Tag: IBM

IBM boasts about its artificial intelligence progress

Posted on January 26, 2024 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCNot one to miss out on a year of AI-themed results presentations, the topic took up a significant chunk of IBM’s Q4 earnings call.

Big Blue delivered three per cent revenue growth over the quarter, while software revenue was up two per cent.

CEO Arvind Krishna highlighted the progress made in recurring revenue and IBM’s consulting book, which grew 5.5 per cent over the quarter.

As expected, the earnings call’s significant focus was on IBM’s progress in AI.

Krishna highlighted the successful launch of Watsonx, IBM’s flagship AI and data platform. Introduced in the fourth quarter, Watsonx governance drove a substantial portion of IBM’s book during the period.

IBM snaps up Polar Security

Posted on May 22, 2023 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCBiggish Blue has written a cheque for Polar Security as part of a cunning plan to automate cloud data protection.

Founded in January 2021, Polar Security is a data security management solution (DSPM) developer which has all the gear to reveal where sensitive data is stored, who has access to it, how it’s used, and identifies vulnerabilities.

IBM says it plans to integrate Polar Security’s DSPM technology within its Guardium family of data security products.

IBM’s focus has been rapidly shifting towards automation in the last few months, proudly saying it was taking the “human” out of some human resources and other back-office jobs that AI and automation can do instead of people.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said he plans to suspend or slow hiring for about 26,000 non-customer-facing back-office roles, a tenth of the company’s total workforce.

Krishna said he “could easily see” 30 per cent of those roles – 7,800 jobs – replaced by AI and automation over the next five years.

Kyndryl produces terrible earnings

Posted on May 19, 2023 by - News

Kyndryl, the world’s largest infrastructure services provider, began trading as an independent company under the symbol KD from the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, November 4 in NYC. (Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for Kyndryl)

IBM global infrastructure service provider spin-off, Kyndryl suffered terribly at the hands of Wall Street after it released some miserable results.

The company’s stock sank more than 12 per cent Wednesday, with shares closing at $12.53 and its market cap at $2.85 billion.

The company published guidance for fiscal 2024 revenue expected to fall six per cent to eight per cent compared to its fiscal 2023 revenue, with positive revenue growth not expected until fiscal 2025.

Kyndryl reported revenue of $4.26 billion, which beat analyst expectations by $110 million, but its GAAP loss per share of $3.24 was $2.21 per share below expectations.

IBM does better than expected

Posted on April 21, 2023 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCBiggish Blue has posted better first-quarter results than Wall Street expected thanks mostly to customer demand for its open hybrid cloud platform and enterprise-focused AI.

First quarter revenues remained relatively flat at $14.3 billion — a rise of 0.4 per cent.

IBM chairman and chief executive officer Arvind Krishna said that IBM’s first quarter results demonstrate that clients continue turning to IBM for its combination of an open hybrid cloud platform, enterprise-focused AI, and business expertise to unlock productivity and drive efficiency in their operations.

“This gives us confidence in our current growth expectations for revenue and free cash flow for the year.”

Arrow targets Irish partners

Posted on March 20, 2023 by - News

Arrow wants more Irish partners for IBM after it took sole distributor status for the Emerald Isles from Exertis.

Biggish Blue conducted a distribution review in Ireland and decided to give the lot to Arrow ECS building on the duo’s existing UK partnership.

An Arrow spokesperson said that the company would pursue a “two-pronged approach” flogging more or new technology through its existing and new Irish partners.

Extending one of its two UK distributors’ rights to Ireland means Biggish Blue can service those partners with a UK and Irish business.

IBM is focused on working with distribution following the launch of its new Partner Plus programme in January, Arrow said..

Distributors like Arrow have been told to expand partners’ IBM offering into new practices, including those associated with recent acquisitions such as Turbonomic, Instana and Envizi.

Axeman cometh to Dell

Posted on February 7, 2023 by - News

Dell Technologies plans to slash its global workforce by 6,650 jobs which represents five per cent of its entire employee base.

For those who came in late, Big Tech has been making the short-term decision to improve their bottom lines by laying off staff as recession looms. This gives them the excellent opportunity to complain about not having skilled, loyal staff in two years or have their bottom lines handed to them by more agile companies staffed by the people they laid off.

In January SAP, IBM, Microsoft, Sophos, Amazon and Salesforce revealed that significant cuts were on the horizon, blaming the “economic downturn” with managers trotting out cliches like “economic headwinds.”

Cloud rains profits

Posted on January 25, 2023 by - News

Public cloud service and infrastructure markets, operators and vendors’ revenue jumped 21 per cent to $544 billion in 2022.

New data from Synergy Research Group claims that the biggest growth was seen in infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS).

Annual revenue from these services grew 29 per cent to reach more than $195 billion, despite some headwinds from the strengthening US dollar and problems in the Chinese market.

In the other main segments, managed private cloud services, enterprise SaaS and CDN added another $229 billion in service revenues, having grown by an average 19 per cent from 2021.

Synergy said public cloud providers spent $120 billion on building, leasing and equipping their datacentre infrastructure, which was up 13 per cent from the previous year.

IBM improves PartnerWorld programme

Posted on January 6, 2023 by - News

IBM is replacing its PartnerWorld programme with a different system which it claims will provide partners with improved access to resources, incentives, and tailored support.

Dubbed IBM Partner Plus, the new programme will play a central role in its hybrid cloud and AI strategy, and has been designed to help fuel partner growth and modernisation.

IBM Partner Plus’ designated tiers have been structured to unlock specialised financial, go-to-market support, and education benefits. The programme also introduces badges as the standardised measure of skills with validated solutions to demonstrate expertise, all tracked through an enhanced partner portal.

IBM Ecosystem general manager Kate Woolley said the programme presents an opportunity for partners to “gain skills, grow faster, and earn more”.

IBM backs down on price hikes

Posted on December 14, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue has backed down on software price rises of 24 percent, but appears to have confused its partners and customers in the process.

Last month customers in the UK, as well Canada, Europe, Japan, Morocco and South Africa, had been told by Big Blue that they faced software rises of 24 percent. This week, IBM changed its mind saying that the rise in some SaaS products will be 15 percent.

This marks the second change in policy around price hikes by IBM since September when IBM told us that price rises in the UK would be eight percent.

IBM claims Micro Focus copies its software

Posted on November 24, 2022 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCIBM has sued British outfit Micro Focus, claiming it illegally copied and reverse-engineered its software.

The copyright complaints in the US District Court in the Southern District of New York allege that Micro Focus stole IBM’s mainframe systems technology.

It said that Micro Focus created software called Micro Focus Enterprise Server and Micro Focus Enterprise Developer (collectively, Micro Focus Enterprise Suite) by using its developer access to copy IBM’s CICS Transaction Server for z/OS software.

The Newbury firm published, distributed, and promoted the Micro Focus Enterprise Suite Micro Focus and entered into contracts to benefit from IBM’s developer programmes and gain access to its

IBM leans more on partners

Posted on October 12, 2022 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCBiggish Blue does not have nearly as many direct clients and leans heavily on its channel these days, according to CEO Arvind Krishna.

Krishna told the gathered throngs at the Channel Company’s 2022 Xchange Best of Breed (BoB) conference  that the number of clients IBM serves directly has fallen from around 5,000 to 400 in two years.

IBM is growing above the four percent standard market growth rate (with Q1 and Q2 2022 revenues growing eight and nine percent, respectively), with the bulk coming from “the long tail”.

IBM adds Red Hat to storage business

Posted on October 5, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue has announced that it will add Red Hat storage product roadmaps and Red Hat associate teams to the IBM Storage business unit.

The cunning plan is to integrate the storage technologies from Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF) as the foundation for IBM Spectrum Fusion. This combines IBM and Red Hat’s container storage technologies for data services and helps accelerate IBM’s capabilities in the burgeoning Kubernetes platform market.

In addition, IBM wants to offer new Ceph solutions delivering a unified and software-defined storage platform that bridges the architectural divide between the data centre and cloud providers. This further advances IBM’s leadership in the software-defined storage and Kubernetes platform markets.

Channel hit by currency problems

Posted on August 12, 2022 by - News

The channel is being hit by the falling pound because most vendors still price in dollars.

Sterling has fallen by as much as 12.5 percent against the dollar since February 2022. Prices will either have to rise or more gear will have to be sold to obtain the same amount of profit.

Vendors like dollars because that’s their home currency. But if a vendor planned to sell $40 million of kit in the UK in 2022 with a profit of $4 million, at July currency rates it would need to sell £32.9 million of equipment instead of £29.36 million at February rates. Sales increases of nearly 11 percent to keep your head above water rarely happen.

Cybersecurity outfits form open saucy team

Posted on August 11, 2022 by - News

A group of key cybersecurity companies has allied to form a new open-source consortium to share key data.

The announcement by a group of cybersecurity companies—including Splunk, Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Okta, Trend Micro, Tanium and Zscaler, among others—revealed the launch of a new consortium called the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF).

The cunning plan is to share product-normalising data in order to improve cybersecurity. All members of the cybersecurity community are invited to use and contribute to the OCSF.

IBM does better than expected

Posted on July 20, 2022 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCBiggish Blue saw revenues climb nine percent to $15.5 billion in its second quarter, thanks mostly to its infrastructure businesss.

Sales jumped 16 percent on a constant currency basis, including around five points from sales to spin-off company Kyndryl, while pre-tax income stood at $1.7 billion.

On a non-GAAP basis, pre-tax income was $2.5 billion, up 48 percent year-on-year.

CEO Arvind Krishna said on the company’s earnings call.

” “In the second quarter, we drove solid results reflecting the investments and changes we have been making to execute our strategy,” With this performance, we continue to deliver on our model of mid-single-digit revenue growth. Technology plays an important role in today’s business environment. With this demand backdrop, we are executing our hybrid cloud and AI strategy. We have made changes to our portfolio and focused investments in our offerings, technical talent, our ecosystem, and go-to-market model.”