Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-28

• Enslin takes over as SAP North America president
  SAP America Inc. said Wednesday it has named Rob Enslin president of SAP North America. He replaces Gregory Tomb, SAP North America’s president and CEO, who is on a leave of absence for personal reasons.
• The PaaS Era, Part 2: Who's In It All the Way?
  The PaaS trend is still in its infancy, but it has gained so much popularity already that vendors are scrambling to let developers experiment with their applications. Not all PaaS vendors are alike, though. Some offer limited mashup-creating capabilities, while others -- NetSuite, Oracle, SugarCRM and SalesLogix, for example -- really let devs get their hands dirty.
• Oracle Professional: Oracle prepping broad-based social-networking suite
  The technology, titled Oracle Social Suite, has apparently not been formally announced by Oracle. It combines a wide range of social-networking features... They range from the basics -- such as a blog system that uses Movable Type as a front end; bookmarking; tagging; and aggregated information feeds -- to more conceptual ideas, like Oracle Social Graph, which provides a visual map of the connections between users and content. The suite also includes OpenSocial Container, which enables users to plug in applets that meet Google's OpenSocial standard. ... The effort eventually became a beta project code-named "Shiji." Over time, the technology was pushed out to other Oracle business units, the documents state. It is not clear when or if the Social Suite will become a commercially available product. Neither document provides a release date, although one states that Oracle is "actively recruiting" proof-of-concept customers in Japan.
• Managing IT in a downturn: Beyond cost cutting
  Creating impact with technology Such an effort begins with a survey of operations for areas likely to produce near-term revenue and efficiency gains. In our work across a variety of industries, we have identified a number ways technology investments can have a substantial impact (Exhibit 2). * Manage sales and pricing. Develop insights into customer segments and improve pricing discipline to increase revenues without increasing prices. * Optimize sourcing and production. Rethink supply chains and logistics to improve the scheduling of deliveries and inventory management. * Enhance support processes. Improve the management and use of field forces (such as installers and field technicians) and of customer support centers. * Optimize overhead and performance management. Sharpen awareness of risk exposure and improve decision-making and performance-management processes.
• Celebrating Black History in Technology
  Oracle President Chuck Phillips Oracle President Charles Phillips is also a member of the company's board. Phillips joined Oracle in 2003. Before joining Oracle, Phillips worked at Morgan Stanley. Prior to Wall Street, Phillips served as a captain in the United States Marine Corps. Phillips holds a degree in Computer Science from the United States Air Force Academy, a law degree from New York Law School and an MBA from Hampton University.
• Microsoft's glimpse of the future
  A new video from Microsoft shows in an elegant, if utopian way, what it might look like if all of those gadgets came together several years hence. Earlier on Friday, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop showed the video in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
• Microsoft Readying Low-cost Windows Server OS
  Microsoft is readying a new low-cost version of Windows Server to give customers a server OS similar to client OSes that run on low-cost PCs. Microsoft plans to release "something akin to" a netbook version of Windows, but for servers, not PCs, over the next month or two, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said on a call with members of the financial community on Tuesday. ... He described the software as a "low-cost, low-price, low-functionality Windows Server SKU" called "Foundation Edition," but did not offer more details.
• Few Oracle Customers Have Official Database Patching Policies
  Oracle shops are having trouble keeping up with the patch cycles, too. More than half (55 percent) said they are one or two patch cycles behind. Around 30 percent said they install updates before the next CPU is released; 25 percent are one CPU behind (three to six months), while 10 percent are two CPUs behind (six to nine months), 8 percent are three CPUs behind (nine to 12 months), and another 8 percent are more than 12 months behind in their patching. Another 11 percent said they never apply CPU patches. Even so, the respondents said they were mostly satisfied with the CPU as a way to protect their databases. Around 42 percent said the process was effective or extremely effective in securing their database environments, and 45 percent said it was "somewhat" effective. Around 13 percent said the CPU process was ineffective.
• Oracle to Release Major Enterprise Manager Upgrade
  Oracle is set to unveil Enterprise Manager 10g Release 5 on Tuesday, framing the upgrade as a major step forward for the company's wide-ranging application management platform. "This is a pretty important release," said Moe Fardoost, director of product marketing. "There's something in each tier." On the application level, the update adds support for Siebel CRM 8.1.1, as well as additional management tools for the Beehive collaboration platform and Oracle's billing and revenue management software. Moving down the stack to middleware, Oracle has brought in deep management capabilities for WebLogic Server and Oracle Service Bus, he said.
• How FriendFeed uses MySQL to store schema-less data
  In particular, making schema changes or adding indexes to a database with more than 10 - 20 million rows completely locks the database for hours at a time...There are complex operational procedures you can do to circumvent these problems (like setting up the new index on a slave, and then swapping the slave and the master), but those procedures are so error prone and heavyweight, they implicitly discouraged our adding features that would require schema/index changes. Since our databases are all heavily sharded, the relational features of MySQL like JOIN have never been useful to us, so we decided to look outside of the realm of RDBMS. ... After some deliberation, we decided to implement a "schema-less" storage system on top of MySQL rather than use a completely new storage system. This post attempts to describe the high-level details of the system. We are curious how other large sites have tackled these problems, and we thought some of the design work we have done might be useful to ot

Larry Ellison and Lionel Richie: Separated at Birth?

Larry Ellison and Lionel Richie: separated at birth? You be the judge ...

Just kidding - have a fun weekend ...

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-27

• Oracle's rose-colored grid vision - all theory for now
  It sounded so good coming from Ellison. Shared resources, automatic load balancing, lowered costs of ownership, minimal investments -- all things that grid computing delivers to electric companies would now be available to commercial enterprises, Ellison said. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle centered its grid strategy around its newest database release, Oracle10g, and on the Oracle 10g Application Server. So, was Ellison right? Is Oracle delivering on its 10g promise? The short answer is that it's too soon to tell, but the long-term outlook bodes well for Oracle. Even industry analysts who have criticized Oracle's grid strategy say that grid architectures will eventually deliver big benefits.
• SAP CTO: Coghead's engineers will help solve SaaS integration problems
  Integration of cloud-based and on-premise applications is a problem that Coghead engineers have paid a lot of attention to, Sikka said in an interview with SearchSAP.com yesterday. With Coghead's technology, SAP can ensure that customers get the benefits of the cloud without sacrificing functionality.
• 4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Oracle
  Based on the aggregated intelligence of 125,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, enterprise-software giant Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) has earned a respected four-star ranking.
• Day 2 at VMworld Europe 2009 - Part 1
  He quoted performance studies using both a heavy OLTP database (using Oracle) and SPEC's very own SPECweb2005 bench to prove that performance hits are quickly becoming a non-issue (weren't they saying this last year as well, though?). Oracle was claimed to run at 24000 transactions per second, while the webserver was able to maintain up to 3 billion pageviews a day. Not too shabby compared to Ebay's average of 1 billion pageviews. The image below displays Oracle's virtual performance when using 1, 2, 4 and 8 vCPU's. The green bar is its native performance on an 8-core machine, VMware claims the performance loss is now limited to 15%.
• Salesforce.com Weathers Economic Headwinds In Q4
  Salesforce reported that sales grew 34 percent year over year to $289.6 million in its fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, from $216.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income surged more than 86 percent to $13.8 million in the quarter from $7.4 million in the same quarter last year. For all of fiscal 2009 (ended Jan. 31) the company reported sales of $1.08 billion, up 44 percent from $748.7 million for fiscal 2008. Earnings more than doubled to $43.4 million from $18.4 million in the previous year. For the current quarter, Salesforce is projecting that sales will be in the range of $304 million to $305 million. For all of fiscal 2010 the company is forecasting sales between $1.30 billion and $1.33 billion. The number of Salesforce's net paying customers increased approximately 3,600 during the quarter, bringing the company's total to around 55,400.
• Salesforce.com: Silver Lining on a Recessionary Cloud
  It’s not all gloom and doom in the tech sector: Salesforce.com’s revenue jumped 34% for the quarter, the company announced Wednesday.
• Salesforce.com - The First Billion Dollar Cloud Company
  Congrats to Salesforce.com on being the first 1 billion dollar SaaS company! Salesforce.com Announces Record Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results * First enterprise cloud computing company to achieve fiscal year revenue of one billion dollars -- record revenue of $290 million, up 34% year-over-year * GAAP EPS of $0.11, up 83% year-over-year * Net customers increase 3,600 in the quarter to 55,400 * Net paying subscribers increase 400K year-over-year to surpass 1.5 million * Operating cash flow of $76 million for quarter; $230 million for fiscal year * Total cash and marketable securities of $883 million, up $213 million year-over-year * Company updates FY10 revenue guidance to $1.30 - $1.33 billion

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-26

• Oracle's rose-colored grid vision - all theory for now
  It sounded so good coming from Ellison. Shared resources, automatic load balancing, lowered costs of ownership, minimal investments -- all things that grid computing delivers to electric companies would now be available to commercial enterprises, Ellison said. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle centered its grid strategy around its newest database release, Oracle10g, and on the Oracle 10g Application Server. So, was Ellison right? Is Oracle delivering on its 10g promise? The short answer is that it's too soon to tell, but the long-term outlook bodes well for Oracle. Even industry analysts who have criticized Oracle's grid strategy say that grid architectures will eventually deliver big benefits.
• SAP CTO: Coghead's engineers will help solve SaaS integration problems
  Integration of cloud-based and on-premise applications is a problem that Coghead engineers have paid a lot of attention to, Sikka said in an interview with SearchSAP.com yesterday. With Coghead's technology, SAP can ensure that customers get the benefits of the cloud without sacrificing functionality.
• 4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Oracle
  Based on the aggregated intelligence of 125,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, enterprise-software giant Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) has earned a respected four-star ranking.
• Day 2 at VMworld Europe 2009 - Part 1
  He quoted performance studies using both a heavy OLTP database (using Oracle) and SPEC's very own SPECweb2005 bench to prove that performance hits are quickly becoming a non-issue (weren't they saying this last year as well, though?). Oracle was claimed to run at 24000 transactions per second, while the webserver was able to maintain up to 3 billion pageviews a day. Not too shabby compared to Ebay's average of 1 billion pageviews. The image below displays Oracle's virtual performance when using 1, 2, 4 and 8 vCPU's. The green bar is its native performance on an 8-core machine, VMware claims the performance loss is now limited to 15%.
• Salesforce.com Weathers Economic Headwinds In Q4
  Salesforce reported that sales grew 34 percent year over year to $289.6 million in its fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, from $216.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income surged more than 86 percent to $13.8 million in the quarter from $7.4 million in the same quarter last year. For all of fiscal 2009 (ended Jan. 31) the company reported sales of $1.08 billion, up 44 percent from $748.7 million for fiscal 2008. Earnings more than doubled to $43.4 million from $18.4 million in the previous year. For the current quarter, Salesforce is projecting that sales will be in the range of $304 million to $305 million. For all of fiscal 2010 the company is forecasting sales between $1.30 billion and $1.33 billion. The number of Salesforce's net paying customers increased approximately 3,600 during the quarter, bringing the company's total to around 55,400.
• Salesforce.com: Silver Lining on a Recessionary Cloud
  It’s not all gloom and doom in the tech sector: Salesforce.com’s revenue jumped 34% for the quarter, the company announced Wednesday.
• Salesforce.com - The First Billion Dollar Cloud Company
  Congrats to Salesforce.com on being the first 1 billion dollar SaaS company! Salesforce.com Announces Record Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results * First enterprise cloud computing company to achieve fiscal year revenue of one billion dollars -- record revenue of $290 million, up 34% year-over-year * GAAP EPS of $0.11, up 83% year-over-year * Net customers increase 3,600 in the quarter to 55,400 * Net paying subscribers increase 400K year-over-year to surpass 1.5 million * Operating cash flow of $76 million for quarter; $230 million for fiscal year * Total cash and marketable securities of $883 million, up $213 million year-over-year * Company updates FY10 revenue guidance to $1.30 - $1.33 billion

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-24

• Microsoft to Wall Street: We're Still Spending
  8:12 We're looking at who did well in 1937 and 1938. RCA is our role model, they kept investing throughout Depression, and dominated when the Depression ended. ... 8:19 Wants to reduce MISC opex (legal, IT, HR, etc). Legal in particular is a drain. ... 8:23 More Windows Mobile spending too. Servers flat. Enterprise flat. Search & Ad more spending. Entertain & TV flat. More incubation (2% of spending). 8:24 Laying some off but still hiring. You can't take a videogame designer and move them over to databases (SQL Server.) ... 8:27 Windows license is #1. Pirated windows in #2 -- tough competitor, great product and a price that's tough to beat. (Laughter.) ... 8:44 IT budgets are "more of an opp than a challenge." MSFT only has 16% of revenue, ORCL recently raised prices, Steve wants to take share from Oracle. But admits "we're outmanned" by Oracle's spend.
• More IT Vendors Make H-1B Scam List
  Small Iowa communities were used as nothing more than mail drops in an elaborate H-1B visa fraud scheme that allowed foreign workers to illegally work on the East and West coasts while being paid the lower Iowa prevailing rates. Two IT services firms in New Jersey and one in California may be at the heart of the H-1B visa scam, but federal prosecutors warn current indictments are "just the tip of the iceberg."
• Microsoft Offers Online Job Resource
  Microsoft on Sunday announced the creation of a Web site, Elevate America, aimed at improving access to job training tools. The site, here, provides resources to help individuals gain the technical skills needed for acquiring jobs, the world's largest software company said. The economy has shed 3.6 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007 with about half of the decline occurring in the past three months, recent Labor Department data showed.
• No Settlement in Oracle-SAP Lawsuit
  Oracle's rancorous lawsuit against rival SAP will continue for the foreseeable future, as a settlement conference on Monday did not produce an agreement, SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie said Tuesday. SAP expects the court to schedule the next settlement conference for sometime in December, Kendzie said. The case is set to go to trial in February 2010.
• FOX News Poll
  Due to an accounting glitch, Microsoft overpaid severance to some of its workers. Should the software giant ask for that money back? a. Yes (56%) b. No (38%) c. Not sure (6%)
• Earnings Preview: Salesforce.com
  Salesforce.com (CRM) is expected to report Q4 after the market close on Wednesday, February 25, with a conference call scheduled for 5:00 pm ET.
• Satyam gets more H1-B visas than Microsoft
  It may be at the centre of India's biggest ever corporate fraud now, but Satyam Computer was issued more H1-B visas than any other company in the world except for two of its Indian rivals in the last fiscal. With a tally of 1,917 H1-B visas, Satyam was the third biggest recipient of these non-immigrant visas given by the US to skilled foreign professionals, after its Indian peers Infosys and Wipro in the fiscal year ended September 20, 2008.
• OSGi Takes Off Among Enterprise Service Bus Providers
  The OSGi Service Platform delivers the dynamic module system for Java to providers and their customers, modularizing and componentizing the Java platform and allowing applications to be adapted remotely and in real time, OSGi Alliance officials said. OSGi technology is a component integration platform with a service-oriented architecture and lifecycle capabilities that enable dynamic delivery of services. Leading vendors deploying ESBs on the OSGi Service Platform include Progress Software, Red Hat and TIBCO Software Inc. These market innovators note the clear advantages OSGi technology provides as a platform for ESBs. Other vendors that are not part of the OSGi Alliance, such as WSO2, also have standardized on the OSGi platform.
• Former Bush Techie Moves To SAP America
  Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology Robert Cresanti will soon be heading up the Washington office of SAP America, a business software company. After leaving Commerce, where he served from 2006 to 2007, Cresanti worked as a managing director at Ocean Tomo, a bank specializing in intellectual property.
• Oracle’s Pre-Packaged Play for Public Sector BI
  Last week, Oracle Corp. introduced a new revision of its Oracle Business Intelligence Applications stack, complete with a public service-friendly twist: new BI capabilities -- buttressed by pre-fab dashboards and customized ETL schemas -- designed specifically for government and other public sector entities. After all, Oracle officials maintain, public sector shops deserve improved insight into their operational budgets, too.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-23

• Test Center review: Thumbs-up to FileMaker upgrade
  A wonderfully easy-to-use desktop database product that runs on Windows and the Mac, FileMaker Pro is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as departments of large and enterprise-sized businesses. FileMaker is simple enough for the office technologist to set up, and for almost anyone in the office to use.
• Why Do Enterprise Applications Suck?
  We've got a time-tracking system that has a feature where an employee can enter in a vacation request. There's a little workflow triggered to have the supervisor approve the vacation request. I've seen it used inside two groups. In both cases, the employee negotiates the leave request via email then enters it into the time tracking system. I know several people who use Travelocity to find their flights before they log in to our corporate travel system. And you wouldn't even believe how hard our sales force automation system [is] compared to Salesforce.com.
• SAP revs up college recruiting effort with new site
  SAP is augmenting its University Alliances program with a new Web portal aimed at bringing more college students into the fold. The site is organized into sections like "faculty club," "student union" and "library," which contain content like message boards, case studies, lectures and career resources.
• 'Full' SQL Server planned for Microsoft's Azure cloud
  Microsoft plans to make a full version of its popular SQL Server database available in the cloud in response to pressure from partners. The company told The Reg it's working to add as many features as possible from SQL Server to its fledgling Azure Services Platform cloud as quickly as possible, following feedback. General manager developer and platform evangelism Mark Hindsbro said Microsoft hoped to complete this work with the first release of Azure, currently available as a Community Technology Preview (CTP). But he added that some features might be rolled into subsequent updates to Azure. Microsoft has not yet given a date for the first version of Azure, which was released as a CTP last October.
• Quick Take on Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track
  Stuart Frost of Microsoft (nee' DATAllegro) checked in, with Microsoft's TDWI-timed announcements. The news part was something called "SQL Server Fast Track," which is the Microsoft SQL Server equivalent to Oracle's "recommended configurations" or IBM's "BCUs." SQL Server Fast Track is further being portrayed as an incremental step toward Madison, Microsoft's future high-end data warehousing offering.
• Microsoft Looks to Push SQL Server Deeper into the Data Warehousing Space
  The offering is meant to increase Microsoft SQL Server 2008's scalability up to 32TB and to slash the time and effort required to deploy mission-critical projects. Through balanced configurations, the new reference architectures are designed to optimize all hardware components, delivering up to 200MB per second per central processing unit core, according to Microsoft. The hardware and reference architectures are available from Bull, Dell and HP starting at $13,000 per terabyte.
• Salesforce.com Named #3 on Forbes "25 Fastest Growing Tech Companies" List
  Salesforce.com [NYSE:CRM], the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced it has been named to Forbes "25Fastest Growing Tech Companies" List for the third consecutive year. Preceded by Google andbiotechnology company Illumina, salesforce.com was ranked as the third fastest growing technologycompany with 40 percent earnings per share (EPS) growth and five-year sales growth of 72 percent.
• Microsoft U-turn over redundancy pay gaffe
  In the end, though, Microsoft executives decided that swallowing the $125,000 slip-up would be easier than suffering from bad public relations.
• SAP APJ posts 23% software revenue growth
  SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) posted 23 percent Software revenue growth, to €594 million. Software and related services grew at 24 percent for the year, to €1.192 billion. All revenue figures in this release are expressed in non-GAAP constant currency terms and all growth is measured against the previous comparable period. While SAP APJ experienced difficult market conditions in the fourth quarter, growing software and software related Services at 5 percent, total revenue for the full year grew at 20 percent, to €1.532 billion.
• Oracle apps: an innovation free zone since 2006?
  This last point is a good one because the way I read Oracle’s definition of innovation - at least according to the timeline on their own website - is as a series of ‘firsts.’ What is shocking is that list stopped being updated in 2006. You can argue as Vinnie has that Oracle has been innovating by scooping up large chunks of the enterprise apps market. The numbers bear that argument out.
• Oracle and the art of development and support
  I am sure these new features deliver some utility, but you expect big, bold stuff like Fusion announced 5 years ago. We don’t even hear that word any more from Oracle. Oracle, in my opinion, has forgotten how to develop code. Its top executives are deal makers, not technology visionaries. Worse, when it comes to their acquisitions, they cannot retain or easily replace the entrepreneurial talent. Every person who departs Oracle comments about the mass confusion that comes with such a rapid accumulation of software IP - and Ben touches on that also in his article. The rapid pace of acquisitions has also had a significant impact on Oracle support. Customers report frequent and confusing changes to Oracle’s support policies as so many products go in and out of stages of “lifetime support”. Little has been done to rationalize support across products – other than of course, raise maintenance to 22% The questions every CIO needs to ask as they write maintenance checks to Oracle are: Can m

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-22

• Fixing a fiscal fiasco: County software system still not working right
  Today, following a debacle involving a top-shelf SAP system installed by Deloitte Consulting that has cost $18.6 million - or $2.8 million more than expected, while requiring work from a $600,000-a-year team of consultants - Smith wishes the county had taken more time on the decision. ... The SAP software package of 15 programs or "modules" cost about $1 million. Deloitte Consulting got an initial $9 million for customization, configuration and installation work, then $2.4 million more in overruns when the county couldn't cope with what it bought. Other consultants cost at least $800,000. Salaries and benefits for employees dedicated to the project cost $4 million. Equipment and supplies cost $900,000. About $300,000 was spent on training. Although officials signed off on work by SAP and Deloitte as completed satisfactorily, Deloitte's performance remains at issue. ... Hymel agreed: "We're in much better shape than we were a year ago."
• Microsoft overpaid severance
  Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos confirmed the authenticity of the letter Saturday evening but would not comment further, stating that it was a "private matter between the company and the affected people." He would not say how many people were affected but said, "There was certainly more than one." Gellos also said that an unspecified number of other laid-off employees received smaller severance packages than they were owed. He said Microsoft was "taking care of underpayments." Microsoft paid the 1,400 employees it laid off Jan. 22 a minimum of 60 days of salary, plus what it described as a "generous" severance package that varied depending how long employees had worked at the company.
• Oops: Microsoft Asks Some Laid Off Workers To Send Back Part Of Their Severance
  While the payroll error must be irritating in and of itself to these laid off workers (severance is a sensitive subject), it appears that Microsoft HR isn’t even bothering to explain how it happened (employees are instructed to call the office, which is closed for the weekend, if they want to know the details). Given that it was Microsoft HR that screwed this up in the first place, you’d think they’d at least include the calculations they made and point out where the error took place.
• Microsoft aims to 'Elevate America'
  Microsoft is announcing on Sunday a job training effort aimed at giving technical skills to as many as 2 million Americans over the next three years. The most significant part of the program, in which Microsoft is offering free certification and other technical training, is being done in a phased approach, starting with Washington state. The second component of "Elevate America," available online immediately, is a Web site designed to help people with the basics such as creating a resume and send e-mail.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-21

• Oracle Released free 11g Developer Tools for Visual Studio
  The key features of this release are: * Enhanced integration with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005 * Improved ASP.NET web developer support * Support for automatic code generation in Microsoft Office projects * An Oracle Database Project to provide source control of Oracle SQL scripts * An Oracle SQL script editor
• Oracle Updates User Productivity Kit for Enterprise
  The new Oracle User Productivity Kit v3.5 and Oracle User Productivity Kit Professional v6.1 are now available to help organizations retain corporate knowledge and increase end user productivity of all enterprise applications, including non-Oracle applications. Companies rely on the product to help ensure user adoption of enterprise applications and address current workforce conditions - workforce fluctuation, travel restrictions, reduced training budgets, and ROI on enterprise application rollouts or upgrades.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-21

• The Enterprise of the Future: Implications for Midsize Organizations
  We conducted 1,130 interviews with chief executives, general managers, business leaders and public-sector heads in the course of completing the research for our third biennial Global CEO Study, which aims to identify the key characteristics of the Enterprise of the Future.1 Here we focus on the responses of the 136 “midmarket CEOs” who head midsize organizations (defined as companies that employ fewer than 1,000 people).2 As part of our research, we sought to understand the differences between the responses of financial outperformers and those of underperformers. We compared the revenue and profit track records of those companies with publicly available financial information against the averages for their industries within our sample.3 We labeled companies that performed above the average on a particular financial benchmark outperformers, and those below the average underperformers. Throughout our analyses, we looked for insights based on these top- and bottom-half groupings.
• Most iPhone users never use an app after the first download
  iPhone analytics and advertising company Pinch Media recently gave a presentation containing statistics drawn from its analytics data, which included a number of surprising statistics about how often people use applications after they download them (not very often), as well as how viable advertisement-supported applications are (not very).
• SAP buys application maker Coghead
  McNamara said in the e-mail he sent to customers on Thursday that "many of the Coghead engineering and operations team have joined SAP," although he himself has not. SAP Ventures, a Palo Alto-based division of SAP, was one of Coghead's investors when the company raised $8 million last March.
• The Hidden Costs of Layoffs
  Think downsizing will solve your company’s financial woes? Before getting out the ax, take a look at the unexpected consequences of layoffs.
• Can Oracle's CRM Moves Make Waves?
  "We're seeing Oracle gain more enterprise deals than before for CRM on demand from Salesforce, but the challenge is that there are a still a lot of deals that Oracle On Demand is not in," Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst at Nucleus Research, told InternetNews.com.
• Microsoft Ponders Web Services Effort
  Microsoft is considering whether to participate in a Web services standards effort called the Web Services Test Forum, which is backed by IBM, Oracle and others, but the software giant has indicated it may be redundant. The WSTF provides an open community with the goal of improving the quality of the Web services standards; initial members are Active Endpoints, AIAG, Axway, Cisco Systems, Eviware, Ford Motor, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, Software AG, Teamlog and TIBCO Software.
• Fresh hiring at Wipro only after demand picks up
  Wipro Technologies, the country’s third largest IT services exporter, has decided not to hire fresh recruits till demand picks up. Pratik Kumar, executive VP (human resources), Wipro admitted that there were delays in bringing on board campus recruits for the next fiscal.
• Larry Ellison and Tim Allen: Separated at Birth?
  Larry Ellison and Tim Allen: separated at birth? You be the judge ...

Larry Ellison and Tim Allen: Separated at Birth?

Larry Ellison and Tim Allen: separated at birth? You be the judge ...



Just kidding - have a fun weekend ...

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-20

• Obama Stimulus Saves Microsoft Billionaire Hundreds Of Millions
  And, thanks to the stimulus bill President Obama signed this week, he's also about to be as much as a billion dollars richer.
• Feds Bust Nationwide H-1B Visa Scam
  In some cases, according to the charges, the H-1B workers have been placed in jobs and locations not previously certified by the Department of Labor, replacing qualified American workers and violating prevailing wage laws. The companies and foreign workers have allegedly submitted false statements and documents in support of their visa petitions.
• IT Salaries May See Modest Growth
  "IT workers who have jobs should feel relatively secure and anticipate pay raises in the area of 2% to 3% this year," says Director of Research John Longwell of Computer Economics. "Experienced developers and managers will do better than operations and network support staff. There will be layoffs, but in relative terms, IT workers should fare better than many workers."
• Could the Recession Be Good for Enterprise Software?
  "It's not like Johnson & Johnson is going to crush Colgate because they've got better e-mail," he said.
• With less code, Ariba says it can build richer apps
  It might have been 10 years in the making, but business management software company Ariba has released an open-source Web application development framework that attempts to build richer applications with less code. AribaWeb, released today, was an internal user interface framework that the company has used since 1999. AribaWeb is now available under an Apache license.
• Ariba Open Sources Killer Framework for Web App Development
  AribaWeb enables the creation of rich, highly interactive business applications with far less coding effort than alternative web application development frameworks. Among the key attributes that set AribaWeb apart: Auto AJAX ...“But implementing AJAX typically involves the extensive (and expensive) hand-coding of brittle client-side JavaScript code. With its Auto AJAX technology, AribaWeb completely changes the game and dramatically alters the cost equation - AJAX user interfaces are produced automatically, without requiring the application developer to perform any client-side scripting.” Instant App ... Live Edit & X-Ray ... Proven Full Stack ... Availability Version 5 of AribaWeb is available for immediate download, under the terms of the Apache Open Source License v2, from the project website: http://aribaweb.org.
• Ariba sees goodwill in AribaWeb open source release
  Ariba said today it is releasing its AribaWeb RIA development framework under Version 2.0 of the Apache license. Ariba calls itself a “spend management” company, selling software that helps companies manage their expenses and supplier relationships. It developed AribaWeb over the years for its own use, and hopes taking it open source will improve the code. CTO Bhaskar Himatsingka told ZDNet “we don’t have any plans to leverage it” as a profit center. AribaWeb features AutoAJAX, which produces interfaces automatically, InstantApp technology so users don’t have to maintain their own interface code, Live Edit & X-Ray so developers can see how code works as it runs, and a full stack for developing business database applications.
• Recruiting programs, economy have lessened SAP skills shortage, SAP says
  SAP says it now has enough skilled professionals to handle the demand for its products, less than a year after the vendor said it was combating a massive SAP skills shortage. Programs designed to alleviate the shortage, such as reaching out to its partners to recruit people, have enabled SAP to add 27,300 skilled professionals in the last year, the company said. In May, SAP said it needed another 30,000 people to implement and manage its products. With the exception of emerging markets in the Middle East and Latin America, the economy is keeping the demand for SAP professionals flat. SAP will now shift its focus from quantity to quality -- increasing the SAP skills of that workforce in order to deliver a higher level of service to its customers, the vendor said. It will accomplish this in large part by pushing its SAP certification program.
• SAP snags Coghead
  SAP has acquired the assets of Coghead minus any of its customers following Coghead’s demise. As Rafe Needleman says over at CNet, this paves the way for others to swoop in and sweep up stranded customers although there is some doubt whether this will work. I received a ’safe harbor’ email from Caspio and Intuit are named as the other contender for Coghead’s customer base. Where there is some confusion is in the background and explanation to SAP’s acquisition.
• Run Data Centers Hotter, Say IT Giants
  Microsoft, Oracle and Intel all agree — data centers can run hotter than most people think they can. And that means that using outside air to cool them isn’t as crazy an idea as it used to seem, representatives from the three IT giants said Thursday at the Teledata Technology Convergence Conference in Santa Clara. ... The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) did raise its temperature guidelines for data center equipment last year, giving servers a temperature range of up to 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit, rather than the 77 degrees it had set in 2004. ... Raising the acceptable temperatures inside data centers opens up the possibility of “air economization” — in other words, using outside air without air conditioning.
• Introduction to New SQL Server Data Services
  SQL Services are the data services tier of the Azure Services Platform. They are built on Microsoft SQL Server foundation, with broad data platform capabilities as a service such as friction-free provisioning and scaling; and significant investments in scale, high availability, lights-out operation, and total cost of ownership. At this stage of the Beta programme, only the database and Data Sync functions are offered.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-19

• SugarCRM CEO: 'In a way, open source and the cloud are the same thing'
  Roberts: Sugar was born on the cloud. Everything from when we started four years ago with a small website that we rented for $25 a month and started posting code to, to our operating system, programming language and database -- it was all designed for the cloud. So the cloud really is built on open source. In a way, open source and the cloud are the same thing.
• Twitter's Corporate Message
  There has been speculation that Twitter would start charging business customers, but the company recently refuted that notion on its blog: "…Twitter will remain free to use by everyone--individuals, companies, celebrities, etc." Because of this, the cost of entry into this new technology is only the time you want to invest in growing and nurturing your connections. Since Twitter costs nothing to use, what is keeping most big corporations from using it? I think most don't understand it, and it doesn't fit the corporate mold. I can imagine the marketing and PR departments having problems with the spontaneity and personal nature of Twitter. No doubt, they would want to "review" every tweet beforehand to make sure it stays on message and portrays the proper image.
• SEC Charges Research in Motion and Four Senior Executives With Stock Option Backdating
  The SEC's complaint alleges that Ontario, Canada-based RIM, its former Chief Financial Officer Dennis Kavelman, former Vice President of Finance Angelo Loberto, and Co-Chief Executive Officers James Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis illegally granted undisclosed, in-the-money options to RIM executives and employees by backdating millions of stock options over an eight-year period from 1998 through 2006. "As alleged in our complaint, RIM and its highest level executives engaged in widespread backdating of options which provided them and other employees with millions of dollars in undisclosed compensation," said Linda Chatman Thomsen, Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "This enforcement action underscores the SEC's resolve to assure full and accurate disclosure to U.S. investors by foreign issuers."
• Oracle Goes Up-market With New On-demand CRM Apps
  Oracle on Wednesday announced a number of new on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) modules, adding capabilities clearly aimed at large enterprises. The applications include self-service e-billing, deal management, enterprise disaster recovery, an integration with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and a product called Sales Library, which collects a company's sales-related material and allows representatives to quickly pull together presentations.
• Salesforce hits its stride
  Just as in the rental market for housing, customers have more flexibility when they pay month to month than when they've invested in huge upfront costs. If their sentiments turn, they can leave easily. If they lay people off, they can simply cut down on the number of subscriptions they buy. To hold on to its customers, Salesforce must be vigilant about staying atop their needs so that it doesn't lose existing business even as it tries to grow. Perhaps that's why Benioff continues to add staff to his sales team, even as tech companies pull back. Last fall, as Google, Intel, and Yahoo laid off workers, Salesforce hired a platform truck to make its way down the Valley's central artery, Highway 101, with a billboard blaring LIFE-CHANGING CAREERS; GAME-CHANGING TECHNOLOGY. It's the kind of audacious come-on people have come to expect from Benioff, only this time no one was rolling his eyes.
• Oracle beefs up CRM On Demand
  The new apps included in Oracle CRM On Demand Release 16 are Oracle Self-Service E-Billing On Demand, Oracle Sales Library, Oracle CRM On Demand Deal Management, Oracle CRM On Demand Enterprise Disaster Recovery and Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) support from Oracle CRM On Demand to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. The E-Billing tool features interactive statements and advanced analytics, which could increase customer loyalty and accelerate payment collection, according to the company. The Sales Library is designed to improve collaboration among sales teams by enabling individuals to share, rate, review and tag presentation slides. The Deal Management add-on, meanwhile, features price recommendation support, advanced what-if modelling and market information to help sales teams negotiate deals more effectively, said Oracle. The AIA offering will allow firms to maintain a single view of their customers by offering interface integration into quotes and orders, and data inte
• How does Facebook manage 1800 MySQL Servers with just 3 DBAs?
  Easy: not only are their DBAs smart but, thanks to MySQL Enterprise Platinum they have "Virtual DBA Assistants" that help them manage servers in a scale out environment. The MySQL Enterprise Monitor proactively monitors all MySQL servers using a set of MySQL provided expert advisors, to identify and alert DBAs of problems, security vulnerabilities and tuning opportunities so they can be acted upon well in advance of a problem or outage occurring.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-18

• With a King’s Ransom in Cash, Why Is There Still No Buying Spree in the Tech Space Yet?
  Even in the midst of the economic meltdown, consider these mega-billion-dollar cash hordes of big tech companies: Microsoft (MSFT): $20.7 billion Cisco (CSCO): $29.5 billion Apple (AAPL): $25.6 billion Intel (INTC): $11.8 billion Oracle (ORCL): $10.6 billion ... “Like everyone else, we are waiting for the bottom,” said the exec. “So who knows?” Said another: “No one wants to buy when prices could just keep going down. The trick is to buy before the really great deals out there collapse.” ... “We will start eating our toner and paper first,” joked one start-up exec, whose company is increasingly strapped for cash, even after a number of cost-cutting moves. Interestingly, the only stand-out in the buying game has been Oracle, which has made 10 acquisitions for about $750 million in the last year, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal today, in a bargain-hunting mode.
• Oracle releases virtual appliances (AMI’s) on Amazon’s EC2
  Oracle Corporation has delivered a set of free Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), to make it easy for customers to get started deploying Oracle solutions on Amazon EC2. The following appliances are built on Oracle Enterprise Linux Release 5 Update 2 as the base OS:
• The client-server model: Not dead yet
  Of course, SAP and others have one big reason to keep the client-server model alive: profits. Oracle's profit margin is a tidy 25%, while Salesforce had margins of about 4% in its most recently reported quarter. Perhaps that helps explain why the software-as-a-service crowd is quietly embracing the client-server model. Google has been making a push onto the desktop with offline versions of its e-mail and calendar. And after online outages in December and January, more businesses are looking at installing desktop clients to manage their customers. One of the vendors offering the "offline" software? None other than Salesforce.com.
• Open offer buzz lifts Oracle Financial
  What is cooking at the Oracle Financial Services counter? The stock has been defying the downtrend in the IT sector as well as in the broader market. On Tuesday, the stock gained nearly 4% to close at Rs 701, supported by good volumes. Buzz that the parent company is likely to make an open offer for Rs 1,000 per share has been getting louder in the past few days.
• CEO Wealth: Ellison loses a billion, but whatever
  How bad is the current down market for tech's top titans? SFGate's Tech CEO Wealthometer reports that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's worth is off $996 million from yesterday, thanks to a 4% drop in Oracle shares.
• Oracle New Release Helps Firms Comply With Basel II
  Oracle released two new integrated products to help financial institutions comply with Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) requirements under the Basel II accord. The purpose of Basel II is to create an international standard that banking regulators can use when creating regulations about how much capital banks need to put aside to guard against the types of financial and operational risks banks face.
• Satyam recalls 1,500 onsite staff
  Troubled software exporter Satyam Computer Services has called back more than 1,500 overseas employees, attached to projects that are being shut down due to termination of contract by clients, said a senior company executive who asked not to be named.
• Satyam says looking to trim senior management
  "Two managers have gone. We do not have a number but it is likely more will go," Archana Muthappa, head of media relations in India said over telephone. "It is part of a rationalisation of the organisation structure."
• When are you required to have a commercial MySQL license?
  # The GPL allows you to run a for-profit business on MySQL. # The GPL allows you to modify the MySQL source code in any way you want. # The GPL allows you to sell MySQL. # The GPL allows you to redistribute MySQL. # The GPL allows you to redistribute your modifications of MySQL.
• Forrester Details Strengths, Weaknesses of EDW Power Players
  Forrester's recent "Forrester Wave: Enterprise Data Warehousing Platforms, Q1 2009" assesses EDW offerings from IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp. Netezza Corp., Oracle Corp., SAP AG, Sybase Inc., and Teradata Corp. It finds that a quartet of players -- IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Teradata -- lead the overall pack, with SAP and Sybase posting growth as well. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the DW packages of all four vendors are also based on creditable RDBMS underpinnings.) The Forrester report reveals key vendor strengths for performance, scalability, value, and growth.
• i2: A Nice Software Surprise
  In terms of selected fundamentals that we looked at in our screens the cash flow yield is 33%, the Cash Flow to Debt Coverage came out at 0.71 and the technical indicators are definitely showing plenty of positive momentum (see the chart below).

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-14

• 25 Random Facts About Ingres
  # While the official line is that the acronym INGRES stands for INteractive Graphic REtrieval System, legend has it that the project was actually named for Eugene Wong’s favorite artist. ... # Ingres revenue in 2008 was ~$68M. It is estimated that MySQL did $63M in the same period. ... # The name Postgres is a contraction of “Post-Ingres”, but there is no shared code between the two projects . ... # Oracle spelled backward and fed into the Google Translate tool from Spanish to English yields the result “expensive”. OK, that’s nothing to do with Ingres, but interesting none the less ;) ... # The average tenure of an Ingres Engineer is 15+ years.
• More Tech Start-Ups Call It Quits
  The deepening recession is speeding up the shakeout in Silicon Valley, forcing droves of start-ups to shut down or sell themselves at fire-sale prices. Many start-ups survived last year by slashing costs and deferring development projects. But as demand for their products continues to deteriorate and funding dries up, these young firms are now running out of lifelines. Many are calling it quits, recalling the dot-com bust earlier this decade.
• SAP Says: We Don't Prohibit Use Of Third-Party Maintenance Providers
  The contract says: "In order to receive SAP Enterprise Support hereunder, Licensee shall have obtained all licenses for the Licensee Solutions and the only support and/or maintenance services received by Licensee for such Licensee Solutions shall be the services described herein. " And: "Licensee hereby confirms, as of the Effective Date of this Schedule: (i) Licensee has obtained all licenses for the Licensee Solutions; and (ii) the only support and/or maintenance services received by Licensee for PSLE Solutions are the SAP Product Support for Large Enterprises pursuant to this Schedule and any other support/maintenance services provided by and separately priced and charged for by SAP which are in addition to SAP Product Support for Large Enterprises (e.g., SAP MaxAttention)."
• Survival Tips From BEA's Founder
  Bill Coleman, founder of BEA Systems and Cassatt, offers this advice to struggling companies: Don't be afraid to change your business strategy. Back in 2003 when he founded Cassatt, a cloud computing infrastructure company, Coleman thought he had the perfect products and services aimed at cost-conscious chief information officers. Yet Cassatt's offerings proved to be a tough sell because companies had already invested a lot of money in other network infrastructures.
• Software as a Service Market Will Expand Rather than Contract Despite the Economic Crisis, IDC Finds
  ...IDC has increased its SaaS growth projection for 2009 from 36% growth to 40.5% growth over 2008. ... Additional findings from the IDC study include: * By the end of 2009, 76% of U.S. organizations will use at least one SaaS-delivered application for business use. * The percentage of U.S. firms which plan to spend at least 25% of their IT budgets on SaaS applications will increase from 23% in 2008 to nearly 45% in 2010. * This market's growth prospects will accelerate the shift to SaaS for the whole value chainEurope, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) also look particularly positive, and IDC expects that by year-end 2009, nearly 35% of worldwide revenue will be earned outside of the U.S. * On the downs as the promise of a recurring revenue stream, and the opportunity to tap OPEX and project-related dollars, will benefit the whole SaaS ecosystem. * While demand for SaaS is strongest in North America, new contracts from customers in
• Database Science: Are MySQL stored procedures slow?
  MS SQL Server code runs 3.5 times faster than MySQL, but given how much older MS SQL Server is, MySQL is doing well here. So are MySQL Stored procedures slow? Not really, if compared to other databases I’ve used. Just don’t use them to do computationally expensive business logic.
• Ingres results excellent; MySQL stagnant
  Ingres revenue in 2008 has been announced: $68 Million USD, up 32% from the year before. That is pretty good considering the state of the wider economy. Meanwhile, MySQL doesn't seem to be rewarding Sun's billion dollar dowry as richly as Sun would probably like. Billing growth seems to have been dead flat in the last four quarters for which data are available.
• Sun Microsystems Discusses Changes Afoot for MySQL Database
  The strategy may remain the same, but MySQL’s first year under the Sun umbrella has not been without its challenges. The most publicized of those challenges was the controversy around bugs in MySQL 5.1, which ended up having its general availability pushed back for a number of months. When it was finally released late last year, Widenius, a MySQL co-founder, criticized the number of bugs in the database. “It is going to take a lot of hard work for Sun to focus people’s attention on building and growing momentum behind MySQL, which didn’t have the best first year under Sun thanks to delays to MySQL 5.1 and disputes about its quality,” said Matt Aslett, an analyst with The 451 Group. “There are indications that changes are already under way to make the development process more open and ensure that delays are not repeated.”
• SAP Once Again Named One of Germany’s “Best Companies to Work for” by the Great Place to Work® Institute Germany; Receives Special Awards in Two Categories
  SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it has been named one of the "Best Companies to Work for in Germany" ranking second in the category "Large Enterprises With More Than 5,000 Employees" in the 2009 list compiled by the Great Place to Work® Institute Germany. This is the fifth year that SAP has been recognized on the list. This year, the Institute also awarded SAP special awards in the categories "Diversity" and "Development of Older Employees"
• Openbravo Recruits Top Guns, Compiere Wins Big Customer
  Compiere released several interesting growth related figures. As Compiere is a privately held company, we do not have official revenue figures, but growth is strong, despite contracting global economy. In Q4 2008, subscribers grew 116%, and partners 67%, compared to Q4 2007. Compiere also announced a deal with a huge customer, probably the largest open source ERP customer to date - french company La Post, a 27B US$ company. This is a great win for the entire open source ERP industry. The success of this project will be a key factor in the perception of open source ERP as an enterprise-grade solution. We look forward to hearing more good news on the project and on other large customers.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-12

• Sun Microsystems Discusses Changes Afoot for MySQL Database
  At the center of the immediate changes is Karen Tegan Padir, vice president of MySQL and Software Infrastructure. Sun has moved to combine its software infrastructure organization with its database group to form a unified open-source product group. The idea is to put MySQL into the mainstream of software at Sun and position the company to leverage MySQL, GlassFish and Identity Manager by tightly linking its software products together. “The charter of the combined organization will be to deliver open platforms for Web-oriented architecture, spanning identity, applications servers, databases and application integration,” Padir said. “With the unification of teams, Sun's strategy remains the same—to achieve ubiquitous distribution of innovative, easy-to-use, highly scalable, open-source-based application platforms to gain both market share and drive software revenue growth.”
• Microsoft Seeks Faster FAST Search
  Microsoft will integrate FAST Search and SharePoint capabilities during the next Office release cycle. Not that Microsoft is saying when that will be. But as Microsoft reveals more details about Office 14 products, the release is looking more like 2010. For anyone hoping for coordinated Office 14 and Windows 7 releases, dream on.
• Microsoft Mum on Seeing Green From Azure
  "It's a pay-as-you go system [and it will be] very, very price competitive," he added. From his discussion, however, it sounded as if the pricing structure will likely be a combination of client access licenses priced per machine, per month. Azure provides an applications services platform "in the cloud" that will run in Microsoft's own datacenters, providing the underlying backbone for applications that run in the computing cloud. The platform will enable developers to create applications that run as services supported in turn by Azure services.
• IBM teams up with Amazon Web Services
  IBM will use Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to offer its customers and third-party developers its software based on a pay-as-you-go system. Under the arrangement, users will have access to IBM's DB2, Informix Dynamic Server, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Web Content Management, WebSphere sMash and Novell's SUSE Linux operating system software. IBM is also providing free Amazon Machine Images for development and testing purposes, which is designed to allow developers to quickly build pre-production applications. Big Blue expects to have its software available in an EC2 beta in the coming month and will later announce its pricing.
• Michael Phelps blows off IBM
  Given these events, I was very interested to see how IBM and Phelps handled this dicey situation. It turns out that I'll never know. Tivoli General Manager Al Zollar Tuesday morning announced that Phelps called IBM last night and canceled his appearance. Zollar mentioned that Phelps was going through a tough time and IBM wished him well--very classy indeed.
• IBM Pulse offers industry pulse
  Finally, a note to IBM CEO Sam Palmisano: Cut all event budgets by 25 percent. Smash Mouth was fun and I wished my sons were with me, but the crowd of 50-year-old techies was headed to the exits after a few songs with fingers in their ears. Forrest Sawyer was an interesting choice as behind-the-scenes moderator but he really added no value. I'm pretty sure IBM could cut unnecessary fluff like this without impacting the substance at all.
• 10 Ways to Cut IT Costs
  Reduce, rationalize, cutback, justify. In other words, get more out of less. Executives everywhere are looking for ways to cut their fiscal outlay associated with technology services.
• Intel, Microsoft, Sap and Others Unveil Lean, Green IT Toolbox
  The Framework was developed through the National University of Ireland at Maynooth's Innovation Value Institute, and among the members of the consortium behind the framework are Intel, Chevron, Microsoft, SAP, British Petroleum, Ernst & Young, and the Boston Consulting Group. At its core, the Framework takes existing best practices and opens them to real-world innovation, with the constant goal of making sure that companies can get the most value from their IT dollar.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-11

• The Salesforce Departures: Much Ado About Very Little
  Three high-ranking Salesforce executives left the company recently, and immediately much of the SaaS knowledge-sphere began wringing their hands, consulting the tarot cards, and presuming the worst for the firm. But reading about a couple of layoffs and resignations and making overly broad inferences about a company, an industry or an entire economy helps nothing
• IBM Unveils Cloud Computing Division, Strategy and Partnership
  --IBM unveiled a package called the Service Management Center for Cloud Computing, which contains a set of offerings -- drawn from all over the company -- that provide users with a platform upon which to build and deliver cloud services. ... --IBM launched a Tivoli Storage as a Service offering through its Business Continuity and Resiliency Services cloud. Beginning later in 2009, developers will be able to use Tivoli data protection via a cloud service. --IBM announced a new version of Rational AppScan 7.8, an application management system that enables Web services to be secure and regulations-compliant. Alongside the new Rational AppScan OnDemand, this service software ensures that Web services are monitored on a continuous basis and provide IT managers with ongoing security analysis.
• Why doesn't Sun really respect Java?
  Somehow Java has become really boring...Based on some quick interviews I did, Java guys are all over the map as to why the excitement is gone, running the gamut from JSR bureaucracy, to the focus on things like JavaFX, to the changes in Java EE 6 that most developers didn't ask for and do nothing to support new paradigms like Web apps or cloud computing. Sun has effectively lost the battle for the cloud to virtualization, which boggles the mind considering the enormous arsenal of servers, storage, and software that Sun has at its disposal to create a differentiated cloud offering for all of the enterprise Java shops... Much of the feedback I got from developer friends was related to Sun's lack of connection to the developer community, which I eventually distilled to mean a lack of leadership--not specifically on the developer side, which is quite strong, but from a corporate angle and a human face defining software leadership.
• Sun Releases Enterprise Open Source Platform
  Today Sun announced the release of its open source GlassFish platform...The GlassFish platform provides a standardized and integrated stack, helping to simplify management and decrease costs. The platform includes, a complete LAMP stack, a portal for web site development and collaborative work spaces, a full Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), and enterprise scale management and monitoring for SNMP. Technologies include Sun Web Server, Apache HTTPd, GlassFish, lighttpd, Memcached, Mod_jk,perl, ruby, PHP, Ruby, Python, Squid , and Tomcat). While Sun is not expecting customers to dump their WebSphere and WebLogic platforms, they are betting that the downturn will give organizations a fresh reason to look at open source for its price/performance advantages.
• Sun GlassFish Portfolio - Web Application Platform
  Key Benefits * Most complete open-source platform * Best price/performance * Feature-rich application development * Enterprise-class support
• Oracle, Alinghi reach challenger final
  America's Cup holder Alinghi beat bitter rival Oracle by one second Wednesday in a tense start to the three-race challenger final at the Pacific Series sailing regatta. As lawyers for both teams presented opening arguments to the New York Court of Appeals in a rancorous legal battle over planning for the next America's Cup regatta, sailors produced a bout of equal drama on the waters of the Waitemata Harbour.
• UPDATE 1-Satyam says client confidence improving
  * Satyam chairman says can pay Feb salaries * Says there is more comfort, stability among clients * Board meets Thursday in Mumbai (Adds details)
• Ballmer urges stimulus approval
  Dear member of Congress: Microsoft strongly supports passage of the conference agreement announced today between the House and Senate on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1), and I urge Congress to act now. We believe the final conference agreement will help families during this difficult economic time, create and save jobs, and begin to put our country back on the path toward long-term economic growth.
• SAP May Have Business Suite 7, But It¢s Still MIA With SaaS
  Other than announcing delays and the existence of unnamed satisfied beta customers, however, SAP hasn¢t had much to say about Business byDesign since. Meanwhile, its rivals are busy sucking the oxygen out of the market with regular introductions of new products and feature sets.
• NetSuite Unveils New Suite for Retailers
  The Multi-Channel Retail Management Suite has features for creating Web stores that connect with retail locations, providing a unified view of inventory, accounting and customer information; package tracking information for customers; and support for multiple currencies and languages. NetSuite is also integrated with eBay. Other capabilities include marketing campaign tools, such as a "shopping cart abandonment" feature that can be used to send customers coupons for items they initially placed in their online shopping cart but subsequently failed to buy.
• NetSuite Extends 'Business ByNetSuite' Program for SAP Customers Eager to Embrace the SaaS Revolution
  NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N) , a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business software suites that provide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Ecommerce software for mid-market enterprises businesses and divisions of large companies, today announced the extension of its Business ByNetSuite program for SAP (NYSE: SAP) customers. The program targets existing SAP R/3 software customers who are eager to address expanding business software needs without having to increase their capital investment in SAP. The NetSuite program guarantees SAP R/3 software customers at least 50% off their current annual maintenance and support agreement when they switch to an annual NetSuite subscription. For more information about the Business ByNetSuite program, please visit www.netsuite.com/businessbynetsuite.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-02-10

• Salesforce.com adds sales collaboration functions to latest release
  Salesforce.com's Spring '09 upgrade, released today, contains more than 50 functional enhancements, but the two functions the San Francisco-based company elected to highlight focus on sales collaboration, an area getting a lot more attention from CRM suite vendors recently. Opportunity Genius connects opportunities with similar characteristics within a company's Salesforce.com application, allowing salespeople to connect with colleagues working on similar deals and share best practices. "Most customers have hundreds of opportunities," said Al Falcione, senior director of product marketing with Salesforce.com. "Genius looks in and matches fields across them so a salesperson can find similar deals, they can see what content worked, what meetings worked and can contact that sales person. Genius is automated; there's no burden on the salesperson to enter information." In addition, integration with Salesforce.com Content, the company's content management application, allows users to crea
• Microsoft readies smartphone assault on Apple
  The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Microsoft is getting ready to launch an online marketplace akin to Apple's App Store. Microsoft is also readying a more sophisticated version of its mobile operating system called Windows Mobile 6.5, the Journal reported.
• Microsoft gets 10,000th patent
  Microsoft's patent push is paying off. The software maker, which stepped up its rush to the patent office five years ago, has reached a milestone, having received its 10,000th U.S. patent earlier this month. Curtis Wong, who was listed on both Microsoft's 5,000th and 10,000th patents is also known for being one of the forces behind the Worldwide Telescope project. The efforts have propelled Microsoft to the upper echelon among patent filers, though IBM still gets more patents issued than any other company. Last year, Big Blue became the first company to have 4,000 patents issued in a single year. Microsoft, meanwhile, has risen to the top 5 among patent recipients and for the last two years has topped a key ranking of overall patent portfolio strength.
• A ballast's-eye view of the storm's center
  He arrives by launch, well after his employees, at 4:48 p.m. Ellison has big feet, well-tanned legs, raptor's eyes and a close-cropped beard suitable for a villain in "The Mask of Zorro." His arrival alters the vibe on board, but only subtly, and there is nothing imperious bout Ellison's manner as he pitches in to help a Swedish crew member, Magnus Augustson, with the menial if delicate task of taping over the word Toyota on NZL 92's mainsail (a team sponsored by BMW does not want a rival car company's insignia cluttering up the view, certainly not in this economy).
• SAP Launches Investigative Case Management Software to Help Police Solve Crimes
  SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today introduced the SAP(R) Investigative Case Management for Public Sector package to support police and other investigating authorities in their efforts to prevent, detect and investigate crime. The new software package addresses a wider range of law enforcement needs across the complete investigation lifecycle -- from instigation and initial investigation through secondary investigation, case finalization and review. By broadening its solution portfolio, SAP now integrates the back-office and core operational processes for investigating authorities. The announcement was made at the 12th European Police Congress, being held February 10-11 in Berlin, Germany.
• Salesforce's Latest Hones in on Content, Collaboration
  Traffic on the public site is captured by the Salesforce.com system, revealing, for example, the number of hits on a given document and how recently it was viewed, according to Al Falcione, Salesforce.com's senior director of product marketing. This enables salespeople to detect which marketing materials were most successful, he said. The Spring '09 release also adds a feature that allows users to search through slide-deck materials created in Salesforce.com and quickly cobble them together into a new presentation.
• Dave Duffield Explains The Stickiness Of SaaS - Plug Into The Cloud
  SaaS has the potential to be highly profitable because it's "sticky," says Duffield. In other words, it can be difficult for a customer to move off a software service and to another SaaS provider, and even harder to move from SaaS to on-premises licensed software. When a customer signs on for a software service, it's also signing on for operating systems, middleware, servers, network connections, databases, and the talent that goes along with all that. Yes, it's signing on for an IT infrastructure, particularly if it's making a big bet on SaaS, such as using Workday for human resources, payroll, and financials. "Once people have implemented Workday, they're stuck, in a very positive way, with our solution and the services we provide, " he says.
• Roche CIO on SAP, consultants, certification, and system integrators
  I do believe the old $50 million a year integration model is dead; the challenge is for the systems integrators to reinvent themselves in this new world. The old Accenture model, where you trained [inexperienced] consultants for many months on your dollar, just doesn’t work anymore. The hardest thing is to get the consultants out at the end of the project, because they try and hang around as much as possible.
• Gloss going off SuccessFactors?
  In yesterday’s earnings call, Lars Dalgaard, CEO of SuccessFactors reported year over year revenue up 77% yet at the same time confirmed layoffs of 22% in the period. This is being spun as a tactic to stay ahead but is that really the case?
• NetSuite Reports Record Growth; Evidence CRM Solutions Help in a Down Economy
  “I am especially excited that we posted the first non-GAAP profitable quarter in the company's history even against the headwinds of global economic challenges," said Nelson. "Furthermore, we posted record quarterly and annual revenue, reached a record average selling price and grew our bookings significantly quarter over quarter. This is a strong performance in any quarter, and is especially impressive with business spending on equipment and software falling 27.8 percent, the worst in a half century."
• UPDATE 2-NetSuite posts 1st profitable qtr, excluding items
  It reported profit, excluding items, of 1 cent per share, beating the average analyst estimate for a loss of 1 cent, according to Reuters Estimates. The company said the results were buoyed by strong sales of a new software suite designed to help multinational companies monitor the consolidated financial performance of their businesses across the globe. The average sales price for that product, known as NetSuite OneWorld, was more than $100,000 per customer per year during the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31. That's about three times the $34,000 average for all deals that NetSuite signed during the quarter, Chief Executive Zach Nelson said in an interview.
• What recession? Oracle support provider quadrupled its customer base
  In a year when a lot of other companies floundered, Rimini Street, Inc. -- a services provider for PeopleSoft and other Oracle-owned software products -- picked up 150 new business customers in 2008, four times its 2007 number.