May 13, 2008

HP buys EDS to take on IBM

Hewlett-Packard and EDS, the Plano, TX-based service giant, announced today that HP will purchase the company for "an enterprise value of approximately $13.9 billion." The deal has already been approved of by both companies' boards and should be finalized some time in the second half of this year. For EDS, the acquisition is primarily about improving its languishing stock price. For HP, the deal is about increasing its services business, in particular, adding more types of services and increasing its scale in order to take on the king of IT services, IBM.

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Posted by TomR at 10:25 AM |

May 12, 2008

Microsoft and RIM cosy up to take on iPhone

RIM, the company behind the Blackberry smart phone, and Microsoft announced an increase in integration between RIM's mobile devices and the Windows Live service. This news sets the stage for the big summer PR battle between the Blackberry and Apple's iPhone. With the iPhone adding Exchange synchronization and enterprise-friendly features by the end of June, Blackberry, Windows Mobile-powered, and other smart phones will find the enterprise phone market under assault by Apple proponents.

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Posted by TomR at 10:34 AM |

April 10, 2008

Relativity moves modernization from the desktop to the server

Relativity Technologies announced a significant addition to its product family -- the Modernization Workbench Enterprise Edition, a server-based solution that will enable teams of distributed developers to work in concert. Benefits for organizations could be shortened development time, improved code quality, and reduced modernization costs. For Relativity, its primary challenges include ensuring the product meets the needs of its clients, selling to CIOs, having clients use it effectively, and convincing developers that it is in their best interest to support the offering.

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Posted by TomR at 10:23 AM |

March 31, 2008

iPhone 2.0: Answering the call of the enterprise

Earlier this month, Apple announced that the next revision of the iPhone software would support "enterprise features," including a direct link to Exchange, a software development kit, and IT-friendly management capabilities. While the free update is not due for three months, it's clear that the consumer-centric iPod maker will find its iPhone is much more accepted, if not embraced, by usually anti-Apple IT departments.

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Posted by TomR at 10:15 PM |

January 16, 2008

MuleSource expands its SOA lineup

This week, MuleSource, known for its open source enterprise service bus (ESB) offering, announced a trio of product updates and new offerings. In addition to enhancing the Enterprise version of the company's namesake Mule Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), the vendor debuted a tool for monitoring transactions and a registry. The enhanced lineup now enables MuleSource to embed itself deeper into service-oriented architecture (SOA) deployments.

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Posted by TomR at 10:04 AM |

October 25, 2007

Laszlo pitches Webtop software with RIA market still in doldrums

Veteran RIA (Rich Internet Application) vendor Lazslo Systems is hoping that its new focus on selling the Laszlo Webtop will finally enable the company to find the market success that has so far eluded it. Laszlo calls the Webtop offering a "Web 2.0 desktop" because the software is browser-based; it relies on Ajax (or Flash) technology for layout and interactivity; and the product's foundation allows for easy integration with other data sources and systems.

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Posted by TomR at 01:23 PM |

September 06, 2007

Marketing lessons from Apple: The iPhone price drop & rebate

Apple continues to generate an enormous amount of publicity around its iPhone product line. Its preview, launch, and price cut, as well as numerous events in between, have made it this year's most covered technology product. Other tech vendors can leverage some -- but not all -- of the lessons learned during the short life of the iPhone.

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Posted by TomR at 10:59 AM |

April 24, 2007

Global brand ranking report puts a tech company on top

The 2007 global brand ranking report from market research firm Millward Brown Optimor had 17 tech brands in its top 100 list. Marketing executives at Google will be happy with the results, while those at Sony may wonder how they can claw their way up the brand value ladder. As for Microsoft and Apple, score a victory for the Zune and Vista creator.

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Posted by TomR at 11:21 AM |

February 06, 2007

Time for Apple to increase ITS video resolution

Later this month, Apple will start shipping Apple TV, its new set-top designed to enable iTunes Store video and audio content to be easily played on high-definition TVs and their accompanying surround sound systems. The device will help bridge the traditional divide between the PC and the TV. But with its release, the company should -- though it may not -- also announce it is upgrading its video to a high definition resolution.

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Posted by TomR at 09:53 PM |

January 29, 2007

Microsoft continues to lose money trying to make it in the CE world

Despite investing billions of dollars in the consumer electronics market, Microsoft is not profiting from its high profile ventures. Profit comes from Windows, Office, and its server offerings, but critical consumer products, such as the Xbox 360 and the Zune ecosystems, continue to lose money. Microsoft executives don't expect the consumer division to make money until 2008.

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Posted by TomR at 11:09 AM |

January 10, 2007

Apple's Jobs touts the iPhone as the next big thing

On Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivered his annual keynote address at the 2007 Macworld Conference and Expo. This year, the story of the show was Apple's iPhone, a combination cell phone, iPod, and handheld computer that runs the company's PC operating system, Mac OS X. While most of Jobs' keynote focused on the iPhone, he also revealed some other interesting company details and another product announcement.

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Posted by TomR at 03:13 PM |

December 08, 2006

A boom in digital content and DRM headaches will drive "Apple iServ"-like products

Consumers are investing in digital content, but they increasingly face the challenges of needing more storage and having to manage commercial, personal, and hybrid content. As a result, consumers will be drawn to home media servers, lightweight devices designed to store, stream, sync, and manage a household's complex portfolio of digital assets. We examine what Apple, a leader in commercial digital downloads, could offer if it developed its own home media server.

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Posted by TomR at 02:56 PM |

December 05, 2006

IONA fully embraces its Celtix open source experiment

IONA Technologies is making Celtix, an open source enterprise service bus (ESB), part of its core offerings. Previously, the company had heavily promoted its two commercial product families: Artix, its ESB, and Orbix, its battle-tested CORBA solution. But with this recent announcement, Celtix Enterprise becomes a fully marketed and supported IONA product -- the third element in the company's distributed computing portfolio.

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Posted by TomR at 02:18 PM |

December 01, 2006

Microsoft launches Vista and Office upgrades for businesses

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the "business launch" of several of its most prominent software offerings, including Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office, and Exchange Server 2007. However, the individual organizational jury is still out on whether the new features and capabilities of these products outweigh the cost of their adoption, deployment, and support. The biggest hurdle for Microsoft to overcome will be trying to convince its existing customer base to upgrade.

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Posted by TomR at 12:08 PM |

November 20, 2006

Vendor blogging: Do it right or don't do it

Not all companies should blog. Not all executives in companies that blog should blog. And not all blogs that are successful in terms of readership should be continued. The key to corporate blogging is to first, understand what they return is for the company, and second, determine whether it is possible to achieve that return. In the end, blogs, like all corporate communication, should be constantly reevaluated and tweaked, encouraged or shuttered according to the needs of the organization, not the individual.

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Posted by TomR at 11:16 AM |

November 14, 2006

Sun recharges the Java community with open source announcement

Yesterday, Sun Microsystems made official what company executives had promised to do: open source Java. Specifically, Sun is releasing "Java platform implementations" under the GPL open source license. This effort will help recharge the Java community and provide renewed energy to improve the Java platform in order to take on competitive offerings, particularly Microsoft's .NET Framework.

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Posted by TomR at 10:56 AM |

September 20, 2006

The Zune 1.0 dud

Last week, Microsoft officially announced details of its new Zune consumer brand. The September 14th announcement came two days after rival Apple announced a refreshed iPod family, updated iTunes software for Windows and Mac OS X, and a revamped iTunes Store that now supports movie downloads. The verdict? The soon-to-arrive Microsoft device and its accompanying Zune-branded ecosystem will not slow the iPod juggernaut. Zune, in its initial 1.0 incarnation, will be a dud.

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Posted by TomR at 01:42 PM |

July 24, 2006

Microsoft's consumer obsession leads to Zune

For the last week, the rumor of Zune, reportedly some kind of Microsoft-branded iPod, dominated tech news, community, and blog sites. The general media was obsessed, too, as the Zune story offered so many enticing angles, such as Microsoft battling its arch-rival Apple, the company now defining the digital music experience; Microsoft back-stabbing its digital music partners by embracing a vertical digital music strategy; and Microsoft jumping deeper into the consumer electronics space despite huge...

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Posted by TomR at 01:36 PM |

July 21, 2006

Accenture puts a half billion dollar figure on its SOA bet

This week Accenture, the $15 billion global consulting, technology services, and outsourcing firm announced it would be investing $450 million in service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives and activities over the next three years. The fact that Accenture was betting big on SOA was not news, but by attaching a nearly half a billion dollar figure to its bet, the company made the strength of its commitment obvious to the industry, the media, clients, and prospects. Beyond...

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Posted by TomR at 02:34 PM |

June 16, 2006

Microsoft plans for Gates' departure

Yesterday Microsoft announced that Bill Gates would further reduce his responsibilities at Microsoft, the $40 billion company he founded in 1975. Gates had already reduced his duties, particularly in 2000, when he ceded the company CEO duties to his college friend and longtime Microsoft employee, Steve Ballmer. This announcement provided a timeline and also noted the executives that would take over Gates' current responsibilities. The changes now, and by July 2008Microsoft announced several important points about...

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Posted by TomR at 01:09 PM |

March 20, 2006

Built with SOA: i2's Agile Business Process Platform

The core principles of service-oriented architecture (SOA) -- standards-based interfaces and reusable services -- and its benefits -- system reuse, incremental adoption, and multi-vendor support -- are impossible to ignore for organizations with tight budgets and the need to adapt their systems to a dynamic business environment. The SOA marketplace is full of solutions that will help organizations service-enable their existing apps, build new services, and tie services together into an orchestrated composite app. But...

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Posted by TomR at 11:38 AM |

October 05, 2005

Feel free to ignore the recent Google-Sun announcement for the time being

Google and Apple Computer are currently the only two technology companies that can generate global buzz when they simply announce an announcement. And particularly when the announcements are shrouded in mystery, the media, the bloggers, and the individual posters on business and tech sites run rampant with speculation.Yesterday's Google and Sun Microsystems announcement had all the makings of a seminal moment in the IT industry — what former Intel CEO Andy Grove calls an inflection...

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Posted by TomR at 01:10 AM |

September 14, 2005

Software development in the new age: IONA's aggressive embrace of open source

Before service oriented architecture (SOA), distributed computing battles were often waged between Microsoft's DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) supporters and vendor-neutral CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) proponents. While these technologies don't generate much press these days, they continue to run many critical systems, particularly in large enterprises.IONA redefines its imageIONA Technologies, with headquarters in Waltham, Mass., and Dublin, made its name selling and supporting CORBA solutions with its Orbix offering. Now, the company is...

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Posted by TomR at 01:16 AM |

November 23, 2004

Klocwork's inTellect: Shedding light on the development process

Businesses spend an enormous amount of effort and money to understand and track critical business operations, such as manufacturing, inventory, and logistics, but they have little insight into software development. While the software industry uses terms like “engineer” and “architecture,” the development process and the work of coders end up being something of a mystery to companies. Will a project arrive on time? Is it defect-free and secure? Are the coders focusing on and delivering...

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Posted by TomR at 11:28 AM |

September 22, 2004

Webcom addresses clear sales problems, delivers measurable ROI

With all the media- and analyst-fueled hype and noise that surround horizontal technologies like operating systems or Web services tools, it’s refreshing to talk with vendors delivering tightly focused offerings that address well-documented business inefficiencies and deliver a clear, quantifiable return on investment (ROI). The vendor of the week that falls into this category is Webcom Inc., a self-funded software firm that began in 1997 as a Web and eCommerce shop but has since concentrated...

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Posted by TomR at 01:25 AM |

January 08, 2004

Another interesting Apple crop

Apple Computer just wrapped up another Macworld, and, as usual, the technology world paid a seemingly inordinate amount of attention to a company that has a relatively small percentage of the worldwide PC installed base. Why? Because while Apple may not dominate sales charts the way Microsoft or Sony does, the influence of its offerings and strategic direction are tremendous to both the PC and consumer electronics industries.It is interesting to note, that while there...

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Posted by TomR at 10:35 AM |

October 07, 2003

Sun Java Desktop System and its siblings battle Microsoft Windows/Office

Last month, Sun Microsystems announced a new software offering called the Sun Java Desktop System (JDS), a bundle of enhanced open source software to compete with Microsoft’s dominant Windows operating system and Office productivity suite. Most of the business and technology media and analysts seemed unimpressed. Some even said that it was doomed because they considered the product to be a desktop for primarily running Java applications – understandable because of its name. But New...

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Posted by TomR at 10:45 AM |