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IBM Announces New Innovation Center and Acquires Seek AI

IBM Announces New Innovation Center and Acquires Seek AI

Tech company IBM (IBM) recently announced a new AI innovation center in Manhattan called watsonx AI Labs, which is designed to help developers build and scale real-world AI solutions for businesses. This lab connects IBM's technical knowledge and resources with startups, established companies, and AI builders in order to create advanced AI tools. Located at IBM's One Madison office, the lab will focus on collaborative work by bringing together researchers, engineers, and partners to solve complex problems using AI.
Confident Investing Starts Here:
Interestingly, New York City was chosen because it's already a major hub for AI innovation, with over 2,000 AI startups and a growing AI workforce. IBM also announced the acquisition of Seek AI, which is a local startup that develops AI agents in order to help businesses use their data more effectively. IBM will use Seek AI's technology and expertise as part of the watsonx AI Labs.
In addition, over the next five years, IBM plans to give successful local AI startups access to expert advice and mentorship, as well as potential funding from IBM's global $500 million Enterprise AI Venture Fund. The lab will work on developing practical AI tools for areas like customer service, cybersecurity, and supply chain management, while promoting responsible AI use.
What Is the Target Price for IBM?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on IBM stock based on eight Buys, five Holds, and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average IBM price target of $260.62 per share implies that shares are trading near fair value.
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Don't Become Obsolete: Embrace The Value Creation Paradigm Now
Don't Become Obsolete: Embrace The Value Creation Paradigm Now

Forbes

time2 hours ago

  • Forbes

Don't Become Obsolete: Embrace The Value Creation Paradigm Now

In my last article, I gave 21 reasons why managers are becoming obsolete. The low level of employee engagement globally, the meager levels of trust, and the declining returns of many famous firms are dire warning signs that businesses have gotten on the wrong track. What to do? I offer below the 21 principles of value creating firms, which are mostly operating very differently. The first thing to grasp is that these are principles, not a checklist. This is not just about doing different things. For many, it is about thinking, speaking, interacting and imagining differently. The principles need to be applied in a holistic and integrated way. They need to be interconnected, adaptive, and embodied in everything that occurs in the enterprise. It's not just about 'doing' business differently. It's about "being" a different kind of business, that is often a lot more profitable. The 21 Principles Of The Value Creating Firm The good news is the extraordinary success that firms enjoy when they consistently deploy the principles of value creation. The 21 interconnected ways in which value-creating firms operate differently from traditional firms are: Why Now? These principles are not new. Some of them have been around in other fields for thousands of years. (E.g. 'Love your neighbor as yourself.') They have also been urged in management circles over the last hundred years, at least since Mary Parker Follett began promoting them in the 1920s. Why tackle them now? For many businesses, there's no other choice: the world has changed. Firms that don't draw on the talents of their staff to create value for customers will find it hard to compete. Value-Creating Firms Often Make More Money The key insight: value-creating enterprises not only satisfy customers: they make much more money than firms focused on making money. Workplaces devoted to creating value for customers are also more likely to be more meaningful workplaces. A list of major firms that are in many ways on this new track is below. Important caveat: none of these firms is perfect. Some embrace the principles only in parts of their organization. Some embrace the principles and then partly lapsed back into traditional business. We also need see through the inevitable noise that occurs in capitalist economies when new technology arrives and previously successful firms don't make the necessary shifts to implement the new technology and are displaced, as Carlota Perez has brilliantly documented in her book, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital. How To Transition Forthcoming articles will discuss how to transition to the implementation the value creation principles. As an appetizer: your five key initial leadership moves towards value creation should include: And read also: Why Are Millions Of Managers Becoming Obsolete? Here Are 21 Reasons Your Five Leadership Moves to 21st Century Management

Supermicro Shares Plunge on Outlook. Is This a Red Flag or a Buying Opportunity?
Supermicro Shares Plunge on Outlook. Is This a Red Flag or a Buying Opportunity?

Yahoo

time13 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Supermicro Shares Plunge on Outlook. Is This a Red Flag or a Buying Opportunity?

Key Points Supermicro continues to have difficulty forecasting revenue. More problematic is that the company continues to feel gross margin pressures. The stock isn't overly expensive, but it's in a low-margin, low-moat business. 10 stocks we like better than Super Micro Computer › Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI) shares plunged following the release of its fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter results, reinforcing its status as one of the more volatile stocks in the market. The stock now trades down around 25% over the past year, but it is still up nearly 50% year to date, as of this writing. The developer of end-to-end computing solutions for data centers, cloud computing, enterprise IT, big data, and high-performance computing has been on a roller coaster ride over the past year, as it has consistently lowered its revenue guidance throughout its fiscal year. This started last November, when it slashed its fiscal first-quarter revenue guidance to a range of $5.9 billion to $6 billion from an earlier forecast of between $6 billion and $7 billion. It followed that up in February, when it announced that its fiscal Q2 revenue would fall short of expectations. In May, its fiscal Q3 revenue came up short of its earlier guidance, and it forecast fiscal Q4 revenue well below analyst expectations. Perhaps, then, it should be no surprise that when the company reported its fiscal Q4 results, it once again missed analyst expectations. Revenue forecasting and gross margins problems persist For the quarter, Supermicro's revenue rose 7% year over year to $5.76 billion, which missed the $5.89 billion analyst consensus, as compiled by LSEG. It was also toward the low end of its earlier guidance range for sales to be between $5.6 billion and $6.4 billion. In addition to its issues with forecasting revenue, Supermicro has also seen gross margin pressure. This started in its June 2024 quarter, when its gross margin plunged to 11.3% from 17% a year earlier. At the time, the company said that this was because it lowered prices in order to secure new design wins. However, its gross margins have not recovered, with the blame being shifted to the graphics processing unit (GPU) platform transition (Nvidia's move from Hopper to Blackwell), with more price competition surrounding older platforms. In fiscal Q4, its gross margins sank even further, coming in a 9.5%, versus 10.2% a year ago and 9.6% in fiscal Q3. Lower gross margins are a problem, as they make it more difficult to turn revenue into profits. The company is looking to gradually improve its gross margins through offering complete data center solutions and an increased focus on higher-margin markets, such as enterprise, IoT, and telecom. Its long-term goal is to still get back to around 15% to 16%, but it said that fiscal Q1 gross margins would be similar to Q4. Its weak gross margins, meanwhile, are hurting its profits. Adjusted EPS plunged 24% to $0.41, which fell short of the $0.44 analyst consensus. And while the company's fiscal Q1 revenue guidance of between $6 billion and $7 billion bracketed the $6.6 billion consensus, its adjusted EPS guidance of $0.40 to $0.52 was well below analyst estimates of $0.59. For the full year fiscal 2026, however, the company projected strong revenue growth. It forecast revenue to rise to at least $33 billion, which would represent growth of 50%. Given its Q1 outlook, though, this would be more back-end loaded. The company expects the growth to be driven by expanding its enterprise customer base, upcoming product innovations, and its new Data Center Building Block Solutions (DCBBS), a modular architecture that helps customers get new data centers up and running quickly. Is it time to buy the dip? While Supermicro's robust full-year revenue guidance is positive, it's also difficult to put a lot of credence into it, given that the company consistently lowered its forecast and missed expectations this past fiscal year. Meanwhile, its gross margin issues have not gone away. It continues to be a low-margin, low-moat business that may have difficulty navigating GPU product transition cycles. From a valuation standpoint, the stock now trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of just over 16 times based on fiscal-year 2026 analyst estimates. That appears reasonable on the surface, especially given its revenue growth guidance. However, this is a much different business than other artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure plays like chipmakers, which tend to have wider moats and robust gross margins. If Supermicro can improve its gross margins and meet its revenue growth targets, the stock should have nice upside from here. 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See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 4, 2025 Geoffrey Seiler has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Supermicro Shares Plunge on Outlook. Is This a Red Flag or a Buying Opportunity? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Bye SaaS—We Have Entered The Agentic Platform Companies Era
Bye SaaS—We Have Entered The Agentic Platform Companies Era

Forbes

timea day ago

  • Forbes

Bye SaaS—We Have Entered The Agentic Platform Companies Era

As one big tech CEO told me recently, 'You don't want to be parked on SaaS Ave. SaaS now is like building real estate in a bad neighborhood.' He wasn't being glib. The software landscape is shifting underfoot. We've entered the age of Agentic Platform Companies (APCs), a convergence of SaaS, software, and cloud built around adaptive, AI-powered systems. A system that intelligently connects a vast landscape of business applications to deliver insights and intelligence that traverses the enterprise environment and makes enterprise software as usable as ChatGPT or Google Search. In this new era, traditional SaaS economics are faltering, and mid-market players are in the I wrote in these pages nearly a year ago, SaaS companies that are looking to merely embed AI features into their existing software and seek to charge incremental fees are extremely vulnerable. Water-cooler talk in Silicon Valley and beyond was bleaker, speculating on the end of SaaS, and the prospects of Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday Inc., NetSuite Inc., and others. A new AlixPartners study examined 122 publicly traded enterprise software companies with annual revenue of less than $10 billion, and found they are feeling what the firm calls the 'big squeeze': AI-native startups on one side, tech giants on the other. Startups are releasing lower-cost, faster-evolving tools. Meanwhile, incumbents like Microsoft Corp., Salesforce Inc., and Oracle Corp. are doubling down on AI, embedding it into vast, bundled ecosystems and offering it at scale. The mid-tier, stripped of its traditional competitive advantages, is being forced into an uncomfortable choice: pivot or perish. The numbers tell the story. The share of high-growth companies in this segment fell from 57% in 2023 to 39% this year. Net dollar retention, a key measure of customer stickiness, has dropped from 120% in 2021 to 108% in late 2024. Markets have taken notice. The BVP Nasdaq Cloud Software Index is down nearly 10% year-to-date, even as the broader Nasdaq Composite is up more than 20%. 'SaaS Is Dead' — Sort Of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly implied 'SaaS is dead' not as a eulogy, but as a warning--effectively labeling enterprise software as crud databases with logic on top. The dashboard-and-seat-license model is being eclipsed by AI agents: autonomous, adaptive systems that learn and execute without constant human input. Several forces are driving this shift: Based on my interactions with insiders and CEOs, coupled with our market research, we believe it's plausible that one-third to one-half of today's SaaS companies will disappear—or be reduced to API-level data feeds for larger AI platforms—within 36 months. We also believe there will be consolidation and a new stable of winners. Some of the companies are already building for this APC future. In no particular order, the best positioned include: 1. Alphabet (Google) 2. Microsoft 3. Palantir 4. ServiceNow 5. Amazon 6. Oracle 7. Salesforce 8. IBM 9. SAP 10. OpenAI These firms aren't adding AI as an accessory, they're making it the operating core. Oracle, for example, has turned around its cloud business while Microsoft and Google aim to overtake AWS within four years. AWS itself faces capital spending pressure to catch up on AI tools, even as it makes inroads in robotics. Then there's Palantir, a company many love to call overvalued, yet whose growth and margins continue to defy gravity. Its recent $10 billion U.S. Army contract cements it as a consolidation layer for AI, data, and software in some of the most secure markets in the world. CEO Alex Karp's public persona, like Elon Musk's, galvanizes retail investors. The only caution flag: Palantir's valuation assumes flawless execution. And so far, it has delivered. The SaaS Model is Under Siege The traditional SaaS playbook of dashboards, seat-based pricing, and sprawling product catalogs is breaking down. But this transformation comes with costs. Compute-intensive AI workloads increase operating expenses, squeezing margins. Investors are pushing for profitability overgrowth in a high-interest-rate environment. For mid-market SaaS companies, survival requires more than bolting AI onto existing products. It demands reinvention: build products where AI is central, not peripheral; move toward usage- or outcome-based billing; cut underperforming offerings and redeploy capital into AI development; and acquire niche capabilities or position yourself as an acquisition target. In some cases, the smartest move will be a controlled exit before valuations erode further. This isn't a routine technology upgrade cycle: It's a structural shift in how software is built, sold, and valued. The winners will be agentic platforms delivering measurable outcomes. The losers will be those clinging to a model built for a pre-AI era. The CEO who warned me about 'SaaS Ave.' might have been blunt, but the analogy is apt. The neighborhood is changing fast. If you don't adapt, you're not just at risk of losing market share — you're at risk of being erased.

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