Summary Bullets:

• In the same month DXC announced two new acquisitions, the company said it is may sell off three non-core business units

• DXC wants to invest the proceeds to strengthen its core IT outsourcing business

Less than two months after assuming the role of President and CEO at DXC, Mike Salvino made waves when he told financial analysts on an earnings call the company is considering the sale of non-core business units. Saviano said executives are looking seriously at divesting three organizations: Workplace & Mobility; U.S. State and Local Health Human Services; and Horizontal Business Process Services. This comes as DXC posted dismal Q2 FY 2020 earnings that saw revenues slide 3.4% versus the same quarter a year ago. Continue reading “DXC Technology Considers Divesting Non-Core Units After Reporting a Multi-Billion Quarterly Loss” →

Summary Bullets:

• Microsoft’s JEDI win after an often controversial procurement process that many said favored AWS caught the industry off guard

• Arguing that the process was tainted by Department of Defense (DoD) employee conflicts of interest and political interventions, Oracle and AWS are both contesting the procurement in court

The DoD sent shockwaves through the cloud computing sector in October with the announcement that Microsoft Azure had won the multi-billion single award Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI). Cloud behemoth AWS, long considered to be the one to beat in the closely watched and often controversial process, expressed surprise at the outcome. Some insiders have suggested that challenges during the bidding gave Microsoft the time to pull together a more cohesive and competitive cloud play. But others, including Oracle, a one-time competitor for the deal, are calling out the process as inherently unfair.
Continue reading “AWS and Oracle Protest Microsoft’s Surprise $10 Billion Pentagon JEDI Contract Win” →

Summary Bullets:

• With John Chambers leading Pensando’s board as well as HPE making a big investment and stepping up as a partner, the startup is looking to make waves.
• The company has grand ambitions to play a major disruptor role–and the leadership and intellect with a potential to achieve them.

When a startup enters the IT landscape with the kind of backing that Pensando Systems has, the industry takes note. Founded in 2017 by Cisco veterans Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero, and Soni Jiandani, the team behind a number of cutting edge products including the Nexus 9000 switch series, the company disclosed that it has secured third-round funding valued at $145 million from HPE and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Pensando also announced HPE CTO Mark Potter is joining the board of directors and that his company will be a key distribution partner for its technology.
Continue reading “Out of Stealth Mode, Edge Computing Startup Pensando Wants to be a Giant Slayer” →

Summary Bullets:

• As the cloud battle in ASEAN continues, AWS has the advantage in the direct connect and go-to-market through partnerships with the domestic providers.

• The provider is also rapidly growing its customer base with various new references.

The public cloud competition in the emerging ASEAN region (excluding Singapore) is heating up. Alibaba Cloud entered the market early by opening a data center in Malaysia in October 2017 followed by another one in Indonesia in March 2018. Seeing the huge potential in the region, Google made an announcement in October 2018 to have its facility in Indonesia ready in early 2020 while AWS responded to its global rival with a similar announcement in April 2019. Despite AWS’ late move in the region (compared to Alibaba Cloud and Google), AWS has the upper hand in the direct connect or edge network as well as in the domestic go-to-market and brand share. This is achieved through its long partnerships with the domestic carriers and SIs. Continue reading “AWS Adds More ASEAN Customers as the Cloud Battle in the Region Heats Up” →

Summary Bullets:

• Oracle Blockchain Platform Enterprise Edition supports pre-assembled integration with popular business apps.
• The evolving Oracle Cloud provides necessary support for advanced applications, including blockchain.

Oracle has been working to expand its cloud interoperability partnerships, in particular with Microsoft and VMware, building out an ecosystem to further its mission of combining database and PaaS with strengths in management, analytics, and integration. A primary objective of its evolving Oracle Cloud is to help developers build the next-generation of distributed apps, including blockchain apps. Continue reading “Oracle OpenWorld 2019: Oracle’s Evolving Integrated Cloud Paves the Way for Blockchain” →

Summary Bullets:

• HPE has discontinued marketing and development of its IoT platform.

• HPE is instead moving forward in supporting IoT deployments with infrastructure and consulting, working directly with customers as well as third-party SIs and platform providers.

HPE was in Berlin this week as a primary sponsor at Industry of Things World 2019, a hands-on conference focused on industrial IoT and digital transformation for enterprises.

Despite the clear importance of IoT to HPE’s strategy, HPE Universal IoT Platform, which the company had been promoting aggressively for a few years since its launch in 2016, has been discontinued (although it is maintained in a few deployments where it is still being used). HPE found market requirements to be so diverse that attempting to provide a horizontal solution across all sectors and use cases won’t resonate with enough customers to make it worth it. Key industrial verticals – for example automotive manufacturing, which represents a large market opportunity for IIoT – expect a vertical template, and HPE never had much traction with its platform in manufacturing. With its origins in telco OSS/BSS systems, HPE’s solutions have worked well with large scale smart city deployments, although it found adding connectivity to devices challenging. Continue reading “HPE in Industrial IoT – Moving Away from a Catch-All Platform to Collaborative Solutions” →