July News
- Justice Department sues #Oracle, alleging fraud
Oracle was required to inform the GSA when commercial discounts improved and to offer those same discounts to government buyers.
Oracle misrepresented its true commercial sales practices and thus defrauded the U.S., the lawsuit contends. - Government alleges overcharging by #Oracle
The lawsuit against Oracle was originally brought in 2007 by whistle-blower Paul Frascella, a former senior director of contract services at Oracle, under the False Claims Act. The law provides financial incentives for private citizens with knowledge of fraud to file suits on behalf of the government. The Justice Department joined the suit Thursday.
Under the act, Frascella can seek between 15 and 25 percent of any damages awarded in the case. The government, which filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, didn't specify the amount it was seeking. - United States of America ex rel. Paul Frascella, Relator, v. #Oracle Corp., Oracle America, et al., Defendants.
[Copy of the Paul Frascella complaint] - Justice Department Sues #Oracle for Fraud
Oracle's sales force was authorized to give similar-sized customer discounts ranging from 40% to 70%. The government's analysis of Oracle's sales during that time shows that more than 90% of corporate deals contained discounts that were larger than what Oracle represented to the government.
The Justice Department also said Oracle failed to inform the government that it was giving other customers better deals and that it went out of its way to manipulate deals so that they wouldn't have to report them to the government.
Oracle sold just about $1.1 billion worth of software and product support to the government over the life of the contract, according to the complaint. It added that the amount the government was allegedly defrauded would be determined at trial. - #Oracle Sued by U.S. in Case Claiming Overcharges
‘Taxpayers Suffer’
“We take seriously allegations that a government contractor has dealt dishonestly with the United States,” Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, said in a statement. “When contractors misrepresent their business practices to the government, taxpayers suffer.”
Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Redwood City, California-based Oracle, didn’t return a phone call and e-mail seeking comment. - #Dell and #HP to Certify and Resell all Three #Oracle Operating Systems – Oracle #Solaris, Oracle Enterprise #Linux and Oracle VM – on their x86 Server Computers
Today's announcement demonstrates Oracle’s commitment to openness and will provide Dell and HP customers with new levels of support, and immediate access to deep product expertise, limiting risk in their IT environment. - Choose #SaaS Vendors That Secure Data Better Than You Can ( #Workday )
Most IT departments aren’t obsessive about data security, unless the parent company is in the type of business that demands it. Reputable and well-managed SaaS and cloud computing vendors, on the other hand, will make security a top priority. - YeSQL: An Overview of the Various Query Semantics in the Post Only-#SQL World ( #NoSQL )
Common Query Semantics in the Post Only-SQL world - CEO Interview: #Salesforce.com's eclectic leader
Do you get good ideas when you're swimming with the dolphins?
A: I have gotten some of my best insights when I have been able to surrender myself to nature like that. I attribute Salesforce's great performance to my ability to work in Hawaii.
I try to adopt a Zen perspective of a beginner's mind. And I think the best way to get a beginner's mind is to get to an environment like this where you can kind of let go. - Montclair Advisors Public #SaaS Company Listing
[Excellent Google Sheets doc with all the links and formulae tied to web sources.] - It’s a Bootstrappa’s Paradise!
If you are a Bootstrapper, you will have never seen a better alignment of forces in your favor:
- Software is cheaper to build.
- Subscription models are alive and well, and an annuity is a much happier thing to bet your Boostrappa’s time on than a few big checks followed by crickets chirping.
- It isn’t just software that is cheaper. If your audience is online, you can reach them with less cost and effort than ever before.
- People who are not Bootstrappers can’t get capital to compete with you nearly as easily. They have to at least find a few token Bootstrappers to build a product and line up customers. - #Oracle's Ellison: Pay King
The disparity between those CEOs' fortunes and those of their shareholders is "pretty depressing," and "suggests there's a fair amount of pay without performance," said Jesse Fried, a law professor at Harvard University and co-author of a 2004 book, "Pay Without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation." But Steven Kaplan, a professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, said that in general, "the guys who got the big payoffs deliver."
Consider Mr. Ellison, a 65-year-old sailing enthusiast who founded Oracle in 1977. In the 10 years ended May 31, 2009, the most recent fiscal year for which Oracle has disclosed pay data, its market capitalization nearly tripled, to $98 billion, from $36 billion. - #SAP Mobile Strategy Involves #Apple #iPad, #Google #Android
Following SAP’s acquisition of mobile-technology provider Sybase, some have been wondering how the deal is going to affect the company’s mobile strategy going forward. While SAP executives are remaining close-lipped about the deal itself, and their intentions with Sybase’s assets, at least one was willing to talk to eWEEK about SAP’s mobile philosophy with regard to burgeoning platforms such as Google Android and the Apple iPhone. - Earnings Preview: #SAP
Wall Street Analysts consensus calls for a profit of $0.59 a share on $3.5 billion revenue.
SAP estimates have a range of $0.14 a share. The high estimate calls for profit of $0.66 a share and the low estimate is calling for a profit of $0.52 a share, a year ago for the quarter the company reported $0.56 a share. - #IBM hits out at #Microsoft over review
Microsoft has just scored a big victory, with Europe beginning an investigation into the mainframe trade that was long the bedrock of IBM’s business, and is still one of its main pillars. - #SuccessFactors 2Q Loss Widens; Raises Year Revenue View
But because the company expanded revenue and beat estimates, the market viewed the quarter favorably. - #SuccessFactors Announces Record Second Quarter Fiscal 2010 Results
Billings grow organically to $52.7 million, an increase of 35% year-over-year -- Revenues grow organically to $46.8 million, an increase of 27% year-over-year -- Cash flow grows to $6.8 million, an increase of 625% year-over-year -- Raises 2010 guidance, provides non-GAAP revenue guidance of $198 million to $200 million - Narayan Newton on the Future of #MySQL Forks and Patches
He's the lead sysadmin for drupal.org, a database optimization expert with Tag1 Consulting, and the co-maintainer of Pressflow, which is the high-performance Drupal distribution.
Since Sun bought MySQL and then Oracle bought Sun, a lot of the MySQL developers have left to Monty Program Ab and there are more decisions that need to be made by database administrators.
There is an active issue on Drupal.org that discusses the various forks, and whether Drupal should recommend a particular flavor of MySQL, and Newton summarizes the current MySQL landscape as having the following different options:
* MySQL/ORACLE
* MySQL/MariaDB (Monty + a lot of the original mysql devs are here)
* MySQL/Percona (Are partners of MariaDB and say they are going to switch to distributing it)
* MySQL/Ourdelta (Are already just redistributing MariaDB)
* MySQL/Drizzle (Not production ready) - Dammit, #MySQL
Here is my current laundry list of “dammit, MySQL” complaints:
* DDL Doesn’t Respect Transactions
* No Deferred Foreign Key Constraints
* No Deferred Unique Key Constraints
* ANSI Mode Defaults Off
* Not Really Not Nulls
* Auto-Changing Timestamps
* Crappy Error Messages - #SAP Reports 16% Growth in Software and Software-Related Service Revenues for the Second Quarter
Revenues – Second Quarter 2010
* IFRS software and software-related service revenues were €2.26 billion (2009: €1.95 billion), an increase of 16% (8% at constant currencies).
* IFRS software revenues were €637 million (2009: €543 million), an increase of 17% (5% at constant currencies).
* IFRS total revenues were €2.89 billion (2009: €2.58 billion), an increase of 12% (5% at constant currencies).
Income – Second Quarter 2010
* IFRS operating profit was €774 million (2009: €641 million), an increase of 21%. Non-IFRS operating profit was €840 million (2009: €710 million), an increase of 18% (5% at constant currencies). In the second quarter of 2009, the IFRS and Non-IFRS operating income was impacted by restructuring charges of €17 million resulting from a reduction of positions. In contrast, restructuring charges were not material in the second quarter of 2010.
* IFRS operating margin was 26.7% (2009: 24.9%), an increase of 1.8 percentage points. Non-IFRS operatin - ADJUSTMENT OF #SAP’S P&L STRUCTURE AS A RESULT OF THE ACQUISITION OF #SYBASE
As a result of the acquisition of Sybase SAP will, going forward, record revenue from messaging services. To maintain the clarity of its income statement SAP will, from Q3 2010 onward, aggregate the messaging revenue with its existing income statement line items training revenue, other service revenue and other revenue into one line item called other service revenue which is classified in the revenue section professional services and other service revenue. Should, in the future, any of the components of this line item become material to SAP’s total revenue SAP will disclose such components separately.
SAP currently does not expect other changes to the structure of its income statement or other financial statements as a result of the acquisition of Sybase. - #Oracle plans to double acquisition budget
Oracle will spend $70 billion in acquisitions over the next five years, Oracle president Charles Phillips said at the Brainstorm Fortune Tech conference in Aspen. "It's early in the game, and there's plenty left to do," he said. - Community Monetization is Fool’s Gold ( #OpenSource )
While it’s certainly true that some community relationships will cross over, the percentages are small, the durations are tortuously long, and the consistency (i.e., repeatability) of that cross-over motion is low. Thus, revenue models based on the premise of community monetization are, with few exceptions, doomed from the get-go. - Beyond Frictionless: #SAP's #SaaS / #Cloud Strategy Becomes Clearer
When it comes to the cloud, these sorts of limitations will no doubt put SAP at an ultimate disadvantage relative to others that have embraced network business models in their SaaS deployment approaches. Given that SAP River is brushing up against the same areas that procurement and supply chain organizations are interested in tracking -- e.g., the first application is titled "Carbon Impact 5.0" -- it makes sense that we'll see tight integration with Frictionless as well as potentially ECC and EBP at some point in time (unless a single platform merge happens first). But in the meantime, it makes sense that SAP is moving in the direction of lighter-weight cloud applications. Let's hope that lighter-weight tools for procurement, invoice management spend analysis and other areas aren't that far behind. - #Gartner's "Hype Cycle" Due Soon, But Mine's Better ( #Humor )
Don't worry about the trough of disillusionment, for I will enlighten you on what technologies are hot or not for 2010. - Enterprise #SaaS adoption growing fast
#Gartner predicts a shift in total revenue from just over 10 per cent of the combined markets in 2009, to more than 16 per cent in 2014. - #SAP - #Sybase: What to Expect in the First 90 Days
SAP needs to define the differences between its own Project Gateway and Sybase's mobile platform, said Jon Reed, an independent analyst who closely tracks SAP.
The pending introduction of Sybase's technology, coupled with only limited public information released about Gateway so far, "muddies the mix" for customers interested in building out a mobility strategy, Reed said.
Gateway appears to be aimed at supporting lighter-weight mobile applications, judging from remarks SAP CTO Vishal Sikka made during a Sapphire keynote. In less than two months, internal developers at SAP created more than 600 applications with the platform, he said. - #Microsoft Reports Record Revenues
Microsoft reported record revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter plus substantial growth in profits. The company's revenue also topped rival Apple, which was considered a possibility to overtake Microsoft in revenue this week. - #Microsoft Posts a 48% Increase in Profit
On Thursday, Microsoft posted a 48 percent rise in net income to $4.52 billion, or 51 cents a share, up from $3.05 billion, or 34 cents a share in the comparable period last year.
Revenue in the period, which ended June 30 and was the fourth quarter of Microsoft’s fiscal year, jumped 22 percent to $16.04 billion on improved sales of its flagship Windows and Office software products. - #Informatica Q2 results beat Wall Street view
Q2 adj EPS $0.25 vs est $0.23
* Q2 revenue up 33 pct
* Q2 licence revenue up 44 pct - #Informatica Reports All-Time Record Quarterly Revenues Of $155.7 Million
Achieves 44 Percent Year-Over-Year License Revenue Growth
* Total second quarter revenues grew 33 percent year-over-year to a record $155.7 million
* Record second quarter license revenues of $70.0 million; up 44 percent year-over-year
* Record second quarter GAAP earnings per diluted share of $0.17 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $0.25
* Signed a second-quarter record 79 deals over $300,000 - Want to Know How VC’s Calculate Valuation Differently from Founders?
I don’t feel that as a VC sneaking in nefarious terms into a term sheet that the entrepreneur doesn’t understand is a good way to build a long-term relationship nor to build a long-term reputation but this does happen and more frequently than we all would like. I’ve started from day one trying to build total transparency into my process with entrepreneurs. - The Wailgum Technology Hype Cycle, 2010 ( #Humor )
In fact, he betters the Gartner approach by throwing in all the technologies (and some people) about which we really care. - The Truth About #SaaS & Security
Is on-premise software materially safer than SaaS?
The right answer is, it depends. - #IBM’s New zEnterprise – Quick Analysis
To be fair, there was actually little talk of cloud, perhaps 1-3 times in the general sessions. This wasn’t really a cloud announcement, per se.”Data-center in a box” was also used. - #Adobe #Flash Builder for #Salesforce.com Force.com now available!
Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com is now available. What is great about Flash Builder is that you can choose to deploy a Flash-based app or Air-based desktop clients. And because it is fully integrated with Force.com, using the Force.com Flex framework, you can start developing truly game-changing, cloud-based, enterprise productivity apps. - Dealing With Vendor Threats For “All Or Nothing” Maintenance Agreements
The tying of maintenance to purchases may, in fact, be illegal. - #NetSuite OpenAir untangles the professional services ‘hairball’
According to Zach, NetSuite is currently the dominant provider of professional services automation, with a 32% market share. - #Gartner Calls for IT Maintenance Bill of Rights
Third-party maintenance firms offer reduced-price services to companies with no immediate desire for upgrades, which are only available through vendor-provided support. - Survey: #Java developers totally fine with #Oracle's stewardship, maybe
"Under Oracle stewardship, will the Java Community Process most likely improve, stay the same, or get worse?" (40 percent said improve, 40 percent said stay the same, and 20 percent said get worse); and "Under Oracle stewardship, will your use of Java likely increase, stay the same, or decrease?" (25 percent said increase, 70 percent said stay the same, and 5 percent said decrease). - Three editions of #Oracle #MySQL are available
MySQL Enterprise does package the software in a way that is not available to the community, specifically the quarterly service pack (QSP) releases. But the actual code….the same. - #SuccessFactors Completes Acquisition of #CubeTree
CubeTree's secure, integrated social business solution gives companies a wealth of collaborative and social benefits, including:
* Instant communication, collaboration and sharing: Everyone in a company can quickly create rich profiles and begin engaging with everyone in their organization to get work done, find co-workers who can help and share insights as they happen.
* Rich Employee Profiles that provide deep insights into skills, talents, interests and expertise.
* Powerful Team Execution through workspaces that enable groups to immediately gather around a project, collaborate, share documents and get work done.
* Executive Dashboards that provide rich insights into the pulse of how a company is executing everyday. - Venture Investor In Newly Public #QlikTech Counsels Patience
Executing a successful IPO in the current market is no mean feat, but Qlik Technologies Inc., or QlikTech, accomplished it last week when it debuted on the Nasdaq, pricing above its range at $10 a share and notching a 20% rise on its first day of trading. - #OpenSource #Birst offers concurrent user pricing for #BI
On-demand BI vendor Birst announced Tuesday that it is now offering the option of concurrent user pricing, a licensing model few BI providers use because it can limit the amount of money they make compared to typical "named user" pricing. - As #cloud platforms battle for credibility, #OpenStack is pretty solid ( #RackSpace #OpenSource )
Rackspace is arguably one of the top five public IaaS clouds in the market and today announced it is open sourcing its cloud platform. OpenStack, according to the San Antonio-based hoster, is the full software stack behind its Cloud Servers and Cloud Files offerings. The software, which will be licensed under Apache 2, will be available to competing hosting companies, enterprises and governments to implement. - Why #NoSQL Matters
Frequently-written, rarely read statistical data (for example, a web hit counter) should use an in-memory key/value store like Redis, or an update-in-place document store like MongoDB.
# Big Data (like weather stats or business analytics) will work best in a freeform, distributed db system like Hadoop.
# Binary assets (such as MP3s and PDFs) find a good home in a datastore that can serve directly to the user’s browser, like Amazon S3.
# Transient data (like web sessions, locks, or short-term stats) should be kept in a transient datastore like Memcache. (Traditionally we haven’t grouped memcached into the database family, but NoSQL has broadened our thinking on this subject.)
# If you need to be able to replicate your data set to multiple locations (such as syncing a music database between a web app and a mobile device), you’ll want the replication features of CouchDB.
# High availability apps, where minimizing downtime is critical, will find great utility in the automatically clustered - #Java's Team of Rivals: Conflicts and Alliances in the #Oracle Era
"I think it's clear that most of the innovation we see in the in the Java world today is coming from outside Oracle," says Rod Johnson, founder of the Spring Framework and general manager of the SpringSource business unit at EMC (EMC) VMware (VMW). (VMware recently bought SpringSource.) He lists his own Spring technologies as well as the Google (GOOG) Web Toolkit and Eclipse tooling as prime examples. - #PricewaterhouseCoopers Launches Open University
Leading Professional Services Firm Makes Courses Available Free of Charge
Growing library of courses available to business executives, faculty, students and regulators around the world - #Google has been fibbing about data mining - Consumer Watchdog reckons it's in cahoots with US gov
"What the patent does show is that Google's recent claims about how the Street View program was designed are not accurate, and that the company always intended to collect and store the packets of wireless data," Jon said in the letter. - SPLAT! Here it comes.
A new decade is dawning; and I have a request, “Can we try to break the mold?” I think that it would be better for everyone. - #Gartner stops short of calling them evil empires
Gartner finally acknowledges it in the code of conduct for reasonable, predictable maintenance costs developed by its global IT council. - The seven rights of IT maintenance delivered in a code of conduct from #Gartner
The seven rights are the right to: regular, appropriate, predictable updates to software products; clearly defined response times and stratified IT support levels based on application criticality and other business factors; reasonable, predictable percentage ranges for yearly maintenance fee increases — or decreases — as well as long-term caps on increases in maintenance costs; end or change support at any time for products that are not in use; reasonable, predictable levels of support throughout product and contract life cycles; reasonable, clearly defined maintenance and support for legacy systems; and explicit statement and approval of support details at the line-item level. - #SAP Obtains European Commission Approval to Acquire #Sybase, Inc.
SAP AG today announced that it has obtained approval from the European Commission for the acquisition of Sybase, Inc. Approval of the acquisition from the European Commission satisfied the final regulatory condition to the cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of Sybase by Sheffield Acquisition Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of SAP, which is scheduled to expire at 9:00 p.m., New York City time, on Monday, July 26, 2010. - Countering aggressive software maintenance terms
I am coming to the conclusion that there are only two things that will ultimately shift the balance of power to something that is more equitable between vendors and customers. Unfortunately, both of them involve the legal system.
1. A thriving third-party software maintenance industry. As long as customers have no choice in maintenance providers, there can be no competition. But the best existence proof for third-party maintenance--Rimini Street--is now mired in a lawsuit by Oracle. Oracle fired the first shot, but Rimini Street appears to be itching for a battle by filing an aggressive counter-suit. That's good news. Hopefully this case will be decided in a way that provides legal precedent for the right of third-parties to offer software maintenance that does not infringe on the OEM's intellectual property rights.
2. Antitrust rulings by the US Department of Justice and the European Union. Although the enterprise software marketplace is not a monopoly, when a customer commits - Openstack.org, A Game Changer? ( #OpenSource #Cloud )
Is it a hail mary pass by Rackspace since they are seriously behind AWS?
Possible. I did ask them the same thing and they told me that Rackspace is committed to open source for a long time and pointed me out to the other open source projects they support and the number of open source developers on their payroll. I do agree with them. They do support many open source developers and projects for a long time. Even if we take all this as marketing fluff, I don't really care what Rackspace's intentions are. It may be a Hail Mary pass or it may be a desperate attempt to establish their legitimacy in the cloud world. All I care about it is freedom. A freedom to set up my own cloud in any place I want in any way I want. The freedom to see what is under the code driving the cloud I am using. This freedom matters. Rackspace's intention may be noble or a pure business decision but open source wins. That is the bottom line. - IDC Ranks #IBM Tops in #Middleware
According to IDC, in 2009 IBM was the leading worldwide application deployment software vendor with 31.9 percent of the market based on revenue. That was nearly double that of its closest competitor—Oracle. IDC’s study also showed that IBM's middleware business grew 4.7 percent year over year, more than double the rate of the overall market, which grew at 2.2 percent to more than $14.8 billion. - Oracle Announces Update to #Oracle SOA Suite 11g
New Release of Oracle Service Bus 11g, a Key Component of Oracle SOA Suite 11g, Improves Performance and Scalability of SOA and Cloud Environments - As #IBM preps mainframe launch, war of words with #Oracle's #Sun, #HP heats up
Get used to the sniping as hardware giants all aim for IT infrastructure buyers. Forrester Research on Monday released a report indicating that tech execs are looking beyond just keeping the lights on. If that’s the case, these hardware giants have a big opportunity to juice sales. - How Steve Ballmer Ruined the #Cloud and the World Cup ( #Microsoft )
You have to see it to believe it: - #Microsoft #SQLServer 2008 SP2 Previewed
First, the team tweaked the SQL Server 2008 R2 Utility, which provides an overall view of system resources by modeling entities. Microsoft described the SQL Server Utility in greater detail here.
Next, the service pack adds support in SQL Server Management Studio for data-tier application (DAC) operations. Users can create DAC package files that contain schema and server-level objects for use with host instances of the database. This Microsoft-produced video shows how to do that using SQL Server Management Studio. Microsoft provides a technical description of DACs here.
Finally, the service pack contains an add-in that integrates SQL Server 2008 R2 report servers with SharePoint 2007. Microsoft said that the add-in improves the management of "credentials and shared data sources." It includes Report Builder 3.0 and an ATOM feed renderer. The add-in "is not supported on SharePoint 2010 Products," according to Microsoft's announcement. - Ballmer, Immelt Urge Obama to Move Quickly on Korea Trade Deal
Chief executive officers of #Microsoft Corp., General Electric Co., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other large U.S. companies urged President Barack Obama to move quickly on his pledge to pass a free-trade agreement with South Korea. - #SugarCRM sweet on #Microsoft's #Azure #cloud ( #OpenSource )
The relationship is two-way, though. Microsoft needs more end users and more ISV partners running on Azure. It has claimed 10,000 customers on Windows Azure, but Microsoft is likely including its early adopters and loyal customers along with flagship accounts its deliberately wooed to make Azure look credible. Real-world adoption of Azure is some way off. - #Sybase Reports Record Second Quarter Results
Historical second quarter records achieved in total revenue, operating income, operating margin, net income, and EPS
-- Total revenue up 9% year over year
-- Mobile software license revenue increased 12%
-- Messaging revenue increased 24%
-- GAAP operating income up 17% to $74.3 million, representing operating margin of 25%
-- Non-GAAP operating income up 17% to $91.2 million, representing operating margin of 30%
-- GAAP EPS up 19% to $0.51; non-GAAP EPS up 18% to $0.66 - Official #Google Blog: Deeper understanding with Metaweb
Today, we’ve acquired Metaweb, a company that maintains an open database of things in the world. Working together we want to improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone. - Metaweb joins #Google
“Whoah… what’s going to happen to Freebase?” you might ask. Well, we’re also extremely pleased to be able to say “nothing”…. or rather, nothing other than getting better, and yes, even more open. As a first step toward that last point, we’re also happy to announce today that we have increased the frequency of our downloadable database dumps from quarterly to weekly. - #IBM Shuffles Top Management Positions, Promotes Four Executives
Three of IBM’s last four chief executives have stepped down at 60, and Palmisano, who has led the company for more than eight years, will hit that mark next July. Daniels and Rometty have been cited by analysts and former employees as two likely candidates for the top spot.
Steve Mills, who’s headed the software group for a decade, will take on the hardware division as well. Mills, while well- respected for helping increase profitability in IBM’s software division, may be unlikely to take over the top post since he also turns 60 next year. - #IBM gives four executives expanded responsibilities
Mills, 58, currently senior vice president and group executive of IBM's software group, is now also responsible for its systems business.
Rometty, 52, and long considered a CEO candidate, is now responsible for marketing and strategy in addition to her previous role as senior vice president of global sales and distribution.
Reporting lines do not appear to have changed, and a spokesman of the world's biggest technology services firm declined to comment on the memo. - OpenStack #OpenSource #Cloud Computing Software
More than 25 companies, including Citrix and Dell, support open source cloud platform to accelerate industry standards - Golden State Warriors Sell, but Not to Larry Ellison
After days of speculation that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was near a deal to buy the NBA's Golden State Warriors, Mandalay Entertainment Group Chairman Peter Guber and Joe Lacob, a minority partner in the Boston Celtics, bought the team for an NBA-record $450 million. The NBA's previous high for a team price tag was the $401 million paid in 2004 by Arizona businessman Robert Sarver for the Phoenix Suns. - The State of Enterprise #OpenSource Software After the #Oracle Acquisition of #Sun Microsystems ( #Java #MySQL )
1. Use of MySQL. More than three quarters of respondents said their use of MySQL would increase or stay the same under Oracle.
2. Development and Innovation of MySQL. More than three quarters of respondents predicted that MySQL development would continue at the same pace and even improve under Oracle.
3. Use of Java. Almost every respondent said they’d continue to use Java or increase the use of Java in their organization under Oracle. These results say Java is still a vibrant and popular programming language.
4. Java community process. Nearly 80 percent of respondents felt that the Java Community Process would remain the same or improve under Oracle. - Setting the Enterprise Free | The Truth About Customization ( #SaaS #Workday )
SaaS applications can’t be islands unto themselves. Data often travels between SaaS apps hosted by the provider and on-premises legacy apps, and integrating SaaS won’t necessarily be any easier than the old way. Experienced users add that time and attention is needed to test and trouble-shoot the performance of data transfers between systems. - Study: Most #MySQL users not too worried about #Oracle
Twenty-two percent indicated they would use MySQL more now that Oracle owns it, while another 56 percent said their usage would be "about the same." - Larry Ellison Puts The Screws To #SAP With #Oracle’s Buying Spree
We believe that Oracle has started to take away SAP’s market share. Oracle’s past acquisitions have started to produce results, while SAP is losing ground due to over reliance on organic growth. - #Salesforce.com #Chatter Combo Pack
The Chatter Combo Pack contains 5 tabbed apps, 3 sidebar apps, and 2 components you can use in your own apps. Here's an overview. - YouTube - #SAP Business ByDesign -- SaaS Made Simple!
Business ByDesign is SAP's solution for fast-growth companies with modules for business analytics, financial management, accounting, CRM, supply chain, and more. Just choose the modules you need when you need them. SAP will host ByDesign for you so that you can focus on getting ahead of your competition and growing your business. - #Oracle’s High #BI Bar: Managed, Multifaceted and Actionable
SaaS? Not here, as far as I could see. In-memory analytics? The assets are there, and there was more talk of TimesTen than I’ve heard in a while – but it’s also work in progress. Unstructured text analytics? Hardly mentioned. Ditto event processing. So Oracle has more work ahead – the target never stops moving, and Larry’s checkbook may be itching even as I write this, creating new integration tasks for the engineers to enjoy.
But there wouldn’t be enough time to talk about it all, even if it were all ready. The truth is that observers can see these pieces coming, if we squint and tilt our heads a bit. The only question is how long some of them will take. I’m betting we hear some of them discussed at Open World. Oracle is setting its sights high, and clearly won’t be satisfied with missing them. - After Dilly-Dallying For A While, #Microsoft Jumps Into Private #Cloud Business
According to Microsoft, the appliances are in a limited production release which implies that we just have to wait to see it in flesh and blood. There is absolutely no indication on when it will be publicly available. I just hope that they don't lose out the game much like how they "lost" the Azure public cloud (after they failed to whip up any interest big time, the way many observers expected initially). Well, they do have 10,000 companies signing up for their public cloud but this number also includes companies hosting their websites on Azure. I would attribute the "lack of enthusiasm" to their delay in embracing the idea of the cloud and I just hope that they don't lose out on the private cloud game to the likes of VMWare and IBM due to a similar delay.
The reason I was excited by the Windows Azure version of private cloud is because of my strong belief that PaaS is the future of Cloud Services. With the Windows Server-Hyper-V-System Center Approach, they could only offer the priv - #Windows #Azure Appliance ( #Cloud)
Windows Azure™ platform appliance is a turnkey cloud platform that customers can deploy in their own datacenter, across hundreds to thousands of servers. The Windows Azure platform appliance consists of Windows Azure, SQL Azure and a Microsoft-specified configuration of network, storage and server hardware. This hardware will be delivered by a variety of partners. - #OpenSource #EnterpriseDB Raises $7.5 Million For Database Management Software
The company’s president Ed Boyajian tells me that EnterpriseDB will use the funding to expand the distribution of PostGres. - #Oracle Sets Sights on #BI Leadership. Has it Picked the Right Target?
Oracle is not first in BI, and wants to change that – that was the clear message of a well executed, multi-site “real plus virtual” event with top executives showing off the result of a multi-year effort to rationalize and integrate a set of leading but overlapping components into a seamless suite. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g (OBIEE) deserves the accolades it has already received from analysts who welcomed its announcement – it makes bold and serious bets on effective centralized metadata administration, data integration/ unification and optimized analytic architecture, collaboration, globalization, mobile device support, and a powerful link to action that will be most effective (unsurprisingly) with its own business applications. While it misses some pieces – fully integrated in-memory processing, SaaS and cloud support among them – these will be forthcoming, and Oracle is clearly committed to a quicker release cycle now that the thorny internal politics around - #Tibco Silver Spotfire – Social #BI? Why Not?
“All you need is a browser,” is the pitch, and this is not from a new company you don’t know, but an established player with a sizable roster of enterprise BI customers. - Business Intelligence Analytics Software & Data Visualization | #TIBCO Spotfire
Cloud-based BI is here! Create visual, interactive dashboards and publish them for free on the cloud with TIBCO Silver Spotfire. - City Aims for Easy #ERP Plan
However, the joint IT shop is also "committed to implementing the products as vanilla as we can" to ease adoption, said Baker. "We have as much opportunity as we need to modify them later." - #Amazon Web Services tackles high performance computing instances
Amazon Web Services on Tuesday will launch compute clusters for high-performance computing applications like genomic research. - Implementing #SAP #ERP 6.0
Even though we’re a small company, our processes are similar to that of a big company when you take into account our business model. We not only do purchases, we do lease deals and other processes you would not expect in a company of 800 people. Originally we wanted a six month ERP project, but because of the complexities in the process, we made it a year long project. We implemented everything on the ECC 6 side, from order management all the way through revenue recognition. We now have 200 active SAP users across finance, manufacturing, operations, and human resources. - Infrastructure and Analytics Power #Oracle #BI 11g to New Levels ( #OBIEE #OBI11G #OFM11G )
Oracle has invested heavily in its BI platform in terms of manageability, reliability and adaptability, which are three key criteria of our evaluation framework for business intelligence in what we call our Value Index and I will be assessing this release from Oracle in the coming months for the 2010 BI Value Index. These components are critical to support broad enterprise and even Internet deployments of business intelligence. Also Oracle has expanded its information model to support more caching, personalization and data access services across multiple sources. Oracle claims this is the fastest platform for ROLAP and MOLAP processing, but only a head-to-head comparison with top competitors like IBM Cognos and MicroStrategy would determine whose is the fastest as these vendors have similar analytical database support. - Major #Microsoft re-org to avert Windows' #cloud cannibalization
Furthermore, under the re-org, Microsoft has accelerated plans to let people outside of its own data centers run versions of the Azure computing and storage fabric – something Microsoft had until now resisted.
Fresh resources have been allocated to Project Talisker, a months' old initiative to build and sell versions of Azure that customers and hosting partners can run on their own premises. - How to Choose #CRM Software
Here's how to select the right customer relationship management software for your business. - Revenue per employee picks up at TCS, Infosys and Wipro
Revenue per employee of tech powerhouses is beginning to pick up after nearly a year, an upshot of these companies going against the grain and chasing business resolutely with minimal hiring at a time when the overall employment picture is rosy. - How the World Cup Has Resurrected India's Enron
For the Indian IT company Satyam (now called Mahindra Satyam), just being a part of this international spectacle is a milestone in a comeback story that seemed all but impossible just 18-months ago. - Two of #Wipro's Solutions Now #SAP-Endorsed Business Solutions
Two of Wipro Technologies solutions, Sub-Daily Planning and Scheduling (iSDPS) and Third Party Ordering (iTPO), are now SAP-endorsed business solutions. - #SAP: We will push all useful data to mobile devices
“This is the main reason for the #Sybase acquisition,” he said. “Many customers want data on the move before they go into a meeting, or when they’re out of the office but have to make an important business decision.” - Making big money with #Hadoop ( #Oracle )
The biggest revenue opportunity is for database companies, particularly for the market-leader Oracle. - Thoughts on #BigData ( #Hadoop )
Too many #NoSQL database companies have already been created (Cloudera, 10gen, MongoDB, VoltDB, CouchDB, etc). While the user interest in such databases is increasing (many Fortune 1000 companies have started Hadoop evaluation projects), the market won’t be able to sustain them. I expect to see significant consolidation in the next 3-5 years. - #Microsoft Partners – Before Adopting #Azure, Understand the 12 Benefits And Risks ( #Cloud )
As market momentum increases for Cloud solutions, partners must make the transition to new business models. The commoditization of key components in the solution ecosystem accelerates with commoditized solutions across both the tools f0r creation and the tools for distribution (see Figure 3.) Consequently, new profit pools will emerge as partners invest in verticalized solutions, geographic expertise, and role tailored experiences. The result – partners must focus on building differentiated IP or face rapid margin deterioration. With new solutions in tow, the Cloud will allow partners to go on a SaaS offensive and grow into markets that previously were walled off because of cultural, architectural, technical, and geographical barriers. - Will #Microsoft #Windows 8 Be A Business-Only OS?
Could Windows 8 be the Windows 2000 of the 21st century? - Are those laid off from #Microsoft the lucky ones?
One nice collection of tea leaves can be found at Glassdoor.com, a site that profiles 84,000 companies, including posting employee ratings of their employer and anonymously shared comments. On the Microsoft page, 1,356 employees who chimed in gave the company a 3.5 rating out of 5 points and gave CEO Steve Ballmer a 52 percent approval rating. Hey, any President of the United States would love to have a 52 percent approval rating. - #Microsoft boxing up its #Azure #cloud
Microsoft is announcing on Monday that it plans to let businesses and partners run Windows Azure in their own data centers by purchasing a new server appliance. - Echoing #Salesforce.com, #Microsoft Announces #CRM SaaS and App Marketplace
Microsoft announced at its Worldwide Partners Conference today that it will launch a CRM SaaS service and an app marketplace as parts of CRM 2011, itself a part of Microsoft Dynamics. CRM 2011, formerly codenamed CRM5, will be available for beta testing in September, starting with the online CRM service and Dynamics Marketplace. The announcement comes as Microsoft is embroiled in a patent battle with CRM competitor Salesforce.com, which has been offering a CRM SaaS and app marketplace for years.
Microsoft says CRM 2011 will offer deeper integration with Microsoft Office and SharePoint, more visualization and dashboard tools, and a more connected, social experience. - Social Media Startup In Line For An IPO
Jive Software CEO Tony Zingale is running down his check list with a goal of taking the company public early next year, based on rising interest in social business software: - Elastic #Cloud? Not so Fast.
your IaaS layer might instantiate a handful of Oracle database servers that you have no licenses for, and before you know it you owe Larry’s company quite a bit of money that you have no budget for. This is precisely the kind of nightmarish scenario that has VMware customers concerned today when talking about Private Cloud Computing.
You can’t have elastic computing with inelastic licensing. - #Lawson – Issues on two fronts: Earnings and #Icahn
Mr. Icahn will likely want to see Lawson’s stock price improve. He could suggest the following changes too:
- Spin off the Intentia software business. Proceeds from this sale could be used for a special shareholder dividend.
- Sell off the core Lawson ERP business.
- Scale back additional R&D expenditures
- RIF more Lawson employees
- Etc. - #Lawson 4Q Earnings Drop 30% On Charges; Shares Down On View
Takeover costs, investment in research-and-development and marketing plus the company's focus on improving margins have resulted in charges that have weighed on the bottom line in recent quarters. In the most recent period, Lawson incurred effects related to an announcement in May that it would lay off less than 5% of its workers. Schulz said Thursday the job restructuring was progressing well. - #PostgreSQL derived databases
A list of PostgreSQL derived forks and rebranded distributions in alphabetical order. - 'Elena's Inbox' Details H-1B Battle in Clinton White House
The issues that were raised in 1998 over the H-1B visa are still debated today, but in late winter of that year, Congress was moving to raise the cap despite Clinton White House skepticism. - The #IBM #SAP #Oracle #HP Show: #ALM and the Struggle for Lower TCO and Better Account Control
Meanwhile,. Oracle will continue to be the company to watch as its post-Sun acquisition posturing gives way to a more carefully articulated market position. Like its software rival, SAP, it has reasons to be allied with the HP and IBM, and SAP too, if only for expediency’s sake. But with planning for September’s Oracle Open World now in progress, how Oracle will define itself in the market is becoming more than of academic interest. With ALM an even bigger problem in the Oracle customer base than in the SAP base, how Oracle responds to the ALM issue will have a major impact on what the marketplace looks like once the dust begins to settle. - White House, Citing Waste, Freezes IT Projects
some of the large IT vendors and integrators working on these projects could stand to take a multibillion-dollar hit as a result and will likely have to redeploy hundreds of IT workers to other projects. The total lifetime cost of the affected IT projects was put at $20 billion by the White House.
"You are bringing to a screeching halt some very significant programs," said Trey Hodgkins, TechAmerica's vice president of national security and procurement policy. If IT contractor personnel are moved to other assignments, restarting the IT modernization work on the financial systems will likely raise the cost of the projects when, or if, this work resumes, he said. - Lest We Forget #SAP
Those who are ready to write off SAP -- or already have written the company off -- are overly dramatic. SAP is by no means assured a thriving future, but its strong position gives the vendor time to stabilize itself and find new sources of growth. The obvious place to find growth is by selling more stuff to existing customers. The question for customers heavily invested in SAP software: When SAP comes calling with a great new extension to your investment in apps, why should you buy? Hopefully, not only because it is easier that way. - The Economics of Behavior - A Way To Examine Failure in the Enterprise
Krigsman writes that people form biases and in turn make poor decisions that lead to failure. All too often, we convince ourselves that we are smart, intelligent people who can navigate with clarity and perfect sense. - An Appetite for Destruction: The #ERP Implementation Lawsuits Continue… ( #ITfail )
So what are some of the best ways to avoid becoming wrapped up in an ERP lawsuit? There are five key factors that can help you stay out of trouble during your ERP selection and implementation process, regardless of which software you are considering:
* Ensure functional and technical fit of the software you select
* Have realistic expectations about how long the implementation process will take and how much it will cost
* Ensure adequate executive buy-in and support
* Where possible, avoid customizing software rather than leveraging standard functionality
* Ensure sufficient internal and external ERP software implementation expertise on your project team - Is #SaaS Dead? No. Neither is Debate.
SaaS typically comes with more subtle and more frequent updates that don’t disrupt business. Now, let’s be fair: the SaaS market is still quite nascent, despite the fact that Gartner is ready to bury it. Our experience is with seemless Google and Zoho upgrades, or not-so-seamless but still not disruptive Salesforce.com, NetSuite ..etc upgrades. There is still nothing on the same magnitude of a SAP or Oracle Enterprise Suite, so we really do not have a lot of realistic comparison on that level… - #Oracle Unveils Oracle Business Intelligence 11g
New Release Integrates Relational and OLAP Analysis and Delivers New Capabilities in Enterprise Reporting, Scorecards, Visualization, and Collaboration - #Oracle BIEE 11g: Worth the Wait
#OBIEE 11g is a big improvement, with capabilities that go far beyond improving core BI. For example, the new scorecard module seems one of the most robust, intuitive and certainly most integrated on the market to date.
Another new capability I'd highlight is their Actionable Intelligence. Within pre-built analytic applications, Oracle had the concept of guided analysis in version 10. For example, if a call center representative is looking at a list of orders and pending payments by customer and sees that payments are increasingly late, the main report could link to related content to show the volumes, amounts, correspondence and so on. What's new in 11g is that a decision-maker can be guided not only to other content, but also, can invoke a process. In this case, issuing a credit hold or sending a late payment notice could be actions to invoke. The actual Web service or script to invoke is defined outside of the BI Server and then registered as potential actions. Once registered as a - #Hadoop Comes of #Middleware Age
There’s no doubt that other middleware providers will be providing support for Hadoop as well. And as interest in “Big Data” products continues to grow, it’s only a matter of time before Hadoop comes to an enterprise near you. - #Microsoft pruning more jobs
Because of the smaller size of these latest layoffs, it's not clear if the cuts will trigger a formal public announcement or acknowledgment by the company, but they're likely to make news nonetheless as the workers who lose their jobs tell others about the situation. The situation has been the subject of widespread rumors inside the company in recent days. - Venture capital is not broken
If the VC model is broken, so is investing in public equities! - #iPhone or #Android? Some developers have it both ways ( #Google #Apple )
Smartphone developers want to build for the platform that will deliver the biggest bang for their effort. Right now that’s iOS, but as our cross-platform analysis suggests, many of the strongest iPhone publishers have already added Android to their portfolio. If Android’s current rapid growth continues, you can expect this number to grow. - #Oracle Business Intelligence 11g - a set on Flickr
- Why does #Quora use #MySQL as the data store rather than #NoSQL ( #Hadoop )
#Cassandra, #MongoDB, and #CouchDB [3] aren't actually very scalable or stable. Twitter apparently has been trying to move from MySQL to Cassandra for over a year. When someone reports using one of these systems as their primary data store for over 1000 machines for over a year, I'll reconsider my opinion on this. - The Bloomberg Businessweek 50: No. 5 #salesforce.com
5-year return: 396.7% - Commercializing Enterprise-Grade #Hadoop: Tools for Harnessing Petabyte Analytics
"Heck, Another Darn Obscure Open-source Project." - #SAP Ex-CEO Apotheker Plans Software, Telecommunications Fund
“I’m not sure that incumbents are agile enough” in the software business, the former SAP chief said. “When you’re the incumbent, you are fettered by your environment; the market forces, the shareholders, the financial markets are such that it’s hard to be very disruptive on yourself.” - Getting Started with #Chatter - #salesforce.com
How salesforce.com uses Chatter - #Chatter is Not Social CRM ( #Salesforce.com )
I really like Chatter because it is a social layer anchored in the data model that Salesforce.com has delivered, which by that I mean they have built the Chatter feature set on top of the data objects rather than just building a chat product that they offer as a new feature. It makes a ton of sense and should deliver far more value than just trying to copy Yammer.
However, as much as I like Chatter I recognize that this is a social feature and it is not social CRM… they are two completely separate things. Big enterprise software companies don’t have the skillset for building out community based social CRM offerings, which is why they will acquire their way into the market, and this is a good thing because the social CRM market is far too crowded with undifferentiated companies and products which don’t have the capacity to sustain themselves over the long haul. - 7 Named Leaders in Forrester Wave of CRM Suites for Midsize Organizations
Leaders:
* Microsoft — though the strength of its current offering outpaced the field, Microsoft was second to Salesforce.com in terms of strength of strategy.
* Oracle CRM On Demand
* CDC Software
* SAP Business All-in-One — SAP's midmarket offering has the distinction of being the only CRM product included in this report but not also appearing in the companion Forrester Wave, CRM Suites for Large Organizations.
* Salesforce.com
* RightNow Technologies
* SugarCRM
On the border between Leaders and Strong Performers:
* Maximizer Software — The report suggest maximizer is "appropriate for smaller firms and divisions of large organizations seeking an on-premises CRM suite application with a low price tag.
* Sage CRM — Trailing several of the Strong Performers in terms of strength of solution, only Forrester's high estimation of Sage CRM's strength of strategy (and the value of integration with Sage's back-office offerings) nudged this product onto the crest between the two waves.
Strong - Mission Impossible: Judging TCO of Enterprise Software Upgrades
Irregular timing. Business disruption. Endless "options." These are just three reasons that enterprise application upgrades remain a "wild card" business scenario for companies, says Forrester's Paul Hamerman--so you'd better understand the key issues. - Tech customers question industry's takeover spree
"When the smaller guys are gobbled up by bigger guys, in theory it's supposed to be better, but in our experience it's been worse," he says. "It's certainly not something that I'm really excited about. It has the potential to be a positive experience, but my experience has told me that more times than not, it's problematic." - #Cassandra technical overview ( #BigData )
# Cassandra is good for use cases that distribute a database around the world and want to access it at “local” latencies. (Indeed, Jonathan asserts that non-local replication is a significant non-big-data Cassandra use case.)
# Cassandra’s scale-out is application-transparent, unlike sharded MySQL’s.
# Cassandra is fast at both appends and range queries, which would be hard to accomplish in a pure key-value store. - #SAP and Ernie Els: Big #ERP and Golf's Big Easy
Els: I was actually at Sapphire this year, but I didn't make it up to the convention center. I was stuck out at a golf course. SAP had a group out there the day I was there. Myself playing golf with some of the Sapphire people in Orlando. We actually had other SAP ambassadors out there: Gary Player, [golf instructor] David Leadbetter and [pro golfer] Paula Creamer were there. All four of us. The only other one that was missing was Andy Roddick, but he's not a golfer. - #EMC to Acquire #Greenplum
Greenplum is a privately-held, fast-growing provider of disruptive data warehousing technology, a key enabler of "big data" clouds and self-service analytics. Upon completion of the acquisition, Greenplum will form the foundation of a new data computing product division within EMC's Information Infrastructure business. - #Compiere Open Source failed?
Information from the founders Jorg Janke and Kathy Pink
Compiere certainly did not fail due to its technology. It failed due to lack of sales and marketing expertise, execution and the wrong bet to “upgrade” open source minded partners and customers to a traditional, commercial model. I think that the Commercial Open Source model is still valid, but Compiere overstepped the balance between proprietary and open product components. - Assessing the #Cloud Computing Landscape: Insights from the MIT Enterprise Forum
The following video provides a topical, informative and useful update on the cloud computing landscape; it’s worth the 30 minutes to listen to and consider how rapid the development platforms are maturing. - Saying it out loud: #IBM is moving to #Firefox as its default browser
We’re officially adding a new piece of software to the list of default common applications we expect employees to use, and that’s the Mozilla Firefox browser.[Does that mean that Firefox is done? Like when your Grandma learned the Macarena? ;-) -DBM] - #SAP Announces Dr. Angelika Dammann as Newest Executive Board Member
Appointment Supports Transformation to Employee-Focused Culture and Marks First Female Serving on SAP Executive Board - Do You Want Your App to Talk Back to You (as a Chatterbox)? – Part 2 ( #Salesforce.com )
Chatter allows users to “befriend,” “follow,” or “like” any object contained in a customer’s salesforce.com deployment. This could be a person (an associate) or a group of folks (a project team) and their statuses (what they are thinking about and working on), a database object (e.g., a contact, account, lead, opportunity, quote, campaign, service case, etc. in case of a customer relationship management [CRM] application), a document (a sales presentation or marketing collateral), or an event (a meeting), just to take a few different examples. - Hello, #iPad. Hello, #Cloud 2. ( #Salesforce.com #Apple )
The future is not a Mac, or even a PC. Its father created a lot of the computers I’ve loved: Apple IIe, Mac, and iPhone. There have been others I have loved, even some PCs and yes, my Blackberry, but none of that matters anymore. Looking ahead, I am energized, a door is opening, and we are all going to walk through it. We’ll soon enter a new world of computing accelerated once again by the industry’s creator Steve Jobs, and amplified by someone conceived after the PC, Mark Zuckerberg.
The future of our industry now looks totally different than the past. It looks like a sheet of paper, and it’s called the iPad. It’s not about typing or clicking; it’s about touching. It’s not about text, or even animation, it’s about video. It’s not about a local disk, or even a desktop, it’s about the cloud. It’s not about pulling information; it’s about push. It’s not about repurposing old software, it’s about writing everything from scratch (because you want to take advantage of the awesome potential - Is #Oracle’s rosy Oracle- #Sun merger picture really that rosy?
He added that the roadmaps Oracle has divulged for Sparc and Solaris since the Oracle-Sun merger haven’t been good enough.
“The announcement was vague and not very helpful,” Becchetti said, regarding a recent Solaris roadmap. “So yeah, I’m not seeing anything ground-shaking there.”
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