Mike Trick's Operations Research Blog
Thoughts on the world of operations research
… if you are an academic. As part of the “blue-washing” of ILOG, the academic licensing system for IBM’s OPL Studio, constraint programming system, and CPLEX has changed to become part of IBM’s Academic Initiative Program. Here is the full announcement: Effective February 15, 2010, IBM is offering no-charge full-version ILOG Optimization products via IBM’s … Continue reading “Free IBM/ILOG Software…”
IBM has now completed its purchase of ILOG. From the “ILOG, an IBM Company” press release: ARMONK,NY and PARIS – January 6, 2009. IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the completion of its approximately $340 million USD (EUR 215 million) tender offer for the shares of ILOG (NASDAQ: ILOG) (PARIS: ILO) (ISIN: FR0004042364). The tender offer, … Continue reading “IBM Completes Purchase of ILOG”
The EU cleared the proposed merger between IBM and ILOG. From the announcement: Therefore, the condition regarding receipt of all necessary antitrust clearances, approvals and decisions from the European Union has been fulfilled and there are no remaining regulatory approvals or conditions to which the tender offers are subject other than the minimum tender condition … Continue reading “IBM and ILOG merger cleared by EU”
Lots of activity on the IBM purchase of ILOG, with most concentrating on the business rules aspect, which seems to be a driving force. A reader, in a comment, pointed to an article from InternetNews, quoting IBM’s Sandy Carter, VP of SOA (see: Ratliff was right. SOA is important!). Here is what Sandy says about … Continue reading “More on IBM/ILOG”
News from IBM: they are set to acquire ILOG. Among other things, ILOG makes CPLEX, one of the best linear and integer programming codes out there. Together with the previous purchase of Dash by Fair-Isaac, this means much of the operations research software world has changed hands in the last few months. It is interesting … Continue reading “IBM to acquire ILOG”
IBM announced today that it is forming a new consulting group for business analytics and optimization, called Business Analytics and Optimization Services. With 4000 people, this is a pretty serious operation! You can check out the news release and the Business Week coverage. I’ll pass over the fact that IBM doesn’t use the phrase “operations … Continue reading “Operations Research is hot at IBM”
I am in Minneapolis, flying back to Pittsburgh after spending a couple days in Winnipeg for a memorial service for my Mom. My Mom’s passing has a number of effects, large and small. On the large side, my son Alexander has lost both his gradmothers in the past six months, which makes me sad: every … Continue reading “Check out ILOG’s DIALOG blog!”
The “Official Response Document” that ILOG prepared (and posted on their Investor Relations site) responding to IBM’s offer is fascinating reading. I particularly liked the “Historical Background” (pages 5-10) that begins with IBM’s orginal contacts with ILOG. From an initial discussion of IBM’s licensing ILOG’s rules software in late 2006, ILOG seemed to quickly come … Continue reading “Interest in ILOG”
John Gregory, ILOG CPLEX Product Manager, posted this on sci.op-research: The July 28 announcement of the agreement by IBM and ILOG was a surprise to all but a few key members of the two companies. It will take literally months, not days, before this transaction will be completed. Until then an arm’s-length relationship must continue … Continue reading “Word from ILOG on CPLEX”
I don’t normally do job postings on this blog: there is OR/MS Today and INFORMS Job Placement Service and so on for that, but sometimes a job catches my eye. A company is looking for a Masters level OR specialist to provide analysis for them. They run a nice sized network: hundreds of sources and … Continue reading “OR Job at Waste Management”