Software analyst Josh Greenbaum's opinions on enterprise software have annoyed enough vendors that he now checks under the hood of his PC every morning before he boots up.
This post marks the end of my relationship with ZDNet -- though not the end of my blogging career by a long shot. I'll still be blogging -- can't seem to give it up now that it's in my blood -- but over on my own Wordpress site, where the requirements for making this blog a money-maker by CBS' standards won't be a problem.
Microsoft’s announcement that it would offer 0% financing to new customers of its Dynamics product line is a welcome offering at a time when the credit crisis requires out-of-the-box solutions to the fact that a bunch of ungrateful banks are unwilling to loan the taxpayer those megabucks we lent them as part of the recent “bailout” package.
It’s hard to know which was more significant, the announcement that SAP is going to tackle on demand at the top of its market, or the name of the person – former Oracle apps exec John Wookey – who was picked to lead the effort. Off the top of my head, I’d say it’s a draw: an almost amazing segue into a new, and very challenging market, and an amazing pick to head up the effort.
My friend and colleague Jim Shepherd of AMR set me straight this morning about what Salesforce.com is doing with Facebook, and I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't get it right the first time.
Darn, I missed it: Salesforce.com is opening itself up to Facebook.
With SAP’s decision to forgo its 2009 guidance a paradoxical beacon of truth in a falling market, I have decided to return from vacation a day early and get busy trying to gauge the market for enterprise software in the coming year. It’s not an easy task, needless to day, or SAP wouldn’t have risked punishing its stock with a frank admission that it has no idea what to expect next year.
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak …..October.
Larry Ellison can be forgiven for sometimes making a mistake, particularly when it comes to marketing new, or not so new, concepts. His statement yesterday that Oracle was unveiling its "first-ever" hardware product is factually challenged by the 1996 launch of the Network Computer, Oracle's real "first-ever" hardware product.
If I had to distill a vast and complex product strategy into a single, admittedly simplistic description, Oracle of late would have been known as a company that innovates through acquisition: This has been largely true since Oracle’s acquisition binge started five years ago. And until now innovation through acquisition has been one of the simplest ways to differentiate Oracle from SAP, which, using similarly simplistic language, largely innovates at the core of its flagship product line.
Léo Apotheker is slated to take over the helm of SAP this January, and while many have worked with him, broken bread with him, and generally admired his business acumen and very successful career, there’s one problem with his ascension to the top executive position in the enterprise software market: No one knows what Léo actually plans to do when he takes over.