Robert J. Mullins

About

Robert Mullins is a writer for eWEEK who has covered the technology industry in Silicon Valley for more than a decade. He has written for several tech publications including Network Computing, Information Week, Network World and various TechTarget titles. Mullins also served as a correspondent in the San Francisco Bureau of IDG News Service and, before that, covered technology news for the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. Back in his home state of Wisconsin, Robert worked as the news director for NPR stations in Milwaukee and LaCrosse in the 1980s.

New Oracle Partner Program Takes a Cue from Rival Salesforce.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Oracle CEO Larry Ellison doesn’t pass up an opportunity to put down software rival Salesforce.com, especially at his company’s OpenWorld conference here Oct. 1 to 4. However, it looks like Oracle borrowed some ideas from its main software as a service competitor in building a new partner ecosystem. At the conference, Oracle […]

Samsung Seeks to Overturn Patent Verdict on Juror Misconduct Claim

Samsung is asking for a new trial to reverse a jury verdict in a case brought by Apple, alleging that the jury foreman failed to disclose his involvement in another lawsuit that could indicate bias against Samsung. Documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., accuse jury foreman Velvin Hogan of failing to […]

Oracle Links All of Its SaaS Business Apps to Social Media Platform

SAN FRANCISCO—Oracle CEO Larry Ellison introduced his company’s Social Relationship Management Platform at the Oracle OpenWorld conference with the claim that it differs from all competing enterprise social media products in that it is a platform, not just an application. Because the social media capabilities are built as a platform, those capabilities are part of […]

Some Microsoft Lync Deployments ‘Stuck in Pilot Phase:’ UC Consultant

The Lync unified communications platform has been a strong product for Microsoft, with revenue growing by 45 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2012 that ended June 30, compared to the year ago quarter. But a number of Lync deployments are limited by the complexity of connecting an enterprise’s network for external telecommunications […]

HP Logo Is Prominent in New DAS Data Center

HP Logo Is Prominent in New DAS Data Center Hewlett-Packard gave reporters a tour of a new data center it designed in Atlanta for Diversified Agency Services (DAS), a marketing services firm. The 2,470-square foot data center is housed in a data center hosting company called Quality Technology Services. B.G. Naran Leads Data Center Tour […]

Cisco Focuses on User Experience in Collaboration Product Design

Technology product design needs to be about turning available technology into a product that performs a particular task, but also about delivering a positive experience to the end user. Cisco Systems is combining those two concerns into a new job title it believes is an industry first: the CTEO, or chief technology experience officer. “We […]

HP, Cisco Hardware Coexist in Greenfield Data Center Project

ATLANTA – Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems are in a heated rivalry in the networking space, and HP touts every case in which it wins over a Cisco customer. But HP had to concede that it couldn’t provide all the networking components needed to build a new data center here. In developing a brand-new data center […]

Samsung Asks for New Trial in Apple Patent Infringement Case

Samsung filed documents in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., asking a judge to set aside the Aug. 24 verdicts against the company in a patent suit brought by Apple, as Samsung alludes to possible jury misconduct in the case. In recently filed documents, Samsung argues that “no reasonable jury” would support Apple’s claims […]

Tibco Designs Tibbr 4.0 to Be More Than Just Facebook for the Office

Tibco Software says its experience as a provider of business process management applications gives its enterprise social media platform, tibbr, an advantage over other such platforms flooding the market based on the popularity of Facebook in the broad consumer market. Tibco introduced Sept. 26, at its TUCON user conference in Las Vegas, tibbr 4.0, with […]

Microsoft Exchange Conference Returns After 10-Year Hiatus

The Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) convened again in Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 24 as Microsoft touts email’s continued importance as part of a unified communications strategy along with instant messaging, presence, voice, text and enterprise social media. MEC returns after a 10-year absence mainly to help Microsoft promote the coming Exchange Server 2013 and its […]