Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-02-22

• Fighting the Dark Side: Tech's Heroes and Villains - VILLAINS: Bill Gates
  How can a renowned philanthropist also be a villain? If anyone qualifies, it's Gates. For decades, the Microsoft co-founder used Windows' dominance to push questionable business tactics that locked competitors out of various markets. Behind the nerdy glasses was a ruthless businessman who didn't always play by the rules. But Gates's amazing charitable work makes it easy to forget his past transgressions. He's the Ebenezer Scrooge of tech.
• Silicon Valley's Wage Crash by the Numbers
  Adjusted for inflation, wages and stock-related pay have been seriously hurt by two bubble economies, companies leaving the area and a shift from a large high-tech manufacturing base led by semiconductor engineering into one dominated by medical research, bio- and nanotechnologies, and pharmaceutical products, said the report.
• Crash and reboot: Silicon Valley hightech employment and wages, 2000–08
  On the whole, high-tech industries in Silicon Valley declined sharply in employment and wages from 2000 to 2004 but increased gradually in both respects from 2004 to 2008; though the industry mix changed during the 8-year period, Silicon Valley remains the world’s leading high-tech hub
• #Microsoft vs. #Google: The empire strikes back
  If the software giant's legendary intransigence prevents it from realigning itself with Ozzie's vision, there will be tough times ahead in Redmond. With its sky-high revenues -- Microsoft earned $20 billion in operating income in 2009 -- the danger is not that Microsoft will disappear, but that it will drift into irrelevancy, leaving competitors such as Google to dictate the direction of the computing market. As the man with the job of reversing that drift, it can't be easy being Ray Ozzie -- but it must be exciting.
• Fast-payback ERP projects for 2010
  "Often, software salespeople will throw in an extra discount if you buy more licenses," said Ray Wang, a partner with the consulting firm Altimeter Group. "So if you needed 800 and would have gotten a 50% discount but got offered a 60% discount, you'd fall for the shelfware trap. You now have 200 licenses [for which] you will pay 20% maintenance every year of ownership, whether or not you use them. At that rate, you now have paid for the software once every five years in maintenance costs."
• 3PM = 1PM
  There are customers who just want base bug fixe and regulatory updates, and others who want full boat innovation. Treat them differently, and price them differently. Not just a 5% difference in maintenance rates, a 50 to 60% difference.
• SaaS takes on business intelligence
  Consider BI SaaS If... * You don't have in-house resources to do the job or BI isn't a core competency. * You need something that can be built, adjusted and scaled quickly, such as customizable sales reports. * You need it fast. * You can get 80% of what you need with a few customizable templates. * You're already using SaaS in operational areas such as CRM and HR and need to add an analytics component. Think Twice If... * You're uncomfortable processing business intelligence data outside of the corporate firewall, regardless of security assurances. * You have a complex project or one that requires a high degree of customization. * You have a very large data set. * The data on which you need to perform analytics changes every day. * BI tools will be used primarily within the organization. * It doesn't fit the broader business model or culture. Balancing departmental and enterprise needs is key. A myopic view of BI needs can lead to applica
• Original1 Begins Business Operations
  #SAP AG, #Nokia and Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) today announced that the respective antitrust authorities have approved the establishment of their joint venture, Original1 GmbH. Original1 has begun business operations on February 1. Established to deliver unique product authentication and anti-counterfeiting services across the globe, Original1 is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and headed by Claudia Alsdorf, former vice president of SAP Research. The plan to form Original1 was initially announced on October 27, 2009
• Technology helped BMW Oracle win back the America's Cup
  He also spoke about building a sailboat racing center in San Francisco bay, and also abut the technology that helped beat the Swiss.
• Can Informatica earn a place at the head table?
  It is making the right bets on cloud and on a partner ecosystem.
• #Microsoft-#Amazon patent deal covers #Kindle, #Linux
  Microsoft and Amazon.com have signed a wide-ranging patent cross-licensing agreement that provides each company with access to the other's patent portfolio. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but it was made clear that Amazon will be paying Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money as part of the arrangement. While Microsoft wouldn't say which of its products and technologies Amazon is interested in, Microsoft did mention that Amazon's Kindle, which employs open source and proprietary software components, as well as Amazon's use of Linux-based servers are covered. Neither company would officially disclose why the deal was struck today. "We are pleased to have entered into this patent license agreement with Amazon.com," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for Intellectual Property and Licensing, said in a statement. "Microsoft's patent portfolio is the largest and strongest in the software industry, and this agreement demon
• #Microsoft Updates #Azure Provisioning Tool
  To help IT pros automate the provisioning and management of services deployed to the recently released Windows Azure cloud offering, Microsoft released a new version of its Windows Azure Service Management (WASM) Cmdlets for PowerShell last week. The tool is available for download on Microsoft's MSDN site. The tool lets IT pros who script in PowerShell add new Azure management functions, such as deploying, upgrading and removing hosted services, and managing storage accounts and certificates.
• #Microsoft and #HP: Eyeing Their Next Move
  #Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has already guaranteed that he will wreak havoc on #Sun's channel following remarks that he intends to take the top 4,000 accounts direct, while putting the rest of its partners on notice. "If you simply take the Sun box, do nothing to it, and just resell it, and that's all you're really doing, then at that point we think we are better off going direct to the customers," Ellison said during a strategy briefing on Jan. 27, the day the deal closed.
• The State of Professional Services 2010
  We were also surprised at the frugality, ie extremely low costs for facilities and management overhead posted by the leaders; many top-performing firms are operated “virtually” with almost no brick and mortar facilities and almost all members of the organization are billable. Another big surprise was that almost all the top performers focused intently on specific vertical markets and business process optimization. Biggest losers were broadly oriented horizontal organizations due to skill and price commoditization. Bill rates have been relatively stagnant for almost 10 years so PS organizations are demanding and getting more and more productivity from their employees every year, remote service delivery has been a big catalyst for higher productivity.
• The Lords of Research
  So here are the three things analysts still play a role in: 1. Trusted advisor: Give me an independent view point, tell me what I need to do to align IT and business. Help me bounce around some ideas. Vet some proposals with me. 2. Knowledge transfer: Provide decision frameworks, share with us your expertise, teach us how to evaluate. 3. Technology purchases: How does that technology work? Who does a good job? Does the tool fit my business requirements? Can you help me with my apps strategy? My enterprise strategy?”
• #Microsoft's chief counsel Brad Smith sharp, able to relate to people
  Since Brad Smith took the helm of Microsoft's 1,000-plus in-house legal department in 2002, the company has undergone a multiyear armistice campaign, settling several cases with industry competitors in the U.S. The company still has one major appeal of a $1.4 billion fine levied for failing to comply with an earlier European antitrust ruling.
• Big players keep on dialling
  If you ever doubted that cellphones are the most powerful communications device, last week they got a ringing endorsement from the biggest players in the computing industry: Microsoft and Google, Nokia and Intel.
• Mobile World Congress 2010: the winners and losers
  But for every action in the mobile world, it appears there has to be an equal and opposite reaction, with a few surprisingly big names disappointed us too – we look at the highs and lows of Mobile World Congress 2010.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-02-20

• Investigators identify #Tesla employees killed in East Palo Alto plane crash
  Doug Bourn, 56, the pilot, was a senior electrical engineer with the car maker; Brian Finn, 42, was a senior interactive electronics manager; and Andrew Ingram, 31, was an electrical engineer.
• Gears API Blog: Hello HTML5
  If you've wondered why there haven't been many Gears releases or posts on the Gears blog lately, it's because we've shifted our effort towards bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5. We're not there yet, but we are getting closer. In January we shipped a new version of Google Chrome that natively supports a Database API similar to the Gears database API, workers (both local and shared, equivalent to workers and cross-origin wokers in Gears), and also new APIs like Local Storage and Web Sockets. Other facets of Gears, such as the LocalServer API and Geolocation, are also represented by similar APIs in new standards and will be included in Google Chrome shortly.
• MySQL Memory Settings
  General MySQL Settings The Most important ones are: Key Buffer The key buffer holds the indexes of tables in memory and a bigger key buffer results in faster row lookups. Adjust according to your own needs. Bigger is better, but prevent swapping at all costs. A good rule of thumb seems to be to use 1/4 of system memory. Query Cache This is where the magic happens. Well, not magic really, just plain old caching. Keeping the result of queries in memory until they are invalidated by additional writes enhances performance by magnitudes. The query_cache_size, as the name suggests, is the total size of memory available to query caching. The value query_cache_limit is the maximum number of kilobytes one query may be in order to be cached. Setting this value too high might prevent a lot of smaller queries to be cached. Setting it too low will result in bigger queries to never be cached, and the smaller queries not being able to completely fill the cache size, which would be a waste of resourc
• Open source - the once and future dream
  "My vision," Zemlin said, "is to have a computer in every gas pump, X-ray system, cell phone, GPS system, set top box, picture frame, car, logistics system, airplane, DVR, server, super computer and desktop all running Linux."
• NoSQL And Elastic Caching Platforms Are Kissing Cousins
  The idea is pretty simple: Not all applications need a traditional relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses SQL to perform operations on data. Rather, data can be stored and retrieved using a single key. The NoSQL products that store data using keys are called Key-Value stores (aka KV stores).
• Twitter’s Plan to Analyze 100 Billion Tweets #BigData
  Hadoop and Pig are Used for Analysis Any question you can think of requires analyzing big data for answers. 100 billion is a lot of tweets. That’s why Twitter uses Hadoop and Pig as their analysis platform. Hadoop provides: key-value storage on a distributed file system, horizontal scalability, fault tolerance, and map-reduce for computation. Pig is a query a mechanism that makes it possible to write complex queries on top of Hadoop.
• Cities vying to host next America's Cup
  The courtship of billionaire Larry Ellison began almost as soon as his space-age trimaran sailed to victory in the 33rd America's Cup.
• #Oracle CEO optimistic on quick #Sun profit potential
  "I think it's going really well and we expect to be profitable right away." Some analysts are skeptical that Ellison will be able to quickly turn around Sun, which never fully recovered from the bursting of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s that savaged demand for its high-end computers.
• America's Cup debuts briefly at City Hall
  But there are questions about whether Ellison and the Golden Gate Yacht Club can stage a successful race locally. The primary concerns revolve around building a sailing village, providing rival teams areas for their own bases and negotiating the heavy cargo traffic traveling through the Bay.
• The mogul and the mayor meet for a cup and congratulations
  Ellison has neither the polish nor pretension of San Francisco's mayor, but there was some question whether the two men could fit all their aspirations under the same rotunda, even though it's the fifth-largest dome in the world. But Ellison — who once fought a lengthy battle with San Jose's airport for the right to land his private jet, no matter how late or who it disturbed — sounded an appealingly humble note.
• Mahindra #Satyam to hire 5,000 by March-end
  "We are planning to hire around 5,000 people through the current recruitment drive across lateral and entry levels. The process is expected to be completed by March-end," the official told PTI.
• Top 10 Open-Source Server Technologies You Need to Know
  To introduce you to 10 hot server-oriented open-source technologies you need to know, I compiled a diverse list of projects and applications for you to discover and explore. Many of these products are free of cost or close to it.
• Top 25 Programming Errors list updated
  Just as they did last year, over thirty international security organisations have come together, to publish a list of the 25 most dangerous programming errors leading to vulnerabilities that can be exploited for cybercrime and espionage. The 2010 CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors has been updated with a number of improvements to how the errors are graded, prioritised and categorised. For example, new "Focus Profiles" allow readers to quickly see the listed errors sorted for particular professionals' interests.
• #HP's Mark Hurd: The Biggest Winner
  If Hurd can get services revenues humming again after a weak quarter – and on the analyst call he said services and software are showing signs of renewed vigor – the profit payoff should be very nice indeed. We’ll see how he does at next quarter’s weigh-in.
• #HP Keeps Growing, But Is Big Blue Better?
  But the fact that HP's sources of growth are either expensive or low-margin in nature makes me a skeptic when it comes to HP as an investment. IBM is cheaper (on a price-to-earnings basis) and pays a more generous dividend. IBM also boasts a one-star advantage in CAPS ratings, meaning I’m not alone in that assessment.
• #Microsoft announces #Office for #Mac 2011
  the new version of Office will incorporate document-collaboration features that take advantage of Microsoft's online storage features. With Office for Mac 2011, Mac users will be able to share files and collaborate on documents with other Mac and Windows users via Microsoft's SharePoint, SkyDrive, and Office Web Apps. Those online tools will allow users to collaborate on documents with other Windows and Mac Office users in real time, much as you can in Google Docs now. You could, for example, create a document in Word on your laptop, save it to SkyDrive, then share it with others. A pop-up in Word will show you who’s working on the document; click on that list, and you’ll be able to send them a message (as long as everyone is using Outlook or Microsoft’s Messenger IM application). The paragraphs your collaborators are working on will be locked out until they’re done. You’ll also be able to edit those same documents from any computer, using Office’s Web apps. Mac users will have the sa
• Just another #Oracle Sunrise, Or, A Consolidation Sketch
  Clearly Oracle is in an amazing position now in terms of its assets and account control. Ellison always wanted to take IBM on head to head, but may even have an advantage over its East Coast Competitor- if business application market share can be converted into stack marketshare – for example if Oracle can persuade customers to swap out their WebSphere application servers in favour of WebLogic. Oracle is making customers, let alone competitors, nervous by dint of sheer scale though, which could lead to an unwillingness to put any more eggs in the Redwood City basket. Oracle will also be trying to persuade customers to kick out EMC storage hardware and storage management software, and Dell, HP and IBM servers and storage too. Serious margin maths- Oracle will be calculating what competitors share can be eroded. My money is on EMC as an obvious target.
• #SAP Wants #CA To Give It More Toys
  Phillips would be CEO of CA today if somebody intimate with CA's boardroom secrets hadn't tipped Oracle off to his imminent departure, an inconvenient exit considering Oracle was about to close on its hard-won Sun acquisition. It's hard to tell whether Oracle CEO Larry Ellison had an inkling one of his co-presidents could be anywhere near the orbit of his great rival, SAP, but, whether or not, he reportedly wanted Phillips to stick around for a couple more years.
• #Linux is now #Oracle's low-end offering
  Oracle Corp . has rekindled its# Solaris love. #Sun's Solaris operating system will underlie new high-end data center appliances running the Oracle software stack. And Oracle EnterpriseLinux now becomes the preferred OS for lower-end commodity hardware. By making the Sparc/Solaris tandem the foundation of big-iron SMP appliances, the company is going back to its roots when Oracle and Sun were joined at the hip. Pre-Linux, Solaris was the de facto development platform for new Oracle software. New Oracle databases came out first on Solaris and later on everything else.
• Engineers sweat #Oracle's #Sun-#Java integration promise
  integration of the two to produce a single JVM probably wouldn't happen soon but might finally take place in the next year-and-a-half to two years. The goal to integrate of JRockit and HotSpot was announced by Oracle as part of its strategy day in January, where managers laid our the plan for Sun's middleware and operating systems in the wake of Oracle's successful closure of its $5.6bn acquisition of Sun.
• More America's Cup ugliness surfaces - Mutiny on the Race Committee Boat in Race Two?
  Bennett then ordered the AP, or official postponement flag, to be dropped, which would signal that the timed start sequence was underway. But the SNG members simply refused to lower the flag. A yelling match began, both sides at an impasse, while the two racers waited and the clock ticked closer to the 4:30pm race abandonment time limit. At that point Principal Race Officer Bennett flexed his official muscles and drafted GGYC observer Tom Ehman and a Spanish Guardia Civil cop onbaord into service, ordering them to lower the AP flag and get the starting sequence, and Race Two, underway.
• Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures Using Over 1,000 Shell Companies To Hide Patent Shakedown
  The company used a bait and switch scheme to get a bunch of big tech companies to fund it, not realizing that they were then going to be targets of his shakedown system. Basically, IV buys up (or in some cases, applies for) tons of patents, and then demands huge cash outlays from those same companies (often hundreds of millions of dollars) for a combined promise not to sue over those patents and (here's the sneaky bit) a bit of a pyramid scheme, where those in early supposedly get a cut of later deals. Of course, to just talk to IV requires strict NDAs, so the details of these deals are kept under wraps and only leaked out anonymously. But the hundreds of millions of dollars going towards this sort of trolling behavior, rather than any actual innovation in the marketplace can be seen on various financial filings (you can't hide hundreds of millions of dollars in payments that easily).
• Brewer's CAP Theorem
  there are three core systemic requirements that exist in a special relationship when it comes to designing and deploying applications in a distributed environment (he was talking specifically about the web but so many corporate businesses are multi-site/multi-country these days that the effects could equally apply to your data-centre/LAN/WAN arrangement). The three requirements are: Consistency, Availability and Partition Tolerance, giving Brewer's Theorem its other name - CAP.
• BMW ORACLE Racing America's Cup USA Victory Tour, Presented by ORACLE and BMW EfficientDynamics
  BMW ORACLE Racing invites you to enjoy unprecedented access to the America's Cup as it lands on American soil for the first time in fifteen years. What: The team is hosting the following public events to welcome home the America's Cup: 1. BMW ORACLE Racing Team and America's Cup arrival at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) 2. San Francisco City Hall Celebration hosted by Mayor Gavin Newsom, with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison 3. San Diego Celebration, hosted by Mayor Jerry Sanders
• #Salesforce.com Announces Private Beta Of Chatter
  Some key features include: * Aggregating streams of information. Employees can subscribe to feeds such as internal updates, social networks, and documents. * Automating status updates. Users can receive updates from system and user generated alerts. Alerts can include documents and related links. * Enabling secure document sharing. Chatter feeds can be searched to find relevant information. Document sharing is protected by a secure sharing model from teh Force.com platform.
• Marc Benioff proclaims era of Cloud 2.0
  The service adds a Facebook-style format to other #Salesforce applications, and allows social networking between teams, departments or entire companies. Chatter will allow teams to react a lot more quickly by offering access to social networking groups on the fly, Benioff said. The tool will support collaborative documents, and will integrate with all Salesforce services.
• Marc Benioff’s enterprise ambitions (first look at #Salesforce #Chatter)
  what pie is he going after? Microsoft’s Sharepoint. Now, he’s not alone in those ambitions. Jive, Box.net, Zoho, SocialText and other companies have the same ambitions. The problem is they don’t have a big stick to get into the CTO’s office. Salesforce already has a relationship with almost every company’s CTO. The other players have had some good wins, but they won’t be able to make an entire marketplace pay attention the way Benioff can.
• February Power Breakfast with #Oracle Chairman, Jeff Henley
  Thursday, February 18, 2010 # 7:30am – 9:00am # Governor Hotel # 614 SW 11th Ave. # Portland, OR
• #Oracle + #Sun: What it Means for Content Management
  Will Oracle + Sun combo have a profound effect on the web content management industry? Not likely. Some predictable changes aside, and with widespread M&As and industry consolidation, from what we see it’s nothing more than business as usual.
• #Oracle should cannibalize #JavaFX Frankenstein
  One of the survivors of Oracle's mammoth takeover of Sun Microsystems is JavaFX, the Flex wannabe and illegitimate son of Swing.
• #Oracle set to merge #Java virtual machines
  The plan to meld #HotSpot with #JRockit is evolving, and a single #JVM based on both technologies is expected within two years
• America's Cup Due in San Francisco on Friday
  A public viewing is scheduled for Saturday morning at the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. Mayor Gavin Newsom is scheduled to formally welcome the Cup and team, including Ellison, back to the United States in a ceremony at 11:30 a.m.
• BMW Oracle puts America's Cup back in U.S. hands
  The America's Cup has been away from U.S. shores for 15 years, the longest drought since 1851.
• #Microsoft introduces SQL #Azure Database SU1
  Microsoft introduced the first Service Update for its Cloud-based data platform on February 17th, 2010, and customers embracing Windows Azure should expect more refreshes to the components of the Cloud platform, although there’s no telling at which rate they will be delivered. Service Update 1 for SQL Azure was made available at just a couple of weeks since Microsoft started charging customers for its Cloud platform, namely the general availability deadline. David Robinson, SQL Azure senior program manager, notes that the software giant has been taking feedback into account and incorporating input into SU1.
• #Microsoft To Release New SQL Server Service Packs
  The company plans to release new service packs for both SQL Server 2008SQL Server 2005. Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2008 will be released sometime in the third quarter of this year. Microsoft plans to release Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2005 in the fourth quarter of this year. The release of SP4 for SQL Server 2005 likely will be the last service pack for this product, according to Matthias Berndt, group program manager for Microsoft SQL Server, in a blog post. SQL Server 2005 will enter its five-year "extended support" phase on April 13, 2011. During the extended support phase, Microsoft drops support associated with licensing programs, as well as no-charge support, although security updates will continue to be delivered. The details are described at the Microsoft support lifecycle page. and
• DBMS Vendors Likely to Get Scrappy in 2010
  It's a good time to be in the market for a database management system. This mature space is going to see increased competition in the year ahead, with the big four vendors vying for each other's customers. Still, any DBMS vendor that hopes to dislodge or supplant a rival in an existing account will have to work hard to do so.
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Launch Event
  Come learn from customers running Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and see product demonstrations. Find out how you can go beyond basic business management and reporting to: * Enhance Insight - Bring personalized business insight to everyone in your organization. * Make It Easier - Automate business processes making it easier to work faster and smarter. * Extend Connections - Dissolve traditional boundaries with solutions and services that connect people and systems.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-02-16

• EU clears proposed acquisition of #3Com by #HP
  The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of 3Com Corporation by Hewlett-Packard Company, both of the US. The Commission concluded that the concentration would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.
• #Wipro to recruit 7500 more professionals
  Wipro- India's third largest IT Company is now hiring heavily. According to a latest report, Wipro plans to add 7,500 fresher’s in the coming fiscal. Girish Paranjpe, joint CEO of Wipro Technologies quotes that the company plans to recruit in 7,500 engineers for which it plans to go to campus in 2010 & also adds that the company is currently busy making lateral hiring.
• Egypt Sees Potential to Double the Size of Its Global ITO and Engineering Services Market and Triple Its Global BPO Market
  "Egypt's concept is proven by the large presence of multinational and major regional companies. There are currently 15,000 direct export oriented professionals, 22,000 for domestic business accounts, over 300,000 active bloggers and over 50,000 indirect jobs are supported by the industry."
• Oracle’s Larry Ellison Wins The America’s Cup
  In the end, it appears that Ellison got the win thanks to the superior technology of his 90-foot tri-hulled vessel, which shut out Bertarelli’s catamaran in the best of three races.
• Ellison’s space-age BMW Oracle reclaims America’s Cup for America
  Alinghi raised a red protest flag on its giant catamaran late on the first leg of the triangle course. Since there's no communications off the boats, it wasn't clear what it was for and won't be cleared up until the teams return to port.
• America's Cup to go back to original format
  Oracle boss Larry Ellison said he had not yet decided on where to stage the next Cup -- although he mentioned Newport, San Diego and San Francisco in the United States as possibilities -- but he said the location must have room for many teams. "We have to develop bases for many teams because it is going to be a multi-challenger event," he said after his side defeated Swiss defender Alinghi in the 33rd America's Cup staged off the Spanish port of Valencia.
• #IBM acquires Intelliden
  Toward that end, IBM has acquired Intelliden to extend the network automation capabilities of the IBM Integrated Service Management offerings. IBM’s Integrated Service Management solutions drive enterprise efficiency and effectiveness by helping clients break down long-standing barriers between IT and the business that have inhibited productivity, cost control and service quality. IBM Tivoli has built a comprehensive service management portfolio that provides visibility into the quality of service across the enterprise, allowing clients to improve quality and minimize risk as they deliver smarter, more innovative services.
• IT Hiring Jumps in January
  U.S. IT employment increased by 12,900 jobs, or 0.3%, in January, one of the best month-to-month gains since the recession hit in late 2008, the TechServe Alliance reported today.
• Add 'Denali' to the #Microsoft #SQL Server roadmap
  My bet is Denali will be SQL Server 2011, which will be the version of SQL Server that follows SQL Server 2008 R2 (codenamed “Kilimanjaro”). The R2 release is slated to ship in early May, Microsoft officials said recently, and a Release Candidate for it should be right around the corner.
• #Microsoft CEO mum on iPhone talk
  Microsoft 's new mobile software launched on Monday should speak for itself and the company has no current need to buy a mobile device maker or materially change its license fees, its chief executive said.
• #NetSuite Powers BMW #ORACLE Racing's Quest for America's Cup
  NetSuite provides BMW Oracle Racing with a powerful web-based system to manage all financial and business operations smoothly around the clock across three continents—from Anacortes, Washington; where the hulls are built, to Valencia, Spain; where most of the team is headquartered; to Auckland, New Zealand, where the company maintains an office. With NetSuite, BMW Oracle Racing can: * Manage its international financial operations—including financial management, reporting, payables, taxes, account management and team expenses * Get anytime, anywhere access to real-time business information and detailed financial reporting * Meet tax statutory requirements in three countries * Handle multi-currency transactions in the New Zealand dollar, the U.S. dollar and the Euro—without the need for expensive servers or dedicated IT staff.
• Cup Winner Confirms a Challenger
  The Golden Gate Yacht Club , home to Larry Ellison’s BMW Oracle team, confirmed Club Nautico di Roma as the challenger of record for the 34th America’s Cup. BMW Oracle won the cup Sunday by sailing its trimaran to its second straight victory over the two-time defending champion, Alinghi of Switzerland. The Golden Gate Yacht Club is based in San Francisco, but Ellison said no decisions had been made about a site for the next race.
• #Oracle CEO Larry Ellison talks America's Cup, Steve Jobs, NBA
  Next on his mantle case? Perhaps the NBA's Golden State Warriors, for whom Ellison has expressed an interest in buying. The Warriors, owned by reclusive cable magnate Chris Cohan, so far have ignored his overtures. (The Warriors play in Oracle Arena, after Oracle bought the naming rights to the basketball arena for 10 years.) "We have floated a few offers the last several years and been rejected each time," Ellison said. "We might pursue another (pro basketball) team and could bring it to San Jose. It's up to the NBA." For now, Ellison has no plans to get into the NFL. He had long pursued an expansion franchise in Los Angeles, presumably to be called the Stars. Not anymore. "There is nothing active with the NFL," he says.
• #SAP's 'Timeless' Future
  The Timeless Software concept of SAP CTO Vishal Sikka is the perfect way to do this
• Oracle Support blog no more
  "I’m not allowed to represent Oracle Support through social media. Please escalate SR."
• Chris Warticki's Blog - No longer available
  Please use My Oracle Support Communities instead
• #Microsoft's new mobile software: Windows Phone 7 Series
  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told CNN that this is a major push for the company to get back in the mobile space. He said 7-based smart phones will be manufactured by the likes of Qualcomm, Samsung, LG, HTC, HP, Dell, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, and Garmin-Asus.
• Why #Google Has Become Microsoft's Evil Twin
  Google 's introduction of its Buzz social media tool this week was possibly the most disastrous product debut in the company's 12-year history.
• Software Directs Mobile Industry
  Intel Corp . and Nokia Corp. said at an industry conference in Barcelona Monday that they are combining their own separate software ventures into a new mobile operating platform dubbed "MeeGo." Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp., which has struggled to translate its dominance of the desktop for mobile devices, unveiled a dramatic revamp of its mobile-phone operating system, which has suffered in comparison with Apple's iPhone and handsets that use Google's Android system.
• #SAP Mobility – Is Change Coming?
  In December of 2009, SAP unfolded their 5-year strategic plan that emphasized the following five points: on-demand computing, cloud architectures, flexible pricing, mobile and in-memory computing. This event was covered well by InformationWeek in an article called SAP Outlines 5-Year Enterprise Software Plan. Since mobility was already on the list in December when Snabe was head of product development, Apotheker's departure is unlikely to change this emphasis.
• What really gets out goat in the office
  Leo Apotheker , chief executive of #SAP, the German business software provider, stood down after customer unrest. He told a session at at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month that chief executives needed to think about value to stakeholders — such as customers.
• #Ariba's Earnings – What Stands Out (Part 2)
  If Ariba remains independent ten years from now (which I do not anticipate, mind you), I suspect the biggest surprise in its revenue model by 2020 will be that suppliers will account for close to 50% of its business.
• Epicor Software posts higher 4Q earnings
  Business software company Epicor Software Corp. said Thursday its fourth-quarter profit soared on a jump in software license revenues and a decline in operating costs. Earnings were $6.7 million, or 11 cents a share, in the three months ended Dec. 31. That compares with a profit of $1.5 million, or 3 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue fell to $111.9 million from $121.9 million.
• Will #SAP be acquired?
  An acquisition of SAP is very unlikely in the short term, and perhaps could not occur unless SAP faces an existential crisis.
• Chuck Phillips Was #CA-Bound And Then Those Billboards Happened
  CA named board member and executive chairman Bill McCracken CEO. He's the guy who's been running the company since John Swainson's reportedly forced retirement was announced in September. An ex-IBMer and an ex-Swainson pal, it was no secret he really wanted the job.
• For America's Cup winner Ellison, whether it's software or sailing, competition is personal
  He is perhaps the most aggressive CEO in the tech industry today," said Jon Fisher, a former Oracle vice president who now teaches business at the University of San Francisco. Fisher added that Oracle, a company that vies with such giants as Microsoft and IBM, is both highly competitive and ruthlessly "engineering-centric," even compared with other tech firms.
• HP opens first wind-cooled green data center; most efficient to date
  Hewlett-Packard has officially opened its newest green data center in northeast England, cooled entirely by cold wind blowing off the North Sea.
• Cast Iron Systems Dominates Cloud Application Integration in 2009
  Cast Iron Systems, The #1 Cloud Integration Company, today announced that it closed fiscal year 2009 with momentous growth driven by major new channel brands and enterprise customers. Cast Iron reported its thirteenth consecutive quarter of growth and the most successful quarter in the company's history. In addition to new customers and partners, existing clients returned for even more products and services, while Cast Iron collaborated with established partners like salesforce.com on more deals than ever.
• Goldman Sachs: Shift toward #cloud unstoppable
  # "SaaS first" policy is being enacted in the majority of small and midsize businesses. Goldman's survey highlights that 58 percent of respondents always consider an SaaS option when making an application purchase decision. At total of 39 percent prefer an SaaS option, if available. # Web conferencing and sales force automation continue to rank as the most utilized SaaS applications; accounting and billing shows significant improvement, underscoring broad acceptance in all application areas. # Accounting and billing, call center automation, and eRecruiting were the largest gainers, with 20 percent, 18 percent, and 17 percent increases, respectively, from April 2009. # Data warehousing, supply chain management, and product life cycle management require more customization, or are more embedded within the core of a company than cloud applications. They are also utilized by a smaller group of individuals, which could impact the time to, or volume of, deployments.
• #Microsoft to Unveil Cellphone Software
  the company plans to publicly show a new version of its cellphone operating system, Windows Mobile 7, for the first time, according to people familiar with the matter. The operating system sports a revamped user interface that resembles the look of Microsoft's Zune HD music player, people who have seen it said.
• Will #Microsoft pursue an acquisition of #RIM?
  Microsoft, which has taken a beating as of late over its lagging WinMo platform, may be looking outside the company to help it catch up with the iPhone, Research in Motion and the various Android devices.
• Will #SAP be acquired?
  With over 340 votes in, two thirds of all who voted expressed the opinion that SAP will be acquired.
• The Amazing Race: New season includes a #Microsoft employee
  being a salesperson definitely prepares you to be on top of your game. We compete every day with competitors like Oracle, like SAP, like Apple. All those big vendors, IBM. Being on the race, basically, you're in that mode.
• #SAP Mobility – Is Change Coming?
  In December of 2009, SAP unfolded their 5-year strategic plan that emphasized the following five points: on-demand computing, cloud architectures, flexible pricing, mobile and in-memory computing. This event was covered well by InformationWeek in an article called SAP Outlines 5-Year Enterprise Software Plan. Since mobility was already on the list in December when Snabe was head of product development, Apotheker's departure is unlikely to change this emphasis.
• What really gets out goat in the office
  Leo Apotheker , chief executive of #SAP, the German business software provider, stood down after customer unrest. He told a session at at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month that chief executives needed to think about value to stakeholders — such as customers.
• #Ariba's Earnings – What Stands Out (Part 2)
  If Ariba remains independent ten years from now (which I do not anticipate, mind you), I suspect the biggest surprise in its revenue model by 2020 will be that suppliers will account for close to 50% of its business.
• Epicor Software posts higher 4Q earnings
  Business software company Epicor Software Corp. said Thursday its fourth-quarter profit soared on a jump in software license revenues and a decline in operating costs. Earnings were $6.7 million, or 11 cents a share, in the three months ended Dec. 31. That compares with a profit of $1.5 million, or 3 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue fell to $111.9 million from $121.9 million.
• Will #SAP be acquired?
  An acquisition of SAP is very unlikely in the short term, and perhaps could not occur unless SAP faces an existential crisis.
• Chuck Phillips Was #CA-Bound And Then Those Billboards Happened
  CA named board member and executive chairman Bill McCracken CEO. He's the guy who's been running the company since John Swainson's reportedly forced retirement was announced in September. An ex-IBMer and an ex-Swainson pal, it was no secret he really wanted the job.
• For America's Cup winner Ellison, whether it's software or sailing, competition is personal
  He is perhaps the most aggressive CEO in the tech industry today," said Jon Fisher, a former Oracle vice president who now teaches business at the University of San Francisco. Fisher added that Oracle, a company that vies with such giants as Microsoft and IBM, is both highly competitive and ruthlessly "engineering-centric," even compared with other tech firms.
• HP opens first wind-cooled green data center; most efficient to date
  Hewlett-Packard has officially opened its newest green data center in northeast England, cooled entirely by cold wind blowing off the North Sea.
• Cast Iron Systems Dominates Cloud Application Integration in 2009
  Cast Iron Systems, The #1 Cloud Integration Company, today announced that it closed fiscal year 2009 with momentous growth driven by major new channel brands and enterprise customers. Cast Iron reported its thirteenth consecutive quarter of growth and the most successful quarter in the company's history. In addition to new customers and partners, existing clients returned for even more products and services, while Cast Iron collaborated with established partners like salesforce.com on more deals than ever.
• Goldman Sachs: Shift toward #cloud unstoppable
  # "SaaS first" policy is being enacted in the majority of small and midsize businesses. Goldman's survey highlights that 58 percent of respondents always consider an SaaS option when making an application purchase decision. At total of 39 percent prefer an SaaS option, if available. # Web conferencing and sales force automation continue to rank as the most utilized SaaS applications; accounting and billing shows significant improvement, underscoring broad acceptance in all application areas. # Accounting and billing, call center automation, and eRecruiting were the largest gainers, with 20 percent, 18 percent, and 17 percent increases, respectively, from April 2009. # Data warehousing, supply chain management, and product life cycle management require more customization, or are more embedded within the core of a company than cloud applications. They are also utilized by a smaller group of individuals, which could impact the time to, or volume of, deployments.
• #Microsoft to Unveil Cellphone Software
  the company plans to publicly show a new version of its cellphone operating system, Windows Mobile 7, for the first time, according to people familiar with the matter. The operating system sports a revamped user interface that resembles the look of Microsoft's Zune HD music player, people who have seen it said.
• Will #Microsoft pursue an acquisition of #RIM?
  Microsoft, which has taken a beating as of late over its lagging WinMo platform, may be looking outside the company to help it catch up with the iPhone, Research in Motion and the various Android devices.
• Will #SAP be acquired?
  With over 340 votes in, two thirds of all who voted expressed the opinion that SAP will be acquired.
• The Amazing Race: New season includes a #Microsoft employee
  being a salesperson definitely prepares you to be on top of your game. We compete every day with competitors like Oracle, like SAP, like Apple. All those big vendors, IBM. Being on the race, basically, you're in that mode.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-02-12

• #ERP: How and Why You Need to Manage It Differently
  The major ERP suites are "old and not as flexible as some newer stuff, and they can't build flexibility in," Hanna says. "Modifying it takes our time and money and training." His ears practically steam from frustration. "You tell me: What am I missing here?"
• Waste Management Now Demanding $500 Million From #SAP
  But SAP has denied any wrongdoing and counters that Waste Management breached its contracts with SAP by failing to "timely and accurately define its business requirements" and provide "sufficient, knowledgeable, decision-empowered users and managers" to work on the implementation.
• #SAP chairman says won't meddle day-to-day
  UBS said in a note that Schwarz's departure may have a negative impact on staff at Business Objects. "Investors are likely to worry his loss may affect morale in the ex-BOBJ operations," UBS analysts said. "Some investors may worry about the limited experience of the board and its workload," the analysts also said, echoing similar remarks from earlier in the week.
• #SAP's Executive Exodus
  But Schwarz is another matter. Having been CEO of Business Objects before and after SAP's acquisition of the business intelligence software firm for $6.8 billion in 2008, Schwarz was an obvious successor to Apotheker. The fact that Apotheker was replaced by two executives--the company returned to its dual-CEO structure following his departure--who were also younger than Schwarz, suggests he might have made the decision this week that there was suddenly little point of staying with the company.
• Buzz Killington Visits #SAP
  out of date, out of touch and out of time.
• BMW #Oracle sails to 1-0 America's Cup lead
  BMW Oracle manhandled Swiss Cupholder Alinghi's catamaran today to go up, 1-0, in the best-of-three match.
• BMW #Oracle helmsman Jimmy Spithill leads USA boat to 1-0 lead over Alinghi in America's Cup
  victory by 15 minutes, 28 seconds off the coast of Valencia.
• #Oracle Calls for #JavaOne Papers
  presenters have until March 14 to submit their proposals.
• 2010 #JavaOne Conference Homepage
  JavaOne conference speakers receive a Full Conference pass and the respect of your peers. Submit a proposal to speak in one of the following seven tracks
• #SAP Salary Outlook in 2010: Panaya SAP Salary Survey Analysis
  salaries and rates are a function of supply and demand, and there are less experienced ERP 6.0 people than those working on previous releases. I will admit that I'm not 100 percent certain why the 4.7 pay rates came in lower than 4.6, but I'd say two things: first, the discrepancy between 4.6 and 4.7 rates is not large, and also, we do see a phenomenon sometimes in IT where those professionals who remain on older releases after others have moved on can see a temporary bump in pay. So lingering on 4.6 projects can may pay off for a short period of time for some SAP professionals, but in the long run, it's better to pursue the most advanced release exposure rather than staying on older releases for rate reasons. Call it the lesson of the Cobol programmer.
• ASUG CEO Bridgette Chambers on #SAP's management shake-up
  either make or drive the cost of TCO or maintenance down, helping to ensure the changes they've made to their maintenance portfolio are well received , that the option period is well understood, and that they deliver on those promises.
• The Crocodile in the Room
  Don’t they [#SAP] see the crocodile in the room?
• 15 Ways Oracle Can Make Java Better (and Improve Its Stance with Developers)
  [Almost all of this can be summarized as "give control of Java away to IBM and Google, even though you spent billions to buy it."-DBM]
• Apache Harmony - Open Source Java Platform
  Apache Harmony is the Java SE project of the Apache Software Foundation. Please help us make this a world class, certified implementation of the Java Platform Standard Edition!
• #MySQL users hope for the best, prep for the worst
  Widenius agreed that it is wise to "at least look at the MySQL forks and experiment with the options." Widenius' development company, Monty Program AB, is behind a MySQL drop-in replacement, MariaDB.
• What You Didn’t Know About #Cloudera [#Hadoop]
  “Either this quarter or next we will offer an enterprise software bundleFacebookYahoo, we continue to have core committers to Hadoop.” consisting of proprietary enhancements for Hadoop users,” Olson said. “Our proprietary apps will complement the open source core, and, like and
• #SAP Could Consider Larger Buys
  While in the third quarter of this year SAP made three small buys, Apotheker said a larger acquisition is possible if it makes strategic sense. Asked whether SAP could consider getting a credit rating, with a view to raising acquisition financing from the bond market, Apotheker said he sees no need for that step. He explained that SAP recently placed a Schuldschein on the market successfully, and the banks that deal with such credits know SAP very well. Asked whether SAP will take a greater role in sector consolidation, Apotheker observed that consolidation does not have to happen through acquisitions. He said it can also happen through organic growth. Apotheker said that about 70% of mergers and acquisitions in the software industry do not generate any added value. He said a good M&A strategy needs to be based on achieving synergies for customers and bringing extra value. Cost saving for its own sake is not enough, he said, as the operations of the companies also need to complemen
• mongoDB
  open-source, high-performance, schema-free, document-oriented database
• #SAP Announces Subsequent Changes to Executive Board and Management in Support of New Co-CEO Structure
  [Oswald-COO;Schwartz-gone;Lorenz-Exec Bd] # Gerhard Oswald, Executive Board member responsible for SAP Global Service & Support, has also been named chief operating officer, replacing Erwin Gunst, who stepped down for health reasons. Oswald's nearly thirty-year career at SAP has spanned the areas of support, consulting, education, custom development and quality control. He has been an Executive Board member since 1996. His contract has been extended until December 31, 2011. # In addition, Peter Lorenz, executive vice president of Small and Midsize Enterprises (SME), has been named a corporate officer. He will continue to report to Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe, overseeing the development of the SAP portfolio of SME solutions, SAP Business ByDesign, SAP Business One and SAP Business All-in-One. # The SAP Supervisory Board has accepted the resignation of John Schwarz, member of the Executive Board responsible for SAP BusinessObjects, Ecosystem & Corporate Development, effective immediately.
• #SAP keeps it interesting!
  Will there be even more changes coming at SAP? Most likely. The Business Objects leaders supported by John Schwarz will not have air cover anymore, putting their status and longevity in doubt. With Snabe moving up a level, and with Schwartz leaving, there are also many questions about how the product side of the house will be organized. As of the January announcement, Schwarz was set to run product management, with Snabe running development. That transition has not yet occurred, but all the changes were planned and internally known. Much of that planning will have to be re-done now.
• Not a good week for #SAP
  The loss of Schwarz is a body blow to SAP for at least three reasons: * First, Schwarz was slated to run product management for SAP which is in desperate need of strengthening. Confusion over the role of SAP's new Business ByDesign is just one example. * Second, as the former head of Business Objects, his resignation has to be a discouragement for the top Business Objects people, who SAP needs to keep, as business intelligence is one of the few bright spots for new sales in SAP’s portfolio right now. * Finally, Schwarz was a test case for whether an outsider could survive in the top ranks of SAP management. His departure has to be seen as a failure for SAP to accommodate someone without a long tenure within SAP at that level.
• #Google, Market Thyself
  Google is clearly skilled at selling online ads. But formulating a coherent marketing strategy for itself remains a work in progress.
• #Workday's Aneel Bhusri talks about his optimistic outlook for 2010
  #1 Workday’s rank on the list of the Best Companies to Work for in the Bay Area.
• What is #SAP's #CRM Really Being Used For?
  Service Management - 40% (41%) Lead Management - 35% (29%) Campaign Management - 15% (16%) Order Management - 10% (12%)
• What if Shai Agassi never left #SAP?
  Reading the speech Agassi planned to deliver at Sapphire 2007 is almost painful. So many of the points he emphasizes are what Plattner said SAP needs to figure out to grow and move forward now.
• #Infor rolls out global ad campaign
  Business software company Infor has rolled out its “Down with Big ERP” campaign in Asia, Latin America and the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions. The campaign, developed by PJA Advertising + Marketing, includes print, online and out-of-home.
• #Informatica Takes Database Archiving to the #Cloud
  Informatica Data Archive Cloud Store Option, another first in cloud computing. -- The industry's first Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering to archive database and enterprise application data to the cloud in a cost-effective and secure manner. -- Supports almost all structured data including relational databases, enterprise applications and data warehouses. -- Removes need for specialized database skills through standard file system management of archives. -- Simplifies the entire cycle of archiving data, whether stored in the cloud or on-premise. -- Maintains data security and data integrity through end-to-end encryption and application-specific business rules which enables easy restoration of archived data. -- Provides an optimized data access service on Amazon EC2 in order to query and retrieve data that has been archived to Amazon S3. -- Archived data remains fully accessible to users via standard SQL querying, reporting and discovery tools. -- Automatically distributes processing
• Poll: Do you think #SAP will be acquired?
  Who (if anyone) might acquire SAP, and when? Vote here!
• Will History Repeat Itself?
  DBS clung to its past too long and delivered too late (and with a solution that did not meet all of the market challenges). Will Oracle and SAP cling too closely to the past and become the next legacy vendors (at least in business applications) or will they be able to adapt to the changing market and lead into the future?
• #Salesforce.com: Cloud-Based DIY Business Applications for Sales and Service
  Salesforce.com is expected to make more acquisitions over the coming months.The company recently closed a $500 million debt offering that will allow it to buy companies that will buttress its technology offerings.
• #Oracle Launches Worldwide #Cloud-computing Tour
  The move stands in contrast to CEO Larry Ellison's well-publicized mocking of cloud computing, which he has deemed a rebranding and conflation of existing technologies. But it's not as if the ongoing tour wasn't telegraphed.
• #SAP's Last Chance: It's The Customers, Stupid!
  And it all won't be worth a hill of beans unless SAP can make that last part come true: regain the trust of customers who feel SAP has become aloof, arrogant, fat, slow, overpriced, behind the times, and incapable of delivering breakthrough ideas and transformative technologies.
• #SAP Needs to Reconsider Mergers and Acquisitions As #Cloud Computing Revolutionizes Software Business
  M&A's have worked wonders at Oracle. Why not at SAP?
• #SAP to Split User Conference Between Europe, US
  SAP will attempt to unify attendees through "real-time connected sessions" between Frankfurt and Orlando. SAP is also planning to have "a major presence" at the massive Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, which takes place in early March.
• #SAP to Hold SAPPHIRE(R) 2010 Customer Conferences in Europe and U.S.
  Building on the success of last year's SAPPHIRE® 2009 customer conference in Orlando, Florida, drawing an audience of more than 18,000 people online and in person, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that this year's industry-leading show will be expanded to Europe. By holding SAPPHIRE 2010 simultaneously in Orlando, Florida, and Frankfurt, Germany, May 17 to 19, SAP aims to create an innovative, compelling and relevant experience that uses technology and social media to share SAP insights and innovations, and connect customers and partners around the world.
• What #SAP Needs After Apotheker
  Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe must revitalize SAP's product pipeline, soothe customers, and counter competition from Oracle
• 6 billion moving forward150 million holding us back
  We believe that #SAP’s R&D organization is widely inefficient and driven more by the inclination of internal factions than it is driven by market demand or customer requirements
• Enterprise Software in Harvest Mode
  #SAP #Sage #Oracle Software is in harvest mode, just about everywhere you look. What is harvest mode? When products reach the end of the life cycle they are kept around because they still have some value and market cache. We don’t continue to invest in them because the investment will no longer pay off. So we simply harvest whatever revenues we can while keeping a very close eye on costs.