Leading technology vendors

Microsoft to NetSuite: Take that!

Things are getting good in mid-market ERP–a segment that could use some caffeination.

Microsoft is offering NetSuite shops $850 per user  in credit to move to its ERP lines.  The money goes to end users–presumably the partner benefit would come from implementation work  involved in geting those customers on Microsoft Dynamics  GP, NAV or SL in those shops. UPDATE:  Dynamics AX is not covered by this offer. Continued »

Deshaies continues Microsoft diaspora to Sage

Embarrassing to have missed this one but Robert Deshaies, once a channel exec at Microsoft, is now at Sage Software. Sage competes with Microsoft ERP and CRM with a set of product lines even more (ahem) diverse than Microsoft’s own four-brand ERP lineup.

At Sage he works with Jodi Uecker-Rust a former Microsoft Business Solutions executive who had joined Microsoft via its buyout of Great Plains Software. Uecker-Rust was named president of Sage Business Solutions last year.

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Novell tries to calm the storm

Novell, trying to calm the roiled waters over an unexpected buyout bid, sought to reassure partners that it’s “business as usual.”

That was the message in an email sent by Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian to “valued partners” yesterday.

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Microsoft calls do-over on phone effort

Microsoft has gone back to square one on its mobile phone effort–the new Windows Phone 7 Series bears little resemblance to its predecessor.

That’s a good thing. The Windows mobile debacle- which went on far too long–is an example of the echo chambers that pervade big companies. Even as iPhones  flew off the shelves,  Microsoft stuck publicly to its Windows Phone course. This even as many of its own PR people were packing iPhones at Microsoft’s own events even as Steve Ballmer famously mock-stomped an iPhone to death on stage.  He also said his family members would not, could not, own an iPod or iPhone.

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Is Microsoft vs. VMware SO last year?

I recently read an article titled, “Nine reasons why the whole Hyper-V vs. ESX debate is a waste of time” by Alessandro Perilli, founder of virtualization.info.

The whole Hyper-V vs. vSphere vs. XenServer topic is one of the most popular on our site, so the article’s title sucked me in.

Perilli argues, ironically, that arguing Microsoft vs. VMware is useless. This one quote from his article sums up his point:

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Sure, everyone wants to gain revenue. What about retaining revenue?

How much money are you leaving on the table by letting the support and maintenance contracts associated with the products you sell expire?

That’s the challenge being addressed by Managed Maintenance Inc. (aka MMI), a Boca Raton, Fla.-based company that sells a Web portal called ONEView, which helps various members of the channel — from OEMs to distributors to resellers — keep tabs on related contracts. MMI also sells services that complement the portal, essentially serving as a contract management arm for a given technology sales organization.

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Bracing for the Oracle ‘we get the cloud’ onslaught

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has made much hay proclaiming that the term “cloud computing” is over-used, mis-used and misconstrued. He has a point. Kind of.

So get ready for Oracle to go on the cloud offensive in coming weeks, with a series of “road shows” or cloud computing forums (fora?) kicking off this month.  Watch for Oracle to tout its tight relationships with Amazon and Google and other cloud pioneers. Continued »

Microsoft and (lack of) innovation: Big angst in Redmond

While it may not be facing a Toyota-like crisis of confidence, Microsoft’s got big problems.

Today, Dick Brass, a former exec who headed up Microsoft’s ill-fated tablet PC efforts, turned a spotlight on the company’s “Issues”, in a brutal New York Times Op Ed piece, decrying the silo’d thinking and fiefdoms that have prevented Microsoft from coming out with great (as in not derivative) products.  You know, products people actually want to buy, as opposed to the “we have to upgrade to stay legal” kind of products it rolls out. (To all those who would now start screaming that most of Microsoft’s innovation borrowed heavily on advances by Apple, Netscape, and Novell,  I have to quote the great  Waltmosspuppet and say: “Shut up.” )  Continued »

Microsoft Word, Office snafu grows

So, remember when Microsoft said it could pull the copies of Word 2007 and Office 2007 that ran afoul of a legal ruling  and replace them with non-offending versions in  time for a January 11 deadline? Yeah, well, that didn’t turn out to be true.  

 MIcrosoft’s online store and MSDN pulled the offending versions of Office and Word, but didn’t have much up to replace them, according to several reports.

An appeals court judge last month affirmed a lower court finding that Microsoft Word 2007 (and by extension Office 2007) used an XML editor that infringed on the patents of Toronto-based i4i.  At that time Microsoft said it would comply by removing the affected products as ordered by January 11. It also said it had already worked a fix for the problem and would substitute versions of Word and Office with that fix.

Last Friday, Microsoft said it would (re) appeal the lower court ruling.

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Good riddance to a bad decade

Face it, the first decade of the 21st century was a bummer. As it closes, it’s time for the obligatory look at the major IT stories of the aughts. Based on a completely unscientific survey  of VARs and colleagues, here are the biggest stories of the that painful decade.

1: The fizz (and fizzle) of the Y2K bug. Whatever apocalypse was supposed to happen  didn’t.  It still isn’t clear whether that was because Y2K software issues were overblown or that the hype forced businesses to proactively fix problems before the new year. In any case, a lot of software got patched and updated.

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