Unbreakable Linux Proves Unpopular as Red Hat Shares Rebound
Unbreakable Linux was downloaded 9,000 times in the first 30 days, according to comments made by Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle’s president Chuck Phillips during the company’s recent earnings call. Compare this with the download rates for Red Hat Inc and Novell Inc, however, and it is almost insignificant.
While it may seem Oracle's Unbreakable Linux program is not gaining the traction it should, I highly doubt that Larry expected to convert the masses. The program is more a signal of a continuous shift for Oracle to cover the entire IT stack. Meanwhile, Oracle makes a few bucks on services without a significant investment. Moreover, it's really a defensive move against operating system providers. Oracle wants to neutralize Microsoft’s dominance in the OS layer, prevent open source competitors like Red Hat from inching up the stack, and cover an area that IBM and SAP does not own. So I don't think Oracle is spending any sleepless nights worrying about the progress of its Linux program and comparing it against Red Hat or Novell.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
SAP Does Enterprise Search Widget-Style
InfoWeek did a short piece on SAP's Enterprise Search product and how it will offer flexible searches for back-end data. It's all a part of the Information Worker concept SAP introduced with the Duet partnership with Microsoft. I think it's about time we had something like this. Letting business users access back-end data through widgets and other easy-to-use tools is the way to empower the information worker. It's all about making information access simpler.
But that's not all SAP has in store for 2007. Enterprise Search, which the company will also introduce in the first half of the year, looks to me to be one of the more interesting products of 2007. As you know, most search products focus on text. If you're looking for news, reviews, or an esoteric piece of information about an obscure author, Google is the way to go. But what if you want to know the status of a customer shipment, how much inventory is left, who is so-and-so's supervisor, or whether I am authorized to give him or her a raise? These are the kinds of questions Enterprise Search is built to answer.
SAP is also seeding the development community with a toolkit to build what you might call it applets, widgets, or gadgets, ala Microsoft Vista, for SAP. The company is also building its own gadgets that give you an alert box for, say, an RSS reader that tracks business events rather than news or blogs. That way, a sales manager can monitor when a sales rep closes a deal, for example. There are also alerts for corporate KPIs (key performance indicators), as well as alerts for tracking workflow queues, such as notifying a purchasing manager of requisitions waiting for approval.
Sounds like a dashboard, but these applets embody more of a Web 2.0 approach — they’re updated over the Internet, you don’t have to install anything, they’re more dynamic than what you get with a dashboard, and you get to pick the ones you want.
But that's not all SAP has in store for 2007. Enterprise Search, which the company will also introduce in the first half of the year, looks to me to be one of the more interesting products of 2007. As you know, most search products focus on text. If you're looking for news, reviews, or an esoteric piece of information about an obscure author, Google is the way to go. But what if you want to know the status of a customer shipment, how much inventory is left, who is so-and-so's supervisor, or whether I am authorized to give him or her a raise? These are the kinds of questions Enterprise Search is built to answer.
SAP is also seeding the development community with a toolkit to build what you might call it applets, widgets, or gadgets, ala Microsoft Vista, for SAP. The company is also building its own gadgets that give you an alert box for, say, an RSS reader that tracks business events rather than news or blogs. That way, a sales manager can monitor when a sales rep closes a deal, for example. There are also alerts for corporate KPIs (key performance indicators), as well as alerts for tracking workflow queues, such as notifying a purchasing manager of requisitions waiting for approval.
Sounds like a dashboard, but these applets embody more of a Web 2.0 approach — they’re updated over the Internet, you don’t have to install anything, they’re more dynamic than what you get with a dashboard, and you get to pick the ones you want.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Fusion Downgrade
BusinessWeek did a story on Oracle's earnings next week and how Oracle's integration project progress (or lack thereof) is the reason for its downgrade.
First Albany Capital analyst Mark Murphy on Friday downgraded software developer Oracle Corp. to "Neutral" from "Buy," saying the stock is pricey, growth is likely to slow and the company may have trouble integrating its many acquisitions.
"Investors are too complacent if they believe that the largest, messiest, most complex application integration project in the history of the technology industry will go off without a hitch," Murphy wrote in a research report.
First Albany Capital analyst Mark Murphy on Friday downgraded software developer Oracle Corp. to "Neutral" from "Buy," saying the stock is pricey, growth is likely to slow and the company may have trouble integrating its many acquisitions.
"Investors are too complacent if they believe that the largest, messiest, most complex application integration project in the history of the technology industry will go off without a hitch," Murphy wrote in a research report.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Oracle Loses Key Retail Bid
InformationWeek did a story on the lack of integration of Oracle's retail solution set and how that led to a lost bid to SAP. Despite all of Oracle's commotion in retail, I think marketing is one thing but customer choice speaks volumes.
Oracle Loses Would-Be Customer To SAP Due To Integration Concerns
Oracle Loses Would-Be Customer To SAP Due To Integration Concerns
- One of the biggest turnoffs to Oracle, says Sport Chalet CFO Howard Kaminsky, was -- ouch -- lack of integration between Oracle financial applications and the retail apps of Retek, which it acquired about 18 months ago.
- SAP's offering for the retail market, by comparison, "was ahead of its time in that a lot of pieces were integrated," Kaminsky says.
- Such impressions on would-be customers aren't good for Oracle, as the potential difficulty of integrating its myriad acquisitions is the biggest question hanging over its success in ERP.
- "We went out and looked at all the usual software companies that relate to retail," Kaminsky says. "At the time we didn't expect SAP to be in the running; we didn't know they were that interested in the middle market. They came back very aggressively and said they were very interested."
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