Breaking Analysis with Dave Vellante

On Tuesday, April 4, HPE invited a number of industry analysts to participate in HPE GreenLake Storage Day. Notably, HPE declared 2023 the year of storage. While the company made several storage-related announcements, perhaps even more interesting was what the event tells us about HPE’s culture, its strategy and the future direction of the company.In this Breaking Analysis we’ll share our takeaways from HPE’s event, held in Houston, Texas, which included attendance at Antonio Neri’s quarterly all-hands meeting. We’ll try to emphasize areas that have not necessarily been the focus of most press and industry analyst write ups to date. We’ll also take a look at the latest ETR survey data to put HPE’s market position in context across several of its major segments.Best articles:Nice analysis by Steve McDowell on Forbes:https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemcdowell/2023/04/06/hpe-kicks-off-its-year-of-storage-with-help-from-vast-data/?sh=6a548ee45b3bChris Mellor’s summary has all the newshttps://blocksandfiles.com/2023/04/04/hpe-greenlake-vast-data/CRN’s channel perspective emphasizing the consumption model:https://www.crn.com/news/storage/alletra-storage-mp-puts-hpe-far-ahead-of-competitors-in-hybrid-cloud-storage-management-battle?itc=refreshSiliconANGLE writeup by Paul Gillin:https://siliconangle.com/2023/04/04/hpe-greenlake-gets-hybrid-block-file-storage-expanded-data-protection/TechTarget article w/ quotes from Marc Staimer, Ray Luchessi & Scott Sinclair w/ an emphasis on how well Vast is doing:https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/news/365534832/Vast-dips-into-HPE-GreenLake-with-new-file-storage-serviceVast Data press release that emphasizes AI workloads:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230404005358/en/VAST-Data-Announces-Strategic-Partnership-with-Hewlett-Packard-Enterprise-to-Provide-Software-for-HPE-GreenLake-for-File-Storage

A rebound in semiconductor stocks has many investors asking if this is a harbinger of good news for the broader enterprise tech sector. Indeed the SOXX semiconductor ETF is up nearly 30% year to date as of this posting, as are bellwether fab suppliers like Applied Materials and Lam Research. Nvidia is up over 90% YTD and AMD over 50%. Even the beleaguered Intel is up 22%. But key enterprise software names have not yet rebounded and according to this week’s guest, the divergence between semis and B2B software is getting hard to ignore. In this Breaking analysis we examine the the bifurcation between the performance of semis and broader enterprise tech. And we’ll try to answer the question: Is the uptick in semiconductors an early indicator of a broader enterprise tech recovery, or is this a false signal that warrants continued caution? To examine these issues we welcome back Ivana Delevska, the founder and chief investment officer of SPEAR Invest. All statements made regarding companies or securities are strictly beliefs, points of view and opinions held by SiliconANGLE Media, Enterprise Technology Research, other guests on theCUBE and guest writers. Such statements are not recommendations by these individuals to buy, sell or hold any security. The content presented does not constitute investment advice and should not be used as the basis for any investment decision. You and only you are responsible for your investment decisions.Disclosure: Many of the companies cited in Breaking Analysis are sponsors of theCUBE and/or clients of Wikibon. None of these firms or other companies have any editorial control over or advanced viewing of what’s published in Breaking Analysis.

The viral awareness and adoption of foundation models like ChatGPT have created both an opportunity and threat to automation platforms generally and RPA point tools specifically. On the one hand, large language models can reduce complexity and accelerate the adoption of enterprise automation platforms. The flip side is software robots are designed to improve human productivity through intelligent automation and GPT models could cannibalize some, if not many use cases initially targeted by RPA vendors. This reality is causing customers to rethink their automation strategies and vendors to rapidly evolve their messaging to position foundation models as an accelerant to their platforms. In this Breaking Analysis we provide you with a perspective on how foundation models could impact automation platforms. We review ETR data that quantifies the ascendency of OpenAI. We also show survey data that measures the overlap between ML/AI systems and automation platforms. Then we review the recent quarterly performance of UiPath and share how we think the company must position itself with respect to the onslaught of noise and potential disruption from GPT models.

The viral awareness and adoption of foundation models like ChatGPT have created both an opportunity and threat to automation platforms generally and RPA point tools specifically. On the one hand, large language models can reduce complexity and accelerate the adoption of enterprise automation platforms. The flip side is software robots are designed to improve human productivity through intelligent automation and GPT models could cannibalize some, if not many use cases initially targeted by RPA vendors. This reality is causing customers to rethink their automation strategies and vendors to rapidly evolve their messaging to position foundation models as an accelerant to their platforms. In this Breaking Analysis we provide you with a perspective on how foundation models could impact automation platforms. We review ETR data that quantifies the ascendency of OpenAI. We also show survey data that measures the overlap between ML/AI systems and automation platforms. Then we review the recent quarterly performance of UiPath and share how we think the company must position itself with respect to the onslaught of noise and potential disruption from GPT models.FULL ARTICLE: https://wikibon.com/breaking-analysis-gpt-models-are-a-two-edged-sword-for-automation-platforms/

With George GilbertWhen Apache Spark became a top level project in 2014, and shortly thereafter burst onto the big data scene, it along with the public cloud disrupted the big data market. Databricks cleverly optimized its tech stack for Spark and took advantage of the cloud to deliver a managed service that has become a leading AI and data platform among data scientists and data engineers. However, emerging customer data requirements and market forces are conspiring in a way that we believe will cause modern data platform players generally and Databricks specifically to make some key directional decisions and perhaps even reinvent themselves. In this Breaking Analysis we do a deeper dive into Databricks. We explore its current impressive market momentum using ETR survey data. We’ll also lay out how customer data requirements are changing and what we think the ideal data platform will look like in the mid-term. We’ll then evaluate core elements of the Databricks portfolio against that future vision and close with some strategic decisions we believe the company and its customers face. To do so we welcome in our good friend George Gilbert, former equities analyst, market analyst and principal at Tech Alpha Partners. FULL ARTCILE: https://wikibon.com/breaking-analysis-databricks-faces-critical-strategic-decisionsheres-why/

While never really meant to be a consumer tech event, over time, the rapid ascendancy of smartphones captured much of the agenda at Mobile World Congress, now MWC. And while device manufacturers continue to have a major presence at the show, the maturity of intelligent devices, longer lifecycles and the disaggregation of the network stack have created more interest in enterprise-class technologies than ever before. Semiconductor manufacturers, network equipment players, infrastructure companies, cloud vendors, software providers and a spate of startups are eyeing the trillion dollar plus telecommunications industry as one of the next big things to watch this decade. In this Breaking Analysis we bring you part 2 of our ongoing coverage of MWC 2023. With some new data on enterprise players specifically within large telco environments. We’ll also take a brief glimpse at some of the pre-announcement news from the show and corresponding themes ahead of MWC. We’ll close with the key innovation areas we’ll be covering at the show on theCUBE. FULL ARTICLE: https://wikibon.com/breaking-analysis-mwc-2023-goes-beyond-consumer-deep-into-enterprise-tech/

The world’s leading telcos are often branded as monopolies that lack innovation. Telcos have been great at operational efficiency, connectivity and living off of transmission services. But in a world beyond telephone poles and basic wireless services, how will telcos modernize, become more agile and monetize new opportunities brought about by 5G, private wireless and a spate of new innovations in infrastructure, cloud, data, AI and apps? It’s become table stakes for carriers to evolve their hardened, proprietary infrastructure stacks to more open, flexible, cloud-like models. But doing so brings risks that telcos must carefully balance as they strive to deliver consistent quality of service while at the same time moving faster and avoiding disruption. In this Breaking Analysis and ahead of MWC23, we explore the evolution of the telco business and how the industry is in many ways, mimicking a transformation that took place decades ago in enterprise IT. We’ll model some of the traditional enterprise vendors using ETR data and investigate how they’re faring in the telecomms vertical. And we’ll pose some of the key issues facing the industry this decade. 

Confidential computing is a technology that aims to enhance data privacy and security by providing encrypted computation on sensitive data in use and isolating data from apps and other host resources in fenced off enclaves. The concept of confidential computing is gaining popularity, especially in the cloud computing space where sensitive data is commonly stored and processed. However, there are some who view confidential computing as an unnecessary technology and a marketing ploy by cloud providers, aimed at calming customers who are cloud-phobic.In this Breaking Analysis we revisit the notion of confidential computing and explore whether it’s just marketing or a key part of a trusted security strategy. To do so we’ll invite two Google experts to the show. But before we get there let’s summarize the overall market climate briefly with some ETR data.

The unraveling of market enthusiasm continued in Q4 of 2022 with the earnings reports from the U.S. hyperscalers now all in. As we said earlier this year, even the cloud is not immune from the macro headwinds and the cracks in the armor we saw from the data we shared last summer are playing out into 2023. For the most part, actuals are disappointing beyond expectations, including our own. It turns out that our estimates for the big 3 hyperscale revenue missed by $1.2 billion or 2.7% lower than we had forecast from our most recent November estimates. We expect decelerating growth rates for the hyperscalers will continue through the summer of 2023 and won’t abate until comparisons get easier. In this Breaking Analysis we share our view of what’s happening in cloud markets – not just for the hyperscalers but other firms that have hitched a ride on the cloud. And we’ll share new ETR data that shows why these trends are playing out, tactics customers are employing to deal with their cost challenges and how long the pain is likely to last. 

Making predictions about the future of enterprise tech is more challenging if you strive to lay down forecasts that are measurable. In other words if you make a prediction, you should be able to look back a year later and say with some degree of certainty whether the prediction came true or not. With evidence to back that up. In this Breaking Analysis we aim to do just that with predictions about the macro IT spending environment, cost optimization, security – lots to talk about there – generative AI, cloud and supercloud, blockchain adoption, data platforms, including commentary on Databricks, Snowflake and other key players, automation, events and we may even have some bonus predictions. To make all this happen we welcome back for the third year in a row, Erik Bradley our colleague from ETR.  As well, you can check out how we did with our 2022 predictions.