Tag: Oracle


NetSuite's Hairball Awards Applies A Humorous Edge to Address Serious Software Issues

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5th October

NetSuite has unveiled a great video to promote its new Hairball Institute for Business and associated Award program aimed at curing “Software Hairball Syndrome” (SHS).

The video is a fun and effective way to bring attention to the fundamental flaws of pulling together an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, including the endless integration, customization and support issues.

However, NetSuite’s video and award program takes aim primarily at applications focused on the individual piece-parts of an ERP system in the small- and mid-size business (SMB) segment of the market, specifically inventory and project management represented by Microsoft Great Plains and Project, financials illustrated by Intuit QuickBooks, and eCommerce exemplified by Websphere. It also can’t help itself and includes its sibling rival, Salesforce.com, as a ‘standalone’ CRM solution vendor.

Yet, the real culprits of this syndrome are the bigger players–SAP and Oracle–along with a myriad of like-minded legacy software vendors. Unless NetSuite has … Read More »


HP Attacks Oracle's New World Order With Apotheker Appointment

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1st October

When Oracle announced its intention to acquire Sun Microsystems in April 2009, CEO Larry Ellison proclaimed the acquisition, “transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems.”

Although he was not ready to use the term at the time, it didn’t take long for Oracle to refer to its combined capabilities as a Cloud Computing solution set, which it recently put on full display at its annual OpenWorld conference.

The event was also a coming out party for its new President, Mark Hurd, the high flying former HP CEO who departed in disgrace only a month earlier. Hurd’s appointment wasn’t hard to understand given his hardware experience at HP and NCR, and now gives Oracle’s move into the system business even more significance.

HP has retaliated by announcing the appointment of Leo Apotheker as its new CEO, along with Ray Lane as its non-executive chairman of the board. Apotheker comes to HP … Read More »


Cloud Acquisitions Change Competitive Landscape

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22nd August

There have been a series of acquisitions over the past few weeks which clearly illustrate how the competitive landscape in the tech industry and beyond is being fundamentally changed by the rapidly evolving cloud computing phenomenon.

The two most recent examples came this week. The first was CA Technologies’ acquisition of 4Base Technology, a virtualization and cloud infrastructure consulting firm, which CA plans to use as a cornerstone of its expanded cloud computing professional services capabilities. This is the latest in a series of acquisitions which CA has made to transform the company from a software-only to a multi-dimensional corporate portfolio which personifies its new CA Technologies company name. CA’s transformation echos the moves of other players seeking to become one-stop shops for hardware, software and services. The most significant of these was Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Intel made an even more dramatic acquisition … Read More »


Handicapping HP CEO Candidates

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13th August

Mark Hurd’s sudden resignation as HP’s CEO has opened a floodgate of speculation regarding who the company will select to succeed him.

Because his departure wasn’t anticipated, there are no clear-cut internal candidates. And, because Hurd himself was a surprise selection for the post in 2006, it is possible that another little-known industry executive may be tapped again for the position this time around.

So, this creates a wonderful opportunity for anyone with a passing interest in HP’s future, and the future of the technology industry as a whole, to throw a few names in the hat.

The HP CEO position is particularly intriguing in part because it has grown to become the largest IT vendor in the industry through a series of acquisitions of Compaq, EDS and others. More importantly, HP like the rest of the IT industry is at a pivotal crossroads … Read More »


Yes – The SaaS 'Experiment' Is Over

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13th July

For the past two weeks, I’ve been debating whether to respond to a commentary in InfoWorld by Neil McAllister which asked, “Is the SaaS Experiment Finally Over?”

But, I couldn’t hold back any longer when one of the many online publications where I’m a contributor, eBizQ, posed the question in a more provocative fashion, “Is SaaS Dead?”

I couldn’t bring myself to respond to McAllister’s column when it was first published because his argument was so ludicrous. He alluded to a variety of past SaaS and cloud vendor service outages to raise concerns about the overall viability of these rapidly expanding markets. And he used a series of Gartnerisms to warn against developer migration to the SaaS model.  

Yet, McAllister ignores the pervasive failures of traditional on-premise software which has inspired organizations of all sizes to explore and increasingly adopt SaaS alternatives to better meet their corporate needs.

The … Read More »


Microsoft Poised to Regain Momentum in 2010

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13th February

In my latest column for E-Commerce Times, I suggest that “once again, Microsoft may be a late entrant in the market with a set of solutions that lag those offered by today’s industry innovators, but it is still in a good position to regain its momentum and become a dominant force in the rapidly evolving cloud computing marketplace.”

Click here to read why.


Daydreaming About the Cloud and Salesforce.com

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27th November

As I recover from yesterday’s Thanksgiving festivities, I’ve been struck by two thoughts regarding last week’s Dreamforce conference,

Salesforce.com’s new Chatter social computing functionality may be a defensive as well as proactive move.
An acquisition of Salesforce.com by Oracle may be a friendly maneuver rather than a hostile takeover.

As I reported in my previous blogpost, Salesforce.com’s introduction of Chatter last week at Dreamforce was met with mixed reviews. Many customers, partners, analysts, press and even internal staff and salespeople were uncertain about the company’s goals and capabilities in this new area.

I believe that building an ‘enterprise-class’ social networking component makes sense and adds a timely new dimension to salesforce.com’s fundamental functionality.

Marc Benioff justified salesforce.com’s move by claiming in his keynote address at Dreamforce that neither Facebook nor Twitter were willing to fortify their services to meet the needs of enterprise users.

But, what … Read More »


Why Is Marc Benioff Presenting at Oracle Open World?

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9th October

I was astonished to learn that salesforce.com’s founder and CEO, Marc Benioff, is speaking at next week’s Oracle Open World customer/partner conference.

Although Benioff is an alumnus of Oracle and Oracle’s founder/chairman/CEO Larry Ellison was an initial investor in salesforce.com, there has been no love lost between them publicly because salesforce.com was conceived to compete against Oracle’s Siebel division long before it became a part of Oracle.

Benioff has spent the past decade ridiculing the inefficiencies of on-premise customer relationship management (CRM) software and other legacy enterprise applications, along with traditional hosting models associated with Oracle. Ellison has returned the fire with his own tirades about the impossible economics of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. And, Ellison’s lieutenants in the Siebel On-Demand division have made increasingly aggressive efforts to undercut the success of salesforce.com over the past year.

Yet, folks I know who are a part of the Oracle inner-circle … Read More »


Callidus Bets on the Cloud

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30th July

Making the transition to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model isn’t easy for incumbent software vendors (ISVs).

Rearchitecting their applications may be the easiest task in the transformation process. Redesigning their go-to-market strategies and ongoing operations; restructuring their revenue recognition models; and reorienting their staff are the more difficult challenges.

Greater service delivery costs combined with lower per unit prices make it is easy to see why most ISVs have tried to resist the SaaS movement and denied its long-term viability.

Yet, a severe slowdown in traditional, packaged, ‘legacy’ application sales has made it imperative for ISVs of all sizes across every segment of the software industry to finally accept SaaS as a reality they can no longer ignore and must finally embrace.

Even Microsoft, Oracle or SAP are promising ‘cloud’ solutions and cranking up their PR machines to promote their promises. But, their SaaS offerings are still primarily hosted versions … Read More »


Sun Shines On Oracle's Cloud

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20th April

Oracle took advantage of IBM’s failed efforts to acquire Sun Microsystems and swooped in with a more lucrative bid today which could reap greater rewards for the company’s rapidly expanding cloud computing strategy.

Oracle’s acquisition of Sun could recast the entire computer industry by giving Oracle control of Sun’s Java software and access to its vast developer community, plus Sun’s Solaris-based server technology. These elements could bolster Oracle’s database systems and serve as a powerful web delivery engine for the company’s widening array of business applications and third-party developers.

Oracle had to be sweating bullets during the IBM/Sun negotiations because, “The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle’s largest business…”, according to Oracle’s press release today.

Don’t let Larry Ellison’s past pronouncements that the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing trends are just over-hyped ideas. Folks within Oracle have been working hard to … Read More »





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