Why Windows Azure is the Future of Microsoft (and Enterprise Software as Well)

One of the advantages of a being a relatively ancient industry analyst is the ability to look back on over 25 years of innovation and spot the real paradigm shifts amidst the updates, revisions, and otherwise mundane changes that attempt, but never deliver, something radically new
Basking in the nerdacopia that is Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference [...]

Let MySQL Go: Oracle, Open Source, and the EU

The news that the European Commission thinks Oracle should jettison MySQL as part of its deal to acquire Sun is a typical case of bad analysis yielding potentially good results. I have to agree with Oracle’s contention that MySQL + Oracle DBMS does not constitute an unfairly competitive combination, and the EU’s perception to the [...]

Oracle the Partner-Friendly Partner, Round Two: E2Open, Oracle, and Transportation Management

One of the largely unheralded changes at Oracle this year has been its sudden willingness to partner at a strategic level with other enterprise software companies. This departure from previous strategy has been noted here before, as has its implications for the enterprise software community. (Great if you’re an ISV looking for a strong partner [...]

Year Two in the Reign of SAP’s Léo Apotheker: Predictions and Proscriptions

In the aftermath of a relatively decent Q3, all things considered, that nonetheless earned SAP the wrath of the stock market, it’s important to take a look at what SAP, its customers, and its competitors have to look forward to as CEO Léo Apotheker rounds the end of his first full year at the helm.
And [...]

Required Reading for the SAP Crowd: The SAP Green Book is Here

I don’t read a lot of business books, in fact, I read very very few. But this weekend I took some time off from my usual work-avoidance mode to start reading a new book that showed up in my office last week. By the end of the first chapter I knew this was one book [...]

Siemens Renews Maintenance Contract with SAP. Now For the Real Issue

As expected, Siemens renewed its maintenance contract with SAP, ending rampant speculation that the German industrial giant and one of SAP’s largest customers was going the third party maintenance route.
But if you’re SAP, or any enterprise software company, this is merely a temporary lull in a battle that will inevitably change the enterprise software market [...]

Oracle’s Fusion Applications Are Ready. And So Is the Go-to-Market Strategy. Now The Fun Can Begin

The lid is finally off on a 12 month-old NDA for Fusion Applications, and in this case the long delay between when analysts were first shown Fusion Apps in the fall of 2008 and when we were given free hand to describe what we’ve seen now looks like a impressively smart move.
What was smart was [...]

Larry Ellison Unveils Fusion 1.0

Here are the basics:
Version 1.0 includes the following modules:
Finance
Human Capital Management
Sales and marketing
SCM
Project portfolio management
Procurement
GRC
Notably, there is no manufacturing module. So the focus will be on the service industries.
Also notable: Each of these individual components will be deployable in a SOA architecture as standalone modules attached to an existing non-Fusion application suite, such as eBusiness [...]

Benioff At Oracle Open World: This Could Be A Trend

Apparently Marc Benioff scored both a PR coup and some nice/nice points by appearing at Oracle Open World on Tuesday and failing to completely trash talk his competitor. The event seemed to go so well (Benioff was described by one observer as “magnanimous“, not exactly an adjective usually associated with “shoot from the lip” Marc) [...]

The Fox in the Hen House: Benioff to Keynote at Oracle Open World

Yes, it’s true. I just got the invite for next week’s keynote from Salesforce.com’s PR team. And got it confirmed by Oracle. Apparently there  is a booth of massive proportions in the center of the Moscone Center that will be touting the Beni-fits of Salesforce.com as well. It’s one thing to have SAP and IBM [...]