IBM just announced the purchase of WorkLight, an Israeli startup that provides a mobile app development and infrastructure software. IBM says the acquisition will help expand the enterprise mobile capabilities it offers to clients. Financial terms were not disclosed but we’ve heard that the acquisition price is around $70 million, according to Israeli publication Calcalist.
WorkLight, which has raised $18 million in funding, allows organizations develop and deliver HTML5, hybrid and native applications with, and deliver these applications with mobile middleware, security features and integrated data management and analytics. Worklight dramatically reduces time to market, cost and complexity while enabling better customer and employee user experiences across more devices. → Read More
IBM just released fourth quarter and fiscal year 2011 earnings today. Non-GAAP earnings came in at $4.71, up 11 percent; GAAP earnings per share were $4.62 per share (up 11 percent) for the quarter. Net income for the quarter was $5.5 billion, up 4 percent for the quarter, with revenue coming in at $29.5 billion, up 2 percent from the previous year. Analysts expected earnings of $4.62 a share on revenue of $29.7 billion. So basically, sales missed but profits beat expectations.
Revenues from the Software segment were $7.6 billion, an increase of 9 percent. But revenues from IBM’s hardware systems and technology segment totaled $5.8 billion for the quarter, down 8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010.
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In its first acquisition of 2012, IBM has announced the purchase of cloud-based software testing platform Green Hat. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 1996, Green Hat allows developers to test software applications prior to delivery in the cloud. Developers can test TIBCO, webMethods, IBM WebSphere MQ, SOA, BPM, SOAP, REST and Cloud applications with the company’s platform as well as Virtualize unavailable applications and test application performance. → Read More
It looks like consumers in the U.S. were shopping online alongside opening presents this year. According to IBM’s Coremetrics retail data, online sales on Christmas Day grew by 16.4 percent from last year.
Similar to trends seen over the Thanksgiving holidays, more shoppers were flocking to mobile devices to complete purchases. IBM says that 18.3 percent of all online sessions on retailers’ sites were initiated from a mobile device, up from 8.4 percent in 2010 (an increase of 117.8 percent). → Read More
On the heels of purchasing merchandising software DemandTec for $440 million, Big Blue is continuing the shopping spree to advance its smarter commerce strategy. IBM has just announced the acquisition of Emptoris, a cloud and on-premise analytics software that brings more intelligence to procurement and retail supply chain operations. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Emptoris’ software helps companies maximize financial performance and optimize commercial risk when it comes to supply chain and inventory management, procurement, sourcing and more in retail environments. For example, a global oil and gas company could use Emptoris to figure out how to source operations across suppliers. Emptoris has more than 350 customers in 75 countries. → Read More
IBM has made a major purchase today in the commerce and retail world—DemandTec, a retail marketing and merchandising software company. IBM is acquiring DemandTec (which listed on the Nasdaq) in an all cash transaction at a price of $13.20 per share, or approximately $440 million.
DemandTec provides retailers and e-commerce companies with tools to transact, interact, and collaborate on core merchandising and marketing activities. DemandTec’s cloud-based analytics software allows businesses to examine different customer buying scenarios, both online and in-store, so retailers can spot trends and shopper insights to make better price, promotion, and assortment decisions that increase revenue and profitability.
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As of yesterday afternoon, Cyber Monday online sales were up 18 percent but apparently a surge of activity yesterday evening helped push the day’s e-commerce sales to record amounts. Cyber Monday online sales, according to IBM’s Coremetrics report, were up 33 percent over 2010, and up 29.3 percent over Black Friday.
comScore is reporting that Cyber Monday sales reached a record $1.25 billion, up over 20 percent from last year, to become the heaviest online spending day in history. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is only the second time a billion dollars in online commerce has occurred in one day. For the holiday season-to-date, $15 billion has been spent online, 15 percent increase versus the same days last year. → Read More
Early results for Cyber Monday are looking good for retailers. Cyber Monday 2011 online sales are already up 20 percent for this same time period over Cyber Monday 2010, according to IBM’s Coremetrics retailer data.
IBM says that it expects most online shopping to come from laptops and PCs during the day with mobile shopping activity picking up later in the day, when consumers are purchasing from home.
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Thanksgiving brought record online retail sales for the holiday, with spending up 39.3 percent over Thanksgiving 2010. And today, IBM Coremetrics data shows a 24.3 percent growth in online sales on Black Friday compared to the same period last year.
Mobile traffic on Black Friday was 14.3 percent of all retail traffic compared to 5.6 percent in 2010. Sales on mobile devices surged to 9.8 percent from 3.2 percent year over year. As we saw with PayPal stats from Thanksgiving and Black Friday, mobile shopping volume is increasing by over 500 percent this year.
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As we heard a few weeks ago, retailers were expecting Thanksgiving Day to be a major online shopping day as more and more consumers are hitting their laptops, tablets and more to get a head start on sales in between Turkey time. It looks like early results point to the day being a profitable one for retailers. According to IBM’s Coremetrics retail data, online Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up 39 percent over Thanksgiving 2010.
Mobile shopping also had a break out day on Turkey Day. The number of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site reached a high of 15.2 percent, up from 6.45 percent in 2010. The number of consumers using their mobile device to make a purchase increased to 11.09 percent, up from 4.25 percent in 2010. → Read More
As the usage of smartphones increases in business operations, IBM is debuting a new service to help businesses secure mobile devices with access to corporate data. Called the Hosted Mobile Device Security Management service, the new product includes a security application for smartphones and tablets, along with managed services including policy management and user compliance monitoring.
IBM says the Device Security Management hosted service helps organizations protect against and monitor data loss and other risks caused by device theft, unauthorized access, malware, spyware, and inappropriate apps. → Read More
IBM’s Coremetrics Benchmark is releasing data around holiday shopping trends we can expect over the next few months. Big Blue says that mobile retail traffic will more than double this holiday season.
During this year’s November holiday season, an unprecedented 15 percent of people in the U.S. logging onto a retailer’s web site are expected to do so through a mobile device, says IBM. All online sales in November will experience a growth of 12-15 percent over the same period in 2010. → Read More
The narrative of the little guy going up against the hulking giant is baked into the history of Silicon Valley, starting with the traitorous eight leaving Shockley Semiconductor to subsequently found Intel, AMD, Kleiner Perkins, and many other industry disruptors of their time. Fighting unnaturally large battles is part of the technology industry’s DNA, and yet it would seem that every startup begins the process anew, rewriting the story of how to compete and succeed in the face of formidably large competitors.
There are times when competing against the incumbent feels like an insurmountable challenge (and by “times,” I mean pretty much every day). Your larger, more established and better-resourced competitor is an ominous and omnipresent danger to your existence. It will subsidize its products to compete with you, monopolize the distribution channel, spend more on marketing a single launch than you will ever raise, and create uncertainty in the market about your product among customers. Given all this, startups should be in an inherently disadvantaged position in any market, emerging or mature. And in most industries outside of technology – those that rely on high fixed costs, retail distribution, or a vast network of partners – this is absolutely the case. But in the world of internet-delivered services, rapid innovation and evolution, and constant disruption, no one’s power is guaranteed. This creates huge opportunities for startups going up against the big guys, if executed properly. → Read More
IBM’s board of directors has just named Virginia M. Rometty as the company’s new CEO and president, replacing Samuel J. Palmisano, who currently is IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. Palmisano will remain chairman of the board. Rometty will become CEO effective January 1, 2012.
Rometty was previously senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy. Rometty joined IBM in 1981 as a systems engineer. She was previously senior vice president of IBM Global Business Services, and then was promoted to global sales leader. In her most recent role with Big Blue, She is accountable for revenue, profit, and client satisfaction in the 170 global markets and for the company’s worldwide sales results, which exceeded $99 billion in 2010. → Read More
IBM has released its third quarter results today, with non-GAAP diluted earnings coming in at $3.28 per share, compared with operating diluted earnings of $2.85 per share in the third quarter of 2010, an increase of 15 percent. Analysts were expecting $3.22 per share with revenue of $26 billion. The company posted diluted earnings of $3.19 per share, compared with diluted earnings of $2.82 per share in the third quarter of 2010, an increase of 13 percent.
Big Blue’s third-quarter net income was $3.8 billion compared with $3.6 billion in the same quarter in 2010, an increase of 7 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) net income was $4 billion compared with $3.6 billion in the third quarter of 2010, an increase of 9 percent. Total revenue for the third quarter of 2011 of $26.2 billion increased 8 percent from the third quarter of 2010. → Read More
IBM is announcing the acquisition of Q1 Labs, Massachusetts-based provider of security intelligence software. Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close in fourth quarter, were not disclosed.
Q1 Labs software collects and analyzes information from hundreds of sources across an organization such as the network, applications, user activity, mobile endpoints, and physical security devices such as badge readers — including both cloud-based and on-premise sources. → Read More
Is IBM making up for lost time? After acquiring crime data intelligence software developer i2 yesterday, Big Blue is announcing another purchase this morning. The company is buying Canadian risk management analytics software developer Algorithmics for $387 million.
Algorithmics’ risk analytics software, content and advisory services are used by banks, investment and insurance businesses to help assess risk, address regulatory requirements and make more insightful business decisions. Basically, the software quantifies, manages and optimizes company risk exposure across a range of financial risk domains including market, liquidity, credit, operational and insurance risk as well as economic and regulatory capital risk. → Read More
IBM is announcing the acquisition of i2, a company that provides intelligence and investigation management software for law enforcement, defense, national security and private sector organizations. Financial terms were not disclosed.
With more than 4,500 customers in 150 countries, i2 is provides intelligence analytics for crime and fraud prevention in sectors such as banking, defense, health care, insurance, law enforcement, national security and retail. i2 solutions are currently used by 12 of the top 20 retail banks globally and eight of the top 10 largest companies in the world. → Read More
Linux and open source development is not a zero sum game. This was the explicit message from Ubuntu Technical Architect Allison Randal’s keynote speech at LinuxCon, but the sentiment had been articulated in a number of ways all week long from everyone here. The processes by which a company makes great open source software improve the world for everyone.
“Free software is a fundamentally superior model for developing software,” Randal repeated several times. In addition to the classic Linus’ Law (“given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”), Randal put forward the claim that human beings long to be part of something greater than themselves, and free software development satisfies that in spades. → Read More
In the past few years, Apple has been in berzerker mode. Not even 15 years ago, they were on the verge of collapse when Michael Dell famously said that if he were CEO of Apple he would, “shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders”. Apple now has a market cap well over ten times that of Dell’s. And in the past year or so, Apple has even managed to far surpass their old nemesis, Microsoft, in terms of market cap, revenue, and profit.
Today, Apple’s stock closed above $400 a share for the first time. This has pushed their market cap up to roughly $375 billion, making my prediction that they have a shot at catching Exxon to become the most valuable public company in the world this fall, look pretty good (they’re now “just” $45 billion away).
But what’s next? What other mountain can Apple scale? Well, there’s still a pretty big one in the tech sphere. → Read More
