Cloud computing forces traditional IT vendors to transform

Sina Technology Loliang is now the era of hardware revival? Maybe. But for traditional vendors with hardware businesses such as IBM (188.56,-2.43,-1.27%), Hewlett-Packard (26.69,0.25,0.95%), Dell (13.71,-0.02,-0.15%), this is not a good time. The development of cloud computing is bringing IBM and Hewlett-Packard back into the era of software, hardware (servers, storage, and networking) after the advent of tablets and smartphones that have sent traditional PCs into the post-PC era. Traditional hardware and software decline the news of the company's Monday announcement was a mixed blessing for employees in IBM's hardware department. The good news is that they will have one week to spend on vacation, but the bad news is that the salary is only one-third of the average during the vacation and the senior officials are not paid. In the second quarter of this year, IBM hardware division revenue of 3.76 billion U.S. dollars, a big drop of 12%. According to IBM's earnings, the company's hardware revenues have fallen in the past 7 quarters. The IBM Hardware Department's business includes servers, storage devices, and so on. Some believe that IBM's hardware business has fallen because the global economy has slowed and companies have slowed investment in IT infrastructure. But more analysts believe that the rise of cloud computing is making a drastic impact on traditional hardware and software industries, and that the decline in IBM's hardware business is only one example. In the past, companies will buy servers, storage, network equipment and other hardware products, build their own it data centers, but with the rise of cloud computing, many companies to Amazon (296.91,-3.84,-1.28%) and other manufacturers, began to rent computing power, storage resources and other services. This has largely led to a contraction in the traditional hardware market, which is affected not only by IBM, but also by Oracle (32.82,-0.18,-0.55%), HP, Dell, and EMC. At the same time, cloud computing is changing the way software is delivered and impacting the original business model of the software industry. Companies used to buy expensive software packages and sign maintenance contracts, but now they are more inclined to choose SaaS software Services. SaaS software mode, the price of software is cheap, enterprise deployment is more convenient and quick. While the market size of traditional hardware and software remains huge, the speed at which corporate consumption preferences have shifted has caught the pace of IBM, Oracle, EMC and traditional it vendors. And how to meet the cloud computing tide of transformation, has been the inevitable choice. Accelerated Transformation Oracle is a veteran it vendor, a monopoly in the database software market in the past few years has been the development of software and hardware integration systems, packaging and sales of software and hardware products. Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle, Ellison in 2008 that cloud computing is "meaningless." But today, Oracle is embracing cloud computing aggressively. As an important move into cloud computing, Oracle was in June this year with Microsoft32.06,0.48,1.53%, such as cloud computing service provider Salesforce such as online marketing and customer relationship systems, have agreed to collaborate on cloud computing, enabling software such as Oracle's database to run on Microsoft's public cloud platform, Windows Azure, and access to the Salesforce platform. Oracle also announced the launch of the database software designed for cloud computing at the Oracle Global Conference held in Shanghai this July. Earlier, Oracle also launched a number of mergers and acquisitions in the field of cloud computing. IBM is actually increasing its investment in cloud computing, in the context of a decline in traditional hardware business. This June, IBM bought US cloud computing company SoftLayer Technologies at a price of 2 billion dollars to strengthen the company's position in the public cloud market. In June this year, Zhang, Microsoft's senior vice president, said at the five China Cloud computing conference that while companies will use some private cloud services for a long time, the trend of industry development will be public cloud. According to him, Microsoft Public Cloud service Windows Azure in the past few years has made great progress, only in the past year, the data storage increased by 10 times times, computing power increased by 5 times times, now more than 1000 customers a day. Amazon, which is expected to enter the cloud market earlier, has already reached $2 billion trillion in revenue in 2012 and is expected to reach $3.8 billion this year, up 81% from last year, according to investment agencies. An industry analyst who asked not to be anonymous said that the traditional software and hardware markets were facing challenges and that cloud computing had clearly become a major trend in the industry, and it vendors were faced with structural problems, but fortunately they still had time to restructure and adjust.