Forrester Confuses “Best” with “Most Accessible”
I’ve got a love/hate relationship with the traditional analyst firms. Their people are incredibly smart and very thorough, but sometimes in their search for massive levels of details, they miss the very point of technology. A good case in point is the recently released Forrester Enterprise Cloud Database Wave report.
Why Competition Is So Bitter in SaaS: Oligopolies and Dominant Strategy Equilibriums
Perhaps the oddest thing about the Apple-Google “go thermonuclear” strategy to SaaS guys is that it is so odd at all. Competition-to-the-almost-death seems the norm in SaaS. Just look at Larry Ellison or Marc Benioff. You can see the blood lust in their eyes, in every speech, in a way you never really saw/see in [...]
The Workday IPO and ‘F You Money
The other day, a VC asked me about a founder he was thinking of investing in. He asked me if this founder had, quote, ‘F You Money. {I learned how this was spelled when a Businessweek article this week used the term, btw}. I wasn’t really sure if he meant this as a negative, but [...]
Cloud ERP Starts to Break Out–NetSuite Reports Good Numbers
Last week NetSuite reported it’s Q2 revenue and earnings – high level numbers include: Subscription and support revenue was $61.0 million, a 27 percent increase on an annual basis Cash flows from operations were $15.2 million, up by 80 percent from Q2 2011 While the specific numbers themselves are of vague interest, and more so [...]
Silicon Angle Interview–What’s New and News in the Cloud
While I was in Las Vegas a few weeks ago I took the opportunity to sit down with Alex Williams, Cloud editor of Silicon Angle, and Stu Miniman from Wikibon, to film a video interview. The interview cam at an interesting time – in the space of 24 hours we’d seen some large Cloud-related announcements [...]
Trash talk and FUD harms the Cloud industry
Over here we are anticipating this year’s Cloud Computing World Forumin London, but over in the US Larry Ellison, Oracle’s founder and CEO since 1977, has pivoted his position on the Cloud along with “crossing a line” to trash key competitors. Elsewhere old guard software giants like IBM are mis-communicating the Cloud messages. How does [...]
The Rise of Two Tier ERP and Larry Ellison’s NetSuite Intentions
A few weeks ago I was in San Francisco for a few days for NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference [Disclosure: NetSuite funded my travel and accommodation to attend]. One of the announcements at SuiteWorld was that of CTO Evan Goldberg who talked about “Multi Book Accounting”, as my colleague Phil Wainewright explains; [multi book accounting is] for [...]
SAP Assembles Cloud Powerhouse with Ariba, SuccesFactors Acquisitions
Emphasis on “assemble”, as opposed to develop. For years SAP and Oracle fought a religious war of acquire/assemble vs develop in-house. SAP’s view was (even under the current Co-CEOs) that you can only get to a coherent, seamlessly integrated suite by development. Apparently they have changed religion, borrowing a chapter or two from Larry Ellison’s [...]
SuiteWorld-Looking Back, Looking Forwards
Next week sees me winging my way, albeit briefly, to San Francisco to take part in the annual NetSuite user conference, SuiteWorld. It will be the third time I’ve been to the event, and it’s always a great chance to catch up with colleagues, talk with NetSuite customers and partners,
NetSuite and Oracle–Competition or Acquisition?
It’s plainly clear that traditional software vendors can no long rubbish this new breed of Cloud vendors. While once Oracle, Microsoft and SAP could pour scorn at the little pests sniping at their ankles – today we have some impressive vendors waiting in the wings who look increasingly likely to become the mega-vendors of the [...]
Cutting Through the Fog of Cloud Computing Definitions
In recent years, the term “cloud computing” has been used and abused by vendors and their marketing groups to denote just about anything the vendor offers other than on-premise systems. Analysts too have piled on, each offering their own definition of cloud computing. This 2009 Wall Street Journal article outlined the confusion. The result has been fruitless [...]
Oracle Buys RightNow
Last month it was Salesforce buying customer support solution Assistly. This month it’s Oracle buying RightNow, a more mature, but similarly positioned player. The deal, worth around the $1.5B mark, fills the void that Oracle had in terms of customer-facing engagement tools. While Oracle does have CRM on-demand, this acquisition
Oracle Introduces Cloud and Social. My Perspective
by Oracle_Photos_Screenshots During a keynote that saw Larry Ellison make up for his abysmal performance of a few days before, and before bigger news events in Silicon Valley bought the tech world to its knees, a number of announcements were made with the usual Ellison flourishes. Curiously these two massive announcements were made towards the [...]
The Cloud Must Go On. Watch the Banned Benioff Keynote Live.
The best thing that may have happened to Salesforce.com at Oracle Open World is getting CEO Marc Benioff’s keynote cancelled. Oracle and Larry Ellison are now officially the Bad Guys (opinions are split on whether Larry is the Emperor, Darth Vader or God), @Benioff is the oppressed Folk Hero, Salesforce.com got thei $1M keynote [...]
On Larry, and Marc, and All Publicity being Good Publicity
So I’ve been mentioning it on Twitter all afternoon, after being one of the first to pick up on the announcement from Marc Benioff that Oracle had reneged on its offer for a keynote position at Oracle’s OpenWorld event in San Francisco this week. Ever the showman, Benioff turned it
