In an earnings statement yesterday, VMware confirmed layoffs of 800 employees as it prepares for the Dell acquisition. Last October, Dell announced it was buying EMC, which owns 80% of VMware but operates it as an independent company, which means it decides when to make layoffs. In addition to the restructuring, according to Jonathan Chadwick, … continue reading
Microsoft researchers say they are making advancements in computer vision, deep learning, and understanding images. The company, along with colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University, has developed a new system that analyzes images and interprets it as a human would. “The ability to answer questions is critical to developing artificial intelligence tools, and this breakthrough could … continue reading
Neo Technology is launching a new open-source project to make the graph query language Cypher available to the masses. The project, openCypher, will provide a Cypher language specification, a reference implementation, a technology compatibility kit for vendors, and reference documentation for Cypher releases. Initial supporters of the project include Oracle, Databricks, Tableau, GraphAware, GrapheneDB, Graph … continue reading
Capping off a weekend of speculation, Dell this morning announced it will acquire EMC for US$67 billion—the largest technology buy in history. VMware, a subsidiary of EMC, will remain an independent, publicly traded company. The deal is expected to close in mid-2016, with EMC becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Dell. Pivotal, the cloud computing … continue reading
Dell Services has announced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution, which works with the company’s Automated Full-Time Equivalent (AFTE) and AFTE Command Center. It will help customers increase speed and accuracy in business processes. AFTEs are “robots,” or software agents, that are programmed to perform repeatable and repetitive tasks, freeing up employees who were otherwise doing … continue reading
Dell and EMC could be merging. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that Dell and Silver Lake, a private-equity firm, are in advanced talks to buy EMC. The WSJ reported a deal could be made as early as next week, and could be valued at US$50 billion, which would make it the biggest technology takeover … continue reading
Microsoft wants to help enterprises identify best practices and avoid common pitfalls in their DevOps practices. The company announced several new DevOps solutions at the O’Reilly Velocity DevOps conference, and a new online-self evaluation tool has been launched to help developers, IT and other parts of an organization determine their next step in their DevOps … continue reading
The Internet Society thinks the Internet could be better protected through cooperation and collaboration. The organization is releasing a Collaborative Security approach to help tackle cybersecurity issues. “People are what ultimately hold the Internet together,” the Internet Society wrote on its website. “The Internet’s development has been based on voluntary cooperation and collaboration. Cooperation and … continue reading
Google’s Material Design gets another update Google is answering the comments and suggestions developers have been giving them about its material design by releasing another major update to the spec. One the biggest requests the company said it has received from developers and designers is quicker access to related developer documentation. Google has responded by … continue reading
Dell Software today announced a host of enhancements that further demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the SQL Server database market, including the release of Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise 11.0. The new solutions, which will be on display next week at PASS Summit, the industry’s leading conference for SQL Server professionals, build on Dell’s 18-year … continue reading
Neil Sedaka insists that breakin’ up is hard to do. Will that apply to the planned split of Hewlett-Packard into two companies? Let’s be clear: This split is a wonderful idea, and it’s long overdue. Once upon a time, HP was in three businesses: Electronics test equipment (like gas spectrometers,) expensive, high-margin data center products … continue reading
As the New York City Velocity conference winds to a close, this year’s Web operations and performance event was highlighted by some engaging speakers and a laundry list of Web development news and releases from companies big and small. In addition, Mikey Dickerson, a former Google engineering manager who’s now a member of the tech … continue reading
