<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>There's an arms race going on in the business tech world.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Companies are increasingly renting their tech from cloud computing suppliers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure or IBM's SoftLayer, and not buying and installing it themselves.</span></p>
<p>And that means that there's a land grab going on over customers.</p>
<p>Who's got the biggest cloud? Hard to tell. All the tech companies claim that they've got game, using whatever metrics they care to share to prove it.</p>
<p>But Amazon just shared one metric that it's hard to argue with. It now claims to have over 1 million ACTIVE customers for its cloud:</p>
<p>In its <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-com-announces-fourth-quarter-210100838.html">fourth quarter earnings announcement</a>, Amazon said:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">... with over one million active customers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to grow strongly, with usage growth close to 90% year-over-year for the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>It also explained that this DOES include those who have signed up for free accounts, but DOES NOT include dormant accounts that developers sign up for but never use:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">References to AWS customers mean unique AWS customer accounts, which are unique e-mail addresses that are eligible to use AWS services. This includes AWS accounts in the AWS free tier. Multiple users accessing AWS services via one account are counted as a single account. Customers are considered active when they have had AWS usage activity during the preceding one-month period.</p>
<p>Amazon doesn't report revenue on AWS, it lumps it into its "other" category that also includes things like revenues from its advertising and credit card programs. <span>But next year, we'll know AWS revenue for sure, as Amazon said it is going to start reporting it as of next quarter.</span></p>
<p>Currently, however, most analysts believe that most of these revenues do come from AWS.</p>
<p>With that caveat, Amazon reported net "other" revenue of $5.6 billion, up from $3.9 billion last year.</p>
<p>That compares to Microsoft's <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/Investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY15/Q2/default.aspx">reported "run rate" of $5.5 billion in cloud revenues</a>, meaning that Microsoft is on track to bill that much, and that includes software now sold as a cloud service, like Office 365.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, IBM reported that <a href="https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/45884.wss">it was on a $3.5 billion run rate for cloud delivered as a service</a>.</p>
<p>Active users was an interesting thing to disclose, and not something Amazon discussed last year. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-business-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-2014-11">As we previously reported</a>, Microsoft has been bundling in cloud accounts to its <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Enterprise">enterprise</keyword> contracts when customers renew their software license agreements. It's a way to get their customers to try Microsoft's cloud.</p>
<p>But Microsoft won't discuss how many of those customers are actually taking it up on the offer and using the cloud. Earlier this week, during the quarterly conference call, an analyst asked Microsoft to say exactly how many active cloud accounts it had. CFO Amy Hood deflected the question, talking about the cloud business without revealing that number.</p>
<p>All this to say that it looks like Amazon might still be leading the pack in cloud computing. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts.</p><p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his
personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>

Amazon Has Over A Million Customers For Its Cloud Computing Service

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Three days after IBM <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-q3-earnings-2014-10">reported yet another disappointing quarter,</a> its stock is still in a downward spiral, and people are piling on to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stanley-druckenmiller-on-ibm-2014-10">criticize the company.</a></p>
<p>That's because this was 10 quarters in a row of declining revenue, with <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/51143/000110465914072339/a14-22457_18k.htm">every business unit shrinking.</a></p>
<p>Outspoken billionaire investor Mark Cuban <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/102109502">told CNBC on Wednesday</a> that he would "absolutely not invest in IBM".</p>
<p>"IBM is no longer a tech company," <span>Cuban told CNBC. "</span>They have no vision. What they've evolved into is a company that does [arbitrage] on acquisitions. It's stock buybacks. Who is IBM anymore?"</p>
<p>In the past, when you thought of  computers or software services, you thought of "Big Blue," Cuban said.</p>
<p>"But today, they specialize in financial engineering. They're no longer a tech company, they are an amalgamation of different companies that they are trying to arb[itrage] on Wall Street, and I'm not a fan of that at all," he says.</p>
<p> <br>That's not entirely fair. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">IBM's "financial engineering" was an attempt to deliver on a promise </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-gives-up-on-its-2015-promise-2014-10">to achieve $20 earnings per share by 2015</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, a promise that was made by CEO Ginni Rometty's predecessor Sam Palmisano. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If Rometty had succeeded in doing that, even during this period of declining revenue, she might have been hailed a genius.</span></br></p>
<p>But she didn't. And on Monday, she told investors IBM was abandoning that promise.</p>
<p>And now, Rometty is left with no clear, articulated turnaround strategy.</p>
<p>IBM's revenues are declining because there's a big shift going on in the way companies are buying tech. Instead of buying their own software and hardware for their own data centers, then hiring expensive consultants to stitch it all together, they are renting that technology, which is often hosted elsewhere. That's called "cloud computing."</p>
<p>All the big tech firms are shifting from the old way of selling stuff to this new way with varying degrees of success: SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Dell, HP and IBM are all getting into the cloud.</p>
<p>IBM actually has game in all the new growth areas: This includes cloud computing, big data/analytics, and mobile computing.</p>
<p>IBM under Rometty, meanwhile, has been able to accomplish the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-snatched-softlayer-from-emc-2013-6">Bought SoftLayer</a> and is building a global network of <a href="http://www.softlayer.com/data-centers">40 cloud data centers </a>on five continents. </li>
<li>Launched <a href="https://ace.ng.bluemix.net/">Watson as a cloud service</a>, a sophisticated big data technology.</li>
<li>Signed <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ipads-despite-dropping-sales-2014-10">a landmark agreement with Apple to sell iPads</a> and mobile apps to the <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Enterprise">enterprise</keyword>, the fruits of which we expect to start seeing next month.</li>
<li>Is signing cloud agreements with other <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-and-sap-score-win-over-amazon-2014-10">cloud players such as SAP</a> and <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/45196.wss">Microsoft</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>But Rometty needs to make it clear that it will take time to shift IBM into growth mode again. And whatever she promises next time around, she needs to deliver.</p>
<p>IBM sent CNBC this statement in response to Cuban: "IBM will accelerate our growth strategy, creating a dedicated cloud business and specialized units to serve industries and professions being transformed by data and analytics. IBM will also continue to return money to shareholders, in addition to maintaining our commitment to R&amp;D and to invest in our business. It is all part of our commitment to delivering higher value to our clients."</p>
<p><span>We reached out to IBM for further comment.</span></p>

Mark Cuban Slams IBM: It's 'No Longer A Tech Company. They Have No Vision.'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="Flickr/Fortune Live Media" title_caption="IBM CEO Ginni Rometty" class="zoomin" href="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5237a07b69bedde8133cf926-960/virginia-ginni-rometty.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fortunelivemedia/8047965942/in/photolist-dgaVTu-dgabFN-atcdEg-dgaQ52-dgaQUA-dgaT5v-dgaPfn-dgaVf1-dgaMjz-dgaUku-dgaMYQ-dgaS4j-dgaWou-dgaNSj-dgaP2h-dgaRui-dgaTys-dgaNJf-dgaM2q-dgaQTT-dgaJzH-dgaPwJ-dgaNoQ-dgaQ6L-dgaU7j/">Flickr/Fortune Live Media</a></span></p><p class="caption">IBM CEO Ginni Rometty</p></div><p></p></div>IBM's revenues have been shrinking. That was the major theme of 2013, which became crystal clear on Tuesday when IBM released earnings: it was a four-in-row <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-earnings-q4-2013-2014-1">miss on revenue expectations.</a></p>
<p>With that as a backdrop, CEO Ginny Rometty announced what shouldn't be a shocker: IBM's senior executives, including herself, would not be getting their bonuses.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"In view of the company's overall full year results, my senior team and I have recommended that we forgo our personal annual incentive payments for 2013," she said in <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/43008.wss">the earnings press release</a>.</p>
<p>This could be a sizeable hit to their 2013 incomes. Executives apparently actually earned their bonuses, but opted to turn them down, an IBM spokesperson tells us:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Ginni and her senior team would have been eligible for annual incentive payments, but have recommended that they forgo them for 2013 for the reasons stated in Ginni's quote. These executives are forgoing their annual incentive payment, which in last year's proxy constituted 27% of Ginni's compensation and on average 17% of the SVP's compensation. 2013 Proxy, page 21."</p>
<p>Specifically, in 2012 Rometty received a nearly $4 million cash bonus ($3,915,000), <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/51143/000110465913019165/a13-1547_1def14a.htm#a2012ReportOfTheExecutiveCompensa_075243">according to documents filed with the SEC</a>. Her base salary for 2013 was $1.5 million. She also received $9.3 million in stock awards which IBM calls "Performance Share Units" as part of her total $16.2 million pay package. The PSU's are used as bonuses, too, IBM says, though they are also used to encourage executives to stick around.</p>
<p>For 2103, CFO Mark Loughridge who retired on Dec. 31, was slated to earn a $1,046,000 in cash and 5.75 million shares of stock as a bonus.</p>
<p>Steve Mills, who runs the Software unit (the one that did show a bit of growth), was slated to get $968,000 in cash and 5 million shares of stock as a bonus.</p>
<p>J. Randall McDonald, the top HR guy, was scheduled to earn a $788,000 cash bonus for 2013.</p>
<p>The documents didn't disclose executive pay on some of Rometty's newest brain-trust members, such as Erich Clementi, promoted in 2013. He runs IBM's largest business unit, its Global Technology Services business.</p>
<p>Clementi has been specifically tasked with getting IBM's cloud business to blossom. In June, when IBM bought cloud provider SoftLayer, it promised the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-hands-clementi-a-new-7b-unit-2013-6">cloud would become a $7 billion business for IBM by the end of 2014.</a></p>
<p>It's still not clear how much of the stock incentives senior execs are forgoing. But if these executives don't get any of their PSU's, that would something.</p>
<p>This chart illustrates IBM's growth trend:</p>
<table style="width: 382px; height: 255px;" border="0" cellspacing="0"></colgroup> </colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Business Unit</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Change</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Global Technology Services</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="color: #ff3333; font-family: Times New Roman;">-4.20%</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Global Business Services</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="color: #ff3333; font-family: Times New Roman;">-0.90%</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Software</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">1.90%</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">System and Technology</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="color: #ff3333; font-family: Times New Roman;">-18.70%</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Global Financing</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">0.40%</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Other</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="color: #ff3333; font-family: Times New Roman;">-17.10%</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">TOTAL REVENUE</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="color: #ff3333; font-family: Times New Roman;">-4.60%</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="LEFT" height="19"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">GROSS PROFIT</span></td>
<td style="border: 1px solid #000000;" align="RIGHT"><span style="color: #ff3333; font-family: Times New Roman;">-3.60%</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

This Chart Explains Why Ginny Rometty And Other Top IBM Execs Won't Get Their 2013 Bonuses 

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>When smartphone manufacturer HTC went looking for ways to make life easier for its internal app developers last year, it turned to the cloud, where huge pools of resources are available for hourly rental to anybody with a credit card. </p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true"><span>HTC's developers didn't need help building their apps, which Song describes as "social, viral" apps like the </span><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.htc.album" target="_blank"><span data-wr_replaced="true"><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">HTC</span> Gallery</span></a><span data-wr_replaced="true">, </span><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.htc.zero&amp;hl=en" target="_blank"><span data-wr_replaced="true">Zoe</span></a><span data-wr_replaced="true"> and </span><span data-wr_replaced="true"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQCv0iRa8k0" target="_blank" data-wr_replaced="true">One M9 Photo Editor</a></span><span>  - Song himself is ex-Facebook, and his engineers had little problem making user-friendly apps that would encourage people to share. </span></span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">But they needed reliability and scalability in order to make sure those apps worked for everybody, all the time, with plenty of computing power underpinning them on the backend. Which is what brought them to the idea of moving development to the cloud in the first place.</span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">"HTC is a hardware company," says <span>John Song, the s</span><span>enior director of cloud computing at </span><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">HTC,</span> and it's "not like a Web 2.0 company." In other words, HTC just isn't really equipped to provide that level of service from its own facilities.  </span></p><p>When HTC turned to the cloud, it turned to at least five big vendors: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba's Alicloud, IBM's Softlayer, and Google Compute Platform. They all have their selling points: Amazon tends to run a little cheaper; Microsoft's has deep integrations with other products from the company. There's a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-launches-its-own-container-technology-2015-4">cloud war</a> going on.</p><p>Initially, Google was the last in line. HTC is based in Taiwan. All of the other big vendors offered their cloud computing services in China, but Google did not.</p><p>"Out of the gate, Google was our least favorite," Song says. "There's no Google in China."</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Amazon and company had their selling points on this count. But when Song came to Amazon's salespeople with HTC's demanding performance requirements, they were rigid and inflexible - they have their portfolio of cloud products, and wanted Song's team to use them, even if it meant changing the entire way they did business.</span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true"><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>Google was a lot more flexible and willing to work with HTC, Song says, which immediately made the team like them better.</span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">But the really killer feature for the Google Cloud Platform comes at the data center, he says. Google has at least 20 data centers located around the world, all of which are connected to each other with high-speed fiber connections. </span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">That means that anything hosted in Google's cloud gets automatically replicated and shunted across the tubes to be everywhere in Google's world, all the time. </span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">This gives Google two advantages. First off, it means that even if several of its data centers were to burn to the ground, Google - and Google's customers - would still be standing. Plus, since it's all hosted in Google's data centers, Google has its top engineers making sure the whole kit and caboodle stays up.</span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">More importantly for HTC's purposes, Song says, it means that a customer will always be served from the data center that's closest to them, meaning lower latency and faster apps. </span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">"It takes time for electrons to travel," Song says, and a closer data center means your photos download just that little bit faster. </span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">Amazon has a similar offering called "Availability Zones," but there are only nine of them, and Song says that they have to be manually configured and have a reputation for unreliability.</span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">"It works, but it collapses when you need it most," Song says.</span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">HTC's developers love having the more robust infrastructure, Song says. And when something goes wrong, Google's top engineers get back to them in minutes with smart answers that help them get back up and running.</span></p><p><span class="il" data-wr_replaced="true">It's not totally perfect, though - there's still that China problem. That's why HTC is using Google Cloud Platform everywhere but China, where it went with Microsoft Azure instead.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p><p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/awesome-google-features-fonts-timer-legos-2014-12">5 Awesome Google Features You Didn't Know About</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="J5Y2U3bzoIG_b9FvwXC1b1SZa9sN8clG" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

This killer feature made HTC choose Google's cloud over Amazon and Alibaba

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Oracle</span></p><p class="caption">Oracle's Larry Ellison</p></div><p></p></div></div>Oracle's executive chairman Larry Ellison spent a good deal of time talking about his long-time competitor IBM during his keynote speeches at his company's tech conference this week in San Francisco.</p><p>That's not unusual. Ellison loves a bit of trash talking and usually throws an entertaining barb or two at his rivals.</p><p>But this time, he's been almost nostalgic about IBM, while also depicting IBM as a nobody when it comes to cloud computing. This is mostly on the basis of how many often Oracle salespeople compete against IBM's for a customer contract.</p><p>During both of his keynote speeches this week, he offered this backhanded complement: </p><p>"IBM, arguably the greatest company in the history of companies - we never see them in the cloud. They were our major database competitor. They were our major middleware competitor. We never see them. This is a completely different world and a next-generation of technology." (Middleware is the software used to run and manage other software applications.)</p><p>But there's good reason why Oracle rarely competes head to head with IBM on cloud contracts these days: they are really in very different cloud markets.</p><h2>Oracle is bringing its <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Enterprise">enterprise</keyword> apps to the cloud</h2><p>Oracle is mostly focused on taking its massive catalog of existing enterprise applications, re-writing them for the cloud, and making them available to rent as a service. This is known as software-as-a-service (SaaS). This is also where Oracle is having the most cloud success.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Noah Berger/Reuters, Robert Galbraith/Reuters, and Justin Sullivan/Getty</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>To really do SaaS right, Oracle needed to offer a service that lets app developers create apps in the cloud, known as platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Ellison said. Oracle controls one of the most popular web development languages, Java, and so it has its own network of about 9 million developers to tap for its PaaS service.</p><p>To really do PaaS right, it needed a service that let's companies and developers just rent compute power, storage, memory and operating systems and use that stuff as they wish, known as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). </p><p>The biggest player in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-beating-ibm-oracle-sap-cloud-forrester-2015-10">IaaS is Amazon, with Microsoft </a>coming on strong. </p><p>Just about anytime Oracle is competing for an IaaS contact, it tends to run into the 800-pound gorilla Amazon. Nearly every enterprise would put Amazon on its short list.</p><h2>IBM wants 'cognitive computing'</h2><p>IBM is also a somebody in IaaS, thanks to its purchase of Softlayer a few years back. But IBM CEO Ginni Rometty is focusing her cloud efforts on an entirely different vision than Oracle. Instead of trying to win enterprise's SaaS application business, or their IaaS business, she's trying to create a new thing in the cloud <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-ceo-a-new-era-of-smart-computers-2015-10">that she calls "cognitive computing."</a></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Brendan McDermid / Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">IBM Chairwoman and CEO Virginia </p></div><p></p></div></div>Cognitive computing is like turning your computer into a human-like advisor. You take lots of your own company's data, mix in data from other sources (like Twitter, weather data, etc.) and put all that into a supercomputer that can think, learn, talk and reason like a human. That's a tech called machine learning. And IBM Watson is arguably the most popular form of cloud computing machine learning available today.</p><p>Rometty is trying to build a completely new computing services to make predictions and offer advice.</p><p>Instead of just keeping track of your transactions in a database in the cloud, Rometty's Watson wants to read those transactions, then warn you that an upcoming tropical storm will kill your production schedule. (It <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-watson-weather-company-digital-assets-2015-10">just bought a big chunk of the Weather Company's digital assets</a>.)</p><p>Instead of software that tracks how many prescriptions were sold, Watson wants to tap into that data, then help individual patients figure out if the drugs they use are really working. (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cvs-brings-ibm-watson-to-americans-2015-7">It's working on that with CVS</a>.)</p><p>In fact, Rometty thinks that transforming medicine with Watson <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ginni-romettys-legacy-for-ibm-2015-4">is her "moonshot" project</a>. She dreams of smart computers saving lives.</p><p>Microsoft is also working on machine learning, with slightly different takes. Microsoft is focused on smarter "productivity" apps to help you at work.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>IBM</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Oracle is starting to have its own take on machine learning. Ellison demonstrated something it calls a "just in time learning system" that helps sales people learn about competitive products before they pitch a product.</p><p>Ditto for Amazon <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2015/04/introducing-amazon-machine-learning/">which launched a machine learning service in April.</a></p><p>None of these approaches to the burgeoning cloud computing market are better or worse than the others, just different enough to apparently keep Oracle from competing head-to-head with IBM these days.</p><p>And the numbers tell at least part of the story. IBM <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/3583746-international-business-machines-ibm-q3-2015-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single">said in October</a> that its cloud services are on an annual run rate of $4.5 billion. <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkVHurd/status/658710409755664384">Oracle CEO Mark Hurd</a> tweeted last week that Oracle's cloud business is at annual run rate of $2.4 billion.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lesser-known-excel-shortcuts-select-column-hide-row-insert-date-time-sum-2015-10">6 little-known Excel shortcuts that will impress your boss</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1iNDR1czqgMVwxzRoXqxJVxgRTPb7ZCU" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

There's a good reason why Larry Ellison 'never sees' IBM anymore

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:276px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source"><a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&amp;VBID=2C04WNVOXW5K9&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1217&amp;RH=568#/SearchResult_VPage&amp;VBID=2C04WNVOXW5K9&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1217&amp;RH=568&amp;PN=2">Reuters/Fred Prouser</a></p></div>Good morning. Here's what you need to know.</p>
<ul>
<li>Asian markets were mixed in overnight trading with the <strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-rallies-after-boj-leaders-approved-2013-3">Nikkei up 1.45 percent to a 4.5 year high, </a>after the parliament approved a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-confirms-kuroda-iwata-nakaso-2013-3">new management team for the Bank of Japan.</a></strong> Europe is selling off and U.S. futures are flat.</li>
</ul>
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<li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-confirms-kuroda-iwata-nakaso-2013-3"><strong>The upper house of the Japanese parliament approved three doves to head the Bank of Japan.</strong></a> Haruhiko Kuroda, who had previously received the approval of the lower house, has been appointed the new Bank of Japan governor as expected. Meanwhile, Kikuo Iwata and Hiroshi Nakaso have also been named in the Bank of Japan's management team. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-abenomics-2013-3">Click here for a complete guide to Abeconomics &gt;</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/february-cpi-2013-3"><strong>Consumer prices were up 0.7 percent in February</strong></a>, just above expectations for a 0.5 percent rise. Meanwhile, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/empire-fed-manufacturing-march-2013-3">Empire Fed manufacturing survey</a> fell to 9.24.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s4-announced-features-and-specs-2013-3"><strong>Samsung revealed its Galaxy S4 smartphone at Radio City Music Hall yesterday.</strong></a> The phone has a 5-inch HD display and operates on the latest version of of Android called Jelly Bean. The phone is thinner and lighter than the previous model. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s4-hands-photos-2013-3">Here are the first photos of the Galaxy S4 &gt;</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Outgoing Bank of England Governor <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-14/king-says-boe-isn-t-trying-to-lower-pound-sees-recovery-ahead.html"><strong>Mervyn King has said policy makers are not trying to devalue the pound.</strong></a> He did however say that the weakness had helped boost exports. King also said he thinks a recovery in the UK economy is "in sight" in 2013, according to Bloomberg.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/euro-area-inflation-slows-to-1-8-on-telecommunications-1-.html"><strong>Euro area consumer prices eased to 1.8 percent in February,</strong></a> from 2 percent the previous month. This was led by a 5.2 percent decline in telecommunication costs.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Most large U.S. companies and plan providers will <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324392804578358540464713464.html">pay a total of $25 billion over three years as part of a new health-care law</a>, according to the WSJ.</strong> This is aimed at preventing insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Companies want this changed because they think "it subsidizes individually purchased plans that won't cover their workers."</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/industrial-production-february-2013-3">Industrial production was up 0.7 percent</a> month-over-month in</strong> February, beating expectations. Consumer sentiment for March is out at 9:55 a.m. ET. Consensus is for <strong>consumer sentiment to stay flat.</strong> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/moneygame">Follow the release at Business Insider &gt;</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>In M&amp;A news, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/15/us-softlayer-sale-idUSBRE92D18M20130315"><strong>IBM and EMC Corp are in talks to buy SoftLayer Technologies for over $2 billion</strong></a>, according to Reuters. Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse have reportedly been hired to make the sale.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The second round of stress tests revealed that the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323393304578360700846767258.html"><strong>Federal Reserve sees "weaknesses" in the capital plans of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs</strong></a>. It also rejected the capital plans of Ally Financial and BB&amp;T Corp. The Fed approved the plans of 14 of the 18 largest banks, to return capital to shareholders.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Bonus - <a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-beauty/news/halle-berry-sprays-perfume-between-her-thighs-thats-how-youre-supposed-to-wear-it-2013143">Halle Berry told Conan O'Brien</a> that the right way to wear perfume, is to spray it between the thighs.</li>
</ul>
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