M&A Day: Winners and Losers
Oracle finally nails BEA, SAP completes its deal to buy Business Objects: the day started out making a lot of sense. But when I heard that Sun had spent $1 billion to buy MySQL, I had to check the calendar.
Latest Posts
The Orphan Gets Orphaned Again
Jeff Raikes is leaving Microsoft, and that means that once again, Microsoft Dynamics is a victim of the shifting sands and musical chairs at a Microsoft that seems less and less dedicated to its enterprise applications offerings.
SAP, Oracle, Babies, and Wonks: Competition, American-style
SAP as a company has always been risk-averse, even as it takes some risky steps. But its perhaps most risky step ever – the acquisition of TomorrowNow – in 2005, has apparently turned the already anodyne company into an almost non-competitive stupor, and frankly, it’s becoming a problem.
Leapblogging: The Salesforce.com Ecosystem Debate, Round II
Dan Farber’s rebuttal to my most recent post on Salesforce.com seems to miss the main point of my blog, and instead goes into an extensive discussion about a broader comparison between the two companies than I ever intended to make.
Dell Buys the SaaS Platform Salesforce.com Wishes it Had
If you didn’t sit up and take notice when Dell bought privately held Everdream two weeks ago, you’ll be forgiven for overlooking an interesting but, on surface, less than earth-shattering deal that slipped by everyone’s noses in the week before Thanksgiving.But if you’re tracking software as a service, and in particular Salesforce.
ROI Lost: IBM Puts the Screws on a Loyal Customer
If you ever thought that the contents of the contract you sign with your IT vendor isn’t the most important part of your technology strategy, read on. And if you ever thought that your vendor would never do anything to overtly screw you, you also need to read this blog.
The Innovator’s Dilemma, Oracle Style
Is Oracle an innovative company, as Charles Philips contended, or is it more of a legacy apps company largely focused on protecting its equally conservative customer base? This was the gist of an interesting discussion among the Enterprise Irregulars following our meeting with Philips, and one that I explored in subsequent discussions with other Oracle executives and customers on day one of Oracle OpenWorld.
Peeking Under the Tent At Oracle OpenWorld: Fusion On Schedule and Web 2.0 Meets CRM
Oracle has a lot to talk about at OpenWorld, which starts next week in San Francisco. There’s news about upgrades, an update on Fusion, some examples of what look like some pretty cool Web/Office/Enterprise 2.
BEA Acquired By Oracle (Sooner Rather than Later)
I’m predicting a relatively quick end to the silliness over at BEA, with BEA’s executives, prompted by a little medicine from Dr. Icahn, acquiring enough temporary sanity to accept whatever second offer Oracle is willing to give them.
Enterprise Software at the Crossroads: Lost Execs and Lost Ground
What’s up with the top enterprise software companies and their leadership? In the space of six months, Microsoft, SAP, and most recently Oracle, have lost their most visible executives in a rather abrupt fashion.
Why Did SAP buy Business Objects?
There’s been a lot of back and forth about this deal, covered admirably by Dennis Howlett, Dan Farber, and other bloggers, but precious little on what it means to blend a premier applications company with a premier business intelligence vendor. I think it’s worth trying to get inside the though process at SAP that led it to break with its own organic growth strategy – and take a hit in the stock market in the process.
Salesforce.com’s new PaaS Fund: Is it Enough to Jump Start the PaaS Concept?
Salesforce.com and its venture capital pals are trying to up the ante in the platform game by putting together a seed fund for start-ups that want to target SFDC’s re-christened AppExchange platform, now known by the somewhat outré term: platform-as-a-service, or PaaS.
SAP Business ByDesign: Competitive Advantage and the Dynamics of Enterprise Software
Can SAP's Business ByDesign drive competitive advantage for customers? And competitive positioning for the enterprise software market?
SAP's A1S and Salesforce.com's Force.com: Brinkmanship at Its Best
It's going to a hard week for Salesforce.com and Marc Benioff.
Cap'n Google: Blind Leading the Blind, or a New Vision for Google Apps?
It's clear despite various denials that Google is trying to target Microsoft Office with its Apps strategy, and it's clear from many early looks at Google's functionality, and terms of service, that this strategy has a long way to go before it offers a genuine challenge to the Office monopoly.
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