Why Google Loves The Little Guys

Nice meeting you!

Microsoft Dynamics leader named
Register - Sep 14, 2006
News of the appointment came in the week SAP, the world's largest provider of business applications, laid out its vision and roadmap for ERP and CRM at its annual TechEd conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. MBS vice president Doug Burgum announced he was stepping down last year, since which time Microsoft has since been conducting the search for a leader. Burgum, who joined in 2001 as chief executive of the acquired Great Plains Software, is leaving Microsoft. The focus on someone with a strong technology background is significant, as Microsoft wants to integrate MBS applications' functionality and workflows with new versions of Office.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/14/microsoft_dynamics_leader/

Why Google Loves The Little Guys
Forbes - Sep 18, 2006
Yahoo! has been slower to let developers profit, but a new delivery advertising platform will probably change that. It better, since now mashups with Yahoo! software often sport Google-driven ads and not Yahoo!'s own ad service, called the Publisher Network. Microsoft officials say it will leverage its existing developer network, plus the mashup newbies, with its forthcoming Windows Live product. Already, it boasts mashups from Microsoft's Virtual Earth map service on Marriot's Web site. As the Web moguls see it, the Internet has evolved from a method of transmitting information to its own computing platform, as novel as the personal computer was in the late 1970s, or client-server networks were in the '80s. And when you have a new platform, you win by getting people to work for you for free. The big winner in PCs was Microsoft, which spent millions on developer conferences and Visual Basic, its software toolkit for developers.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/09/17/mashup-search-google-tech-cz_qh_0918google.html

Google, Intuit Pair Up Against a Foe
BusinessWeek - Sep 14, 2006
"Beyond desktop software, Google is also integrating its services into online business software. In August, Salesforce. com (CRM) and NetSuite said they will incorporate AdWords into online customer-management applications. But Schmidt was quick to distinguish those arrangements from the Intuit deal because the QuickBooks desktop software will give millions of small businesses who have not yet ventured onto the Internet the ability to do so—and in the process, he hopes, bring Google millions of new customers.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2006/tc20060914_725426.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology

Murdoch to Bid Satellite Goodbye
BusinessWeek - Sep 18, 2006
2 billion last year, which could be a basis for setting a price for the DirecTV stake. "It's hard to imagine that they could command a price higher than one-and-a-half times revenue," says Susan Kalla, an independent media and telecom analyst. The negotiations are being handled for the most part by Liberty CEO Greg Maffei, a former Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL) executive, and News Corp. Chief Financial Officer David DeVoe, one person familiar with the talks said. Murdoch is said to be keeping tabs on the talks, although he is believed to have been on vacation in Italy and Greece. That same source said other deals, including the sale of News Corp. TV stations, have been on the table.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2006/tc20060918_564376.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

The Business Mash
Forbes - Sep 18, 2006
"We want 300,000 applications to work off of Salesforce," he says. It is no knock on him to say that he has 210 so far. Each application is a novel use of Salesforce's (nyse:.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/09/17/google-mashup-salesforce-tech-cz_qh_0918googlecorp.html?partner=rss

Eclipse: The billion-dollar baby?
InfoWorld - Sep 18, 2006
, in early September, with foundation executives touting the success of the open source application development project in attracting developer interest and support from big-name players such as IBM. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill caught up with The foundation’s Executive Director Mike Milinkovich to talk about the organization’s accomplishments, competition with Microsoft and Sun, respecting Java and the road ahead. InfoWorld: How much money would you estimate is being generated by Eclipse-based software, or is the main attraction to Eclipse still that it’s all free?Mike Milinkovich: I wish we actually had good numbers on trying to estimate the size of the Eclipse ecosystem. I’m quite confident that it’s in the billion-dollar range and probably more, but we just don’t have the hard numbers. But what you said about the attraction to Eclipse being free -- the economics of the Eclipse model is a little bit different than that, because the Eclipse community as a whole is almost uniquely focused on enabling a commercially profitable ecosystem around the free platform. So yes, we do provide open source tools and frameworks from Eclipse, and those are provided for free... Do you see that as a trend where software companies, particularly open source software companies, don’t have salespeople because they don’t see the need?MM: Historically enterprise software has been sold through [a] direct salesforce channel. I do believe over time, we’re starting to see success in open source software products in areas which have been traditionally the realm of the direct sales force. I’m thinking of things like Sugar CRM and Compiere  [ERP] and open source products like this. Those environments or those products have very, very low cost of sales, so as customers get more used to that, I think that over time, yeah, there are going to be fewer and fewer software salesmen. IW: Is anything going on as far as Sun joining Eclipse or merging NetBeans and Eclipse?MM: Nope, absolutely not. They’ve made it pretty clear that they’re not really interested in doing anything other than continuing to push their NetBean strategy. IW: What do you think of their being two kind of rival camps? Is it good for competition?MM: Well we’re certainly not shy of competition, and frankly we’re winning.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/09/18/38NMmain_1.html

Comments on ‘Groping your way around the mobile device maze’
Register - Sep 19, 2006
Talk about project creep. And it wasn't just the users, it was their managers, the board. Firstly they needed access to mail and CRM, then they needed GPRS too, (ouch) then they definately needed MP3 - because someone had the smart idea of recording post sales notes on the device and uploading them into the CRM system so that sales could subsequently listen to the notes as they drove to the follow-up meeting. We almost got close to a stanard too - but then it broke down once again when we came to finding appropriate hands-free kits, and headsets. I think my overall point is that finding devices is bad enough but once you get into the true requirements for every user in your orgaisation it's not just the devices that you have to care about - it's all the peripherals too, which turn the whole thing into such an incredible pain. I beleive this points to a number of shortfalls in th emobile market altogether - there's no one that can provied the full range of services - we need one of the big boys Mobile firms to buy garmin, sony, B&O, IBM and plenty more before this becomes a soltuion you can take off the shelf... And my users don't need "push" email for the enviroment they work in they just need "always available" email which this solution provides. Finally I can change the phones without changing the PDA anytime. One option I did look at was Dataviz, Roadsync which gives Microsoft Exchange email to Smartphones, if reading email and a quick reply is all thats needed maybe just some software will fit the bill. My advice is answer the questions :-How often do i need my email?How big a phone am i willing to carry?How important are email attachments?How much money have i got?How much money have i investe in what i have? (carkits, cables, etc)What do i do with the email when i get it?RegardsAll I want! By Nicholas WrightPosted Tuesday 19th September 2006 13:41 GMTGimme an XDA II equivalent that will actually fit in my pocket, won't behave like it's running on an 8088 processor, can actually be turned off to save power, doesn't have a camera button that you press everytime you come in contact with the device, not a huge screen but one big enough to surf the web now and then without squinting, and is actually integrated with the hardware. A life saving website is one that takes people's requirements and tells them their ideal phone!It's for business By Greg MortimerPosted Tuesday 19th September 2006 13:49 GMTAssuming we're talking here about business mobile email devices, if an organisation is seriously considering MP3 playing functionality or camera spec that points to something very wrong in their policy making process (unless they're niche markets that actually use that technology for business reasons, maybe estate agents snapping flat interiors or music biz peeps). You want your organisation to buy you a "cool" device? Go buy one yourself, why should the rest of the organisation fund your vanity?So moving swiftly on, looking at sensible options, I recently evaluated an O2 XDA Exec as an alternative to our Blackberry fleet. We've had berrys every since they arrived in the UK and there's no real imperative to move from that platform (apart from the recent patent litigation scare), but the talk about Windows mobile 5 "push email" had me interested.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/19/mobile_devices_maze/comments/

Business 2.0...Big Innovations: Coghead - Sep. 18, 2006
CNNMoney.com - Sep 18, 2006
wjw -->The Disrupted: Initially, custom-software developers, but potentially almost all software-tool makersWhat if the next time you longed for a piece of software to help you do your job, you didn't have to grovel before IT or shell out big bucks to outside consultants? What if you could simply create the software yourself, in a few easy steps? That's the promise of Coghead, an online tool due out this month that promises a hassle-free world of roll-your-own apps. Using Coghead requires only basic computer literacy. The company says anyone who can code a simple Excel macro should have little trouble using Coghead to create even sophisticated enterprise apps like logistics trackers, CRM programs, or project management systems. A user logs on to Coghead's Web site and drags and drops a few buttons and labels onto a form, indicates relationships between the form's drop-down menus and text boxes, groups appropriate elements by drawing boxes around them -- and then launches the apps. "From my experience so far, the product is incredibly easy to use," says Liz Amaral, product management vice president at InsideTrack, a San Francisco firm that offers coaching services to college students and has been beta-testing Coghead. Coghead boasts an impressive entrepreneurial pedigree. Chief executive Paul McNamara is a former exec at computer graphics pioneer SGI and at open-source software leader Red Hat; CTO Greg Olsen co-founded Extricity, a business-integration software firm that Peregrine Systems bought for $227 million in 2001... Chief executive Paul McNamara is a former exec at computer graphics pioneer SGI and at open-source software leader Red Hat; CTO Greg Olsen co-founded Extricity, a business-integration software firm that Peregrine Systems bought for $227 million in 2001. They believe that they'll initially take business from software consultants and outsourcing firms that specialize in small, customized-software projects. But ultimately, Coghead could undermine much bigger markets and much bigger names, including the likes of.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/15/technology/disruptors_coghead.biz2/index.htm

A Needy Napster Searches for Takers
BusinessWeek - Sep 19, 2006
Napster (NAPS) lags far behind market leader Apple (AAPL), with its iPod-iTunes combination, and RealNetworks (RNWK), owner of the Rhapsody service. Microsoft (MSFT) plans its own music player, called Zune, and download service later this year (see BusinessWeek. Napster has appeared ripe for a buyout since wireless phone giant Nokia (NOK) acquired Loudeye (LOUD) in August (see BusinessWeek.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2006/tc20060919_053475.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology

Adobe Snoozes Toward Excellence
Motley Fool - Sep 15, 2006
Sure, the Macromedia acquisition was exciting, and there are still potential threats from Microsoft (Nasdaq:. Softy pushes its own platforms to rival Adobe's Flash and PDF formats in its new Vista operating system... With its software on 500 million PCs and Flash on 700 million PCs, mobile phones, and other devices, the company seems to be off to a good start. Adobe's collaboration with Salesforce.
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2006/09/15/adobe-snoozes-toward-excellence.aspx

Siebel to aid Oracle push against SAP
Seattle Times - Sep 15, 2006
"Oracle was behind the curve so it needed to buy some big headline-making companies and feed off their technology," Williams said. "They really didn't have much choice, unless they wanted to see their stock price cut in half. They needed to keep their sales growing, and to do that, they need to cannibalize smaller companies. "

The big question is whether Oracle has bitten off more than it can chew, said Octavio Marenzi, chief executive of Celent, a technology consultancy... Siebel Systems is run by Tom Siebel, who has occasionally sniped at his former boss since leaving Oracle and starting his own company in 1993. But Siebel, who is his company's chairman and largest individual shareholder, welcomed Oracle's takeover offer, calling it a "wonderful, exciting event. "

Siebel Systems has been shrinking since 2001 amid weakening demand for its main product — customer-relationship-management, or CRM, software that helps companies analyze their sales patterns and market their products. The niche accounts for about $3. 5 billion in new software sales annually, according to technology-research company Gartner. But Siebel Systems has been losing market share to SAP, Oracle and Internet startup.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002490625_oracle13.html

Bye.

Sonata partners with Microsoft for ERP solutions

How are you?

Microsoft Takes Third Shot at Buggy Security Patch
PC World - Sep 13, 2006
Microsoft today was forced to release its third version of the update because of a new security bug discovered in the update, according to Tony Chor, a group program manager with Microsoft. First released on August 8,. Embarrassingly, it also introduced a security vulnerability into the browser, which was fixed last month... " His posting can be found here: Problems Cropped Up Fast Microsoft customers ran into problems with MS06-042 soon after it was released. Web sites that used HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) 1. 1 compression to speed up the downloading of images could cause the browser to fail and users of Web-based applications such as PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Sage CRM had problems with the software. Later in August, security researchers at eEye Digital Security disclosed that Microsoft had introduced a new critical security vulnerability in the update. Two days later Microsoft fixed the eEye bug in the MS06-042 re-release. Apparently this re-release did not address this latest but "similar" vulnerability mentioned by Chor. Microsoft executives could not be reached immediately for comment.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127140-c,browserbugs/article.html

Sonata partners with Microsoft for ERP solutions
Economic Times - Sep 12, 2006
Targeted at growing
companies, these applications can be customised to meet any business need such
as financial management, supply chain management and customer relationship
management, Sonata Software on Tuesday informed the Bombay Stock
Exchange. "With our experience
of implementing over 100 ERP or CRM solutions and our proactive investments in
Microsoft Dynamics we are in a unique position to enable our customers adopt
Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM solutions with minimum disruption to their
on-going operations," Sonata Information Technology Director Sujit Mohanty
said. Microsoft Dynamics
increases a company's efficiency by connecting employees, customers and
suppliers, which eventually translates into higher profits for
businesses. Microsoft Dynamics
ERP and CRM applications integrate easily with Microsoft's core products such as
Office and Windows. The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4. 0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM
3... Microsoft Dynamics
ERP and CRM applications integrate easily with Microsoft's core products such as
Office and Windows. The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4. 0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM
3. 0 for the Indian market was introduced last
year. Sonata is a leader in ERP
and CRM implementations, management and has been Microsoft's partner for the
last 15 years. Sonata
Information Technology Limited (SITL), is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sonata
Software Ltd. Shares of the
company closed at Rs 29.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1984203.cms

Sonata launches Microsoft Dynamics
Hindu - Sep 13, 2006
Microsoft Dynamics increases company's efficiency by connecting employees, customers and suppliers, which eventually translates into higher profits for businesses. "

Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM applications integrate with Microsoft core products such as Office and Windows to simplify processes across an organisation. Microsoft introduced Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4. 0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3. 0 for the Indian market last year. While the offerings are targeted at companies across the board, Microsoft has seen high customer traction from manufacturing, logistics and distribution, construction, retail, automotive, professional and IT services and public sector companies.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200609130352.htm

ASPs snake back into hosting limelight - vnunet.com
VNUNet.com - Sep 11, 2006
“Most of it is going on under the radar, buthosted applications are becoming more and more mainstream and most sizeablesoftware vendors have some presence in this space now. ”Sage has various CRM offerings pitched at different levels and based aroundthe Accpac software and technology it acquired from CA. Oracle has also boughtits way into this part of the market – and into CRM as well – through theacquisition of Siebel. Microsoft is also looking to make a splash in the sector:Hosted Exchange has been available for some time and Microsoft is pushing thelatest of its CRM packages hard as a hosted solution. According to James Murfin, hosted applications product manager at MicrosoftUK, there are already about 300 partners in the UK offering some kind of ASP oron-demand applications service. Some already offer hosted SQL and even Officeapplications and Microsoft is signing up more partners every week, Murfin said. Some are already very well established; e-know.
http://www.vnunet.com/crn/analysis/2163922/asps-snake-back-hosting

Salesforce.com adds mash-ups to new CRM
VNUNet.com - Sep 13, 2006
"In the same period. Two versions verses 21.
http://www.vnunet.com/articles/print/2164169

Sensex closes 110 pts up at 11,660
Economic Times - Sep 12, 2006
90 as the company came closer to acquiring Irish company, Pinewood valued
at over $100 million. Sonata
Software Ltd rose 0. 5% to Rs 29 after it informed BSE that Sonata Information
Technology Ltd, in association with Microsoft India Pvt Ltd, launched Microsoft
Dynamics, ERP and CRM solutions from
Microsoft. Ranbaxy Laboratories
Ltd slipped 0. 10 on announcing the launch of its branded product,
Avessa inhalation capsules in India for the treatment of
Asthma.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1984131.cms

Market surges past 11,600-mark
Times of India - Sep 12, 2006
90 as
the company came closer to acquiring Irish company, Pinewood valued at over $100
million. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3:00
pm :

Sonata Software Ltd rose 0. 5% to Rs
29 after it informed BSE that Sonata Information Technology Ltd, in association
with Microsoft India Pvt Ltd, launched Microsoft Dynamics, ERP and CRM solutions
from
Microsoft. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2:45
pm :

Punj Lloyd Ltd rose 2. 3% to Rs 768 on
entering a joint venture with Swissport International.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1983869.cms

Unpacking Amazon's Unbox Video Service
BusinessWeek - Sep 7, 2006
It offers DVD-quality downloads, triple the video quality of the leading rivals, and a free downsized version for some Microsoft Windows-compatible portable devices. The videos also can be viewed starting in as little as five minutes, while the rest of the movie continues to download. And unlike with other services, they can be downloaded to multiple personal computers. "ULTIMATE DESTINATION. " Amazon is offering thousands of movies from most of the major studios, such as Warner Bros.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2006/tc20060907_611445.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

Treo Troubles Trigger Palm Plunge
BusinessWeek - Sep 8, 2006
and is moving to expand its reach overseas. And it has become software-agnostic, offering devices on both the Palm and Microsoft operating systems, as well as BlackBerry Connect and Good Technology e-mail services. Still, the Treo's design hasn't substantially changed since it was introduced three years ago—close to an eternity in the fad-driven cell-phone business. Analysts correctly predicted Palm would quickly lose market share as consumers flocked to slimmer designs like the Q and Motorola's hit Razr phone over the bulky Treo. "The big question around the Treo is when will it get a design refresh?" says analyst Cliff Raskind at Strategy Analytics.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2006/tc20060908_222115.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_more+of+today's+top+stories

Sybase's $425 Million Mobile Plan
Motley Fool - Sep 11, 2006
At more than four times revenues, the price tag is not cheap. But for Sybase to be a true player in the mobile enterprise space, it needs what Mobile 365 offers. First, Mobile 365 has a hosted solution, which is similar to Salesforce.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2006/09/11/sybases-425-million-mobile-plan.aspx

Take care.

Tech Watch: Dramatic drop in demand for hi-tech workers

How's it going?

Microsoft Finally Reissues Botched IE Patch
PC World - Aug 24, 2006
The reissued patch is important because it "fully resolves" a serious security bug Microsoft introduced with. Microsoft acknowledges that there were problems with its update soon after it was issued. Web sites that used HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) 1... Microsoft acknowledges that there were problems with its update soon after it was issued. Web sites that used HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) 1. 1 compression to speed up the downloading of images could cause the browser to fail, and users of Web-based applications such as PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Sage CRM had problems with the software. The issue does not affect users of Microsoft's latest Service Pack 2 version of Windows XP, but users of Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 and Windows XP Service Pack 1 are affected, Microsoft says. Coming Through Auto Update Last week, Microsoft released a "hotfix" download that addressed these problems, but the software vendor also decided to take the unusual step of announcing that it would rerelease the entire update (called MS06-042). This would ensure that subscribers to Microsoft's automatic update services would receive the fixed patch. That update had been slated for release on August 22, but it was ultimately delayed because of an "issue discovered in final testing," Microsoft says.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/126917-1/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws

Tech Watch: Dramatic drop in demand for hi-tech workers
Jerusalem Post - Sep 5, 2006
Information Technology services provider Matrix IT has bought Effect CRM for NIS 10 million, Matrix said Monday. The acquisition will give Herzliya-based Matrix entry into the CRM (customer relations management) market. Effect CRM, also located in Herzliya, will operate as a Matrix subsidiary specializing in customer relations management based on its Microsoft CRM systems. Effect CRM is a strategic partner of Microsoft in the CRM arena. It implements projects using Microsoft's 3. 0 Dynamics platform, developing products and solutions around it. Following the acquisition, Effect CRM will operate under the same management.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154526005972&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Solutions Not Tools Provide Competitive Edge
CNET News.com - Aug 29, 2006
It is merely a set of virtual tools. They have a plan to monetize any hosted application suite through advertising and mining the data for aggregate trend data. The first reason should be enough to keep any smart business person away. The second reason, in light of recent AOL revelations, should be enough to make you run!Todays small businesses are looking for solutions that help them compete more effectively in local as well as global markets. They can not afford to be hobbled by inferior applications that offer little more than virtualized versions of non-integrated 1980s-vintage shareware... It is merely a set of virtual tools. They have a plan to monetize any hosted application suite through advertising and mining the data for aggregate trend data. The first reason should be enough to keep any smart business person away. The second reason, in light of recent AOL revelations, should be enough to make you run!Todays small businesses are looking for solutions that help them compete more effectively in local as well as global markets. They can not afford to be hobbled by inferior applications that offer little more than virtualized versions of non-integrated 1980s-vintage shareware.
http://news.com.com/5208-12_3-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20633&messageID=178857&start=-1

Google Goes for the Suite Spot
BusinessWeek - Aug 28, 2006
-->In recent months, there has been much speculation about how Google (GOOG) could attack Microsoft's (MSFT) highly profitable Office franchise, as the search giant has experimented with its own versions of word processing, spreadsheet, and other software programs. Now, Google is firing a direct shot at Microsoft Office by introducing a free, integrated suite of personal productivity applications.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2006/tc20060828_390534.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

Oracle: Most Fusion development still to come
InfoWorld - Aug 25, 2006
"We're leveraging the best ideas in E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and Siebel CRM," Wookey said. "We're integrating a bit of yours, mine and ours. " For instance, on the CRM side, Oracle is using Siebel as a starting point, while using PeopleSoft technology as its initial discussion focus for work on new user interfaces. The development teams involved in Fusion are a balanced mix of talents from different applications, including staff from smaller purchases such as transportation management software vendor Global Logistics Technologies, he said. Oracle is currently busy determining the best approach to deliver the functionality it believes users will want to see in Fusion. Next year, the vendor will focus on carrying out the engineering work to put those capabilities in place, Wookey said. While SAP will continue to be Oracle's primary competition for the next few years, Wookey sees Microsoft more of a potential threat over the long term... Oracle is currently busy determining the best approach to deliver the functionality it believes users will want to see in Fusion. Next year, the vendor will focus on carrying out the engineering work to put those capabilities in place, Wookey said. While SAP will continue to be Oracle's primary competition for the next few years, Wookey sees Microsoft more of a potential threat over the long term. The only three companies he believes have a viable middleware platform going forward are Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. So, given the important of middleware to enterprise applications, does he think that IBM might re-enter the applications market it quit in 1999? "I don't know," Wookey said. "We ask them that question all the time and they say, 'No'.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/08/25/HNfusiondevelopment_1.html

Mozilla Goes Mainstream
BusinessWeek - Aug 30, 2006
Today the number has grown to more than 65,000. Firefox has not only managed to wrest 10% of the browser market from Microsoft (MSFT) in about two years, it zoomed past other browser upstarts Opera and Apple's (AAPL) Safari, which together have less than 3% share. Even Microsoft can't ignore Firefox. Earlier this month a team of Mozilla developers was invited to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash. , to noodle over how Firefox could work better with Microsoft's Vista operating system. But as Mozilla prepares for the October release of the next version of Firefox, the group is facing its biggest challenge yet: Going mainstream. Firefox's share of the market, however impressive, has been flat after rapid growth in 2004 and 2005.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2006/tc20060830_824598.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

RightNow strengthens CRM hosting for blue-chips
VNUNet.com - Sep 6, 2006
“Software as a service is not just for small andmedium-sized businesses anymore, it’s growing up in the enterprise. ”Analytics capabilities have also been enhanced with historical trending andcustomisable dashboards and home pages; and pre-developed templates for verticalsolutions and job roles are available. RightNow’s architecture has also been revamped to integrate with MicrosoftOutlook. “We were finding over 90 percent of our customers were using Outlook soit just made sense,” said Mittelstaedt. A subsequent release, due next year and codenamed Emerald, will integratesalesforce automation and workflow capabilities collected with RightNow’spurchase of Salesnet earlier this year. The RightNow release comes as CRM spending is growing, partly as buyersreplace and upgrade first-generation systems. Gartner research suggests EuropeanCRM revenues grew almost 10 percent in 2005, spurred on by the boom insubscription-based online software... “We were finding over 90 percent of our customers were using Outlook soit just made sense,” said Mittelstaedt. A subsequent release, due next year and codenamed Emerald, will integratesalesforce automation and workflow capabilities collected with RightNow’spurchase of Salesnet earlier this year. The RightNow release comes as CRM spending is growing, partly as buyersreplace and upgrade first-generation systems. Gartner research suggests EuropeanCRM revenues grew almost 10 percent in 2005, spurred on by the boom insubscription-based online software.
http://www.vnunet.com/itweek/news/2163693/rightnow-strengthens-crm

Meet the iTunes Wannabes
BusinessWeek - Sep 5, 2006
The company has sold more than 50 million iPods around the world and except in the case of MySpace, songs downloaded through non-iTunes players won't work on the iPod. Until a new player compatible with these services gains popularity, it is unlikely that massive numbers will switch their music buying habits, says Mulligan. Microsoft (MSFT) plans to mount a challenge by the end of 2006 with its Zune media player. However, it is unlikely to take a big bite out of iPod sales, Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research, wrote in a recent research note. For starters, the Toshiba-made device is too similar to a Toshiba's Gigabeat and includes wannabe iPod components such as a fake clickwheel, Wu noted. Wu described the device as "underwhelming," citing specs filed with the Federal Communications Commission. Zune is more likely to cannibalize sales from other companies, such as Creative Technologies (CREAF) and Sony (SNE), which use Microsoft hardware in their media players.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2006/tc20060905_083985.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

Hiwire's High-Wire Act
BusinessWeek - Aug 29, 2006
In April, Modeo also said it will deploy in top 30 markets in 2007. The company hasn't provided any news updates on its business since April, however. Nonetheless, Modeo has some powerful allies: It's part of the Mobile DTV Alliance, which includes representatives from Intel (INTC), Microsoft, Motorola (MOT), Nokia (NOK), Texas Instruments (TXN), and Sony Ericsson. In August, Alcatel (ALA) and Samsung Telecommunications America joined the alliance. Hiwire is in the midst of discussions to join the alliance as well, though, says Wills. Should all else fail, Hiwire has a back-up. It's preparing a trial of a wireless broadband network in Phoenix.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2006/tc20060829_420214.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology

Take care.

Google Uses the Salesforce

Nice meeting you!

Salesforce.com shares jump as it turns in a loss
Register - Aug 18, 2006
is delivering the promise of on-demand services to nearly 25,000 customers with more than 500,000 subscribers around the world today. The comment was presumably a dig at Microsoft's CRM software and Oracle's Siebel venture. The firm netted 57,000 new subscibers to its services in the quarter, up 63 per cent on the Q2 2005 total. ® Track this type of story as a. Related storiesSalesforce.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/18/salesforce_q2_2006/

Google Uses the Salesforce
Motley Fool - Aug 23, 2006
After a free 30-day trial, Salesforce customers can pay $300 a month to continue the service, which manages paid-search campaigns while also tracking potential leads. With nearly 25,000 corporate clients and more than half a million subscribers to its hosted applications, Salesforce -- which provides online services for employees to track customer leads, accounts, marketing campaigns -- is no slouch. If successful, Salesforce. com's service has many implications.
http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06082302.htm?ref=foolwatch

Critical Flaw Found in IE Patch
PC World - Aug 23, 2006
Patched browsers would crash when using Web-based versions of several applications, including PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Sage CRM. Web sites that used HTTP 1. 1 compression to speed up the downloading of images could also cause the browser to fail. These issues are described on.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,126879-c,browserbugs/article.html

TechWeek: Shorts Drive the August Rally
thestreet.com - Aug 19, 2006
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) , Salesforce. com (CRM) and BEA Systems (BEAS) delivered stronger-than-expected earnings, while Dell (DELL) found new ways to scare customers and investors. And when Microsoft (MSFT) figured out that its "modified Dutch auction had flopped," it changed the timing on the buyback offer. All of this gave the market a solid bounce, with the Nasdaq, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and the Goldman Sachs Software Index all on the rise. To be sure, the solid earnings reports were an important driver this week. But interviews with money managers and equity strategists suggest that the rally wasn't all that solid. One big factor: short covering.
http://www.thestreet.com/p/pf/newsanalysis/techsoftware/10304744.html

Salesforce.com buys into Google AdWords | CNET News.com
CNET News.com - Aug 21, 2006
is trying to get information from Google AdWords to knowing who the customer is can be kind of a difficult thing," Benioff said. "You tend to lose the link between CRM (customer relationship management) and Google ads. caro -->


Now on News.
http://news.com.com/Salesforce.com+buys+into+Google+AdWords/2100-1014_3-6108046.html

SAP: Tapped for Bigger Things
BusinessWeek - Aug 22, 2006
In 2004, SAP furthered its commitment to ESA by announcing a three-year road map through which it expects to deliver increasingly service-oriented solutions to the market annually, until the entire portfolio of the company's solutions is based on ESA by 2007. Recent product introductions have included SAP CRM on-demand (February, 2006) and mySAP ERP 2005 (May, 2006). THREE GROWTH DRIVERS. We think that a key driver of SAP's recent growth has been the company's notable progress in selling its products to SMB customers. In its recent June-quarter release, the company reported that 30% of its software revenues over the trailing four quarters came from the midmarket... Finally, we have a favorable view of SAP's ability and willingness to collaborate and partner with other technology companies, large and small. A recent example of this is the May, 2006, introduction of Duet software for Microsoft Office and SAP, launched and jointly developed with Microsoft (MSFT). This product brings SAP's ERP data into the workflow of a broader base of users by incorporating Microsoft's ubiquitous Office as a user interface. We expect the primary appeal of Duet to be for the SAP ERP-installed base, with the potential to raise ERP users by four times within its current client base, according to the company. We view these efforts favorably as a less risky, and potentially much cheaper, way to grow its business.
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/aug2006/pi20060822_581271.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_investing

See you later.

Salesforce.com shares gain amid upbeat Citigroup comments - MarketWatc...

How do you do?

Microsoft patch can cause IE crashes
USA Today - Aug 16, 2006
After people apply the MS06-042 update, rated "critical" by Microsoft, IE may crash when certain websites are viewed, the company said in a notice on its customer support website. The problem affects IE 6 with Service Pack 1 on Windows XP and Windows 2000 systems, it said. "Microsoft has identified an issue with the security update MS06-042," the company said in a statement Tuesday. It plans to re-release the bulletin and patch on Aug. 22 for all affected users. The problem occurs when IE users view websites that use version 1. 1 of HTTP alongside compression, according to Microsoft's notice... HTTP, or hypertext transfer protocol, is the standard protocol used to browse websites. IE users on security mailing lists have reported browser crashes when using PeopleSoft applications that have Web-based interfaces. Others report running into problems when using other applications, including Microsoft's own customer relationship management, or CRM, tools. "We are running PeopleSoft for administration systems, and our Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows XP SP1 running Internet Explorer 6. 0 SP1 crash when they got into the PeopleSoft pages," Fred Dunn, a systems administrator at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, said in an e-mail interview. Dunn called Microsoft's product support service, which recommended disabling the use of HTTP 1. 1 in IE's advanced settings menu.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/cnet/2006-08-16-ie-patch-crash_x.htm

Salesforce.com shares gain amid upbeat Citigroup comments - MarketWatc...
MarketWatch - Aug 10, 2006
Thill rates Salesforce's stock buy with a price target of $44. The brokerage rates Microsoft's shares hold... com has been able to build a strong mindshare for its market-leading on-demand CRM application," Thill asserted. As an example, he said that fewer than 10% of prospective customers at a recent company event said they were considering alternative products for their customer-relationship management needs. The threat posed by Microsoft is "one of the many challenges" the relative upstart must overcome in order to sustain its brisk growth, according to the analyst. Salesforce faces intense competition, not only from Redmond, Wash. -based Microsoft, but also from other giants like Germany's SAP AG (.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B03C08781-DDD2-41A1-BAED-ADBE38FB74DB%7D&dist=rss&siteid=mktw

Fulham FC is using CRM to boost its relationship with supporters -...
VNUNet.com - Aug 3, 2006
‘Our ticketing database is a core part of the business, so we started there,cleansing the data, getting rid of duplications and errors. ’The club now uses business intelligence software VenueView. This includes atool, Query Builder, which operates on Microsoft’s SQL database engine, allowingusers to interrogate validated data. It also uses contact management CRM software from VenueCast tocross-reference information and identify spending patterns, attendance rates andtrends, with information displayed graphically on a dashboard. ‘The match against Manchester United last October was not a sell-out,’ says Mcgrory. ‘The marketing department did not know what the problem was, and did nothave the IT tools to analyse why it did not happen,’ says McGrory. ‘Now we have the business intelligence to work out which campaigns aresuccessful... ’The club now uses business intelligence software VenueView. This includes atool, Query Builder, which operates on Microsoft’s SQL database engine, allowingusers to interrogate validated data. It also uses contact management CRM software from VenueCast tocross-reference information and identify spending patterns, attendance rates andtrends, with information displayed graphically on a dashboard. ‘The match against Manchester United last October was not a sell-out,’ says Mcgrory. ‘The marketing department did not know what the problem was, and did nothave the IT tools to analyse why it did not happen,’ says McGrory. ‘Now we have the business intelligence to work out which campaigns aresuccessful. We can profile customers in the database and run targeted campaigns.
http://www.vnunet.com/computing/analysis/2161735/database-fan-base

SugarCRM and AMD to star at LinuxWorld
VNUNet.com - Aug 10, 2006
The support follows the announcement earlier this year of a collaborativedevelopment agreement with Microsoft. The fruits of that pact will be seen intighter integration with IIS, Active Directory and SQL Server, the firm said. The addition of the Microsoft support should give Sugar more sway withenterprises by offering a more palatable combination of open-source andtraditional commercial software for risk-averse buyers that might balk at theprospect of a broader reliance on open-source products. Elsewhere in the release, Sugar is edging closer to the feature sets ofveteran enterprise products with broader international support, user-definedpage views, a self-service portal and more granular sales forecasting. Two-year-old Sugar is making a significant name for itself, having picked upover 600 paying customers including multimedia content creation softwaredeveloper Avid and security firm InterAct Public Safety Systems. The 65-stafffirm’s executive team includes ex-managers from eCRM pioneers such as E. piphanyand Broadvision... Some experts believe that after a spate of mergers and acquisitions and therise of on-demand vendors, there could be room for a newcomer to make a splashin the CRM sector. “Sugar is up and coming and this release will [appeal to] the many companiesthat live and breathe Microsoft,” said David Bradshaw of analyst firm Ovum. “CRMis still a market that’s got legs and there’s a lot of change going on. There’sroom for a worthy new player and open source might be the way to thrive. ”However, others are not as sweet on Sugar’s prospects. “I am not a big fan of Sugar and I believe they are losing their niche,” saidDenis Pombriant of Beagle Research. “A few years ago something like Sugar wouldhave been a big hit, especially against Siebel.
http://www.vnunet.com/itweek/news/2162090/sugarcrm-amd-star-linuxworld

Re: WWDC: Microsoft updates Universal status of Mac apps
Macworld - Aug 8, 2006
BootCamp for the abiltiy to run games natively. Parallels for running business apps that will never get ported to the Mac. A few like Access, Project or using MS CRM which is dependent on Active X if you access it via web. At least with Office for Mac having nearly full compatability, thats a one big check mark in favor of considering Macs in the workplace without the added purchase of Windows license and compatability headaches for IT managers to deal with. Well minimum headaches with compatability.
http://www.macworld.com/forums/ubbthreads/printthread.php?Board=newsthread&main=435198&type=post

Microsoft to introduce subscription-based ERP software
Heise Online - Aug 11, 2006
The role of Microsoft's business partners in this is to host the applications and see to it that the users need not take care of either installing or maintaining the software. Gates' company played the on-demand card that at Microsoft goes by the name of Live for the first time.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80697

Knuckledusters donned in software great war
Inquirer - Aug 4, 2006
Knuckledusters donned in software great war The Mahabharata's got nothing on this one By Martin Veitch: Friday, 04 August 2006, 10:14 AM IS the prosaic world of enterprise software due to be the next destination for a technology dust-up in the greattradition of Intel versus AMD, Sun versus Microsoft, SCO versus IBM and the rest? Yup. com's Marc Benioff has always kept the knuckledusters handy in case of meeting the opposition. An avidreader of The Art of War by Chinese general Sun Tzu, the bear-like CEO is usually ready to rumble when the suggestion of acompetitor doing anything right is made. Some of his reported barbs aim at his old employer Oracle... "He sums up his attitude with this burst of testosterone:"We believe in the art of war. We are trying to get our competition to attack us with angry, virulent energy, so wecan transform that into larger market share. "With SAP he is ever-keen to remind his audience of SAP's unwillingness to name CRM installations. Having dismissed Salesforce as "not even a competitor" in the past, however, the usually conservative German giantmay be gearing up for its own war of words. SAP VC Jeff Nolan runs an excellent blog that often strays way off the ERP behemoth's position.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=33479

Racing to market with SOA
InfoWorld - Aug 9, 2006
But SOA or not, Zag couldn’t develop all the needed applications in time. So the company acquired Autoland, a credit-union auto-buying service. Autoland’s technology included call center and CRM applications for the automobile industry, as well as back-end transaction handling. Zag’s own technology was based on Java, whereas Autoland’s technology was largely based on COM (Common Object Model) and Visual Basic, with a smaller set of. Net and Microsoft SQL Server components, as well... Autoland’s technology included call center and CRM applications for the automobile industry, as well as back-end transaction handling. Zag’s own technology was based on Java, whereas Autoland’s technology was largely based on COM (Common Object Model) and Visual Basic, with a smaller set of. Net and Microsoft SQL Server components, as well.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/08/09/33FEzag_1.html

LivePerson Continues to Chatter
Motley Fool - Aug 4, 2006
After all, abandoned online shopping carts are rampant, and serve to frustrate online retailers who often have little clue why the shopper failed to complete the purchase. For an online business, that is a valuable differentiator, as it serves to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. Still, LivePerson isn't alone in the online conversion space; many other small companies, primarily CRM vendors like RightNow, are seeking to improve conversion rates by analyzing customer interactions as well. It also wouldn't be much of a stretch if a large Internet advertising giant like Google or Microsoft (Nasdaq:... For an online business, that is a valuable differentiator, as it serves to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. Still, LivePerson isn't alone in the online conversion space; many other small companies, primarily CRM vendors like RightNow, are seeking to improve conversion rates by analyzing customer interactions as well. It also wouldn't be much of a stretch if a large Internet advertising giant like Google or Microsoft (Nasdaq:.
http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06080403.htm

See you soon.

Where on the horizon is Vista?

Hi!

Microsoft sales soar - vnunet.com
VNUNet.com - Jul 27, 2006
‘Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) put in a very good year, and is movingtowards that magical $1bn (£539m) threshold,’ said Ovum analyst David Bradshaw. ‘Microsoft CRM played a large role in the growth of MBS. ’MSN is undergoing a major overhaul of its infrastructure, which has hit itsadvertising revenues. But its dial-up business is gradually dying away becauseof the ubiquity of broadband. What do you think? Email us at.
http://www.vnunet.com/computing/analysis/2161221/microsoft-sales-soar

Where on the horizon is Vista?
CNET News.com - Jul 27, 2006
Included in that is $450 million in product launch and marketing costs as Microsoft updates Windows and Office. Another $450 million is earmarked for growing its overall sales and marketing strength. And $500 million will go to online-services investments, including its AdCenter ad-serving tool, its search engine, Office Live, Live. com and its CRM Live service. A further $1 billion is for development of "high-growth products, and new products and services,"--an umbrella for all kinds of new ventures. That leaves about $300 million in general corporate spending and potential acquisitions, Liddell said. One of the usual questions that is likely to be less pressing this year is what Microsoft plans to do with all its cash.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016-6098922.html

Microsoft: Web Services No Threat to Traditional Software Model
FOX News - Jul 28, 2006
Ozzie took issue with technology purists who say Web-delivered services will completely replace traditional computer-installed software. "Software as service" advocates include Microsoft competitors in business and consumer markets, including Salesforce. com (CRM), Google Inc. (GOOG) and thousands of Web start-ups who are focused on market niches. Instead, Ozzie and other Microsoft executives see the emerging industry model as "software plus services.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206057,00.html

From Options Backdaters to M&A Targets
BusinessWeek - Aug 1, 2006
The expenses and taxes related to the higher value of the option must be taken into account. The scores of companies caught up in the backdating controversy include many that are well-known. Among them are Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple Computer (AAPL), as well as book dealer Barnes & Noble (BKS) and home-improvement giant Home Depot (HD). Those accounting issues could have major strategic implications for some of those companies, if the controversy depresses stock prices and gives cash-rich buyers an opportunity to acquire otherwise-healthy businesses at a bargain price. "From a buy-side perspective, there's an opportunity for price negotiation," Aguilar said. Of course, the other side of that coin is that an options-accounting issue may be so large that it's more difficult for a company to be acquired.
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/aug2006/pi20060801_466607.htm?chan=top+news_top+news

McAfee's Bad Options
Motley Fool - Jul 31, 2006
Its IntruShield software, which deals with intrusion prevention and detection, is popular with firms like Acxiom. For consumers, McAfee delivers its software via the Internet on a subscription basis. That strategy has been the hallmark of growth companies like Salesforce.
http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06073118.htm

See you soon.

Analysts to Microsoft: Clarify spending

How's things?

Microsoft outlines plans at Worldwide Partner Conference
VNUNet.com - Jul 21, 2006
“But there will always be end-usersthat see SaaS as an unnecessary cost and will consequently opt out. ”Microsoft also used the event as an opportunity to talk about its intentionto grow its foothold in the CRM market, and to bring partners up to speed on thetechnology and its benefits to end-users. Jason Nash, UK product solutions marketing manager for Microsoft CRM, toldCRN that to benefit from what will be an increasingly heavy period of investmentin the technology from Microsoft moving forward, its partners would have tobegin thinking holistically about CRM and stop seeing it as a silver bullet. “Our partners might not have thought about bringing services together beforeand this represents a big opportunity for them,” he said. “The challenge [in theCRM market] this year is to get our partners to think about CRM from abusiness-process point of view, rather than as a straight sale. ”Boston’s weather during the three days of Microsoft’s WPC changedintermittently from hot and sunny to hot and raining, but overall the messagefrom the WPC was one of clement weather ahead for the channel. Richard Best, business manager for software asset management services at VAR.
http://www.vnunet.com/crn/analysis/2160831/microsoft-sets-sail-towards

Analysts to Microsoft: Clarify spending
InfoWorld - Jul 25, 2006
Of that investment, $500 million will go into expanding the online business, including the adCenter paid-search platform and Live online services, such as Office Live, CRM Live, Windows Live Search and other Web-based offerings. Microsoft also said it would spend $450 million on marketing and launch costs related to its two major product launches in 2007, Windows Vista OS and Office 2007; $450 million for sales force and general marketing growth; $1 billion for the development of high-growth products and services, such as business intelligence, unified communications and IPTV (Internet Protocol TV); and another $300 million in general cost increases and other unspecified spending. What's not clear is how this spending, which initially was frowned upon by Wall Street because of its amount, will bring more revenue to the company, and more return to investors. Analysts are hoping for clarity on that at Thursday's annual Financial Analyst Meeting in Redmond, Washington, they said. "The topic where we would like more granularity is what type of return should investors expect from the FY07 incremental investments and over how long of a time period," UBS analyst Heather Bellini wrote in a research note last week.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/07/25/HNmsspending_1.html

SugarCRM readies Sugar 4.5 for mid-August
InfoWorld - Jul 26, 2006
5, the first version of its CRM (customer relationship management) software to fully support Microsoft server products, on Aug. 15 during the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco. adCall("336","280","imu");.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/07/26/HNsugarcrm_1.html

Digging deeper in data mines
Australian IT - Jul 25, 2006
"They are facing a market in which traditional lines of revenue are drying up and they are looking for new opportunities. This is where spreading data and knowledge through the organisation can make you more intelligent. "
The evolution of BI software is similar to that of CRM systems, which in many cases took much longer than expected to become accepted as tools in many companies, Clubb says. "It has taken 10 to 12 years for CRM to go through its journey," he says. "Companies bought a data warehouse and then a front end and it took a long time before the value was really seen. BI is on the same journey. "
Where once they might have been available in only the very largest organisations, they can now be cost-effectively used by small and mid-sized companies... BI is on the same journey. "
Where once they might have been available in only the very largest organisations, they can now be cost-effectively used by small and mid-sized companies. With its eye on this trend, Microsoft has been busy incorporating a range of BI capabilities into the next version of its dominant Office software suite. Microsoft Australia information workers group director Tony Wilkinson says the next version of Office will contain a range of BI tools and features that link to other Microsoft products. "Just as word processing was once a backroom task, we want to take business intelligence and put it in the hands of all workers," he says. The dashboard capabilities in Office SharePoint Server 2007 are an example of these new BI tools. They allow users to create reports and instant views of data drawn from a range of other systems.
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,19869706%5E24169%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

Microsoft revenue up, but profits down for Q4
ITworld.com - Jul 21, 2006
com - Microsoft revenue up, but profits down for Q4. end its fiscal year on a bit of a high note Thursday, though income was down due to expenses and legal charges... Microsoft plans to spend $450 million on marketing and launch costs related to its two major product launches in 2007, the Windows Vista OS and Office 2007. Another $450 million will go to sales force and general marketing growth, with $1 billion being set aside for the development of high-growth products and services, such as business intelligence, unified communications and IPTV (Internet Protocol TV), Liddell said. Microsoft plans to spend $500 million to expand its online business, including its adCenter advertising platform, as well as its Live services, such as Office Live, CRM Live, Windows Live Search and other Web-based offerings. Additionally, the company will spend another $300 million in general cost increases and other unspecified spending, Liddell said. One thing Liddell would not address was speculation that Windows Vista would miss its target release dates of November for business customers and January 2007 for consumers, saying only that Microsoft is still on schedule for Vista's release. However, Liddell said that it will not be until "we have the date locked in" that Microsoft can predict when launch expenses for Vista will affect the company's financial results, a comment that seemed to leave room for the release of the OS to slip further.
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/5050/060721msq4/

Microsoft Buyback: Should You Bite?
BusinessWeek - Jul 24, 2006
Adjusted for splits, the shares have drifted between $20 and $30 for more than four years (see BusinessWeek. Now that the price is up on the latest news, it could be as good a time as any for impatient shareholders to give Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer his stock back... )Meanwhile, other tech stocks may offer bigger upside. Credit Suisse analyst Jason Maynard sees superior growth chances in Red Hat (RHAT), Salesforce. com (CRM), Google (GOOG), and Yahoo, plus a better large-cap opportunity in Oracle (ORCL) because of its exposure to corporate spending. Open-source software, on-demand computing, and advertising-based business models could all cut into Microsoft's revenue, Maynard wrote in a July 21 report. He has a neutral recommendation on the stock. (Credit Suisse has an investment banking relationship with Microsoft and makes a market in its securities.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jul2006/db20060724_115939.htm

Update: Microsoft revenue up, but profits down for Q4
InfoWorld - Jul 20, 2006
8 billion, which beat Wall Street expectations of $11. 6 billion and was a 16 percent increase over the year-ago figure. However, Microsoft's net income for the quarter was down 24 percent over the previous year. The company reported net income of $2... Microsoft plans to spend $450 million on marketing and launch costs related to its two major product launches in 2007, the Windows Vista OS and Office 2007. Another $450 million will go to sales force and general marketing growth, with $1 billion being set aside for the development of high-growth products and services, such as business intelligence, unified communications and IPTV (Internet Protocol TV), Liddell said. Microsoft plans to spend $500 million to expand its online business, including its adCenter advertising platform, as well as its Live services, such as Office Live, CRM Live, Windows Live Search and other Web-based offerings. Additionally, the company will spend another $300 million in general cost increases and other unspecified spending, Liddell said. One thing Liddell would not address was speculation that Windows Vista would miss its target release dates of November for business customers and January 2007 for consumers, saying only that Microsoft is still on schedule for Vista's release. However, Liddell said that it will not be until "we have the date locked in" that Microsoft can predict when launch expenses for Vista will affect the company's financial results, a comment that seemed to leave room for the release of the OS to slip further.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/07/20/HNmsrevenue_1.html

Microsoft's New, Improved Spending
BusinessWeek - Jul 21, 2006
A quarter ago, as it announced earnings, the software maker caught investors unawares with news of an increase in investment spending. On July 20, Microsoft (MSFT) had another surprise up its sleeve,.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060721_907153.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_more+of+today's+top+stories

SAP to ramp up attack on Oracle
InfoWorld - Jul 21, 2006
The company's on a roll. "McDermott expects Oracle to stumble in the next couple of quarters, claiming that the vendor's rise in fourth-quarter software license revenue was driven by Oracle's push to have its installed base sign maintenance licenses. As McDermott looks out over the rest of fiscal 2006, he expects growth to come in the high-end from MySAP ERP 2005, SAP's and Microsoft Corp. 's joint Duet software, SAP's hosted and on-premise CRM business and its business intelligence and analytics technologies. SAP will also be increasing its focus on the midmarket. "Sixty-five percent of our worldwide customers have revenues of less than US$500 million," he said. "We want to get the word out.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/07/21/SAPrampup_1.html

TCS turns leading employer in China
Economic Times - Jul 25, 2006
22per cent stake, while the Chinese partners have 27. However,
when Microsoft joins the venture next month, TCS will reduce its stake to 65per
cent and the Chinese counterparts will offload 2per cent and Microsoft will get
10per cent... Commenting on the IT market in China, Mr Ramadorai said
that the Chinese IT market is pegged at $30bn. Also, attrition rates in China
are higher than in India, at 15per cent, while salaries are comparable, he
added. In another deal, TCS has signed a $33m with a Saudi
Arabia-based telecom company to integrate their billing and CRM processes. The
process has to be delivered in 18 months.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1803023.cms

Salesforce goes after SAP customers
VNUNet.com - Jul 24, 2006
com is celebrating the20th update of its online service by posting an offering designed to forge linksto businesses with SAP installations. Meanwhile, rival CRM vendors haveannounced acquisitions and updates to boost their own offerings. The toolkit is intended to let customers integrateSalesforce tools with back-office applications to gain an overarching view ofcustomer data, and synchronise account information between Salesforce and SAP. The step is another in the upscale progress of Salesforce, which hasambitions to attract more custom from large organisations and shake off theperception that on-demand software is mostly attractive to smaller businesses. “There’s a typical criticism that integrating enterprise apps with on-demandis a challenge, so we have packaged up transformations, information flows andtools,” said Tim Knight, AppExchange technical director at Salesforce... 9 suite withextended support for mobile devices. But CDC is now unlikely to add Onyx to itsportfolio, because Onyx last week reaffirmed its intention to merge with holdinggroup M2M. Elsewhere, InvisibleCRM, a startup firm that develops software linkingSalesforce with Microsoft environments, last week secured an extra $1. All ApplicationsLike this story? Spread the news by clicking below:.
http://www.vnunet.com/itweek/news/2160923/salesforce-goes-sap-clients

Google R&D Pays Dividends
BusinessWeek - Jul 21, 2006
search queries handled by Google jumped 55% over the past year, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo's search queries rose 21%, and those handled by MSN, owned by Microsoft (MSFT), grew only 8%. Both rivals fell short of the overall market growth of 30%. "The opportunities before us are really unlimited at this point," remarked Google CEO Eric Schmidt on a conference call with Wall Street analysts. That may be a little too sanguine. But with Google's search business firing on all cylinders, its weaknesses won't likely trip up the company anytime soon.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060721_996440.htm?chan=top+news_top+news

BI's new power users rely on advanced search
InfoWorld - Jul 20, 2006
But the frequent inability of employees to locate the results they need from high-end BI applications is prompting several enterprise search vendors to step in and address the challenge. Because BI relies on data generated by accounting, sales, CRM systems, and other back-end applications, it represents a lot of data. IT departments that have made substantial investments in BI packages from Cognos, Information Builders, Oracle, and SAP, among others, are looking at ways to better expose that data and make it all actionable at a much faster clip.   Meanwhile, the number of workers who need daily access to BI data to be more effective at their jobs steadily rises. "A lot of things are changing in the industry to help expose more BI information," says Frank Brooks, chief data architect at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee. "We had reached the point where we had so much BI information that it was difficult to go and find just one piece of it... Rather than, say, waiting for biweekly reports and sifting through them, employees can now access a portal to search an array of applications where BI information is stored. Brooks is one of many IT managers taking advantage of the increasing cross-over between enterprise search and BI. Following news in April of Google OneBox, which extended the reach of the Google Search Appliance to BI, IBM and Microsoft announced new products and features for customers who want to marry search functionality with BI to get real-time business analytics into the hands of more employees. In May, Fast Search and Transfer joined its Enterprise Search Platform with Cognos 8 Business Intelligence solution to deliver corporate content directly to workers who are not necessarily sophisticated BI consumers. According to Vinod Baya, director at.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/infoworld/article/06/07/20/30FEsearchbiz_3.html

HP to Offer Networked Storage for Smaller Businesses
PC World - Jul 24, 2006
Small-business users typically hold their data on anywhere from 3 to 14 servers, adding extra servers as they grow, Young says. In market research, HP found that 60 percent to 70 percent of those users said they had continued to use this "direct attached storage" technique because its simplicity allows them to maintain it without a full-time IT department, and because the only alternatives in today's market cost $20,000 to $30,000. To reach those users, HP has designed its new products to be able to host client applications, e-mail that runs on Exchange or Lotus servers, and ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) databases, all without requiring customers to install a fiber channel infrastructure. The new line of products will protect data by duplicating it in snapshots stored on the same box or by creating tape backups on an attached device. In an effort to keep prices low, the new offerings will not include data encryption. System Details HP would not reveal details of the system design, but says it will include shared application server storage, a Microsoft Windows-based file server, and proprietary intellectual property to provide data management and protection. Rather than using revolutionary hardware, it relies on the wide adoption of common industry standards, as well as on a tight integration of domains that have been separated in previous designs, says Ash Ashutosh, vice president and chief technology officer of HP's StorageWorks division... The new line of products will protect data by duplicating it in snapshots stored on the same box or by creating tape backups on an attached device. In an effort to keep prices low, the new offerings will not include data encryption. System Details HP would not reveal details of the system design, but says it will include shared application server storage, a Microsoft Windows-based file server, and proprietary intellectual property to provide data management and protection. Rather than using revolutionary hardware, it relies on the wide adoption of common industry standards, as well as on a tight integration of domains that have been separated in previous designs, says Ash Ashutosh, vice president and chief technology officer of HP's StorageWorks division. Recommend this story?.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,126520-page,1-c,networkinghardware/article.html

On-demand is a growing tech force Salesforce.com has lead in big off...
San Francisco Chronicle - Jul 23, 2006
It is really a shift away from how you typically think of software. " On-demand computing has been most widely used for keeping track of sales, marketing and customer support, also known as customer resources management, or CRM. The market for on-demand CRM grew by nearly 70 percent to $500 million in 2005. Sharon Mertz, a research director at Gartner Research, expects it to grow another 40 to 50 percent in 2006. "We continue to see high demand for it this year," she said. Small, privately held firms, such as San Mateo's NetSuite, have been aggressively pushing to gain more share. Highlighting the growth opportunities that the on-demand software market offers, technology's big guns, led by Oracle, SAP and Microsoft, have also entered the ring with their versions of software-as-a-service offerings... "We continue to see high demand for it this year," she said. Small, privately held firms, such as San Mateo's NetSuite, have been aggressively pushing to gain more share. Highlighting the growth opportunities that the on-demand software market offers, technology's big guns, led by Oracle, SAP and Microsoft, have also entered the ring with their versions of software-as-a-service offerings. But it is Salesforce. com that continues to dominate the space with 60 percent of the market. The company's user base has grown from about 15,500 customers with 267,000 subscribers in May 2005 to 22,700 customers with 444,000 subscribers this May. The company apparently became a victim of its success.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/23/BUGJ1K36NG1.DTL

Goodbye.