Data Center Companies, Brand Recognition

September 21, 2009 Dave Ohara

Stepping back to look at the top brands who run data centers, Interbrand has a report on the top brands.

Out of the top 25 brands, here are the companies who have a big data center presence.

Note the big movers in brand recognition, Google 25% and Apple 12%.

2

United States
Computer Services
60,211
2%

In this tough market, Big Blue’s revenue is at an all-time high. IBM received the most U.S. patents (more than 4,000) for the 16th year in a row, investing heavily in innovation as it continues its progression from a hardware provider to a software and services solutions brand. It is the market leader, with expanded presence in more than 170 countries and approximately 65 percent of revenue generated outside of the U.S. With an advertising channel on YouTube and announced plans for cloud computing, IBM effectively communicates its message to the masses.
3

United States
Computer Software
56,647
-4%

2009 marks the first year-on-year decline in Microsoft’s public history, despite a game console division that continues to be profitable. As the market matures, the giant faces stiff competition from faster, quicker rivals. In terms of browsing, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has dropped 10 percentage points in market share every two years, while Mozilla Firefox gains 10 percentage points in the same time period. Additionally, a US $300 million ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates could have fared better with audiences. However, Microsoft’s Bing, a new search engine that launched in June to great reviews, is poised to give Google a real run for its money.

7

United States
Internet Services
31,980
25%

Continued diversification of Google’s business, from new advertising models to online publishing, drives growth. The common theme is low price and high functionality with added transparency. Google Chrome is two times faster than competitors and stole browser market share equal to third- and fourth-placed competitors within 24 hours. This year, Google has continued to innovate. It released the Android phone software on September 2008, which involved disclosing the source code for the Google phone to engineers around the world. As the brand grows it has to deal with the inevitable mistrust and ugliness ascribed to being a very large, diversified, and very profitable company.

9

United States
Computer Hardware
30,636
-2%

In the fast-growing mobile computing market, Intel stands to find success. Determined to break into this category, the world’s number one chipmaker announced a partnership with the world’s number one handset maker in 2009. If it works, the Intel agreement with Nokia will put its latest chips into the hands of millions of customers. The line of chips, Atom, is meant to carry Intel into this higher growth market but has so far faced criticism for its cost and power consumption. However, Atom is finding success in the low-power, clutch size netbooks market. With an appeal toward more value conscious consumers in the midst of recession, netbooks have allowed Intel to stay both relevant and top of mind while it tries to crack the code on smaller mobile devices.

11

United States
Computer Hardware
24,096
2%

HP has surpassed Dell as the leading seller of PCs in the U.S., even with falling sales for the category. Overall globally, HP’s market share is also on the rise. A 20.5 percent increase follows last year’s acquisition of service-provider EDS. This year, HP also began a global review of its media holdings in Asia Pacific, with the focus on consolidating down to one, key, effective agency. In an increasingly price driven sector, HP is finding more way to successfully use its brand to stand apart.

14

United States
Computer Services
22,030
3%

Cisco is the leader in networking services but is still perceived as catching up in other parts of the computer services industry. It has a strong reputation for quality and reliability, boasting more than a quarter century in this relatively young industry. Its heavy investments in R&D, and its stated mission to innovate to customers’ needs, signal Cisco’s shift to become a broader provider of hardware and services, which should increase the role of its brand.

20

United States
Computer Hardware
15,433
12%

The recession won’t take a bite out of this Apple. Declining Mac sales and fears for the company’s future without brand visionary Steve Jobs, were outweighed by record high iPod sales, doubling sales for the iPod Touch, and all-time high market share for Mac OS software. Price might be a barrier for cost-conscious consumers, but Apple responded quickly with high margin, low-priced products like the US $99 iPhone and a new, voice-activated iPod Shuffle. The Apple brand is the most supported within its industry, and among the most iconic of relatively young brands in the world.

24

United States
Computer Software
13,699
-1%

Oracle has seen more category leadership as it beats out competitors in application sales and new software license revenues. With the recent purchase of Sun Microsystems, Oracle also acquired MySQL, and entered the hardware category. Its partnership with HP on a new database machine puts Oracle on track to steal market share from both Microsoft and IBM. As Oracle invests US $3 billion a year in R&D, its future success looks promising.

Intuit Acquires Mint, Greening its Personal Financial Services

September 14, 2009 Dave Ohara

I have used mint.com as friends and I discussed how it changes personal finance to be free and based in the cloud.

Now, I admit to being a bit biased to investigate this as I have friends who work at Intuit. Well this morning, Intuit announced its $170 million acquisition of Mint, so now it is all one company.

Intuit to swallow Mint for $170 million

by Don Reisinger

Financial software maker Intuit has signed an agreement to acquire personal finance service Mint.com for $170 million.

"With this transaction, Intuit will gain another fast-growing consumer brand and a highly successful Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that helps people save and make money," Intuit CEO Brad Smith said in a statement Monday. "This move will enhance Intuit's position as a leading provider of consumer SaaS offerings that connect customers across desktop, online and mobile."

TechCrunch reported the deal Sunday night, citing unnamed sources.

Mint, a start-up launched two years ago that tracks personal finance data, became a CNET Webware 100 winner in 2008 and again in 2009. It was also the 2007 winner of the TechCrunch50, which kicks off once again Monday in San Francisco.

It was a smart move for Intuit to acquire another brand that was completely cloud based personal finance services. One of the interesting differences is the demographics of Quicken vs. Mint.

Mint's features have apparently helped it attract a younger, more diverse demographic than Intuit's Quicken Online. Mint founder and CEO Aaron Patzer told CNET News last year that 40 percent of his company's users are women. He claimed Quicken's demographic was still "85 percent men." Assuming that's true, it would appear that Intuit can significantly expand its base with the Mint acquisition.

eBay’s Data Center Team Cross Pollinates, Recruits Sun’ Dean Nelson to Join

September 7, 2009 Dave Ohara

Cross Pollination is proven as effective method to adapt to change.

Cross pollination introduces the plant to different genes which causes the plant to be able to deal with weather changes easier. Also, with cross pollination the plant is more likely to not be extinct because if one plant dies because of the weather or predators the new genes make it possible that the plant can still survive

eBay was able to use this strategy in its data center group and recruited Sun’s Dean Nelson.

Data Center Pulse Founder Dean Nelson to

Lead eBay’s Global Data Center Strategy, Architecture and Operations

San Jose, Calif.—September 9, 2009— eBay today significantly strengthened the leadership of its data center operations, appointing veteran industry thought leader Dean Nelson as its senior director of global data center strategy, architecture and operations.

Dean brings not only his experience and relationship with Sun’s data center teams, but also the Data Center Pulse organization.

Nelson is the founder of Data Center Pulse, an exclusive group of more than 1,100 global datacenter owners, operators and users in 41 countries that influence the industry from the perspective of the end user. A long-time executive at Sun Microsystems, Nelson has distinguished himself with a long record of innovation managing the company’s global technical infrastructure portfolio.

As cross pollination has mutual benefits, Dean explains his views on leaving Sun.

A Geek In Training

The Sun Will Always Shine

I'm sure I will bore most of you with my historical ramblings, but today signifies a big change in my life. It is bitter sweet. I'm leaving the company that I have literally spent almost half of my life with.

…

My experience at Sun has been nothing but positive. Every one of my positions has been created from an internal need to solve a problem. Each has given me a new perspective in considering how I approach and solve these problems. They have also stretched my skills, got me out of my comfort zone and made me grow personally and professionally.

What part of eBay appealed to Dean?

When I returned I met up with two of eBay's executives, the VP or Operations and the Sr VP of Architecture. They articulated their strategy to reinvest in technologists to fuel the scale of their business. As I listed to their vision and what role I could play to help it come to fruition, I started getting excited. I had never truly appreciated the scale and impact of eBay. A huge population of people make their living on eBay. There are 88 million active users at any given point of the day - and the majority of the financial transactions that feed their 170 million listings, go through one of their companies - paypal. They have also weathered the economic meltdown and are one of the oldest founding internet companies. What resonated with me, was that their business lives and dies on the performance of their datacenters. I had understood this before, but not at this level. They are the epitome of Moore's law. They have an aggressive tech-refresh program that enables them to keep up with user demand. But with great consumption, comes great responsibility. I witnessed a significant commitment to energy efficiency and environmentally responsible data center management through their green team. Their datacenters are core to the business in more ways than one. Their latest blog entry, eBay's Sustainable Data Center, highlights this.

But after all the exciting conversations what I was most impressed with was how aligned and excited the leadership was. They have retooled the approach from the top down and inspired their employees. I felt the excitement, the energy and confidence in their future. They were experienced, focused, aligned and absolutely going after the market. I kept thinking to myself, that everyone I talked to seemed to be just like me - Geeks, excited by technology. I could see many of them burning up their own car radios when they were kids!

What I got excited to see is this part on Green Data Centers.

At Sun I was able to beat our carbon reduction goal 5 years in advance and achieving 25% of the new goal within the first 3 months of 2009. Green is Green as long as it is an integral part of your daily thinking. This seems to be the case at eBay.

There is more and more cross pollination in the industry as Google recruited Chris Malone from HP, Microsoft recruited Chris Belady from HP, Amazon recruited James Hamilton from Microsoft, Digital Realty Trust recruited Mike Manos from Microsoft, and Apple recruited Olivier Sanche from eBay.

Individual companies may think the migration of data center executives is disruptive to business. This migration is disruptive, but in a good way as those companies who can attract the best talent have the highest probability of adapting to the changes in the data center industry.

Keep in mind attracting top talent is about providing the right opportunities to solve good problems. Dean made this point when he left Sun the first time.

The only reason I left Sun in 2000 was the lack of another challenging project.

Green Data Center Degree Launched by IBM at Community College

September 2, 2009 Dave Ohara

Greener Computing has an article on IBM’s efforts to educate future data center staff.

ARMONK, NY — A new, two-year associate's degree from the Metropolitan Community Collegein Omaha, Neb., is being touted as the first of its kind to give students an intensive focus on designing and managing green data centers.
The program was launched today in cooperation with IBM, and will offer students coursework on virtualization and server consolidation, energy efficiency, security and compliance skills. The training center is built on IBM hardware, software and online training resources.

If you can’t make it Omaha, NB the degree is available for remote students.

The online component was developed between the MCC and IBM's Academic Initiative, a project that provides online training to more than 3,000 schools worldwide. As a result, the courses in MCC's green data center program will be offered online to remote students.

"We're seeing a dramatic increase in demand here in Nebraska for specialists who understand how to help companies reduce the costs associated with running an energy-intensive data center," said Tom Pensabene, Dean of Information Technology of Metropolitan Community College. "Now, our students are getting exposure to leading edge IBM technologies, increasing their chances of being hired for jobs in this growing area."
Among the courses on offer in the program are:

• Hardware, Disaster Recovery, & Troubleshooting;
• Introduction to Data Center Management;
• Virtualization, Remote Access, & Monitoring• Data Center Racks & Cabling;
• Building a Secure Environment;
• Applied Data Center Management;
• Networking Security; and
• Data Center Internship

The college we site for the degree is here.

AS/400 Technology for Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme, another reason to retire the old energy efficient hardware

August 14, 2009 Dave Ohara

If an energy efficient consultant had audited Bernard Madoff’s operations he would have found an AS/400 running. Here is an interesting tidbit on the Madoff Ponzi scam.

An AS/400 was critical to Madoff's Ponzi scheme

Computers don't steal, investment bankers do

By Nick Farrell

Friday, 14 August 2009, 12:41

AN ANCIENT IBM AS/400 was crucial to US investment swindler Bernard Madoff's cunning Ponzi scam whereby he made off with huge wodges of other people's cash.

According to a new book, "Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff", author Erin Arvedlund claims that Madoff could not have managed his elaborate fraud without his old clunker of a mid-range computer system.

The IBM AS/400 was used by him and select other employees to print out fake account statements. What they would do was punch in fake trades on the IBM AS/400 and enter share prices that would square with his consistent but imaginary returns on the billions that customers entrusted to his firm.

Central to the scam was that "no one touched" the computer but Madoff. But that would have been a safe bet as no one would want to get their paws on an ancient AS/400 unless they were a real enthusiast.

As one of the founders of the NASDAQ stock exchange, Madoff was one of the pioneers of Wall Street trading technology. If he could make his IBM AS/400 lie to his clientele then we can see why he was so keen on computers.

If you find old energy efficient hardware running in your data center and you are suspicious why they won’t upgrade and retire the old hardware, there is a chance someone who just like Madoff wants to keep the hardware for their own personal gains and their career.

I wonder if IBM could have virtualized the AS/400 instance onto new hardware, but then more people would have access to the system. Madoff would have stopped that energy efficiency change.