Renee Boucher Ferguson

In a dramatic turnabout, officials at software giant SAP admitted what bitter rival Oracle had claimed in a lawsuit: that one of SAPs subsidiaries had inappropriately downloaded some Oracle files. SAP CEO Henning Kagermann, in two news conferences July 3, said employees of TomorrowNow—a third-party support company SAP bought in 2005 after seeing Oracle acquire […]

SAP is getting ready to fire back at rival Oracle, the last salvo in a bitter competition that was most recently fueled when Oracle filed a lawsuit. SAP officials said in a statement that they will respond to Oracles lawsuit through two press conferences on July 3. The first is scheduled for 2 a.m. EST, […]

After months of searching, Microsoft announced on June 30 that it has named a new leader for the Microsoft Business Solutions group. Microsoft hopes that filling the position will provide direction for the business applications group, which has been struggling to find an identity within Microsoft and to establish its presence in the ERP (enterprise […]

Finally, after months of speculation and rumors, NetSuite Inc. announced July 2 that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock. NetSuite, based in San Mateo, Calif., develops on-demand ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] and CRM [Customer […]

IBM is putting its considerable resources into building enterprise search technologies, both in its Lotus and WebSphere product lines and in areas of research and development like terrorist communication mapping or pharmaceutical drug interaction tracking. IBM announced June 29 the latest version of its namesake OmniFind Enterprise Edition that essentially brings an enterprise dashboard that […]

Powering the stellar fourth quarter numbers Oracle announced yesterday—total revenues up 17 percent to 5.8 billion, beating the Street estimate of $5.6 billion—is an acquisition strategy that seems, on the surface at least, to be growing revenue and successfully making inroads into SAPs customer base. During the earnings call yesterday, Oracles CEO Larry Ellison outlined […]

Oracle reported a booming fourth quarter, with the company posting net income of $1.6 billion, or 31 cents per share, up from $1.3 billion or 24 cents per share for the same quarter a year ago. During its earnings call June 26, Oracle said its profit and sales for the 2007 fiscal fourth quarter that […]

Oracles June 21 announcement of a massive new business unit geared to the needs of the financial markets raises as many questions as Stonehenge. None is more pressing than how Oracle hopes to bring its products to market without creating more work than its worth for its customers. The company intends to build a financial […]

Microsoft has reached the halfway point in its three-year march to converge four enterprise resource planning suites into a common technology platform. But its still an open question whether the campaign will deliver a fully converged suite that will hold its own in the midmarket that SAP and Oracle also covet, and whether customers still […]

Database and applications management provider Quest Software took another step into the Microsoft Windows sector with the June 21 acquisition of ScriptLogic. Quest agreed to acquire ScriptLogic, which develops Microsoft-based network administration and life-cycle management software, for approximately $90 million. The company already snatched up Aelita Software and Vintela, two widely known Windows management providers, […]