Displaying items by tag: IBM

IBM has reported a 2.5% decrease in revenues for the third consecutive quarter this year.

For the third quarter of 2020, the US tech company reported $17.6 billion compared to $18 billion in the corresponding quarter last year.

However, their net income experienced a slight increase, amounting to $1.7 billion due to the company’s cost-cutting strategies, according to the earnings report.

Shares were reportedly down by 2.6% in after-market trades however, it experienced some growth in its cloud computing business. In fact, IBM shares are down 6% since the beginning of the year.

The EU's powerful anti-trust authority cleared the buyout by IBM of open source software company Red Hat, one of the biggest tech mergers in history which the computing giant said would enhance its cloud offerings.

Qualcomm has joined AT&T, Nokia, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, Symantec and Trustonic as part of the IoT Cybersecurity Alliance formed earlier this year. The purpose of the group is to collaborate and pool together collective capabilities and resources to tackle emerging security challenges in the Internet of Things (IoT).

With over 1.5 billion IoT devices shipped using its chips, Qualcomm brings to the Alliance expertise in comprehensive security solutions rooted on hardware, for a wide array of edge devices including wearables, voice and music, connected cameras, robotics and drones, home control and automation, home entertainment, and commercial and industrial IoT.

“Robust IoT security needs to be built into the silicon that powers edge devices. A solid IoT security approach requires a combination of hardware-based security features tightly integrated with the software, communication protocols, applications and the cloud,” said Seshu Madhavapeddy, vice president, product management, IoT, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

“We are pleased to work with other members of the IoT Cybersecurity Alliance to support the IoT ecosystem, sharing best practices that help to protect consumers and businesses adopting IoT technologies,” Seshu added.

The IoT Cybersecurity Alliance brings together leading security providers and IoT experts to research and raise awareness of best practices for securing the growing IoT ecosystem. The Alliance’s mission is to advise businesses and their customers as well as to educate the industry on the cybersecurity measures needed to help create a safer IoT ecosystem that fosters collaboration and advances technologically secure IoT innovation.

Alliance members are raising awareness around IoT security at the endpoint, network, cloud and application layer, using overarching threat analytics to study the IoT ecosystem. The Alliance advocates for an “always-on” security approach.

Tech firms including IBM and Red Hat were among many companies in attendance at a two-day presentation about US President Donald Trump’s plan to build a digital system that uses data mining to implement “extreme vetting” to screen immigrants arriving in the United States.

The industry day, hosted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations department in Arlington, Virginia, was held from 18-19 July, The Intercept reported. Companies in attendance showed their interest in helping to build the system which Trump promised to deliver during his campaigning for the 2016 presidential election.

The President recently said that legal immigration to the US would be cut by half. Trump suffered a setback when his 90-day ban on entry for people from seven mainly Muslim majority countries was blocked by the courts. Under a new modified version that was later passed, Iraq was removed from the list of countries, while Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan remain.

The current vetting practices in the US is said to be insufficient, according to a document from ICE, The Intercept reported. It fails to evaluate whether a prospective immigrant would likely engage in criminal behavior or terrorist activity. The practices are described as being “fragmented across mission areas and are both time-consuming and manually labor-intensive due to complexities in the current US immigration system.”

To replace this, the government is seeking a system that “automates, centralizes, and streamlines the current manual vetting process while simultaneously making determinations via automation if the data retrieved is actionable” so that it can “implement the president’s various executive orders that address American immigration and border protection security and interests.”

The FBI attempted to build a similar system some years ago which failed to proceed because of opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union, an attendee reportedly pointed out. In response, ICE officials said a move against non-citizens would be less likely to be opposed by civil liberties groups.

The company that wins the contract to build the new vetting system will “analyze and apply techniques to exploit publicly available information, such as media, blogs, public hearings, conferences, academic websites, social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, radio, television, press, geospatial sources, internet sites, and specialized publications with intent to extract pertinent information regarding targets, including criminals, fugitives, non-immigrant violators, and targeted national security threats and their location.”

Gartner, Inc. unveiled its top global 100 vendors in IT in 2016 list based on their revenue across IT (excluding communication services) and component market segments. In the Gartner Global Top 100: IT vendor, Apple was the largest vendor with more than $218 billion in IT revenue — approximately $79 billion larger than the No. 2 vendor, Samsung.

For the first time, Gartner published a ranking of the top 100 largest tech companies in the world based on estimates for their revenue across IT (excluding communication services) and component market segments. Technology business leaders can use the Gartner Global Top 100: IT to benchmark competitive performance against a shift from the Nexus of Forces (the convergence of social, mobility, cloud and information that drive new business scenarios) to digital business as the driver of IT purchasing.

"The needs of IT buyers are shifting. CEOs are focused on growth and are more focused on realizing business outcomes from their IT spend," said John-David Lovelock, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "The Nexus of Forces has been the focus of attention for many years; however, the impact of digital business is giving rise to new categories."

The top three vendors (Apple, Samsung and Google) can attribute much of their size to their solid alignment with the Nexus of Forces, according to Gartner. Microsoft was a large and influential company when the Nexus of Forces began, having grown to market leadership during the web and e-business phase, and has managed to pivot to remain relevant.

IBM gained its size and market dominance in the very earliest IT markets when servers, storage and consulting services dominated, according to Gartner. The need for these devices and services, along with mobile phones and PCs will remain — cloud will underpin all digital business initiatives — but they will become more commoditized and less of a driver for new projects and spending.

As enterprises increasingly digitalize their products and services, digital giants (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) can become involved in, or even take over, the digital experience. Gartner predicts that by 2021, 20 percent of all activities an individual engages in will involve at least one of the top seven digital giants.

"Digital giants effectively become gatekeepers for any business that delivers digital content and services to consumers," said Mr. Lovelock. "Any company that wants to engage consumers in, or through, their digital world will have to consider engaging with one or more of these digital giants."

The focus of the digital giants has mainly been in the consumer, citizen and employee world. Because the digital giants have not yet been as focused on business to business (B2B), there is an opportunity for other companies to take the lead.

"In the B2B world of selling technology solutions to large enterprises, some of the digital giants have already had significant impact," said Mr. Lovelock. "For example, Amazon Web Services' cloud is disrupting enterprise hardware and software businesses dramatically. Apple's iOS devices are dominant within enterprise mobility, and Google's presence beyond search into browsers, cloud office and more is growing."

Zain, Kuwait’s leading telecommunications company, today announced their collaboration to launch a new cloud disaster recovery service that will provide IBM and Zain’s enterprise customers with cloud-based business continuity capabilities and faster disaster recovery of their critical IT systems, without incurring the infrastructure expense of a second physical site. Through the new service, customers will benefit from the added flexibility of keeping their data in-country on IBM Cloud.

The disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) market size in the Middle East is $100.64 million and is expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 44.8 percent through 2021. The Middle East region is experiencing a significant increase in DRaaS adoption due to the increasing number of cyberattacks and other data threats like security breaches, software and hardware failures, and power outages, according to MarketsandMarkets.

The new cloud disaster recovery service will help protect IBM and Zain customers against data loss from their own servers or from other cloud services, and can maintain readiness without the need to invest in additional physical space or stand-by hardware. The service will provide replication of critical applications, infrastructure, data and systems to IBM Cloud so customers can recover from an IT outage within minutes.

Amr Refaat, General Manager, IBM Middle East and Pakistan, commented: “Unplanned downtime or data loss is a risk any business can face. Not only can this lead to business loss but present a threat to a company’s reputation amongst its customers, stakeholders, and the wider public. Having a resiliency plan in place should play an integral part in every business. Through the new cloud disaster recovery service, IBM and Zain customers can run their operations at ease, while we provide around-the-clock monitoring of the recovery environments.”

“Today’s announcement comes as part of our vision to transform Zain into a digital lifestyle provider," said Zain Kuwait’s Chief Executive Officer Eaman Al Roudhan. “The business needs of our corporate customers are continuously changing, and offering them innovative solutions to help maintain resiliency is a top priority for us.”

The cloud disaster recovery team will monitor developing disaster events 24/7 and help ensure that the infrastructure of IBM and Zain customers is equipped to handle the latest threats to keep data, applications and transactions secure. The new service will also enable customers to adjust and customize their resiliency strategies to their own requirements to optimize recovery time.

The new service underscores IBM’s expanding business continuity and resiliency services portfolio. In today’s “always-on” world, IBM offerings like DRaaS and Cloud Resiliency Orchestration are built to simplify and automate the disaster recovery process, increase workflow efficiency, and reduce risk, cost, and system testing time for clients around the world. With more than 50 years of business continuity and disaster recovery experience, today IBM has over 300 resiliency centers across 68 countries.

Zain’s strategy of being a sustainable digital communications company has long focused on the customer experience and using technology to create more value for the customer. The launch of this service is one of the major steps in the company’s strategic plan to introduce more distinctive digital services dedicated to corporate and enterprise customers.

Cisco and IBM Security have announced they are working together to address the growing global threat of cybercrime. In a new collaboration, Cisco and IBM Security will work closely together across products, services and threat intelligence for the benefit of customers.

Cisco security solutions will integrate with IBM’s QRadar to protect organizations across networks, endpoints and cloud. Customers will also benefit from the scale of IBM Global Services support of Cisco products in their Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offerings.

The collaboration also establishes a new relationship between the IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos security research teams, who will begin collaborating on threat intelligence research and coordinating on major cybersecurity incidents.

One of the core issues impacting security teams is the proliferation of security tools that do not communicate or integrate. A recent Cisco survey of 3,000 chief security officers found that 65 percent of their organizations use between six and 50 different security products. Managing such complexity is challenging over-stretched security teams and can lead to potential gaps in security.

The Cisco and IBM Security relationship is focused on helping organizations reduce the time required to detect and mitigate threats, offering organizations integrated tools to help them automate a threat response with greater speed and accuracy.

“In cybersecurity, taking a data-driven approach is the only way to stay ahead of the threats impacting your business,” said Bill Heinrich, Chief Information Security Director, BNSF Railway. “Cisco and IBM working together greatly increases our team’s ability to focus on stopping threats versus making disconnected systems work with each other. This more open and collaborative approach is an important step for the industry and our ability to defend ourselves against cybercrime.”

Integrating threat defenses across networks and cloud

The cost of data breaches to enterprises continues to rise. In 2016, the Ponemon Institute found for companies surveyed the cost was at its highest ever at $4 million - up 29 percent over the past three years.

A slow response can also impact the cost of a breach –incidents that took longer than 30 days to contain cost $1 million more than those contained within 30 days. These rising costs make visibility into threats, and blocking them quickly, central to an integrated threat defense approach. 

The combination of Cisco’s best-of-breed security offerings and its architectural approach, integrated with IBM’s Cognitive Security Operations Platform, will help customers secure their organizations more effectively from the network to the endpoint to the cloud.

As part of the collaboration, Cisco will build new applications for IBM’s QRadar security analytics platform. The first two new applications will be designed to help security teams understand and respond to advanced threats and will be available on the IBM Security App Exchange.

These will enhance user experience, and help clients identify and remediate incidents more effectively when working with Cisco’s Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), Next-Generation Intrusion Protection System (NGIPS) and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and Threat Grid.

In addition, IBM’s Resilient Incident Response Platform (IRP) will integrate with Cisco’s Threat Grid to provide security teams with insights needed to respond to incidents faster. For example, analysts in the IRP can look up indicators of compromise with Cisco Threat Grid's threat intelligence, or detonate suspected malware with its sandbox technology. This enables security teams to gain valuable incident data in the moment of response.

“Cisco’s architectural approach to security allows organizations to see a threat once, and stop it everywhere. By combining Cisco’s comprehensive security portfolio with IBM Security’s operations and response platform, Cisco and IBM bring best-of-breed products and solutions across the network, endpoint and cloud, paired with advanced analytics and orchestration capabilities,” said David Ulevitch, SVP and general manager, Cisco Security.  

Threat intelligence and managed services

IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos research teams will collaborate on security research aimed at addressing the most challenging cybersecurity problems facing mutual customers by connecting their leading experts. For joint customers, IBM will deliver an integration between X-Force Exchange and Cisco’s Threat Grid. This integration greatly expands the historical and real-time threat intelligence that security analysts can correlate for deeper insights. 

For example, Cisco and IBM recently shared threat intelligence as part of the recent WannaCry ransomware attacks. The teams coordinated their response and researchers exchanged insights into how the malware was spreading. They continue to collaborate on the investigation to ensure joint customers, and the industry have the most relevant information.

Through this expanded collaboration, IBM’s Managed Security Services team, which manages security for over 3,700 customers globally, will work with Cisco to deliver new services aimed at further reducing complexity. One of the first offerings is designed for the growing hybrid cloud market. As enterprise customers migrate security infrastructure to public and private cloud providers, IBM Security will provide Managed Security Services in support of Cisco security platforms in leading public cloud services.

Dubai Police in the UAE has formally inducted a robot cop into the force. The uniformed ‘Robocop’ is able to read human faces and identify potential threats. Citizens can report a crime to the robot, submit paperwork, or pay fines for traffic violations via a touch screen on its chest. The Dubai Police worked with Watson, IBM’s AI system, on voice command recognition.

There are distinctive advantages to having non-humans on police patrol, Dubai Police told Reuters: “These kinds of robots can work 24/7. They won’t ask you for leave, sick leave or maternity leave. It can work around the clock.”

The specialized REEM robot, standing at 5 feet 6 inches high, was designed by Spanish company PAL Robotics, with its mission as “Leading humanoid robotics for the real world.” The company has been developing humanoid robotic solutions since 2004. The prototype was unveiled last year at the annual Dubai-based GITEX electronics trade show.

The Government of Dubai says it’s optimistic about the potential of future robot models to take a more hands-on approach in the police force. The Dubai Police department says it aims to have 25 percent of its police force composed of robot officers by the year 2030.

Speaking to Gulf News, Brigadier Khalid Nasser Al Razouqui, the General Director of Dubai Police’s Smart Services Department, said: “We are looking to make everything smart in Dubai Police. By 2030, we will have the first smart police station which won’t require human employees.”

The government has plans over the next two years for the “world’s largest robot” which can run at 80kmp.The future robot will stand at 3 meters tall and will carry heavy equipment and will be maneuvered by a police officer seated in a cabin inside. An egg-shaped robot will be used in parking areas to issue warnings about traffic violations, and self-driving motorcycles could also be sent out.

IBM and Salesforce announced a global strategic partnership to deliver joint solutions designed to leverage artificial intelligence and enable companies to make smarter decisions, faster than ever before. 

With the partnership, IBM Watson, the leading AI platform for business, and Salesforce Einstein, AI that powers the world’s #1 CRM, will seamlessly connect to enable an entirely new level of intelligent customer engagement across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. IBM is also strategically investing in its Global Business Services capabilities for Salesforce with a new practice to help clients rapidly deploy the combined IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein capabilities.

The partnership will bring new insights from Watson directly into the Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform, combining deep customer insights from Salesforce Einstein with Watson's structured and unstructured data across many sources and industries including weather, healthcare, financial services and retail. Together, Watson and Einstein will ingest, reason over and derive recommendations to accelerate decision making and drive greater customer success.

“Within a few years, every major decision—personal or business—will be made with the help of AI and cognitive technologies,” said Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive officer, IBM. “This year we expect Watson will touch one billion people—through everything from oncology and retail to tax preparation and cars. Now, with today's announcement, the power of Watson will serve the millions of Salesforce and Einstein customers and developers to provide an unprecedented understanding of customers."

"The combination of Einstein and Watson will make businesses smarter and our customers more successful," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce. “I'm thrilled to form an alliance with IBM—no company’s core values are as close to Salesforce’s as IBM’s. It’s the best of both worlds.”

IBM and Salesforce announced a global strategic partnership to deliver joint solutions designed to leverage artificial intelligence and enable companies to make smarter decisions, faster than ever before. 

With the partnership, IBM Watson, the leading AI platform for business, and Salesforce Einstein, AI that powers the world’s #1 CRM, will seamlessly connect to enable an entirely new level of intelligent customer engagement across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. IBM is also strategically investing in its Global Business Services capabilities for Salesforce with a new practice to help clients rapidly deploy the combined IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein capabilities.

The partnership will bring new insights from Watson directly into the Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform, combining deep customer insights from Salesforce Einstein with Watson's structured and unstructured data across many sources and industries including weather, healthcare, financial services and retail. Together, Watson and Einstein will ingest, reason over and derive recommendations to accelerate decision making and drive greater customer success.

“Within a few years, every major decision—personal or business—will be made with the help of AI and cognitive technologies,” said Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive officer, IBM. “This year we expect Watson will touch one billion people—through everything from oncology and retail to tax preparation and cars. Now, with today's announcement, the power of Watson will serve the millions of Salesforce and Einstein customers and developers to provide an unprecedented understanding of customers."

"The combination of Einstein and Watson will make businesses smarter and our customers more successful," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce. “I'm thrilled to form an alliance with IBM—no company’s core values are as close to Salesforce’s as IBM’s. It’s the best of both worlds.”