Renee Boucher Ferguson

After 11 months in development with the latest iteration of its software, open-source business intelligence software company Pentaho announced the 1.6 version of its namesake Open BI Suite. While a point release, the upgraded version is really the companys entrée into corporate accounts, according to analysts. The updated suite offers two new components: a BI […]

Oracle made yet another acquisition on Oct. 9, announcing it picked up LogicalApps, building out its already established Governance, Risk and Compliance line and marking what could be a new horizontal strategy in its acquisition spree. LogicalApps, provider of automated GRC solutions, adds to Oracles GRC play culled not only from its own E-Business Suite, […]

SAPs announcement on Sunday [Oct. 7] that it plans to acquire business intelligence software vendor Business Objects for $6.8 billion has left the software industry in turmoil with conflicting prognostications coming from industry watchers and investors alike. They are asking whether SAP has done a total and permanent about-face on its organic growth strategy (the […]

Enormous cost overruns associated with botched enterprise resource planning implementations are the stuff of legend in IT circles. Now theres a new debacle to add to the list. Nine months after the Los Angeles Unified School District launched the SAP HR and Payroll modules—as part of a larger ERP rollout dubbed Business Tools for Schools, […]

LAS VEGAS—During the whole brouhaha over Business ByDesign—SAPs on-demand, mid-market suite announced nearly a year before it was unveiled last month—the companys NetWeaver integration platform seemed all but forgotten. At this years Tech Ed conference here, NetWeaver is again taking center stage. SAP announced Oct. 2 the next iteration of NetWeaver, which brings the discussion […]

LAS VEGAS — At its annual TechEd conference here, SAP announced on Oct. 2 that developers can download a NetWeaver license on a yearly subscription basis. The goal for SAP in changing its licensing structure around NetWeaver is to open up access to the platform to a much broader community of developers. In other words, […]

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff has long been buddy-buddy with the venture capitalist community. Hes quoted frequently as saying that the venture capitalists are investing more in software as a service than in software. Now Benioff, along with Bay Partners, is quantifying his assertions. Bay Partners and Salesforce.com announced Oct. 1 the launch of a program […]

SAPs Business ByDesign Brings Partner Conundrums in SAAS Model “> SAP has spent four years and somewhere between $400 million and $500 million building its newly announced Business ByDesign software suite, an on-demand integrated package of applications geared toward the midmarket. Billed as the worlds largest business applications company, SAP is pitching the suite as […]

John Freeland is leaving his position as president of worldwide operations at Salesforce.com to take the top spot at Information Resources, a Chicago-based company that provides marketing, sales, logistics and distribution of consumer goods in the United States, Europe and Latin America. Freeland, whose resignation from San Francisco-based Salesforce.com was announced Sept. 28, joins IRI […]

Oracle and SAP may well have their day in court… in two years. But thats only if mediation hasnt settled Oracles suit against SAP—alleging corporate theft and illegal hacking—first. Following a Sept. 25 case management conference in the United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, Judge Martin Jenkins suggested that both […]