On July 8, 2013, International Business Machines (NASDAQ: IBM), incorporated in 1911, acquired SoftLayer Technologies for $2 billion to expand its global cloud footprint and formed the IBM’s new cloud services division. On January 16, 2014, IBM made committed to further invest $1.2 Billion to offer cloud services from 40 data centers worldwide in 15 countries and five continents including North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia by opening 15 new centers worldwide adding to the existing global footprint of 13 global data centers from SoftLayer and 12 from IBM. Since its acquisition in 2013, IBM SoftLayer has served nearly 2,400 new cloud clients. Among the newest data centers to launch are Canada (Toronto), China, Hong Kong, India,  Japan, UK (London), USA (Dallas, Washington D. C.) and Mexico (Mexico City). 

The Key Competitors of IBM and SoftLayer in the Data Center and Cloud Computing space are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Corp, Rackspace Holdings with Google ramping up its offerings. In such a competitive marketplace, IBM expects to achieve $7 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2015 and increasing it year over year to continuously increase its its share of the global Cloud market estimated to be over $200 billion  by 2020 (Source: IBM Market Intelligence). IBM's revenue in 2012 was $104.5 billion.

Why organizations should migrate to the Cloud?

Cloud computing promises a transformative change in the way governments deliver services and the enterprises operate. The cloud enables organizations to grow beyond the caged environments of the brick and mortar of data centers and office complexes and empower the workforce to work anywhere - office, home or on the go and manage the work-life balance resulting in improved productivity and operational excellence to meet the new demands of the global economy that operates 24 x 7 x 365.

Why Optimize the Current Data Center(s)?

By improving efficiency in the data center(s), organizations in the public and private sectors can gain a strategic advantage. Learn the four key characteristics of an efficient data center...Watch the video and read the IBM Data Center Study that shows you how virtualization, optimization, and risk management affect data center efficiency, and how you can apply these best practices to your own data center.

SoftLayer's Technology Footprint

• Points of Presence: Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, New York City, Atlanta, Miami, London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Tokyo
  
• Single Data Center: Seattle, San Jose, Washington D.C., Amsterdam, Singapore
  
• Multiple Data Centers: Houston (2), Dallas (6)
  

Sample Network Diagram & Details of a Data Center Schema at SoftLayer
Source: SoftLayer

What's more for IBM?

On January 9, 2014, IBM announced that it will invest more than $1 billion into the Watson Group, a new business unit dedicated to the development and commercialization of cloud-delivered cognitive cognitive applications and services to market and including $100 million in venture investments to support an ecosystem of entrepreneurs developing Watson-powered apps. As part of the Global Cloud Data Centre initiative, IBM will also deploy Watson on SoftLayer.  

On January 15, 2014, SoftLayer, entered into a partnership with the game development studio KUULUU and world’s largest online game servers provider Multiplay to power widely popular games such as Battlefield 4 and RECHARGE via its cloud offerings . KUULUU tapped into SoftLayer’s cloud for higher performance and scale for their newest game created with Linkin Park, the most popular band on Facebook with 55 million followers, called RECHARGE, while Multiplay utilizes SoftLayer cloud to support the mega title Battlefield 4.

Putting It All Together

Since January 1, 2014, the Silicon Valley and the Silicon Alley have witnessed a total influx of $ 4.4. billion in investments into the home automation and cloud computing including $3.2 Billion of Google to acquire Nest Labs and $1.2 Billion of IBM to expand its global cloud footprint. At the CES 2014, Cisco predicted that the Internet of Everything could drive $14.4 trillion of potential value at stake for the private sector out of a $19 trillion opportunity for businesses and governments globally 2013-2022.

In 2013, IBM spent  $2 billion to acquire SoftLayer and GE invested $100 million into Pivotal Software, a company spinned-off by EMC and VMware, that is building a next generation Enterprise "Platform-As-A-Service"that will bring together big data, application programming, and the cloud architecture.. Prior to it, Google acquired Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion for in 2012. 

Is it the bouncing back of the Tech World? 

The Silicon Valley, the Silicon Alley, and the Silicon Wadi are at an inflection point to leverage the huge opportunities to harness the new innovation fueled by Mobile Computing, Cloud Computing, Social Media, and Big Data in the global markets and preparing themselves for the future demands on the Information and Communications Technology Ecosystems to support the global economy of over $72 trillion, out of which USA is leading the world with approximately $16 trillion followed by China at approximately $8 trillion and Japan at $6 trillion in the 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

What's in it for your organization?

The new cloud investments IBM is making will provide the organizations the ability to choose a cloud environment and location that best suits their business needs and provides visibility and transparency to where data resides (in-motion and at-rest), control of data security etc thereby addressing the concerns of national regulators and privacy acts in the markets in which its operates.  

I would love to hear from the blog readers as to what are the opportunities and challenges in the uptake of cloud and data center offerings from the likes of IBM, SoftLayer, AWS and how it is going to impact their organizational models, business processes, ICT budgets, workforce skill sets, information management, information security, privacy, and internal audit policies and standards.

About the Author

About IBM
International Business Machines Corporation was incorporated in the State of New York on June 16, 1911, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. (C-T-R), a consolidation of the Computing Scale Co. of America, the Tabulating Machine Co. and The International Time Recording Co. of New York. In 1924, C-T-R changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation. And it continues today.

Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 15 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio and it processes more the 5.5 million client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud. IBM expects to achieve $7 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2015. 

About SoftLayer Technologies, an IBM Company
SoftLayer was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is the cloud infrastructure provider of choice for companies building for Internet Scale that provides global, on-demand data center and hosting services from its 13 data centers. In 2013, IBM acquired SoftLayer for $ billion

“If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” – John D. Rockefeller

January 13, 2014 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) incorporated in California in September 1998, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs Inc, the Palo Alto based start-up founded in 2010 by Apple Inc . alums, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, and a maker of new category of smart thermostats and protect smoke alarms that can be controlled by an app via a smart phone or tablet, for $3.2 billion in cash. By acquiring it, Google gains a popular seller of connected home HVAC devices while getting data on the growing number of customers whose energy usage is tracked online.

“Google likes to know everything they can about us, so I suppose devices that are monitoring what’s going on in our homes is another excellent way for them to gather that information,” said Danny Sullivan, a longtime Google analyst and a founding editor of Search Engine Land. “The more they’re tied into our everyday life, the more they feel they can deliver products we’ll like and ads.”

CNBC's Jon Fortt reports Google will acquire Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in cash.

Nest’s backers include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Google Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Generation Investment Management LLP (Chairman Al Gore), Intertrust, and Venrock.  It raised a first round in May 2010, and an $80 million round in January 2013, according to DJX VentureSource. In May 2011, Google Ventures led Series B round of financing and in 2012, Series C, according to Tony Fadell in his blog. According to Reuters, KPCB made a return of 20 times on the $20 million it has put in over the years, for a return of around $400 million. Shasta Ventures, which invested at the same time as KPCB stands to make a similar rate of return on its investment...

Is Google Buying Nest Labs to Compete With Apple? Bloomberg’s Ari Levy and Jon Erlichman report on Google’s purchase of Nest Labs for $3.2 Billion and what’s next for the company. They speak to Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg)

The purchase is the third largest for Google, trailing behind $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. in 2012 and display-ad company DoubleClick, which cost slightly more at $3.24 billion in 2008. In addition to its Motorola unit, Google is designing wearable computing devices, including Google Glass computer eyewear. Google has also invested in software for laptop computers, driverless cars and televisions.

David Garrity of GVA Research weighs in on Google's acquisition deal for Nest Labs. "I think people are going to question to what extent they can actually monetize Nest Labs as quickly and as well as they may have monetized Motorola."

What can Nest Learning Thermostat do for my home? Meet the next generation thermostat. The Nest Learning Thermostat doesn’t need to be programmed — it remembers the temperature you set to build a personalized schedule. Nest turns itself down when you’re away to help save energy and you can change the temperature from anywhere using your smartphone, tablet or laptop.

What can Nest Protect: Smoke + Carbon Monoxide Alarm do for my home? It quiets down when you wave - no more swinging towels or brooms - and sends a message to your phone if the alarm goes off or the batteries run low. Instead of just chirping and howling at you, Nest Protect speaks with a human voice. It gives you a friendly Heads-Up before burning toast turns into an emergency, and tells you which room the smoke or CO is. Low-battery chirps ever rattle your dreams, Nightly Promise shows you its sensors and batteries are working before you doze off.

How much it costs?
The Nest thermostat costs $249 and the smoke detector is priced at $129 

Where to buy?
Home Depot, Lowe's, BestBuy, Amazon, Apple Store

What's next for Nest Labs Inc.?
Nest says that in 2014 the Nest Protect will integrate with wired security systems. This is not just a hardware play, though: this also sets up Nest as the single app that can act as a hub to run all your connected home devices. Though Nest is the first company that has created an end-to-end smart thermostat service, which offers the software, a gadget and a data-filled website, it also has to watch the competition in the the smart thermostat market from the likes of Opower, Honeywell, Radio Thermostat Company of America, EnergyHub, and EcoFactor, and other home automation companies such as Smart Home Automation VA.

Another interesting aspect is that Nest did all of the hosting of its solution on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and it will be interesting to see how quickly Google can put all this on Compute Engine, its public cloud. Nest, along with Snapchat, which already runs on Google, would be among its marquee customers.

Nest’s key technologies were described by Mr. Fadell in an interview in November 2013 as “communications, algorithms, sensors and user experience, running over a network to the cloud” and as such, it is just the beginning of a disruption in the home automation market.

What's in it for the market?
Though home automation is certainly in the lime light today; I believe that the next wave will be in the commercial and Industrial automation markets for office complexes, educational institutions, shopping malls, industrial warehouses, retail distribution centers, and factories in the next decade...An interesting space to watch and witness how Nest Labs Inc. could give a tough competition to the leading incumbent such as Honeywell or or it could act as an awakening call to the incumbents to assess how they transform their products, services, and solutions to position themselves for success in the Internet of Everything (IoE) Economy!!!

About the Author

About Google
Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information that 
was incorporated in California in September 1998 and reincorporated in Delaware in August 2003. It completed our initial public offering in August 2004 and our Class A common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “GOOG.”

Google's Motorola business is comprised of two operating segments. The Mobile segment is focused on mobile wireless devices and related products and services. The Home segment is focused on technologies and devices that provide video entertainment services to consumers by enabling subscribers to access a variety of interactive digital television services.

The Internet of Everything: People-to-People + People-to-Machine + Machine-to-Machine

The Internet of Everything (IoE) is a term that is coined by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), incorporated in California in December 1984, and it is simply the networked connection of people, process, data, and things that makes it more valuable and more relevant turning information into outcomes that matter to the customers and the shareholders. IoE includes three types of connections: 1) People-to-People (P2P),  2) People-to-Machine (P2M), and 3) Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and as such it allows convergence, orchestration, and insights across the previously stand-alone and disparate systems. Data-driven business agility is at the heart of the IoE Economy facilitating decision making for new kinds of innovations, business architectures and operating models.

Source: Cisco Systems

Watch the Keynote of John Chambers, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held from January 6-7, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada in which he along with Toni Vives, Deputy Mayor for Urban Habitat, Barcelona City Council, Spain, Ralph de la Vega, President and CRO, AT&T Mobility, and Rick Smolan, CEO, Against All Odds Productions (The Human Face of Big Data) shared how the IoE creates new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented economic opportunities for countries, enterprises, and individuals.

It is quite evident that that The Internet of Everything creates new relationships and opportunities and it is all about delivering the right information to the right people or machine at the right time.

Value Proposition of IoE for the Public Sector

According to Cisco Consulting Services, The Internet of Everything (IoE) could generate $4.6 trillion in value for the global public sector by 2022 through cost savings, productivity gains, new revenues and improved citizen experiences. Similar, it also predicts that the IoE could drive $14.4 trillion of potential value at stake for the private sector. All in all, Cisco estimates that IoE to be a $19 trillion opportunity for businesses and governments globally 2013-2022. The five main factors that fuel IoE Value at Stake are: 1) asset utilization (reduced costs) 2) employee productivity (greater labor efficiencies) 3) supply chain and logistics (eliminating waste) 4) customer experience (addition of more customers) and 5) innovation (reducing time to market).

In 2013, Cisco also conducted economic analysis and surveyed 7,500 business and IT professionals from private-sector firms in 12 of the largest economies to create the Internet of Everything Value Index. This index enabled Cisco to measure the actual value realized (VR) by companies in 2013 as a share of the potential value at stake (VAS) available, the more connected their businesses become as part of the Internet of Everything (IoE). _Listen to Jeff Loucks, Cisco Consulting talking about the the Internet of Everything Value Index

Rock-solid security (logical and physical) combined with privacy laws and policies will be the critical enabler of the Internet of Everything Economy. At the same time, a comprehensive set of government acts, laws, and regulatory frameworks needs to be developed to harness the potential of new models of interactions among government, enterprises, and individuals.

What does it mean for the market?
Focus on Cisco, the IoE ecosystem partners such as AT&T, IBM, and GE and the start-ups in the Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, European Union, and Silicon Wadi to witness how it will generate new streams of revenue through innovative products, services, and solutions to their clients and create a value for the angel investors, venture capital and private equity firms, crowdfunding industry, sovereign wealth funds, and institutional and individual shareholders in stock markets all around the world.

What does it mean for you?
IoE presents an important opportunity for countries, enterprises, and individuals to provide better services to the citizens, reduce operational costs, increase market share, gain competitive advantage, retain and grow customer base, increase profitability, offer delightful customer experiences, and improve the quality of life.

I would love to hear from the blog readers as to what are the opportunities and challenges for the uptake of the Internet of Everything in their context?

About the Author

About Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems is the world's largest supplier of networking equipment and systems, playing an important role in a wide variety of computing fields. The company was founded in December 1984 in San Francisco, California, by a pair of Stanford University computer engineers - Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner. The two named the company after a common nickname for San Francisco.

Cisco`s business is organized into the three geographic segments: The Americas; Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); and Asia Pacific, Japan, and China (APJC) and it designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol (IP) based networking and other products related to the communications and information technology (IT) industry and provide services associated with these products and their use.  Cisco`s products and technologies are grouped into the following categories: Switching; Next-Generation Network (NGN) Routing; Service Provider Video; Collaboration; Wireless; Data Center; Security; and Other Products.