Category: News

Oracle’s cloud deals questioned

Posted on July 13, 2015 by - News

Pic Mike MageeOracle appears to be forcing corporate clients to buy its cloud products using a complex orchestrated legal maneuver in the dark.

Business Insider claims that Oracle is pressuring some of its customers to add cloud to their contracts that they neither want nor plan to use by using a tactic insiders call “the nuclear option”.

After stuffing up its revenue and profits in the quarter that is traditionally its strongest, Oracle is under pressure. However Oracle’s CEO, Safra Catz, said  analysts blew past its own internal expectations for cloud computing sales. Cloud accounted for about $2.3 billion out of $38.2 billion in revenue.

Chairman Larry Ellison said that was great because every $1 million of cloud contract is worth $10 million over the life of the deal, compared to being worth $3 million for a typical software contract.

But Business Insider claims that Oracle is using its software licences to force customers into these lucrative contracts.

Oracle licenses its software under complex legal conditions. Users have to pay for Oracle software using a variety of metrics such as how many are using the software and which features of the software are being used.

Oracle makes it extremely easy for admins to turn on new features or add more users, and then pay for that increased usage later. That system involves an “audit.”

Much of the time, an audit is used as a sales tactic. Instead of simply paying a big bill, the customer agrees to buy more over the long haul.

If Oracle thinks the customer is really abusing the terms, it whips out the “breach notice,” which warns a customer that they are in violation and must stop using all Oracle software in 30 days.

That’s risky, because it allows the customer to walk away from its Oracle contracts.

They can’t really do that because it can take years to change a database and Oracle is giving them a month or forces them to negotiate.

When they do Oracle says they will have to pay an outrageously high out-of-compliance fine or add cloud “credits” to the contract.

Until this year, Oracle didn’t lightly use the “nuclear option” breach notice but now it is using it even more.

Oracle had an especially good quarter selling cloud in the EU were it was used six times so far in 2015. Business Insider said that it is being used more and more and Oracle is becoming more aggressive

Botched McAfee deal claimed Renee James’ job

Posted on July 10, 2015 by - Moving People, News

jamesThe dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn that the high profile exit of Renee James, president of Intel and head of the software group was because of the silly McAfee deal.

When Chipzilla wrote a check for McAfee  many people wondered why, and suspected it was about getting security onto the chip and other such plausible reasons. However since very little has emerged as a result of this deal, there were whispers that suggested that the whole McAfee thing was stupid.

Officially James is leaving to pursue an “external CEO role.” James will remain with the company until January to help out.

However that is not really how it works. Executives don’t announce what they are doing and they certainly don’t stay on if they are going to work for a rival.

Citibank research analyst Christopher Danely, James wasn’t doing all that well at her main job.

James was largely responsible for leading Intel’s $7.7 billion acquisition of McAfee in 2011, a merger that made absolutely no sense to anyone but a McAfee shareholder.

Intel’s software business had grown just 2.5 per cent  in the last three years, Danely pointed out.

When Intel bought the McAfee business it generated 2010 revenue of $2.1 billion with operating margins of roughly 11 percent. McAfee revenues have remained roughly flat since the company was bought, while operating margins have declined to the mid-single digit range, Daneley said.

It is starting to look like James took the fall for the waste of money on McAfee and underperforming software group.

It is also possible that Intel will have to do something with its underperforming security arm. Last week it borged McAfee and stopped it being independent any more, as our sister publication TechEye faithfully reported.

John Byrne joins Dell

Posted on July 9, 2015 by - Moving People, News

AMD's John ByrneDell has appointed a vice president of sales strategy and operations – and it’s charismatic Scotsman, John Byrne,  who has bagged the job.

John Byrne could well be described as an industry veteran and is well known to practically everyone in the UK channel business.

After a long stint at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), John decided to take some time off with his family.

But you can’t keep a John Byrne down for long, and he said: “Great to work at a company led by an industry legend like Michael Dell.”

ChannelEye sends our best wishes to him.

Indian security outfit shows how it is done

Posted on July 9, 2015 by - News

Statue of Hindu goddess KaliIndian security supplier Quick heal is putting the fear of Kali into the security industry with its 50 percent margins.

Now it seems that the Pune-based security vendor is wooing North American partners with a scheme called Quick Rewards which is a loyalty programme that has no limit on rewards.

According to the company, the programme is on top of the 50 percent margins that is already offered and gives reward credits on referred partners sales and more.

“The program (sic) is designed to provide unlimited financial benefits to active channel partners, with no limit on the amount of rewards cash that may be earned,” Quick Heal said in a statement.

Authorised channel partners can receive rewards credits representing up to six percent of a referred partner’s first-year Quick Heal Seqrite product line sales, and four percent of the second year’s sales.

The company emphasised that there are no limits to the number of referrals that a reseller can bring in, and no limits to the reward dollars that they can earn.

Although the moves are cantered on the US market, the cunning plan is an illustration of the sort of aggressive play which Indian companies can run in other markets too.

According to the Glassdoor  site the outfit has very aggressive marketing in PAN India by going vertical through government, corporate, SMB and other channels. It does have a good product and very good support from support engineers who know  it in and out, it is said.

Oracle takes on Rimini Street

Posted on July 8, 2015 by - News

oracleOracle has confirmed that its  copyright infringement case against software support services company Rimini Street and the smaller rival’s Chief Executive Seth Ravin will go to trial in September.

Oracle wants more than $200 million in damages and an injunction on Rimini’s current business model.

Oracle had sued Rimini and Ravin in 2010, alleging copyright infringement, computer fraud and related business torts.

A federal judge confirmed the lawsuit for trial on July 1, Oracle said.

The lawsuit alleged that privately held Rimini Street stole copyrighted material using the online access codes of Oracle customers.The US District Court in Las Vegas dismissed in August last year Rimini’s counterclaims against Oracle alleging “defamation and unfair competition.”

AMD’s woes deepen

Posted on July 7, 2015 by - News

frog-mouth-crocodile-blair_42596_990x742Fabless chipmaker AMD lowered its revenue estimate for its second second quarter saying the demand for personal computers was weaker than expected.

The company also cut its adjusted gross margin forecast for the quarter ended June 27.

The company has been shifting focus to gaming consoles and low-power servers but progress has been slower than anyone expected. This is partly because Intel has upped its game and new competitors are designing low-cost and power-efficient chips.

AMD was at the initial stage of reviewing whether to split itself in two or spin off a business, in a move to reverse its fortunes and take on Intel. Other rumours have suggested that it was going to sell itself off.

The company said that it expects revenue to have decreased about eight percent from the first quarter, compared with its previous forecast of down three percent, plus or minus three percent.

This implies revenue of about $948 million. Analysts were expecting $999.6 million.

AMD also cut its forecast for second-quarter adjusted gross margin to about 28 percent, as weak demand from PC makers also hurt demand of its APUs which combine both computing and graphic processing capability.

AMD had forecast margins of about 32 percent.

The company warned in April that it expected weak demand for personal computers to continue for some time as original equipment manufacturers focus on lean inventories.

Huawei denies having secrets

Posted on July 6, 2015 by - News

GodSilenceHuawei’s UK and Ireland chief security officer told its UK and Ireland partner summit that it had no secrets from anyone.

David Francis admitted some partners’ customers might not be sure about the red flag outside Huawei’s headquarters but they should have confidence in the security of Huawei product and services.

Huawei gave up on the US market after it and fellow Chinese vendor ZTE were banned from bidding for US government contracts due to concerns over espionage. Some UK government departments were told to stop using Huawei’s videoconferencing systems in internal meetings.

Francis said that Huawei was committed to openness and collaboration and when it spoke about security, it need to differentiate between real security, which is based on facts, evidence and analysis, and the illusion of security, which is whatever you fancy talking about in the pub.

Francis claimed Huawei was the first company to publicly publish how it addresses cybersecurity.

He said that the company was committed to working collaboratively with the industry and sharing information with no secrets.

HP should buy EMC

Posted on July 3, 2015 by - News

INDUSTRY HP 1Analyst Raymond James has created a flap over his idea that now is the perfect time for HP to buy EMC.

James believes an acquisition deal between HP and EMC is a “distinct possibility” as HP inches closer to its company split date in November. The two companies agreed, at least once before, and had more than a year’s worth of merger talks before giving up, mostly on the matter of price.

Channel partners of both companies said the deal makes sense and would be beneficial to them and it is looking like other analysts agree.

Such a deal would improve HP’s cloud portfolio with VMware and Virtustream services, while EMC and Pivotal would boost the converged infrastructure and analytics side of the portfolio. HP provide some good mobile tech.

HP is splitting the enterprise divisions from the PC and print side of the business, and is certain to have that done by Christmas. HP CEO Meg Whitman has indicated further acquisitions and so it is possible that EMC is on the table.

HP Enterprise of the new HP – will be a lot more aligned with the current EMC and VMW businesses in terms of end-market focus.

A united company is worth $2 billion more. HP would kill off its 3Par storage over time, and EMC would shelve its Content Management in favour of HP’s Autonomy.

 

 

 

NHS IT projects are turning into turkeys

Posted on July 2, 2015 by - News

turkeyIt is starting to look like a whole clutch of NHS IT projects are about to turn into embarrassing turkeys and gobble their way to the Treasury to look for more cash or be carved up before Christmas.

The increasingly expensive GP Extraction Service IT system has been deemed “not fit for purpose” by the government’s spending watchdog. For those who came in late, the GPES IT system was supposed to extract data from all GP practices in England.

All a great idea but costs have gone from £14 million to £40 million. More than £5.5 million of that has been wasted on write-offs and delay costs.

The ever grumpy National Audit Office (NAO) noted that the GPES has so far managed to provide data for just one customer, NHS England, and even that was four years later than originally planned.

However the NAO said the need for the service remains and further public expenditure is required to improve or replace it.

The NAO said additional costs have been incurred through a settlement with one of the main suppliers, Atos.

According to the Major Projects Authority, NHS IT remains in a poor state, with the Department of Health having the highest number of IT projects rated as “unachievable”.

On the list set for more woe is the Care.data programme, the NHS Choices website, and the department’s new network project.

The new e-Referrals system was also pulled offline recently meaning that hospitals and GPs across England had to resort to fax machines in order to refer patients.

 

Cisco buys OpenDNS

Posted on July 1, 2015 by - News

Merge-AheadUS spies’ favourite  target Cisco wants to buy the cloud security company OpenDNS for $635 million.

Cisco was one of the outfit’s investors in a $35 million round in May, 2014.

The $635 million will be paid in cash and assumed equity awards, plus retention based incentives for OpenDNS, according to information supplied by Cisco.

OpenDNS gives Cisco, a network vendor that offers more traditional network edge protection.

The purchase builds on Cisco’s strategy to add a cloud security layer, according to a blog post by Hilton Romanski, who leads business development at Cisco.

Romanski wrote in in his bog: “The acquisition will extend our ability to provide customers enhanced visibility and threat protection for unmonitored and potentially unsecure entry points into the network, and to quickly and efficiently deploy and integrate these capabilities as part of their defense architecture.”

The OpenDNS team will join the Cisco Security Business Group. The deal is expected to be finalized during the first quarter of fiscal 2016.

OpenDNS has over 10,000 paying customers, over 50 million users (through its free service). It runs 24 data centers, and claims more than 2 percent of the world’s DNS traffic with an astonishing 100 percent uptime, according to information supplied by the company last year.
Cisco has indicated it will continue to offer the free version of OpenDNS.

“The OpenDNS free DNS services will not be affected. Cisco is committed to OpenDNS’ consumer and enterprise DNS services. The OpenDNS products will transition into Cisco upon close of the acquisition.”

 

Orange disconnects with its Israeli mobile phone

Posted on June 30, 2015 by - News

 

OrangeA huge falling out between Orange and the Israeli mobile phone operator Partner Communications has resulted in the French telco withdrawing its licensing from the outfit.

Israel protested to France after Orange’s Chief Executive, Stephane Richard, said earlier this month he would terminate the licensing arrangement with Partner “tomorrow morning” if the contracts allowed.

The source of the spat was the economic activities in Israeli settlements of the occupied Palestinian territories which France and the European Union consider illegal.

Richard later apologised to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said his comments, made during a visit to Egypt, had been misinterpreted to suggest that he supported an outright boycott of Israel for political reasons.

Orange said the comments as reflecting a broader desire and strategy of not licensing its brand where it was not directly in control of the business.

Partner pays a fee to use Orange’s brand in Israel.

Under the new deal, if Partner does not exercise its right to terminate their brand agreement within 12 months, either Partner or Orange could terminate it during the following 12 months, Orange said in a statement.

If it all goes south then Orange will set itself up in Israel. Orange deputy CEO, Pierre Louette, said in the statement that Israel was a strategically important country and the company had a long-term commitment to it.

It had paid Partner $44.7 million to go away and it is estimated that an additional $50 million could be paid out should the agreement be terminated within 24 months.

Amazon gives loans to small sellers

Posted on June 29, 2015 by - News

amazonAmazon.com is extending its business loan program for small sellers later this year in eight more countries including China.

Until now, the e-retailer has offered the service only in the United States and Japan.

Now, according to the head of Amazon Marketplace, Peter Faricy, Amazon Lending, founded in 2012, now plans to offer short-term working capital loans in other countries where it operates a third-party, seller-run marketplace business,.

The scheme is being rolled out in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom as an “invite-only” .

Amazon offers three- to six-month loans of $1,000 to $600,000 to help merchants buy inventory. It makes money on interest and takes a cut of all sales on its marketplace, which now account for about 40 percent of total Amazon site sales.

Amazon said it has offered hundreds of millions of dollars in loans since 2012, with more than half of its sellers opting for a repeat loan.

Faricy said the company has become better at understanding the inflection points in a small or medium business where capital can make a difference.

“We know a lot about our sellers’ business and invite only those who we think are in the best position to take capital and grow,” he said.

Amazon uses internal algorithms to choose sellers based on the frequency with which they run out of stock, the popularity of their products and their inventory cycles.

Carrier Wi-Fi on the Increase

Posted on June 26, 2015 by - News

wirelessmastThe Divination Department at Juniper Research has been chewing its laurel leaves and breathing in the vapours to give an oracle that predicts carriers will put more than four times the mobile data traffic onto Wi-Fi networks by 2019.

Mobile carriers will offload nearly 60 percent of mobile data traffic to Wi-Fi networks over the next four years.

Carriers in North America and Western Europe will be responsible for over 75 percent of the global mobile data being offloaded a spokes Juniper said.

The amount of smartphone and tablet data traffic on WiFi networks will increase to more than 115,000 petabytes by 2019, compared to under 30,000 petabytes this year, representing almost a four-fold increase.

Carrier Wi-Fi us has been increasing as many big mobile carriers and ISPs have deployed large numbers of Wi-Fi hotspots in cities using the existing infrastructure of their customers’ homes and businesses. This enables carriers to offload the saturated bandwidth on 3G and LTE networks.

Figures for 2013 put the total number of Wi-Fi hotspots owned by mobile operators worldwide at 6.5 million. That number is forecast to grow 62 percent by 2018 to 10.5 million.

The Juniper report thinks that small cells — femtocells, or low-power cellular base stations typically designed for use in a home or small business — will account for an increasing share of the data offloaded.

Juniper Research Chief augur Nitin Bhas said that with WiFi-integrated small cells, seamless data services can be extended to non-cellular devices as well, such as cameras and WiFi-only tablets, offering operators the opportunity to develop new revenue streams.

WiFi offloading currently offers a good solution to cellular data bottlenecks, but operators cannot rely solely on residential customers to carry the bulk of the data.

“Operators need to deploy [their] own WiFi zones in problematic areas or partner with WiFi hotspot operators and aggregators such as iPass and Boingo,” Bhas added.

 

Box opens a deal with Big Blue

Posted on June 25, 2015 by - News

blue boxBox seems to be signing deals like crazy – first with Redmond and now with Big Blue.

The pair have a cunning plan to cross IBM content management, Watson analytics and IBM Verse and Connections social collaboration tools. Box has a deal with Microsoft over Office 365 for the desktop, Office on iOS and Outlook.

The UK government recently approved the use of Box across Whitehall for all non-sensitive information marked as “official”.

What this means is that Box can cut costs which is important as SaaS players are losing cash.

It is also a sign that IBM is getting more proactive in the deal making arena to enhance its cloud capabilities.

In a statement, IBM senior vice president Bob Picciano said that the integration of IBM and Box technologies, combined with IBM’d global cloud capabilities and the “ability to enrich content with analytics, will help unlock actionable insights for use across the enterprise. So if you want your actionable insights unlocked a Blue Box might be the way forward.

The companies plan to integrate their existing products and services and develop new,” products targeted across industries and professions ranging from medical teams working on complex cases to individuals negotiating consumer loans by mobile phone to engineers and researchers identifying patterns in patents, reports and academic journals.”

We hope that they will work on shortening their sentences in press releases because this one was longer that something issued by Judge Jefferies.

 

AMD ignites fury at hardware sites

Posted on June 24, 2015 by - News

AMD, SunnyvaleAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) appears to have found itself in the middle of a blazing row after being accused by several hardware review sites of being biased against the press. That is, the press it doesn’t like too much.

AMD introduced its Fury product last week to a blaze of publicity but it wasn’t long before different hardware sites said no samples were to be had for love or, even, apparently money.

The crux of the matter comes down to benchmarks – some sites have said that AMD’s Fury simply doesn’t cut the ice when compared to product from arch rival Nvidia.

The situation has become so tense that one wag has used footage from the Third Reich film Downfall to portray Adolf Hitler as a frustrated AMD fanboy.

Some sites have said that the situation looks pretty much like AMD has done its traditional thing of shooting itself in both feet at the same time.

AMD is keeping mum about the matter – apparently there has been a shortage of samples while the company cranks up either its takeover by a third party or a cyanide pill at the end of the day.

AMD’s Sunnyvale site (pictured) does have bad Feng Shui. It is on the wrong side of a freeway along with ill-fated Yahoo. S3 was there at one time too.

No AMD spinners could be contacted at press time.