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Microsoft previews Surface – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

June 19, 2012

Microsoft Surface Highlights

Announces 2 Surface platforms – based on ARM and Intel chips
Includes a keyboard, making this a ‘convertible’
Will challenge Apple’s 94% share of the smart tablet market
Will compete directly with its PC OEMs in client devices for the first time and will need to balance its activities carefully
Signifies the most important move today away from the horizontal PC market

IBM Builds Its Smarter Commerce Software Business Through Acquisition

June 12, 2012

IBM Smarter Commerce Highlights

Has spent around $3b on software acquisitions in this area
Focuses on software to support line-of-business in sales, marketing, procurement and customer service
Helps IBM compete as a close second to Oracle in the application software market
Hosts a conference in Madrid with 1,750 attendees
Is used by Ing for addressing customers’ emotional needs, Boots for its Advantage loyalty card activities and The Home Retail Group for extending its sales to new channels
Will continue to invest in acquisitions – probably in building its ‘Service’ business

HP Networking – Management For Telcos And Enterprises, Wireless For BYOD

May 18, 2012

For our assessment and forecast for the whole networking market, please click here.

HP Networking Highlights Q2 2012

Built a large division by acquiring 3Com – adding it to its ProCurve business in 2010
Plays in the LAN, switch and router hardware markets
Offerings include including its FlexNetwork architecture, IMC VAN management suite and its Enterprise Mobility platform
Has an incremental approach to extending corporate applications to mobile devices connecting to networks as part of BYOD strategies
Takes a multi-vendor approach to the management of network devises, accommodating those from Cisco and others
Its approach is endorsed by Wellcome Trust, a large reference customer
Sees its role as adding IT skills to more traditional networking specialisation
Has a good networking approach necessary to build increasingly integrated systems

IBM Launches PureSystems – An Integrated Compute, Storage, Networking and Middleware Approach

April 20, 2012

IBM PureSystems Highlights

Launches PureFlex and PureApplication – the first of a family of expert integrated systems accommodating compute, storage, networking and middleware
A physical manifestation of its Cloud reference architecture
Designed for ease-of-use and rapid speed-of-deployment
Introduces Patterns for capturing expertise in building infrastructure, platforms and applications
Launches the PureSystems Centre – quasi-appstore for Pattern cataloguing and distribution
Has certified 150 applications from 126 ISVs and launch among 600 available
Has an infrastructure-in-a-box approach, but is also highly pluggable through the inclusion of Storwize V7000
ISVs, SPs And Enterprises lacking the budget, energy or resources for highly active infrastructure maintenance likely to be early adopters
Demonstrates how far we’ve moved from the pick ‘n’ mix horizontal market of the past

HP – The African Market Leader Invests For Growth

February 29, 2012

HP In Africa Highlights

Managed by Stefanos Giourelis
South Africa is by far the largest market, followed by Nigeria and Morocco
Has sub-regional management in East, South, West and French-speaking West Africa
Works on social development with CHAI and other charities
The Nigerian government is a significant reference customer
It expects African IT growth to be 6-7% in 2012
Management needs to be more flexible, although offerings are the same
Training graduates, turning them into professionals through training and retaining them is key to the future

RedHat RHEV3 – Alternative Virtualisation And Ecosystem

January 20, 2012

RedHat RHEV3 Highlights

Launches RHEV3
Has an Open Source approach – going against the tide of vertical integration
Offers lower-cost alternatives in the virtualisation market
It is not the hub of an ecosystem in the way Vmware, Microsoft and Citrix are
Is now a billion dollar software company
Has strong opportunities as users turn to KVM and Linux in database and Cloud Computing areas

IBM Mainframes – Integrating Business Analytics With zBX

January 18, 2012

IBM System Z Update

Shipped 800 zBX with 450 blades
Signed 80 new System z customers
Encourages new mainframe participants with education and recruitment support
Has added Windows to the supported platforms on zBX and URM
Focuses on business analytics workloads with Smart Analytics System 9700 and 7100 alongside its Smart Analytics Cloud
We expect to see Security Analytics addressed in future through its Q1 Labs acquisition

IBM Invests In Africa – ‘The Next India, The Next China’

January 16, 2012

IBM In Africa Highlights

Increased its presence from 4 main offices to over 20 today
Established a number of new locations to service Bharti Telecom
Has a high-end systems strategy
Sees Government, Banking and Telco as the strongest industry sectors
Runs regional management from Morocco, Tunis, Cairo, Nairobi and Johannesburg
We see Africa as a small region with tremendous growth prospects, dependent on long-term socio-economic trends

Dell Storage Systems – Big Hat, Good Cattle

January 13, 2012

Dell Storage Systems Highlights

Has shifted from a reseller to an IP-based supplier status
Is integrating 4 acquisitions into its Fluid Data architecture
Is moving towards a common DFFS file system
Maintains PowerVault, EqualLogic and Compellent brands
Has to make up for the loss of EMC reseller business a year ago
Sees established storage systems suppliers as ‘Big Hats, No Cattle’
Will need to increase research, development and engineering spending to maintain innovation

HP’s Adds Autonomy And Vertica To Its Information Optimization Strategy

January 9, 2012

HP Information Optimization Highlights

Vertica adds real-time parallel processing of structured data
Autonomy adds an analytics platform for all data (including unstructured sources from monitoring and social feeds)
Quotes scary market numbers for data growth, but claims it can help manage all enterprise data
Proposes an Information Optimization architecture, encompassing information use cases, sources management and optimisation layers
A valid start, but over-productises a services business

IBM And VMware Find Common Ground In Storage And Server Hypervising

December 30, 2011

IBM and VMware Highlights

IBM is VMware’s biggest customer
Enhances IBM’s role as a storage hypervisor vendor
Matching approaches to server and storage hypervisors
20k common customers
IBM addresses multiple APIs to make its storage hypervisor relevant within the VMware ecosystem
IBM Stretched Cluster extends vMotion usage to 300km
Work together on addressing the cost and latency issues of VDI
A potentially strong common go-to-market approach

World Server Market Down 2% To $14.6B In Q3 2011

November 24, 2011

Server Highlights Q3 2011

Revenues declined by 2% year on year in Q3
Unit shipments grew by 3%
Total server market revenues were $64.1 billion in the year to the end of September
x86 server revenues were $43.0 billion
Installed Base grew to 4.13 million

From Unified To Social Communications And Collaboration

November 7, 2011

I’m very pleased to be publishing an artcle her from Pim Bilderbeek, a colleague who works for the METISfiles and has helped us with contributions to this site many times before.

We have come a long way since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. Mr. Bell’s first call was to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, speaking these famous first words, “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you”. Today we can reach virtually anyone on the planet instantly – whenever and wherever they are – with the multitude of communications channels and devices that we have at our disposal. But with this multitude comes the danger of information overload and communications breakdown. In fact, we make a point that the competitive advantages of being an elastic enterprise could be in real danger of being offset through ineffective collaboration between workers, customers, partners and business units caused by information overload and communications breakdown.

Kaseya Addresses Smart Devices In Corporate Networks WIth Mobile Device Management

November 3, 2011

Kaseya MDM Highlights

Smart phone installed base will overtake PCs in 2014
Smart tablet installed base will reach 500 million in 2015
Kaseya has added Mobile Device Management to its K2 platform
Introduces automated software deployment and device tracking
Locks, wipes and alarms lost or stolen devices
Designed for MSPs and corporate IT departments

Avere – Can Automated Tiered Storage Reduce Our $120 Billion On Storage?

October 23, 2011

We’ve come across a number of highly innovative smaller companies over the last couple of years – companies like Aaxana and Racemi who have new approaches to the normal way users implement systems resulting in significantly lower costs. We travelled up to the Royal Exchange in London recently to talk to CEO Ron Bianchini and VP Marketing Rebecca Thompson of Avere – a small storage systems company with a compelling story. We thought it would be interesting for our readers to learn about them. We also want to share some of our sizing of the storage market and look at how Avere’s approach might reduce it.

‘Storage Hypervisors’ – IBM Proposes A New Industry Term

October 13, 2011

Storage Hypervisor Debate Highlights

Improving resource utilisation is central to reducing data centre costs
SAN and NAS have improved virtualisation, but typically within a single vendor’s range
VMware has been highly successful in lowering server spending by heterogeneous applying virtualisation
Virtualisation platforms, management software and application across multiple vendors’ kit required
IBM’s own approach includes SVC and TPC – it can virtualise and manage most other vendors’ storage
We may need a software-only vendor (as VMware is in servers) for storage hypervisors to take off