TheInfoPro

High Profile Breaches and Mobile Devices are key spending drivers according to a report authored by Daniel Kennedy, former Wall Street Chief Information Security Officer and now Research Director for Information Security at TheInfoPro

NEW YORK, November 17, 2011 – TheInfoPro, a division of leading analyst and data company The 451 Group, recently released the findings from its bi-annual study of the Information Security market, where the source of the data is in-depth, one-on-one interviews with over 150 decision-makers in the Global 2000. Key findings include: …

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Written by Peter ffoulkes, Research Director for Servers

Oracle claims some impressive world-beating benchmarks for its new T4 SPARC processor-based systems, and despite the fact that some contest the validity of those claims, the overriding question is, will it actually matter?

Originally published as a ThursdayTIP to the respondent network of TheInfoPro. Would you like to receive all of the ThursdayTIPs the minute they are released on a complimentary basis? Then join TheInfoPro’s respondent network.

Historically, the success of processor architectures has been dependent upon the support of independent solution provider (ISV) applications. Much of Sun Microsystems’ early growth can be attributed to the “thud factor” of its telephone directory-sized “Catalyst” ISV catalog.

With 40% of respondents planning less spending on RISC processors, the same number planning less spending on Unix, and 29% citing Solaris as the primary casualty of Linux growth (four times more than other Unix variants), it is not clear how many general-purpose applications will be left for Oracle to benchmark going forward.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was very explicit in the Sept. 20 earnings call Q&A: “We have no interest in selling other people’s IP. We have interest in selling systems that include our IP. That’s how we’re going to drive the profitability of our overall hardware business.”

With industry adoption of converged infrastructure platforms (that Oracle brands as “engineered systems”) still uncertain, it is not yet clear whether the company’s focus on end-to-end Oracle IP will be sufficient to maintain adequate market momentum behind the SPARC/Solaris platform, regardless of its claimed or actual technological merits.

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Written by Peter ffoulkes, Research Director for Servers

Originally published as a ThursdayTIP to the respondent network of TheInfoPro. Would you like to receive all of the ThursdayTIPs the minute they are released on a complimentary basis? Then join TheInfoPro’s respondent network.

In the technology world, it is frequently expressed that change is the only constant. Oracle’s Sun server business looks as though it could be heading for a supernova (Thursday’s TIP, July 14), creating opportunity for the other big dogs in the server market. Hewlett-Packard is clearly a contender for that business and generally receives favorable reviews from TheInfoPro’s peer community.

As expressed by one respondent from a large enterprise in the financial sector, “HP has great technical innovation, and the quality is outstanding. HP has been a great partner; they seem to have our needs at heart. They are always looking for opportunities for us that will generate new business for them. The biggest weakness for HP is that I honestly think they are a little disorganized internally.”

Speculation about HP’s future has been rampant since Aug. 19’s 26% drop in the company’s stock price. The drop resulted from multiple factors: CEO Leo Apotheker’s surpise announcement that HP plans to acquire U.K. software company Autonomy; its plans to stop production of the HP TouchPad and webOS; and its intention to explore “strategic alternatives” for its personal computer division, including full or partial separation from HP through a spinoff or other transaction. Rumors circulated of a possible takeover, with Oracle chairman Larry Ellison and HP’s former CEO Mark Hurd leading the way.

The outstanding question is, how will the uncertainty about HP’s future affect spending plans against a background of rapidly decreasing confidence in the U.S. and global economy?

Even before last week’s news, Dell was the only hardware vendor to exceed the average levels for 2011 spending plans in TheInfoPro’s Server Wave 10.

The data shows large enterprises spending less with IBM, HP and Oracle in 2011 vs. 2010, which is counter to how they spent with all three in 2010 vs. 2009. Future economic concerns combined with uncertainty about strategic direction may be enough to tilt the balance of decision-makers’ sentiment further in Dell’s direction.

• “We will look at Dell. Most people say they’re 18-24 months behind HP, but their pricing can be compelling. We’re not interested in ripping out all HP gear and replacing. When we build out a new data center, we’ll take a good, hard look. What we have is working; we’re happy with it.” – server pro at a large-enterprise industrial/manufacturing company
• “Dell has a good product line, and they are still pretty innovative. They are always competitive, and the pricing is excellent. It’s still a great value for the money. We get the same quality and performance for half the price of a similar HP product. We get more respect from the tech support at Dell than we ever would at HP.” – server pro at a large-enterprise financial sector company

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Written by Peter ffoulkes, Research Director for Servers

Originally published as a ThursdayTIP to the respondent network of TheInfoPro. Would you like to receive all of the ThursdayTIPs the minute they are released on a complimentary basis? Then join TheInfoPro’s respondent network.

Despite Oracle’s very bullish announcement of its first $10 billion quarter June 23, server pros are decidedly unimpressed. Oracle’s Q4 numbers reinforce the results of TheInfoPro’s Server Wave 10, which showed nearly half of respondents considering switching to a competitor: 49% yes, 17% maybe, 34% no.

Oracles’s Q4 FY 2011 Results:

• The Good: Revenue $10.8 billion, 48% operating margin
• The Bad: Hardware revenue down 6% to $1.2 billion, 11% of total, down 2% year-over-year
• The Ugly: Constant currency hardware results down 11% year-over-year

The Rhetoric: Oracle’s Great Expectations for Sun, a Message for Server Pros
President and CFO Safra Catz: “We clearly exceeded even our own high expectations for Sun’s business, which we are running on a more profit-aware model, focused on selling value-added systems where Sun’s differentiation is very clear. This shows up in our hardware gross margins, which were 56% this quarter compared with 46% last year.”

Oracle President Mark Hurd: “Our Exadata and Exalogic systems made a strong contribution to our growth in Q4. Today there are more than 1,000 Exadata machines installed worldwide. Our goal is to triple that number in FY ’12.”

The Server Pro’s Perspective: Not-so-great Expectations
“Oracle is very difficult to do business with. We always thought Sun appreciated us as a customer, and now I’m not sure they even care if we stay on board.”

“The service stinks! Oracle is too big to care!!!! They are the big dogs; it is their way or the highway, and I am choosing the highway. Please – is there anyone else we can use? These guys are the worst! Oracle as a company is impossible to do business with. Oracle has bulldozed the people from Sun. What a shame that Oracle took over Sun.”

”Since Oracle has not supplied a roadmap in over two years for Sun, IBM wins by default.”

“Oracle is a pain on so many levels. The Oracle hardware division has only sold me one server since March. They will not do an assignment of PO to a third party. It takes months to do a turnaround. If I need support, we have to go through the sales rep to pester support.”

“Oracle has me pretty pissed off right now.”

Greetings! This is my first Thursday TIP as TheInfoPro’s new Research Director for Servers and Virtualization. I’m Peter ffoulkes – not a typo, it’s a Welsh language thing – and a copy editor’s nightmare.

As a server pro, you may be interested in which vendors your peers are considering as an alternative to Oracle as a server supplier. At the end of 2010, Hewlett-Packard and IBM (in alphabetical order) showed fairly strongly.

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By: Jeffrey Burt
15 December 2009 | eWEEK | Original Article

HP, which has been aggressive in enticing Sun customers, is partnering with operating systems makers Microsoft, Novell and Red Hat in its efforts. …

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