SAP, scared of Oracle, makes goo-goo eyes at HP

The strange interpretive dance by Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and SAP has put everyone’s spidey sense in overdrive. Court proceedings on Oracle’s lawsuit vs. SAP kick off today in Oakland.

SOOOO very interesting that SAP has been gushing over Leo Apotheker’s leadership skills,  especially since SAP showed him the door last year. Both HP and SAP have defended Apotheker against Oracle’s charges that he was complicit in industrial espionage. Oracle maintains that while Apotheker was CEO of SAP, he knew about TomorrowNow’s practice of downloading Oracle information using customer accounts and let it continue for months. Continued »

Microsoft makes Azure more palatable

Microsoft execs, including server and tools chief Bob Muglia, have long maintained that the Azure price model was sound and clear as a bell. This despite developers and other would-be Azure-ites moaning about its complexity and complaining that Azure was too pricey compared to Amazon Web Services.

Well, those developers weren’t crazy after all.  Yesterday at Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC), Microsoft announced new  Azure Extra Small Instances for five cents per hour. Now in beta, this bite-sized computing morsel doesn’t promise fast I/O and is limited to 20 gigabytes of storage per instance. The next smallest nugget of computing is the Azure Small Instance at 12 cents per hour for up to 225GB storage per instance. Clearly there was pressure for cheaper Azure. Continued »

If you’re an MSP, are you a green MSP?

Here’s a question for all you managed service providers (MSPs) out there: How green is your data center? Continued »

Ellison reloads, fires again

Another missive from Oracle, attributed to Larry Ellison. The Oracle vs. HP (and SAP) battle continues.

 

“HP Chairman Ray Lane has taken the position that Leo Apotheker is innocent of wrongdoing because he didn’t know anything about the stealing going on at SAP while Leo was CEO.  The most basic facts of the case show this to be an absurd lie.  Oracle sued SAP for stealing in March of 2007.  Leo became CEO of SAP in April of 2008.  Leo knew all about the stealing.  In fact, Leo did not stop the stealing until 7 months after he became CEO.  Why so long?  We’d like to know.  Ray Lane and the rest of the HP Board do not want anyone to know.  That’s the new HP Way with Ray in charge and Leo on the run.  It’s time to change the HP tagline from ‘Invent’ to ‘Steal’.”

 

It sounds a little personal, no?

Let us know what you think about the story; email Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director at bdarrow@techtarget.com, or follow us on twitter.

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Charles Phillips surfaces at Infor

That didn’t take long.

Charles Phillips is now CEO of Infor. The move comes less than two months since Phillips left Oracle – just as Mark Hurd assumed the Oracle co-presidency that was once his. Continued »

Ellison warns HP/Apotheker

Here’s one of the weirder statements (attributable to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison) to hit reporters’ mailboxes in recent decades:

“A few weeks ago I accused HP’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, of overseeing an industrial espionage scheme centering on the repeated theft of massive amounts Oracle’s software. A major portion of this theft occurred while Mr. Apotheker was CEO of SAP. HP’s Chairman, Ray Lane, immediately came to Mr. Apotheker defense by writing a letter stating, ‘Oracle has been litigating this case for years and has never offered any evidence that Mr. Apotheker was involved.’ Well, that’s what we are planning to do during the trial that starts next Monday. Continued »

Ray Ozzie sums up Microsoft services effort

 Ray Ozzie’s new “Dawn of a Day” blog entry takes stock of Microsoft’s move into services and, not surpisingly, gives the company high marks for its Windows Live and other efforts.

Ozzie, the out-going chief software architect at Microsoft,  also points out where company has fallen short. Continued »

Westcon helps data center solution providers take a LEAP

Data center technology distributor Westcon Group has opened its first LEAP Center in the United States. LEAP is an acronym that stands for Learn, Experience, Architect and Plan. As you might expect, the intention behind these facilities is to help IT solution provider test, train on, and experiment with next-generation virtual data center technologies. The first one is located in Lafayette, Colorado.

Continued »

Cloud steals the show at VMware user group event

At last week’s New England VMware User Group meeting in Atkinson, New Hampshire, there was no shortage of cloud talk.

Continued »

MSP label tainted, pipelines in flux and other VAR takeaways

The “managed service provider” moniker that used to be golden has actually become a deterrent to business, according to the SearchITChannel.com channel advisory board.

“We dropped the MSP label–it turned into a dirty word,” said board member Kevin McDonald, vice president of Alvaka Networks. Continued »