Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-27

• Oracle & MySQL « Jnan Dash’s Weblog
  Now that Oracle will be the potential owner of MySQL, it will continue to offer it as the open source offering in database. It can position both Oracle and MySQL for different types of applications – Oracle for heavy lifting with high scalability (with its RAC) and complex functionality. It may even show a migration path for those MySQL users to Oracle deployment when needed.
• SaaS and Cloud Stocks Up Nearly 50% In 2009
  We launched the index in 2008 — and it generated a dismal first-year performance, falling roughly 50 percent as the recession pulled down all companies, including SaaS providers. But 2009 has been a different story. Of the 20 index members, 19 have seen their shares rise. And all of those increases involve double-digit returns so far this year.
• Amazon EC2 Shows Amazing Growth
  However, the most interesting aspect of Guy Rosen's analysis is his calculation that 8.4 million EC2 instances have been launched since the launch of Amazon EC2. These are pretty big numbers showing success for cloud based computing. Kudos to Amazon for the success.
• Anatomy of an Amazon EC2 Resource ID
  * 50,242 instances requested * 12,840 EBS volumes requested * 30,925 EBS snapshots requested * 41,121 reservations requested o Disambiguation: a reservation in this context is an atomic launch of one or more instances. This does not imply a reserved instance. For example, if you launch 1 instance, you get 1 instance ID and 1 reservation ID; if you launch 2 instances in one command, you get 2 instance IDs and still 1 reservation ID. These numbers are impressive, to say the least. Even more impressive is a small hint, lurking between the numbers, that implies that just over the past month Amazon crossed a significant threshold (see below for more details): 8.4 million EC2 instances launched (since EC2’s debut).
• In-Memory Parallel Execution in Oracle Database 11gR2
  In-Memory Parallel Execution (In-Memory PX) takes advantage of these larger buffer caches but it also ensures we don't trash the cache. In-Memory PX begins by determining if the working set (group of database blocks) necessary for a query fits into the aggregated buffer cache of the system. If the working set does not fit then the objects will be accessed via direct path IO just as they were before. If the working set fits into the aggregated buffer cache then the blocks will be distributed among the nodes and the blocks will be affinitzed or associated with that node. In previous releases, if the Parallel Execution of one statement read part of an object into the buffer cache, then subsequent SQL statement on other nodes in the cluster would access that data via Cache Fusion. This behavior could eventually result in a full copy of that table in every buffer cache in the cluster. In-Memory PX is notably different because Cache Fusion will not be used to copy the data from its origina
• YouTube - Marc Benioff on Behind the Cloud
  Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff discusses his new book, Behind the Cloud.
• Google endows $2.5M Rajeev Motwani chair
  "The breadth and depth of Rajeev's contributions in academia and industry are unparalleled in computer science. Yet they pale in comparison to the impact he had through the many researchers and entrepreneurs whom he taught and mentored," said Brin, Google's president for technology. "While I am sad to lose a good friend, I know his spirit will live on through generations of technologies and technologists to come." [Really, unparalleled? Read up on Doug Englebart ... -DBM]
• Oracle sees $300M restructuring costs
  In its Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday, Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) said that it recorded $48 million of its annual restructuring plan in the first quarter of fiscal 2010. It said most of the rest of the $300 million in restructuring woukld happen over the next three quarters.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-26

• The hunt for Oracle Exadata production references
  So far as I can tell, Oracle Exadata production sites are pretty scarce on the ground. What, if anything, am I missing?
• The 'Web Squared' Era
  There's also a qualitative change happening as the Web becomes more closely integrated with the real world via sensor-based smart phone applications. Web Squared is another way of saying "Web meets World."
• Gates Foundation CEO wants biz to house homeless
  Jeff Raikes told the annual meeting of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce that they should consider combatting homelessness as an economic opportunity. The former Microsoft executive spoke of success some programs in Washington and elsewhere have had with getting homeless families back into housing and work.
• Oracle Won't Spin Off MySQL
  "We believe MySQL will be positioned against SQL Server and also offering a migration path to Oracle databases, so this acquisition, especially MySQL, is critical for Oracle and I am sure Microsoft is watching is very closely."
• Microsoft's Got a Deal for Small Web Dev Firms
  Microsoft launched a program today that offers its Web development tools, training, and support to Web site design and Web application development firms with 10 or fewer employees. Cost? Three years for just $99. The program, dubbed WebsiteStart, gives developers and firms that join three licenses for Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, two licenses for Expression Web 3, and one license for Expression Studio 3, according to a company statement.
• Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering with Hadoop
  Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering is a bottom up clustering approach where at each stage, we find the closest two documents (or document clusters) and merge them into a new cluster. The process continues until some convergence criteria is satisfied. Last week, I described a Map-Reduce job to generate a TD Matrix from the articles on my blog. This week I use the TD Matrix data to cluster the articles using the Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering algorithm. The code models a 1 + (n * 3) stage pipeline of Map-Reduce jobs, where n is the number of stages (number of documents - number of clusters). The distance measure to compute the closeness between two documents (or document clusters) is cosine similarity. At each stage, two items are merged into one, so one of the criteria for convergence is when the remaining number of document (or document clusters) are less than a threshold value. The other convergence criterion is when merging a document into a document or cluster would resu
• The Scoop on Hadoop and Vertica
  Rather than create yet another proprietary implementation we chose to integrate with the popular Apache Hadoop project. Our integration efforts together with customer validation and support from Cloudera have taken the form of native Input and Output formatters for Apache Hadoop. These libraries allow Hadoop to read data from Vertica just as it does HDFS and similarly to write data to Vertica as reduce output. We have found over the past few months that by integrating Hadoop with the Vertica database we have been able to enhance the value of both technologies for our customers. With Vertica and Hadoop our customers can combine the performance and scalability of the Vertica Analytic Database with the power and flexibility of MR in innovative ways to solve big data problems using the right tools for the right job.
• Employees protest vs. poor service
  GSIS Visayas operations vice president, Salvacion Mate, told the DAILY STAR that these problems boil down to the IBM-DB2 database management crashes. She said, IBM promised the GSIS that the database has the capacity of accommodating all the 1.4 million members and pensioners transactions, but it failed. GSIS has suffered at least eight database crashes to date and at least P5 billion in actual damages to the system, a GSIS press statement said.
• SAP's Social Playbook
  The LinkedIn partnership will likely mean that any kudos a user earns from SAP could be automatically advertised on that person's LinkedIn profile. Since SAP software is used by a lot of businesses, that could mean better job opportunities for the company's most proficient community members.
• Enterprise Software Acquisitions: Who's Next?
  The firms that would make significant contributions to the Titans: SAS (Private) Informatica (INFA) MicroStrategy (MSTR) Netezza (NZ) Teradata (TDC)
• An Emerging Threat to Oracle and SAP
  The third-party approach is catching on with corporate software clients. In 2009 Rimini expects to have about $150 million in maintenance-contract bookings, up from $86 million a year ago. Oracle would charge about double, so that represents about $300 million in potential Oracle revenue, says Cowen analyst Peter Goldmacher. SAP's maintenance revenue hasn't been affected much yet because Rimini launched service for customers of the German software giant only three months ago. "It doesn't mean Oracle will lose all its revenue overnight. We are a rounding error, for now," Ravin says.
• Tibco: Strong 3Q Validates Enterprise 3.0 Mantra
  In the third quarter of last year, Tibco earned $11.1 million, or $0.08 a share, on sales of $162.3 million. Its shares closed off $0.07 a share to $9.13 in Thursday's trading but stormed up $0.67, or 7 percent, to $9.80 following the earnings announcement.
• The Product Maintenance Paradox!
  With SAP and Oracle said to be realizing gross margins in the neighborhood of 90% on their maintenance business, the economics are simply too strong for third party maintenance providers not to rise up. Some regulatory interventions like antitrust suits may help accelerate the shift,this would embolden service providers to look at the maintenance market form a fresh value perspective.
• Workday Back Online
  Within hours, all customers were live in our secondary datacenter with all their data intact. We've tested our failover plans many times, but this is the first time we did it for real. We've learned quite a bit in the process - some of it technical, some of it regarding communications with customers. That knowledge will be used to further refine our datacenter practices, our hardware choices, and our failover plans so that we can do even better in the future.
• Share and Sell Data with Infochimps
  Sell Data If you're on the other side, and you have data to offer, you can put your dataset up for sale. Fill out some forms, specify your price, and let Infochimps handle the rest like storage and cataloging. Infochimps takes a 20% commission on each sale for their service.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-25

• Exclusive Interview With Steve Ballmer: Products, Competition, The Road Ahead
  Ballmer says to expect roughly the same level of activity in the future. “I’m guessing we’re gonna want to buy about 15 companies again next year,” he says. He says most of those will be smaller transactions ranging from $50 million – $400 million. And those companies will have to “really fit well with our technology platforms and distribution,” he added.
• Comedy Is an Uninvited Guest at Microsoft's 'House Party'
  Microsoft has produced its share of quirky marketing messages, but a YouTube clip produced to promote a series of Windows 7 launch parties is a special sort of odd. Oh, so very special.
• Microsoft Kills Dynamics Mobile
  Microsoft on Thursday said it has discontinued the mobile versions of its Dynamics ERP (enterprise resource planning) products. The first mobile Dynamics product, Dynamics AX Mobile Sales, was introduced in 2007 and let sales people remotely place and track orders, query sales histories and manage advertising campaigns from Windows Mobile devices. Microsoft also offered development tools for businesses to build their own mobile offerings based on Dynamics.
• Microsoft Dynamics Mobile Team blog : Microsoft Dynamics Mobile Has Been Discontinued
  Microsoft Dynamics Mobile for Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics NAV has been discontinued. For more information, please visit PartnerSource at https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/solutions/mobile.
• H-P CEO: Oracle-Sun Doesn't Faze Us
  "It's a big market -- we're very comfortable with co-opetive relationships," he said, in an innovatively worded response to a question during a meeting for securities analysts late Thursday. "Oracle has been a great partner of H-P's for a long time -- I don't expect that to change."
• Tibco Software 3Q Profit Rises 34% On Margins; Shares Jump
  For the quarter ended Aug. 30, Tibco reported earnings of $14.9 million, or 9 cents a share, up from $11.1 million, or 6 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding stock compensation and acquisition-related impacts, earnings rose to 13 cents from 11 cents. Revenue declined 7.4% to $150.3 million. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters projected earnings of 11 cents a share on revenue of $145 million. Operating margin increased to 13.6% from 9.4% on a 10% drop in operating costs. License revenue dropped 15%, while service and maintenance revenue fell 1.9%. The company closed 17 deals over $1 million, up from 11 the prior quarter.
• Informatica Prepares For Info Overload
  Informatica technology allows organizations to leverage data that may be stored in mainframe systems from 30 years ago, to the latest in cloud computing. And that is a tremendous value proposition. We're uniquely in that position of unifying all of the health care records.
• 37SIGNALS VALUATION TOPS $100 BILLION AFTER BOLD VC INVESTMENT
  In order to increase the value of the company, 37signals has decided to stop generating revenues. “When it comes to valuation, making money is a real obstacle. Our profitability has been a real drag on our valuation,” said Mr. Fried. “Once you have profits, it’s impossible to just make stuff up. That’s why we’re switching to a ‘freeconomics’ model. We’ll give away everything for free and let the market speculate about how much money we could make if we wanted to make money. That way, the sky’s the limit!”
• What Entrepreneurs Want From VCs: Independence And Faster Feedback
  Entrepreneurs who have interacted with more VCs have a less positive view of these investor’s ability to add value pre- and post-investment. This suggests that entrepreneurs learn over time that each VC is less unique and useful.
• As Workers Protest, Wipro May Sell French Unit
  Wipro plans to explore options to sell its development centre at Sophia Antipolis, France, because of extensive employee protests against shutting it down. The issue had snowballed into a major controversy with the involvement of the local French government officials. Wipro had initiated talks to close down the centre that it acquired from Newlogic because of poor demand. The centre employs around 60 people.
• Satyam to give promotions, hikes
  Seems hikes and promotion time is back in IT! After TCS and Infosys announcing their decision to go for selective hikes and promotions, Mahindra Satyam is all set to join its peers. According to a report in a business daily, the company is all set to soon start the promotions cycle in certain departments. Quoting a company official, the report says that employees identified as high performers will be given promotions and pay hikes.
• Wipro signs co-development agreement with Oracle
  Under this agreement, Wipro and Oracle would co-develop process solutions for five different industries, communication, retail, consumer products, hi-tech and industrial manufacturing, Wipro said in a statement. "Many enterprises find themselves struggling to deliver and standardize business processes that span multiple applications cost effectively," Oracle Vice-President Applications Development and Strategy Jose Lazares said. "Our co-development approach aims to involve selected partners like Wipro who have specific expertise and skills in industry specific business processes, to co-develop pre-built, integration products with us and then deploy these for customers," he added. Wipro Technologies Sangita Singh Senior Vice-President said; "The co-development agreement is part of our continued strategy to invest in technology innovation and build deep industry expertise along with partners".
• Intel, IBM, Others Craft Speedy Servers for Cloud Computing
  Driven by the rapid adoption of server virtualization and the trend toward cloud computing, OEMs are rolling out systems designed to bring high performance, energy efficiency and relatively low cost to the data center. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel executives continued their drumbeat of rolling out processor technologies designed to meet those goals, and took it a step further by not only saying they were looking to create a "microserver" category, but also by unveiling an Intel-developed microserver that will serve as a reference design. On the showroom floor at IDF, a host of OEMs displayed systems aimed at addressing the demands for high performance and low energy consumption.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-24

• Microsoft aims to spark new business for Web developers
  Through WebsiteSpark -- which companies can apply for online -- Microsoft will provide three licenses for Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, two licenses for Expression Web 3 and one license for Expression Studio 3. Qualifying companies also receive four processor licenses for production use of both Windows Web Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Web Edition. The program also includes two technical-support incidents per company, access to community support through connections with other Microsoft partners and unlimited access to technical managed newsgroups on the Microsoft Developer Network.
• What will tech's recovery look like: a U, V or W?
  IT managers see a 2010 budget environment that's "less bad than this past year but not what it was, when things were good," he said, referring to pre-recession spending. Luftman is a distinguished professor and director of information systems programs at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. IT managers "are not sure whether it's going to be U, V or W recovery," he said. In responding to the recession, the portion of IT budgets allocated to hardware declined to 33% versus 42% in 2008. The portion of the budget devoted to internal staff increased, reflecting smaller budgets but also an effort to keep employees rather than buy new equipment. "Rather than layoff people, they cut equipment," Luftman said. They also increased use of outsourcing services.
• Red Hat Profit Rises 37%
  Uncertainty over the future of Sun may also be helping, Mr. Whitehurst said. Oracle agreed to buy Sun in April, but the deal is awaiting regulatory approval by European Commission antitrust authorities. Earlier this week, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said that the delay is costing Oracle $100 million a month. For the quarter ended Aug. 31, Red Hat reported earnings of $28.9 million, or 15 cents a share, up from $21.1 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier. The company repurchased $47 million of common stock in the quarter. Excluding stock compensation and amortization expenses as well as a tax benefit in the latest quarter, earnings rose to 16 cents from 14 cents. Revenue improved 12%, to $183.6 million, as subscription revenue increased 15%. Nearly half of the company's revenue is from outside the U.S.
• Red Hat CEO vs. Torvalds: More Linux features don't equate to bloat
  Linux has continued to grow and its applicability continues to expand, there’s just more feature functionality that people are looking for to be built into the operating system. I have not had a conversation with him about the comment. I don’t think of that as bloat. Certainly bloat is when you start adding feature functionalities that people don’t want, and certainly the nature of Linux where users are the key contributors, I do think Linux is growing but I think it is much more indicative of the fact that its’ continued added features that people do want and the key differentiator is it can continue to do that in a very modular way, so I actually look at the growth as much more of a reflection that it continues to add features that people do want, and that’s a good thing.
• Oracle Fusion Middleware Security: "What is the point of all this?"
  Message level security introduces some additional complexity and effort, but is absolutely required to address many real-world use cases.
• 5 Reasons ERP Vendors Will Find It Hard to Sell Their Talent Management
  # Legacy mindset – Talent Management is a rapidly evolving industry. The HRIS vendors are often restricted in their development to fit the paradigm of their existing products. This isn’t a good way to pursue a burgeoning industry. # Different buyers – the top executive might be the same buyer for both Talent Management technology and HRIS systems, but the influencers, users and often the decision makers at a lower level of the organization, are different. The strategic thinkers in the Talent Management divisions of companies are separating themselves from the more tactical, even though critically important, transactional folks.
• ERP and CRM for One Attractive Price With SAP® Business All-in-One Solutions Through Best Run-Now Initiative
  Midsize companies that purchase an SAP® Business All-in-One solution or the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application SAP® ERP with at least 15 SAP application professional users and 15 SAP application limited professional users will also receive the SAP® Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application for one attractive price. During this time of economic downturn, SAP is providing its customers a portfolio of integrated business management and business intelligence solutions through a limited-time special financing through the Best-Run Now initiative. The offerings have been designed to help enable customers to rapidly implement SAP solutions to help achieve effective results in the time they need it. This specific offering is available to qualified customers until December 18, 2009, and is only available to companies that sign a new license contract with SAP.
• DemoFall ends with awards and emotional good-byes
  Earlier, Shipley gave out a series of Lifetime Achievement awards to tech luminaries like Palm co-founder Donna Dubinsky, Diane Greene, a co-founder of VMware, Better Place founder and CEO Shai Agassi, and (in absentia) Marc Benioff.
• Executing a Broad, Innovative Idea
  In early 2007, Shane Robison, Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) executive vice-president and chief strategy and technology officer, gathered the seven chief technology officers from HP's business units together. Robison, as a Compaq vice-president, had played a major role in the two companies' controversial 2002 merger and the integration that followed. But when he summoned his division technology chiefs, he was focused on the future: What technologies were emerging, how would they shape the market, and what were the implications for HP?
• Oracle Mulls Shift To Subscription-Based Pricing
  It's on Safra's desk. The calculator is out. Midmarket customers are clamoring for on-demand options, Keever said. No doubt, they're probably getting calls from NetSuite, Workday, and other SaaS providers, saying we can lower your software costs and IT management responsibilities. Crunch, crunch, crunch go the numbers on Safra's desk. I'm very curious to see what she comes up with.
• Silicon Valley Code Camp Oct 3rd/4th: Oracle Track (Oracle Developer Tools Blog)
  Oracle Fusion Middleware Track In this track, you'll learn about the Java and Web Service technologies used to develop Oracle Fusion Middleware. Java Web Applications and Java EE are covered in detail, from backend topics like JVM diagnostics, web services, security as a service, to development tools like JDeveloper and Eclipse, to “infrastructure-as-a-service” topics like cloud computing.

Software: Maintenance Revenue: High Margin or High Risk?

Excellent analysis today from Cowen and Co. analyst Peter Goldmacher. I can't find it posted on their site (got it via e-mail), so I'm including the key extract below for those who might be interested. Enjoy!

Software: Maintenance Revenue: High Margin or High Risk?

Consensus View: Applications maintenance, fees for technical support and product update rights, is a $20B annual business with 80%+ margins. Maintenance revenue, which is approximately 50% of total sales for most apps vendors (Oracle, SAP, Lawson and Epicor), is a highly reliable, high margin, recurring revenue stream that provides earnings stability and enables margin expansion even if license sales falter. Companies with a high proportion of maintenance revenue should sell at premium PEs.

• Our View: We believe that application software vendor maintenance fees are at risk. Our research indicates that companies continue to tighten their belts around IT spending, and ERP upgrades are not a priority. This is not a macro issue that we expect to diminish as the economy strengthens. We believe ERP upgrades, the primary motivation to pay maintenance fees, are on the wane because it's a mature market. Vendor investments in R&D are on the decline, innovation is lagging and redeployment costs are multiples of the license fee. As a result, customers are increasingly questioning the value of paying annual maintenance fees of 20% of the cost of the original license for the occasional use of technical support. We believe that as the value proposition around maintenance fees diminishes, there is significant opportunity for third party service providers to offer low cost tech support. While there are only a small number of these third party providers today, we believe that as Apps sales continue to decline, there is a significant over capacity of consultants with ERP expertise looking for opportunities to leverage their skills. We believe these dynamics will result in the creation of a number of businesses designed to chip away at the exorbitant revenues and margins associated with vendor maintenance fees.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-23

• The NetSuite Cloud Computing Seminar Series: The Business Cloud
  At this seminar, you'll learn: * What the buzz around cloud computing is all about—and why it's becoming a business priority * Why cloud computing is the more efficient, cheaper and greener way to reduce both IT costs and energy usage * How you can finally manage your multi-subsidiary and multinational operations in real time, gain local control and visibility, and simplify multi-currency financial consolidation * How real-time dashboards, analytics and continuous planning can give your company a competitive advantage.
• Oracle Developer Builds His Own Twitter, On The Fly
  Noel Portugal, Oracle Senior Technical Analyst for CRM On Demand Operations, saw an opportunity to address this challenge, and used the Oracle Application Express web development platform to create OraTweet, an internal micro-blogging tool to encourage broad communication among Oracle employees. Think of it as Twitter, but operating only inside the company, allowing workers to post valuable information, ask questions, and debate issues with co-workers around the world who they may have never met. Now boasting more than 10,000 users, OraTweet has become a valuable tool within Oracle—and was built by one person using free Oracle software.
• Only You Can Prevent Project Failure
  Asuret created a solution that collects information from stakeholders in different departments in the company as enterprise IT projects are company-wide initiatives that affect all departments and all people in the company. Asuret also collects information from the solution providers (consultants or integrators) and vendors if any of them are involved in the project. Using an electronic questionnaire that takes about 15-20 minutes to get through and all questions are multiple choice. This questionnaire has some “demographics” information (such as department, job function) but it also has thresholds built in to prevent an answer to become identifiable. In other words, this is all very confidential and results are only shared with the appropriate people in an anonymous manner.
• A year on, Satyam has 50% fewer staff
  Nearly one year after Satyam Computer Services prepared its second-quarter results in 2008, the number of employees at the crisis-hit company (now, Mahindra Satyam) is put at 28,000, including 4,000 in subsidiaries.
• HP And Informatica Expand Alliance
  "HP and Informatica have provided data integration solutions for more than 10 years," said Sohaib Abbasi, Chairman and CEO, Informatica. "The new combined offerings will allow organizations to derive business value from their information assets while improving quality and IT efficiency," he added.
• NetSuite Executives Step Up Stock Sales
  Insiders at NetSuite have been busy sellers of late, unloading $3.3 million of stock in September, roughly 10 times the amount insiders at the software company had been selling in an average month.
• Microsoft Data Center Exec Bolts To Cisco
  Debra Chrapaty, who ran Microsoft's data center operations, is set to assume command of Cisco's collaboration software group, according to a report on InformationWeek.com sister site ChannelWeb. The report was confirmed by Microsoft. Cisco has not commented.
• California 'In-Shoring' Firm Systems in Motion to Hire in Michigan
  The Fremont, Calif., company calls itself an “in-shoring” provider, meaning it takes on IT projects for clients but does the work on American soil. Its chief executive, Neeraj Gupta, told the Detroit Free Press that it will kick off a training program for new and career-changing workers and expects to pay $30,000 to $80,000 for most of the positions, which it will hire over the next five years.
• Warren Buffet, Oracle and SAP – Part Two
  # SAP has almost 5 percentage points higher ROE compared to Oracle (27.32% vs 22.43%). # However, as we discussed in part one, ROE could be misleading. We need to focus on the operational part – RNOA. Well, SAP has almost 6 percentage points advantage over Oracle ( 24.59 % vs 18.60%). In other words, operationally SAP is doing a good job of converting it’s operational assets into profit. Furthermore, for SAP, the non-operation return constitues only approx. 10% of the entire ROE versus 17% for oracle. # What about the non-operatinal (financial) part? Oracle has 1.1% advantage over SAP ( 3.83% vs 2.73%). Oracle CFO is definitely doing a slightly better job in his investments. # As we discussed, SPREAD is the difference between returns from borrowed funds and cost of borrowing. SAP has spread of 20.62% vs 13.00% for Oracle. Two reasons for SAP having higher spread: 1) SAP has higher RNOA as noted in #2 above and at the same time, effective rate of borrowing (net financial rate
• Larry Ellison is right, but wrong, about the cloud
  Ellison’s cloud rhetoric is powerful because it is factual. There are very few new technical features in cloud computing. It is computers, memory, DBMS all running on standard networks.
• HP renames EDS, now HP Enterprise Services
  "The name change marks the next major step in a year-long integration of EDS into HP and emphasizes the growing global role of enterprise technology services in HP's portfolio," HP said in a statement. HP also said its Technology Solutions Group, responsible for servers, storage, software, networking and technology services for businesses and government organizations, will be renamed the HP Enterprise Business.
• Why Microsoft's Elop Isn't Afraid of Google
  Dynamics CRM -- customer relationship management. We may be contracting as an industry in a particular business, but you say, "I have to get closer to my customer, I have to manage every lead for a sales opportunity tighter than I did before." So it's growing very substantially as well.
• Over-Dressed for Oracle OpenWorld
  [Not sure whether to tag this as "humor" or not-DBM] Today, we kick off our new video series Over-Dressed for Oracle OpenWorld, highlighting the antics of a misguided conference attendee who favors style over substance.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-22

• Seed Stage Capital: The Care and Feeding of Advisory Boards
  There is no real trick to recruiting advisors-- you simply ask them. Most people are flattered by the request and by the lure of being associated with a new successful company. It's a soft sell, and taps the ego-drive for recognition as an expert.
• Microsoft Buys Software to Bolster Its Core ERP Product
  Microsoft is buying technology from four of its partners in order to bolster its Dynamics AX ERP... Microsoft is buying additional functionality for manufacturing from Fullscope, a company that specializes in customizing Microsoft's Dynamics AX product, which is aimed at the upper midmarket, Read said. The technology will add a capability for manufacturing processes that don't deal with discrete components, such as formulas for food and chemical products, he said. The technology for retail comes from two companies, LSRetail and To-Increase Denmark. It will add new features for retailers, but not functions tailored for a certain type of retailer, such as restaurant or fashion house, Read said. Some of those features cover store management, point-of-sale and merchandising. The last bit of software for professional services comes from Computer Generated Solutions. It is a system for managing resources, executing financial transactions and billing customers.
• Reality check
  Business intelligence and analytics are in demand again as organisations hunt for insight by which to navigate adverse economic conditions
• Microsoft Dynamics AX Acquires IP For Three Industry Solutions
  Building off the experiences from Industry Builders Initiative (IBI) and Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD), the latest strategy by the Microsoft Dynamics team to accelerate industry vertical innovation for customers and partners provides a pragmatic approach. Customers expect Microsoft to take the lead in orchestrating common industry capabilities while also providing a stable platform for core Microsoft Dynamics AX capabilities. Acquiring the IP of proven solutions in the market plays to Microsoft’s strengths by leveraging the ecosystem for innovation while embedding key common business processes. The result - a more predictable roadmap and a single architecture for customers and partners to expand on. Pending the success of these IP acquisitions, one can expect more to come as this becomes the model to most efficiently deliver on industry vertical innovation.
• MrTed Signs Massive Talent Acquisition Software Contract with Chinese Government
  MrTed Ltd, the global leader in Talent Acquisition Solutions, today announced it has signed a major contract with the Chinese Talent Association (CTA) of China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) to build up a nationwide online Talent Acquisition System (TAS) and develop value-added services to help companies throughout the country improve the process by which they attract and hire the right talent, and help millions of talents in China to find the right job.
• Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: We Won't Spin Off MySQL
  “Sun has fantastic technology. We think it’s got great microprocessor technology–it needs a little more investment, but we think it can be extremely competitive. It’s got the leading tape archival systems. We think the Open Storage on their new disk system is absolutely fantastic. Java speaks for itself. Solaris is overwhelmingly the best open-systems operating system on the planet….Sun has been a national treasure for the last couple of decades.”
• IBM, Microsoft Back Zend Open Cloud API
  The Simple API is intended to provide a common API set from which developers may call application services, regardless of which cloud they reside in. Files generated by an application running in one cloud could be stored on Amazon's S3, Rackspace's Cloud Files, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network, or Microsoft's Azure Windows blobs. Rackspace and Nirvanix are also members of the project.
• Lotus goes after Microsoft's 'ridiculous and fabricated' figures
  "Microsoft is making claims in the marketplace around 4.7 million people have exchanged e-mail from Notes to Exchange and that is just a ridiculous fabricated figure," said Picciano, who took the reins at Lotus in 2008. "Every time they sell a [client access license] they count that as a competitive migration."
• Using the Cloud to Design Your Startup Computing Infrastructure
  AWS is going to make this much easier and much more cost effective for us, if this was 5 years ago, our initial startup seed money of 15K would have been sucked up by servers alone with no money left over for development. If you are doing a startup and you are not using cloud computing, you are seriously missing an opportunity to save money, and have the room to scale later on if your company catches with the general public.
• 20 Things You Might Not Know About COBOL (as the Language Turns 50)
  The name COBOL was selected during a meeting of the Short Range Committee, the organization responsible for submitting the first version of the language, on Sept. 18, 1959. This committee, formed by a joint effort of industry, major universities and the U.S. government, was known as CODASYL (Conference on Data Systems Languages). CODASYL completed the specifications for COBOL as 1959 ended. These were approved by the Executive Committee in January 1960 and sent to the government printing office, which edited and printed these specifications as Cobol 60. COBOL was developed within a six-month period, and yet is still in use more than 50 years later.
• SaaS 2.0: Dogfood is Yummy
  We've got no on-premises software to speak of in the company outside of Microsoft Windows and Office. Supporting all of this, we've got one person in IT - Jason is kind of like our maytag repair guy - he spends most of his time setting up laptops for our new hires and waiting for PCs to break.
• Behind the Creative Scenes, Part 1
  Eventually, we refined that message down to this simple statement: Oracle OpenWorld turns IT into a competitive advantage.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-21

• The 10 biggest moments in IT history
  Some of the milestones on my list are debatable (depending upon where you are looking from), but some of them most likely are not. Read on and see what you think.
• ERP: The Slumbering Enterprise Giant Is Awakening
  A mature market that has served as the backbone for enterprise computingenterprise resource planning industry is not characterized by rapid change. So, when a "game changer" appears -- that's how Frost & Sullivan More about Frost & Sullivan analyst David Boulanger characterized SAP's (NYSE: SAP) More about SAP AG ongoing Business ByDesign rollout -- it pays to sit up and take notice. SAP intended to introduce the application two years ago, but there were delays, reportedly with its architecture design. Now, the product is being quietly rolled out on a limited basis, Boulanger told CRM Boost customer satisfaction + retention with Salesforce.com Service Cloud 2. Click to learn more. Buyer, and the search is on for early adopters. for many decades, the ERP More about
• Dell-Perot Deal Augurs Well for Customers
  In a marriage of convenience, Dell just announced the acquisition of Perot Systems -- a deal that, while not particularly awe-inspiring or exciting, has very positive implications for customers and the combined businesses. ... The acquisition price has been set at $3.9 billion -- a nearly 70% premium over market value. Combined sales will be around $57 billion, but the more pertinent number is as follows: the combined services revenue for Dell and Perot Systems will be about $8 billion.
• Dell to buy Perot Systems for $3.9 billion
  Specifically, Dell said Perot would help it: * Provide a broader range of IT services and solutions and optimize how they’re delivered; * Extend the reach of Perot Systems’ capabilities around the world; and, * Supply leading Dell computer systems to even more Perot Systems customers.
• 10 Best Places for Technology Jobs in 2009
  It's not surprising to see Boston, San Francisco and Seattle on this list, but Houston, Phoenix and Huntsville, Ala.? Now there are some nontraditional places for technology work. Why is that?
• Innovation Strong Despite Recession: Human Resource Executive(R) Magazine Receives...
  The winners of Human Resource Executive(R) magazine's 21st Annual Top HR and Top Training Products of the Year will be recognized at a special awards luncheon during the 12th Annual HR Technology(R) Conference at McCormick Place in Chicago, September 30, 2009. The editors of Human Resource Executive spent hundreds of hours reviewing product demonstrations and conducting research in order to select their picks for the best HR products of the year. Products were judged on innovation, user-friendliness and the value they add to the HR profession.
• Taleo and SuccessFactors Go to War
  When Talent Management started, we were all agape at the different application origins of the competing vendors. Five years ago, none seemed more separated than Taleo and SuccessFactors. But now they have clearly broken away from the pack -- and the greatest weapon they bring to their coming war is lots of new products announced in September.
• What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation?
  But seriously, the NVCA numbers aren’t even remotely credible. How can VCs claim credit for the revenue of a company which they cashed out of twenty or thirty years ago? And even then, claiming credit for 81% of tech jobs and 21% of GDP? More to the point, would those jobs never have been created if the VCs had never appeared on the scene? How can the NVCA prove causality?
• 100 Best Global Brands
  [This list is preposterous!-DBM] The recession has presented marketing executives around the world with the toughest test of their careers. Some brands have prospered amid the hard times—or at least held their own. Others have slipped a surprising number of places on our ninth annual ranking, compiled by consultancy Interbrand. But for seven brands, impressive performances saw them race up the charts to take their place on this year's list. Here are the numbers behind the rankings. Rank 2009 Rank 2008 Employer 2009 Brand value ($millions) 2008 Brand value ($millions) Percent change (%) Country of Ownership ... 2 2 IBM 60,211 59,031 0.02 U.S. 3 3 Microsoft 56,647 59,007 -0.04 U.S. ... 7 10 Google 31,980 25,590 0.25 U.S. ... 9 7 Intel 30,636 31,261 -0.02 U.S. ... 11 12 Hewlett-Packard 24,096 23,509 0.02 U.S. ... 14 17 Cisco 22,030 21,306 0.03 U.S. ... 24 23 Oracle 13,699 13,831 -0.01 U.S. ... 27 31 SAP 12,106 12,228 -0.01 Germany

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-20

• Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Launches Major SAP ERP Upgrade: 10 Lessons for a Successful Go-Live
  After nine months of careful planning, the team completed a successful project within the time constraints they had. Here’s a countdown of the top lessons learned from their upgrade experience.
• U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra Visits Silicon Valley To Talk Tech And Innovation With The Woz
  Chopra outlined the Federal government’s technology agenda, calling attention to the challenges the government faces. He says that in terms of innovation, the U.S. has a lot of room for improvement. The government recently did a survey of where countries rank as innovators over the past decade. The U.S. ranked dead last in the rate at which innovation sped up over the past ten years, according to Chopra’s data. In the area of e-government options, the U.S. ranked last as well.
• Getting Closer to Real Time With Hadoop
  Both Hypertable and HBase are modeled after Google’s implementation of Big Table, which powers much of Google’s infrastructure. This is a bit different from other well-known key-value stores, like Dynamo from Amazon, and Project Voldemort, which is supported, at least in part, by LinkedIn.
• I Met With an Investor, What Happens Next?
  It sounded like they really liked you. The promised to follow up with: calls, using your product, talking to customers or “noodle on things.” Will they?
• YouTube - Force.com Workflow and Approvals Demo
  This demo shows how you can use the Force.com Workflow and Approval engine to add business logic to your cloud application. In this example we show how to add an approval process for new job openings in our sample recruiting app.
• YouTube - sfdcMktg's Channel
  [Instructional and promotional videos by Salesforce.com on YouTube-DBM]
• Making Theory Usable Recap: 6 Questions that Get at the Heart of Project Failure
  To recap, the project failure areas are: # Intent Failure – Occurs when the project doesn’t bring enough addedvalue or capability to beat down the obstacles inherent throughout the process. This suggests the original intent of the project was flawed from the beginning.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-19

• IBM Program to Help Students Gain Critical Mainframe Skills Grows to More Than 600...
  IBM Program to Help Students Gain Critical Mainframe Skills Grows to More Than 600 Universities Schools in Emerging Markets Join IBM Academic Initiative for System z; Program Now Reaches Students in 61 Countries
• DEMOfall Presenters Revealed
  Lifetime Achievement awards given to some high-power individuals, including (I wonder how many will actually show up!): 1. Shai Agassi, Founder, TopTier Software, currently Founder and CEO, Better Place 2. Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, salesforce.com 3. Donna Dubinsky, Founder, CEO & Board Chair, Numenta 4. Jeff Hawkins, Founder, Numenta 5. Subrah Iyar, Founder and former CEO, WebEx 6. Keng Lim, Founder, Chairman and CEO, NextLabs 7. Kevin Lynch, Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President, Experience & Technology Organization, Adobe Systems 8. Andy Rubin, Co-founder, Danger Inc., currently Vice President, Engineering, Google 9. Mike Cassidy, Co-founder, Xfire, currently Co-founder & CEO, Ruba.com 10. Diane Greene, Co-founder, VMware 11. Colin Angle, Chairman, CEO and Co-founder, iRobot 12. Helen Greiner, Co-founder, iRobot, currently Founder, The Droid Works 13. Teresa Meng, Founder, Atheros Communications, currently Reid Weaver Dennis Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stan
• Oracle Human Capital Management
  THE place to find out what's new and what's happening with the Oracle HCM product line.
• Oracle OpenWorld 2009 Special Report
  To help you prepare for Oracle OpenWorld 2009, SearchOracle.com has compiled some of our own Oracle resources to get you on track before the show even starts. Read our news and resources on the OpenWorld conference streams, including Oracle applications, databases and middleware. SearchOracle.com will also be reporting live from the conference, so be sure to bookmark this page and stay tuned for breaking news and frequent updates during and after the show.
• Guest list
  Other guests on "The Colbert Report":..electric-car entrepreneur Shai Agassi on Tuesday... "The Colbert Report" airs at 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.
• ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR PRECLUSION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES EVIDENCE
  [Court rejects Oracle's request to include damages beyond lost support revenue-DBM] Fundamental fairness as well as effective case management require that damages discovery not be dramatically expanded at this late date; otherwise, this already complex case may never be ready for trial.
• Micro Focus Wishes COBOL Happy 50th Birthday
  The name COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language) was agreed during a meeting of the Short Range Committee, the organisation responsbile for submitting the first version of the langauge, 18th September 1959. This followed a meeting at the Pentagon where guidelines for COBOL were first laid down.
• VC Funding Is Dead? Tell That To Eight Newly Wealthy SaaS Startups
  Here are eight SaaS companies that have publicly announced VC funding so far this month; certainly there are others:
• Software License Audits Come in Multiple Flavors
  And it is "never advisable" to agree to an audit conducted by a software vendor itself before looking into every possible alternative, it adds. These types of audits are "the most intrusive and least impartial of all," it states.
• 21 Million Reasons For Mint To Sell
  In contrast, as an entrepreneur, you're stuck with a one-company portfolio. The only way to manage your risk is focus on the risk-adjusted return.
• Microsoft discloses exec salaries, sort of
  The proxy only lists the base salaries and stock awards, not the cash bonuses based on performance. Where the bonuses should be listed the report says "TBD" for to be determined.
• Condoleezza Rice protested in San Jose
  Rice, now a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, was the keynote speaker at a conference organized by the business software company SAP at the San Jose Fairmont Hotel. She had just finished a half-hour talk about the recession's effects around the world, and was preparing to answer questions, when the protesters stood and held small signs in the air.
• Condoleezza Rice Stumps for Capitalism at SAP Event
  Her remarks earned her a standing ovation from the audience of SAP employees, partners and customers, though she was heckled after her speech by protesters who shouted "torture is illegal." Rice responded by saying, "You know, I'm certainly glad that the people of Baghdad and the people of Kabul can now say what they think as well."

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-18

• The Five Challenges Facing Oracle
  But Oracle faces a number of challenges going forward. Here are what we see as the company's five biggest hurdles:
• NetSuite to Host Online Event 'Strategy Session for SAP R/3 Customers' Demonstrating...
  NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), a leading vendor of cloud computingbusiness management software suites, today announced the details of a special online event exploring the options for SAP's enterprise customers facing a crossroads as the traditional software vendor terminates maintenance support for many popular versions of its software. The event, titled "Strategy Session for SAP R/3 Customers: Upgrade, Maintain or Replace?" will be presented by Andrew Bartels, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. Mr. Bartels will be joined by Will Gregerson, CFO of synthetic motor oil standout Schaeffer Manufacturing Company. The two will discuss the realities of a potentially costly and time-consuming upgrade path, and present alternatives, including cloud computing solutions.
• In the Oracle vs. SAP life sciences battle, Oracle gains a healthy lead
  Five years ago, Oracle and SAP were virtually tied for the top spot for revenues in the life sciences market. But with an aggressive acquisitions strategy and its business unit focused on selling to that market, Oracle has opened up some daylight with its archrival. Last year, Oracle established its Health Sciences Global Business Unit, a group dedicated to helping health sciences organizations discover, develop and market products to cure diseases. Analysts credit the unit with playing a pivotal role in pushing Oracle to the top of the life sciences heap. "A dedicated business unit focused on healthcare and life sciences has clearly helped differentiate them and strengthened their position," said Dr. Alan Louie, research director with IDC Health Insights.
• NetSuite Makes Another Lunge at SAP’s Base
  NetSuite, the Larry Ellison-owned cloud ERP house, has dreamt up something called the Crossroads Initiative to move SAP R/3 users facing end-of-life scenarios to its cloud.
• Possible loss of Siemens contract hits SAP
  "We are concerned that Siemens' willingness to consider support alternatives may cause other customers to do the same thing."
• Sybase IQ 15.1 Delivers Top Performance Results for Enterprise-Scale Data Warehousing and Analytics
  Sybase IQ 15.1, working with the IBM Power 595 system and running the AIX 6L version 6.1 Operating System (OS), achieved the best overall performance and the second best price/performance results among non-clustered systems for the TPC-H benchmark at 3000 GB scale factor1.
• The Data Liberation Front
  Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google's products. Our team's goal is to make it easier for them to move data in and out.
• How Google's Data Liberation Front Can Boost Google Apps
  Google's Data Liberation Front enables data portability. This is of particular importance for the Google Apps enterprise team, which is trying to make it easier for users to move from their existing platforms to Google's cloud computing applications. Google is working to let business users export entire Google Sites wikis as HTML with microformats, and to let users select multiple Docs files and export them in OpenOffice.org, HTML or Microsoft formats.
• The new word for tech's ex-employees is 'alum'
  Thanks to the economic downturn, former employees of high-tech companies are staying in touch by joining alumni groups to find jobs, business opportunities and socialize. The sophistication of these groups varies but not their main mission: it's all about networking.
• Microsoft lets shareholders vote on executive pay
  Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) has approved a proposal to allow shareholders to vote on its executives' compensation, as U.S. corporations' pay policies come under scrutiny in the wake of the financial crisis. Shareholders will be allowed to vote every three years on the pay of Microsoft executives, starting with the annual meeting on November 19, the world's biggest software company said in a regulatory filing on Friday.
• Is Microsoft Taking A New Approach Toward The European Commission?
  This week reports surfaced that Microsoft is talking to European anti-trust regulators about its proposed Internet search collaboration with YahooEuropean Union, hasn't announced a formal investigation into the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership and the talks appear aimed to resolve early-on any EC concerns. Word of the informal discussions follows talks between Microsoft and the European Commission earlier this summer to resolve a dispute about Microsoft's combining Windows 7 with its Internet Explorer browser. (NSDQ:YHOO). The EC, the executive branch of the

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-17

• The Problem with Mature ERP Systems - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
  Further complicating matters is that while spending on ERP has grown at the rate of 6.9 percent each year, so too has dissatisfaction among end users with those enterprise applications, according to the Forrester report. In other words, ERP is a lose-lose scenario.
• Oracle Zaps SAP's Apps Slump
  Oracle president Safra Catz said Oracle's database revenue grew more slowly than normal in Q1 in large part because of slumping sales via some Oracle resellers, "most notably SAP, who is selling less database because its applications business is down 40%." Yikes—you don't often see Oracle spank its own customers, but then again SAP is no doubt a very special case.
• Lenley Hensarling joins Ed Abbo and Tom Siebel at C3
  Abbo and Hensarling have left to join a cause in which they believe and to follow a charismatic leader. Oracle apparently tried to entice them to stay and we understand that the departures were completely friendly. The departures should not be read as a signal that wrenching changes in application strategy are coming or that anything is seriously wrong within Oracle.
• SAP Virtual Events: A Work in Progress
  SAP virtual events are here to stay. Even in flawed formats, they deliver value to the participants. But with more thought to the right platforms and more emphasis on interaction, these events can do a better job of capturing the trade show experience. After trade shows, we always come home with a bunch of new business cards. When the same happens virtually, we're on the right track.
• SAP Crossroads
  [Will NS run similar ads vs Oracle when Fusion Apps are released?-DBM] If you're running SAP R/3 4.6 or 4.7, then you know that it's time to make a difficult decision. Should you upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0—and face a notoriously complicated, expensive and risky process—or pay a costly hike in maintenance to keep your old system running? Fortunately, there's another option.
• SAP Ecosystem Gathers for SAP(R) TechEd 2009 - With Video
  Keynote presentations will be hosted by Jim Hagemann Snabe, member of the SAP Executive Board leading the Business Solutions and Technology organization and Vishal Sikka, chief technology officer (CTO) of SAP. Sikka will speak at the Phoenix and Bangalore events, Hagemann Snabe will speak in Vienna and Shanghai. Keynote topics will demonstrate how SAP technology can help companies meet the increasing demands to reduce cost, increase transparency and drive efficiency, as well as enable maximum flexibility in today's fast-paced business environment. Inventor and author Ray Kurzweil will address the crowd during the opening keynote of the SAP TechEd Phoenix event.
• Andreessen joins HP's board
  Marc’s entrepreneurial background and industry expertise will be a welcome addition to the HP board of directors.
• MySpace to open source data processing
  MySpace today announced a new open-source project called Qizmt, a distributed computation framework developed by its data mining team. Qizmt is based on the MapReduce distributed processing framework, well-known as a core part of Google's search indexing infrastructure. Qizmt, however, runs on large clusters of Microsoft Windows servers, an interesting sidebar to a computing style we most commonly associate with commodity Linux machines.
• qizmt - Project Hosting on Google Code
  Core MySpace Qizmt Features * Rapidly develop mapreducer jobs in C#.Net * Easy Do-It-Yourself Installer * Built-in IDE/Debugger o Automatically colors heap allocations in red o Autocomplete for rapid mapreducer development o Step through and debug mapreducer jobs directly on target cluster * From any machine in a cluster: o Edit mapreducer jobs o Debug mapreducer jobs o Execute mapreducer jobs o Administer mapreducer jobs * Delta-only exchange option for Mapreduce jobs * Configurable data-redundancy/machine level failover * Easily add machines to a cluster to increase processing power and capacity * CAC (Cluster Assembly Cache) for exposing .Net DLLs to mapreduce jobs
• Oracle *could* kill off MySQL as a commercial product, but probably won’t
  [Monty wasn't complaining about the MySQL copyright when he sold it to Sun for $1B-DBM] “MySQL’s licensing model gives the copyright holder a higher level of control than the rest of the community and the exclusive ability to provide certain kinds of products and services that third-party vendors cannot.” As the sole owner of the MySQL copyright Oracle would have the ability to decide who could license the code commercially for integration with non-GPL code, for example.
• Inside the Database Wars
  As part of their combined effort, SAP and IBM have collectively offered some pretty aggressive pricing on DB2 to Oracle customers, many of which are looking at significant upgrade costs as they ponder moving to the latest Oracle 11g release. On top of that, SAP and IBM have tightly integrated the management framework of their respective offerings, making it much easier to manage DB2 from with an SAP environment than any customer could experience using Oracle. For example, thanks to a new DB2 licensing deal worked out by Coca-Cola and SAP, Coca-Coca Bottling last year switched to DB2. In addition to lower licensing costs and better integration, the IT folks at Coca-Coca Bottling say they also saw a 40 percent reduction in storage costs because of the compression algorithms in DB2. Furthermore, they said the actual process of making the shift from Oracle to DB2 only took a couple of months.
• Oracle Q1 Results: A Tale of Two Companies
  Oracle's enterprise software maintenance- and support-related revenues grew 11 percent to $3.1 billion—against just $226 million in expenses. How's that for profit margins?
• Oracle DBA Competency Roadmap
  Oracle DBA Competency Framework Roadmap
• 10 MapReduce Tips » Cloudera Hadoop & Big Data Blog
  There are many languages and frameworks that sit on top of MapReduce, so it’s worth thinking up-front which one to use for a particular problem. There is no one-size-fits-all language; each has different strengths and weaknesses. * Java: Good for: speed; control; binary data; working with existing Java or MapReduce libraries. * Pipes: Good for: working with existing C++ libraries. * Streaming: Good for: writing MapReduce programs in scripting languages. * Dumbo (Python), Happy (Jython), Wukong (Ruby), mrtoolkit (Ruby): Good for: Python/Ruby programmers who want quick results, and are comfortable with the MapReduce abstraction. * Pig, Hive, Cascading: Good for: higher-level abstractions; joins; nested data.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2009-09-16

• ORACLE REPORTS Q1 GAAP EPS OF 22 CENTS UP 8%, NON-GAAP EPS OF 30 CENTS UP 3%
  “We grew faster than SAP in every region around the world, including Europe, where our applications business grew 3 percent in constant currency versus negative 39 percent for SAP’s most recent quarter,” said Oracle President Charles Phillips. “Our applications team also executed especially well in North America, where our applications business grew 8 percent in constant currency versus negative 50 percent for SAP.”
• ORACLE REPORTS Q1 GAAP EPS OF 22 CENTS UP 8%, NON-GAAP EPS OF 30 CENTS UP 3% Operating Margins Up Over 500 Basis Points
  Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) today announced fiscal 2010 Q1 GAAP earnings per share were $0.22 up 8% compared to last year. First quarter GAAP total revenues were down 5% to $5.1 billion, while quarterly GAAP net income was up 4% to $1.1 billion. GAAP new software license revenues were down 17% to $1.0 billion. GAAP software license updates and product support revenues were up 6% to $3.1 billion. GAAP operating income was up 14% to $1.7 billion and GAAP operating margin was up 590 basis points to 34%. GAAP operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was $8.8 billion, up 10%. First quarter non-GAAP earnings per share were up 3% to $0.30. Non-GAAP total revenues were down 7% to $5.1 billion, while non-GAAP net income was flat at $1.5 billion, compared to the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP operating income was up 7% to $2.3 billion and non-GAAP operating margin was up 570 basis points to 46%.
• Deutsche Tel T-Systems To Buy SAP's Hosting Business
  Deutsche Telekom AG's (DT) business customer unit T-Systems Monday said it will buy SAP AG's (SAP) external hosting business. T-Systems will host SAP software solutions for around 90 customers in its computer center, it said. Financial details weren't disclosed. T-Systems and business software manufacturer SAP anticipate the transaction will be completed in early October, subject to clearances from antitrust authorities. A person familiar with the matter, however, said the deal volume is in a mid-two digit million euro range.
• Good Move for SAP to Sell European Hosting Business
  Although SAP declined to explain why they are selling 90 European hosted customers, this appears to be a good move on several fronts: 1. These are single-instance hosted customers. The hosting service maintains a separate instance of the application for each customer - this is a non-scalable model best handled by hosting service specialists. 2. This is not a core business for SAP whereas T-Systems, the buyer, specializes in hosting services. This should be good for the customers, SAP and T-Systems. 3. Getting rid of managing these non-core hosted customers, will allow SAP to focus on their Business ByDesign product delivery which uses a SaaS hosting delivery model.
• Dispatch from 'Disneyland'
  Looking for new ways to innovate, the major HCM vendors are focusing their energies on talent management and Web 2.0. Here's a report from a weeklong tour of Silicon Valley's HCM software vendors.
• A Peek in the Valley
  Workday admits that its typical implementation costs half the price of a three-year service contract. Better than the old price quote of two-to-10 times the cost of a perpetual license, but more than pocket change.
• SAP Endorses Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change
  In support of the worldwide carbon reduction movement, SAP AG CEO Léo Apotheker joined other global business leaders in endorsing the Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change sponsored by the Corporate Leaders' Group on Climate Change.
• The Big Deal: Informatica's Souhaib Abbasi
  In other words, by refocusing the company and challenging ourselves to grow our core market, we were able to expand our addressable market fivefold. That idea set into motion a process with which we have effectively increased our addressable market by one new technology category every year for five years. That big decision, to re-focus on our core market, also ended up redefining our market and has helped us to expand it every year since.
• Oracle Database Upgrade Could Provide A Boost To Channel Sales
  And while the new software is packed with whiz-bang features, such as the 10x performance improvement in query performance for data warehouses, many -- if not most -- of the new capabilities are designed to help control IT costs through server consolidation, reduced data storage requirements, and improved database administrator productivity. "The time savings and the people savings are phenomenal," said Gartner analyst Donald Feinberg, of the potential payoff to users of the new database.
• Oracle F1Q10 (Qtr End 8/31/09) Earnings Call Transcript
  This is a result of two factors -- a very tough year-over-year comparison and the impact of some of our software company resellers, most notably SAP, who is selling less database because its applications business is down 40%.
• Microsoft pulls covers off Project 2010
  Project 2010 will also be the latest Microsoft application to adopt the Office "Fluent" user interface, better-known as the controversial "Ribbon." Finally, Microsoft is cutting the number of versions of Project from four to three, injecting portfolio management capabilities from the short-lived Project Portfolio Server into Project Server 2010.