.

Enterprises that embrace the cloud need to modernise their file services and IT delivery models, according to Jeff Denworth, Ctera’s marketing SVP. The new addition of Ctera to HP CSA means they can easily manage file services from a single control point and quickly roll out the apps using a self-service portal, Denworth said.

“HP CSA helps IT managers become organisational heroes by accelerating the deployment of private and hybrid clouds and IT services,” said Denworth. The partnership with HP will result in a ‘broad suite’ of file services, increased agility and cheaper hybrid cloud services, according to Denworth.

The partnership should make things simpler for cloud managers, who are being forced to take on several roles, according to Atul Garg, HP’s general manager of cloud automation. “Today’s IT teams are becoming cloud services brokers, managing various products and services across hybrid environments and fundamentally changing how they deliver value to the broader organisation,” said Garg. Now file services can be deployed easily to tens of thousands of users, said Garg.

business, Exact, News & Analysis, Research, SME, UK

Cloud business users grow faster and are twice as profitable says study

Companies that commit themselves to cloud computing are likely to grow faster and enjoy twice the profit of their non-cloud using rivals, according to a study. The research also indicates that the UK is leading Europe in cloud adoption. However, one critic said there is no evidence that cloud computing creates productivity, or is a consequence of it.

The Exact 2015 SME Cloud Barometer report, an independent study of 2,975 SME leaders in the UK, the USA, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, found a correlation between companies with three or more cloud products and revenue growth. The ‘heavy users’ of cloud achieved higher revenue growth and over twice the profit of their less committed cloud users.

Penetration of cloud computing in the UK is relatively high in comparison with its European peers, according to the study. The UK has the second highest number of ‘heavy’ cloud software users (27 per cent) behind the USA on 29 per cent. However, the Netherlands, Belgium and France were not significantly behind, with their rates of cloud adoption being 25, 24 and 24 per cent respectively. Germany, with a cloud adoption rate of 10 per cent, was more significantly behind.

Nearly half (47 per cent) of the UK sample of small and medium sized enterprises SMEs now use at least one cloud business software tool.

The study examined the correlation between growth and cloud adoption and found that on average those companies it defined as heavy users enjoyed revenue growth of 26 per cent in 2015. In comparison the companies that used only one or two cloud computing systems grew revenues by an average of 14 per cent. Those with no cloud systems at all showed the slowest growth rates, with revenues on average growing by 10 per cent.

Of the UK sample, the most popular reason given (by 54 per cent of the survey) for adopting new cloud systems was that the ‘need to replace outdated versions’. Saving money on IT was the most frequently cited motivation for cloud computing among UK SMEs. Getting better access to information was the third most important criterion for cloud.

Erik van der Meijden, CEO of study sponsor Exact, claimed that most SMEs see it as a strategic purchase. “[They] said they felt that technology is going to have a strong impact on the competitive landscape in their market over the next three years,” said Meijden.

However, analyst Clive Longbottom, principal researcher at Quocirca, said the link between cloud and productivity needs more definition. “Causality is something that doesn’t seem to be taken into account here,” said Longbottom, “slow-thinking companies that are performing badly are unlikely to be at the leading edge of technology. Those that see technology as a core part of their business will tend to perform better.”

analytics as a service, app cloud, Big Data, News & Analysis, Salesforce, Software as a service

Salesforce boosts its Analytics Cloud intelligence tool

Analytics1Salesforce has added new options for users of its Analytics Cloud intelligence tool. The new ‘Wave Actions’ flash up crucial information on dashboards so that salespeople can act more incisively as crucial information reaches them faster.

The new features allow companies to create customised Wave Actions, such as creating cases, updating accounts or assigning tasks. Since Wave is natively integrated with App Cloud, the Wave Actions are automatically pushed from Wave into the corresponding Salesforce record. The system instantly identifies the type of problem that sales managers need to know about as soon as possible, according to Salesforce. When an account suffers particularly bad customer attrition, for example, a sales manager will be alerted to this pattern more rapidly. This is achieved by customising the Wave Analytics App to alert managers about patterns on sales figures (such as defecting customers) and enables them to take action more rapidly.

A new Wave Visualizations feature aims to create a consistent user experience and create a more intuitive process. Salesforce has also revamped the Analytics Cloud’s user interface in a bid to encourage users to become more adventurous in their creation of reports and dashboards. This, according to the cloud software vendor, will bring Analytics Cloud in line with the Lightning Experience design that was rolled out first for Salesforce’s Sales Cloud.

New information has also been unveiled about the use of the Analytics Cloud within the portfolio of other vendor’s software offerings. According to Salesforce there are 81 companies in the Analytics Cloud’s partner ecosystem, with 13 software companies scheduled to unveil new apps based on Analytics Cloud, including Apttus, FinancialForce, SteelBrick and Vlocity.

In its most recent earnings statement, Salesforce revealed that subscription and support revenues from Analytics Cloud were ‘not significant’ for the three and six months ending on July 31, 2015.

The addition to Analytics Cloud comes exactly one year after it was first launched. According to Salesforce, the upgrade gives Analytics Cloud a wider, more active remit than its existing role as a standalone business intelligence application.

Bomgar, News & Analysis, Privileged Access Management

Bomgar launches system to secure cloud access for VIPs without a VPN

Cloud securityCloud security vendor Bomgar has unveiled its new Privileged Access Management (PAM) system aimed at securing cloud users.

The system protects ‘super users’ (i.e. elite workers) a task which market analyst Gartner has dubbed Privileged Access (AKA Privileged Identity) management. Securing those with privileged identities can take months and even years to complete, according to Bomgar, and often involves an extensive structural re-organisation.

Bomgar’s new PAM system will simplify this by through its use of cloud access control, it claims. The latest incarnation of Bomgar’s PAM allows security professionals to manage any VIP worker’s privileged access to cloud resources. It will also make it possible to conduct forensic searches on access activity and to monitor access from mobiles.

With companies facing rising numbers of cyber attacks, the complexity of management is making companies vulnerable, according to Bomgar, with VIP workers being especially vulnerable targets. Under the circumstances, a virtual private network (VPN) can become a liability, according to Bomgar, since the VPN can be hijacked by increasingly sophisticated hackers who know how to target key individuals. In both the 2013 Target and 2015 Ashley Maddison cyber attacks, the VPNs of privileged users gave hackers a foothold within a secure network, according to Bomgar sources.

Bomgar’s new PAM 15.2 offers cloud access controls, so that security managers can close all unnecessary ports, while still giving users shell and remote screen access. It supports Windows, Redhat, CentOS, and Ubuntu Linux VMs powered by AWS, Azure and VMWare. Its forensic search systems can audit log activity data across all privileged sessions so that auditors can identify critical security events, detect cyber breaches and compile forensic evidence. The audit trails can now be integrated with behavioural analysis tools. Mobile access consoles now make it possible to chaperone users directly from their Android or Apple devices. The mobile apps support access to internal critical systems from 3G and other mobile networks without needing a VPN.

“Hackers are constantly probing, infiltrating and compromising networks,” said Dan DeRosa, Bomgar’s SVP of product management, “meanwhile, securing privileged identities can take months. Our system is designed for easy implementation and to support current access processes.”

broadcast, Cisco, infinite cloud, News & Analysis, TV, Video

Cisco claims new Infinite cloud can deliver video services in 90 days

iptv_webCisco has unveiled its new Infinite range of cloud-powered video services aimed at service providers, broadcasters and media companies. It claims the cloud could cut the delivery time for a new video service from 12 months to 90 days.

The first two services in the range to be released are Infinite Home and Infinite Video. Home will deliver linear, on-demand and time-shift TV video to any screen over two-way cable and telco networks. Infinite Video offers the same service, but is geared to cater for a variety of consumer electronics devices reached over unmanaged mobile Internet connections.

Cisco claims its new efficiencies will make the tests, trials and roll-outs of new services quicker for service providers and make service updates easier. This, claims Cisco, will improve the subscribers’ experiences, cut costs and boost revenue for broadcasters.

Broadcasters can now launch a new video service in 90 days, according to Cisco, because the networking technicalities have been dramatically simplified by the new cloud infrastructure. Once running, service improvements that once took months can now be completed in minutes, because the functions are no longer installed on individual devices, having been centralised on the cloud infrastructure. This makes addressing changes a lot less complicated and time consuming. Advances in cloud orchestration software have also helped automate and simplify configuration and activation even further, Cisco said.

With the pace of management quickening, service providers will get a faster delivery of new features. The Infinite systems will be pre-integrated and will use open-source components with open application programming interfaces.

Getting video services to market quickly is crucial to today’s video operators, said consultant Colin Dixon, digital media analyst at nScreen Media. “This is exactly the type of technological approach needed. That agility will have huge implications.”

The Infinite Home service was used in beta trials by service provider Kabel Deutschland. “The platform moves control and functions into the cloud, making it quick and easy to update and offer new services,” said user Florian Landgraf, senior VP at service provider Kabel Deutschland.