Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computing

We talked recently about how the possibility of artificial intelligence creating the world’s next trillionaire would only be realized if some company provided one or more of the following; #AI hardware, AI software, or AI as a Service (or as we’ve decided to coin it, AAS). Someone said recently that the worst AI algorithm can become the best AI algorithm if you feed it enough delicious #bigdata so let’s consider AI software and “big data” as synonymous. The company that has the best data therefore, also has the best algorithms. This may be the most compelling reason to think that #Google is the current leader in AI. Regardless of which companies develop the best AI algorithms, they’ll all need hardware. One of the reasons AI is here now, today, is because of #Nvidia GPUs that allow for artificial intelligence algorithms to run at a viable speed. You’ll recall recently we talked about computational drug discovery startup Numerate, and the fact that running their algorithms on a single desktop would take 10,000 years, whereas cloud hardware allows for the same calculations to take place in just hours. Of course this reminds us of the value proposition that quantum computing poses. A problem that would take current computing systems billions of years to solve could be solved in seconds. A startup called #DWave has a quantum computer available now at a $10 million price point. The D-Wave 2000Q system is a remarkable contraption that is cooled to 180x colder than interstellar space:

There was an article published last week by MIT Technology Review titled “Google’s New Chip Is a Stepping Stone to Quantum Computing Supremacy“. (When we talk about “quantum supremacy”, we are referring to the first time a quantum computer proves that it can do something that a classical computer can’t – like simulate chemical structures). In that article, a principal investigator in the MIT quantum computing research group said in relation to quantum computing that “Google is one of the leaders” and “it’s pretty comparable between Google and IBM“. While everyone seems to be focused on what D-Wave is getting up to, we have Google and #IBM leading the race along with other companies like Microsoft and and Intel. Here are the various approaches being taken best described in this brilliant graphic that was recently published in Science Magazine:

Here’s an update on the progress each of these giant tech players are making:

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) –  After 8 years’ work, a 25-strong group of Google engineers has made a new quantum chip that they hope to demonstrate before the end of the year. If successful, this will be a benchmark for all other quantum computers to come. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) – A team of quantum hardware engineers in Portland, Oregon are working to develop a quantum computer using silicon. According to an article by MIT Tech review late last year, they can “now layer the ultra-pure silicon needed for a quantum computer onto the standard wafers used in chip factories“.#Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) – The company has 35-40 engineers working on a “topological quantum computer” for the past decade, a method described in this article by Nature as “a more tortuous route than its rivals”.  Their method won’t need extensive and expensive error correction and there’s no ETA yet for when we can expect something.IBM (NYSE:IBM) – On March 6th IBM said they will roll out the world’s first commercial ‘universal’ quantum-computing service called “IBM Q” which be unveiled this year, will be cloud based, and accessible over the internet for a fee. Currently, you can tool around with building algorithms for quantum computing using the IBM Quantum Experience. 40,000 users have run over 275,000 experiments so far on the tool which you can access via this link.

It’s tempting to think that some superior architecture is hiding somewhere waiting to spring out and improve the performance of AI algorithms exponentially. Then, said startup will proceed to have an IPO and then go on to create the world’s first AI trillionaire. This doesn’t seem likely. Do we really think these multi-billion dollar chip companies, all of them, will somehow not be keeping tabs on the technology and let something slip by? They’ll be aware of it no doubt, and the appeal of a successful exit by any major chip company will be hard to pass up for any entrepreneur. It’s a pretty safe bet that one or all of these companies will develop a quantum computer so then what?

In the early 2000s, for example, people thought it would take about 24 billion years to calculate on a quantum computer the energy levels of ferredoxin, which plants use in photosynthesis. Now, through a combination of theory, practice, engineering and simulation, the most optimistic estimates suggest that it may take around an hour. – Alex Bocharov, Nature Magazine Interview, October 2016

With a quantum computer that is 100 millions times more powerful than classical computers, we could do things like simulate your entire body digitally and create custom drugs specifically for whatever ailment you might have. More importantly though, we could fire up some AI agents on those quantum computers and make them create better instances of themselves. Can you even begin to imagine what that might look like? Using synthetic biology, we could literally create anything. Remember how Bryan Johnson talked about how one day we might be able to “grow spaceships”? We could grow a dyson sphere and start to harness all of the energy from our star to power even bigger computing machines.

You think that’s crazy? Not as crazy as the founder of D-Wave, presumably a brilliant man who is mentally stable, claiming that with quantum computers we can “start to exploit parallel universes by reaching into them and pulling out their computing power“. Why can’t society spend more time talking about these amazing ideas instead of “social media”?

Yes, those are the sorts of doors that artificial intelligence and quantum computing will open up. Whichever company nails that technology first will have a head start that just might create a gap so wide that no other quantum computer could ever close. This implies that there may only be one winner, and that winner will create those AI trillionaires Mark Cuban was talking about. As investors, it might not be a bad idea to get some skin in the game here. Even if all 4 companies fail at developing a quantum computer, they’re all still solid investments.

The superior chipset for AI doesn’t have to come from one company though. One analogy would be how AMD and Intel both thrived throughout the majority of the desktop computing era.

Right now, Nvidia has put their stake in the ground and all but claims that they are the AI hardware company. Other startups are trying to come up with AI chips that are optimized for artificial intelligence to get a piece of that pie. If you’re an investor in Nvidia, you need to be aware that things can change in a hurry. Technology moves at an incredible speed and there is nothing that guarantees Nvidia can keep their market share. If any one of these 4 tech giants unveils the world’s first quantum computer this year, and then starts to use it to improve itself, the entire AI landscape could shift. Owning shares in all 5 of these tech companies doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Just create a motif like we did below and you can trade the basket for just $9.95 a trade.

http://www.nanalyze.com/2017/04/artificial-intelligence-quantum-computing/

'Skull Island:' The Epic Battle Between Walmart And Amazon

The epic battle between #Walmart and #Amazon is threatening to turn traditional retail industry into a ‘skull island,’ filled with shattered neighborhood stores, changing a decades old culture of shopping experience. Once, neighborhood stores were an integral part of American traditional life, places to spend time outside home on weekends and evenings, browsing new merchandise and running into friends and neighbors. Meanwhile, neighborhood stores offered hundreds of thousands of jobs to local employees, and sales tax revenues to local governments. Simply put, neighborhood stores provided the kind of shopping experience that nurtured a sense of community across America, which can explain the affinity for these types of stores shared by Americans.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2017/04/29/skull-island-the-epic-battle-between-walmart-and-amazon/#39d8ec2b7a4a

Is Bitcoin at Risk as Google and IBM Aim for 50-Qubit Quantum Computers?

A looming concern in the crypto community is whether #quantumcomputing will destroy #Bitcoin’ s underlying protocol. People are worried government agencies or other nefarious entities will crack bitcoin’s code with #quantumalgorithms and undermine #blockchain technology. In reality, these fears reflect more of an imagined doomsday scenario than a true statement about future events.

There are two main reasons why bitcoiners should be skeptical
about quantum computing threats to blockchain technology. People tend to wallow in fear, uncertainty, and doubt regarding new technology. They assume new technology implies some type of inevitable apocalypse. Many of their omens, however, are steeped in voodoo and superstition. They are either exaggerated or false.

First, Bitcoin’s encryption is not wholly vulnerable to quantum computing. Satoshi Nakomoto knew about the possibility of stronger computer power being able to penetrate encryption, and that is why he built the protocol to withstand attacks. Second, even if a government agency or other organization possessed the talent to bust Bitcoin’s encryption, they would likely forgo the opportunity.

Quantum Computing versus Traditional Computing

Before delving further into these points, it is important to have knowledge of how quantum computers work, and how they differ from traditional machines.

Quantum computers are built on processors containing units called qubits, also called quantum bits. These units take advantage of quantum mechanics by functioning outside the realm of the Newtonian space. In other words, they do not conform to the rules governing the macroscopic, visually perceptible world. They behave according to the mystical order of the subatomic.

Instead of engaging in the binary behavior of 0’s and 1’s in the usual “on” and “off” fashion, quantum computers fuse “0’s” and “1’s,” making them indistinguishable and interconnected.

This paradoxical feature allows quantum computers to make tremendously enormous calculations. For example, to comprehend the difference between a laptop and a quantum computer’s calculation abilities, think of the differences between a horse-drawn chariot and Space-X’s Dragon spacecraft. This analogy expresses how much of an advantage quantum machines have over dinosaur-age computers.

The idea that 0’s and 1’s can be fused is called superposition
in quantum physics. This is the idea that on a subatomic scale, particles take on properties of other particles. For instance, it is well known that light can be both a particle and a wave. This phenomenon is called particle-wave duality.

Furthermore, particles can also merge. In accordance with quantum mechanics, they become enjoined in a delicate dance of vibratory ecstasy. This peculiar behavior is called entanglement, and this occurs within the confines of a computer chip the same as it does across the universe-at-large.

When dealing with quantum computers, controlling these states on an microcosmic scale with ultracold processors is difficult. This is the reason why quantum computers have not readily materialized and become commercially available.

Currently, quantum computers are in the early stages of development. They have only been used for specific purposes or specific projects. There is little practical application for them. However, a Newsweek article published on April 7 said they could be implemented sooner rather than later and could be more powerful than our most advanced supercomputer:

“Eventually, quantum computing could outperform the world’s fastest supercomputer—and then all computers ever made, combined. We aren’t there yet, but at 50 qubits, universal quantum computing would reach that inflection point and be able to solve problems existing computers can’t handle, says Jerry Chow, a member of IBM’s experimental quantum computing department. He added that IBM plans to build and distribute a 50-qubit system ‘In the next few years.” Google aims to complete a 49-qubit system by the end of 2017.’

Bitcoin is Naturally Resistant to Quantum Computing

However, regardless of how powerful these computers are and how soon they are created, Bitcoin’s encryption protocol will likely remain safe. There are many questions about what exactly will occur when the black cat is set loose from Pandora’s Box, but some things we know for sure.

Bitcoin’s underlying encryption protocol, SHA-256, is stubbornly resistant to nefarious attempts to undermine it. It is likely strong enough to withstand assaults from even the most savage quantum computer onslaught. A bitcoinnotbombs.com article explained that SHA-256 is formidable enough to handle the attacks:

“In Bitcoin your public key isn’t (initially) made public. While you share your Bitcoin address with others so that they can send you bitcoins, your Bitcoin address is only a hash of your public key, not the public key itself. What does that mean in English? A hash function is a one-way cryptographic function that takes an input and turns it into a cryptographic output. By one-way I mean that you can’t derive the input from the output. It’s kind of like encrypting something then losing the key.”

They continued,

All of that is a complicated way of saying that while an attacker with a quantum computer could derive the private key from the public key, he couldn’t derive the public key from the Bitcoin address since the public key was run through multiple quantum-resistant one-way hash functions.

 Government Incentive to Destroy Bitcoin’s Encryption

Another reason why agencies or other bad actors will not crack the bitcoin code is less obvious. Assuming it was possible to exploit, they might not want to crack it. This sounds silly…because breaking bitcoin’s encryption would help government protect their antiquated financial monopoly from bitcoin’s rapid, decentralized growth. There are good reasons, though.

If they choose to crack the protocol, they expose their quantum capabilities to their rivals. This spurs their enemies to develop counter-technology. Jamie Redman, writing for Bitcoin.com, elaborated by quoting bitcoin security expert Andreas Antonopoulos,

The last thing they are going to use that on is Bitcoin. Cause the moment you use it on Bitcoin you announce to the world we have quantum cryptography that can break elliptic curve — Guess what happens? Your nuclear rivals upgrade their cryptography very easily and try to implement quantum resistant cryptographic algorithms — of which there is a lot of research and a lot of suitable candidates. And you just blew all of your research and advancement in that technology on fighting a shitty little currency that some weirdos use in Prague.

Of course, there are arguments against this position. There could be individuals within these organizations that could act alone to crack the protocol. Arguably, anyone with the knowledge and technology to dismantle bitcoin’s encryption could do so at anytime—and what is scary—is that no one would know precisely who did it.

The fact that no one has conducted this kind of quantum hack, however, is demonstrated by the fact that everyone’s coins are still stored safely in their wallets.

SHA-384 and the Evolution of Bitcoin

Those involved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem should not lose sleep agonizing over the possibility of random people cracking the protocol. Best case scenario quantum computing is not poised to undermine bitcoin’s foundational technology. Worst case scenario, the technology to attack bitcoin is already here, but no one feels incentivized enough to crack it.

Nonetheless, there is a concern from security experts that the
bitcoin protocol should upgrade from SHA-256 to SHA-384, which is a sufficiently more advanced form of cryptography. This would be done as a safety measure, just in case. That is why Satoshi Nakomoto ensured the algorithm could easily be upgraded and enhanced. He knew technology would steadily evolve and he wanted his open-source, peer-to-peer system to evolve with it.

Therefore, even if bad actors decided to lay siege to the protocol, the good guys would have time to re-engineer it to withstand attack. They would likewise be able to improve the encryption mechanism to function in lockstep with the quantum computers that enabled the security breech to begin with. In this sense, Bitcoin’s underlying technology boasts tremendous flexibility in the way it can be tweaked for the purposes of self-defense and maturation over the long-term.

https://news.bitcoin.com/is-bitcoin-at-risk-as-google-and-ibm-aim-for-50-qubit-quantum-computers/

Your next computer could be in a data center

Computers have become more powerful and more portable, letting you execute some compute-intensive tasks on your laptop. But internet connections have also become incredible faster, making it much easier to outsource some tasks to servers sitting in a data center. Most of the apps on your phone already rely on a server component to store and process your data. When you post a video on Facebook, it gets re-encoded into multiple formats on the server so that other users can stream your video in SD, HD, etc. But I think this trend is going to become even more important in the coming years, with all your devices acting as a simple screen into your stuff running on servers in data centers near you. First, internet connection speeds and latency need to improve drastically for everyone. I’m lucky that I live in Paris, a dense city with efficient infrastructure. I get around 800 Mbps and 250 Mbps of download and upload speeds at home. And I can ping all data centers around Paris in less than 2 milliseconds with a wired connection. Second, I’ve valued portability over specs for years. I’m currently typing this article on the tiny 12-inch MacBook. It’s a lightweight, fanless device that is more or less as powerful as the MacBook Pro I was previously using. Raw performance has more or less stagnated for laptops if you opt for the lightest device you can get. At the same time, more tasks are relying on powerful graphics processing units. Creative people manage bigger photos and 4K video footage. Even your browser has become more demanding. Third, companies need to develop services that everybody can use without any coding experience. For instance Adobe could release thin clients of Photoshop, Premiere Pro and other apps with all the heavy work happening on a server. I feel like Adobe’s subscription model is the perfect opportunity to try this with an optional add-on. Even without reinventing the wheel, some companies are innovating in this space. French startup Blade is working on a service called Shadow, mostly for cloud gaming. It is running thousands of virtual machines on server-grade Intel Xeon processors with a dedicated Nvidia GTX 1070 for each user. You can get your personal instance for around $32.70 per month (€30). At first, I was quite skeptical as cloud gaming has never worked perfectly well due to latency, image compression and restrictions. But in this case, you get a full-fledged Windows 10 desktop environment with great network performances. The company has just released Windows and Android apps, and it is currently working on a macOS app as well as a dedicated device with a cheap CPU and all the ports you need. This way, you don’t even need to have an existing computer to connect to your virtual machine on Shadow’s servers. After a few minutes running the Windows app on my Windows computer, I got confused and realized I needed to use two different wallpapers because I couldn’t tell if I was interacting with my local computer or the virtual machine running in Shadow’s data center near Paris. When you run a game on your Shadow instance, your laptop fan remains silent because not much is happening on your local computer. It’s one of the most telling examples of outsourcing compute-intensive tasks. These companies will have to make sure they have a rock-solid privacy policy and security system. CPUs, GPUs and SSDs are still going to get better over time. These innovations will mostly benefit cloud companies so that they can provide better servers. Conversely, infrastructure is going to become increasingly important as LTE and constrained fiber-optics internet connections won’t cut it anymore. You’ll want gigabit connections on all your devices. And then, it’ll feel like you’re living in the future.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/30/your-next-computer-could-be-in-a-data-center/

News Bits: RAIDIX, IBM, Rubrik, Cisco, Hedvig, Arcserve, WD, Quantum, & Synology

This week’s News Bits we look at a number of small announcements, small in terms of the content not the impact they have. #RAIDIX expands its partner network in Asia and Latin America. #IBM once again takes the #1 spot in SDS software market. Rubrik’s CDM platform now runs in #AWS and #Microsoft #Azure. #Cisco expands its Connected Factories portfolio. #Hedvig announces its #CloudScale Partner Program. #Arcserve acquires FastArchiver. #WD now shipping 12TB He12 HDDs. #Quantum partners with #Veritone on new AI platform. #Synology releases its second all-flash NAS, FS2017.

http://www.storagereview.com/news_bits_raidix_ibm_rubrik_cisco_hedvig_arcserve_wd_quantum_synology

PlexxiPulse – Not All Workloads Are Created Equal

Networks carry traffic, similar to the way planes carry passengers, but the similarities don’t end there. The process of “deadheading” (as it’s known in the airline circles) is about leveraging existing routes to re-position crew for free; basically, piggybacking on an already incurred cost. At first, it sounds like a perfect optimization that should make everyone happy. However, what IT professionals should realize is that this deadhead crew is actually a “mission critical” workload leveraging a “best effort” transport model. This sounds like quite the disconnect to me. Check out my latest blog, Your Packets Will be Re-Accommodated, on how to better a network so that workloads are not treated randomly – and mission critical information is not relegated to less than optimal transport conditions. Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week CIO: The Hybrid Data Center: Bridging Legacy & Cloud By Steve Wexler Almost everyone is talking about digital transformation and its related technologies — cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), big data and analytics (BDA), mobility, social media, and security. But the reality is that most organizations must devote the majority of their resources to keeping their legacy environments up and running. The C-suite understands the imperative of changing their IT assets quickly to meet new and emerging demands, that it’s a case of “go digital or die,” but they’re struggling with the how and the how-much-will-it-cost challenges. In most cases, the answer is loosely termed the “hybrid data center.” FedTech Magazine: Feds Plan for the New Networking World of SDN By Richard Quinn Setting up a network near a disaster area just days — or even hours — after a hurricane, flood or tornado appeals to leaders at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Similarly, the U.S. Forest Service sees the value in scaling up network capabilities when responders work to extinguish wildfires. These possibilities are leading agencies to lay the groundwork for software-defined networking ( #SDN ) and network functions virtualization ( #NFV ). Instead of linking network functions and policies to hardware, SDN enables agencies to control those tasks through software. As a result, CIOs say these technologies can streamline management costs for ever-more complex networks and can significantly shrink the time it takes to deliver network resources.
http://news.sys-con.com/node/4068440

Dell Technologies, The Largest Private Tech Company, Opens Its Books

Summary #DellTechnologies came together through the acquisition of #EMC by #Dell. With significant amounts of public debt, this private company files results with the SEC. Lacking publicly traded shares, it has two publicly traded subsidiaries, #VMware and #SecureWorks. A remarkable amount of information has emerged in recent weeks about Dell Technologies (NYSE:DVMT), which rightly claims to be the world's largest privately-held technology company. The company was formed by the acquisition last September of EMC, a leading enterprise storage company, by Dell, Inc., a leading PC and server company. And Dell, in turn, was itself was taken private in 2013 in a leveraged buyout by Michael Dell, MSD Partners and Silver Lake Partners. With these transactions, two major tech players may well have passed from the public view afforded through SEC filings, earnings calls and analyst meetings. Yet circumstances arising out of the acquisition require the merged entity to file quarterly and annual results with the SEC, even as a private company. Not only has it issued a significant amount of publicly-traded debt, it is associated with two tracking stocks. Given these circumstances, we can analyze these otherwise private businesses. In recent weeks, Dell Technologies has reported its fourth quarter and full-year results, filed its first 10-K, and held both its year-end earnings conference call and its first analyst meeting as a merged company. Through these events, and the fiscal third quarter earnings report and conference call, the company has shared a significant amount of information about its structure and finances. First we will review the transaction itself as it was announced and ultimately achieved. Then we will review the constituent businesses of Dell Technologies before we conclude with a review of its first full quarter as a merged entity. The Transaction Announced October 12th, 2015, Dell's acquisition of EMC was complicated from the start by the need to capitalize EMC's interest in its publicly traded subsidiary, VMware (NYSE:VMW). The deal was structured as follows: Each EMC share was to generate payment of $24.05 in cash and 0.111 shares of a newly created tracking stock. As part of the financing of the transaction, Dell parent #DenaliHolding, Inc. issued $23.250 billion in senior notes, partially funding the mezzanine needed to conclude the deal. A new class of shares (Class V) was created for the tracking stock, which was intended to track the performance of VMware. Class V shares correspond on a one-for-one basis to EMC's shares in VMware. When the deal closed on September 7th, 2016, this new tracking stock, with the ticker DVMT, traded at $48.00 per share. This added $5.35 to the cash consideration per share, or $29.40, thereby generating a transaction value of $58.8 billion. Note that this transaction value is below the $67 billion mentioned in the press release announcing the deal, which was predicated on a share price of $81.78 for the tracking stock. To finance the transaction, Dell issued $45.9 billion in new debt and $4.4 billion in a private placement of stock in its parent, Denali Holding, Inc. In addition, Dell made available $2.95 billion in cash and EMC $4.75 billion, for a total of $57.0 billion in financing for the banking conduit that achieved the transaction. Based on our estimate of total EMC shares outstanding at close, we calculate that EMC shareholders received $48.1 billion in cash consideration and DVMT share consideration of $10.7 billion.

As the transaction progressed and concluded, Dell and EMC each divested businesses. Dell sold Dell Services to NTT for cash consideration of $3.0 billion in a transaction that was announced in late March and closed in early November of 2016. Then in mid June, the company sold Dell Software, including Quest Software and SonicWall, to Elliott Management and Francisco Partners, generating cash consideration of $2.4 billion. A third asset sale occurred after the transaction close, when OpenText (NASDAQ:OTEX) acquired the Dell EMC Enterprise Content Division for $1.6 billion. ECD essentially comprised EMC's Documentum business. A final asset monetization occurred earlier in the transaction process when Dell arranged an IPO of Class A shares of its SecureWorks business, which it acquired in 2011. Dell Technologies retains an 87.5% interest in the company. The proceeds of these transactions have allowed the company to pay down $7.0 billion of its debt since the close of the transaction.

The Company

Very large entities can be hard to fully embrace. In presentations, #DellTechnologies identifies the seven major technology leaders that comprise the company. They include:

#Dell − PCs and devices for consumers and business

#DellEMC − IT solutions for the Enterprise

#VMware (with an 82.5% stake) − virtualization software and business mobility products

#RSA − security solutions (identity and threat management products)

#SecureWorks (Nasdaq:SCWX, with an 87.5% stake) − security solutions (offering protection from cyber attacks)

#VirtusStream − cloud solutions for Enterprise mission critical applications

#Pivotal (77.8% stake) − cloud native application and data infrastructure software

The businesses of #DellTechnologies are thus numerous and diverse, including the large hardware businesses of Dell and EMC, the large software business of VMware, as well as five smaller software businesses. In addition to the four listed above, there is Boomi, a provider of an integration platform for on-premise and cloud-based applications. Two of the five offer software security solutions (RSA and SecureWorks) and the remaining three are cloud computing companies (VirtusStream, Pivotal and Boomi). As noted above, it has partial but controlling stakes in three of these businesses and two of the have publicly-traded shares.

Dell has structured these businesses into the following reportable business segments:

Client Solutions Group (CSG) − comprising Dell's Client Solutions business, selling PCs, Notebooks, tablets, monitors and peripherals.

Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) − comprising EMC's Information Storage Segment and Dell's Enterprise Solutions Group, selling servers, storage products, and converged and hyperconverged solutions.

VMware − comprising VMware, Inc, selling a range of virtualization software solutions.

These three reportable segments account for nearly 98% of Dell Technologies' revenue and generate its GAAP revenue. As such, the remaining holdings are non-material not considered a reportable segment. We will size all of these businesses in the following discussion of fourth quarter results.

Fourth Quarter Results

Based on its fiscal fourth quarter results, the first to fully reflect the acquisition of EMC, the company has an annualized revenue run rate of over $80 billion. (Fiscal years end with January.) For the fourth quarter, Dell Technologies reported total revenues of $20,587 million, representing growth of 63.0% over the prior year with the inclusion of EMC's results. The company has three reportable Business Segments, the Client Solutions Group, the Infrastructure Solutions Group and VMware. Together these segments contribute GAAP revenue of $20,107 million. An additional segment of "Other" businesses is comprised of RSA, SecureWorks, Pivotal, and Boomi, which together generated $480 million in revenue in the January quarter. By an accounting happenstance, these businesses are excluded from GAAP revenues because they are non-material and do not count as reportable segments in this tech behemoth. Including this other segment, total non-GAAP revenues for the quarter were $20,587 million. Though accounting for just 2.3% of total non-GAAP revenues, these four businesses together are sizable, with an annual revenue run rate of $1,920 million. While still part of EMC, RSA generated $988 million in revenue in 2015 and Pivotal $267 million. And in the fiscal year ended February 3rd, 2017, SecureWorks generated revenues of $429.5 million.

Each of the largest two segments has sizable business units. Comprising Dell's PCs and peripherals business, the Client Solutions Group reported revenues of $9,776 million (47.5% of non-GAAP total revenue), up 10.6% over the prior year level. Within the group, Commercial PCs accounted for 68.2% of the segment total, and Consumer PCs the remaining 31.8%. Operating profit of $342 million generated a margin of 3.5%, which is a bit light, even for a PC company.

The Infrastructure Solutions Group, in turn, includes Dell's Server business and EMC's VCE and Storage businesses. It posted revenue for the quarter of $8,395 million (41.8% of non-GAAP total revenue), well above the prior year level, which excludes EMC. Within the segment, Servers and Networking contributed 43.0% of the segment total and storage products the remaining 57.0%. Generating operating profit of $1,007 million, the segment produced an operating margin of 12.0%, which is in line with Enterprise Hardware.

VMware is the company's third operating segment. It posted fourth quarter revenues of $3,612 million, with no prior year figure available. It posted its fourth-quarter results as a publicly-traded company, however. For the three months ended December 31st, 2016, VMware reported revenues of $2,032 million, 9% over the prior year level. (VMware reports on a calendar year basis.) Operating income for the January quarter was $565 million, generating a margin of 29.2%, a characteristically high margin for a software company.

We include a fourth segment in our analysis comprising the revenues from RSA, SecureWorks, Pivotal and Boomi, which the company considers non-reportable. Together, they generated revenue of $480 million and a slight loss of $3 million. This brings the non-GAAP revenue for the company to $20,587 million, as we noted above. Against this revenue, Dell Technologies generated operating profit of $1,911 million, or 9.3% of revenue.

Dell Technologies' results are complicated by extensive items reflecting not only the EMC transaction, which closed last September 7th, 2016, but by the transaction through which Michael Dell, MSD Partners, and Silver Lake Partners took Dell Inc. private in October 2013. Indeed, the circumstances are fairly complex. That said, a number of trends are clear. The Client Solutions Group is competing aggressively on price, strongly outgrowing the industry. Sales of Dell's Consumer and Commercial PCs are up almost 12% and 9%, respectively. In contrast, IDC reported that fourth quarter PC shipments were down by 1.5%. Moreover, the company ceded 200 basis points in its operating margin. On a unit basis, the company outgrew the market by 9.9 percentage points, gaining market share for the 16th straight quarter as the market consolidates.

The performance of the Infrastructure Solutions Group is clouded somewhat by the absence of EMC results in the prior year data. That said, sales of server and networking products (up nearly 12%) are outgrowing the market as well. IDC's Server Tracker for the fourth quarter reported a unit decline for the market of 4.6% year to year. Growth of the Storage business is distorted by the absence of EMC in the prior year number, but it may well have been more modest. EMC Product revenues in the fourth quarter of 2015 were $4,111 million, just a bit less than the difference between the current and prior years, as reported for the January quarter. The leading edge businesses are growing the fastest. All Flash Storage Arrays grew about 100% to achieve a run rate of $4 billion. VBlock Converged Systems achieved record sales and greater than 50% market share, growing at a high single-digit rate. Hyperconverged Systems displayed even stronger growth, combining the offerings of both Dell and EMC. The Dell EMC XC, made by Nutanix, grew at a triple digit rate, while the VxRail achieved a $400 million run rate after just 10 months in the market. The latter product is optimized for VMware environments and is now offered with PowerEdge servers in place of Cisco servers.

We noted above that VMware revenues in the December quarter were up 9%. NSX, VMware's software defined network virtualization and security platform, had a booking rate of $1 billion and now has over 2,400 customers. In turn, its hyperconverged offering vSAN had a booking rate of $300 million with over 8,000 customers. SecureWorks, the other publicly-traded subsidiary, reported January quarter revenues of $118.9 million, up 26.4% over the prior year. And Pivotal Cloud Foundry achieved calendar 2016 bookings of $270 million, up over 130%.

Debt

We noted above that Dell Technologies paid down $7.0 billion in debt with proceeds from divested businesses. Total debt at quarter end remains substantial, at $50.4 billion, or 5.7x annualized EBITDA of $8.8 billion. This includes Core secured debt of $30 billion, Core unsecured debt of $13.7 billion, and Dell Financial Services (DFS) associated debt of 6.7 billion. Interest expense for the fourth quarter is not reported, though on an annual basis it is roughly $2.1 billion, or about 4.25x annualized EBITDA. Due to the terms of many indentures, interest payments are concentrated in the first and third quarters, skewing pretax profitability from quarter to quarter. At quarter end, the company had $11.5 billion in cash and short term investments and an additional $3.8 billion in long-term investments. It also had net total financing receivables of $5.9 billion. So the company, though heavily leveraged, is well capitalized. Moreover, because Days Payables On Hand (at 108) exceeds the sum of Days Receivables and Days Inventory on Hand (56 and 19, respectively), it has a negative cash conversion cycle of 33 days. The low inventory days reflects the fact that the company outsources much manufacturing, as is customary in the industry. And it is notably slow in paying its suppliers, a reflection of its size, we believe. Either way, money comes in faster than it goes out.

Conclusion

Thus concludes our analysis of the new Dell Technologies. This privately held company is indeed very large, with annualized revenues of $81.9 billion, total assets of $118.2 billion, $50.4 billion in debt, and cash, equivalents and investments of $15.3 billion. The company maintains leadership positions across the spectrum of standard data center technologies, including PCs, Servers, Storage and Virtualization software. Yet is equally strong in fast growing emergent technologies that are defining the data center of the future, These include Converged and Hyperconverged Infrastructure, On- and Off-Premise computing, and the Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud. As Dell Technologies gains the visibility and mindshare afforded public companies, the performance of these strong businesses will be even more worthy of note.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4066888-dell-technologies-largest-private-tech-company-opens-books

Nutanix, HPE, Cisco, NetApp and Dell EMC With Top Customer Ratings for Converged Infrastructure – 451 Research

451 Research LLC's latest Voice of the Enterprise: Servers and Converged Infrastructure indicates that while 49.4% of enterprises are undergoing IT transformation initiatives, which often include migration of workloads to cloud, server spending remains steady. However, many IT buyers note that their server vendors could work to better understand customers' businesses, which is an increasingly important factor with cloud and low-cost infrastructure underpinning software-defined IT environments. "There is a clear opportunity for server vendors to guide customers into next-generation technologies while preserving their current distribution of standard infrastructure," said Christian Perry, research manager and lead analyst of 451's Voice of the Enterprise: Servers and Converged Infrastructure service. "To seize this opportunity, vendors must work more closely with customers and prospects to understand current and future business requirements." In fact, when customers were asked to rate their vendors both prior to purchase (promise) and following implementation (fulfillment) of traditional servers and converged infrastructure, cost and the ability to understand customers' businesses consistently ranked lowest compared to other rating attributes. Meanwhile, product-specific attributes received consistently high ratings for both the promise and fulfillment indices. In a heavily commoditized market, vendors that differentiate on services and support - which is also a critical future driver among server buyers - will win. The x86 servers vendor window shows tight competition among #Cisco, #Dell and #HPE . All three garnered strong ratings from customers, with Cisco outranking competitors in multiple promise and fulfillment attributes, including reputation, long-term viability, product performance/capabilities and technical innovation. However, it fell short compared with Dell and HPE in cost for both promise and fulfillment. #Lenovo received below-average ratings across multiple attributes, but scored well for long-term viability and product performance/capabilities.

As compute infrastructure choices expand beyond traditional servers, customers are more critical than ever about their x86 servers because they must provide a better ROI than competing x86 servers, cloud services and converged infrastructure," Perry said.
  
In converged infrastructure, #Nutanix earned high customer ratings across most attributes, but was followed closely by #HPE and #Cisco. Particularly impressive about Nutanix is that all but one of its fulfillment ratings exceeded its respective promise ratings (and the lone holdout, long-term viability, matched the promise rating). Along with Nutanix, HPE, Cisco, #Microsoft and #NetApp all received above-average scores for fulfillment.

Two attributes in converged infrastructure lagged all others by a large margin across both promise and fulfillment: understands my business and cost. While converged infrastructure might fit more strategically within the IT plans for some organizations, it appears that the vendors selling the infrastructure are selling primarily from a transactional basis, rather than a strategic IT basis. For customers that purchase converged products only to satisfy project requirements, this approach is probably adequate, but customers displacing large portions of their legacy server infrastructure tend to prefer vendors that understand the businesses of customers in disparate verticals and regions.

The Voice of the Enterprise: Servers and Converged Infrastructure
Vendor evaluations study plots enterprise adoption, promise and fulfillment indices that compare the perceptions of vendors' promises prior to actual product/service delivery against execution effectiveness. Based on research conducted in October 2016 with more than 730 IT professionals worldwide, the quarterly study combines 451's Research's analysis with survey responses and interviews from a panel of more than 50,000 senior IT buyers and enterprise technology executives

http://www.storagenewsletter.com/2017/04/28/nutanix-hpe-cisco-netapp-and-dell-emc-with-top-customer-ratings-for-converged-infrastructure-451-research/

Cloudera Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering, Marking its Debut as a Public Company

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- #Cloudera, Inc. (NYSE: CLDR), provider of the leading modern platform for machine learning and advanced analytics built on the latest open source technologies, announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 15,000,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $15.00 per share. In addition, Cloudera has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,250,000 shares of common stock. The shares are expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "CLDR" on April 28, 2017. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and Allen & Company LLC are acting as lead bookrunners for the offering. BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank Securities are acting as book-running managers and Stifel, JMP Securities, and Raymond James are acting as co-managers. The offering is being made only by means of a prospectus. A copy of the final prospectus, when available, may be obtained from Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014, from J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717 or by telephone at 866-803-9204 or by email at prospectus-eq_fi@jpmchase.com and from Allen & Company LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 711 Fifth Avenue, 10th Floor, New York New York 10022 or by telephone at 212-339-2220 or by email at dweidlein@allenco.com. A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cloudera-announces-pricing-of-initial-public-offering-marking-its-debut-as-a-public-company-300447800.html

Global Enterprise Storage Systems Market 2017- Dell , Buffalo , EMC Corporation , Isilon Systems , Hewlett Packard

Global Enterprise Storage Systems Market 2017- #Dell , #Buffalo , #EMC Corporation , #Isilon Systems , #HewlettPackard The Worldwide Enterprise Storage Systems Report does an extensive study of the Market Segment, Product categories, market revenue, product cost, Forecast 2017-2022. After that, the Global Enterprise Storage Systems market 2017 Report is segregated into different categories based on geographical regions, key vendors and range of applications. The report also studies the Enterprise Storage Systems Market Share and Growth. The latest Enterprise Storage Systems global report presents insightful details related to the current scenario of the market. The report labeled Enterprise Storage Systems filters out the crucial factors having an impact on the growth of the market. Present market trends along with future growth opportunities have been covered in depth in this report. Competitive Landscape View of Global Enterprise Storage Systems Market 2017 and Dominant Sellers- 1 Dell 2 Buffalo 3 EMC Corporation 4 Isilon Systems 5 Hewlett Packard 6 3PAR 7 Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 8 International Business Machines 9 LSI Corporation 10 NetGear 11 Overland Storage 12 Oracle 13 Panasas 14 SGI Corporation 15 Intel 16 Seagate 17 Integrated Device Technology 18 Western Digital 19 Lenovo

http://registrardaily.com/2017/04/28/global-enterprise-storage-systems-market-2017/

IT industry grapples with Docker container persistent storage

AUSTIN, Texas -- As IT shops adopt containers, stateful apps and container persistent storage are the elephants in the room. #Docker container persistent storage has supplanted container security as the top challenge for the technology in enterprise data centers. Several startups have blossomed with approaches to persistent distributed storage systems, but enterprise uptake remains in its infancy.

"Storage is a huge problem. It's a concern for everybody," said Ray Krueger, VP of engineering at Hyatt Hotels.

The recent demise of one such startup, #ClusterHQ, weighed on the minds of IT pros at this year's DockerCon, here this month, as other new vendors hawked their wares. ClusterHQ's open source utility, #Flocker, allowed external storage volumes to retain their connection with container workloads as containers stopped and started. However, the firm struggled to maintain its business under an open source software license model.

Flocker remains a viable open source project, but IT pros are now hesitant to embrace it.

"Without ClusterHQ championing it, I don't know where we're going to go," Krueger said.

http://searchitoperations.techtarget.com/news/450417611/IT-industry-grapples-with-Docker-container-persistent-storage

Software-defined storage on the march, says SUSE expert

Initial deployments of software-defined storage ( #SDS) are primarily focused on the storage of unstructured data, according to Larry Morris, senior product manager at #SUSE #Linux. This was because most customer data was unstructured data, and unstructured data was also growing much more rapidly than structured data, he told iTWire in a detailed interview. The Germany-based SUSE announced its software-defined storage product back in 2014 and Morris, who in an earlier life designed proprietary storage systems with #HP, said some examples of use cases where SUSE Enterprise Storage was deployed included disk-based back-up where the software-defined storage solution was used to store the back-up data. "Other use cases are storage for large files such as medical images or video surveillance data; archival data that has not been accessed in a while and is migrated from primary storage systems; and on-premise cloud storage using a SUSE Enterprise Storage #Amazon #S3 -compliant interface," he said.

http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/storage/77837-software-defined-storage-on-the-march,-says-suse-expert.html

Tech’s Titans Go From Big to Bigger

Today’s high-tech giants may not be monopolies in the most classic sense. But their outsize prominence is hard to deny, as demonstrated during the tech-earnings-palooza Thursday afternoon. The day’s closing bell saw quarterly reports from #Amazon .com Inc., #Microsoft Corp., #Intel Corp. and #Alphabet Inc., the parent company of #Google. Their combined revenue for the period—about $97.4 billion—comprises about 4% of the cumulative revenue.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/techs-titans-go-from-big-to-bigger-1493334016

Intel's revenue misses estimates as data center growth slows

#Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue due to an unexpected slowdown in growth at its data center business, on which the world's largest chipmaker is banking to reduce its reliance on the personal computer market. The company's shares fell nearly 4 percent to $35.97 in trading after the bell on Thursday. Revenue from Intel's higher-margin data center business rose 6 percent to $4.2 billion in the first quarter. That was less than the 9 percent jump a year-ago and the 8 percent increase in the fourth quarter. "I think the Street was looking for slightly better than that," Stifel analyst Kevin Cassidy said. Analysts were expecting revenue to increase 10 percent to about $4.4 billion, according to FactSet StreetAccount. The slowdown in revenue growth comes after Intel warned in February that business's margins could be hit by higher costs. However, Intel still expects the business to grow in the high single-digit percentage rate this year, Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said on a call.
https://m.investing.com/news/technology-news/intel%27s-quarterly-profit-rises-45-percent-478242

Dozens of SimpliVity workers were cut after HPE's buyout, says state filing

In June 2016, #SimpliVity landed a $100,000 state tax incentive to add 100 jobs and retain 390 more at its Westborough headquarters. #HPE

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/04/27/dozens-of-simplivity-workers-were-cut-after-hpes.html

Cisco: Two Disturbing Revelations

#Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), as the leader in the cyber security space, has suffered two disturbing revelations regarding security flaws in their switching gear and firewalls in recent weeks which are damaging to their reputation. Having entered the early stages of a downturn in mid March 2017, these disclosures add weight to downward pressure on Cisco. They may also shed light on why the company has changed their business model, bringing attendant uncertainties as to future revenue. Still near its 15-year highs, Cisco presents an inviting short opportunity for traders at reduced risk. For context, the cybersecurity market is substantial and growing exponentially, driven by widely publicized breaches of high profile targets over past years. Cybercrime damages will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015 … and global spending on cybersecurity products and services will exceed $1 trillion cumulatively over the next 5 years from 2017 to 2021. The world will need to defend 50x more data. -- CyberSecurity Ventures

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4065886-cisco-two-disturbing-revelations

Amazon earnings beat sends stock to record levels: Live blog recap

#Amazon.com Inc. posted year-over-year increases in both earnings and sales after the market closed Thursday, beating analyst expectations and sending its stock to record levels in late trading. MarketWatch reporter Jennifer Booton ( @jbooton ) and technology editor Jeremy Owens [ @jowens510 ] live-blogged the earnings and subsequent conference call.

http://m1.marketwatch.com/articles/BL-MWTELLB-16371?tesla=y&tesla=y

Cameron Chehreh: Converged Tech to Drive Dell EMC’s Investment Strategy

Cameron Chehreh, chief technology officer at #DellEMC ‘s federal business, has said converged and #hyperconverged technologies will become “great focal areas” for #Dell #EMC, FedScoop reported Wednesday. Chehreh told the publication that #softwaredefinednetworking is another information technology development that will drive Dell EMC’s investment strategy. “The last piece for us is all about the software, and taking transformational technologies, like a #Pivotal Cloud Foundry, to build these 4th generation, next industrial revolution-based applications,” Chehreh said. Steve Orrin, chief technologist at Intel‘s federal segment, told FedScoop that access to advanced telemetry will also drive innovation and lead to a new data center model which will support disaggregated computing. Chehreh and Orrin also identified the increased focus on security by design as a key driver of enterprise IT transformation.

http://blog.executivebiz.com/2017/04/draft-cameron-chehreh-converged-tech-to-drive-dell-emcs-investment-strategy/

Cloudera’s IPO is overshadowed by a rival it won’t mention

#Cloudera and #Hortonworks compete in selling and servicing open-source software for analyzing data called #Hadoop, and a set of related technologies. Hadoop was a central factor in the “big data” hype cycle that rocked the enterprise software world earlier this decade. That hype cycle has cooled, and shifted toward newer, shinier buzzwords including artificial intelligence and machine learning. And yet the more you look at Cloudera’s S1 filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Cloudera minimizes mentions of Hadoop, which is still very much its primary line of business, mentioning it 14 times in a 150-page document. The new emphasis is on “machine learning” a phrase it repeats 70 times. But Hadoop is still without question, Cloudera's main business, just as it is the main business at Hortonworks. At Cloudera, Hadoop gets packaged with proprietary software in an approach it calls Hybrid Open Source Software or HOSS. The #HOSS approach, it argues, is aimed at large corporate customers who want an "enterprise-grade" product.
http://www.cio.com/article/3192408/cloud-computing/clouderas-ipo-is-overshadowed-by-a-rival-it-wont-mention.html

VMware Is Poised To Continue Its Run

VMW Provides Cloud Computing Services #VMware, Inc. is a subsidiary of #DellTechnologies. It was part of $EMC until 2016, when Dell took EMC over. There was a lot of concern at the time about the future of the company. But in August 2016 VMW released several new products and told the public that it was alive and well. Since then the company has thrived. VMware provides the infrastructure for cloud utilities, virtualization software services, and server software. There's a lot of demand for VMware's products as society moves to the internet of everything and cloud services continue to grow. Cloud computing is transforming several sectors including the medical and financial industries, and VMW is right on the forefront. VMW is in a Steady Uptrend As shown in the weekly chart in Figure 1, VMW moved up out of a bottom that started in January of 2016. It's moved up at a moderate rate since then, forming several sideways patterns along the way. It's now resting near the 2015 highs. The fact that it shifted sideways at this level instead of moving back down is encouraging, as it shows that many investors continue to hold this stock instead of taking profits. The weekly volume has been mostly green since the bottom completed, showing that buyers have dominated. But the volume has fallen a bit over the past month during the current sideways action.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4065894-vmware-poised-continue-run

Seagate sees component shortages in flash storage market

#Seagate CEO Steve Luczo said he was cautiously optimistic about the economy and technology spending, but noted there are #NAND and #DRAM shortages that may hamper demand in the server and PC markets. The storage giant reported fiscal third quarter earnings of $194 million, or 65 cents a share, on revenue of $2.7 billion. Non-GAAP earnings for the quarter checked in at $1.10 a share. Wall Street was looking for earnings of $1.07 a share for the third quarter on revenue of $2.71 billion.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/seagate-sees-component-shortages-in-flash-storage-market/

Cisco Rival Juniper Networks Rebounding With Cloud Customers

#Juniper Networks (JNPR) stock popped Wednesday on views that the rival of Dow component #Cisco Systems (CSCO) has gained traction with companies upgrading cloud data centers. Juniper's cloud computing growth is coming from customers including two other members of the Dow Jones industrial average, #Microsoft (MSFT) and #IBM (IBM), as well as #Facebook (FB) and #Oracle (ORCL), analysts say.

http://www.investors.com/news/technology/cisco-rival-juniper-networks-rebounding-with-cloud-customers/

Oracle delivers artificial intelligence across its customer experience cloud

#Oracle announced a slew of #AI -driven capabilities across its Customer Experience Cloud Suite today that are designed to help users to deliver better, faster and more personal experiences. If you think you’ve heard this before, it’s because Oracle joins its customer experience competitors in offering a similar set of capabilities complete with underlying artificial intelligence they are calling Adaptive Intelligence technology. To give you a sense how broad Oracle’s customer experience offering is, the suite includes Oracle Marketing Cloud, Oracle Sales Cloud, Oracle CPQ Cloud, Oracle Commerce Cloud, Oracle Service Cloud and Oracle Social Cloud. That’s a lot of clouds. The company hopes to use its flavor of AI technology to bring a level of automation and machine learning to a set of tasks, fueled by the data its many customer experience clouds are collecting. And Oracle claims to have boatloads of data — a collection of more than 5 billion global consumer and business IDs along with more than 7.5 trillion data points collected on a monthly basis, according to the company.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/oracle-delivers-artificial-intelligence-across-its-marketing-cloud/

HPE kills off its entire OpenSDN line, pulls plug on customer demos

#HewlettPackardEnterprise has quietly axed its #OpenSDN suite, effective immediately. Its sales staff have been instructed to shut down customer demos and proof-of-concept installations. IT buyers will be told to try other gear if they want to evaluate and roll out software-defined networking. #HPE workers have also been instructed to pretty much keep the move a secret, with no public announcements, and to simply tell customers and partners the tech giant has "discontinued development of HPE OpenSDN" if they ask what's happening. This is according to an internal memo seen today by The Register, which declares HPE will no longer support the networking platform it has for years pitched as a solution for ISPs and IT service providers. The email was written by product veep Sarwar Raza and telco sales boss Jacques Rames, who said the decision to pull the plug was "made in light of business and financial considerations." The pair also confirmed HPE is getting out of the telco-scale SDN market entirely, admitting that it "will no longer offer a native telco/service provider SDN solution." The enterprise giant notes, however, that the move should not be considered a step away from open platforms.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/hpe_kills_off_opensdn_line/

Oracle's Mark Hurd builds a cloud arsenal to take on Amazon

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. — #Oracle is preparing to intensify its reach for the cloud

In an interview with USA TODAY here, company CEO Mark Hurd laid out its latest battle plan, laying down the gauntlet to rivals #Amazon, #Microsoft, #IBM and #Salesforce. "They can say what they want, but our strategy and momentum are irrefutable — we are the fastest-growing cloud company at scale," he said when asked about Amazon and recent criticism.

Bravado and fighting words aren't new to the $183 billion-market cap company, which minted money in the 1990s and 2000s by aggressively inking deals for database services and sales analytics with America's premier corporations. Then along came cloud computing, a revolutionary technology that offered flexibility, discounts, and a break from multi-year enterprise software contracts — the backbone of Oracle's revenue machine.

Led by Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison, the company belatedly plunged into cloud computing, ginning up the rhetoric — and sinking money into acquisitions — to fight rivals for the $60.3 billion market in the U.S.

This week at a conference in Las Vegas, it plans to expand the geographic and business reach of its newly acquired NetSuite cloud business, as well as release a human-resources software product. It'll add new artificial intelligence and chatbot capabilities to its suite of customer experience applications that support commerce, marketing, sales and service professionals.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/04/26/oracles-mark-hurd-builds-cloud-arsenal-take-amazon/100652206/

Dell EMC Showcases Storage Solutions that Empower Media Professionals to Create, Manage and Deliver Content at NAB Show 2017

A longtime trusted storage provider for the media and entertainment industry, #DellEMC and its established network of partners will demonstrate the latest technology that helps media professionals keep pace with increasing demands for storage capacity, collaboration, faster file access and operational efficiencies. Dell EMC is streamlining the customer experience at its booth this year. NAB attendees ranging from content creators, workflow wizards and streaming experts will be able to see the following demonstrations in Dell EMC's Create, Manage and Deliver Solution Zones in Booth #SL9111: Create Solution Zone For the people who are passionate about creating content Dell EMC will be showcasing something fast and something new with Dell EMC's Precision Workstations and the new All-Flash Isilon. NAB attendees will see demonstrations of high speed uncompressed 4K editing with Dell EMC's partner Autodesk and compressed 4K multi-stream editing with Adobe� Premiere� Pro CC, part of Adobe Creative Cloud�. Manage Solution Zone Together with its partner Brevity, Dell EMC will demonstrate workflow enhancements using cloud protocols such as S3, enhancing workflows such as high-speed transfers and transcoding to object-based storage. Both demonstrations are based on Dell EMC's Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS), which is the first step to on premise cloud storage. Deliver Solution Zone� Dell EMC will discuss how to create scalable on premise or hybrid cloud IPTV/OTT platforms. Partnering with a leading application vendor and leveraging Dell EMC's All-Flash Isilon as the center of an IPTV/OTT workflow, Dell EMC will demonstrate next-generation content delivery models, from UHD & 4K to VR/360TV. Dell EMC enables thousands of organizations from the media and entertainment industry to transform their operations by simplifying the creation, delivery and archiving of digital media assets organizations like Lightstorm Entertainment.� Costumers from all corners of the industry - Post-production, animation, visual effects, broadcast, Pay TV and Subscription Video on Demand rely on Dell EMC solutions to assist with content creation, management and delivery. In related news, Dell unveiled the latest additions to its innovative, industry-leading monitor portfolio, including the company's first UHD Alliance-certified for HDR10 display. Dell EMC and Dell will be exhibiting at NAB Show in booth #SL9111 in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The exhibition will feature storage solutions for content creators, television broadcasters and content delivery providers. The 2017 NAB Show is the world's largest electronic media show covering the creation, management and delivery of content across all platforms. With 103,000 attendees from 166 countries and 1,700+ exhibitors, NAB Show is the ultimate marketplace for digital media and entertainment.

http://softwaredev.itbusinessnet.com/article/Dell-EMC-Showcases-Storage-Solutions-that-Empower-Media-Professionals-to-Create-Manage-and-Deliver-Content-at-NAB-Show-2017-4922948

IBM Ranked # 1 in Worldwide Software-Defined Storage Software Market

ARMONK, N.Y., April 26, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: #IBM ) today announced that for the third consecutive year it has been ranked the number one vendor in ( #SDS ) software-defined storage controller software according to results from International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Qview for Q4 2016 (March, 2017).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-ranked-1-worldwide-software-110000172.html

Violin Memory steps out of bankruptcy, takes the storage stage again

#Violin Memory is back, as a privately owned company fresh out of bankruptcy. The old flash array hardware and software company, which went bankrupt after a long and tortuous struggle, has been bought by #QuantumPartners, a private investment fund run by #Soros Fund Management LLC (SFM Private Equity). We're told Violin retains its industry-leading, proprietary technology, strong customer base and innovative team of professionals – but not all of them. Most of the old senior management team has been swept aside and the new management bods are: CEO and president - Ebrahim Abbasi, who was the SVP for Operations CFO - Jim Curley SVP customer success operations - Susan Scheer Aoki, who joined Violin in April 2015 Chief architect - Tim Stoakes VP software development - Pat Balakrishnan VP worldwide field operations - Georgine Nordin, who leads the sales and alliances strategy A prepared quote from Abbasi said: "I am honored to lead the new company into the future and focus on product innovation and customer excellence." These points were repeated in a similar quote from Nicholas Esayan, principal with SFM Private Equity: "We are committed to support Violin in its tradition of customer excellence and product innovation."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/25/violin_memory_back_and_private/

Supermicro Drives Converged Data Center Connectivity with Portfolio of 25/100Gbps Server Networking Solutions

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- #SuperMicro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a global leader in compute, storage, and networking technologies and green computing has announced general availability of #Mellanox, #Broadcom and #Intel -based 100Gbps and 25Gbps standard networking cards and onboard SIOM solutions, 25Gbps #MicroLP networking cards, and onboard riser cards optimized for the Ultra SuperServer®. Supermicro networking modules deliver high bandwidth and industry-leading connectivity for performance-driven server and storage applications in the most demanding Data Center, HPC, Cloud, Web2.0, Machine Learning and Big Data environments. Clustered databases, web infrastructure, and high frequency trading are just a few applications that will achieve significant throughput and latency improvements resulting in faster access, real-time response and virtualization enhancements with this generation of industry leading Supermicro solutions.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/supermicro-drives-converged-data-center-connectivity-with-portfolio-of-25100gbps-server-networking-solutions-300445579.html

Aerohive Networks Channel Chief On 'Huge Progress' And Growth Through Dell Networking Partnership

#Aerohive Networks is seeing "huge progress" in its #Dellnetworking partnership with a "great trajectory" path ahead, said Aerohive's channel chief, Michael O'Brien. "You'll continue to see Aerohive invest in that relationship, and I believe that's mutual from the Dell folks," said O'Brien, vice president of global channel sales, in an interview with CRN. With market uncertainty lingering in the networking industry, Aerohive is one of the few vendors who has held a steady course, which O'Brien said has benefited the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based wireless specialist and its channel community. "Channel partners look at what going on in our competitors, look at what's going on at Aerohive and say, 'That ship has been on a steady course for awhile,'" he said. CRN talks to O'Brien about the progress of its Dell partnership, Aerohive's services push in 2017 and his channel vision.
http://m.crn.com/slide-shows/networking/300084668/aerohive-networks-channel-chief-on-huge-progress-and-growth-through-dell-networking-partnership.htm?itc=most_pop