Palm must build great accessories to survive

Palm is in a tough situation. As reported widely, Palm's operating results are beginning to cast doubt about the viability of the company. There is no easy solution for the company, but a series of tough measures and creative development efforts can turn things around.

Palm makes a number of smart phones, notably the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixie Plus [Disclaimer: I am a very happy owner of a Motorola Droid, but have owned Palm devices since the original Palm Pilot]. The Palm phones incorporated a large number of innovations, from wireless charging to sleek styling, but the market for smart phones is very competitive these days. Palm made a number of missteps in entering the market, from bad timing to baffling advertisements. Now, Palm finds itself in a crisis that may leave it unable to survive: the channel is full of aging stock, losses are mounting, and the economy shows no signs of rescuing the company.

How Can Palm Survive?

How can Palm survive, with all these issues in front of it? And why do I think I have any answers for them? I've been following Palm since the US Robotics days of the Palm Pilot, and owned many Palm devices, from the awful Treo 300 to the wonderful Tungsten TX. I was also CEO of OQO, the mobile gadget company that made sleek, stylish, powerful handheld computers. We faced, and failed to overcome, some of the same issues Palm now faces and must overcome if it is to survive. Other companies, such as Apple Computer, have faced similar problems, and gone on to greatness, and so can Palm.

Cash

First off, Palm has to survive, and that means it has to have enough cash to continue operations. The company must cut expenses ruthlessly. The company must also ensure that it has access to capital if necessary, even if it dilutes the current owners. Also, the company should aggressively focus on identifying and eliminating every source of warranty repair claims - this will help it improve current operating margins, as well as help it build a reputation for quality, and create some IP around design for quality that will help it with future products.

Second, Palm has to find a way through its problems - chief among them is getting through the inventory on hand, finding a growth segment (or a collection of growth segments) it can better serve than other smartphone options, and creating a product pipeline that will not suffer the same problems as the current lineup.

Accessories

There is very little difference from one leading edge smartphone to the next - touch screens, video, camera, applications. iPhone phanboyz will tell you that there are more apps for the iPhone, but realistically any good app is available for all platforms (except the Google apps, which are pretty much only available on the Droid now). Smartphones are not really distinguished by functionality or cost any longer. Now, they are pretty much distinguished by the markets they target. iPhones are for those who view themselves as hip, urban, and elite. Blackberry's are for wonks and businessmen (and heavy text messagers). Droids are for supergeeks. Who are Palms for?

All this is to say that phones are now accessories, like handbags or shoes. They say something about you. Palm needs to find a target market segment that is underserved with the current competitors, and do a great job of meeting their needs. Looking at its assets, we see a stylish phone with a few interesting accessories, with a built-in keyboard, and with a relatively powerful operating system. To whom could this phone appeal? We can speculate:

• Corporate executives
• Bloggers and other social media aficionados
  
• IT workers
• Customer-facing mobile workers
• Students and mobile gamers who don't want to live with the restrictions
  Apple forces on them

Regardless of what we can speculate, Palm needs to do hard research, and then follow through with the programs that appeal to these users.

Also, as this is a relatively short-range problem Palm must solve, it must do so without large new product R&D investments and without a new line-up of smartphones. Palm's options are pretty much limited to adding new channels (e.g., new countries and carriers) and introducing new accessories.

Accessories are an option Palm should explore. First off, accessories can be sold directly or through the channel, at very high margins compared to phones. Second, accessories can be brought to market more quickly than new phones, at very low R&D effort. Third, accessories can be exactly the customization Palm needs to appeal to chosen market segments - rugged cases, attached printers and scanners, executive cases, waterproof cases, customized cases showing the owner's twitter name, etc. Finally, if designed properly, accessories can be made to create a "system effect," if they are upwardly compatible with new Palm phones. This can encourage buyers to upgrade to new phones when available.

Summary

Palm needs to get serious about its future - reduce burn, reduce channel glut, create a defensible "core" market segment it can own and grow, and develop products that serve that core segment better than others in the future (accessories and new phones as well). Palm has always had a special kind of magic - Apple's cool with Google's geek chic. If Palm can make it through its current tough times, we can hope for a return to the kind of creativity and innovation that made it special in the good old days.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-03-18

• #SAP Bosses Say It’s Now Pedal to the Metal
  They knocked #Oracle’s zealous acquisition strategy as being focused more on obtaining support revenue streams than about innovation. And while not saying Oracle’s name out loud, Mr.McDermott talked about the flaws that followed a company “focused on squeezing margins for the benefit of a stock price,” rather than creating new products.
  
  “We can help the world run a lot better by being independent and thinking about the next big thing,” Mr.McDermott said.
• Security risks of multi-tenancy
  In theory, there is some truth in this intuition. But in practice, it depends what level of multi-tenancy we’re talking about and how rigorously it has been architected. The theoretical comparison assumes the same security regime in both cases, whereas in real life, the provider of a multi-tenant service is going to put a lot of expertise and resource into making sure its infrastructure is as secure as possible against this kind of data exposure, which would be very bad for its reputation. Most multi-tenant systems are operated to much higher security standards than standalone systems. Look at it this way: in theory, a single house with a fence around it is much more secure than an apartment in a block shared with many other households. In practice, the householders in the apartment block will pool the cost of having a porter on duty 24×7 to control access to the building and monitor security.
• Gartner says China will be World's Fastest Growing Enterprise Software Market Through 2013
  China ’s enterprise software market is forecast to maintain its strong performance, with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6 per cent from 2008 to 2013 – the highest growth rate in the world, according to Gartner, Inc. Despite current global conditions, the software market in China is expected to rebound to an annual growth rate of 14.8 per cent in 2010. Gartner analysts said that the increasing globalization of the Chinese economy is leading to a growing need for modern software with the latest features and improved functionality.
  
  “Software vendors have strong growth potential in China, but also face the challenges of operating in a commercial environment that is still developing,” said Hai Hong Swinehart, research analyst at Gartner. “Chinese enterprises have historically preferred to develop applications using their own labour because it costs less. However, this tendency has resulted in legacy and quickly obsolete software as well as inhibiting Chinese enterpr
• #Oracle R17 and Pharma’s Future
  Oracle’s done a good job of keeping up with changes in the industry and you have to admit that pharma sales is a different kettle of fish than almost anything else in CRM. The pharma business model is what’s unique. Sales reps never actually sell their wares to actual customers. They sell to the major recommender, the doctor, and even the MD doesn’t buy anything. He or she simply writes a prescription. So you have this odd situation where the sales person is there simply to influence the recommender.
• Big Data, Big Sheets, and #Hadoop: Interviews with #IBM’s Rod Smith
  If you’re interested, then, there are two videos below. The first is a bit more business focused, the second slightly more technical. In them we talk about Hadoop, obviously, but projects from Dumbo to Pig, IBM’s Big Sheets and the work done at the British Library, and Big Data more generally.
• #Google: A One-Click Pony?
  By the end of 2011, we’ll see a significant part of their revenue contributed from non-paid search ads. I think their revenue will mostly still be from performance-based advertising but not necessarily keywords.
• Chambers: How I'll Make #Cisco Into IT's Biggest Player
  Cisco's real ambition, as articulated by its high-energy CEO, John Chambers, is to become the most important IT company of all. In this installment of IDG Enterprise's CEO Interview Series, Chambers talked with IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant, Computerworld Editor-in-Chief Scot Finnie, and InfoWorld.com Editor-in-Chief Eric Knorr about the market transitions fueling Cisco's bold strategy, what it means for enterprise customers and how the company will compete head-to-head against the industry's biggest players.
• Software Insider Index™ (SII): 2009 SII Top 35 Enterprise Business Apps Vendors™
  # Legacy On-Premise Vendors Retain Operating Margins But Lose Revenue Share. Almost every on-premise software vendor lost revenue on a year-over-year (YoY) basis in 2009 (see Figure 1). IFS (3.87%) and SAS Institute (2.21%) grew in the midst of the financial onslaught. Vendors such as QAD (-31.42%) and Manhattan Associates (-26.84%)saw the worst YoY declines (see Figure 2). Most vendors relied on their maintenance and support to bolster their revenues. For example, CDC, Epicor, Exact, Lawson, Manhattan, Oracle, QAD, and SAP exceeded a 1:2 ratio in new license to maintenance revenue. Why? Customers chose not to upgrade, purchase new licenses, and expand their footprint. Despite the downturn, most vendors survived with operating margins between 10% an 50%, well above those achieved by SaaS vendors. Traditional vendors clearly felt pressure from SaaS/Cloud.
  # SaaS Models Prove Themselves In 2009. Meanwhile, every SaaS vendor grew, from Ariba with the lowest YoY revenue growth (0.
• Principles for Model-Driven Applications
  Still, some modeling technologies show promise. Microsoft’s software factories approach, and more recently their Oslo project, have picked up on domain specific languages, templates and patterns, and on seeing the model as the application. Reflective programming frameworks like CLOS (Common Lisp Object system) follow many of the principles, but their syntax is far from user-friendly (violating principle 1). RDF (The Resource Desciption Framework) is a simple language for partial specification, which allows properties to be treated like objects reflectively. The RDF Schema class system does however share most of the weaknesses of UML. OWL (Web Ontology Language) support property modeling indenpendent of object classes, which is important for industrial data management. OWL Full supports reflection, allowing users to treat all kinds of elements the same and to extend the core metamodels. This variant is however seldom applied, because it cannot guarantee sound formal reasoning for automa
• #SAP Middleware Directions: More Open Source, In-Memory Stuff
  As SAP looks to the future for new middleware opportunities, expect a big push on in-memory execution technologies. For SAP's business solutions, in-memory databases promise to eliminate the need for separate transaction-processing and reporting systems. But will SAP also provide code execution, event processing, session management, parallel service processing, and other in-memory patterns as well? And will SAP expose its in-memory technology to developers for customization of its business applications and/or custom applications? We'll see at Sapphire. Stay tuned.
• The Sleek and the Geek @ #SAP
  [Jim Snabe, Bill McDermott, and @vsikka Vishal Sikka discuss SAP product strategy, co-CEO approach, and more-DBM]
• #Oracle Who? #SAP Co-CEOs Slam Oracle - They Are The Old Way
  The underlying tone was “screw you” Oracle you’re old and we got the goods over you. SAP has been quiet of late on specifics except pounding the innovation message. SAP seems to be one of the old school software companies that seemed out of touch with the key trends.
  
  “Oracle Is Thing Of The Past – History Will Play It Out That Way”
  
  Microsoft and Oracle have been making moves lately pushing “purpose built” software for hardware devices. SAP has been the only one without a date at the enterprise software “prom” when it comes to integration with hardware vendors. Although SAP has recently been touting innovation all over the place, many in the industry have been saying “show us the innovation”.
  
  SAP’s new co-CEO partnership will accelerate SAPs innovation capability. They have a interesting dynamic and comprehensive strategy.
  
  On Oracle Bill McDermott throws a haymaker at Oracle when he said
  
  “these are heterogeneous environments (and networks) they don’t buy “a stack” they are
• 2010 #ERP Vendor Analysis Report
  The overall average duration is just over one year (12.3 months).
  The average actual duration of Tier I implementations was 13.2
  months, which is approximately the same as Tier III
  implementations (Figure G). At 11.1 months, Tier II packages had
  the shortest duration times. Eighty percent of companies that
  selected Tier III vendors met expected duration time, and 15%
  experienced duration times shorter than expected.
• #SuccessFactors Is The Future Of Business Software (#SAP)
  SuccessFactors' annual revenue is only about 1/100th of SAP's, it has only about 700 employees, and it has only one CEO.
  
  But SuccessFactors should be SAP's worst nightmare.
• #SAP to Shun Growth Through Acquisition Strategy
  SAP's recently appointed co-CEOs say they are focusing on technological innovation as a way to get the company back on a path to revenue and profit growth, and they have no plans to try to imitate archrival Oracle by launching an expensive corporate buyout campaign. One major goal is to get updated versions of SAP's Business ByDesign software-as-a-service suite into more customers' hands on schedule.
• #Infosys, #Wipro Face Rise In Staff Resignations
  "In the last three months, because the markets have opened up, there is a slight increase (in staff resignations), which is natural," Nandita Gurjar, senior vice president and global head of human resources at Infosys, told Dow Jones Newswires late Thursday.
  
  She denied rumors of 4,000-4,200 people leaving in February. "It is absolutely no where near 4,000," Gurjar said, but declined to say how many have left.
• IT firms gear up to enable more women to get top positions
  At the mid-levels, the percentage of women might be around 20 per cent, a bit more at the junior levels, but at the senior levels, it will be just five to six per cent,” he says. The proportion of women to men falls radically after the mid-management level, he asserts, with “the incidence of problems related to children or broken homes, which increases drastically where women are pursuing a larger role in the company”.
• #Satyam Still Risky a Year After Fraud Revealed: #Forrester
  Satyam's ongoing problems such as high attrition, cultural differences between the new management and old Satyam staffers, and risks arising from the unavailability of the company's audited financials, Forrester said in a report
• #SAP Co-CEOs Pledge To Move Company Faster
  The new co-CEOs will try to move the company at a faster "clock-rate" than the former CEO. The basic strategy will remain the same but the execution will be faster...Best of breed solutions were criticized, the problem is that "they don't breed well."...SAP justified the maintenance fees being paid by customers because the company is innovating across industry sectors.
• #Workday pushing high-end SaaS for the enterprise
  Workday would appear to be a nascent threat to the traditional on-premise Tier I vendors, Oracle and SAP. They are no doubt already seeing Workday in some deals for HCM and will probably begin to see Workday encroaching on their turf in financials. Another SaaS player, NetSuite, already has been campaigning for a slice of SAP's business for smaller units. In contrast, Workday has a real shot at displacing SAP and Oracle in larger units or even for corporate applications of HCM. How much longer will it be before Workday is competing head to head with SAP and Oracle for complete ERP replacement in large organizations with legacy versions of these Tier I systems?
• Tim Bray · Now A No-Evil Zone
  I’d had an offer to stay with #Oracle which I decided to decline; I’ll maybe tell the story when I can think about it without getting that weird spiking-blood-pressure sensation in my eyeballs. So I reached out to a couple of appealing potential next employers, both were interested, and Google seemed like the best bet.
• #Oracle loses #XML co-inventor to #Google
  Ex-#Sun XML envangelist Tim Bray starts with Google's #Android team
• Details of #NetSuite's SuiteCloud 2010 Given
  SuiteCloud 2010 will be held April 14-16 at the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco. The focus of the event will be on how the NetSuite cloud ecosystem works with the changing business models for resellers, including third-party applications.
• #Salesforce.com: A Growth Story
  This year, Salesforce.com is going to face difficult quarterly sales comparisons, commonly known in Wall Street circles as 'difficult comps,' but that's a good thing: it beats the alternative. Further, look for revenue to rise 20-25% in 2010, followed by a 15-20% gain in 2011.
• NY set to replace IT consultants with state workers
  As many as 500 new state IT jobs may be created under a new in-sourcing program that was recently approved by the legislature and backed by Gov. David Paterson.
  
  This law creates "term appointments" for state IT workers, which strip away some hiring and firing rules that apply to permanent workers. The maximum tenure for "term appointments" is five years.
  
  The state estimates that it can save approximately $25,000 annually for each contracting position that is shifted to the state payroll. The annual savings is pegged at as much as $15 million, but that estimate is contingent on whether the contracted positions can be replaced.
• #HP to Brandish Its Technology Credentials
  "Awareness of what we do has not kept pace with that expansion," Mr. Mendenhall says
• #IBM Welcomes Competition with #Oracle
  "They're out there with very aggressive selling tactics; they do a lot of wrap and roll kinds of deals. The more technology they've acquired, the more financial engineering that goes into the Oracle sales proposition. And that is a technique that can at times be a formidable technique. I don't think it fools the customer. The question is do they sign up for even more Oracle technology recognizing that Oracle is trying to implement a form of price control on them? Or do they think twice about over-committing to Oracle in light of Oracle's pricing practices? Because the pattern here has been very clear: They buy a company, they take people out and then they raise prices. You talk to any customer that's been a user of the technology that Oracle has acquired and they'll tell you that's what they've seen. It's a consistent pattern of resource reduction and price increase, particularly around subscriptions and maintenance fees and things of that nature. And that has some people very concerne
• #IBM stops disclosing U.S. headcount data
  IBM has stopped providing breakouts of the number of employees it has in the U.S., and in doing so is closing a door to data that provided insights into this bellwether company's employment shift. Over the years, IBM workforce data showed accelerating overseas hiring, especially in India, and a steadily declining U.S. workforce.
• $1 Million raises on Hit for Haiti Night
  Oracle CEO Larry Ellison presented a $1 million donation check to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund, that has been established to help those affected by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck in January. Ronald Agenor, a former Top 20 player on the ATP World Tour, was there on court to represent Haiti during the presentation.
• San Diego explores possible role in America's Cup
  "If San Francisco can get it done in time, that would be great. If not, San Diego is a fantastic alternative," Ellison said that day. "They've hosted three Cups here in San Diego and they did a terrific job."
• #Microsoft plants #Bing on #Google-free Chinese #Android
  Google has confirmed with The Reg that it has barred the use of its mobile applications on Android phones from Chinese carriers, leaving the likes of Motorola to use alternatives.
• #Microsoft's #Bing is gaining on #Google
  We say inching with a lot of caution really because at the rate at which it is growing, Bing may take up to a few decades to overpower Google and win the Web search war.
  
  Yet, there is hope for Microsoft. Bing is now officially in control of 11.5 per cent of the search engine market. Google is not unduly worried because Bing is gaining at the expense of Yahoo! Search. At the same time, Google increased its market share by one-tenth of a per cent to 65.5 per cent.
• #Google ‘99.9 Percent’ Sure to Shut Down in China
  An exit from the world’s biggest Internet market would cost Google, whose sales growth slowed during the U.S. recession, $600 million in revenue, according to estimates by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
  
  China is “a market that no company can ignore, Google included,” JP Gan, managing director at Shanghai-based Qiming Venture Partners, which oversees more than $500 million, said before the FT report. “You have to play by the local rules if you want to operate here.’
• #Google Apps Marketplace Challenges #Salesforce.com, Analysts Say
  while Google and Salesforce.com integrate on Google Apps, Salesforce.com did not join the Marketplace. After all, it has its own AppExchange store to tend to. Despite cordial statements from both companies, analysts see the Google Apps Marketplace as a definite challenge to AppExchange.
• #Microsoft Tries to Lure #NetSuite Users With New Deal
  Microsoft's announcement has a ring of familiarity, as NetSuite itself has made a string of similar marketing efforts in the past against other vendors.
• #Oracle’s Ellison, #Google’s Brin and Page get richer on billionaires list
  His “fortune continues to soar,” the magazine said. At the No. 4 spot in 2009, he was guessed to be worth $22.5 billion.
• #IBM Reloads Enterprise Branding
  IBM will adopt "Smarter Systems for a Smarter Planet" as its data center marketing moniker, putting distance between today's "dynamic infrastructure" and the me-too catch phrases used by competitors.
• Spithill explains BMW Oracle Racing's winning America's Cup moves
  How much was Larry pushing the technology side? Was he listening to your geeks come up with ideas and critiquing those, or was he pushing them hard pushing them the other way?
  
  Spithill: I’ve got to know Larry over this campaign both with racing him and then sailing with him. The thing is that the guy is a real competitor, and he’s very switched on. He’s no stranger to technology. Russell really kept Larry up to speed of what was going on; obviously Larry’s got a lot of commitments with running his companies but he’s stayed in touch. Russ was always keeping him up to speed with the decisions. It was Larry’s call whether he did the wing or not, and he spoke to a few of us about it; we all thought it was a good idea. Mike Drummond was the guy that really pushed for it; he was the guy that ultimately made us all say 'look, I think this is a serious option'. Then Larry made the call. I guess a guy like that, he’s just making key decisions like that in a lot of other stuff he does – in all
• 'Evil is the cure for incompetence'
  I almost laugh when people tell me that human or cultural factors play no role in IT failures.
• Apps Development, Maintenance Staff Shrinks
  application programmers and system analysts declined from 25% of the IT staff on average in 2007 to 20% in 2009, based on our annual survey of more than 200 IT organizations each year.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-03-12

• #Oracle Promoting #Microsoft #Bing? Microsoft Paying Oracle and Subsidizing #Java? Cats and Dogs Living Together???
  Is Larry Ellison aware that Oracle (which now owns Sun and its Java products) is promoting Microsoft Bing? By the way, a colleague told me that he received a similar promotion for a Yahoo! toolbar rather than the Bing toolbar, so perhaps Oracle is not solely promoting Microsoft, and perhaps this deal was done before the acquisition. Still, it's odd that Oracle would promote a Microsoft product.
  
  It's even odder that Microsoft is so anxious to promote Bing that it will even do so while subsidizing Java and paying Oracle, two that must be high on Microsoft's "Most Wanted" hit list - does Steve Ballmer know that Microsoft is paying money to Oracle, and (horror of horrors!) subsidizing Java???
  
  Cats and dogs living together indeed ...
• "#Oracle in the #Cloud" #AWS Webinar (#Amazon)
  Slides from the December 2008 AWS Webinar about best practices for using Oracle software in the EC2 cloud
• Where #Android Beats the #IPhone
  The good news is that the platform is not only competitive but is often a better choice than the iPhone for many programmers and the enterprises that employ them.
• The Facebook Imperative Cannot Be Stopped (#SAP #Salesforce.com)
  Charles Zedlewski emerged from a long blogging hiatus to argue that Facebook is designed for entertainment—not productivity. Well, that’s not surprising given that he works for SAP, one of the companies I have previously referred to as “innovationless”—in my view they remain the Anti-Cloud. Their actions speak for themselves. Still, I’m astounded that more enterprises haven’t figured out how to tap into the real collaborative power of Facebook and Twitter, and the new social models that they have pioneered.
• Herbert Heitmann, Chief Communications Officer, to Leave #SAP
  "Herbert created a global organization that integrates and aligns SAP stakeholders both internally and externally, builds thought leadership, and is dedicated to maintaining and preserving SAP's global reputation
• #SaaS #ERP Has Buzz, But Who Are the Real Players?
  Activant: ERP for distribution available as both SaaS and on-premise.
  
  Epicor 9: Broad solution across many verticals, available as both SaaS and on-premise.
  
  Everest Software Available as both SaaS and on-premise.
  
  Glovia On Demand: Glovia's solutions are also available as both SaaS and on-premise.
  
  Infor Syteline: Available as both SaaS and on-premise.
  
  NetSuite: Available only in SaaS environment; targets non-manufacturing and light manufacturing companies.
  
  Plex Systems: Available only in a SaaS environment; extends beyond traditional ERP, targeting manufacturers.
  
  QAD: Available as SaaS, on-premise, and preconfigured on a hardware appliance and managed remotely.
  
  SAP: Business ByDesign is available exclusively as SaaS but not yet generally available.
• #Oracle Promoting #Microsoft #Bing? Microsoft Paying Oracle and Subsidizing #Java? Cats and Dogs Living Together???
  does Steve Ballmer know that Microsoft is paying money to Oracle, and (horror of horrors!) subsidizing Java???
• HP workers begin two-day strike - People Management
  The strike action affects work at the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defence, and car manufacturer Vauxhall. Industrial action was also taking place at HP locations in Washington, near Newcastle, and Preston and Blackpool, the PCS said.
  
  The dispute centres on pay freezes, as well as on the 3,400 EDS staff who have been made redundant since HP took over the company in 2008, and the 1,000 job losses planned for the first half of the year.
• Sizing up the big computing players
  Acquiring EDS, however, has enabled HP to nicely round out its offerings, giving it one of the broadest portfolios in the business, a fact the company hopes to leverage to strategic advantage. Services accounted for 30% of HP's revenue last year and that segment has reportedly become the company's most profitable.
• 20 IT Skills on the Rise
  Even though many IT professionals have seen flat to declining pay rates, there are some bright spots in the IT job arena. According to Foote Partners, publishers of the esteemed quarterly IT Skills and Certification Pay Index, there has been a definite demand for SAP and enterprise applications skills over the last six months. Here are the top 20 distinct skills by market value growth over the last six months, according to the most recent index.
• 30 Reasons Why Software Rules at #IBM
  Once the neglected stepchild of IBM's colossal services business and systems unit, IBM Software is now a huge profit driver for Big Blue. Indeed, IBM's Software Group now competes with IBM Global Services as the top money maker for the company. Over the past decade, IBM has transformed its business model as the company shifted to higher value areas of software, improved efficiencies of its business and invested in long-term opportunities. This slide show identifies 30 reasons why software is big business at IBM.
• IT centralization is back in fashion
  For decades, the pendulum has swung between centralized IT organizations and decentralized operations featuring small IT groups in each business unit. But with the urgent need to cut costs today, there's a good argument to be made for the former arrangement. With technology assets in one place, it's easier to take advantage of developments such as virtualization, storage de-duplication, cloud computing and outsourcing, all of which promise to lower costs.
• Economist Gets It Wrong: Dual-CEOs Can Actually Work Well (Just Ask #Oracle) #SAP
  Last week one of the last of the authoritative business magazines put its foot in its mouth with a lightweight and poorly considered column about the value of co-CEOs, with a specific reference to SAP’s recent appointment of Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe to replace departed CEO Leo Apotheker. Where to start with this rare example of a major journalistic miss?
• The IT failures blame game (part 2)
  As the Devil’s Triangle principle makes clear, one-sided generalizations apportioning blame are rarely accurate.
• #Hadoop Karma: How much data is generated on internet every year?
  According to Neilson Online currently there are more than 1,733,993,741 internet users. How much data these users are generating ?
  Few numbers to understand how much data is generated every year.
• Good times return for India's IT workers
  India's outsourcing sector which is set to increase recruitment by nearly 70 percent in the next financial year, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).
  
  India's big three outsourcing companies -- Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro -- all have plans to boost hiring sharply in the coming financial year.
  
  "The feel-good factor is back in the industry," said Prithvi Lekkad, head of the Union of IT and IT-enabled services (Unites) Professionals, a trade union which represents some outsourcing workers.
• 12 types of tech zealots: How to spot them in the wild
  #Microsoft (MSFT) Believer
  
  Microsoft believers have been worshipping the leader of the other side of the Apple-Microsoft holy war (Bill Gates) for decades. Leaving Windows would be as unthinkable as leaving Las Vegas on a winning streak. Microsoft believers have their own interpretation of the history of software: how it's been developed, marketed and sold during the past 30 or so years. That interpretation does not favor men who wear black mock turtlenecks. Penguins also are not so adorable.
• 12 types of tech zealots: How to spot them in the wild
  #Google (GOOG) Groupie
  
  These can be tricky to spot: Stealthy Google adherents stay under the cover of "Don't Be Evil" and are reluctant to flaunt their successes as much as those of the competition. But lurking behind the typical "Aw shucks" demeanor and glasses (see: CEO Eric Schmidt) is a smart and always-connected individual who prefers to do everything via the Web. Conversational giveaway: Loves creating new verbs from nouns.
• 12 types of tech zealots: How to spot them in the wild
  #Oracle High Flyer
  
  His smug arrogance is matched only by his deference to Leader Lawrence J. Ellison. He will top you at anything -- aerial acrobatics, facial hair, coding, golf, net worth calculations. Other telltale signs: Proclivities toward Asian art, high-seas yachting and hostile acquisitions.
• 12 types of tech zealots: How to spot them in the wild
  #Salesforce.com Disciple
  
  Don't ever -- EVER -- talk about on-premises, traditional software in the presence of a Salesforce.com Disciple. Heresy!! (Stay clear of Oracle-related (ORCL) topics, too.) A true follower will usually have a copy of Benioff's book on his bedside table. Also a dead giveaway: This is one of the few techies who is not referring to a Jedi or Skywalker when he speaks of the Force.
• 12 types of tech zealots: How to spot them in the wild
  #IBM (IBM) Follower
  
  One of the oldest species in the high-tech ecosystem (species classification: Biggus Mainframi) who has continually adapted and changed his appearance with each succeeding decade and tech trend. He now wears a French blue dress shirt but sported plenty of ugly ties back in the day. One sign that will help you spot an IBM Follower: an understated combination of confidence and entitlement.
• 12 types of tech zealots: How to spot them in the wild
  #SAP Advocate
  
  Dignified. Restrained. Multilingual. This overall "quiet confidence," on display here by three former SAP execs, best typifies the SAP Advocate. On occasion, he can be mistaken for an IBM Follower. You can spot the difference pretty easily: Ask him to pronounce "NetWeaver" or about popular restaurants in Walldorf. He'll "get it."
• Federal CIO describes problems, changes in IT
  Another example of an outdated and inefficient agency is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which takes three years to process a patent, he said. "One reason is because the U.S. PTO receives these applications online, prints them out, and then someone manually rekeys the information into an antiquated system," he said.
• Virtualization Boosts Cheap Chips
  Sales of servers built around processors that use the more esoteric RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) designs peddled by companies such as Oracle, or Intel's Itanium design, continued to fall. Shipments fell 30.5%. Revenues fell 20%.
• New York Isn’t Silicon Valley, and That’s Why They Like It
  “Silicon Valley is always leading the cluster, but it goes through booms and busts like everywhere else.” Nevertheless, she adds, “this is a moment where New York really has the chance to shine.”
• #Google Buys DocVerse in Another Move Aimed at #Microsoft Office
  The stakes are certainly high, since Office is Microsoft's largest business -- accounting for $12 billion in profits. But based on the continued efforts of Google, it looks like this business will undergo a gradual disruption.
• A special report on managing information: Data, data everywhere
  The data-centred economy is just nascent,” admits Mr Mundie of Microsoft. “You can see the outlines of it, but the technical, infrastructural and even business-model implications are not well understood right now.” This special report will point to where it is beginning to surface.

Oracle Promoting Microsoft Bing? Microsoft Paying Oracle and Subsidizing Java? Cats and Dogs Living Together???

Today, I got an alert from Java that an update was available, so I clicked "OK" to install. Imagine my surprise when I got the following prompt during the installation procedure:


Is Larry Ellison aware that Oracle (which now owns Sun and its Java products) is promoting Microsoft Bing? By the way, a colleague told me that he received a similar promotion for a Yahoo! toolbar rather than the Bing toolbar, so perhaps Oracle is not solely promoting Microsoft, and perhaps this deal was done before the acquisition. Still, it's odd that Oracle would promote a Microsoft product.

It's even odder that Microsoft is so anxious to promote Bing that it will even do so while subsidizing Java and paying Oracle, two that must be high on Microsoft's "Most Wanted" hit list - does Steve Ballmer know that Microsoft is paying money to Oracle, and (horror of horrors!) subsidizing Java???

Cats and dogs living together indeed ...

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-03-05

• #Oracle Real Application Testing
  Oracle Real Application Testing provides a cost-effective and easy-to-use solution for assessing the impact of changes on production Oracle Databases. Join us for a live Webcast to see Oracle Real Application Testing in action.
  
  You'll discover how you can:
  
  * Reduce your testing efforts by up to 80 percent
  * Capture and replay your actual database workload and workflows
  * Upgrade to Oracle Database 11g risk-free
• Salesforce.com Disciple
  Don't ever-EVER-talk about on-premise, traditional software in the presence of a Salesforce.com Disciple. Heresy!! (Stay clear of Oracle-related (ORCL) topics, too.) A true follower will usually have a copy of Benioff's book on his bedside table.
• The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM - The New Rules of Relationship Management
  Behind The Scenes In Social CRM - A Holistic Approach to 18 Use Cases That Show Business How To Finally Put Customers First
  
  Social CRM reflects the new world of disruptive technologies and the related business models, processes, and organizational requirements we live in. Hence the multi-disciplinary approach to this research. We’ve paired Jeremiah’s expertise in social technologies and customer strategies with my background in CRM, enterprise applications, master data management, and order management. Our goal - take a holistic approach across multiple business departments, roles, and processes.
• A game-changing play in enterprise software
  Finally, someone is showing some innovation in how enterprise software is sold and contracted. No, it's not the two big guys of traditional on-premise software, SAP or Oracle. And it's not the market leader in cloud-based systems, Salesforce.com. Rather it's a smaller player, farther down the list: RightNow.com, a SaaS provider of customer service applications.
• 2010 OpenWorld Call for Papers
  Submit your papers for #Oracle OpenWorld and the Develop Stream for JavaOne+Develop, March 2-21, 2010.
• The trouble with tandems
  At #SAP Mr McDermott is supposed to gladhand customers while Mr Hagemann Snabe coddles engineers.
  
  Yet even in the tech industry shared leadership works best when there is a power-broker behind the scenes. At SAP Hasso Plattner, one of the company’s founders and head of its supervisory board, wields considerable clout; Wipro’s chairman, Azim Premji, is an influential figure there. Jonathan Miller, News Corp’s head of digital media, is widely believed to be calling the shots at MySpace. While joint bosses keep a wary eye on one another, someone else may be steering the tandem.
• Marin County may pull plug on computer fiasco #SAP
  "Before we invest anything more, we want to look out in the market, and look at what we have," he said. "Can we save money?" is the question officials must answer, he added.
• Obama's CIO ready to bring government tech up to speed
  Kundra's visit to San Fransisco was part of a 48-hour whirlwind tech tour – the Bay Area and Silicon Valley on Wednesday, and the Seattle area on Thursday. In California, he met with Google, Apple and smaller companies, he said. While in Seattle, Kundra visited with local business leaders – including Microsoft CIO Tony Scott and Weyerhauser executives – to talk about technology strategy.
• Making H-P too big to fail through M&A
  The first is the always-contentious Sybase Inc. With a market capitalization of about $3.6 billion, the stock has run up a bit, but still would be a nice fit with H-P.
  
  Another company to look at is Teradata Corp. Unfortunately its market cap is more than $5 billion, and it's not a pure database play by any means. It's a poor fit unless H-P wants to absorb a huge infrastructure and jump into whole new areas of business.
• #SAP to open up platform for developers
  “With release 2.5 [of cloud offering], we will be announcing interfaces [APIs] so that our partners will be able to develop solutions tailored to micro-verticals that will be hosted and run within the SAP environment. Overnight, a developer can create a solution that has been [automatically] localised for over 70 countries,”
• #RightNow #Cloud Challenge Video
  [RightNow commercial poking fun at #Oracle, #SAP, and #Salesforce.com]
• A Small Company, Promising Major Savings on Vital Software, Lures Colleges
  "If I was going to be a continuing customer with #Rimini Street," he says, "I'd be a little worried."
• 5 Reasons Businesses Still Hate Enterprise Software
  The staggering intensity of dissatisfaction, coupled with the idea that enterprise software is a not just an IT concern but a real business problem, doesn't just beg the question—it screams the question: What, then, is enterprise software actually doing well right now?
• RightNow Tries to Change SaaS Contract, Pricing Game
  Under RightNow's Cloud Services Agreement (CSA), which is now standard for all new business conducted by the vendor, customers receive fixed pricing for three years. They also have the ability to renew for another three years at a cost determined at the time the initial contract is signed.
  
  Users who sign multiyear agreements can cancel on an annual basis for any reason, said CEO Greg Gianforte .
• Getting Real about #NoSQL and the SQL-Isn't-Scalable Lie
  SQL is Scalable and NoSQL Isn’t For Everyone
  
  The point is one that I think all rational people already realize: The ACID RDBMS isn’t appropriate for every need, nor is the NoSQL solution.
• #RightNow’s kinder, gentler contract
  Cash service credit for not meeting service levels. This is a biggie since a lot of vendors don’t offer SLAs.
• #SAP to extend title sponsorship of #SAPOpen
  Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment (SVS&E) announced today that the SAP Open, Northern California's premier men’s professional tennis tournament, has reached agreement with title sponsor SAP to extend its partnership for three additional years making SAP the tournament’s title sponsor through the 2013 tournament. In keeping with tournament policy, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
• Hasso Plattner
  is a major owner of the San Jose Sharks hockey team and Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment Group.
• #Microsoft to spend $9.5 billion on research in 2010
  The figure is $3 billion more than the next closest technology company, said Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, who gave a keynote speech on Thursday at the Cebit trade show. Much of Microsoft's investments center around "cloud" services, or online computing provided to users from hosted data centers.
• Steve Ballmer’s Memo To #Microsoft Staff: “We Must Move At Cloud Speed”
  As a part of this, I request that you do the following:
  
  • Watch the speech on demand here
  • Learn more about our cloud offerings and how they relate to our overarching software plus services strategy here
  • Review your commitments to ensure you are landing our vision with customers and partners.
• The Case for RAMClouds: Scalable High-Performance Storage Entirely in DRAM
  Disk-oriented approaches to online storage are becoming increasingly problematic: they do not scale grace-fully to meet the needs of large-scale Web applications, and improvements in disk capacity have far out-stripped improvements in access latency and bandwidth. This paper argues for a new approach to datacenter storage called RAMCloud, where information is kept entirely in DRAM and large-scale systems are created by aggregating the main memories of thousands of commodity servers. We believe that RAMClouds can provide durable and available storage with 100-1000x the throughput of disk-based systems and 100-1000x lower access latency. The combination of low latency and large scale will enable a new breed of data-intensive applications.
• YouTube - What is #Hadoop? Other big data terms like #MapReduce? Cloudera's CEO talks us through big data trends
  Cloudera is a company that helps developers with big database problems. Here the CEO Mike Olson gives us a tour through the major database changes that are hitting lots of startups now.
• #Cloudera #Hadoop Training: #MapReduce Algorithms
  This video is part of a larger series of free online training from Cloudera. Check out our website for more videos, a virtual machine pre-loaded with exercises and more.
• Oracle hikes certification testing fees
  A full accounting of the fee changes was not immediately available, but one forum poster claimed the cost of a MySQL Certified Associate exam had more than doubled under the new pricing.
• Drupal Founder Critical of #SaaS and its Proprietary Nature
  Drupal's founder is calling for open source in the enterprise and in the cloud. This should be no surprise, coming from someone like Dries Buytaert. But it is still interesting, considering the source and the point he makes about the actual lack of open source in cloud computing.
• Who Analyzes the Analysts
  Today’s analysts are essentially required to have a grasp of social media. “Someone effective with social media could be truly independent, and they could build…a sort of lead-gen machine around social media, the press, and public speaking,” Lusher says. As an example, social media has certainly helped establish Altimeter’s market reputation. Li, Owyang, and Wang all placed among the top 15 of twitterers in the TweetLevel rating system developed by public relations giant Edelman. In fact, 12 out of Edelman’s top 15 are analysts, not firms. Owyang’s blog often receives more traffic than the Web site of an entire analyst firm.
• It’s Official: #SAP Community = 2,000,000 STRONG!
  A scant two years after reaching our 1 million member milestone, SAP Community Network (SCN) has doubled in membership to be 2 million members strong!
• #SAP TV Videos - CNBC Squawk Box US
  SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, tell CNBC how SAP is getting back on track.
• #Microsoft CFO Says Product Blitz Heating Up
  Microsoft's prospects for the next couple of years are starting to look a bit like the good old days.
  
  That was the prognosis Microsoft's new CFO, Peter Klein, presented to financial analysts on Tuesday at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.
• Open Letter to #SAP Customers
  What will we change?
  
  What we will change is to accelerate the pace of the innovation we deliver to you. We will do that by energizing our entire company to become even more open to and informed by the needs of your company. This is not a new task, as innovation has long but quietly flourished in many groups within SAP. Our goal now is to bring these groups together and unleash the creativity at SAP by fostering a new motivated employee culture, increasing customer involvement, and by increasing the clock speed of development efforts.
• #SAP Readies Upgrade For Small Business App
  SAP...unveiled Business One 8.8 at the CeBIT trade fair in Hannover, Germany. The product, which is largely sold through SAP's channel partners, will be generally available by the end of April.
• Can #Oracle virtualization be a player?
  Oracle VM 3, expected this spring, will give Oracle credible Xen-based server virtualization that could challenge VMware, Microsoft and Citrix Systems Inc.-- at least in the tens of thousands of Oracle database and application shops.
  
  "Oracle VM 3 really does have some promise," said Chris Wolf, virtualization analyst with the Burton Group. "VMware is still dominant -- even in the data center where Oracle lives -- but in organizations where a separate group manages the Oracle infrastructure, there's an opportunity."
• Stock Options Still Popular in Silicon Valley
  Silicon Valley firms such as Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. continued to give out big options packages to executives during the recession last year, according to an analysis from executive-compensation research firm Equilar Inc. Some companies handed out option grants that were similar in scope to what they gave in 2008, while others raised such grants substantially from 2008, when they didn't hand out any stock options to executives.
• Chum In The Water Around #Novell
  Whitt said #IBM or even #Oracle could counterbid Elliot's offer and that BMC Software might also be interested in some parts of Novell but not all of it. Like Williams, Whitt said IBM is broad enough to take on Novell but believes hardware vendors like Hewlett-Packard would not likely bid for the target, preferring not to upset its partnership with Microsoft and Red Hat in the migration from Sun to HP-based solutions. Whitt added VMware to the list of potential suitors since it would have an interest in Linux but not Novell's other businesses. "The challenge with Novell is its legacy business, NetWare, is eroding pretty fast," and is unlikely to garner much desire.
• Netezza Corporation F4Q10 (Qtr End 01/31/10) Earnings Call Transcript
  A number of our customers and prospects have now evaluated the new Oracle Exadata system and we hear a common theme emerging, mostly the platform used as a consolidation server for other infrastructure running OLTP-based applications not as a complex analytical processing platform.
  
  Of course, we do see Oracle competing in the data warehouse but we remain well-positioned against them in our space. We’re happy to have Oracle in the market as they continue to invest heavily in marketing activities, raising the general awareness of the space and likely contributing to the pipeline growth we are experiencing.
  
  As Oracle works out the positioning of their product offerings, we believe their entrance to the market only bolsters our position as we find the choice is good for customers, allowing them to avoid vendor lock-in and to acquire best-in-class capabilities. We remain very well-positioned to serve that need.
• #Netezza 4Q Net Plunges 88% Amid 2008 Tax Benefit; Views Beat
  Netezza Corp.'s (NZ) fiscal fourth-quarter earnings fell 88% on a prior-year tax benefit, though the database specialist saw stronger sales and margins in the latest period and results beat analysts' estimates.
  
  The company also resumed providing financial guidance, saying its visibility has improved in recent quarters. Netezza expects 20% revenue growth for the new year, while analysts' polled by Thomson Reuters recently forecast a 19% increase to $226 million.
• Machines Plus Minds: #MySQL+#Memcached is still the workhorse
  The relational table model is not dead, at all. It will never die, nor should we try to kill it. We no longer have to be as religious about normal form, and we don't HAVE to fit everything everywhere into this form, but there is no reason to avoid it just because it's not "sexy and exotic".
• #IBM Welcomes Competition with #Oracle
  "They're out there with very aggressive selling tactics; they do a lot of wrap and roll kinds of deals. The more technology they've acquired, the more financial engineering that goes into the Oracle sales proposition. And that is a technique that can at times be a formidable technique. I don't think it fools the customer. The question is do they sign up for even more Oracle technology recognizing that Oracle is trying to implement a form of price control on them? Or do they think twice about over-committing to Oracle in light of Oracle's pricing practices? Because the pattern here has been very clear: They buy a company, they take people out and then they raise prices. You talk to any customer that's been a user of the technology that Oracle has acquired and they'll tell you that's what they've seen. It's a consistent pattern of resource reduction and price increase, particularly around subscriptions and maintenance fees and things of that nature. And that has some people very concerne
• #SAP co-CEOs to prioritize product development, delivery
  "The great projects today aren't just on-time, and they aren't just on-budget. They're on value," McDermott said. "It's much more than just software and stacks."
• #Amazon Web Services CTO out to Prove Enterprise Chops
  Vogels also took the opportunity to push Amazon's VPC (virtual private cloud), which integrates a company's existing IT infrastructure and the cloud, which makes it particularly attractive to enterprise customers, according to Vogels. Companies can build a walled garden in the cloud using VPC and connect it to the data center using an encrypted VPN (virtual private network), he said.
  
  VPC was announced almost six months ago and is still only available in beta, according to Amazon Web Services' site. Vogels didn't provide any details on when VPC would exit the testing stage.
• Hedge Fund Offers to Buy #Novell
  Hedge fund Elliott Associates LP, which holds a 8.5% stake in Novell Inc., offered to buy the rest of the software company for about $1.8 billion.
  
  Novell shares, which were off 1% in 4 p.m. trading, surged 30% in late trading to $6.15, above the $5.75 offer price Elliott disclosed in a letter to Novell's board.
• #Cassandra and the #NoSQL scalable OLTP argument
  the designers of the world’s most scalable websites — e-commerce sites perhaps excepted — seem pretty unanimous in thinking it’s best to bake some database/integrity management into the applications, rather than offload it all to an RDBMS. Why? Because the transactions are so simple that hand-coding all that isn’t prohibitive. And of course because of their extreme performance and scalability needs.
  
  I’m not sure on what basis one could argue that they’re wrong.
• #MySQL and #Memcached: End of an Era?
  With a little perspective, it's clear the MySQL+memcached era is passing. It will stick around for a while. Old technologies seldom fade away completely. Some still ride horses. Some still use CDs. And the Internet will not completely replace that archaic electro-magnetic broadcast technology called TV, but the majority will move on into a new era.
• The Business Cloud: How Cloud Computing and Business Management Suites are Forever Changing the Way Companies Run Their Business
  Upcoming 2010 Locations
  
  * San Diego, March 9
  * Los Angeles, March 10
  * Orange County, March 11
  * London, March 16
• #NetSuite and the America's Cup: A Firsthand Report
  For the third straight America's Cup competition season and the eighth year running, BMW Oracle Racing (BOR) used NetSuite's powerful solution for accounting, expense and payables management, international tax compliance, reporting, employee records, and multi-currency management. NetSuite employee Matt Leary gives us this firsthand account from the 33rd America's Cup, which ended on March 14 with BOR's victory.
• #SAP Gains 3M as New Customer
  SAP(R) Business Suite Applications to Replace Legacy Business Software at 3M Operations Around the World; SAP Enables Global Business Process Transformation at Innovation-Driven Company
• #Microsoft Slams #Oracle For Limiting Choice But Seeks x86 Hegemony
  But what was surprising was the ham-fisted approach taken by Muglia in his attempt to convince the audience of investors at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference that Oracle's strategy of offering vertically integrated systems will stunt customer choice while Microsoft itself wants nothing more than unlimited options for customers—that is, as long as all those options are x86.
• #NetSuite Recruiting Resellers With 100-Percent Margin Offer
  Under the new NetSuite SP 100 program unveiled Tuesday, some partners can earn 100 percent margins on the first year of new contracts -- that is, keep all revenue from that year -- and 10 percent on annual renewals.
• #Infor's Flex Upgrade Program Termed an Early Success
  Flex allows customers to upgrade to the latest version of Infor's ERP software with either no new fees or small license fees, no changes to annual maintenance costs, rapid implementation services and incentive pricing on features they want to add. Infor users can also switch to another application in Infor's portfolio and get the same perks as a Flex upgrade.
• #SAP's New Co-CEOs Pledge to Listen and Innovate
  "This methodology is not new, but so far it was only used by small companies, and we are scaling it to 12,000 engineers," Snabe added.
  [Agile is used only by small companies?-DBM]
• #Agile Software Development in Large Organizations
  December 2004 (vol. 37 no. 12)
  pp. 26-34
  
  ASCII Text
  x
  
  Mikael Lindvall, Dirk Muthig, Aldo Dagnino, Christina Wallin, Michael Stupperich, David Kiefer, John May, Tuomo K?hk?nen, "Agile Software Development in Large Organizations," Computer, vol. 37, no. 12, pp. 26-34, December, 2004.
  
  
  
  BibTex
  x
  
  @article{10.1109/MC.2004.231,
  author = {Mikael Lindvall and Dirk Muthig and Aldo Dagnino and Christina Wallin and Michael Stupperich and David Kiefer and John May and Tuomo K?hk?nen},
  title = {Agile Software Development in Large Organizations},
  journal ={Computer},
  volume = {37},
  number = {12},
  issn = {0018-9162},
  year = {2004},
  pages = {26-34},
  doi = {http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MC.2004.231},
  publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
  address = {Los Alamitos, CA, USA},
  }
  
  
  
  RefWorks Procite/RefMan/Endnote
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• #Oracle-#Sun Ends HDS Storage Agreement
  The dissolution of the storage agreement between Oracle and HDS, the latest fallout from Oracle's acquisition in January of Sun, is also seen as the latest sign that vendor consolidation into a small number of companies looking to control their hardware and software stacks is continuing.
• The twin evils of IT gridlock and denial
  Without sufficient consensus on key project issues, two bad problems often arise: * Gridlock: Project progress stops, due to lack of consensus or agreement on the best steps forward. In gridlock situations, the team cannot reach agreement, so project decisions slow down while everyone fights it out. * Denial: Project progress continues, despite lack of consensus. In denial situations, the team does not address disagreements, agreeing to wait until sometime in the future to resolve open issues. Problems then simmer below the surface only to “unexpectedly” erupt later, usually in more severe form.
• #Oracle Likes Cloud Computing After All
  Oracle described a strategy that is pragmatic for Oracle, but not well-articulated and missing key pieces.
• Five kinds of public relations
  There actually are a couple of vendors who drown me in press releases without pissing me off. Why? Because those press releases have instantly comprehensible headlines and topic paragraphs. (Typically they’re user success stories without breathless fluff.) I know what I’m ignoring, without having any work to do to ignore it.
• #IBM speeds up data analysis with new algorithm
  The mathematical algorithm, developed by IBM's laboratories in Zurich, can sort, correlate and analyze millions of random data sets, a task that could otherwise take days for supercomputers to process, said Costas Bekas, an IBM researcher. The algorithm is just under a thousand lines of code and will be instrumental in establishing usage patterns or trends based on data gathered from sources such as sensors or smart meters, he said. The algorithm could be used to analyze a growing mass of data measuring electricity usage trends as well as air or water pollution levels. The algorithm could also break down data from global financial markets and assess individual and collective exposure to risk, Bekas said.
• #Wipro Says Employee Charged With Fraud Committed Suicide
  A finance employee of Indian outsourcer Wipro committed suicide shortly after the company caught him in December for embezzling US$4 million from the company, a spokeswoman for the company said on Tuesday.
• #Microsoft Elaborates on Long-Term Cloud Computing Play [#Azure]
  "In the short run, over the next three years, the financial [aspects of Azure] are not material," he said.
• #Microsoft unveils a locked-down, hosted app bundle for U.S. government customers
  BPOS Federal is a security-enhanced version of the current BPOS product. BPOS is a Microsoft-hosted collection of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Communications Online and Live Meeting. The Federal version is hosted on “separate, dedicated infrastructure in secured facilities,” not in the existing datacenters where Microsoft currently hosts BPOS. (BPOS is a cloud offering, but isn’t currently hosted on Windows Azure. Microsoft officials have said the goal is to move BPOS to Azure, but haven’t offered a timetable for that.)
• #Microsoft ramps up #Azure with additional datacentres
  "We have 2000 computers on Azure now, and we are aiming to grow this to 10,000."
• Mister Softee's Revenge
  It helps that the technology is good. With Windows 7, Microsoft rethought its development process to produce a streamlined, elegant operating system; similar thinking seems to have gone into Windows Phone 7, which bears no resemblance to the much-maligned predecessor, Windows Mobile 6.5.
• #Microsoft Launches Windows MultiPoint Server 2010
  Microsoft unveils Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, aimed at the education segment. The product allows multiple users at multiple thin-client terminals to operate independently in a Windows environment while linked to a single host system. In theory, this would save schools or even small workgroups the expense of purchasing multiple workstations. Another of Microsoft's server offerings, SQL Server 2008 Release 2, is due in May.
• Seattle mayor wants town hall with #Microsoft CEO
  The replacement will cost more than $4 billion.
• Competition Authorities and Search - #Microsoft On The Issues
  #Google’s public response to this growing regulatory concern has been to point elsewhere—at Microsoft. Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors. It’s worth asking whether Google’s response really addresses the concerns that have been raised. Complaints in competition law cases usually come from competitors. (Believe me, I know: I’ve been chief competition counsel at Microsoft since 1994, so I’ve seen plenty of competitor complaints. Novell, when current Google CEO Eric Schmidt was at the helm, was never hesitant about complaining to regulators about Microsoft. Google hasn’t been shy about raising antitrust concerns about Microsoft in the last few years, either.) This is the way that competition law agencies function: They look to competitors in the first instance to understand how particular markets operate, the practices of dominant firms and the competitive sig
• #Microsoft: #Oracle will take us back to 1970s hell
  "There are some things that Oracle is doing that I just shake my head at," Muglia told financial analysts attending the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco, California. "I don't understand what's going to happen - what they think they're going to do with Sparc. I don't see how Sparc can live long-term."
• #Oracle Introduces Oracle SOA Governance 11g
  New Release Delivers Industry’s Most Complete, Unified Approach for Governing Service Oriented Architecture and Applications Integration Projects
• ERP Support: How Far Will #Oracle Go to Protect Golden Egg?
  What does Oracle think about those companies that offer third-party maintenance and support services for Oracle's software--for up to half off Oracle's price? Look no further than the names of these two lawsuits:
• #Oracle Fusion Middleware Scores Highest Ever Performance With SPECjAppServer2004 Benchmark Using a Clustered Database
  Today, Oracle announced that Oracle® WebLogic Server, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, together with Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Real Application Clusters and Oracle Enterprise Linux, running on an HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server, delivered 11,067.68 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard (jAppServer Operations Per Second), the highest performance ever achieved running a clustered database(1).
• #Oracle wields hefty muscle in Colorado's tech sector
  Oracle Corp.'s $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems — the latest in a long line of takeovers for the software giant — puts the eccentric Larry Ellison in control of the largest tech employer in Colorado.
• Who’s to blame for “Excel hell?”
  Most of the time though, they seethe with quiet loathing.