IBM

IBM chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty needs the company to turn in much better quarters for the remainder of 2103 than Big Blue did in the first quarter, when it missed its numbers by more than $400m.

In the second quarter, IBM did a little better in its systems and services segments and the core business faired alright if you ignore the effect of a $1bn hit to cover layoffs of thousands of employees worldwide.

There are only three major cloud companies, and try as it might, IBM isn't going to change that in the near-term with its acquisition of SoftLayer.

This is because the three major public clouds – Amazon Web Services, Windows Azure, and Google Compute Engine – are each supported by a consumer internet giant.

IBM lost a lucrative government contract because it made a bid for the work which was a bit on the Finn side.

While most government contracts automatically go to the lowest bidder, it seems that the Finns were not particularly impressed with IBM.

IBM just released an open source software package called HELib.

The HE stands for homomorphic encryption.

Although it doesn't sound terribly sexy or impressive, HELib is actually an interesting and important milestone in cryptography. HE is also a surprisingly relevant topic right now, with our ever-increasing attraction to cloud computing. Bear with me, and I'll try to explain.

IBM has already been investing in Hadoop-based projects for a considerable time now, and the tech giant has a new open source-based platform to add to its big data portfolio today.

Even after a few short months, Hadoop has already proven to be one of the biggest hot topics in enterprise technology this year.

IBM researchers have discovered a materials breakthrough that could lead to processors that use less power and operate the way a human brain does.

Silicon-based processors rely on electronics and voltage being ushered through a channel. These semiconductors, which power PCs, tablets and smartphones today, were thought under Moore's Law to double performance every two years with lower costs and size. However, new manufacturing techniques will be needed as Moore's Law hits physical limits.

IBM has numerous initiatives and solutions dedicated to big data, and the global tech corporation is only reaffirming those commitments with the acquisition of Varicent Software. 

Toronto-based Varicent provides analytics software for compensation and sales performance management, automating and integrating sales, client and financial performance management across an enterprise.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has fired more than 1,000 workers in North America this week, according to an advocacy group for the company’s employees.

Going by Alliance @ IBM, it is reported by Bloomberg that the job reductions are mostly in the U.S., with some in Canada. Alliance @ IBM is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America.

IBM Research scientists said they have achieved a major advance in quantum computing that will allow engineers to begin work on creating a full-scale quantum computer.

The breakthrough allowed scientists to reduce data error rates in elementary computations while maintaining the integrity of quantum mechanical properties in quantum bits of data, known as qubits.