Oracle

Five reasons Oracle/PeopleSoft was more fun than Microhoo

As the Saturday deadline looms for Yahoo to give Microsoft an answer on the latter's takeover bid, it's time for those of us writing about this to admit something: This is getting boring.

I mean "boring" in that Village of the Damned or Groundhog Day way, in which we're doomed to write the same story over and over and over again. Tomorrow, Yahoo may or may not respond to Microsoft with a carefully worded letter. Sunday, Microsoft may or may not respond with a carefully worded letter. Monday, The Wall Street Journal, which we suspect … Read more

Ubuntu and the coming Linux popularity contest

It's just a matter of time before Ubuntu is crowned "enterprise ready" by one of the major ISVs. Will it be able to maintain its popularity once it is popular with enterprise buyers?

Ubuntu plays an increasingly important role within the larger Linux market. According to a new white paper from IDC [PDF], Linux is big business and is ready for prime time, with IDC forecasting overall spending on hardware, software, and services for Linux to increase 25.2 percent annually through 2011, particularly at the expense of Unix:

Increasingly, deployments of the Linux server operating system are expanding from infrastructure-oriented workloads to more commercially-oriented workloads such as database, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and other general business processing, workloads that historically have been the domain of Microsoft Windows and Unix. Where once Linux was seen by customers primarily as a low-cost infrastructure solution, it is now increasingly viewed as a solution for wider and more critical business deployments.

The question in my mind is therefore, "Which of the big-three Linux vendors is going to dominate the market?" Red Hat is the obvious first choice, but I think there's a serious spoiler in the Linux market, and its name is Ubuntu.… Read more

SAP tries tag-team for CEO transition

With the appointment of Leo Apotheker to the post of co-CEO, SAP is trying a tag-team, two-in-the-box CEO transition strategy it has used before.

Apotheker's new role had largely been anticipated, following his appointment as deputy CEO more than 12 months ago. Apotheker will assume the co-CEO position immediately and join current CEO Henning Kagermann at the head of the table. Kagermann plans to retire in May 2009.

The enterprise software giant used a similar game plan when grooming Kagermann as the successor to SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner.

"Henning Kagermann requested that the supervisory board appoint Leo Apotheker … Read more

Marc Benioff: From assembly programmer to software magnate

In this Super Techies interview, I talk with Marc Benioff about his career in the software industry. Benioff is the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Salesforce.com, which has led the business software-as-a-service revolution with its CRM-based platform. Salesforce.com is expecting to reach the $1 billion revenue threshold in its 2009 fiscal year, ending January 31, 2009.

In the interview, Benioff discusses his early work developing games for the TRS 80, Apple II, and Commodore 64, and his turn as a summer intern at Apple in 1984, coding in assembly language for the Macintosh.

Benioff also shares what he … Read more

EIC Squared: Comcast+BitTorrent, Oracle, Facebook, Adobe

In this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss current events--Comcast and BitTorrent teaming up, Oracle's latest earnings, recent moves at Facebook, and Adobe Systems' introduction of Photoshop for the cloud.

For reference, here are links to some of the coverage:

BitTorrent president: Comcast agreement is a 'win'

Comcast and BitTorrent bury the hatchet

Oracle new license revenue triggers IT spending worries

Facebook goes hyper-viral with 'People You May Know'

Facebook ignores OpenSocial, embraces Windows Live Contacts API

Review: Photoshop Express beta

Is Red Hat weathering the downturn better than Oracle?

Both Red Hat and Oracle had excellent quarters, but Oracle's was apparently not "excellent" enough for Wall Street's tastes. Its shares and the market went south this week on fears that technology spending is in decline.

In addition, Wall Street apparently didn't notice that Red Hat actually raised its fiscal year 2009 guidance this week.

Consolidation is one way to improve earnings in a down market, but open source may well be a better way as The New York Times opined.

Oracle's total software revenue was up 21 percent, to $4.2 billion. Pretty … Read more

Mormons for open source

Open source has clearly gone mainstream when religions start requiring it on employment applications.

It does my heart good to see my church putting its tithing dollars to work in an inspired cause: open source. A friend just sent me a job posting on the LDS Church's website calling for a Linus Torvalds-like figure to lead open-source development efforts for the LDS Church and its IT projects.

You may not want those missionaries knocking on your door, but you've got to admit that every religion needs at least one Linus Torvalds. :-)

Go to the LDS Church's employment site and type "open source" into the search box. You'll find several requirements for open-source savvy engineers (including someone familiar with Hyperic - got something to tell me, Javier? Is my tithing paying for your Wii addiction?), but this is the one that I find fascinating (and encouraging):

Technical Program Manager - Community Development

Description:

This person has the exciting responsibility in leading the Church's efforts to establish community software development efforts. The Community Development Program Manager will work with key stakeholders to identify opportunities to leverage community resources to design, develop and maintain software applications that can be made generally available. Success in these endeavors will greatly accelerate the development and proliferation of technology that can be used by church members and local leaders.… Read more

Oracle's Larry Ellison got a $3 million tax break and you didn't

Want a tax break?

Then be like Larry Ellison. All you have to do is spend around $200 million on a replica of a 16th-century Japanese summer palace. Add extreme landscaping, such as a few hundred mature maple and cherry trees and a man-made waterfall carved into rock to look as though it had been put there "by the hand of God." Make sure this thing is so insanely over the top that no one besides you could possibly imagine living in it. And put this 23-acre estate in tony Woodside, in the hills above Silicon Valley.

Do … Read more

Congress is holding H-1B boost 'hostage,' says Oracle lobbyist

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--The politically explosive debate over millions of undocumented U.S. workers appears to be smothering high-tech companies' attempts to obtain higher allotments of H-1B temporary visas and green cards, Oracle's head lobbyist suggested Wednesday.

Any "rational" politician understands those longstanding pleas to bring in more skilled foreigners for gaps where no qualified Americans fit, said Robert Hoffman, who also serves as co-chairman of a coalition of high-tech companies called Compete America that lobbies for heightened visa caps. By his estimation, if that issue were severed from the rest of the immigration debate, it would "… Read more