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
An IBM patent points to an on-screen keyboard that matches the user’s anatomy, changing to reflect each users “unique typing motion.”
The keyboard requires calibration in the form of various exercises. The system then senses various variables like “finger skin touch area, finger size data and finger position.” It then creates a unique keyboard based on a “set of averages.” → Read More
It’s time for TechCrunched, where we take some of the most popular stories running on TechCrunch and put them together for you in a quick video package. This week was a big one for Apple, with stellar earnings and new products. Google+ took the iTunes App sStore by storm. And Zillow had a big IPO. If something grabs your attention, make sure to click on the links below to get more information.
Also, we’ve created a TechCrunched podcast so you can download episodes and subscribe on iTunes. → Read More
IBM just released its second quarter earnings today. Big Blue reported $26.7 billion in revenue for the quarter which is up 15 percent (or up 5 percent adjusting for currency). Diluted earnings came in at $3.00 per share, compared with diluted earnings of $2.62 per share in the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 18 percent. Analysts expected $3.02 per share
on revenue of $25.4 billion.
Second-quarter net income came in at $3.7 billion compared with $3.4 billion in the second quarter of 2010, an increase of 8 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) net income was $3.8 billion compared with $3.4 billion in the second quarter of 2010, an increase of 11 percent. → Read More
Although the world is currently enamored of flash memory, today’s standard for solid-state storage, companies like IBM need to think a few years ahead. One of the technologies they’re looking at is called phase-change memory, in which a memory cell changes from a crystalline to amorphous phase, changing its resistance. Put a bunch of those together, and you’ve got yourself a binary storage system. → Read More
Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a piece entitled Lessons in Longevity, From IBM. In it, author Steve Lohr looks back at the past 100 years of IBM and points out the keys to their longevity: shifting and adapting to new markets and times. He then lays how three tech powers today — Microsoft, Google, and Apple — may make similar moves to weather the inevitable storms.
At a high level, the parallels make some sense for Microsoft, and to a lesser extent, Google. They make no sense for Apple. → Read More
Following strong fourth quarter 2010 results, IBM released first quarter earnings today, reporting $24.6 billion in revenue for the quarter which is up 8 percent (or up 5 percent adjusting for currency). Diluted earnings came in at $2.31 per share, compared with diluted earnings of $1.97 per share in the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 17 percent. Analysts expected $2.30 a share on revenue of $24.04 billion.
First-quarter net income was $2.9 billion compared with $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 10 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) net income was $3.0 billion compared with $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 13 percent. → Read More
IBM is making its first purchase of 2011 today with acquisition of real estate management software developer Tririga. Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011, were not disclosed.
Tririga’s software helps clients make strategic planning decisions regarding space usage, evaluate alternative real estate initiatives, generate higher returns from capital projects, and assess environmental impact investments. IBM says that property and real estate typically represents the second-largest expense on a company’s income statement, after employee compensation. Tririga’s software helps companies streamlines and cut these expenses. → Read More
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