Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-29

• Epicor Releases Service Enterprises 8.2 Software
  Epicor said the new release expands capabilities offered to professional services firms, such as audit and accountancy practices, engineering and construction consultants, and embedded IT services groups, allowing them to manage detailed, project-based businesses. It features in-context business intelligence, and functionality in the areas of finance, project planning, and sales management.
• HP shows off the works in its labs
  Hewlett-Packard opened the doors of its famous research lab in Palo Alto on Friday, as the world's largest technology company showed off some of the fruits of a scientific effort that was recently reorganized to align more closely with HP's business divisions.
• SAP Is Company At Crossroads As Huge Rivals Line Its Horizon
  "SAP is trapped in a 20th century business model, because that's what got them this far," said Bruce Richardson, an analyst with AMR, which counts SAP among its clients. "They're around $15 billion in annual sales, so it's fair to ask: How will they grow to $25 billion or $30 billion?"
• Understanding SAP R/3: A Tutorial for Computer Scientists
  The goal of this tutorial is to present the distributed system architecture, the data model, the database programming language, the transaction and process model and the system evolution concepts of SAP R/3 from a computer science perspective and to relate them to established database and distributed system concepts. The presentation will help attendees understand how SAP R/3 relates to their own research and development work and will provide a well-structured foundation for a further study of SAP R/3's innovative system concepts.
• 4 Technologies That Are Reshaping Business Intelligence
  Predictive analytics is a white-hot growth segment that got hotter with IBM's $1.2 billion deal to buy SPSS, a company that uses algorithms and combinations of calculations to spot trends, risks, and opportunities in ways not possible with historical reporting. Between the extremes of rearview-mirror reporting and advanced predictive analytics lies real-time monitoring. Front-line managers and executives increasingly want to know what's happening right now--as in this second, not yesterday or even 10 minutes ago. This is where stream processing technologies are moving beyond niche industry uses. Real-time monitoring detects events or patterns of events as data streams through transactional systems, networks, or communications buses. Proven on Wall Street and in other data-soaked industries, stream processing technologies deliver subsecond insight that conventional BI can't touch.
• OracleMetaLink 3 Upgrade to My Oracle Support Begins August 28, 2009
  Oracle Global Customer Support is pleased to announce the launch of Oracle’s new online support portal, My Oracle Support. This coming weekend, August 28-30, 2009, Oracle will upgrade Oracle MetaLink 3 and officially change the name to "My Oracle Support." This transition will migrate existing OracleMetaLink 3 customers and partners (those using PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, and Hyperion products) to My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com.
• The Leading Cause of Startup Death – Part 1: The Product Development Diagram
  In hindsight both you and your investors were idiots. Following this diagram religiously will more often than not put you out of business. The diagram was developed to be used by existing companies doing product line extensions - not startups creating new markets or resegmenting existing ones. Most experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that the model collapses at first contact with customers. VC’s who still believe in the product development model in the 21st century offer no value in building a company other than their rolodex and/or checkbook.
• Will your production MySQL server survive a restart?
  Since debug symbols weren’t shown in the stack trace, we needed to generate a symbol file (binary was unstripped) to use with the resolve_stack_dump utility. The procedure for obtaining this is detailed in the MySQL manual. With a good stack trace in hand, we were able (with assistance from an old friend, thanks Dean!) to narrow the crash down to bug 38856 (also see 37027). A little further investigation showed that the right conditions did exist to trigger this bug: * expire_logs_days = 14 # had been set in the my.cnf * the binlog.index file did not match the actual state of log files (i.e. some had been manually deleted, or deleted by a script)
• VMware Competitors Microsoft, Citrix Will Exhibit at VMworld
  VMware has changed its rules and is limiting its two biggest competitors to 10-foot-square booths at VMworld, the world's largest virtualization show. VMware also is restricting the movement of Microsoft and Citrix Systems employees by requiring them to remain within the boundaries of their booths. [Smart move on VMware's part!-DBM]
• Citrix, Microsoft Complain About Being Marginalized At VMworld 2009
  "Exhibitor agrees that it may not use any Organizer event to leverage or promote any other event in which Exhibitor is a sponsor or participant, and therefore agrees that it may not, during the period from two days before until two days after the Event, conduct, promote, endorse, or sponsor any functions, classes, seminars, exhibits, or similar marketing activities within 50 miles of any event similar to the Event that is the subject of this agreement, other than Exhibitor's participation in the Event under this Agreement."

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-28

• Amazon Virtual Private Cloud And Does It Make The World More Secure?
  Amazon is clearly understanding the dilemma faced by enterprises in embracing public clouds right away and wanted to lure them with an offering that will make them relatively comfortable testing the Cloudy waters. They clearly saw the emergence of a strong private cloud market and this is a direct response to the competition. Having said that, one should not dismiss this announcement as a mere market response. There is a clear wow factor here. This has a potential to uproot some of the players in the "cloud labs" category and, also, threaten some vendors in the Amazon ecosystem itself. Plus, it offers Amazon a direct line to enterprise customers without any intermediary.
• Amazon Web Services Blog: Introducing Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
  Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) lets you create your own logically isolated set of Amazon EC2 instances and connect it to your existing network using an IPsec VPN connection. This new offering lets you take advantage of the low cost and flexibility of AWS while leveraging the investment you have already made in your IT infrastructure.
• Sales Force App Exchange Install Guide
• Strategic Thinking before Operational Actions: The Enterprise 2.0 Tool Cargo Cult Problem
  The reality is that the ‘Enterprise 2.0 ‘ software industry enables collaborating parties to roll out next generation information silos replete with the ability to link, tag, recommend, analyze and so on, but without a well defined strategic and tactical roadmap you’re just going to head off into business oblivion quicker.
• Study: Hot Linux market to top $1B by 2012; Red Hat, Novell dominate sales
  The recession is hurting Novell, but news could be worse without Linux. On Thursday, Novell said quarterly revenue fell 12 percent to $216.1 million from $245.2 million in the previous year. Matt Asay, writing at Cnet, noted Novell's Linux revenues increased more than 20 percent to $40 million to make the revenue picture much better. In June, Red Hat said its most recent quarterly revenue rose 11 percent to $174 million from the previous year.
• Dfdts Mtn of Mtn and Mtn For Partial Summary Judgment re Pltfs Hypothetical License Damages Claim
  Defendants' notice of motion and motion for partial summary judgment regarding plaintiffs' hypothetical license damages claim [redacted version]
• Oracle & Bingham McCutchen: Litigating the Competition into Submission Since 2003
  "the discovery process, in which both parties gather evidence (in this case from computer systems) and interview people on both sides, has already become a massive, intricate and costly legal proceeding." (To which Bingham McCutchen retorts: Cha-ching!)
• Ariba's Kevin Costello
  They asked if we could help. My firm hadn't ever done anything like this before. Never. I don't think anybody had ever done anything like this particular area before.
• Sun posts loss as Oracle purchase draws near
  Net revenue for the quarter ended in June fell to $2.6 billion from $3.8 billion, the company said in a regulatory filing.
• Why SaaS and the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Will Steal Your IT Job and What You Can do About it
  Moreover, most IT professionals were hired because they understood how technology worked not how IT can solve business needs. That’s a shame, because more and more IT work is being outsourced to SaaS providers that better understand your employees’ business needs and treat them better than you do. This has lead to some executives who believe that IT departments are just lowest-common-denominator technology implementers.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-27

• Versata Software Wins $139 Million Verdict in Patent Suit Against German Vendor
  McKool Smith partner Ted Stevenson, who was co-lead trial counsel with his colleague Sam Baxter, said that over the seven-day trial, the jurors took "copious notes" and really tried to understand the technology. "At the end of the day, we had good witnesses, some pretty good patents and we were able to explain the technology in a way the jurors could understand," said Stevenson. Versata will also ask Judge T. John Ward for an injunction of SAP's infringing products, according to Stevenson. At trial, SAP was represented by a trio of Howrey lawyers that included Paul Grewal, James Batchelder and Rusty Day. Day and Batchelder were partners at Day Casebeer Madrid and Batchelder before that firm merged with Howrey on July 1.
• Sybase to Enable Deployment on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
  Sybase is offering three powerful data management servers for the EC2 environment. -- Sybase SQL Anywhere for customers seeking low administrative requirements for their workgroup, mobile, and Web applications -- Sybase IQ for high-performance analytics, data warehousing and other Business Intelligence applications -- Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise for powerful transaction management systems Availability Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) of the developer editions for Sybase SQL Anywhere, Sybase IQ, and Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise are available for immediate use. AMIs for SQL Anywhere Web Edition are scheduled for availability by September 30, 2009, with additional SQL Anywhere AMIs scheduled for availability in Q4 2009. AMIs of the production versions of Sybase IQ are scheduled for availability for use on Amazon AWS EC2 in Q4 2009. Production versions of Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise are scheduled for availability beginning in Q1 2010. Pay as you go pricing will be available a
• How to improve SAP application performance through smart hardware decisions
  SSDs are especially useful for search indexes of databases, the SAP TREX search engine in NetWeaver, SAP liveCache, an object-based version of the MaxDB database system, SAP customers using the tempdb database in Microsoft SQL Server, the SAP Roll Area, a memory area with a set (configurable) size that belongs to a work process, and specific areas of Business Warehouse Accelerator.
• With DataSynapse, TIBCO looks to both present and future
  DataSynapse’s FabricServer software will help customers adapt a variety of existing applications to cloud infrastructure as well. These include Java applications based on IBM WebSphere, Oracle WebLogic, and Red Hat JBoss, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, IIS, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, SAP Business Objects, IBM Cognos, Informatica, and SAS Institute, and a variety of vertical-industry specialists. This is a substantial expansion of TIBCO Silver’s value to customers.
• CRM failure: An ounce of prevention
  My presentation explains underlying reasons why CRM projects do not achieve expected results and describes how to overcome these problems. I spoke at length about harnessing the “wisdom of crowds,” or collective intelligence, to improve software implementations.
• Oracle demands documents from Rimini Street in SAP lawsuit
  "Third-party support is legal," the document states. "The way SAP and TomorrowNow provided it was not."
• Speculation Abounds as Sun-Oracle Wedding Day Nears
  Some observers argue that as far as Oracle is concerned, there is a great deal of overlap between Linux and Solaris in both operating systems and file systems. Others feel they are pieces of the same technology — there is a local file system and a clustered file system for both operating systems. Therefore, having the ability to combine technologies allows for better tuning for Oracle. "What remains to be seen are the plans that Oracle has for either integrating these technologies for Solaris or Linux, or using one or more technologies to enhance the other," said Layton. "In my opinion, Oracle will probably continue to support both Linux and OpenSolaris." To Layton, Oracle appears to be in control of its own destiny regardless of the direction the IT world takes toward the cloud, open source or anything else on the horizon.
• Saugatuck Releases Largest SaaS Study to Date
  Saugatuck's research indicates a series of planning positions for users, SaaS providers and ISVs to take into account through 2014. These include the following: * By YE 2014, SaaS (and Cloud Computing) will become integral to infrastructure, business systems, operations and development within all aspects of user firms... * While few users will "swap out" existing core legacy applications and systems with SaaS solutions through YE 2012 - except in highly commoditized market and customer segments - SaaS solutions will become the de facto choice for the majority of user organizations that are replacing legacy applications or business systems as they reach the end of their useful lives, or when driven by other important business considerations (e.g., M&A activity). * Through YE 2012, more than 40 percent of traditional ISVs will be paralyzed by "strategic uncertainty" regarding SaaS and other software business models, opening more doors for more SaaS providers.
• St. Valentine's Day Massacre
  But there's more making this year different and more interesting. The contestants are two ERP vendors and two Talent Management suite vendors -- a match-up I've wanted for years. ... Finally, the Shootout has always required demonstrations be presented (with someone else on the keyboard) by the CEO of HR-only software companies and the executive in charge of HR products at companies that do more. So that's exactly whom you'll see: * Larry Dunivan, SVP Global HCM Products, Lawson * Paul Sparta, CEO, Plateau * David Ludlow, VP Suite Solution Management, SAP * Kent Plunkett, CEO, Salary.com
• Salesforce.com Surge Pushes SaaS Into Mainstream
  And the prime mover behind that has been Salesforce CEO Benioff. Bolstered by a strong upturn in new-customer bookings, revenue for the quarter ended July 31 rose 20% to $316.1 million, while net income jumped 112% to $21.2 million. And this breakdown of the company's results from Ockham Research underscores the dual burden Salesforce carries: its need to perform well for its own customers and shareholders, and its need to continue buttressing the broader SaaS community.
• Wipro techie jumps to death
  A software engineer working with Wipro Technologies allegedly jumped to death from the multi-storeyed Wipro building located on the outskirts of the city, police said today. The deceased was identified as Vishal Yadav (28), a native of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, the police said. Vishal was working with the software firm in the Electronics city since 2004. He was on three months leave and last month he sent in his resignation through e-mail from his hometown which was accepted by the firm. The company, however, said he could work till August 31, the sources said. Vishal came to the office last night and jumped to death from the building, police said.
• Inforum 2009 Brings Together Infor Customers, Experts and Partners to Drive Business Innovation
  Highlights of Inforum 2009: -- Keynote, Chairman and CEO Jim Schaper will share his thoughts on improving performance by driving business innovation Tuesday, October 20 at 11:00 a.m. EDT -- Solutions Expo, a high-energy interactive environment where attendees can visit Infor and partner booths, participate in live chats and presentations, access product information, view video demonstrations, and download valuable business information into a virtual "briefcase" on their desktop -- Networking Square, a central conference networking space designed to promote online group discussions and one-on-one live chats with members of Infor's product management team and other users
• Catching up With Ariba Services Procurement (Part 2)
  I'd suggest the Services Procurement module is of interest to at least 50% of Ariba On-Demand P2P prospects based on what I've heard from Ariba as well as companies looking at their options from Ariba and others (though ultimately fewer end up implementing it). At this stage, Ariba's success with the module usually depends as much on what a prospect's pain point is as how much they're willing to commit to a broad Ariba source-to-pay relationship. If prospects are looking at services procurement holistically, outside of just contingent labor, then Ariba has a reasonable chance at winning the business, especially in cases where an organization is looking to minimize the number of different platforms it works with. However, I do know of some organizations that decided on Ariba for P2P and chose Fieldglass for both contingent labor and non-contingent labor services spend because of the analytical and reporting capabilities of Fieldglass.
• IBM Public Policy Prediction Markets: Collective Wisdom on Education, Transportation, Energy and Healthcare
  IBM CEO Sam Palmisano laid out three fundamental changes to global urban areas: 1. Our world is becoming instrumented: Sensors and devices are coming down in cost, and increasing in functionality, giving us “for the first time ever, real-time instrumentation of a wide range of the world’s systems” 2. Our world is becoming interconnected: With the rise of devices with these sensors, “systems and objects can now ’speak’ to one another” 3. All things are becoming intelligent: Better sensors, increased computing power and more information from interconnection mean that “intelligence can be translated into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructures more efficient, more productive and responsive-in a word, smarter.”
• The Need For Speed
  * Today cutting edge exchanges are building systems which can process a trade in under 100 microseconds (yes that’s micro, not milli and definitely not seconds). On the flip side, Banks and Hedge Funds with their algorithmic trading systems are sending trades into these exchanges at volumes which for stocks is increasing at over 50% per year and for options at well over 100% per year, so these system need to scale. In addition those same firms are monitoring the response times of each exchange and if they see one being slower than another, the trade gets routed to the faster exchange wherever possible. The drive toward zero latency is causing a lot of traditional exchanges who had legacy systems such as the New York Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse (three of the biggest), to lose market share and as a result they are all undergoing radical redesigns and deploying new cutting edge systems.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-26

• Optimizing ERP support staffing in smaller companies
  I have seen or heard of MS Axapta or QAD sites of 50-100 users that are effectively managed by one full time IT person. But you rarely see that with Oracle or SAP, for example. Our report shows that Tier I systems simply have a bigger footprint, requiring more ERP support staff.
• Microsoft interns get perks, pay, play
  Microsoft had rented the museum for a private party and a screening of the new "Harry Potter" movie. After the screening, about 600 attendees received a free Xbox 360 video-game console. The recipients of this VIP treatment? Microsoft's summer interns.
• MySQL - Using the “IN” clause
  I was helping someone debug a slow query today when I noticed a common mistake that a lot of developers do. He was trying to get a list of users given a list of user id numbers. The query looks something like this:
• Enterprise 2.0: what a crock
  can someone explain to me the problem Enterprise 2.0 is trying to solve? [I don't think it's a single problem-DBM]
• Amazon Launches Private Cloud Service
  Using a few API calls, customers will be able to create an isolated network, specify an IP address range, and launch the Amazon cloud into that network. They'll then create a VPN to bridge Amazon to their existing IT infrastructures. Existing security and networking technologies will apply to any traffic moving between a customer's private clouds within the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and the public Internet, Amazon said.
• Taleo has $50 million to spend
  Dublin-based Taleo Corp., a maker of software used to hire and evaluate employees, may spend as much as $50 million to acquire companies with comparable technology, Chief Executive Officer Michael Gregoire said. Taleo, whose clients include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Starbucks Corp., spent $128 million last year to buy competitor Vurv Technology Inc., Gregoire said in an interview Friday. To finance buyouts, Taleo would use some of its $62 million in cash and might seek an equity or debt offering if more were needed, he said. Taleo has no long-term debt.
• What happened at Quest West?
  # Oracle’s top management structure has recently changed in a way that could benefit the JD Edwards community. Ed Abbo, who ran Oracle’s application business, has left. Application development now reports to Thomas Kurian. JDE executive Lenley Hensarling now reports directly to Kurian. # Chuck Roswat has gone walkabout (technically a leave of absence but likely a de facto retirement). Roswat was a direct report to Ellison and the executive in charge of all product development including applications. Kurian has taken his place making him a peer of co-presidents Safra Catz and Charles Phillips. # A future posting will try to sort out the meaning of the organization change but the bottom line is that Hensarling (and therefore JDE) is no longer buried far down the Oracle org chart. # Apparently Oracle Founder and CEO Larry Ellison has become especially excited and energized by the Sun acquisition that looks like it will close formally before OpenWorld. Time spent by Ellison on hobbie
• SAP SaaS for all of us
  End of summer. This is when the "hibernating bear" - as Hasso PlattnerInformationWeek: "(SAP) is testing the software-as-a-service suite with 90 customers, and SAP hopes -- but can't guarantee -- that it can accelerate the rollout next year" NetSuite might as well change the webinar title to say it is delivering the missing-in-action-for-years-now SAP SaaS product for all of us. called SAP's SaaS Business By Design product at Sapphire earlier this year - was supposed to come out. But while they announced Feature Pack 2.0 recently, they are still keeping the rollout very selective.
• JBoss Middleware Wins Key Fed Security Certification
  Red Hat’s JBoss’ open source Enterprise Middleware now has security certification for government projects thanks to receipt of the Common Criteria certification. The Common Criteria certification, now awarded to JBoss’ Enterprise Application Platform 4.3, is often required by government agencies and firms doing business with them to illustrate products comply with security standards.
• SAP AG - Annual Report 2007 - (24) Litigation and Claims
  In April 2007, U.S.-based Versata Software, Inc. (formerly Trilogy Software, Inc.) (Versata) instituted legal proceedings in the United States against SAP. Versata alleges that SAP’s products and services infringe one or more of the claims in each of five patents held by Versata. In its complaint, Versata seeks unspecified monetary damages and permanent injunctive relief. SAP submitted its answer to the complaint in July 2007. The trial has been scheduled for August 2009.
• Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice: Patent verdict in Versata v. SAP
  The Marshall jury in Judge Everingham's court rendered a verdict in the Versata v. SAP, 2:07cv153 case this afternoon. The jury found all six submitted claims infringed, inducement and contributory infringement of one claim, found that the defendant has failed to prove one patent invalid for failure to satisfy the best mode requirement, and $138,641,000 in damages.
• The 10 Most Expensive iPhone Apps
  2. MATG - SAP BusinessOne - $449.99 iTunes link Hooks into SAP's BusinessOne financial management software. Designed for sales reps or marketing/finance execs. Also available for Microsoft Dynamics GP.
• Microsoft Apologizes for Racially Charged Image Alteration
  The edit of the Microsoft ad for its Polish division was crude. The U.S. ad depicted three people at a conference table: an Asian man, a black man, and a white woman. When localizing the marketing image for Poland, Microsoft replaced the black man's with that of a white man.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-25

• Business software provider QAD's 2nd-quarter loss essentially flat, revenue down 26 percent
  Business software provider QAD Inc. said Tuesday its fiscal second-quarter loss was virtually unchanged from the year before as cost-cutting efforts offset a sharp drop in revenue. The company posted a loss of $1.4 million, or 5 cents per share, in the quarter, equaling its loss in the year-ago period.
• Salesforce Opens Up Force.com Platform To Outside Partners
  Salesforce.com has continued to expand the capabilities of Force.com, its platform to build and deploy enterprise applications. The company recently rolled out Force.com Sites, which lets companies build and run their applications for internal use as well as for public use on Salesforce.com cloud computing platform. Today, Salesforce will be opening up an additional distribution channel off of Force.com: the Value-Added Reseller (VAR) program.
• CA Launches New Services for Fast Software Implementations
  As part of its larger Lean IT strategy, CA is rolling out 17 new and upgraded Standardized Services designed to make the deployment and implementation of CA software projects easier, faster and more efficient. CA offers more than 70 such Standardized Services, which offer repeatable methods for implementation, which lead to faster ROI and greater IT value, according to CA officials. The new services touch on such areas as application performance management, infrastructure management and mainframes.
• Amazon's AWS Toolkit for Eclipse Makes It Easier to Develop for the Cloud
  The AWS Toolkit for Eclipse is a plug-in that allows developers to develop and deploy software to the Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure. The plug-in provides full integration into Eclipse, offering complete control over managing remote instances, uploading code, running code remotely and even debugging remotely without leaving Eclipse.
• SAP Improves Community Network
  The success of the SAP community network can be directly attributed to the openness and the ability of members to provide feedback on the content contributed by others. The rating and ranking features allow direct feedback from community members to help other members navigate through large amount of content available in the community network virtual library.
• Microsoft Mobile Apps 'Worth More' than 99 Cents, Says Developer
  Microsoft is encouraging developers of mobile applications to charge more than 99 cents for the software they post on Microsoft’s Windows MarketplaceResearch In Motion have already boosted the minimum price for many mobile applications. Microsoft's move can also be seen as a shot at Apple, whose App Store charges 99 cents for a wide variety of apps—something that could frustrate developers looking for better margins on their products. for Mobile. Rival companies such as
• The Allure of Azure
  Another program has the potential to unleash a powerful wave of change upon Microsoft's channel, and that's the Microsoft Azure platform. Microsoft's cloud-computing infrastructure will require partners to imagine new ways of doing business with their customers and with Microsoft, while facing competitors made more agile by the technology. Azure and its competitive cloud-computing models -- from Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc., IBM Corp. and others -- have the potential to upend the logistics of going into the computer business. No more will channel competitors have to find ways to fund large infrastructure outlays. Now, if you can come up with the idea -- and hire the software development talent to execute it -- you can leave the physical infrastructure to Microsoft or other cloud providers on a pay-as-you-go basis.
• Microsoft Upgrades Virtualization Management Tool
  VMM 2008 R2 is a key virtualization component for Microsoft, which from an early stage has been playing up its ability to manage both Hyper-V and VMware environments. Microsoft recently began trotting out the idea of a 'VMware tax' to depict the virtualization market leader's products as an expensive and unnecessary additional layer of network infrastructure.
• Sybase IQ technical highlights
  General highlights of the Sybase IQ technical story include: * Sybase IQ is an analytic DBMS with a columnar/column-store architecture * Unlike most analytic DBMS, Sybase IQ has a shared-disk architecture. * The Sybase IQ indexing story is a bit complicated, with a bunch of different index kinds. Most are focused on columns with low cardinality, and it least in some cases are a lot like bitmaps. (Sybase IQ when first introduced was a pure bitmap index product, with a single index type “Fast Project”.) But one index kind, “High Group” — designed for columns with high cardinality – is an exception to most generalities about other Sybase IQ index kinds, and instead is more akin to a b-tree.
• Sybase IQ business notes
  The way Sybase breaks down its different target markets is somewhat confusing, but so far as I can tell: * A whole lot of Sybase IQ installations are focused on straight reporting. * Sybase is beefing up its efforts and penetration for IQ in “advanced analytics.” How advanced that is to date is a little unclear. * Sybase claims 80-90+ Sybase IQ customers in the “data aggregator” business, counting fairly narrowly. * Financial services is, unsurprisingly, a special-case market of particular focus.
• Billion-Dollar Donors
  Three others including SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp, mutual fund guru James Stowers and former banking billionaire Herbert Sandler qualified for this top givers club though their donations helped knock them out of the ranks of the world's wealthiest. "I'm surprised there aren't more," says Sandler, "It's a shame there aren't a lot more."
• Top CIO Salaries: Eastern U.S.
  Wondering how much your peers in other cities are making? Technology staffing firm KForce gathered data on IT salaries from their consultants in various cities across the U.S. Here's what they estimate as the going rate for new hires in the eastern region of the U.S.
• Oracle Shareholders Not the Only Ones to Complain About Ellison’s Salary
  Larry Ellison currently holds a moderate 63% approval rating and a 13% disapproval rating, and interestingly, he falls among the top 100 highest rated CEOs on Glassdoor.com as of today (ranking #85 among CEOs with more than 25 reviews).
• Mahindra Satyam senior VP quits
  Keshab Panda, senior vice-president of Mahindra Satyam, has put in his papers, marking another high-profile exit from the tainted IT firm, the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services. Rakesh Soni, chief operating officer (COO) of Mahindra Satyam, has now been given additional charge of business development and delivery operations of the US market and for the manufacturing, commercial and services verticals, said Sridhar Maturi, spokesperson of Mahindra Satyam.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-24

• SAP's Popper on smarter marketing
  You recently launched a new campaign—“It's Time for a Clear New World.” How did you get alignment across the organization on the objectives? Popper: I think sometimes you come up with a good idea that is timely and highly relevant. So what happened for us is that our CEO [Leo Apotheker] saw that it was a big idea and immediately embraced it. So based on his embracing of this idea, we then were able to take a leadership role and bring that idea across the corporation, both for external use and to use as an internal communications platform to make some of these transformational efforts.
• EnterpriseDB CEO Selected to Discuss Open Source Database Adoption at Red Hat Summit 2009
  EnterpriseDB, the leading enterprise-class open source database company, today announced that President and Chief Executive Officer Ed Boyajian will deliver a presentation at Red Hat Summit 2009 focused on open source database adoption in the enterprise. Boyajian will touch on economic issues as part of an overall discussion on both how and why an increasing number of enterprises are choosing open source database solutions.
• Podcast: SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin
  In this pocast, SugarCRM Interim CEO Larry Augustin discusses the company’s search for a permanent CEO; the company’s cloud- and SaaS-focused channel partners; working with Microsoft and Windows Server; and SugarCRM’s growth strategy for open source CRM. Plus: Will SugarCRM run in Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud? Here’s the discussion.
• 10 Essential Elements For Social Enterprise Apps
  Recent conversations with software vendors, industry luminaries, and customers highlight 10 elements required for future solutions (see Figure 1.). These elements include dynamic user experiences, business process focus, and community connectedness across 10 elements: 1. Role-based design. Software designed around how users perform work including applicable security models. 2. Consistent experience across channels & deployment options. Software that is agnostic to where or how that software is deployed and accessed. 3. Contextual & relevant delivery of information. Software which understands what information to provide users at a point in time 4. Configurable & adaptive. Software that can be modified to meet changing conditions. 5. Outcome-focused & results-oriented. Software that tracks key metrics across an end to end process. 6. Proactive, predictive, & actionable. Software that anticipates requests and supports decision making. 7. Engaging for all stakeholder
• The BI Outlook: A Bright Spot of Growth in a Gloomy Economy
  Even though the general economy may still be limping through a recession, business intelligence isn't generally feeling the pinch -- in fact, it's actually growing. Companies are in need of ways in which they can make sense of the data they're dealing with, and now may be the best time to invest.
• CIOs' job satisfaction increases despite recession
  Despite having to cope with massive budget cuts, salary freezes and demoralized staffs, most employed IT executives are more satisfied with their jobs this year than they have been in previous years, according to the results of a job satisfaction survey conducted by ExecuNet. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the 306 IT executives who responded to the survey said they were satisfied with their jobs. That's an 11 percent increase over 2008, when 286 IT leaders responded to the survey. In 2007, only 41 percent of IT executives reported being happy with their jobs even though the economy was arguably much stronger then than it is now. IT executives cited work they enjoy (checked by 13 percent), a good relationship with their bosses (12.5 percent), and a comfy fit with their employers (10.2 percent) as the primary reasons for job satisfaction.
• Enterprises Need to Secure Data During Application Development
  Sometimes it doesn’t take an external hacker to reveal customer data. Often, it happens during the application development process itself. That is because, according to a recent survey from the Ponemon Institute, many organizations use production data during their development and testing process without having proper safeguards in place. Some of this, experts say, is due to enterprises underestimating the possibility of an insider threat; other times, it’s simply companies going with what’s easiest.
• Harvard Report On Fleeing Silicon Valley – Part 5
  Swaroop Ganguly, 32, in another immigrant in a similar situation. He has been in the U.S. 10 years, earned a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas, he is an expert in an emerging technology called spintronics, used to power semiconductors. Ganguly, is moving back to India this summer. He figures his prospects for research and professional development are better in his home country. He has already accepted a job as a professor of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
• Expensive Apps Will Ruin Microsoft's Windows Marketplace
  News Analyis: Microsoft is saying that its Windows Marketplace for Mobile store should feature applications that are more expensive than those offered in competing stores. That's a problem both for the software giant and developers. Developers might like the idea of making more money from their mobile applications, However, the Apple App Store has already set the price point with its 99 cent applications. It's hard to see how Microsoft's plan to sell applications for $5 or $10 is a formula for success.
• Larry Ellison: The Return Of The Dollar A Year Man
  It’s too bad that a number of CEOs won’t follow the Oracle chief’s move. But, it is almost certain that not a single public company chief will read about Ellison’s action in the paper this week and follow suit.
• Ellison gives up the one part of his comp that almost made sense
  I was wondering out loud what possible retention or alignment benefit Oracle’s shareholders received from awarding their CEO another 0.007 billion shares on top of the 1.173 billion he already owns. The cost, in the many tens of millions of dollars worth of dilution is impossible to justify. The one part of this compensation I didn’t criticize was his $1 million salary, which amounted to about 1.2 percent of his total compensation. So, guess which part of this compensation his toothless board chose to cut?
• Introducing the Career Center, Part of the SAP Community Network
  Are you looking for a destination within the SAP Community Network (SCN) where employers seeking expertise in SAP technology can connect with skilled SAP professionals looking for employment opportunities? Then visit the career center, part of the SCN. It's open to employers and applicants worldwide, and by specializing in SAP-centric positions, it helps employers target recruitment and quickly identify qualified SAP talent anywhere. It enables job seekers to showcase their skills in the collaborative environment of the SCN. Best of all, employers can post jobs free of charge until September 30, 2009.
• IDC Ranks Vendors In Growing Business Analytics Market
  In 2008, Oracle led the overall market, followed in order by SAP, IBM, SAS and Microsoft, a recent IDC report says. Rounding out the top 10 were Teradata, Fair Isaac, Informatica, Infor and MicroStrategy, respectively.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-23

• Why Move to SOA Suite 11g?
  # Ability to use JRockit * Performance is the main thing here. JRockit simply performs better than other JVM’s. Long discussions about deterministic garbage collection and other features abound on the ‘net, but the net is it performs better making better use of your HW (lowering TCO) and offering users better usability.
• Oracle spent more than $1.3M lobbying gov't in 2Q
  The business software maker's lobbying interests included computer software standards, patent and information security issues, work-related immigration, and tax and trade matters.
• Microsoft pulling Live Framework test bits
  Microsoft said on Friday that it plans next month to end support for a test version of its Live Framework, which was essentially the developer side of its Live Mesh service. The idea of Live Framework is to give developers of Web-based applications the ability to add desktop components, while those writing traditional applications could use the Live Framework to add synchronizing and other online capabilities.
• Live Services : Important Updates to Live Services
  Starting September 8th, 2009, the following services will be unavailable: * Live Framework CTP (Services, SDK & Tools) The Live Framework will be integrated into the next release of Windows Live. Stay tuned to dev.live.comJavaScript) As an alternative, please use the UI Controls from Messenger Web Toolkit. * CTP Tools/ASP.NET Controls (Contacts, MessengerChat, IDLoginStatus, IDLoginView, SilverlightStreaming) As alternatives use: o The UI Controls from Messenger Web Toolkit for Contacts and Messenger Chat o The Windows Live ID Web Authentication Service to replace the IDLoginStatus Control for more details in the future. * Contacts Control (
• Not Sold on Salesforce.com
  Unfortunately, investors are late to the party. Salesforce.com has made a round trip in stock price in the last 12 months -- specifically, a round trip back to its overpriced status. At a low of roughly $21, hit back in November, the stock fetched a forward multiple of 42 times. That was a steal of a deal, believe it or not. At today's multiple of 67 times, the stock is not a buy. Salesforce.com isn't giving you any of that fat pile of cash. They're simply funneling it into the corporate debt market, and that's what you may want to do with your money as well.
• San Francisco Opens The City’s Data
  In an effort to engage our highly skilled workforce we are launching DataSF.org, an initiative designed to increase access to city data. The new web site will provide a clearinghouse of structured, raw and machine-readable government data to the public in an easily downloadable format. For example, there will be updated crime incident data from the police department and restaurant inspection data from the Department of Public Health. The initial phase of the web site includes more than 100 datasets, from a range of city departments, including Police, Public Works, and the Municipal Transportation Agency.
• DataSF - Liberating City Data
  DataSF is a clearinghouse of datasets available from the City & County of San Francisco. While there is plenty of room for improvement, our goal in releasing this site is: (1) improve access to data (2) help our community create innovative apps (3) understand what datasets you'd like to see (4) get feedback on the quality of our datasets.
• Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women
  Ladies in technology and media or those like Neelie who significantly influence technology (she has tackled Microsoft in her role promoting competition) in the Forbes List 12 Carol Bartz, Chief executive, Yahoo 14 Ursula Burns, Chief executive, Xerox Corp. 15 Anne Mulcahy, Chairman, Xerox Corp. 16 Safra Catz, President, Oracle 31 Ann Livermore, Executive vice president, Hewlett-Packard 32 Cathie Lesjak, Executive vice president, Hewlett-Packard 34 Melinda Gates, Co-chairman, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 52 Anne Sweeney, Co-chairman, Disney Media Networks 53 Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for Competition, European Union 60 Amy Pascal, Co-chairman, Sony Pictures Entertainment 62 Judy McGrath. Chief executive, MTV Networks . 63 Stacey Snider, Chief Executive, DreamWorks Studios 70 Virginia Rometty, Senior vice president, IBM 96 Charlene Begley, Chief executive, GE Enterprise Solutions 97 Mindy Grossman, Chief executive, HSN, Inc.
• Foreigners Attending US Grad Schools Way Down: Wake Up, Xenophobes
  U.S. grad school admissions for would-be international students plummeted this year, according to the Council of Graduate Schools—the first decline in five years. The decline was 3% on average, thanks to increases from China and the Middle East, but some countries saw double-digit declines in interest in a U.S. education. Applicants from India and South Korea fell 12% and 9% respectively—with students turning their sights on schools in Asia and Europe instead.
• SAP plans broader launch of Mittelstand program in 2010
  [Mittelstand: Small/medium enterprises-DBM] In 2009, the company is allowing a predefined client number, which would reach about 100, compared with 90 in six German states at present, the magazine said, adding that the number of clients will rise to between 300 and 1,000 in 2010. Business By Design is a pre-configured piece of software allowing clients to manage financial accounting and order processing.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-22

• CRM failure: An all-star analyst discussion
  I assembled three top-notch analysts to discuss, debate, and help us understand why CRM projects fail and how you can assure success. The result is a unique and informative podcast that drills deeply into the most important issues. The all-star team joining me for the podcast consists of: * Paul Greenberg, fellow ZDNet blogger and author of the influential book, CRM at the Speed of Light * William Band, vice president and principal CRM analyst at Forrester Research * Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, senior CRM and customer service analyst at Forrester Research
• Linux kernel dev team grows, Torvalds drops off the chart
  Over the past 16 months, the report says, 2.7 million lines have been added, there's been a ten percent increase in the number of developers contributing to each three-monthly release cycle, and the number of lines of code contributed each day has nearly tripled. Some five thousand developers across more than five hundred companies are involved: of those companies, Red Hat is in the lead with 12 percent of changes, IBM on 6.3 percent, Novel on 6.1 and Intel on 6.
• Red Hat takes on the recession
  The open source revolution may have yet to happen, but with company budgets on the line, change is in the air. Remember about five or six years ago when the open source software movement was going to beat the stuffing out of software giants like Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL) and Sun (JAVA)? That hasn't exactly happened. Only one company, Red Hat (RHT) took the open source approach: Hundreds (if not thousands) of volunteers work on a piece of software — in this case the Linux operating system for the corporate world — develop it in a money-generating subscription package, and turn it into a large enough business to go public. Read more about Red Hat here.
• Novell vs. Red Hat: How their Linux strategies affect your data center
  Red Hat used to have a lead with respect to ISVs, but Novell has actually moved slightly ahead in this race, according to counts of ISV applications online for the two companies. Red Hat has done a great job selling its open source vision and convincing customers that they can lower costs using open source software and that it is safe to use open source software. Novell is a mixed-source company with well over 100 proprietary products. Its focus is spread between Linux-based and proprietary products with most of its annual revenue coming from its proprietary products and services.
• The Ingres VectorWise project
  I will not spend a long time on computational efficiency because it has been widely covered in the media. Put simply, by using vector processing that takes advantage of modern day CPU characteristics, you get much closer to the compiled performance you would expect when using C, say, as opposed to using SQL: orders of magnitude faster for computationally intensive tasks. However, what I haven't seen widely reported is the fact that VectorWise intends to make this transparent to users: so you should be able to continue to use SQL just as you always did, just get much faster results.
• Should Red Hat Start Selling Oracle Support?
  It's my contention that there's still a hole in the market that needs to be filled: a third-party company that can be a one-stop support vendor regardless of what you're using -- be it Oracle, Red Hat, Windows or anything else. Right now, it's still too easy for one vendor to blame your problems on another and create a support loop nightmare that you can't break out of. I salute Oracle for opening the door; now, let's hope others will enter.
• Red Hat Says It's Serious About Building Channel
  Red Hat is adding a Premier Business Partner designation to its existing Advanced and Ready partner classifications. The new level offers VARs expanded sales training, lead distribution, and demand generation campaigns, as well as market development funds and technical support benefits, said Roger Egan, VP, North American Channel Sales, Raleigh—a North Carolina based firm.
• Many Companies Move to Automate and Integrate Talent Management, Watson Wyatt Survey Finds
  At a time when talent management has become a much higher priority for companies, many are planning to replace their manual talent management processes with automated ones that integrate compensation, recruiting, performance management, learning management, career development and succession planning, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm.
• Six factors of success for supply chain software implementation
  [Great advice-DBM] My advice is for customers to walk before they run, try as much as possible to implement the simple, elegant solution rather than the complex solution. Typically, this still provides significant improvement over the customer’s “as is” business process. Once customers find success with the simple solution, then it becomes easier to implement additional functionality as the customer resources are more knowledgeable on the solution and better able to support it.
• Who will benefit most from the cloud? [video]
  Government and developing countries invest in the cloud At the OpenSource World event in San Francisco, Lew Tucker, vice president and CTO of cloud computing at Sun Microsystems, explained that many developing countries are skipping over acquiring their own servers and going right to the cloud. Because of the cost effectiveness, the move may spur their economies and create jobs. This could also hold true for the U.S. government, currently creating its own cloud as well.
• What Does Cloud Computing Actually Cost? An Analysis of the Top Vendors
  [Read this if you plan to use or consider cloud computing-DBM] Taking a look at all this, I've come away with five conclusions about cloud computing given the current pricing and feature sets: 1. Amazon is currently the least expensive cloud computing option overall. At least for production applications that don't need more than 6.5 hours of CPU/day, then GAE is technically cheaper. This is due to its reserved instances model. It's also the most mature and this makes it the one to beat with low prices + maturity. Expect subscriptions from Azure to give it a run for its money however when Microsoft's cloud platform launches in a few months (probably November). 2. Windows costs at least 20% more to run in the cloud. At least from the major cloud computing vendors. There are undoubtedly cheaper offerings from smaller clouds but they are less likely to be suitable for enterprise, though certainly there are exceptions. 3. Subscriptions will be one of the lock-in models for cloud
• Why Private Cloud Will Make IT Think Like Wal-Mart
  It's easy to understand the attraction of a private cloud: it bypasses issues of security and uncertainty associated (fairly or not) with public cloud providers like Amazon, while offering tangible cloud benefits like agile deployment and easy scalability. In a sense, a private cloud offers the best of both worlds: safety and innovation. I did a series of posts on private clouds a few months ago that discussed the topic at length. In this post, I want to focus on one very important topic regarding private clouds: the supply chain. If you look at the chart that accompanied my private cloud postings, you'll note a dark black dotted line that demarcates application groups (cloud consumers) and IT operations (cloud providers). It illustrates and symbolizes the fact that the working relationships between these two groups will change with the advent of private clouds.
• Capitalizing on Cloud Computing: Sridhar Vembu talks on Fox Business
  Today in New York, Sridhar Vembu talked about Cloud Computing and Zoho on Fox Business. Here is a 5 min video.
• Spider storage engine 2.0 released
  The main changes in this version are following. - Add table parameter "semi_table_lock_connection". - Add server parameter "spider_semi_table_lock_connection". Spider has "spider_semi_trx", "spider_semi_trx_isolation", (for transactional tables like InnoDB) "spider_semi_table_lock" and "semi_table_lock" (for non transactional tables like MyISAM) options for consistent reading at remote servers during executing 1 SQL at local server. But you must use different connections for transactional tables and non transactional tables because "semi_table_lock" causes implicit transaction commit. "semi_table_lock_connection" and "spider_semi_table_lock_connection" can use different connection for transactional tables and non transactional tables by checking that "semi_table_lock" is enabled.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-21

• Survey finds that app dev budgets are increasing
  Despite current economic uncertainty across the globe, senior-level executives and software development professionals are seeing an increase in development budgets, according to a recent survey by software development outsourcer SoftServe.
• Details and Setup of Other Flexfields in Oracle E-Business Suite
  The following are many of the key flexfields in Oracle E-Business Suite, as well as their codes and owning applications. We will include additional information about the flexfields in bold italics.
• inding the Business Value of Consolidation
  Data quality and quantity issues, although generally related, are best analyzed separately. Data quality is an area that has been well studied by the likes of the Data Warehousing Institute, which in a recent study showed that business drivers related to improved analysis and customer satisfaction – as well as other business issues relating to having a single version of the truth – were among the top five benefits from having high quality data.
• Google's New Enterprise Weapons
  The first, called Side-by-Side, is a free download that allows businesses to compare any two search solutions--like, say, Google's appliance against the ones from Oracle's WebCenter or Microsoft's FAST. The second announcement is a new suite of "connectors" that extend Google Search Appliance to data repositories like Salesforce, a popular CRM system.
• Apple Tops Customer Satisfaction Index, Again
  Apple's score of 84 on the latest survey, released this week, was down one point from the year before. However, it is a full nine points above the average score of 75.
• Oracle invests in Israeli startup
  that is developing technology for managing telecom and Internet subscriber services. The investment, in a company called ComAbility, is an agreement between the Oracle Excellence Center for Startups and the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist that promotes local companies.
• WTF?!?
  Is there anyone reading this who knows how Google determined that my blog is "sp-m?" Is there anyone reading this who can ask someone at Google to ensure this gets resolved in the right way? [Google decided my blog is sp-m-DBM]
• SAP Enterprise Service and Google Wave
  An example of how it is possible to use Google Wave in SAP is showed in the following video. In this video the user enters a command. The robot then responds with a list of orders this customer have.
• Salesforce.com F2Q10 (Qtr End 07/31/09) Earnings Call Transcript
  Success Factors dropped Oracle On Demand after the application failed to deliver and sales reps pleaded to return to Salesforce. When sales teams are demanding your application to support their own success, you know that you've got a superior service and certainly that was a factor. Success Factor joins a long list of customers who failed with Oracle On Demand and then signed with Salesforce.com, including Motorola, Axion, Sun Power, GTSI, Xerox, and Barclays. And really, that's just to name a few that have switched off of Oracle service.
• Technically Women
  Technically Women comprises a group of women from all walks of technology. This blog presents our unique views on the current state of business.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-08-20

• SAP Implementation Projects: Still Crazy After All These Years – Part 2
  “I don’t know if the SAP project methodology is being used as I have nothing to gauge our experiences against; however, over the past 2 years, I have read a number of items by experienced SAP consultants, and I suspect that they are not applying it correctly, if at all.”
• Consider more than end of support in move from SAP BEx to BOBJ
  A move from SAP BEx tools to SAP BusinessObjects tools should be driven by where the new applications can fill gaps in functionality, not simply by the end of support, analysts say.
• Brazilian Bank Deactivates 15 Legacy Systems After Adopting SAP® ERP
  One of the top retail banks in Brazil, Banese (Banco do Estado de Sergipe), has improved its efficiency and reduced operational risk by replacing disparate and high-cost IT systems with the flagship enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, SAP® ERP. The bank expects to achieve return on investment (ROI) for the SAP project in only three years.
• #16 Safra Catz - Forbes.com
  The 100 Most Powerful Women #16 Safra Catz President, Oracle U.S. ...Armed with a bachelor's in business and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania, Catz worked as an investment banker for nearly 20 years before joining Oracle's board of directors in 2001.
• Lawsuit Against Tesla Dropped
  According to reports, a judge recently ruled that the lawsuit could move forward after Tesla filed a motion to dismiss in late June. Apart from the lawsuit debacle, this summer has proved to be a positive one for Tesla, which achieved profitability in July with approximately $1 million of earnings on revenue of $20 million, thanks to improved margins on its sports car, the Roadster. Tesla Motors also recently announced that the company will build a powertrain assembly facility in Palo Alto, which will also house the corporate headquarters, engineering and R&D departments.
• Silicon Valley Elite Flock To Y Combinator Demo Day
  The turnout today is huge — VCs representing billions of dollars in managed funds are here, with investors from US Venture Partners, XG Ventures, Founder’s Fund, Greylock Ventures, First Round Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, True Ventures, Freestyle Capital, Venrock, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, FBfund, renowned angel investor Ron Conway and more in attendance. There are also plenty of executives from established companies, including Google exec Bradley Horowitz and Don Dodge from Microsoft. Past Demo Days have certainly received their fair share of attention, but it seems like YC’s larger class size, and perhaps the companies themselves, are bigger draws than ever.
• The down-low on DB2
  [Tim Vincent, DB2 Chief Architect for DB2 on Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms; IBM fellow-DBM] ComputerWorld Canada’s Kathleen Lau put together had an interview with Tim Vincent, another database specialist with the IBM Toronto Software Lab. I think this is a great clip and one well worth revisiting, especially as Oracle plans its next release. Hopefully by this time next year we’ll be talking less about DB2’s past and more about its future.
• Can Yahoo's Carol Bartz Outsmart Microsoft And Google?
  Bartz is betting Yahoo can bring up display revenues and make money leveraging Microsoft's search engine. Right now that's more plan than reality.
• The Business of Giving | Jeff Raikes talks about first year as Gates Foundation CEO
  Raikes recently talked about the fallout of the economic crisis on the foundation, the importance of risk taking and failure in philanthropy, and his experience working with Melinda Gates, which he said has been the most fun. He spoke at a breakfast last week sponsored by the Puget Sound Business Journal. (I couldn't get in, but thanks to the Seattle Channel I was able to watch it here).
• Town Square: A Conversation with Jeff Raikes
  8/13/2009: Jeff Raikes is in an enviable position: he is paid to give away big money for good causes. This former president of Microsoft's business division now heads The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With an asset trust endowment of about $27.5 billion, the Gates Foundation paid out $2.8 billion in grants last year alone and has granted more than $20.1 billion since its inception. Meet Jeff Raikes, hear his take on his new job, on the foundation that is working to change the lives of millions of people for the better, and on the effects of a challenging economy regionally and globally.
• Report: Cloud services can't handle the pressure
  "infrastructure-on-demand services offered by Amazon, Google and Microsoft suffer from regular performance and availability issues."
• Google Helps Enterprises Conduct Side-by-Side Search, Plug into Salesforce.com
  Google follows up its Google Search Appliance launch with new side-by-side search and a Salesforce.com connector. The side-by-side search is a free download for GSA that lets admins set up quick search comparison tests for corporate employees. The workers vote on the best results, and the admin can then make purchasing recommendations. The Salesforce.com connector crawls Salesforce.com for files and documents.
• SAP looks to India for enterprise market growth
  The German software maker enjoys a dominant position in the enterprise market and its India subcontinent head, Ranjan Das, is suddenly in focus because India and China are two regions that are still delivering good growth in hard times.
• Forrester: SAP, others will make analytics acquisitions
  Forrester particularly singles out SAP, saying the vendor will make a deal soon, and could even submit a competitive bid for SPSS. SAP is already planning to buy SAF AG, a German company that makes analytics software aimed at retailers and wholesalers. An SAP spokesman declined to comment on Forrester's report.
• NetApp announces CEO switch; Georgens replaces Warmenhoven
  NetApp has a new CEO after its board of directors appointed Tom Georgens to replace Dan Warmenhoven, who is stepping down after 15 years heading up one the industry’s largest data storage companies.