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☆ IBM to Cut 3,900 Jobs Amid Broader Tech Slowdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Denny Jacob | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

IBM said its fourth-quarter revenue was $16.69 billion compared with $16.70 billion a year earlier. International Business Machines Corp. on Wednesday joined the wave of companies making layoffs, saying it would cut about 3,900 jobs. The cuts will stem from Kyndryl Holdings Inc., the IT services business that IBM spun off last year, and its healthcare divestiture, from which the company will incur about a $300 million charge, a spokesman confirmed.

☆ IBM Reports Flat Sales Amid Broader Tech Slowdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Denny Jacob | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

IBM said its fourth-quarter revenue was $16.69 billion compared with $16.70 billion a year earlier. International Business Machines Corp. on Wednesday posted flat sales after a strong U.S. dollar hurt its reported revenue by more than $1 billion. The information-technology company said exchange rates would improve in its favor in 2023. “We saw accelerating demand as we exited the year,” Chief Financial Officer Jim Kavanaugh said in an interview.

☆ Tech Chiefs Fear ‘Frankenstein’ Software Integrations
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Microsoft Corp. this month said it plans to incorporate AI into all of its enterprise software, while boosting its multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, the startup behind chatbot ChatGPT. That is a potentially costly process that can require overhauling existing enterprise tech stacks, or even hiring high-priced experts to manage new IT tools, analysts said. Hewlett Packard Enterprise this month said it acquired Pachyderm and would integrate new software tools into its enterprise-tech platform. HPE this month said it acquired Pachyderm, a San Francisco-based software startup, and would integrate the new software tools into its enterprise-tech platform. “Our existing customer base will want to know they won’t be forced to replace an existing technology they already buy,” Mr. Hotard said.

☆ IBM to cut 3,900 jobs - Bloomberg News
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Jan 25 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) will cut 3,900 roles, or about 1.5% of its global workforce, its chief financial officer, James Kavanaugh, told Bloomberg News in an interview on Wednesday. Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju SamuelOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Tesla, Chevron, ServiceNow, Levi Strauss, IBM and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Tesla — Shares rose 0.4% in volatile trading after the electric-vehicle maker reported earnings and revenue for the fourth quarter that beat analyst expectations. Chevron — Shares advanced 2.7% after the oil company announced a $75 billion stock repurchasing program. Levi Strauss — The denim company jumped 7% after its earnings and revenue for the fourth quarter came in above expectations. International Business Machines — IBM beat quarterly earnings and revenue forecasts, but the stock fell more than 2%. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected earnings of 46 cents per share on revenue of $3.72 billion.

☆ Global IT Spending Decreased in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

Companies worldwide made deep cuts in enterprise technology spending last year, with tighter information-technology budgets likely to stretch well into the year ahead. Global IT spending contracted 0.2% in 2022, dropping to $4.38 trillion—a rare instance of corporations spending less on digital business tools than in the previous year, according to IT consulting and research firm Gartner Inc.Gartner had initially estimated that IT spending had increased 0.8% last year. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Spending on business software and IT services is expected to remain steady year-over-year, together accounting for more than $2.16 trillion in projected spending in 2023, Gartner said. Within IT services, spending on consulting services alone is projected to reach $264 billion, up 6.7% from 2022, Gartner said.

☆ Cloudflare Takes Aim at a Top Security Threat: Your Inbox
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Belle Lin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

Cloud-infrastructure company Cloudflare Inc. announced Wednesday new email security capabilities aimed at helping businesses defend against phishing, malware and other cyberattacks commonly targeting corporate email accounts. It provides web performance, cybersecurity and other services to millions of customers, of which more than 156,000 pay for its services. Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare Photo: Cloudflare Inc.Chief Executive Matthew Prince said the new security functions are also in response to an increase in ransomware and other sophisticated cyberattacks, some of which are perpetrated by relatively unsophisticated hackers. Prince said, referring to the growth of so-called “ransomware-as-a-service,” where ransomware operators provide malware programs to affiliates to launch attacks. Prince said Cloudflare, which was itself a customer of Area 1 before pursuing an acquisition, has more closely integrated its existing cybersecurity services with Area 1’s email security platform.

☆ How Kellogg Uses Standardized Benchmarks to Boost Cost Savings
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Mark Maurer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Kellogg Co. is working to reap additional cost savings by relying more heavily on standardized performance benchmarks, a move that could prove particularly useful as the economy slows. Kellogg began using the benchmarks in 2019. WSJ: What led Kellogg to start using standardized benchmarks in 2019? Anytime we have a process change or process improvement, the process happens all over again. WSJ: How have you boosted efficiencies from using benchmarks?

☆ Cyber Chiefs Face Scrutiny and Challenges in 2023’s Uncertain Economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( James Rundle | Catherine Stupp | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

That leaves security teams, in real terms, working with fewer resources, Ms. Huth said. Inflation is pushing wage demands higher and the scarcity of cyber professionals—particularly within highly technical industries such as power—means security staff are in demand, Mr. Bojar said. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ Pro Cybersecurity Cybersecurity news, analysis and insights from WSJ's global team of reporters and editors. Cyber staffs will need to vet third-party services while installing safeguards against new avenues hackers could exploit, Kohler’s Ms. Huth said. Retail giant Amazon.com Inc. hopes to grow its security team, said Chief Security Officer Stephen Schmidt, despite a company-wide hiring freeze and layoffs for up to 10,000 workers elsewhere in the company.

☆ Southwest Meltdown Shows Airlines Need Tighter Software Integration
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Belle Lin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Southwest’s software wasn’t designed to solve problems of that scale, Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said Thursday, forcing the airline to revert to manual scheduling. Unlike some large rivals with hub-and-spoke networks, Southwest planes hopscotch from city to city, which may have been another complicating factor. Mr. Alamzad said the most serious IT challenge airlines face stems from the applications developed in silos by vendors or the airlines themselves. Southwest recently completed an upgrade of its new reservation system and had been working through multiyear upgrades to systems used in its operations. Other carriers have given priority to upgrading customer-facing reservations platforms and flier loyalty programs over operations systems, Mr. Alamzad said.

☆ Chatty AI and Protein-Predicting Algorithm Defined the Year in Emerging Tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

They also built supercomputers designed to handle the growing influx of data needed for evermore complex AI applications. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Using an AI algorithm called AlphaFold, the London-based lab said it had expanded its database of predicted protein structures to 214 million, up from 1 million as of December 2021, representing all proteins known to science, including proteins found in animals, plants, bacteria and other organisms. Though researchers say the commercial application of nuclear fusion likely remains years and perhaps decades away, the technology might one day help fight climate change. In March, Sandbox AQ, a software startup developing quantum-computing and artificial-intelligence tools for commercial use, officially spun off from Alphabet’s Google to become a stand-alone company.

☆ Tech Spending Pressures Fuel Demand for Specialized Industry Clouds
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. PREVIEWMost industry clouds began to hit the market early last year, in part sparked by demand for better healthcare data systems during the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. Though Oracle doesn’t break out revenue from industry cloud sales, its industry cloud offerings are a “multibillion-dollar business,” Mr. Sicilia said. Microsoft last year rolled out industry clouds for retail, financial services, manufacturing, sustainability and nonprofit businesses, according to Kees Hertogh, Microsoft’s general manager for global industry product marketing. A Microsoft-developed industry cloud helped Tarrytown, N.Y.-based MVP Health Care implement a system to streamline its healthcare data, according to CIO Michael Della Villa.

☆ Blockchain Fails to Gain Traction in the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Isabelle Bousquette | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Some companies say they haven’t found a compelling enough reason to use it. Many didn’t have digital record-keeping systems and had to make large upfront investments before they could start using blockchain, Walmart said. Walmart is using blockchain to track leafy greens and green bell peppers. Earlier this year, the state of Jharkhand in eastern India began using blockchain to track seed distributions to farmers.

☆ Cramer's lightning round: You can pick up some shares of IBM on Friday
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Loading chart...Oshkosh Corp : "I think it's a slow grower. Could be real interesting, though." Loading chart...International Business Machines Corp : "I think you can actually pick some up tomorrow." Loading chart...REX American Resources Corp : "I'm going to have to say ixnay on that one." Loading chart...Lightwave Logic Inc : "I do not know that stock."

☆ GE Healthcare Plans to Reduce Debt and Costs, Pursue Tuck-In Acquisitions
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Nina Trentmann | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

As a stand-alone company, GE Healthcare will also look to improve its working capital and lower logistics costs, Mr. Zodl said. GE Healthcare will also take a look at its real estate holdings and target over 100 sites, executives said. Ratings firms S&P Global Ratings, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service have all given GE Healthcare an investment-grade rating. PREVIEWApart from reducing debt and costs, GE Healthcare will scout for potential tuck-in acquisition targets, Chief Executive Peter Arduini said. GE retains a 19.9% stake in GE Healthcare.

Akin to lengthy nutrition labels, Amazon's so-called AI Service Cards will be public so its business customers can see the limitations of certain cloud services, such as facial recognition and audio transcription. The goal would be to prevent mistaken use of its technology, explain how its systems work and manage privacy, Amazon said. The cards would address AI ethics concerns publicly at a time when tech regulation was on the horizon, said Kearns. Amazon chose software touching on sensitive demographic issues as a start for its service cards, which Kearns expects to grow in detail over time. In 2019, Amazon contested a study saying the technology struggled to identify the gender of individuals with darker skin tones.

☆ Employers Rethink Need for College Degrees in Tight Labor Market
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Austen Hufford | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The tight labor market is prompting more employers to eliminate one of the biggest requirements for many higher-paying jobs: the need for a college degree. Companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Delta Air Lines Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. have reduced educational requirements for certain positions and shifted hiring to focus more on skills and experience. Maryland this year cut college-degree requirements for many state jobs—leading to a surge in hiring—and incoming Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro campaigned on a similar initiative.

☆ New CIO Wants Cisco to Be a Model for Hybrid Work
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Belle Lin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

Fletcher Previn, Cisco Systems Inc.’s new chief information officer, said he is working to help position the networking-equipment maker as a leader in hybrid work. Mr. Previn joined Cisco in 2021 as chief digital officer from International Business Machines Corp., where he was CIO. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Cisco CIO Fletcher Previn Photo: Cisco Systems Inc.An IBM veteran of more than a decade, Mr. Previn was named that company’s CIO in 2017. Enabling hybrid work should be a priority for CIOs because it can cut office costs while improving employee productivity, said Bobby Cameron, a principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc.“Priorities for the hybrid work environment continue to be digital tools for meetings and active collaboration,” Mr. Cameron said.

☆ U.K. Government Seeks Further Easing of Data Protection Rules
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Catherine Stupp | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

If U.K. data protection law strays too far from the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, however, an existing legal deal known as an adequacy agreement between the two jurisdictions could be jeopardized, privacy experts say. Relaxing some data rules could save the U.K. an estimated £12 billion, equivalent to $14 billion, each year, Mr. Rowland said. The U.K. has had two changes of government since data laws were proposed this summer. The EU officials who oversee the arrangement have said they could suspend the system if British data protection laws change too dramatically. The draft data protection legislation would loosen some aspects of the GDPR such as requirements for companies to obtain permission from individuals for their data to be tracked online.

☆ IBM Unveils New Chip in Push to Realize Quantum Computing’s Promise
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Isabelle Bousquette | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which represent and store information in a quantum state that is a complex mix of zero and one. Jerry Chow, IBM fellow and director of infrastructure for IBM Quantum, at the Watson Research Center. Since 2016, IBM has been putting their quantum computers on the cloud to enable companies, universities and individuals to experiment with the technology. Jerry Chow, IBM fellow and director of infrastructure for IBM Quantum, said the companies would be able to start using the Osprey chip in the first quarter of next year. Boeing Co. said it is using IBM’s quantum computers via the cloud to experiment with modeling chemical reactions related to corrosion on its aircraft.

☆ IBM launches its most powerful quantum computer with 433 qubits
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Jane Lanhee Lee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A computer rendering shows IBM's 433-qubits Osprey quantum processor, with more than three times the qubits of the IBM Eagle processor unveiled in 2021, in this undated handout image. The number of qubits, or quantum bits, are an indication of the power of the quantum computer which uses quantum mechanics, although different quantum computer companies make different claims about the power of their qubits which can be created many different ways. IBM is calling the modular system Quantum System Two. "Quantum System Two is the first truly modular quantum computing system so that you can continue to scale to larger and larger systems over time," Gil told Reuters ahead of the IBM Quantum Summit this week. IBM has over 20 quantum computers around the world, and customers can access them through the cloud.

☆ Top investors say it's foolish to ignore the value in tech stocks right now. What to buy and when
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +25 min

Schatz of Heritage Capital looks for what he calls "high-flier" or "second-tier" technology stocks severely battered this year but pushing higher. Playing defense When looking outside of big tech, investors may also want to consider looking out for more defense-focused names. His picks include IBM, which trades at just 14 times forward earnings and offers a sticky revenue base. Schatz of Heritage Capital looks for what he calls "high-flier" or "second-tier" technology stocks severely battered this year but pushing higher. His picks include IBM, which trades at just 14 times forward earnings and offers a sticky revenue base.

☆ 2 takeaways from our daily meeting: Semiconductors, Danaher's earnings beat
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a "Morning Meeting" livestream at 10:20 a.m. Sticking with our semiconductor strategy Semiconductor stocks climbed Thursday on the back of earnings beats from International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Lam Research (LRCX), with the broader market also rallying. Regardless, we don't regret our decision to trim our semiconductor stocks earlier this month. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB.

☆ With Interest Rates Rising, Companies Look to Unload Pension Liabilities
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Jennifer Williams-Alvarez | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Rising interest rates are boosting corporate pension plans, providing finance chiefs with an option to lighten their companies’ balance sheets and transfer obligations to insurers. PREVIEWWhen interest rates rise, liabilities for defined-benefit plans—a type of pension plan that promises fixed amounts to participants—shrink. They can also move just a portion of their pension obligations, but that still requires a high funding status. “If interest rates level off or decrease, the funded status could fall pretty quickly,” said Matt McDaniel, a partner at Mercer who advises companies on pension risk transfers. Recent stock market declines have hurt some defined-benefit pension plans invested in publicly traded equities, Mr. McDaniel said.

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☆ BlackBerry takes a knock as cybersecurity revenue drop clouds automotive demand
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A sign is displayed on the building Blackberry's offices in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, May 29, 2018. The company said in an earnings call that cybersecurity segment revenue in the third quarter is expected to be flat year-on-year. BlackBerry's QNX software is now embedded in over 215 million vehicles worldwide, helped by surging demand for electric vehicles and connected-car technologies. read moreTotal revenue fell 4% to $168 million for the quarter ended Aug. 31, compared with a consensus estimate of $166.7 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Excluding items, the company posted a loss of 5 cents per share, narrower than analysts' expectations of loss of 7 cents.

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