Category Archives: Cloud Computing
The Benefits Of Picking Up Cloud Computing – Yonkers Times
In our modern age, our lives are heavily intertwined with the functions of the internet from talking and communicating with our loved ones, to paying for our bills and services or even purchasing any number of items. The internet has revolutionized our daily lives, and much of it is thanks to the cloud services that we use. But what does that even mean?
Cloud computing enables us to store information and data to be accessed from any location by using just an internet connection. No longer does data need to be kept on-site in order for it to be stored and accessed, but can now be accessible at all times from any location. Much of our world now relies heavily on this technology in order to function as smoothly as it does.
This means that there is a demand for those who are knowledgeable about the entire process, and companies are on the lookout for those who can develop, maintain and troubleshoot cloud processes. So if youve ever contemplated taking a cloud computing online course, keep reading to find out more!
Cloud computing comes in various forms but is often categorized into four main types.
Public clouds are the most common and are accessible by anyone, though there may be some paywalls to access features offered.
Private clouds are intended for use by one organization and are often customized to fit the needs of the organization. This tailor-made approach often means that though it is relatively easier to scale the cloud based on the growing needs of an organization, it also means that there is a high upfront cost to develop as well as maintain a private cloud.
Hybrid clouds combine the concepts of public and private clouds with the intention of improving crosstalk between the two. It is important that this compromises the security aspect that private clouds are often geared towards.
Multi-cloud approaches have organizations using multiple public clouds in order to meet a certain need. This reduces the latency and improves information retention due to cloud specialization, and is also employed to satisfy regulations.
There are also different aspects of cloud computing that you will be encountering. Cloud computing encompasses both hardware and software infrastructure, which means that you will gain exposure to cloud computing equipment and study the effects of location on server latencies, as well as learning models such as IaaS, PaaS, and Saas.
There are also the concepts of software architectures and virtualization, which are integral in employing cloud services to generate infrastructure and design interfaces for users.
Cloud computing and its various courses that teach you to leverage its technology are also dependent on the type of cloud provider you wish to specialize in. There are many different cloud providers that exist in the industry, with the biggest ones being Amazon Web Services, IBM, and Google Cloud Platform. As the world transitions further into a more remote-centered workplace and the prevalence of internet services increases, its important to be competent in a wide range of cloud services. Each cloud provider offers its own certification programs that will authenticate that you have the adequate training and experience to work on select parts of their cloud services.
As mentioned previously, the world is becoming increasingly connected through the internet, and cloud computing is at the center of this development. Not only will learning cloud computing help you enter this growing industry, but it will also help to future-proof yourself as it becomes increasingly important to be knowledgeable of these concepts. Give yourself a competitive advantage by continually upgrading your skills by picking the right cloud provider courses to specialize in.
Companies are also increasingly collecting user data and using it to optimize their services and products. This large amount of data needs to be protected due to regulations regarding data protection. If youre interested in providing ethical data management, cloud computing can offer many opportunities. Companies are looking for those with intimate knowledge of cloud architectures to look out for potential system compromises that could damage data safety integrity.
Unlike many other courses for other specializations and fields, cloud computing courses are extremely varied and dense and would require a substantial amount of time and reading in order to be proficient in just one aspect. It is recommended by many that you focus your skill development on one specialized area in cloud computing before you consider learning other areas. Not only is there a large amount of existing knowledge that you will have to learn, but there are also continual updates and developments to cloud services that you have to keep up to date on. This is great for those who love going deep into subjects and consistently being challenged in their area of expertise. It will train your ability to continually adapt and develop your expertise which will ultimately grow your professional experience and skills.
Cloud computing skills also mean that you are highly sought after by companies in the industry, too. Companies are always looking for cloud computing professionals as they look to expand and take advantage of the growing prevalence of cloud services. This means that you almost always have access to competitive salaries and are able to transition from one company to another with little difficulty. As time goes on and you improve your skills further, there will always be opportunities for you to grow your career further and expand your knowledge.
The world moves fast and we have to keep up. Learning and developing your knowledge of cloud computing, with the goal of becoming proficient in a specialization, will ensure that you will be desirable for many companies looking to keep up with the times. It is important to remember that cloud computing is an ever-changing industry and there will be consistent new developments. This will require you to keep yourself up-to-date routinely and to regularly upgrade your skills and credentials to meet the demands of the industry. For those who want to keep improving their skillset and enjoy challenging themselves, cloud computing offers a unique opportunity to develop yourself while also offering higher salaries than many other fields.
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The Benefits Of Picking Up Cloud Computing - Yonkers Times
Big Data and its Impact on Cloud Computing – ELE Times
We live in the information age, you might say. More than 2.5 quintillion bytes (1 million terabytes) of data are generated around the globe every day. Managing that data is impossible and yet we make use of huge chunks of it in many disparate and sometimes unimaginable ways. Extracting knowledge from repositories and databases, the big data can lead to a better understanding of natural and non-natural phenomena in climate change, economics, medicine, and beyond.
Predictive analysis is key to making intelligent decisions based on such big data, according to researchers. However, there are problems that must be addressed especially when such big data exists in the cloud.
Krishna Kumar Mohbey and Sunil Kumar of the Central University of Rajasthan in Ajmer, India, consider the impact of big data in this context. They point out that one of the biggest issues facing those who would work with big data is that while some of it may well be structured, much of it is only semi-structured, and vast amounts are entirely unstructured.
The storage, management, and analysis of all of this data are one of the greatest challenges facing computing today. While cloud computingprovides many of the tools needed in a distributed way and to some extent has revolutionized information andcommunications technology(ICT), there remains a long road ahead before we can truly cope with big data fully.
However, distributed storage and massively parallel processing of big data in the cloud could provide the foundations on which the future of big data and predictive analysis might be built. The team reviews many of the current approaches that use historical dataand machine learning to build predictions about the outcomes of future scenarios based on contemporary big data sources. The team points to where research might take us next in the realm ofbig dataand warns of the possible dead-ends.
The key aim is to transform the cloud into a scalable data analytics tool, rather than just adata storageand technology platform, the team writes. They add that now is the time to develop appropriate standards andapplication programming interfaces(APIs) that enable users to easily migrate between solutions and so take advantage of the elasticity of cloud infrastructure.
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Big Data and its Impact on Cloud Computing - ELE Times
Outlook on the Cloud Computing Platform and Service Market to 2026 by Application, End-user and Geography – NewsOrigins
The Cloud Computing Platform and Service market report underlines the significant growth opportunities, drivers, and challenges that are slated to formulate the growth orbit of this industry vertical in the upcoming years.
As per the report, the Cloud Computing Platform and Service market is projected to record XX% CAGR over the 2020-2025 and is anticipated to accrue notable returns by the end of analysis timeframe.
The coronavirus outbreak has disrupted business operations across all industry verticals. Apart from revenue uncertainties in the near future, some businesses are expected to face difficulties even after the economy revives from the pandemic.
Request Sample Copy of this Report @ https://www.newsorigins.com/request-sample/2509
Almost all companies have restructured their budget to reinstate the profit curve for the following years. Our examination of this business landscape can improve your action plan and help you design flexible contingency plans.
In addition, the research report offers a granular assessment of the market segmentations to help you identify the top revenue prospects of this industry.
Key pointers from the Cloud Computing Platform and Service market report:
Cloud Computing Platform and Service Market segmentations included in the report:
Regional landscape: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East & Africa, South East Asia
Product types: Software as a Service (SaaS) , Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS
Applications spectrum: Government , Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and Large Enterprises
Competitive outlook: Amazon Web Services , Microsoft Azure , IBM , Aliyun , Google Cloud Platform , Salesforce , Rackspace , SAP , Oracle , Vmware , DELL and EMC
Highlights of the Report:
The scope of the Report:
The report offers a complete company profiling of leading players competing in the global Cloud Computing Platform and Service marketSize with a high focus on the share, gross margin, net profit, sales, product portfolio, new applications, recent developments, and several other factors. It also throws light on the vendor landscape to help players become aware of future competitive changes in the global Cloud Computing Platform and Service market.
Reasons to Buy the Report:
Major Points Covered in Table of Contents:
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Big Tech Is Getting Clobbered on Wall Street. Its a Good Time for Them. – The New York Times
Tim Cook, Apples chief executive, has a longstanding philosophy that Apple should continue to invest for the future amid a downturn. It more than doubled its staff during the Great Recession and nearly tripled its sales. Lately, it has increased bonuses to some hardware engineers by as much as $200,000, according to Bloomberg.
John Chambers, who steered Cisco Systems through multiple downturns as its former chief executive, said the companies strong businesses and deep pockets could afford them the chance to take risks that would be impractical for smaller competitors. During the 2008 downturn, he said Cisco allowed distressed automakers to pay for technology services with credit at a time when competitors demanded cash. The company risked having to write down $1 billion in inventory, but emerged from the recession as the dominant provider to a healthy auto industry, he said.
Companies break away during downturns, Mr. Chambers said.
Excelling will require disregarding the broader markets gloom, said David Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. He said previous downturns had shown that even the strongest businesses were susceptible to profit pressures and prone to pulling back. Firms get pessimistic like everyone else, he said.
The first test for the biggest companies in tech will be contagion from their peers. Amazons shares in the electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive have plunged more than 65 percent, a $7.6 billion paper loss. Apples services sales are likely to be crimped by a slowdown in advertising by app developers, which rely on venture-capital funding to finance their marketing, analysts say. And start-ups are scrutinizing their spending on cloud services, which will likely slow growth for Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, analysts and cloud executives said.
People are trying to figure out how to spend smartly, said Sam Ramji, the chief strategy officer at DataStax, a data management company.
Regulatory challenges on the horizon could darken the big tech companies prospects, as well. Europes Digital Markets Act, which is expected to become law soon, is designed to increase the openness of tech platforms. Among other things, it could scuttle the estimated $19 billion that Apple collects from Alphabet to make Google the default search engine on iPhones, a change that Bernstein estimates could erase as much as 3 percent of Apples pretax profit.
But the companies are expected to challenge the law in court, potentially tying up the legislation for years. The probability it gets bogged down leaves analysts sticking to their consensus: Big Tech is going to be more powerful. And whats being done about it? Nothing, Mr. Kramer of Arete Research said.
Jason Karaian contributed reporting.
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Big Tech Is Getting Clobbered on Wall Street. Its a Good Time for Them. - The New York Times
Fastly Acquires Glitch to ‘Change the Way That People Build Websites’ – Business Insider
$1.3 billion cloud computing firm Fastly announced today it has acquired Glitch, a developer startup with a notable pedigree, for an undisclosed amount.
This announcement comes on the heels of a historic downturn in the tech world, prompting M&A dealmakers to shop for bargains. Fastly itself soared to record highs on the public markets amid a pandemic-driven boom for cloud services, but like many others in the tech space has since come crashing back to Earth: Shares in the firm are currently trading around $11, down from a 52-week high of some $64.
Glitch CEO Anil Dash said this deal happened organically, despite the fortuitous timing.
"If you want to raise money to go after developers, there's always water in that well," Dash said. At the same time, he said, he's happy that the timing means that he doesn't have to seek outside funding in the current environment. "I definitely prefer this to trying to raise right now."
Glitch is actually the latest iteration of Fog Creek Software, a New York City-based tech company first founded in 2000. Over the years, Fog Creek was the incubator for products like ubiquitous programmer Q&A site StackOverflow and Trello, both of which were later spun out into their own companies.
In 2018, not long after tech entrepreneur Anil Dash joined as CEO, Fog Creek renamed itself to Glitch, after its most successful product a set of simple tools for developers to build and share apps on the web. Dash says that Glitch now counts 1.8 million users. Glitch had raised a $30 million Series A from Tiger Global in July 2019.
"Five years ago, people told me I was nuts," Dash told Insider. "It was like, 'the web is dead.' And I'm like, I don't think so. I think people wanna make s--t online for their friends."
Earlier this year, the two companies announced a partnership, allowing developers to use Glitch's tools to build apps that run on top of Fastly's cloud infrastructure.
Simon Wistow, cofounder of Fastly, says that the partnership led to sort of a "meet-cute" moment, with Dash describing it as a "spark moment:" The two teams came together in New York to discuss the partnership, and soon realized that an acquisition might make more sense. Dash and Wistow also happen to be long-time industry veterans who met when they worked together at early blogging pioneer LiveJournal together in 2006.
"It just really feels like this is the perfect match," Wistow said. "You're gonna have all the ease of Glitch and running on the same platform as some of the biggest companies in the world."
Both firms declined to disclose the terms of the deal, but Dash told Insider that all 13 employees at Glitch have decided to come work at Fastly. Under their new corporate parent, the former Glitch team will be known as the developer engagement team, with Dash taking the title of vice president of developer engagement.
Looking forward, Dash said he looks forward to having Fastly's resources to help Glitch scale. Glitch has a small team that's struggled to keep up with demand, and hasn't been able to allow new users to join, Dash said. With 2023 on the horizon, Dash looks forward to not only helping Glitch meet demand, but also building it up to allow developers to build anything from Slack and Discord chatbots to tools for the nascent metaverse.
"We want to change the way that people build websites," Wistow said. "It's just taken 10 years for the technology to catch up for us to build a big network."
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Fastly Acquires Glitch to 'Change the Way That People Build Websites' - Business Insider
Jeff Bezos keeps a 16-year-old framed magazine as a ‘reminder’ that Amazon’s most profitable service was once just a ‘risky bet’ – CNBC
Some people have framed diplomas. Others have framed photos with celebrities. Jeff Bezos has a framed 16-year-old copy of Businessweek magazine.
On Wednesday, the Amazon founder tweeted a photo of the November 2006 magazine's cover, which featured a photo of Bezos at age 42 behind the text, "Amazon's Risky Bet." The cover story was about why Wall Street executives doubted that Amazon Web Services, then a brand-new on-demand cloud computing service, would ever succeed.
"I have this old 2006 BusinessWeek framed as a reminder," Bezos, now 58, wrote in the tweet. "The 'risky bet' that Wall Street disliked was AWS, which generated revenue of more than $62 billion last year."
In 2006, Amazon was only worth a mere $10 billion, according to Businessweek and investors and analysts were "losing confidence in Bezos' promises." The article called out Bezos for going on an ill-timed spending "binge," noting that his investments in new technologies like cloud computing were up 52% since January of that year, while Amazon's stock was down 20%.
Specifically, Businessweek deemed Amazon Web Services as "Bezos' biggest bet since he and his wife, MacKenzie, drove west in 1994 to seek fame and fortune on the Net."
Today, the cloud computing platform is known for helping revolutionize the world of online marketplaces, and is a huge factor behind Amazon's current market capitalization of $1.08 trillion, as of Friday afternoon.
Last year, Amazon Web Services made $62.2 billion in revenue, according to the company's annual filing. An earnings statement earlier this year shows that the platform been largely responsible for keeping Amazon profitable so far in 2022: AWS made $6.52 billion in operating income during Q1 of 2022, far outpacing Amazon's total operating income of roughly $3.7 billion.
Businessweek's analysis wasn't entirely wrong. Amazon has built a reputation over the years for making big bets on new technologies, and using the profits from its successes to subsidize its failures.
In 2014, Amazon took a $170 million loss for unsold Firephones. In 2019, the company closed 87 pop-up stores and shut down its restaurant delivery service. Last year, it discontinued Dash Buttons, one-click buttons meant to be mounted around users' homes for frequent reorders of products.
The failures don't seem to phase Bezos, who often says that risks and defeats are the price of admission to success.
"We need big failures if we're going to move the needle billion-dollar scale failures," Bezos said at Amazon's re:Mars conference in 2019. "And if we're not, we're not swinging hard enough."
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How the cloud can improve your marketing measurement – The Drum
Cloud computing is part of a modern marketing tech stack, but what does it mean for marketing measurement? Acxioms Scot Richardson, head of data science strategy and visualization, discusses the key benefits of the cloud when it comes to attribution and what marketers need to consider.
Im not a big fan of the word measurement.
Why? Because for some, it implies a one-and-done activity, and marketers too often see it that way meaning they do measurement simply for measurements sake. The campaign is over, the results are analyzed, and the process grinds to a halt with the output from a report.
But measurement was never supposed to be the end goal. It was only ever supposed to be a calibration step in the wider process of optimization. Measurement should be about taking results and acting on them. That report should be used to guide better decisions and drive improvement. The whole process should empower brands to take wasted spend off the table, re-invest it in tactics that are working or in identifying new opportunities; ultimately, maximizing return on investment, all while campaigns are in-flight.
Now, from its new vantage point in the cloud, marketing measurement can finally fulfill its promise. There is an opportunity to put measurement at the center of an optimization process that allows marketers to continuously get better, faster, smarter throughout a campaign. The cloud can deliver on the promise of measurement through its combination of connectivity, speed, and scalability.
One of the biggest barriers to improvement is marketers not knowing what to do with the results of measurement, not knowing how to implement learnings. But connectivity across the cloud ecosystem makes it far easier to pass information right back into the platforms that are actually delivering the marketing signal. Connecting solutions that are already in the cloud is relatively simple, and allows a freer flow of data, in addition to making it easier to go back to market with new audiences and optimized marketing tactics.
We often talk about the democratization of data in the cloud, but this on its own doesnt lead to better results. It must go hand-in-hand with the democratization of the toolsets marketers need to put that data to work in the right way and drive optimization. With these toolsets accessible in the cloud, businesses can choose appropriate and familiar solutions, with pre-built integrations, to help their end users gain access to data, generate insight, and take action.
The ability to build measurement and optimization processes around data and solutions that are already in the cloud lowers the barrier to marketing improvement. It also shortens the cycle for improvement through continuous optimization, setting businesses up with the capabilities they need to maximize performance and get the most out of every interaction throughout the customer journey.
The traditional campaign measurement cycle is slow to say the least. After the planning phase, creative development, and audience selection, campaigns are put in market and we wait. And we wait some more. After that long wait, during which no improvement is possible, the campaign results come in and a report is run. If any action is taken on the results of that report (and its a big if), learnings are only implemented weeks if not months after the fact.
The cloud totally changes this situation. It enables monitoring of in-market campaigns as fast as data is available which with the sizable pipes of cloud infrastructure is pretty darn fast. Marketers can access reporting and interactive visualization tools for real-time campaign measurement, and can optimize media against objective measures, across multiple channels. These solutions can be automated across the entire pipeline, so they become lights-out processes that deliver as fast as the data is cycling, and boost ROI while campaigns are running.
In addition, the cloud enables marketers to be far more agile and respond to continually changing environments. Imagine, for instance, a brand running a campaign in Google AdWords. With competitive bidders continually changing and evolving their own strategies, AdWords is a dynamic, living environment, and an approach that works today may be totally ineffective tomorrow. In the cloud, brands can understand what is working in the moment and course-correct in real time, ideally through automated processes, to make best use of spend.
And of course, this real-time measurement and optimization needs to be backed up with robust and reliable infrastructure. With cloud data centers all over the globe supporting multi-region solutions, it doesnt matter if there is an issue at one center. With redundancy and a seamless failover environment, measurement and optimization processes can continue to run day and night, without interruption.
In the past, measurement was restrained by capacity issues, and the fear of pipelines failing because there wasnt enough memory or the specified cluster wasnt big enough.
But the cloud brings the ability to auto-scale as the data dictates, especially when adopting a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model. This includes scaling horizontally, to account for increases in the volume of data coming in, and vertically to layer in more resources to deal with that data and solves a multitude of problems. Always-on, expandable solutions take away the concern that there wont be enough capacity to handle a problem, because there is always more available.
Along with scalability comes increased flexibility. In the cloud, its simple for marketers to start with one measurement use case and then simply add more, as and when they need them. This flexibility makes measurement more accessible and means marketers can get started at a relatively low cost, as they only pay for what they use.
This flexibility also extends to data sources, with marketers able to bring data from a huge variety of different places such as other cloud providers, websites, and API calls. They can also deliver the resulting insights whether thats a new bidding strategy or a next best offer back to a wide range of platforms to drive action. The incredible flexibility enabled by cloud environments opens up endless opportunities for marketing measurement and optimization.
The cloud means marketing measurement is no longer a standalone activity and puts it right where its supposed to be at the center of a wider optimization process and in close proximity to the marketing platforms that feed on its insights. By moving measurement to the cloud, marketers can better understand the impact of their campaigns in the moment. With performance optimization integrated in the pipelines, they can continually optimize their investment to achieve the best possible results.
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How the cloud can improve your marketing measurement - The Drum
Cloud Security Alliance Provides C-level Executives With Best Practices for Deploying Smart Contracts Within an Organization – Business Wire
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the worlds leading organization dedicated to defining standards, certifications, and best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today released Best Practices for Smart Contract Security Hyperledger Fabric. Drafted by the CSA Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Working Group, the report aims at providing C-level executives and other stakeholders with an overview of the benefits, challenges, and opportunities for deploying smart contracts within an organization.
Specifically, the paper provides an overview of the hyperledger smart contract ecosystem, the whys, whens, and hows of threat modeling when working with smart contracts, an overview of common vulnerabilities, and guidance on best security practices. It also includes an Accord Project hyperledger fabric and trade finance use case.
Smart contracts offer some of the highest level of encryption currently available, meaning users can be confident in the security and authenticity of their transactions, said Hillary Baron, research analyst and program manager, Cloud Security Alliance. Increasing numbers of enterprises are taking advantage of the myriad benefits smart contracts afford, however, as these contracts become more detailed and robust, the more surface area is exposed to risk. Its imperative, therefore, that practitioners deploying legal smart contracts should understand the risks associated with their execution.
Smart contracts, essentially business logic running on a blockchain, can be as simple as a data update or as complex as executing a contract with attached conditions, and can be divided into two types, namely those that:
After reading the paper, stakeholders, including C-level executives interested in learning more about the corporate benefits of smart contracts and technologists responsible for deploying hyperledger-based smart contract solutions, will have a deeper understanding of the many legal, regulatory, and security considerations that must be considered when using any smart contract.
The Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Working Group works to produce useful content to educate different industries on blockchain and its proper use, as well as define blockchain security and compliance requirements based upon different industries and use cases. Individuals interested in becoming involved in Blockchain/Distributed Ledger future research and initiatives are invited to join the working group.
Download Best Practices for Smart Contract Security Hyperledger Fabric.
About Cloud Security Alliance
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the worlds leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners, associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members to offer cloud security-specific research, education, training, certification, events, and products. CSA's activities, knowledge, and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by cloud from providers and customers to governments, entrepreneurs, and the assurance industry and provide a forum through which different parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.
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Cloud Security Alliance Provides C-level Executives With Best Practices for Deploying Smart Contracts Within an Organization - Business Wire
Is It Too Late to Buy IBM Stock? – The Motley Fool
Technology stocks have been battered in 2022, but tech veteran IBM (IBM -0.91%) managed to resist that trend. After the stock hit a 52-week low of $114.56 last November, it rebounded and hovers around $133 at the time of this writing.
IBM's rise is attributable to a multi-year effort to transform its business, including spinning off its managed IT infrastructure services into the newly formed, publicly traded company Kyndryl last year. This was followed by an outstanding first-quarter earnings report this year.
With IBM's transition work behind it, have investors missed the investment opportunity? There's cause to believe the company offers more upside. Here are the reasons that point to a bright future for Big Blue.
Image source: Getty Images.
IBM spent years shifting its focus toward the growing cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) industries. The companyacquired Red Hat, a leading hybrid cloud computing company, in 2019. It promoted its head of cloud services, Arvind Krishna, to the CEO position in 2020, and completed the spinoff of Kyndryl last November.
IBM's transformation is now complete, and with Q1 being the first full quarter after the Kyndryl separation, investors can see how well the revitalized IBM is performing. Big Blue's Q1 revenue was $14.2 billion, up from $13.2 billion last year when adjusted for the Kyndryl spinoff.
The company's core offering is its hybrid cloud computing platform, which delivers a mix of a public cloud for cost savings and an on-site, or private, cloud for the storage of sensitive data, such as financial records. The hybrid cloud industry is forecasted to grow from an annual revenue opportunity of $56 billion in 2020 to $145 billion by 2026.
IBM is successfully capturing its piece of this industry. The company's hybrid cloud revenue for the trailing 12 months was $20.8 billion, a 17% year-over-year increase.
IBM's excellent Q1 results are just the start. With the hybrid cloud industry's expansion serving as a tailwind, IBM expects revenue to continue growing by about $3 billion per year from 2022 to 2024.
IBM isn't reliant solely on its hybrid cloud platform. Additional growth opportunity lies in its AI solutions. Big Blue has been working in the AI field for decades, and its current capabilities are being applied in a variety of scenarios. McDonald's is using IBM's AI to test an automated drive-through.
AI is infused in many parts of IBM's offerings. It's used in the company's cybersecurity products to dynamically recognize cybersecurity threats, in IBM's automation-related solutions, and to help analyze mountains of data for customers. IBM saw year-over-year Q1 revenue growth in each of these areas: 8% in security, 5% in its automation division, and 4% in its data and AI segment.
IBM also has a large consulting business, which helps customers select and implement IBM's technical solutions. This segment's Q1 revenue was $4.8 billion, a 17% year-over-year increase, which followed last year's 10% revenue growth.
Only the company's infrastructure segment, which sells computing hardware, saw Q1 year-over-year sales drop 2% due to the division's current IBM z15 mainframe servers nearing the end of their product cycle. The new IBM z16, the first to include a specialized AI chip, was unveiled in April with sales expected to ramp up over the coming months.
Its transformation means the new IBM offers investors a potent combination of revenue growth and a high-yield dividend, about 5% at the time of this writing.
While other companies such as Walt Disneyeliminated dividend payments after the coronavirus pandemic triggered widespread lockdowns, IBM maintained its track record of dividend payments, which stretches back to 1916. The company even raised its dividend last month for the 27th consecutive year.
IBM's dividend will remain secure for years thanks to the company's ability to generate free cash flow, which IBM expects will hit a cumulative total of $35 billion from 2022 to 2024. This factors in 2022 free cash flow coming in toward the low end of its forecasted $10 to $10.5 billion range.
This year's impact on free cash flow comes from IBM's suspension of its business in Russia following the attack on Ukraine. Although comprising less than 1% of IBM's revenue last year, the company's business in Russia was a high-margin operation, so the shutdown cuts more deeply into IBM's profits and cash flows.
Even so, IBM's overall business possesses the ingredients to continue expanding revenue and maintaining the level of free cash flow needed to fund both its growth and its dividend. For instance, Big Blue recently added the U.S. Department of Education as a hybrid cloud client, while its consulting division's customers include all of the top ten banks, national governments, telecoms, and automotive companies.
With the new IBM's era just beginning, now is a good time to invest in this tech stock to capture the revenue growth coming over the next few years -- while enjoying a hefty dividend, to boot.
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Is It Too Late to Buy IBM Stock? - The Motley Fool
New programme on AI and cloud services to build local ICT talent ecosystem – The Straits Times
SINGAPORE - Mid-career workers who wish to upskill and enhance their employability in the infocomm and technology (ICT) sector can tap a new course on artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services.
This course, under the SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme (SCTP) which is supported by SkillsFuture Singapore, is open to fresh graduates too.
It was officially launched during a joint announcement between Chinese multinational technology firm Huawei's ICT Academy and Singapore Polytechnic at the Huawei Singapore Partner Summit 2022 on Friday (May 20) at Marina Bay Sands.
The first run of the course, conducted over four months, will commence with 15 participants.
Singapore Polytechnic aims to conduct two classes this year, and hopes to expand these to three in 2023 and 2024. In total, it aims to train up to 120 participants in the next two years.
SCTP, introduced during Budget 2022, replaces two national schemes, SGUnited Skills and SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways - Company Training programmes, which expired on March 31.
SCTP began on April 1 and offers highly subsidised, industry-oriented training courses to help mid-career workers secure jobs in sectors with good hiring opportunities.
Singapore Poly has been recognised as a Huawei ICT Academy partner since 2020. The partnership covers the areas of pre-employment training, continuing education and training, ICT competitions and bootcamp programmes.
Mr Foo Fang Yong, chief executive of Huawei International, said: "Building a sustainable pipeline of qualified local tech talent is imperative as Singaporepavesits way into the future.
"Huawei, as a technology enabler, will continue bolstering our longstanding relationship with various local institutes of higher learning to further cultivate and grow local talent to become the leaders of our digital future."
Huawei's ICT Academy has been striving to build a healthy ICT talent ecosystem in Singapore in order to address the shortage of local ICT professionals.
Since 2019, it has forged strong alliances with nine local institutes of higher learning.
Over the past three years, the academy has trained more than 2,000 Singaporean students and certified more than 30 lecturers.
Participants in the new course will learn essential and fundamental skills in AI and cloud computing industries.
They will also be certified in five domains -computer networking, Python programming, AI, cloud servicesand storage solutions.
These modules will prepare participants for various jobs offered by Huawei and its solution partners, including AI engineer, cloud architect and storage engineer.
Eligible participants should at least hold a diploma which certifies them with basic knowledge in cloud computing, computer systems and networking.
Applicants with qualifications outside of the specified fields will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Interested applicants can apply via this website.
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New programme on AI and cloud services to build local ICT talent ecosystem - The Straits Times