
The Fall and Rise of Verticals
In the late 90s, Gartner used to grade outsourcers on a poster with scores for verticals, horizontals, geographies. Couple of those years, I was on the team which graded the offerings. A provider gave us the same reference client for the rows for the media and entertainment vertical, finance and accounting processes and for ERP […]

Event Report: #InforSummit Reveals More Than A Redesigned Infor
Changes at Infor More Than Cosmetic Analysts and tech watchers gathered on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2013, for Infor Summit, a progress check on Infor, the third largest independent applications vendor in the market. While many customers may not have heard of Infor, most have heard of the brands it has acquired over the last […]

Oracle Reports Q3 2011 Results: 34% Growth in Aplications
Oracle reported strong Q3 2011 results across all product lines last week. Okay, that’s not necessarily a new thing this quarter, in general, Oracle has reported better than the market average for several years now, even through the recession. But…

News Analysis: Oracle Acquires Phase Forward For $685M And Gains A Foothold Into The Lucrative Life Sciences Market
Oracle Adds A Trusted CTMC/EDC Solution To Its Health Sciences Portfolio On April 16th, Oracle announced its intent to acquire Phase Forward, a Cambridge, Massachusetts based Clinical Trials Management Software (CTMS) vendor and early electronic data capture (EDC) pioneer. Phase Forward adds 335 life science, medical device, research agency, and contract research organization (CRO) customers […]
Microsoft Dynamics Buys Its Vertical Expertise — Meeting The Challenges of a Channel Partner Development Strategy
Microsoft’s announcement that it was buying the industry-specific products and IP of three of its existing ISV partners reflects an important realization on the part of the mid-market enterprise software leader that partnerships alone cannot generate the industry expertise the Dynamics group needs to compete in today’s market.
These acquisitions are evidence of a shift in […]