We're deep into conference season, where we industry analysts are part of a never-ending traveling circus (with one too many stops at the Venetian!). Its not the glamerous rock-and-roll #analystlife it looks like. Some advice for those who think they want to do this:

Nice botom-line beat in @IBM's Q4'24 earnings. Nicer is the performance of the software group: Software: → Now ~45% of business → $15B ARR ↑15% y/y → @RedHat ↑17% on back of ~25% OpenShift growth Consulting: → down the for the Q, up for the year → Growth in GenAI & Biz Transformation → Strong acqusitions → Poised for strong 2025 Infrastructure: → Off-cycle for Z. Met our expectations. Congratulations to @ArvindKrishna & team!

There's more to @Seagate's #earnings beat/beat than just its 9% y/y growth. Here's what to like about this bellwether stock's quarter: → Cloud Sector Growth ↑60% y/y → Nearline storage ↑~2x y/y, cloud + OEM → Exos M 32TB HAMR in production & shipping to a "top CSP" → New 36TB HAMR drives are sampling now Strong Q, solid guidance, and growth in all the right segments. Congrats to Dave Mosley & the team!

Last week, @Lenovo surprised us with news that it intends to acquire high-end storage provider @Infinidat. The deal promises to grow @Lenovodc's position from #4 storage vendor to something higher. My latest in Forbes takes a look at a deal that makes sense, but might be more complex than it seems. forbes.com/sites/stevemcdowe…

This week @Oracle launched its Exadata X11M database machine, maintaining its performance crown for AI, OLTP, and analytics workloads: → Performance Boosts: 32x faster AI queries, analytics throughput reaches 500GB/s per storage server, and OLTP write IOPS hit 1,000,000. → Cloud Flexibility: Seamless integration with @OracleCloud, @Azure, @awscloud, and @googlecloud. → Sustainability: Intelligent power management reduces energy use and operational costs. My latest in Forbes takes a look at what Oracle announced. forbes.com/sites/stevemcdowe…

Are @SoftBank & @Arm looking to acquire Arm-server pioneer @AmpereComputing? An interesting play, as Ampere's CSP customers are nearly all building their own Arm CPUs, while Arm can leverage the IP in multiple directions. No denials from anyone involved. Keep watching! bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

My latest on Forbes looks at how GSIs are stepping up to help healthcare providers use #GenAI to improve the patient experience. GSIs bring much to the table: → Domain Expertise in AI, Cloud and Healthcare → Existing, adaptable healthcare tech frameworks → Seamless Integration across application stacks → Healthcare Regulatory and Governance Expertise → Scalability and Global Reach My full piece is at the link below. Companies mentioned: @NTTDATA, @Deloitte, @Cognizant, @nvidia #AIinHealthcare #GenerativeAI #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalTransformation #HealthTech forbes.com/sites/stevemcdowe…

This one was easy to write - @DellTech is running the right playbook, with good things on deck.

Today @NetApp released its 2024 Data Complexity Report - Join me tomorrow as I talk to NetApp CMO @GabieBoko & VP Jeff Baxter to learn what it teaches us about enterprise readiness for the emerging AI world. At the link. lnkd.in/eG8_qVE3

Day 2 of @awscloud #reinvent24 & the announcement count is up to about 50. My latest blog takes a look at the AI-related Infrastructure & Services that caught my eye: → New Trainium2 silicon for GenAI training → New Trn2 Instances & UltraClusters → New P5en @nvidia H200-based instances → New S3 Queryable Object Metadata → New S3 Tables → New Amazon Nova Foundation Models There's a lot going on & I'll take a more in-depth once the event wraps. Until then, here's the blog: nand-research.com/quick-take…

Some of my thoughts on @PureStorage's quarter are kindly included in @thecubetv's coverage. Beyond earnings, we also talk about the broader implications of Pure's unnamed hyperscale customer + its strengthened @KIOXIAAmerica relationship. At the link. siliconangle.com/2024/12/03/…