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Tag: ibm

  • Report: Internet of Things (IoT) in Retail Market Forecast to 2020

    Report: Internet of Things (IoT) in Retail Market Forecast to 2020

    report-market

    The global IoT in retail market is expected to grow from USD 14.28 billion in 2015 to USD 35.64 billion by 2020, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 20.07%, according to Research and Markets’ “Internet of Things in Retail Market – Global Forecast to 2020” report.

    The key players in this market include IBM, Intel Corporation, Zebra Technologies, SAP, Google, Microsoft, Freescale, PTC, ARM, and Cisco. These companies will dominate the $35 billion industry.

    Internet of Things (IoT) is significantly adopted in every process of retailing such as advertising and marketing, smart kiosks, vending machines, inventory management, and customer payments.

    The fact that IoT is rapidly connecting with these retailing processes is due to increasing internet ubiquity, and emergence of cloud platform. The declining cost of sensors and RFID have also significantly increased its adoption by the retailers. Along with these drivers, the market is facing certain restraints such as lack of common standards, skill gap, and security and privacy concerns.

    There are various assumptions that have been taken into consideration for the market sizing and forecasting exercise. A few of the global assumptions include political, economic, social, technological, and economic factors. The dollar fluctuations are expected to not seriously affect the forecasts in the emerging regions.

    Visit Research and Markets for more info.

  • Box and IBM Join Hands to Boost Analytics and Cloud Storage  

    Box and IBM Join Hands to Boost Analytics and Cloud Storage  

    Box-IBM

    Box and IBM have combined their cloud products as a way of boosting their appeal and scope. The partnership will bring together IBM security technologies and tools with Box’s cloud storage services, enabling the two companies to have a global reach offered by the IBM cloud.

    Aaron Levie, Box’s CEO said in a blog post that the partnership will help them target more public sector and enterprise customers, which he insists they cannot do alone. He further said: “We’re taking the best of Box’s technology and combining it with IBM’s impressive portfolio of leading security, analytics, content management and social capabilities to jointly create all-new offerings and outcomes for customers.”

    In this new partnership Box will have at their disposal IBM security technologies and enterprise-grade content management tools. The agreement also allows Box users to store data on the IBM Cloud.

    Meanwhile, IBM will be able to increase their Watson Analytics service scope by analyzing data and content stored in the Box platform.

    Both companies will provide consultancy to enterprises looking at using Box with their existing data and systems. They will also work together to create content management apps and integrate Box features into IBM’s MobileFirst for iOS apps.

    This is of course not the first time we are seeing Box entering into such partnerships as they already have a working relationship with Microsoft, a major IBM competitor in the cloud business.

  • Apple and IBM partner to bring a ‘new class’ of business iPhone and iPad apps to enterprise

    Apple and IBM partner to bring a ‘new class’ of business iPhone and iPad apps to enterprise

    apple-ibm-partnership

    Apple and IBM announced yesterday an exclusive partnership to transform enterprise mobility through a ‘new class’ of business apps – MobileFirst for iOS that will bring IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities to iPhone and iPad.

    The partnership aims to ‘address key industry mobility challenges’ by creating:

    • a new class of more than 100 industry-specific enterprise solutions including native apps, developed exclusively from the ground up, for iPhone and iPad;
    • unique IBM cloud services optimized for iOS, including device management, security, analytics and mobile integration;
    • new AppleCare® service and support offering tailored to the needs of the enterprise;  and
    • new packaged offerings from IBM for device activation, supply and management.

    As part of the agreement, IBM will also sell iPhones and iPads with the industry-specific solutions to business clients worldwide.

    Specifically, the two companies are working together to deliver the following elements of enterprise mobile solutions:

    – Mobile solutions that transform business: The companies will collaborate to build IBM MobileFirst for iOS Solutions—a new class of “made-for-business apps” targeting specific industry issues or opportunities in retail, healthcare, banking, travel and transportation, telecommunications and insurance, among others, that will become available starting this fall and into 2015.

    – Mobile platform: The IBM MobileFirst Platform for iOS will deliver the services required for an end-to-end enterprise capability, from analytics, workflow and cloud storage, to fleet-scale device management, security and integration.

    – Mobile service and support: AppleCare for Enterprise will provide IT departments and end users with 24/7 assistance from Apple’s customer support group, with on-site service delivered by IBM.

    – Packaged service offerings: IBM is introducing IBM MobileFirst Supply and Management for device supply, activation and management services for iPhone and iPad, with leasing options.

  • Nirvanix, IBM Cloud Storage Partner Files for Bankruptcy


    Nirvanix, IBM’s SmartCloud storage service from San Diego last month told customers and partners that it will be shutting down on 30th September. The customers were given just 2 weeks to migrate their data and now the company is filing for bankruptcy.

    The company released this information on a post on its website that revealed chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Nirvanix gave its customers a further 2 weeks to remove their data from its service. The new deadline for data removal is 15th October.

    The website post indicates that Nirvanix sought to file a voluntary chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to maximize value for its creditors and search for alternatives to provide the best possible transition for its customers.

    The initial indication of Nirvanix bankruptcy came as a surprise to many people. The company was formed in 2007 and had partnerships with Dell and IBM. The company was lauded for its superb funding and technical prowess.

    The bankruptcy issue was first reported on the wall street journal and this week’s announcement provides some sort of closure for people who have a keen interest on the company. Nirvanix has specifically mentioned Google storage, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and IBM SoftLayer as possible replacements.

    The bankruptcy paperwork indicates that Dell marketing L.P, formerly known as storage outfit EqualLogic is Nirvanix’s largest creditor. Other creditors include Gartner, Nimsoft and Salesforce.com.

  • Smartphones of the Future Will Be Able To See, Hear, Smell, Touch, and Taste Things

    What will the future look like? Though the answers may not be definite, IBM's annual Five in Five list does its best to answer this pressing question. The list, which enumerates five predictions about technological breakthroughs that may happen in the next five years, gives people an overview of how technology will develop in the future.

    What will the future look like? Though the answers may not be definite, IBM's annual Five in Five list does its best to answer this pressing question. The list, which enumerates five predictions about technological breakthroughs that may happen in the next five years, gives people an overview of how technology will develop in the future.

    Most of the visions that were included in the list seem impossible to achieve. But what most people don't know is that some predictions have already came true. For example in 2006, Five in Five have stated that real-time speech translation will become the norm in the near future. Fast forward a year later, IBM have started work on n.Fluent, a breakthrough technology that translates English and 11 other languages in real-time.

    This year, it's all about the senses. IBM believes that the gadgets of the future will have the ability to feel, see, hear, taste, and smell. This innovation will surely leave a huge impact on how we use devices like smartphones and tablets.

    Touch

    Through the use of infrared, vibration, and other haptic technologies, a smartphone's display will be able to render the texture and feel of physical surfaces. Imagine being able to feel the softness of a cotton sheet through a smartphone's display instead of just reading about it.

    See

    IBM thinks that today's visual recognition technologies can be taken one step further. For example, future systems would have the capability to detect minute details and anomalies in a patient's MRI scan which could help doctors do their work more efficiently.

    Hear

    Aside from merely recording audio, sensors will have the ability to analyze patterns and frequencies from the sounds that it picks up. Future audio technologies will be able to judge the structural integrity of a bridge through the use of sound data alone.

    Taste

    It may not sound that appetizing, but digital tastebuds might become a technological norm in the near future. This could help people keep up with their diets and/or everyday nutritional needs.

    Smell

    Computers might soon be able to distinguish odors from various substances. A person's breath can be analyzed for data that might reveal something about that person's health

  • IDC: EMC Led The Overall Storage Software Market in Q3

    According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, the worldwide storage software market experienced another decline in year-over-year growth in the third quarter of 2009 with revenues of $2.87 billion, representing –7.9% growth over the same quarter one year ago, but a 1.2% growth from the previous quarter.

    IDC report shows EMC led the overall market with 23.4% revenue share in the third quarter of 2009. Symantec held onto the second position with 17.8% revenue share, while IBM finished in the third position with 12.2% revenue share.

    NetApp finished in the fourth position with 7.6% revenue share while CA rounded out the top 5 with 3.9 revenue share.

    For the second quarter in a row, only two of the top 5 vendors displayed a positive growth over the previous quarter. EMC and IBM displayed positive growth rates of 5.7%, and 6.9% respectively, while Symantec, NetApp, and CA each had negative growth rates from the previous quarter of –2.1%, –8.9%, and –3% respectively.

    “Two out of the top three vendors in the data protection and recovery market grew sequentially (IBM and EMC) while the leader Symantec declined at 1.2%,” said Michael Margossian, research analyst, Storage Software at IDC.

    Symantec is still the market leader with 31.1% market share, and IBM and EMC having 14.1% and 12.8% market share respectively.

    EMC regain the top spot in the replication market, with 10.7% growth over 2Q09, while NetApp declined 10.1%.

    “The storage software market was barely able to maintain a positive sequential growth rate in the third quarter of 2009,” concluded Margossian.

  • IBM Delivers First Integrated Solid State Drive Support

    IBM announced that its storage virtualization offering, the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC), “is now faster, more scalable, and delivers the industry’s first integrated Solid State Drive support.”

    SVC is a storage virtualization system that complements server virtualization technologies and enables a single point of control for storage resources (both IBM and non-IBM arrays) to support “improved business application availability, better IT infrastructure flexibility, and greater resource utilization.”

    Building on IBM’s Quicksilver technology, IBM is introducing SVC 5.0, which now supports Solid State Drives (SSDs).

    The tight integration of SSDs with SVC enables to take advantage of the high throughput capabilities of solid state by delivering up to 800,000 operations per second, and with response times of approximately one millisecond, nearly one-tenth of traditional disk storage.

    SVC support of SSDs is highly flexible with a minimum configuration of only one SSD, helping make the technology more affordable yet scalable without disruption to enterprise requirements, as the company claims.

    According to IBM, additional enhancements to SVC include 8Gbps Fibre Channel support, enabling higher throughout across Storage Area Networks, a tripling of the maximum cache to 24GB per engine, and support for consolidated DR configurations, enhancing SVCs business continuity capabilities.

    SVC also supports attachment to servers using iSCSI protocols over IP networks, which can help reduce costs and simplify server configuration.

    SAN Volume Controller 5.0 will be available November 6, with a US starting list price of $40,000.

  • IBM Expands Midmarket Express Advantage Line


    IBM has broadened its lineup of Express Advantage products for midmarket with the launch of BladeCenter Express servers, a new data protection hardware/software package.

    It also unveiled the LotusLive Meetings hosted Web conferencing service.

    Express Advantage products and services are largely sold through IBM channel partners and are frequently offered with financing packages.

    Topping the list of the new products are the BladeCenter JS23 and JS43 Express servers, which are based on the Power6 processor technology and run on AIX, IBM i and Linux operating systems.

    IBM said the servers are ideal for midsize organizations undergoing infrastructure consolidation or running applications that require scalable performance and high memory capacity.

    A new hardware/software package that IBM is calling a "comprehensive data protection solution" includes the Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack software bundled with the DS3000, DS4000 and DS5000 Express series disk systems, and the System x 3550 server.

    IBM said the package offers a complete data storage and data recovery system.

    Many companies are increasingly using Web conferencing as they impose travel restrictions to cut costs.

    The Express Advantage services now include LotusLive Meetings, a Web conferencing service added to the LotusLive online services IBM unveiled earlier this year.

  • Storage Market Slows, Modest Growth Forecast


    Well, it was only a matter of time. The data storage market has slowed down – and much more than anticipated, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    IDC revealed last week that global external disk storage systems’ factory revenues dropped by a half per cent in the fourth quarter.
    This is the first quarterly drop for data storage in more than 5 years.

    According to IDC, EMC, HP, Dell and Hitachi did grow a little in the last quarter, as expected.

    However, IBM, NetApp and Sun Microsystems all posted year-over-year sales declines.

    In the 4th quarter, external system revenues dropped slightly to USD $5.3 billion, while the total disk storage system market dropped 5.9 per cent to USD $7.3 billion chiefly due to limitations in server system sales.

    The other big decline was seen in the total disc storage system capacity, which peaked at 2,460 petabytes, a growth of only 27.3 per cent, but this was down by 50 per cent compared to the growth rate in the past.

    Natalya Yezkhova, IDC research manager for storage systems, said: "Because of the global economic crisis, the last quarter of 2008 was tough for the disk storage systems market, resulting in a market decline from the same quarter last year."

    She said that high-end storage sales were upset by a chill in the end-user expenditures and longer acquisition cycles.

    But some low-end and midrange storage sectors have continued to sale well, "as end users broadened their search for storage solutions in these lower-cost segments to satisfy their increasing storage needs while optimizing investments in storage infrastructure."

    EMC continues to hold the leadership with its external systems market share lead of nearly 23.3 per cent of revenue in the fourth quarter, followed by IBM and HP, with 15.7 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

    Dell did not fare well and ended the quarter in the fourth position with a 9.3 per cent share.

    Hitachi and NetApp followed with 7 per cent growth, while Sun had 5.2 per cent.

    In the Open SAN market, which only grew 2.2 per cent, EMC was again in the lead with 24.2 per cent of the market.

    IBM followed next with 16.5 per cent.

    The NAS market has grown steadily and recorded a 8.6 per cent rise.

    Again, EMC led the pack with 43.8 per cent, followed by NetApp at 24.1 per cent.

    The sum network disk storage market (NAS combined with Open SAN) grew a modest 3.6 pe cent to USD $4.1 billion in revenues.

    EMC again claimed a 28.6 per cent revenue share, followed by IBM at 14.5 per cent.

    So what are the expectations for the rest of 2009?

    Enterprise Strategy Group and IDC both speculate a modest growth of 2-3 per cent for both the data storage industry overall IT spending.

    In an industry, which has always seen green, adjustment to single digit profits may not sit well for many people.

  • EMC Being Investigated by the Feds


    The Federal government has just announced in a statement that Data Storage giant, EMC is being investigated over its pricing and improper contract practices.

    EMC revealed in its annual report with the SEC several days ago that the US justice Department had filed a lawsuit against the company, writes Samantha Sai for storage-biz.news.

    According to the Justice Department press release, the lawsuit accuses EMC of failing to disclose its commercial pricing practices during negotiation of its General Services Administration (GSA) contracts.

    It also says EMC provided improper payments and other things of value to Systems Integrators and other Alliance Partners on contracts with government agencies.

    The lawsuit alleges that EMC tendered false claims for hardware and services on “numerous government contracts from the late 90s to the present”.

    It is believed that the lawsuit is based on insider information as the suit was filed in US District Court in Little Rock, Ark under the Whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act.

    Among other allegations in the lawsuit are that EMC, "made payments of money and other things of value (alliance benefits) to a number of systems integration consultants and other alliance partners with whom it had alliance relationships".

    The Justice Department further states "that these alliance relationships and the resulting alliance benefits paid by EMC amount to kickbacks and undisclosed conflict of interest relationships".

    The government press release also declares that EMC has been charged with making false statements to the General Accounting Service about its profit-making pricing customs to collect better proceeds on contracts, "thereby overcharging federal agencies purchasing EMC products and services".

    The report filed by EMC to the SEC mentions that the Justice Department is scrutinizing the company’s fee planning with systems integrators and other associates in federal government dealings.

    It is also looking at the company’s "compliance with the terms and conditions of certain agreements pursuant to which we sold products and services to the federal government, including potential violations of the False Claims Act".

    The investigation partly covers a previous audit by the GSA "concerning our recordkeeping and pricing practices under a schedule agreement we entered into with GSA in November 1999, which, following several extensions, expired in June 2007".

    To date, EMC says it has worked together with the inquiry and assessment and engaged in discussions aimed at resolving this matter without any admission or finding of liability on the part of EMC.

    "We believe that we have meritorious factual and legal defenses to the allegations raised and, if the matter is not resolved and proceeds to litigation, we intend to defend vigorously," the company said.

    "If the matter proceeds to litigation, possible sanctions include an award of damages, including treble damages, fines, penalties and other sanctions, including suspension or debarment from sales to the federal government."

    To keep things in perspective, EMC is not the first IT Corporation to face such allegations. Just a year ago IBM did clear up similar charges with a $ 3 million fine. Other companies that have gone through the same process include Accenture, HP and Sun Microsystems.

    StorageIO Group founder and senior analyst Greg Schulz speculates if the new Administration is just getting started.

    "If that’s the case, one has to wonder who’s next, and how big the boiler will be when the government finally gets around to the really big fish," he said.