Highlights of enterprise software and solutions news from the past week:
Man Bites Dog: Cloud Services More Reliable
- SAP posts strong results in a preview of Q2, but warn employees to cut spending so that profitability will stop rising slower than revenues.
- Microsoft announces Bing Fund to invest in start-ups, while cutting many jobs in their on-line business driven by Bing.
- Oracle’s legal losing streak continues, losing a case in Europe that allows resale of “used” software licenses.
- Oracle acquires Involver for social media growth.
- Gartner predicts increased IT spending in 2012.
- Salesforce.com suffers an outage. Man bites dog.
Bay Area CEOs’ golden parachutes are massive (HP AMD Yahoo)
Here are the retirement and severance packages awarded to five CEOs who left their companies this year and last:
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Olympic security farce: now MI5 sacks systems experts after anti-terror supercomputer collapse (ITfail)
In a report published on Thursday by MPs from the Intelligence and Security Committee, Mr Evans is quoted as saying: ‘I think it would be a fair criticism to say that we have had some cases where [our use of consultants and contractors] hasn’t been as controlled as it should, [but now] we have got a proper focus . . .
‘Post-Olympics, we intend to reduce [the] number of organisations and individuals we deal with and to manage those relationships more aggressively than we have done.’
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Thought Leadership: Extending your Cloud applications – YouTube (SAP SuccessFactors)
For most organizations, the “one size fits all” model of SaaS is perceived as too constraining. IT wants businesses to have the capability to extend the applications so that they can focus on more strategic projects. In this video SuccessFactors’ Chief Applications Architect discusses some concerns around varying levels of extensibility provided by cloud vendors and how SuccessFactors always had extensibility as a core part of its architecture.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Google’s Nexus 7 Android Selling Out at Key Retailers
GameStop, Sam’s Club, and Staples were listing the device as out of stock as of Friday, while Office Depot appeared to still have a few Nexus 7 tablets on hand, according to a rundown of several Nexus 7 retailers compiled by Newsday. GameStop had “already run through its first two allocations of the tablet,” the site reported.
A third shipment of Nexus 7 tablets should arrive in August, according to GameStop.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Office must evolve to remain successful
To beat back competitors like Google Apps, Office must evolve into an easier to use, tablet- and smartphone-friendly product, and one that doesn’t penalize customers who access it via the cloud with big feature gaps and complicated setups.
Specifically, Microsoft must overcome its reticence to make an Office version for iPads and Android tablets. And it must beef up Office 365, its year-old cloud suite that includes online versions of Office, Lync, SharePoint and Exchange.
These aren’t easy moves for Microsoft, in part because they risk affecting the sales and margins of what has been a cash cow product.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Google Android – Android 4.1, Jelly Bean
Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, is the fastest and smoothest version of Android yet. Jelly Bean improves on the simplicity and beauty of Android 4.0, and introduces a new Google search experience on Android…A new embedded speech recognizer lets you use Voice Typing even when you don’t have an Internet connection.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Blackberry maker RIM loses patent suit
A federal jury in San Francisco has found beleaguered Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. liable for $147.2 million in damages for infringing on patents held by Mformation Technologies Inc.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Apple – Environment – A letter from Bob Mansfield
Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.
It’s important to know that our commitment to protecting the environment has never changed, and today it is as strong as ever. Apple makes the most environmentally responsible products in our industry. In fact, our engineering teams have worked incredibly hard over the years to make our products even more environmentally friendly, and much of our progress has come in areas not yet measured by EPEAT.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Marc @Benioff, @LarsLuv Dalgaard, and David Sacks Are About To Do Battle, Says VC Who Backed Them All (Salesforce.com SAP Microsoft)
They will be fighting to define the next version of enterprise software—especially how employees communicate with each other, with customers, and with the world.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
SAP Rebounds from Q1 in Q2: All Is Well That Ends Well?
The only cloud on an otherwise sunny day was a two percentage-point dip in operating margins.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Bing Seeks to Drive Innovation with Bing Fund
At Microsoft, we have tremendous respect for the talent, ingenuity, and passion of entrepreneurs. Where other people see merely interesting ideas, entrepreneurs see possibilities for making the world work better. Many talented people come up with game-changing ideas, but it takes an entrepreneurial spirit to stare down the words “it can’t be done” and make innovation real.
Bing Fund is an angel fund with an incubator program, founded by entrepreneurs, sponsored by Bing, and backed by the experience, expertise, and resources of Microsoft. We want to partner with like-minded entrepreneurs—great talent that is innovating online to solve big problems and create amazing new experiences.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Cuts Advertising, Marketing Jobs
“I can confirm that there were job eliminations today at Microsoft,” a company spokeswoman said in an email. “I can assure you we’re thinking about the exciting new opportunities that Windows 8, Xbox and Skype present for our advertising and marketing partners.”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Job Cuts Point To Digital Ad Shift
In addition to display ad weakness, Sherlund said Microsoft has not been able to generate search-based ad revenue as well as Google. “The ability to drive higher revenue per search monetization has proven more challenging over the past two years than was expected,” the analyst said. Microsoft in 2009 formed a search alliance with Yahoo to boost its performance in the ad space, but the deal has not yielded significant gains.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Sad Face: My Role at Microsoft Advertising Has Been “Eliminated”
I’m letting you all know that while I’m sad it’s come to this after creating millions of engagements online, writing thousands of blog posts, interviewing hundreds of industry luminaries and speaking at many, many conferences around the world, I have nothing but fantastic memories of working at Microsoft Advertising – 50 of which I’ll write about and publish here in the next couple of weeks.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Launches Bing Fund, Names Rahul Sood to Run It
The plan is to offer U.S.-based early-stage companies an opportunity to work at a Microsoft building in Bellevue, Wash., for at least four months. In addition to an investment, the selected start-up will get access to a lot of Microsoft technology. Here’s the nut graf on that subject from Microsoft’s announcement:
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Oracle Critical Patch Update Pre-Release Announcement – July 2012
This Critical Patch Update Pre-Release Announcement provides advance information about the Oracle Critical Patch Update for July 2012, which will be released on Tuesday, July 17, 2012. While this Pre-Release Announcement is as accurate as possible at the time of publication, the information it contains may change before publication of the Critical Patch Update Advisory.
A Critical Patch Update is a collection of patches for multiple security vulnerabilities. This Critical Patch Update contains 88 new security vulnerability fixes across hundreds of Oracle products. Some of the vulnerabilities addressed in this Critical Patch Update affect multiple products. Due to the threat posed by a successful attack, Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply Critical Patch Update fixes as soon as possible.
Vulnerabilities fixed by Critical Patch Updates are scored using the standard CVSS 2.0 scoring (see Oracle’s Use of CVSS Scoring). The highest CVSS 2.0 Base Score for vulnerabilities in
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
SAP Chiefs Say Current Spending Levels Could Affect Bonuses
“For the rest of 2012, this means optimizing effectiveness at our current cost level and avoiding additional expense growth,” co-Chief Executive Officers Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott wrote in an internal letter to staff following the publication of the results. “This will allow us to reach our internal goals for the year, as a continuation of the current spending levels could affect our bonus payout.”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Expected to Unveil Office 15
Microsoft is expected to show off Office 15, the next version of the company’s productivity suite, on Monday at an event in San Francisco, according to numerous reports.
Office has been available to a select group of users in a technical preview since January. It’s not clear whether a public beta of Office might be available Monday, or whether it will arrive later this summer.
Few details have seeped out about Office 15. Several reports claim Windows XP and Windows Vista won’t be able to run Office 15. Microsoft is scheduled to stop supporting XP in 2014 and Vista support is expected to run out in 2017.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Survey finds ERP software project overruns ‘distressingly common’ (Oracle SAP Microsoft ITfail)
A change in the project’s initial scope was the top reason for slowdowns, named by 29% of survey respondents. “Organizational issues” came next with 20%, followed by “data issues” and “resource constraints” with 17% apiece.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Twitter / BimalMehta: Some Friday VC humor from Dilbert
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Screwing the customer: Tales from the crazy consultant file
Both enterprise buyers made the fundamental error of handing control of a mission critical project to external consultants.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Facebook IPO Shows Extreme Corruption, McNamee Says: Video
Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, talks about technology industry entrepreneurship, investing and initial public offerings. He speaks with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television’s “Money Moves.”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Why There Are Too Many Patent s in America
Patent trolls are companies that acquire patents not to protect their market for a product they want to produce — patent trolls are not producers — but to lay traps for producers, for a patentee can sue for infringement even if it doesn’t make the product that it holds a patent on.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Yahoo’s password leak: What you need to know (FAQ)
A hacker collective calling itself D33Ds Co. publicly posted more than 450,000 login credentials — i.e., paired usernames and passwords — obtained from Yahoo’s “Contributor Network” site. In that data dump, the hackers described their attack as a “union-based SQL injection,” which is effectively a way of tricking the database on a poorly secured site into divulging private information.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
SAP Introduces Social Sabbatical Program to Foster Leadership Development
While maintaining all normal salary and benefits, the 30 pilot-phase participants will be deployed for four weeks to work on local projects. Social sabbatical projects will range from the development of a supply chain strategy to promote and strengthen the local artisan sector, to a communications strategy for an association of thousands of local recyclable material collectors. Through their global corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, SAP focuses on helping entrepreneurs and small businesses to unlock their potential to create economic, social and environmental impact, and become the engine for economic growth and job creation.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
SAP Announces Best Ever Second Quarter Performance Significantly Outperforming Market Expectations By Exceeding Euro 1 Billion in Software Revenue
Second Quarter 2012 Software Revenue Increased 26% to euro 1,059 Million (19% at Constant Currencies) Driven by Double-Digit Growth in all Regions — Second Quarter 2012 Software Revenue Reaches Upper End of the Second Quarter Outlook — Second Quarter 2012 Non-IFRS Software and Software-Related Service Revenue Increased 21% to euro 3.14 Billion (15% at Constant Currencies) — 10th Consecutive Quarter of Double-Digit Growth in Non-IFRS Software and Software-Related Service Revenue Supported by Stellar Results in SAP HANA, Mobile and Cloud — Second Quarter 2012 Non-IFRS Operating Profit Increased by 15% to euro 1.17 Billion (8% at Constant Currencies)
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
CLASH OF THE TITANS An Independent Comparison of SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics
SAP
Below are some of the highlights of SAP’s suite of solutions as they relate to
Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics:
• Largest share of the market
• Highest short-listing rate
• Lowest selection rate when short-listed
• Longest payback period
Oracle
A summary of Oracle’s strengths and weaknesses as they relate to SAP and
Microsoft Dynamics:
• Highest selection rate when short-listed
• Longest implementation duration
• Largest delta between planned and actual implementation duration
• Lowest percent of users who realized between 81- and 100-percent of
benefits
Microsoft Dynamics
Below are some of the highlights of Microsoft Dynamics as it relates to SAP and
Oracle:
• Smallest share of the market
• Lowest short-listing rate
• Shortest implementation duration
• Highest percentage
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
A Teardown of Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet
iSuppli took apart the Nexus 7 to analyze its components and found the hardware costs $151.75 for the low-end, eight-gigabyte model, a slim margin given the device’s $199 sale price.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Salesforce.com Grossly Overvalued
Trading at 66x 2013 EPS and 8.0x revenue, Salesforce.com (CRM) is one of the most expensive stocks in the world. Although we think the business model is great and the company is exposed to favorable long-term trends, we are only willing to pay 50x forward earnings. We get to this metric by using a 1.5x PEG ratio (35% EPS growth * 1.5 = 50x P/E). Under this framework, Salesforce.com should trade at $100, implying 23% downside.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
NBC, Microsoft Planning Online Divorce
The cable channel MSNBC was originally a joint venture between the broadcast network and Bill Gates’ company—hence the initials in the name—but the television partnership was dissolved in 2005. The companies, however, remained 50-50 partners in the website.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft’s Kevin Turner asks partners to push Office 365 sales
Microsoft’s chief operating officer told the Worldwide Partner Conference that revenue from cloud services is climbing fast and that the online version of Office software should become the fastest-growing product in Microsoft’s history.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Amazon Faces Tough Call With Smartphone
The company is working with Asian component suppliers to test a smartphone that it may release towards the end of this year or in early 2013, according to officials at Amazon’s parts providers who declined to be named. The screen may be between four and five inches, according to one of the people.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
IBM database strategy chief on DB2: Devs are people too
Driving the change is a need to make DB2 more comfortable for developers building web and big data apps that suck on the DB2 data store.
One recent consequence of the shifting approach was the addition of tripled graph-store capabilities for graph analytics in DB2 10.1, which was released in April.
Graph stores find connections between data, so you don’t have to search through piles of relational tables or raw info using Hadoop. Graphs are popular with social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn trying to establish connections between individuals on their sites.
Looking ahead, Spang called key-value pairs a “hot area”. This might be one possibility for future inclusion in DB2.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
In Silicon Valley, Founders Fight for Control (VC)
Andreessen Horowitz is telling entrepreneurs it prefers situations where the founders have controlling stakes, reckoning that they’ll be better able to resist outside distraction and focus on making great products.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Infor president: Emulating Apple will see us through tough economic times
Much of Infor’s confidence comes from the release of ION, which it sees as core to its strategy going forward, as it will underpin all future products. As of May, at the end of Infor’s financial year, ION was not only the fastest growing solution across its product portfolio, but the fastest growing product in the company’s history.
Infor believes the middleware product’s success is due to its ‘lightweight’ attributes, where it doesn’t accept business transactions in their native formats, but instead is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is a document standard that has defined business transactions. ION’s standards-based approach therefore allows companies to integrate applications by simply exchanging these XML documents.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Oracle: ‘The battle against reselling software licences is not over’
“This is not the end of the legal process. We are confident that the member states of the European Union as well as the European Commission will do everything in their power to protect innovation and investment in the technology industry,” Heydn said.
Oracle is also demanding further action over the issue of splitting – where a user can split a licence and sell on the part they’re not using – according to its lawyer. “The court has forbidden the splitting of licences, but UsedSoft’s whole business model is based on that. We will demand that the BGH upholds this principle,” she said.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft delays Dynamics CRM mobile support for Apple iPad, Google Android until Q4 2012
With the Q4 update, users will have a choice of Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari running on PCs, Macs and iPads. Here’s a chart showing which versions will be supported on which platforms:
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Google’s $22.5 million FTC penalty is not enough: Here’s why
Half a day’s pay.
At that rate, it’s hard to believe any company trying to compete with Google or Facebook will consider dodgy privacy practices anything more than a minor cost of doing business.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Q2 2012 Service Update – New delivery schedule
33,000 organizations worldwide…power their sales, service and marketing processes with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We strive to balance a high standard of quality with our aspiration to deliver technology updates on a timely and frequent basis. Along those lines we are greatly excited about the important advances we have delivered across the last six months such as integrated social collaboration capabilities, a unified Microsoft Office 365 experience underscoring simplified cloud service management through common administration, billing and provisioning as well as important performance and business continuity features such as improved disaster recovery with in-region replication to further help protect data.
On July 19th, as we committed, our Q2 release will include Microsoft SQL Server 2012 support, Industry templates and certifications for our online service. After listening to the feedback from our customers and partners we are delaying availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft bets on advanced touch tech in tablet war
One thing that tablet makers have learned over the last few years is that you can’t beat the iPad at being the iPad. So Google has focused on being futuristic, Amazon has focused on low cost, and Microsoft has taken two different tacks.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft urges death of Windows gadgets as researchers plan disclosures
Microsoft is aware of vulnerabilities in insecure Gadgets affecting the Windows Sidebar on supported versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7,” Microsoft said in a security warning issued Tuesday.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
ASININE San Francisco Environment Officials and CIO Plan to Block Apple Over EPEAT standards
Officials with the San Francisco Department of Environment told CIO Journal on Monday they would send out letters over the next two weeks,informing all 50 of the city’s agencies that Apple laptops and desktops “will no longer qualify” for purchase with city funds. The move comes after CIO Journal reported that Apple had removed its laptops and notebooks from a voluntary registry of green electronics, called EPEAT. The standard, created jointly by manufacturers, including Apple, government agencies, and activist groups, requires that electronics products be designed for ease in recycling and higher energy efficiency.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Oracle continues to add social media muscle with Involver deal
San Francisco-based Involver, founded in 2007, provides tools for developers to create advertising campaigns on social media networks such as Facebook.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
2012 Future of Cloud Computing – 2nd Annual Survey results
What a difference a year can make.
In 2012, we’re seeing cloud vault ahead of its early shroud of doubt and skepticism with a full 50 percent of respondents reporting confidence in cloud for mission-critical applications. That’s up from 13 percent last year. We’re seeing software as a service (SaaS) as the primary type of cloud investment with 82 percent citing usage today and 84 percent looking to SaaS as the deployment model for new applications.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Poor leadership caused £500m shared services overrun (ITfail)
A report by the National Audit Office earlier this year found that five shared services centres, serving the Ministry of Justice, DWP, Defra, DFT and Research Councils UK, had overrun their costs by a combined £500 million. The plan had been to cut costs by 20%.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Amazon and Google rated least transparent tech giants
A report published by the group today ranks the world’s 105 largest publicly-listed businesses according to three measures of transparency: reporting on anti-corruption measures, operational transparency, and whether they reported financial performance on country by country basis.
Transparency International argues that reporting on anti-corruption initiatives – such as anti-corruption training and whistleblowing channels – “underscorces a commitment to countering corruption and enhances ethical conduct … throughout the value chain.”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
3 Things You Need to Know About Gartner Magic Quadrants
The Magic Quadrant has two axes. The horizontal is “Completeness of Vision” and is a reflection of how many features a product has and the innovative enhancements that are forcing other vendors to react to keep pace. The vertical axis is “Ability to Execute” and is determined by revenue, number and quality of resellers and distributors, number of employees and their distribution between engineering, sales, and support and other business issues. Thus, the upper right quadrant is were the Leaders sit, the lower right is Visionaries, the lower left is Niche, and the upper left is Challengers.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
2012 Future of Cloud Computing Survey Exposes Hottest Trends in Cloud Adoption
Key Findings in the Survey include:
Companies are accelerating their trust in cloud solutions, with 50 percent of respondents confident that cloud solutions are viable for mission critical business applications.
Scalability remains the top reason for adopting the cloud, with 57 percent of companies identifying it as the most important driver for cloud adoption. Business agility ranked second among drivers for cloud adoption, with 54 percent of respondents focused on agility.
Security remains the primary inhibitor to adoption in the burgeoning cloud marketplace with 55 percent of respondents identifying it as a concern, followed by regulatory compliance (38%) and vendor lock-in (32%).
Software as a service (SaaS) is currently, and is expected to remain the primary type of cloud investment, with 82 percent of respondents citing it as in use today, and 88 percent expecting to use it five years from now.
Platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (Ia
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Gartner Bucks Macroeconomic Downward Trend By Upping 2012 Outlook For IT Spending
IT spending is on track to rise 3% this year, to $3.6 trillion. Despite economic woes in Europe and many other places, this actually represents a slight upward revision from the 2.5% increase Gartner had been projecting.
Gartner (IT) expects enterprise spending on public cloud services to jump 20% this year to $109 billion from $91 billion last year. And in 2016, it projects enterprise public cloud services spending of $207 billion.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Gartner Says Worldwide IT Spending on Pace to Surpass $3.6 Trillion in 2012
Worldwide IT spending is on pace to reach $3.6 trillion in 2012, a 3 percent increase from 2011 spending of $3.5 trillion, according to the latest outlook by Gartner, Inc. Gartner’s 2012 IT spending outlook has been revised up slightly from the 2.5 percent projection last quarter.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Google, FTC Near Settlement on Apple Safari Users’ Privacy
Google Inc. is close to a deal to pay $22.5 million to settle charges related to its surreptitious bypassing of the privacy settings of millions of Apple Inc. users, according to officials briefed on the settlement terms.
The fine is expected to be the largest penalty ever levied on a single company by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. It offers the latest sign of the FTC’s stepped-up approach to policing online privacy violations, coming just six months after The Wall Street Journal reported on Google’s practices.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Social Machines: How This Company is Using Artificial Intelligence to Create Social Intelligence (Salesforce.com Enterasys)
Enterasys has created private machine social networks where machines are collaborating with other machines. Humans are only there to observe and receive updates.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Research in Motion faces critical shareholders (RIM Blackberry)
Chief Executive Thornsten Heins said at the start of the meeting that the company’s enterprise and consumer businesses will move “closer and closer” together. But while Heins was enthusiastic about the company’s prospects for the future, he was careful to say that the road ahead will not be easy.
The next several quarters, he said, will be challenging. RIM plans to license its operating system to competitors as it works to build out its subscriber base.
Shareholders reelected Heins and former CEO and co-founder Mike Lazaridis to the board, but posed some tough questions that illustrated a strong criticism of the company’s board.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
OpenSource Darling GitHub Takes $100M From VC King
It’s not exactly surprising that Andreessen-Horowitz would fund a cool company like GitHub. But it’s a bit of an eyebrow-raiser that GitHub agreed to take the cash.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft announces Imagine Cup 2012 winners
This year’s winners of the Software Design project hail from Ukraine. The team, quadSquad, developed a pair of custom sensory-gloves. Coupled with a smartphone application, sign language gestures and motions are translated into real-time speech.
The team’s device, Enable Talk, used 15 flex sensors and a microcontroller. Bluetooth technology was enabled to transmit movements to the smartphone app.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Oracle Utility Transformations: BigData, Bigger Opportunities: Plans and Preparedness for the Data Deluge
Despite improvements, 45% of utilities still struggle to report information to business
managers as fast as they need it and 50% miss opportunities to deliver useful
information to customers
• Utilities see a need to improve their ability to translate information into actionable
intelligence and leverage data for strategic decision-making. 64% say it is one of their
top three priorities
• Meter Data Management (MDM) systems may provide help: 70% of those with an
MDM system in place say they are prepared*** to successfully manage the data influx
versus just 51% of those without
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Queensland Health payroll fix to cost $1.25b by 2017 (SAP ITfail)
THE cost of Queensland’s disastrous health payroll system is set to top $1.25 billion by 2017, but Health Minister Lawrence Springborg warned that estimate was a “bare-bones price” that did not include any contingency money should anything go wrong.
It also fails to include the impacts of Fringe Benefits Tax payable on wage overpayments, which could be as high as $110.4 million.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
More confident Microsoft serves up full plate of plans
This will be “the most epic year in Microsoft history,” CEO Steve Ballmer said in his keynote address Monday to the company’s annual Worldwide Partners Conference…
• The company said it’s on track to release Windows 8 — the major revamp of its flagship operating system — to manufacturers by the first week in August, with general availability of devices running Windows 8 on store shelves by late October.
• It’s acquiring Perceptive Pixel, a New York-based company that specializes in large, multitouch displays.
• It’s launching Office 365 Open, allowing its partners to package Microsoft’s Office 365 with the partner’s own value-added services, and allowing those partners to bill their customers for all of that in a single invoice.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
RIM Plans to Start BlackBerry 10 Rollout in January
“My expectation is that in some countries we will be launching in January,” Frank Boulben, RIM’s new chief marketing officer, said in an interview today before the company’s annual shareholder meeting near its headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. “Will it be three continents or five, five countries or 10? I don’t know the specifics yet, but it will be multiple countries on multiple continents.”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft to buy display maker Perceptive Pixel
Microsoft Corp will buy Perceptive Pixel Inc, a six-year-old developer of large touchscreen displays whose customers include cable network CNN, chief executive Steve Ballmer said on Monday.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Salesforce.com to Buy GoInstant
The company, which launched its service last fall, has developed a technology that allows people in different locations to browse websites together without having to download a plug-in or extra software. Participants that join a co-browsing session can click, scroll, type and browse at the same time from a shared website address. They can also communicate via an embedded chat window.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
TROLL Microsoft signs two patent licensing deals covering Google Android, Chrome
Microsoft said Monday that two more companies had signed patent agreements covering their Android and Chrome devices, under the company’s IP (intellectual property) licensing program that already has more than 1,100 licensing agreements.
The software giant said it would receive royalties from the two deals but did not provide details.
The agreement with Coby Electronics, a maker of Internet TVs, tablets, and other consumer electronics, provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for Coby’s products running the Android or Chrome platform, while the patent agreement with Aluratek provides coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for Aluratek’s e-readers and tablets running the Android or Chrome platform.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
SAP Boosts Hana Database With Partner Incentive Programs
It’s been just more than a year since the general release of SAP’s Hana in-memory database, and the product has been purchased by more than 400 customers, deployed on-premises by more than 190, and invoked as a cloud-based database service on Amazon Web Services to the tune of more than 4,000 developer instances.
To build on the momentum, SAP on Monday announced “migration credit” programs for systems integrator (SI) partners and value-added resellers (VARs) to help customers get their SAP Business Warehouse (BW) deployments up and running on Hana. SAP also announced on Monday new Hana support opportunities and wider availability of Hana database editions for resale by VARs.
All four initiatives are aimed at building up partner expertise around Hana, a fairly new product in a technology segment that is also new to SAP, notwithstanding its 2010 acquisition of the Sybase database business. In short, SAP needs more feet on the street, not just in terms of positioning and selling Hana, b
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Salesforce.com suffers worldwide disruption after power outage
Even the status page was down for a while, some said on Twitter. Power appears to be the cause of the outage, as explained on the site’s status page — once it jumped back into life:
2:46 am PDT : NA1/NA5/NA6/CS0,CS3,CS1,CS12 salesforce.com System Status
The salesforce.com NA1/NA5/NA6/CS0,CS3,CS1,CS12 instances are continuing to experience a service disruption. Power issues were detected but our technician onsite has confirmed this has been fixed. We are currently working to restore the service. Please check the status of trust.salesforce.com frequently for updates regarding this issue.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Google’s Eric Schmidt: The Great Firewall of China will fall
Technology and information penetration in China will eventually force the Great Firewall of China to crumble and even lead to the political opening of the Chinese system, according to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft Ramps Up Its Solution Selling, Compensation Model for Dynamics AX in the Enterprise
“To meet customer expectations,” explained Kennedy, “Microsoft will have a higher level of activity in the sales engagement with our partners, and we are increasing investment and sales training in our own internal Solution Sales Professionals to back that up. This licensing model will enable us to be fully engaged with partners, and we believe this will drive a higher level of partner opportunity and customer satisfaction.”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Apple Removes Green EPEAT Electronics Certification From Products
Apple asked EPEAT, the electronics standards setting group, to pull its 39 certified desktop computers, monitors and laptops, which included past versions of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, off the list of green products late last month, Robert Frisbee, CEO of EPEAT told CIO Journal. EPEAT, created through funding by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and manufacturers, awards products a seal to certify they are recyclable and designed to maximize energy efficiency and minimize environmental harm.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
A New ERP [with SAP HANA]
With SAP HANA becoming available as database underneath the SAP Business Suite, developers finally can provide real-time access to the data required to design ‘ERP transactions’ around the needs of the user: Providing her with targeted decision support based on the wealth of data collected and the rules and policies set by the company. I am not talking about more or better reports or some bar charts here and there – this is not appropriate for people performing their ‘normal jobs’ under high time pressure. What they need instead is a system that is automatically performing the data gathering, statistical analysis and the drawing of conclusions in real time and present it in a way can be digested immediately: Is the customer at risk or not and what is the likelihood of losing the customer? The new ERP will provide clear answers to simple questions like this.
The User Interface of the New ERP
What does this mean for the user interface of the new ERP? Today’s user interfaces are not wel
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Grouping Leads on Accounts in Salesforce.com
If you check for duplicates on every single lead and convert new leads over to contacts and attach them to the account you would avoid this problem, altogether.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Dealing with Data Overload in Salesforce.com
Always keep the key metrics in mind: When asked to implement a process in salesforce.com, make you sure that you, the line-of-business leader, and the executive sponsor are very clear on what the key metrics are that you are trying to affect. If they haven’t given you this already don’t wait for them to tell you, be proactive and get into their head. Ask yourself questions like, what would tell me whether my process is failing or succeeding? Think about what you would want to track and see daily/weekly/monthly. Then bring that to the line-of-business leader and get their buy-in. Do not implement anything until you have their full buy-in. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Do not be afraid to question the value of a report: Especially if you get a request for a reporting need that will most likely be extremely time consuming to implement. Ask if the report is an important metric that will drive smart decision making. If the answer is no or maybe make your reservatio
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Microsoft readies Bing Fund angel investment incubator
“Bing Fund, a small team working with startups and accelerators to bring a wave of innovation to OSD, is looking for a talented engineer with broad experience with Microsoft’s web/cloud stack (C, ASP.NET, Azure), HTML/Javascript/jQuery, as well as one or more popular startup stacks (LAMP, Ruby on Rails, PHP, AWS, Heroku, Google App Engine etc.).”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Samsung wins temporary stay of Apple Galaxy Nexus ban
In other words, we might see an “on again, off again” ban: it was in effect after Judge Koh denied Samsung’s motion to stay and Apple posted the bond; it’s now stayed; but if the Federal Circuit does not decide to stay it for the entire duration of the appeal, then it will enter into force again, possibly as early as next week.
The temporary stay allows Samsung to minimize the disruption that the injunction causes. Google had announced a software change to avoid further infringement, but it will likely take time to build new devices that come with non-infringing operating software.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Court’s Damages Expert for Oracle – Google Trial Stands to Get $2 Million
Google demanded in its Thursday filing that Oracle pay Google’s share of Dr. James Kearl’s fees and expenses, which amounted to $986,978.
Oracle “recovered none of the relief it sought in this litigation,” Google said. “Accordingly, Google is the prevailing party and is entitled to recover costs.”
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Facebook and Yahoo Settle Patent Litigation
No money changed hands as part of the deal. Instead the companies announced Friday what they called a strategic alliance that includes a new advertising partnership, expanded distribution arrangements and a patent cross-license. Yahoo and Facebook said they would also work together to bring Yahoo’s media event coverage to Facebook users, by collaborating on “social integrations” on the Yahoo site.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Oracle – SAP Retrial Set to Begin in August
SAP previously asked the judge to prevent Oracle’s lawyers from using words like “theft” and “stealing” during the retrial to describe TomorrowNow’s conduct, and at a May 24 hearing she granted SAP’s request.
Those words are “inflammatory” and might be prejudicial to SAP, she said. Moreover, the case is a civil one, not a criminal one, and such language could “confuse the jury.”
“You can say ‘copied,’ because that’s what they did, they copied without authority, and you can use the word ‘take,’ but that’s as far as you can go,” she told Oracle’s lawyers at the hearing.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
3 Things You Need to Know About Gartner Magic Quadrants
And yet, despite the vitriol, the vendor community and IT leaders continue to support the Magic Quadrant; vendors by promoting Magic Quadrants when they are designated Leaders, and IT management when they use MQs to short-list vendors. The Magic Quadrant is a valuable tool, but it has to be used with full knowledge of the research process and the analysts behind it to get the greatest benefit.
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
Enterprise Headlines and Highlights, 2012-07-06
Highlights of enterprise software and solutions news from the past week:
Dell is buying Quest Software. The “Toad” company.
Oracle loses another court case, this one involving resale (in the EU) of “used” software downloaded over the Internet. This could have wide-ranging impact on all digital media, not just software.
There are still a lot of unfilled jobs out there in Java, mobile, .Net, SAP, and Sharepoint, among other highly sought after skills.
And if you have those skills, think about working at highly ranked Bay Area places to work including Workday, SAP and Sybase, NetSuite, Citrix, VMware, Hitachi Data Systems, or Actuate.
Oracle is pulling the plug on the Flash-based support portal it had, and Adobe is pulling the plug on Flash for mobile platforms (starting with iOS already and with Android 4.1 and higher).
The source of a lot of last week’s outages has been traced back to a leap second bug in Linux and a similar bug in Cassandra. This week’s outag
(Curated by Dennis Moore. Read the complete article here)
