Renee Boucher Ferguson

SAP announced Oct. 17 that its third quarter net profits increased 10 percent, thanks to strong revenue growth from software sales and related services. The software giants revenues rose to $578.8 million in the third quarter, up from $529 million in the same quarter last year. Software and software-related services shot up 13 percent, to […]

In its quest to organize its own business based on customers technology goals, Hewlett-Packard has teamed up with Oracle to develop bundles of hardware, software and services for midmarket customers. The offer is also geared to partners who want to beef up the HP-Oracle bundles with their own industry expertise and then resell those to […]

As has been rumored for days, Oracle is replacing the leadership of its application development platform. Rumblings Oct. 12 that John Wookey, the companys head of application development for Fusion Applications—the project much vaunted at Oracle—is out, have been confirmed in media reports. Thomas Kurian, senior vice president responsible for Oracles Fusion Middleware, will take […]

Hewlett-Packard is offering its Business Technology Optimization portfolio as a service to help users better manage their software implementations—without actually having to implement a complicated management environment in house. The company announced Oct. 15 that it will offer its BTO portfolio in a SAAS (software as a service) model. BTO is essentially a compilation of […]

Its illegal now for California employers to force anyone to have an RFID device implanted under his or her skin as a condition of receiving something—such as a paycheck or government benefits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 362 on Oct. 15, prohibiting the forced implantation of RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips. The bill, authored by […]

BEA Systems rejection of its initial bid overture leaves Oracle several options: Oracle can take the rebuff for what it is and leave the dance floor; or it can ante up as much as $3 more per share, some analysts believe. Oracle can also file legal action against BEA, with the intent of getting it […]

Oracle has finally put a move on BEA Systems. Oracle announced Oct. 12 that it delivered a letter to BEAs Board of Directors on Oct. 9 proposing to acquire BEA for $17 per share—a 25 percent premium over Oct. 11s closing price of $13.62. For months—years even—its been rumored that Oracle would acquire BEA in […]

The board of directors of BEA Systems has declined Oracles offer to acquire the company at $17 per share, saying the bid “significantly undervalues” BEA, according to a report on MarketWatch.com. Oracle announced its intent to acquire BEA earlier in the day on Oct. 12. BEAs board had sent a letter to Oracle Oct. 11 […]

Oracles $6.7 billion bid for BEA Systems on Oct. 12 leaves, at this early stage, more questions than answers. Clearly, Oracles acquisition strategy—its bought 36 companies in the past two years—is to buy companies with a hefty customer base that add to its bottom line and expand its market share. And BEA, with its blue-chip […]

Microsoft says it has fixed an Excel bug, which caused the spreadsheet to display erroneous calculation results, even though it performed the calculation correctly and stored it in Excels memory. In an Oct. 9 posting on the Excel section of MSDN [Microsoft Developer Network,] the Excel Team served notice that, “as of today, fixes for […]