Saturday morning, i have come across two interesting articles on the Finantial Times Web.
First, on HP
The first on is on HP, and tell the news about an activist shareholder that is being introduced into the HP board, so as, to say, have the enemy close to you, rather than far away. There are better accounts of the turmoil in HPs board, and how a divided company, that cycles through its CEOs does loose, in the end shareholder value, despites its market acknowledge set of products.
More on the HP story, check out this newyorker stories link link
Second on IBM
We've recently learned that Warren Buffet has unveiled a strong position on IBM. That is 10.7 B$. With the proven record on how IBM has been managing the crisis, that is not surprise. But in the end, investors hardly look backwards when taking their decisions, and what Mr Buffet might have seen in the future of IBM must have been more decisive.
We cannot peek inside Mr. Buffet's brain, but FT journalists are making attempts on our behalf, in this article. What the FT jounalists "sees" is IBM strategy on cloud, and despite the fact they see hotter stocks in the cloud business that IBM, mostly in the consumer and rapidly expanding public cloud sector, they see the IBM's approach to private cloud in conjunction with IBM's strong relationship with its clients as key factors that will keep IBM as the "gold Standard in corporate IT".
It is clear that IBM's strategy is centered more on corporate clients than consumer, and that its cloud strategy reflects that. Though you cannot simply get on IBM's SmartCloud Enterprise Iaas and Paas Services with your credit card alone (IBM will make you sign a contract directly or via a Business Partner) the offering on the SmartCloud family caters well to small and midsize enterprise, regardless of its coming new "big brother" SmartCloud Enterprise+ designed for larger enterprises and as a backbone to its outsourcing operations.
The truth that partially escapes the FT journalist, and that ( hypothetically) Mr. Buffet advisors may have seen, is that IBM's cloud strength lies in a common architecture and products that span from the private implementations that the article refers to, to the public cloud for mid to large enterprise, and, ultimately, on the hybrid clouds that connect legacy or private clouds with public clouds.
What better than a common architecture to make that connection flow !
