IBM Using Chocolate to Capture African Market

Agam Shah, IDG News Service, Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:10 PM PDT

Lured by the sweet taste of chocolate, IBM hopes to use the cocoa plant as an avenue to improve its business prospects in the emerging economies of Africa.

The company views Africa as a growing region, where it recently invested US$120 million to build the region's infrastructure over two years. It also opened a cloud-computing center in Johannesburg this week, the first such center in Africa.

The company's scientists are now going after the heart of Africa's economic problems, launching an effort to crack the genome of cocoa, a plant that forms the livelihood for many people, especially in parts of West Africa. The scientists are trying to understand the genetic makeup of the cocoa genome that could make it more resistant to droughts and pests, which could lead to a steady crop and contribute to Africa's economies.

"Cocoa is an important crop in Africa. If you can increase the yield, you generate more product and you can increase the income of farmers," said Isidore Rigoutsos, manager of the bioinformatics and pattern discovery group at IBM Research.

Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon were the top producers of cocoa in Africa in 2007, according to the World Cocoa Foundation.

IBM is trying to help humanity, which is not a bad thing, but it may also be trying to market its Blue Gene supercomputer through this effort, said Joe Clabby, president of Clabby Analytics.

"There is always an attempt by computer manufacturers to prove that they are the bigger, badder computer maker on the block. Blue Gene is a monster in doing these 'what-if' calculations," Clabby said.

IBM is also following the money, Clabby said. It is looking to grow in emerging markets and expects a long-term return on investment by putting applied computing resources in the region, Clabby said.

Africa supplies about 70 percent of the world's cocoa, and understanding the genome could help improve the crop, which could help build Africa's economies, Rigoutsos said. Africa's emerging economies represent a big business opportunity for IBM, and the company is investing heavily to build the region's infrastructure, an IBM spokeswoman said.

While mapping the cocoa genome is easy, the challenge is to understand the genome patterns that give the crop its properties, like flavor and resistance to pests, Rigoutsos said.

IBM can map the cocoa genome -- which contains about 400 million DNA bases -- in a few months. After that, it hopes to use data-mining techniques to gather data subsets that could be used to understand and assign properties, Rigoutsos said.

Understanding the properties may take years, just like the human genome, Rigoutsos said

The human genome has about 3 billion DNA bases, eight times larger than the cocoa genome, Rigoutsos said. Though mapping the entire human genome was a challenge, defining a human's properties by understanding the data subsets is turning out to be a larger challenge.

"The question is to make sense of what the letters are telling you. The more data you start with is better. Since you don't have a model to start, you start with a lot of observable data. We may be dealing with ... thousands of varieties of cocoa," Rigoutsos said.

The project, done with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. chocolate manufacturer Mars, will last five years.

Beyond building IBM in Africa, the project is bringing the use of software and biotechnology together, Rigoutsos said. It will help develop generic data-mining and analysis techniques that could be applied to map other genomes.

Earlier projects like the discovery of the human genome had limited computational capability and scientists didn't have enough technological knowledge, Rigoutsos said. Faster hardware and more cross-trained scientists familiar with technologies like data mining should make it quicker for IBM to achieve its goals in the project.

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CIOs just say no to iPhone, Vista

Nick Wingfield, The Wall Street Journal

Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi published the results of a May survey of 105 U.S. and European chief information officers this morning with some interesting tidbits on how big businesses are looking at some big-name products. 

IPhone: Apple lately has made a lot of noise about beefed-up support in the iPhone for Microsoft’s Exchange email server, security and other corporate-friendly features. But Bernstein found that only 2% of CIOs plan on actively deploying iPhones within their organizations over the next year. “If this persists, it may ultimately limit iPhone penetration into the corporate space even though Apple has added Microsoft Exchange support,” Sacconaghi concludes in his report.

There’s a silver lining, of sorts, though: 10% of the survey’s CIOs currently support iPhones that employees buy on their own nickle, with that figure rising to 25% over the next 12 months.

Vista: CIO enthusiasm for Microsoft’s much-maligned Windows Vista operating system has “materially deteriorated” due to lower appreciation for its security and productivity features, Sacconaghi says. Only 10% of respondents said they had begun to upgrade to Vista, down from 16% in November and 30% in May of last year. Less than 20% of CIOs agreed that Vista would deliver productivity and security improvements, down from more than 35% in Bernstein’s prior two surveys on the topic.

Overall, Bernstein’s survey of CIOs, all of whom were with global 1000 companies with average annual revenues of $3.6 billion, indicates IT spending growth this year will be 3.1%, down from 3.8% growth in 2007.

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For what IT’s worth

By: Stephen Kelly, CPIFinancial 

Tough times call for tough decisions and when it comes to cutting costs, managers need to know what really pays the bills. Stephen Kelly calls on businesses in the financial sector to acknowledge the real value of software assets

"In a time of heightened financial anxiety, the integral role of IT and the effective investments in these key technology assets have never been of more importance." 

During 2007, the global economy has become increasingly volatile. Despite the M&A market still flourishing after the boom of 2006, the level of regulation and corporate governance has risen dramatically and the world’s financial markets have become increasingly shaky in recent months. All this adds up to the fact that global organisations are under more scrutiny than ever before, meaning all assets are constantly being revalued and reassessed in order to optimise market value. 

Yet, despite financial institutions striving to get the most accurate assessment of the value of their business, they are ignoring one of the most valuable aspects and one of the most critical assets of their day-to-day business. Their IT. 

Over the past 20 years, financial organisations of all sizes have become totally dependent on their IT, not only to help them get by on a daily basis, but also to record every transaction and piece of data processed within the business. However, despite this huge reliance, IT assets are, on the whole, totally ignored or poorly evaluated compared with other assets such as brand, property and intellectual property. 

Recent research of chief information officers (CIO) and chief financial officers at global organisations, of which financial services comprised 20 percent of respondents, with turnovers of up to $10 billion, revealed that only 9 per cent think that the real financial value of core software assets is properly assessed compared with these other assets. 

Even on its own, this is an alarming statistic. But when one considers that the same research discovered that over 75 per cent of companies deem these core software assets to be critical to their business strategy, it is staggering that they do not attribute any value to them. 

Information technology has become a key strategic tool in enterprise today with chief executives and chief financial officers alike using the data gleaned from their respective systems to help make corporate decisions on how to develop the company. And increasingly, market leading companies are achieving competitive advantage by linking effective technology to other business imperatives such as customer satisfaction. So for financial organisations to not recognize the value of IT, especially in this time of financial market nervousness, seems to indicate that they are missing a trick. 

If you look at it from the differing angles of the individuals involved, it truly highlights the fragility of the situation. From a chief financial officer’s point of view, one of their main jobs is to know the value of the company, whether it is verifying if it has the resources to acquire, or if it is subject to an acquisition approach. Also, with heightened regulatory requirements, it is imperative that a chief financial officer provides total transparency and the most accurate assessment possible to ensure compliance and not be liable to auditory investigations. 

From a chief information officer’s perspective, why wouldn’t they want to have IT assessed? They lead departments of up to 200 people, helping to maintain an indispensable function to the business. Despite continual calls for the chief information officer to have a seat on the board of directors, we increasingly hear that the tenure of a chief information officer is one of the shortest amongst senior management. 

By quantifying the financial value of the contribution of IT to the business, the CIO can not only show the sterling work of his team, but also prove their individual value that they are providing such an important commodity to the business. Quantifying the value of IT and demonstrating the benefits it can bring to the business as a whole would also serve to bridge the current disconnect between the IT and business departments. 

So how would a CIO go about demonstrating the real value of their software assets? Effective measurement of IT asset value is closely linked to the performance and contribution of the CIO at board level. However, in order to communicate this, research indicates that the CIO has to go back to square one and actually realise what they are dealing with. It may sound fundamental, but the research revealed that an astonishing 60 per cent of CIOs globally do not even know the size of their core software assets. How are they meant to show value to the board if they do not have this basic information? 

CIOs need to identify where the business benefits lie in their current systems. This will enable financial organisations to preserve existing IT investments and get the most out of IT without footing the cost of replacement with new, unnecessary software.

This means taking a fresh look at how core IT assets can be further exploited. In today’s economic climate, this issue is imperative for CIOs under pressure to get increased return from every dollar spent on IT. Additionally, they need to have the tools in place to allow them to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk. By getting these basics in place, they will be able to start highlighting the value stored within their respective infrastructures and keep pace with today’s hostile economy. 

In a time of heightened financial anxiety, the integral role of IT and the effective investments in these key technology assets have never been of more importance. While companies reconsider investment programmes in the light of financial instabilities, there has never been a better time for the IT department to highlight the benefits it is bringing to the business. This will not only dissuade businesses to implement costly and disruptive ‘rip and replace’ IT strategies, but will also finally allow financial organisations to acknowledge the real value of IT assets, and therefore give a true representation of the value of the business. IT’s worth thinking about. 

Stephen Kelly is chief executive of Micro Focus

 

Apple pushes iPhone 3G at the enterprise

Company touts handset's business credentials

Written by Shaun Nichols in California, vnunet.com, 10 Jun 2008

Apple has been touting the new 3G iPhone as an enterprise communication tool at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The company spent much of yesterday's opening keynote showcasing the iPhone's business credentials and development tools.

Apple said that the upcoming iPhone 2.0 software package will feature several tools aimed primarily at business users.

The update will add support for Microsoft Exchange and Cisco Secure VPN connection security, as well as support for Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and Apple's iWork office suite.

Apple will charge $9.99 for the update for iPod Touch owners, but the software will be free for existing iPhone users.

The company hopes that the new features will broaden the iPhone's appeal with a business community that has been reluctant to adopt the device.

Apple claims that the beta release of iPhone 2.0 has already been tested by 35 per cent of the companies on the Fortune 500 list.

Apple has also added a mobile package of its own as an answer to Microsoft's Exchange platform.

Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing at Apple, described the web-based MobileMe service as "Exchange for the rest of us ".

The package will include push-based email, calendar and contact information for the iPhone, Mac OS and Windows platforms.

When one device in a user's account is updated with new contact or mail information, the data is pushed to all connected computers and iPhones, allowing one device to synchronise with others and ensure updated and accurate data.

Apple plans to replace its .Mac service with MobileMe, which will have the same $99 annual subscription fee as its predecessor.

Mobile Me and iPhone 2.0 will be available in early July.

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Ballmer Is Bad News for Microsoft

Jason Kelly, Seeking Alpha, posted on: June 08, 2008

The Wall Street Journal ran a nice article on Microsoft's (MSFT) Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Thursday. It was offered as a backdrop to the further departure of Mr. Gates on June 27 from his already reduced role at the company. The article, like many others on Microsoft, never asks the hard question that's central to seeing the software giant's future: Is Steve Ballmer another Bill Gates?

Look at the record.

Under the stewardship of Bill Gates, MSFT split eight times and rose 53,000% from early 1986 to early 2000. Under the stewardship of Steve Ballmer, MSFT split once and lost half its value since early 2000. Look at the sorry chart. 

It has grown earnings under Steve Ballmer, but they haven't boosted the stock price because forward-looking investors refuse to pay a high multiple (price/earnings ratio) for a stock with a steadily dimming future. Value investors say Microsoft is a great bargain these days, better than when Mr. Ballmer took over, but they may be missing that it's cheap for a reason. 

That reason is that Steve Ballmer has done nothing since he took over. What's new at Microsoft? There are marginal differences, but for most casual users Microsoft puts out the same software with different version numbers today that it put out eight years ago. Mr. Ballmer completely missed: 

• The importance of internet search.
  
• That the center of computing was moving from the desktop to the internet, and that the migration would make all computer users platform agnostic. Increasingly, all that matters is that a computer can get online. That being the case, why would anybody choose clunky Windows over elegant Macintosh?
  
• That people stopped needing any new features in their OS and productivity software about ten years ago, and had grown wise to the meaningless upgrade cycle.
  
• That the only new capability in productivity would be putting it online, and that Microsoft needed to face that reality sooner than later or somebody else would get the edge. Microsoft took its eye off that ball, and Google (GOOG)  picked it up and ran with it all the way to a goal called gDocs.
  
• That online video was going to be a big deal. Again, Google beat Microsoft to YouTube and now controls almost 40% of the online video market. The number two site commands just 4%, Microsoft about 3%.
  

And so on. It's hard to see what Mr. Ballmer has been doing these past eight years. The Xbox has been successful, but that's hardly Microsoft's core income center. The company has lost its iron grip on computing since Mr. Ballmer slipped his hand into the control glove. 

This is not the first time we've seen this. Think back: Steve Jobs was replaced by John Sculley at Apple (AAPL), then had to return to save the sinking company. It took less than three years to see that Dell's (DELL) Kevin Rollins was a disaster, and to get Michael Dell back in charge to resurrect his namesake firm. The man who put Starbucks (SBUX) on the map, Howard Schultz, had to return in January after an eight-year absence to get the coffee shop hot again. Charles Schwab sent David Pottruck packing in 2004 and re-took the helm at his namesake firm: 

"I'm sorry," Pottruck remembers Schwab saying, "but the board has met and decided that they have lost confidence in the direction of the company and in your leadership. We've decided to make a change and have me come back to the office." Effective immediately, Pottruck was to step down, and Schwab would become CEO again. -- full Fast Company article 

And so on. 

We'll probably never witness such a dramatic return for Bill Gates. He hasn't seen fit to right the ship in the past eight years, why start now? He's off to greener pastures. 

Microsoft shareholders are sure going to miss him. 

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