The company that IBM bought in the past year indicates that these businesses are its future
American advanced anti DDoS server On February 15, it was reported that a week ago, IBM bought three companies at one go. You should remember that it has sold its personal computer business before, and the Big Brother that Jobs wanted to defeat has withdrawn from this market. What does it want to do now?
In fact, since 2005, IBM has spent 14 billion dollars to acquire more than 20 companies providing various "business analysis" services. In January, IBM CEO made a speech at the Global Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for the first time. Ginni Rometty said that IBM is no longer a hardware or software company, but a "cognitive solution cloud platform" company. Well, a definition that sounds confusing at first.
Roland took office in 2011. That year, the "Smart Earth" of former CEO Palmisano IT Consulting was replaced by artificial intelligence "Watson". At that time, machine learning algorithms were not as popular as they are now. In 2015, when IBM's fourth quarter financial report was released, she made it clear that they did not want to be a company that represented the forefront of technology but did not earn much money.
IBM's profits fell for 15 consecutive quarters compared with the same period
The situation facing IBM is not very optimistic indeed. In the past 15 quarters, IBM's revenue has been declining over the same period. Data analysis, cloud computing, these new businesses are not enough to support the new IBM. In contrast, with more than 10 years of investment, competitor Amazon has made money on cloud computing platform: $5 billion a year.
Acquisitions seem to be the only way to accelerate progress. For more than a year, IBM has bought at least one company every month. What can they do?
Ensure that the virtual server is good enough
Today, most companies have eliminated the computer room and chose the virtual server. Cloud computing platforms are becoming big business. IBM does not have much advantage in this regard. It needs new technologies, talents and customers.
On June 3, 2015, IBM acquired Blue Box, a private cloud hosting service provider. Prior to this, the company has deployed dedicated enterprise data centers for more than 300 large customers. This technology is IBM's weakness.
In addition, this wave of technologies developed by small companies will become a function or service of IBM cloud computing platform.
·Acquired Compose, a database management tool, on July 23, 2015
·On September 10, 2015, StrongLoop, an API interface tool, was acquired. Bugs and graphical interfaces were removed
·On October 5, 2015, Cleversafe was acquired to store massive data
·On November 3, 2015, Gravitant, a hybrid cloud management service software, was acquired
Watson also wants to make money
In September 2014, IBM released Watson Analytics. It is no longer just a dazzling existence - the "encyclopedia" of the American intelligence quiz show Jeopardy!, but really hopes to become a department that can generate income.
Watson has derived a series of services, such as "Watson Oncology", which can analyze medical literature, cases and monitoring data. Watson Engagement Adviser can also analyze complex financial, insurance and financial data.
In April 2015, IBM established Watson Health. Later, Watson became a professional doctor as well as a cook. In August, after IBM spent $1 billion to acquire medical imaging equipment provider Merge Healthcare, Watson could understand medical images, including MRI scans, X-ray photos, etc. Five months later, IRIS Analytics, a company that helped banks detect fraudulent use of credit cards, was also included by IBM.
In addition to medical treatment and finance, IBM attaches importance to traditional business analysis in brand analysis and industrial production. But the channels of information dissemination are changing. IBM needs new data sources. Two years ago, it worked with Twitter. In October 2015, IBM directly bought the data of The Weather Company for $2 billion. These weather information can affect crop growth, logistics, industrial production and so on.
Watson also bought a part of his brain. In March 2015, IBM acquired the startup Alchemy API. On this platform, nearly 40000 developers are using machine learning algorithms to do natural language processing and image recognition. In the same month, IBM also bought the search engine Blekko. Its slashtag function can filter junk web pages and optimize search results manually. The more you use it, the more users can see the results they want to search.
IBM's new division: media and advertising
In January 2016, IBM received Ustream, a live video service, for $130 million. After the acquisition, IBM will set up a new department to deal with media technology. A month ago, IBM just bought Clearleaf, which was seven years old. Its technology ensures that users can smoothly access the videos they want to watch at any time and on their devices. HBO, Verizon and the National Football League (NFL) are its users.
A digital advertising platform is also a new field that IBM wants to enter. When talking about the acquisition with The Weather Company, IBM talked with its digital advertising department after winning the data business. Less than half a year after the announcement of the acquisition, IBM has bought three digital marketing companies before the end of February 2016.
They will be integrated into IBM's Interactive Experience department. Like Accenture, a large IT consulting company, IBM also wants to develop its own advertising business. However, the industry is extremely fragmented. Compared with attracting creative talents, big customers may be what IBM wants most.
Resource/Amirati, which combines e-commerce platform and creative marketing, has customers such as Toys R Us, Victoria's Secret, Wal Mart, Procter&Gamble, etc. Aperto has big European customers such as Airbus, Volkswagen and Siemens. This week, IBM just acquired the German creative company Ecx.io. The German JAB consortium is also on its official website customer list. This group has just acquired Nestle's competitor, Green Mountain Coffee, which has stirred up the coffee industry.
According to Luo Ruilan, CEO of IBM, the internal advertising department has more than 10000 employees. It seems that this is a serious attempt.
