Meg Whitman and Kim Polesi: Separated at Birth

Meg Whitman and Kim Polesi: separated at birth? You be the judge ...

What can we learn from software development job posts? (SQL, Java, and XML will get you a job!)

About a year ago, I posted some analysis of what we can learn from job posts. Since then, the job outlook for at least the American economy has substantially declined, but there are still opportunities available if you have - or can develop - the skills in demand. A year ago, according to job posts on Dice.com, the hot job skills were Java, SAP, and Oracle. How about today?

Well, with a slight change to methodology, things look pretty much the same, but the changes are interesting. Last year, I only looked at terms that appeared in job post titles; this time around, I searched on terms that occurred anywhere in the job post. I can't say I used a totally comprehensive set of terms, or that the queries don't produce some false positives and negatives, but without further disclaimers, here are my findings.

The top 20 IT skills in demand on Dice.com:

1. SQL
2. Oracle
3. Java
4. Windows
5. Unix
6. Linux
7. XML
8. SQL Server
9. HTML
10. C#
11. Dynamics
12. C++
13. SAP
14. Perl
15. IBM
16. AJAX
17. PL/SQL
18. BASIS
19. PHP
20. MySQL

(For the rest of the list in the analysis, see the end of this post.)

A little surprising that Dynamics came in above SAP on this list, and perhaps there were some "false positives" putting BASIS above PHP, but probably nothing really shocking there. There was strong demand for many skills, but very little demand (relatively) for iPad (just 13 jobs!), HTML5 (34 jobs), Fortran, Azure, and eBay -- all under 100 job posts mentioning these skills.

Overall, your best bet is to learn Oracle, SQL Server, Java, and XML on your choice of platforms, and you've got job security 'til the end of time (or at least for the next few quarters).

Some additional findings:

• SQL is a great skill to have. Oracle and SQL Server are the best databases to learn in terms of job openings [NOTE: no analysis was done on salaries, so your mileage may vary if you care about earning potential. There was one job on Dice for a TPF programmer, and I bet that pays pretty well!]. DB2 and Sybase also had strong demand.
  
• Java, C#, and C++ are all continuing in strong demand. Perl, PHP, Ruby, and Python also have strong demand. There is some, but significantly less, demand for Flash, COBOL, and ABAP development skill.
  
• XML skills are greatly in demand. There is significant demand for AJAX skills as well.
• Dynamics came in very strong on the Applications front, with SAP also very strong. There is some continued demand for Peoplesoft and Siebel skills. Salesforce.com is significantly less, but there is still substantial demand for Salesforce.com skills.
• There is not a lot of demand for Mac, iPhone, or iPad developers, with none of those platforms cracking the 500 job posts mark. Blackberry was the only mobile phone platform above that mark, with some significant demand. Android is in slightly less demand than iPhone, but growing much faster.
• Amazon and Azure, two leading cloud platforms, had very little demand for candidates.
  

Overall results:

Skill Sought SQL	# of Posts Mentioning 17525
Oracle	12533
Java	12104
Windows	9877
Unix	8872
Linux	7703
XML	7600
SQL Server	7196
HTML	6198
C#	5773
Dynamics	5066
C++	4937
SAP	4713
Perl	3943
IBM	3306
AJAX	3244
PL/SQL	2656
BASIS	2306
PHP	2085
MySQL	2061
DB2	1996
VMWare	1776
Python	1629
Peoplesoft	1603
Embedded	1466
Sybase	1379
Mainframe	1342
Siebel	1153
Google	837
Ruby	786
Flash	604
Blackberry	580
COBOL	537
Salesforce.com	521
ABAP	479
iPhone	387
Mac	372
Android	316
Twitter	283
Facebook	248
Amazon	236
Assembler	191
Widget	174
Yahoo	165
Informix	153
Palm	133
PowerBuilder	111
eBay	62
Azure	53
FORTRAN	52
HTML5	34
iPad	13

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-04-02

• #ERP Advertisers: Tell Us Who You Are -- Not Who You're Not
  Don't simply tell us you're not as big as #SAP or #Oracle, or beat us over the head with "crimes committed by Big ERP."
• #Oracle Looks to Keep #Java Interesting and Attract Young Developers
  Closures, or first-class functions and lambda expressions, make it easier to write applications for multi-core programming. Also needed are changes to bolster generics support and more accommodation for other languages, Kaul said. Multi-language support is a focus of the upcoming Java Development Kit 7...
  GlassFish , Harris said, brings a set of developers, a methodology and an approach to development for Oracle to absorb into its DNA, Harris said. Oracle has positioned GlassFish as a departmental application server while the former BEA WebLogic application server is the company's primary enterprise application server...
  Oracle officials Wednesday also committed to supporting three separate IDEs: JDeveloper, which the company already has owned; Eclipse, developed by the Oracle-backed Eclipse Foundation, and newly acquired NetBeans IDE that came over in the Sun buy.
• #Lawson Announces Full-Function #ERP on #Amazon Web Services Infrastructure
  Flexible computing capacity
  • Complete off-premise management
  • Includes subscription pricing for cloud services offerings
  • New way to test software before buying
• #Lawson's #cloud services: good start, but no #SaaS
  Lawson's moving the infrastructure layer to Amazon's cloud services is a good move. In the absence of a strategy to offer true software as a service, prospects now will at least have the option of a low-cost and flexible cloud infrastructure. And for prospects that find Lawson meets their needs in terms of functionality--this may well be the best option for them.
• #Lawson: Im OK, you are not OK
  #ERP compute and storage cost is overpriced. It does not tackle Lawson’s license, annual maintenance cost, the cost of application (and database and other components) management, upgrade and other common ERP costs. And while Amazon costs can be elastic (depending on how Lawson will pass them through), the cost of amortizing the Lawson license, the annual Lawson maintenance, AM staff (or outsourcing arrangements) and upgrades have remained stubbornly fixed over the years.
• Product Update: #Workday 10
  More functionality for your current subscription dollars coming every few months. Real integration across your system of record and core talent management (as noted above, Workday does not today do external talent acquisition at the deep level of their newest partner, MrTed, nor do they today do learning management at the deep level of a true LMS). Models-driven development, with all that implies about improved agility, cost, quality and time-to-market. And a solid process for delivering all the legs and regs that regulatory activism at every level of government appears to be generating. Can Workday 10 stand up to all of my “killer” scenarios? Does it deliver on all of my preferred architectural behaviors? Of course not. They don’t call them “killer” for nothing, and there’s not yet a hint of interrogatory configuration (to mention just one preferred behavior) in Workday’s story. But there’s a lot to admire in Workday’s software, and I do.
• #SaaS contracts and cash flow
  He argued that the high startup costs of operating and growing an as-a-service business generate such a huge funding requirement that you have no choice but to sell one-, two- and three-year contracts to get cash in the business.
• Minimizing the Cost of #SaaS Operations
  Attitude Matters: Be Obsessed with Lowering Cost of Service
  
  You get what you expect and inspect. Never a truer thing said than in this case. It was a deep-seated part of the Helpstream culture and strategy that Cost of Service had to be incredibly low. So low that we could exist on an advertising model if we had to. While we never did, a lot was invested in the critical up front time when it mattered to get the job done. Does your organization have the religion about cutting service cost, or are there 5 or 6 other things that you consider more important?
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #Microsoft
  Steve Ballmer's pay consists of a $665,833 salary, $600,000 bonus and $10,794 in perks and other compensation. He did not receive any stock options in 2009 -- nor in 2008, when his pay package was valued at $1.4 million. Meanwhile, Microsoft saw its first-ever drop in annual revenue in its 2009 fiscal year, which ended June 30. Revenue came in at $58.4 billion, a decline of 3% compared to $60.4 billion in 2008. Net income fell 18% to $14.6 billion from $17.7 billion in 2008.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #NetApp
  Dan Warmenhoven's 2009 compensation declined 23% from the year before, when he received a package valued at $6.1 million. But it's not down as much as NetApp's profit, which fell 72% during the company's 2009 fiscal year, ended April 24. NetApp reported net income of $87 million on revenue of $3.4 billion in 2009. In 2008, the company reported net income of $309.7 million on revenue of $3.3 billion. Warmenhoven's 2009 pay package includes an $859,231 salary, $535,266 bonus, $3,612 in perks and other compensation, and $3.3 million in stock and option awards. Meanwhile, Tom Georgens was appointed CEO in August, four months into NetApp's 2010 fiscal year. Warmenhoven remains chairman of the board and executive chairman of NetApp.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #Adobe
  Shantanu Narayen's pay took a big hit in 2009, as did Adobe's revenue and income. Narayen received compensation in fiscal 2009 valued at $5.2 million, a drop of 68% compared to $16.4 million in 2008. His pay package includes an $875,000 salary, $4.3 million in stock and option awards (down from $14.2 million in 2008), and $7,740 in perks and other compensation. As a company, Adobe saw revenue slide 18% and its income plummet 56% during its fiscal year ended Nov. 27. Adobe recorded net income of $386.5 million on revenue of $2.9 billion in 2009. In 2008, the company reported net income of $871.8 million on revenue of $3.6 billion.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #RedHat
  In his first full year as Red Hat CEO, Jim Whitehurst saw the total value of his compensation climb 11% to $6.9 million, up from $6.2 million in 2008. His pay package includes a $700,000 salary, $595,000 bonus, $5.3 million in stock and option awards, and $310,439 in perks and other compensation. The company, meanwhile, grew its revenue and profits by 25% and 3%, respectively, in its 2009 fiscal year, ended Feb. 28. For the full year, total revenue was $652.6 million, up from $523 million in 2008. Net income hit $78.7 million, up from $76.7 million.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #EMC
  Joe Tucci's 2009 compensation took a hit amid declining profit and revenue at EMC. His $9 million package includes an $872,308 salary (down from $1 million in 2008); $1.1 bonus (down from $1.4 million a year earlier); $7 million in stock and option awards (down from $9 million in 2008); and $149,150 in perks and other compensation. Altogether, his pay is down 23% from $11.7 million in 2008. As a company, EMC saw revenue decline 6% and profit fall 15% in its fiscal year ended Dec. 31. EMC reported net income of $1.1 billion on revenue of $14 billion in 2009. In 2008, the company reported net income of $1.3 billion on revenue of $14.9 billion.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #Cisco
  John Chambers ' 2009 pay package includes a $375,000 salary, $2 million bonus, $11.8 million in stock and option awards, and $9,998 in other compensation. His total package is up 15% from 2008, when he received compensation valued at $12.3 million. The company, however, saw revenue and profit fall 9% and 24%, respectively, in its 2009 fiscal year, which ended July 25. Cisco reported revenue of $36.1 billion, down from $39.5 billion a year earlier. Net income fell to $6.1 billion from $8.1 billion in 2008.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #Intel
  Paul Otellini's 2009 pay package includes a $1 million salary, $5.3 million bonus, $7.9 million in stock and option awards, and $290,400 in perks and other compensation. His pay totaled $14.4 million, a gain of 16% compared to $12.4 million in 2008. Meanwhile revenue and profit fell 7% and 17%, respectively, during Intel's 2009 fiscal year ended Dec. 26. Intel reported net income of $4.4 billion on revenue of $35.1 billion in 2009. In 2008 the company reported net income of $5.3 billion on revenue of $37.6 billion.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #IBM
  Sam Palmisano's $21.2 million pay package includes a $1.8 million salary, $4.8 million bonus (down 14% from $5.5 million in 2008), $13.5 million in stock awards (up 11% from $12.2 million in 2008), and $1.1 million in perks and other compensation. His total compensation rose 1% compared to 2008, when his pay package was $21 million. As a company, IBM reported revenue of $95.8 billion in fiscal 2009, a decrease of 8% compared to $103.6 billion in 2008. However, Big Blue managed to grow its profit during the year ended Dec. 31. Income came in at $13.4 billion, a gain of 9% compared to $12.3 billion in 2008.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #HP
  Mark Hurd's 2009 compensation fell 29% in HP's 2009 fiscal year, which ended Oct. 31. His pay includes a $1.3 million salary, $15.8 million in bonuses, and $475,192 in perks and other compensation. Hurd also received stock and option awards valued at $6.6 million when they were granted. His compensation package totaled $24.2 million, compared to $34 million in 2008. HP, meanwhile, saw declining revenue and profit in its 2009 fiscal year. HP's revenue came in at $114.6 billion, a decline of 3% compared to $118.4 billion reported a year earlier. Net income fell 8% to $7.7 billion from $8.3 billion in 2008.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #BMC
  Robert Beauchamp saw his compensation more than double in 2009. The vast majority of his pay package came in the form of stock and option awards, which were valued at $22.3 million when they were granted. His $950,000 salary, $3.2 million in bonuses, and $21,992 in other compensation make up the remainder. Overall, Beauchamp's 2009 package is up 135% from 2008, when he earned $11.3 million. BMC saw revenue gains during its 2009 fiscal year ended March 31, though not nearly so drastic. BMC's revenue came in at $1.9 billion, up 8% from $1.7 billion in 2008. Net income fell 24% to $238.1 million from $313.6 million a year earlier.
• CEO payday: What tech's top execs made in '09 - #Larry
  The bulk of Larry Ellison's 2009 pay package came in the form of option awards, which were valued at $78.4 million at the time they were granted. Ellison also received a $1 million salary, $3.6 million bonus, and $1.5 million in other compensation. His package is virtually unchanged from 2008, when his pay was valued at $84.6 million. The company, meanwhile, grew revenue and profits by 4% and 1%, respectively, in its 2009 fiscal year, which ended May 31. Revenue came in at $23.3 billion, up from $22.4 billion in 2008. Net income hit $5.6 billion, up from $5.5 billion in the prior year.
• 2010 World’s Most Ethical Companies | Ethisphere™ Institute [#HP #Adobe #Salesforce.com #Symantec #Teradata]
  Computer Hardware
  Hewlett-Packard Company
  Computer Software
  Adobe Systems
  Salesforce.com
  Symantec
  Teradata
  
• #Google #Android Froyo to take a serious shot at stemming platform fragmentation
  We've been given reason to believe that the company will start by decoupling many of Android's standard applications and components from the platform's core and making them downloadable and updatable through the Market, much the same as they've already done with Maps. In all likelihood, this process will take place over two major Android versions, starting with Froyo and continuing through Gingerbread. Notice that we said apps and components, meaning that some core elements of Android -- input methods, for instance -- should get this treatment. This way, just because Google rolls out an awesome new browser doesn't mean you need to wait for HTC, Samsung, or whomever made your phone to roll it into a firmware update, and for your carrier to approve it -- almost all of the juicy user-facing stuff will happen through the Market.
• #Google CEO's compensation for 2009 falls 52 pct
  The sharp decrease reflected lower bills for protecting Schmidt and flying his personal guests on jets chartered by Google.
• #RiminiStreet fires back at #Oracle; Alleges 'anticompetitive tactics'
  #Rimini Street on Monday fired back at Oracle over its lawsuit adding that Larry Ellison & Co. are trying to stifle competition to preserve fat software maintenance margins.
• #RiminiStreet Files Countersuit Against #Oracle
  Oracle's suit is groundless, anticompetitive and disparaging, Rimini Street said in the response filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.
• #RiminiStreet Sues #Oracle
  #Rimini Street is Oracle’s Primary Competition for Annual Support Services...Oracle has a Long History of Trying to Stifle Rimini Street Competition...Oracle Chooses Competition in the Courtroom Rather than the Marketplace...Rimini Street Vehemently Denies Oracle’s False Accusations
• Upstart fires back at #Oracle in legal battle [#RiminiStreet]
  "As #Rimini Street's success grew, so did Oracle's apparent determination and efforts to disrupt Rimini Street's growth."
• #RiminiStreet Announces Delivery of 2010-B Tax, Legal, and Regulatory Updates
  Update 2010-B contains numerous U.S. federal, state, and local tax changes, including federal updates for electronic filing, support for modified forms, and non-resident Aliens, multi-state changes to withholding tables, unemployment insurance taxable wage base figures, tax reciprocity agreements, and garnishment rules, and various local tax changes for several jurisdictions. For Canadian Payroll clients, Tax and Regulatory Update 2010-B includes updates to provincial tax tables for Nova Scotia, Ontario, and the Yukon Territory. Rimini Street also delivered numerous global tax, legal, and regulatory updates for jurisdictions throughout the world prior to this 2010-B Update.

Enterprise headlines and summaries, 2010-03-27

• IT Pros Aren't Happy With Enterprise Apps
  But they also doubt that next-generation apps will be any easier to deal with. Most enterprises have yet to fully embrace service-oriented architecture, software as a service, or business process management. Oh, sure, they're using these technologies here and there, but few survey respondents are confident that SOA, SaaS, or BPM can handle everything.
• #Intel, #Cisco [and #SAP] Part of White House Innovation Forum With Russia
  Officials from U.S. firms who were part of the video conference included Cisco chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior, SAP chief technology officer Vishal Sikka, Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner, and Renata Dionello who is chief of staff to eBay chief executive John J Donahoe, Hammer said.
• #Workday Release 10 Moves Users One Step Closer To #ERP Replacement
  Release 10 bolsters key financial and spend management capabilities, highlighting aspirations to be the SaaS option for Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP ERP replacements over the next 3 to 5 years.
• Hewlett-Packard's Mark Hurd: He Wants It All
  Below the senior tier, however, HP is more miserable than restless. It consistently ranks at the bottom of its big-scale competitors on Internet sites where employees compare notes. On one (www.proletar.com/by-employees/HP.html) it scores 1.6 out of a possible 5 stars, compared with 3.3 at Cisco and 3.7 for IBM. At Glassdoor.com HP managed a 2.5 out of 5 among 1,045 employees ("If you want to be kicked like a dog, come work here!" is typical), three slots above Countrywide Financial, and Hurd got a 30% approval rating (IBM's Samuel Palmisano, 40%; Chambers, 60%). Common complaints concern overwork, favoritism and managers looking over their shoulders in fear of not meeting Hurd's inexorable goals. "A sweatshop," says one low-level manager who recently departed. "No one wants to quit now, but watch them go when the economy recovers."
  
  The pain seems particularly acute for some of the dwindling population of long-term vets who remember HP, perhaps wrongly, as a warm and caring place. Fou
• BMW #Oracle Racing drops America's Cup court case vs. Alinghi
  The new trustee, San Francisco's Golden Gate Yacht Club, announced Friday that it and vanquished trustee Societe Nautique de Geneve agreed to drop their remaining legal actions against each other, the remnants of a 2½-year court fight between two of the world's richest men.
  
  The agreement was signed a 1½ months after the speedy space-age trimaran owned by American software tycoon Larry Ellison routed a catamaran sailed by defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland in Valencia, Spain.
• Details leaking out on next America's Cup
  Details about what Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison has in mind for the next America’s Cup sailing race are slowly trickling out.
• #Oracle adopts 'all or nothing' support policy
  Oracle has adopted what amounts to an "all or nothing" hardware support policy, according to a document the vendor posted on its Web site. The policy, which went into effect March 16, states that "when acquiring technical support, all hardware systems must be supported (e.g., Oracle Premier Support for Systems or Oracle Premier Support for Operating Systems) or unsupported." Customers who don't purchase support for hardware systems aren't allowed to obtain "maintenance releases, patches, telephone assistance, or any other technical support services."
• #Oracle F3Q10 (Qtr End 02/28/10) Earnings Call Transcript
  Our applications business is doing very well in all regions and in all verticals and it is truly no wonder SAP is so unhappy...Again, it is a company we think is vulnerable and we think we have an excellent chance of becoming number one in applications...They don’t have a lot of what you are calling edge applications. They don’t have a lot of industry specific applications. Their technology is fraying around the edges.
• #Microsoft Closer To Worldwide Rollout Of On-Demand #CRM App
  Microsoft has released a technical preview version of the next generation of its Dynamics CRM application, the company said Thursday, and the product remains on-track for general availability in the second half of this year.
• The IT project failure dilemma: how to get early warnings
  Asuret, a company that sells “technology-backed services”. He gave me a look at their forthcoming product, an impressively slick, well-engineered tool that in my view promises to provide exactly that kind of benefit: identifying where and why a project might fail in terms of some of those people/best practices aspects, before it actually does.
  
  In a nutshell, Asuret facilitates a cross-sectional analysis of project participants and stakeholders as the project proceeds. By aggregating the answers to its carefully crafted questions and constructing a number of easy-overview summary charts, the tool then displays astonishingly insightful visual breakdowns that let you pinpoint major disconnects, such as between stakeholder groups and IT, or between actual project-specific and industry-best practices.
• #Sybase SQL Anywhere Gets New Spatial Data Capabilities
  Sybase is demonstrating the new spatial data capabilities to arrive in the upcoming version of SQL Anywhere at the ESRI Worldwide Business Partner Conference.
• #Novell Adds #Ingres DB to #SUSE Studio Online
  A new template for the Ingres database eliminates the burden for IT managers of managing the life cycle of the operating system or the middleware database component within their appliances.
• #SunGard Upgrades Its UCS Cloud Platform
  The augmented Unified Computing System-based private-cloud computing platform will offer high availability for application delivery and data recovery services in the UK and North America later this year.
• #Oracle revenue up, but charges drag down profit
  Excluding special charges, earnings per share grew 9% to $1.9 billion or $0.38 per share, with $6.5 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had on average predicted earnings per share of $0.38 and $6.35 billion in revenue.
• #ORACLE REPORTS GAAP EPS OF $0.23, NON-GAAP EPS OF $0.38
  New Software Licenses Up 13%, Applications New Licenses Up 21%
• #Oracle Profit Slips but Software Sales Rise
  Oracle Corp . felt the recession's effects later than most companies in the technology sector. But the software maker isn't having to wait as long to recover.
• Ellison sticks it to #SAP as #Oracle reports strong sales growth
  "SAP's most recent quarter was the best quarter of their year, only down 15%, while Oracle's application sales were up 21%. But SAP is well ahead of us in the number of CEOs for this year, announcing their third and fourth, while we only had one," he said.
• Six Easy Steps to Slashing #Database Costs
  Data volumes are not getting any smaller. The good news is database management can get a little bit cheaper, depending on your enterprise needs. There are a number of ways for database administrators and IT decision makers to slash the cost of handling the ever-growing amount of databases and data in their business. In a report titled "Take Advantage of New Ways to Save Money on Database Costs," Forrester Research laid out some of those strategies. Now, Forrester has shared some of its database cost-savings tips with eWEEK, and here are some ideas for you to think about the next time you draw up your IT budget.
• Cloud Computing is Moving into Hype Mode
  With every company adding the words “in the Cloud” to their every marketing pitch and product position it is beginning, for me at least, to feel the same as adding those words “in bed” at the end of those fortunes in the cookies; somewhat wearisome.
• The Next Wave Of #SaaS
  Would the SaaS vendors have used a multitenant architecture if they had Amazon Web Services and the RackSpace Cloud available to them? The economic argument against the multitenant architecture is that vendors must replicate the cloud they could buy much more cheaply from Amazon and Rackspace. For example, Acquia, a company that offers multitenant hosting of the Drupal open source content management system, uses Amazon's EC2 cloud compuing service.
• The New Face of Geek Chic | Technically Women
  Why is it weird to code 100 lines in ABAP by day and club by night in 5-inch Louboutin shoes? It shouldn’t be.
  
  Anne is so much more than the sum of her good looks and impeccable fashion taste. She’s an SAP Mentor; she rallied a revolution against Facebook (and won), her tweets often look like this, and she’s a “man among equals” at any geekfest.
  
  I’ve since joined Anne here on the Technically Women blog and now consider her a friend. She once confided to our @tech_women group, “Being ‘the hottie’ you either have the guys’ attention for all the wrong reasons, or they just think you are as stupid as you look. Both cases makes you work twice as hard as everyone else to prove that you actually know your stuff.” I’d love to see more women competing in tech and celebrating their femininity. It’s not an either/or; it’s an and. And all geeks work really hard, so let’s stop making women do double time to prove they belong in the club.
  
• #Oracle's Ellison eyed as possible buyer of Golden State Warriors
  The Golden State Warriors announced Monday that they have hired a sports advisory and finance firm to conduct a sale of the team, which has the third-worst record in the National Basketball Association this season.
• #Oracle Announces Latest Release of Oracle Berkeley DB
  # Oracle Berkeley DB 11g Release 2 introduces a new SQL API, based on SQLite, which is familiar to a large developer community and helps simplify application development.
  # New features include support for JDBC and ODBC connections to Oracle Berkeley DB.
  # In addition, Oracle Berkeley DB 11g Release 2 introduces support for the Android platform, offering developers the ability to develop and deploy a wide range of applications.
• #Amdocs buys MX Telecom for $104M
  MX Telecom, led by Managing Director Alex Moir, will become part of Amdocs’ OpenMarket business, which operates a mobile transaction hub.
  
  The joint OpenMarket MX Telecom business will provide a platform to extend mobile payment and messaging capabilities, Amdocs said.
• Q&A: #IBM's Steve Mills On Strategy, #Oracle, #SAP
  Oracle is not a very strong technology company, but they are a very high-testosterone company. They love to beat their chest and talk about how they always win and never lose. They're very declarative in that sense because their perspective is that lies that go unchallenged become the truth. If you scream loud enough, it's hard for anybody to get a word in edgewise.
• #SAP middleware gives customers ‘heartburn’: #Forrester
  Why #Microsoft, #IBM and #Oracle are slaying SAP
  
  SAP AG ’s failure to maintain strong investment in its middleware offerings is a signal to customers to look to other vendors like Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp. when integrating heterogeneous applications, said a Forrester analyst.
  
  “For the last several years, SAP has been falling behind in creating a comprehensive platform and in maintaining a strong level of investment,” said John Rymer, vice-president and principal analyst with Forrester Research Inc.
• Rethinking IT and business transformation success
  Most software deployments are actually business transformation initiatives that involve technology. As with other business projects, implementation success often requires collaboration and open communication across information silos and organizational boundaries.
• After health care vote, high-skill immigration debate quickly returns
  It makes no sense to educate the world's future inventors and entrepreneurs and then force them to leave when they are able to contribute to our economy," they wrote in an op-ed published on Friday in the Washington Post.
• #Forrester: Uncertain Future for #SAP #NetWeaver
  SAP used to have a desire to compete head-on in middleware with rivals Oracle and IBM, but not anymore, Rymer added.
  
  While there's a chance SAP will try to "resuscitate" NetWeaver development in an effort to catch up to those rivals, "the likelihood of this happening is very low," Rymer added.
  
  It's more the case that SAP will follow one of two scenarios, he said. The first would see it align itself strategically with a Java-centric middleware partner, such as IBM, as well as with Microsoft and its .NET technology. There's little chance the Java partner would be SAP's longtime nemesis Oracle, he added.
  
  But SAP will most likely "adopt a vendor-agnostic stance in Java," continue working with Microsoft, and also embrace open-source middleware options, according to Rymer.
  
• #Palm must build great accessories to survive
  There is no easy solution for the company, but a series of tough measures and creative development efforts can turn things around.
• #Palm must build great accessories to survive
  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.
• 11 Tech Companies 'Willfully' Violating H-1B Laws
  There are currently 21 companies that have been debarred by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division as being willful violators of laws that regulate the use of H-1B visas for foreign workers. Here, eWEEK looks at 11 different technology or IT-related companies that are on the Labor Department’s list, including a look at the companies’ locations and periods of debarment. During the debarment period, these companies are not allowed to apply for or obtain H-1B visas for foreign workers. These IT companies have "committed either a willful failure or a misrepresentation of a material fact," according to Labor Department statistics. One company that faces additional sanctions is Peri Software Solutions, which currently owes $1.4 million in back wages. Right now, Peri Software’s petition is under review by the Labor Department.
• Pricing - #SAP StreamWork
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  on decisions with business partners.
  
  Professional Edition
  $108 USD* per user, per year
  Includes everything in Basic and adds more
  capacity and advanced administration features.
• Jeremy Burton - Executive Biographies - #EMC
  Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
  EMC Corporation
  
  Jeremy Burton is Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of EMC. With 2009 revenues of $14 billion and approximately 43,000 employees, EMC is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information.
  Jeremy Burton
  
  Burton, who joined EMC in March 2010, is responsible for the global structure, strategy, and execution of all aspects of EMC's marketing efforts, including all major events and programs. He reports to Joe Tucci, EMC's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In the role of CMO, Burton focuses on extending EMC's presence and relevance on the world stage, building and guiding EMC's global reputation and brand, and further enabling the success of the company's sales teams and partner ecosystem.
  
  A 20-year veteran of the IT industry, Burton jo
• Open (Letter) Season on #SAP
  ask SAP to give you an account manager without a sales quota. You’ve just signed a big deal for all the SAP software you’re going to need for the next few years, and they give you a new rep whose only goal is to find other stuff to sell you. That’s not customer-centric. Insist on a real account manager, with a comp plan based on deployment of, and satisfaction with, what you’ve already bought.
• #NetSuite Calls #Microsoft '#ERP Dinosaur'
  NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson dismisses Microsoft's bid to attract NetSuite customers as "the last gasp of a dinosaur trying to protect its Stone Age software products."
• Who's the world's most inventive tech company? Based on patent quality, it's #Microsoft.
  if you measure inventiveness by the quality and usefulness of patents, Microsoft tops the tech world, according to three different reports in the last few months.
  [Microsoft's rating was 7422, and Oracle was 994 as #2]
• IEEE Patent Power Scorecard (#Microsoft #Oracle #Adobe #SAP)
  Rank Company 2009 US Patents Pipeline Growth Index Pipeline Impact Self-Citations Adjusted Pipeline Impact Pipeline Generality Pipeline Originality Pipeline Power Adjusted Pipeline Power
  1 Microsoft Corp., U.S. 2918 1.43 1.29 36.70% 1.2 1.32 1.12 7953 7422
  2 Oracle Corp., U.S. 338 1.09 1.32 22.80% 1.32 1.38 1.49 994 994
  3 BEA Systems Inc., U.S. 95 1.22 1.83 31.90% 1.79 1.95 1.08 444 435
  4 Adobe Systems Inc., U.S. 152 1.65 1 22.80% 1 1.22 1.07 325 325
  5 SAP AG, Germany 388 1.49 0.91 16.50% 0.91 0.95 0.61 306 306
  6 Symantec Corp., U.S. 212 1.41 1.58 17.60% 1.58 1.9 0.32 289 289
  7 Novell Inc., U.S. 43 1.26 1.27 5.00% 1.27 1.29 2.32 207 207
  8 Synopsys Inc., U.S. 78 1.18 1.11 19.20% 1.11 1.43 0.89 129 129
  9 Digimarc Corp., U.S. 58 1.02 3.12 67.70% 1.95 2.95 0.25 136 85
  10 Nuance Communications Inc., U.S. 42 3 1.49 9.50% 1.49 1.56 0.25 73 73
  11 Cadence Design Systems Inc., U.S. 99 1.24 1.32 37.90% 1.22 0.96 0.46 71 66
  12 i2 Technologies Inc., U.S.* 21 1 1.25 5.50% 1.25 1.38 1.58 57 57
  13 Nat
• Patent Scorecard (#Microsoft #IBM #Oracle #HP)
  Science strength
  Tech strength Company/concern Symbol Patents granted 13-wk 5-yr Innovation cycle time Industry impact
  6418.6 Microsoft Corp MSFT 2974 41826.3 20517.4 7.8
  1.3
  4982.4 Intl Business Mach IBM 3585 4417.3 3148.4 7.5
  0.8
  1697.1 Oracle Corp ORCL 921 3950.3 3358.4 7.4
  1.1
  1497.7 Hewlett-Packard HPQ 1318 952.8 872.6 8.1
  0.7
  1288.7 Canon Inc ADS CAJ 1332 171 174.4 8.1
  0.6
  1197.4 Ricoh Co Ltd ... 1046 482.3 267.4 8.6
  0.7
  968.1 Hitachi Ltd ADS HIT 902 244 326.4 7.1
  0.6
  784.8 Xerox Corp XRX 728 1910.5 1160.2 10.5
  0.7
  694.7 Samsung Group ... 837 241.3 144.2 7.8
  0.5
  651.6 Seiko Epson Corp ... 725 78.3 94 8.5
  0.5
  630.4 Toshiba Corp ... 603 180 150 7.5
  0.6
  629.1 Apple Inc AAPL 314 1024.5 434.4 9
  1.2
  589.6 Google Inc A GOOG 151 1034 424.4 7.1
  2.3
  588.8 EMC Corp EMC 276 100.8 108.6 7.8
  1.3
  584.7 Symantec Corp SYMC 218 424.8
• Patent Portfolio’s Focus on Quality and Innovation Earns High Marks - #Microsoft On The Issues
  Our high-quality patent portfolio provides customers and partners with assurance that Microsoft is committed to protecting intellectual property. Through our IP licensing programs, Microsoft provides access to these technologies and patents for our partners to spur innovation and economic opportunity across the industry.
• Cash gap grows between tech giants, rivals (#Cisco #Microsoft #Apple #Google #Oracle)
  The company with the most cash at the end of 2009 was Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), with $39.6 billion — up 74 percent since year's end in 2007.
  
  No. 2 was Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) with $36.1 billion, up 71 percent in two years.
  
  No. 3 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) grew its stash by 35 percent in that span to $24.8 billion.
  
  No. 4 Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was right behind Apple with $24.5 billion, up 73 percent.
  
  No. 5 Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) shot up 148 percent to $20.8 billion.
• Gosling Claims #Java in Good Hands with #Oracle
  Gosling delivered the opening keynote at TheServerSide Java Symposium here March 17, saying he was "encouraged" by the direction Oracle is taking with Java and, "I don't think anybody in this room has anything to worry about" regarding the future of Java. Particularly, with his talk entitled, "Java Today and Tomorrow," attendees were looking for some indication of where Oracle might make changes to Java or disrupt the status quo. However, Gosling assured them that the business of Java as well as the ongoing technological innovation of the Java platform continues apace.
• #Java founder emphasizes #Oracle's commitment
  Java EE 6, also known as Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 6, is "really going to be the foundation of the next generation of enterprise software," Gosling said. The specification was approved November 30 after several years in the making, he said.