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Category: SAP
November 17th, 2009
FusionOps launches business intelligence, process automation modules
FusionOps, an on-demand enterprise performance management company, will launch a new business intelligence module that may compete with the very ERP vendors it partners with.
If successful, FusionOps could be on to something big, but it has some tricky waters to navigate. FusionOps’ business intelligence tool—called Insight—promises to plug into a company’s enterprise planning system and deliver a return on investment in 12 weeks. FusionOps will first connect to SAP and later Oracle.
“Our initial focus is on SAP. then Oracle,” explained Ram Mohan, CEO and president of FusionOps. “We wanted to be very ERP centric with the ability to derive metrics and get data from ERP systems. We understand SAP data models and are a software partner.”
FusionOps’ business intelligence tools, which will be self-serve, will ride shotgun with a process automation service called Streamline. According to Mohan, the business intelligence module can be integrated and running in hours. FusionOps secret sauce is that it takes read-only access to SAP data documents, uploads them to a data center (hosted by RackSpace) and then provides a dashboard with metrics, reports and key performance indicators.
The company has priced Insight at $100 per user with enterprise data hosting of $3,000 a month per company. There’s minimum of 10 users.
The company also launched an on-demand service dubbed Streamline, which automates procurement and supplier management processes. FusionOps is pitching ROI in 8 to 12 weeks. Streamline is based on functionality needed and subscriptions start at $5,000 a month.
Here’s the pitch:
It’s hard to argue with the return potential with a SaaS-based business intelligence tool, but Mohan acknowledges some potential conflicts. After all, SAP bought Business Objects for business intelligence and Oracle owns Hyperion. Are these two giants really going to let FusionOps poach customers in the long run?
“I see the conflict with BusinessObjects,” said Mohan. “BusinessObjects is a tool that derives a lot of metrics, but it’s cumbersome. Customers can use BusinessObjects, but if they want to see metrics out of the box they can use our service.”
Mohan’s bet: FusionOps’ pitch of metrics in a day will trump a 6 to 9 month implementation. “Our biggest competition is ERP vendors,” said Mohan.
October 28th, 2009
SAP: Enterprise software market 'difficult'; Emerging markets weak
SAP’s third quarter was a mixed bag. Earnings were a touch better than expectations, but revenue and the outlook disappointed investors. Meanwhile, SAP said the software market showed “signs of stabilization,” but remained difficult.
The third quarter breaks down like this:
- Revenue for the quarter ending Sept. 30 was 2.51 billion Euro down 9 percent from a year ago. Estimate: 2.57 billion Euro.
- Software and software related services revenue were 1.94 billion Euro, down 3 percent.
- Software revenue was 525 million Euro, down 31 percent from a year ago.
- Net income was 435 million Euro, up 12 percent from a year ago. Earnings of 0.37 Euro a share were two cents better than Thomson Reuters expectations.
- Add it up and you have a quarter that was roughly in line with estimates, but the outlook disappointed. Non-GAAP software and software related revenue will fall 6 percent to 8 percent for 2009.
But what caught my eye was the commentary. SAP CFO Werner Brandt noted in a statement:
October 20th, 2009
Art of the software deal can get messy
Software buyers and vendors are increasingly butting heads amid a budget squeeze and increasingly aggressive sales tactics, according to Gartner.
In a series of presentations at the Gartner IT Symposium in Orlando, analysts walked buyers through a few negotiating tactics with the likes of SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and a bevy of others. Taken as a whole the presentations provide a good overview of what IT buyers are facing these days.
At a high level, Gartner notes the following:
September 17th, 2009
A complicated relationship: Oracle's database business gets SAP'd
Oracle and SAP make for an odd couple. The two companies are bitter rivals in the enterprise applications. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison delivers a SAP dig every chance he gets. But a more complicated relationship was revealed on Oracle’s fiscal first quarter conference call: Oracle needs SAP—especially for its database business.
The enterprise software giant delivered a so-so quarter with revenue that was lighter than expected (statement), but the real kicker came from a remark by Safra Catz, co-president of Oracle. She said on a conference call:
September 16th, 2009
Oracle's Q1: "We grew faster than SAP"
Oracle Corp., which is facing a delay of its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, today reported first quarter non-GAAP earnings of $1.5 billion, or 30 cents per share, a three-percent increase over the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $5.1 billion, a 7 percent drop from last year. Wall Street analysts had been expecting earnings of 30 cents on revenue of $5.25 billion. (Statement, PDF)
First quarter GAAP earnings were 22 cents a share.
The quarter, which is seasonally slow, was largely considered to be ho-hum as analysts largely expected earnings to be in-line with expectations. In its press release, Oracle noted that software license updates and product support revenue grew 11 percent to $3.1 billion and that the growth, along with “disciplined expense management,” was key to the $8.5 billion in free cash flow that’s been generated over the last year.
Looking ahead, the company issued second quarter guidance of non-GAAP earnings of 35-36 cents per share, up from 34 percent in the year ago quarter. It expects revenue to be between +2 percent and -1 percent, year over year.
The company also noted its gains and compared them to SAP. Said Oracle President Charles Phillips:
We grew faster than SAP in every region around the world, including Europe, where our applications business grew 3 percent in constant currency versus negative 39 percent for SAP’s most recent quarter. Our applications team also executed especially well in North America, where our applications business grew 8 percent in constant currency versus negative 50 percent for SAP.
The earnings release comes a day after Oracle and Sun announced a second Exadata data warehousing appliance that was built by Sun. In a statement, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison touted the combination of Sun hardware and Oracle software to create “the world’s fastest computer system for OLTP (online transaction processing) and data warehousing.”
The Sun acquisition is facing delays over concerns by the European Commission about MySQL. But the delay doesn’t seem to be causing much concern on Wall Street. In a note to investors, Piper Jaffray analyst Mark Murphy wrote that the delay may be placing pressure on Oracle and creating some uncertainty for investors, but that most Oracle partners have a positive outlook on the deal. Of those surveyed, 74 percent said they expect a positive outcome from the acquisition. In the note, Murphy wrote:
Partners also indicate “the growing importance of Java alone makes the acquisition extremely valuable,” that “Sun has a lot to offer in terms of IP, software, and hardware,” and that it will succeed in “protecting their significant database market share on the Sun platform from IBM’s DB2 product.”
Shares of Oracle were down about 2 percent in regular trading, closing at $22.13. Shares dipped further in after-hours trading, down more than 5 percent.
July 31st, 2009
Where's the tipping point for on-demand ERP?
NetSuite delivered a solid quarter, indicated it was gaining traction with its OneWorld ERP suite and took a few jabs at SAP’s Business By Design. The larger question: Where’s the tipping point for on-demand ERP?
That question was raised by JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens. The tipping point question is worth asking. The ramp for enterprise resource planning applications delivered as a service has been slower than categories that are easier to implement—such as CRM. However, you can project out to a point where on demand ERP will gain more momentum.
Walravens in a research note indicates that the tipping point for NetSuite may be two to three years away. He said:
July 13th, 2009
Handicapping the CRM field: Oracle leads the pack (but the race is tight)
ZDNet Australia has handicapped the field of customer relationship management software and it appears that Oracle’s on-demand and on-premise suite comes out on top with a score for 4.5 on a scale of 5. SAP and Salesforce scored a 4 rating overall on the same scale.
Our sister site appears to be swayed by Oracle’s various CRM tools for businesses of all sizes and its efforts to make its application social with Web 2.0 gadgets.
The money quotes and the conclusion:
Traditionally, a company with half a dozen employees would not have considered vendors like Oracle, but now Oracle is serving customers in that space. So for small business there are plenty of compelling options to choose from, and none of them need to be on-premise.
And.
For large national and global enterprises, it’s hard to look past Oracle’s CRM product suite. Of course, all major players in this space offer custom vertical solutions, data analytics and business intelligence, but Oracle’s innovation in sales force empowerment through Social CRM is very compelling and marks the company as a stand-out in this space.
You can find the entire breakdown of CRM apps on ZDNet AU as follows:
July 9th, 2009
SAP: Is the worst over?
Analysts have been tripping over themselves trying to call the trough of demand for SAP applications.
SAP (detailed quote) has been upgraded twice in two days. Bank of America-Merrill Lynch upgraded SAP to buy from neutral on Thursday given “the low expectation level.” Simply put, business isn’t getting worse for SAP and that means the second half of 2009 should look better due to easier comparisons.
The latest upgrade echoes comments from Jeffries on Wednesday.
Also see: What should SAP do with its $5bn war chest?
What really happened with SAP Business ByDesign?
Jeffries analyst Ross MacMillan, who also upgraded SAP to a buy from a neutral, wrote in a research note:
July 8th, 2009
Why Oracle bought Sun: 60% of enterprise software vendors rely on Java
AMR Research has recapped its annual ranking of the top 50 enterprise software vendors, but the real story may be in its findings that more than 60 percent of the top dogs have applications that rely on Java.
And of the top 50 enterprise software vendors 33 offer applications that rely on Java. Add it up and this group represents more than $38.5 billion, or 77 percent of the top 50’s revenue.
Anyone out there still think Oracle’s acquisition of Sun was about hardware?
Simply put, Oracle through Java has its hand in most of the enterprise application market. AMR reckons that these Java-reliant vendors will have to reevaluate their commitment to Java. That’s putting it mildly.
Here’s a look at the top 50 enterprise application vendors by revenue.
Also see: Can Oracle give Java a boost (and monetize it better)?
June 2nd, 2009
Can ERP vendors save the world?
Enterprise resource planning software vendors have the tools—if used correctly—to make a huge impact on sustainability efforts and possibly even save us from global warming. Talk about total cost of ownership.
OK, now stop laughing. Vinnie Mirchandani at Deal Architect has a modest proposal for ERP vendors:
Here’s a plea to ERP vendors. Focus on the plants, the refineries, the supply chains in your customers. You have plenty of MRP, plant maintenance, health and safety, transportation management licenses out there. Work more actively with your technology partners which provide control systems, sensors, scrubbers.
Get out of your white collar comfort zone. The big opportunities are far away from headquarters. Even the data center is a very small percent of the carbon footprint. Focus on your customer utilities, planes, factories, buses. Get to the root causes. And don’t just report. Help reverse.
Mirchandani, who lives in ERP land since he blogs about the vendor and negotiates contracts, is looking for something beyond the process mumbo jumbo, maintenance go round and rough (ok partially made up) ROI calculations that these software types dish out daily.
The idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds. ERP vendors have years of experience inside various industries. They know your processes. They theoretically have the skill sets to work in sustainability as an operations tool. And there’s a payoff for ERP giants like SAP and Oracle: If saving the world is a deliverable perhaps customers won’t notice the maintenance fee hikes as much. The big question: Will ERP vendors follow through?
May 15th, 2009
SAP Sapphire: Reading the tea leaves demand, margins and M&A
SAP’s Sapphire customer powwow concluded this week and the takeaways appear to focus on what wasn’t there: Subscription pricing, a sign of an enduring rebound and confidence that the company can maintain its profit margins.
Among the notable business points (Dennis Howlett has the product overview):
The outlook for the second quarter is still rocky. Piper Jaffray analyst Rajeev Bahl concludes:
SAP’s customer conference was well attended but company and partner feedback points to a tough Q2 and no real upturn by the end of this year. Larger deals have, unsurprisingly, been particularly hit as financing has dried up and approval processes have become tougher as customers seek out rapid ROI and buy in a more targeted fashion.
Jeffries analyst Ross MacMillan notes a disconnect between SAP’s view and its partners:
While clearly 2Q09 will be a tough quarter due to pipeline coverage, lower close rates and tough compares, management indicated that there were some encouraging signs that customers are coming back and planning for future projects. Management believes this could have positive implications for 2H09. Meanwhile SAP partners seemed more cautious on the environment and said nothing much had changed since 1Q09, with few big deals and no material change pipeline or activity. While partners may not see a pipeline build of higher volumes of smaller deals, they would often be involved in bigger project lead generation, in our view.
And Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar echoed McMillan’s comments:
The spending environment remains challenged, with few signs of thawing for now (and) SAP’s sales approach is increasingly tactical, in selling quick implementation, quick ROI modules into the installed base, and providing flexibility on ratable subscription payments.
Also see: Sapphire 09 Live: Smart business plans, moral benchmarks
Subscription pricing plans brewing? The economy is creating tough sledding for big bang projects. Bahl writes:
Partners have a clear appetite for subscription pricing of SAP’s products, to get to a lower entry cost and more variable costs of ownership as a sales pitch in a tough market. SAP is open to this, but we see this mix shift happening only gradually and, as such, continue to view SAP as cyclically exposed.
Wall Street remains focused on SAP profit margins. Wall Street is expecting an operating margin of 31 percent for fiscal 2010, but that assumes SAP can grow without increasing costs. Piper Jaffray is projecting 2010 margins of 27 percent.
MacMillan writes in a research note:
Last year the big news from Sapphire was management’s new found intention to focus on margin expansion. While the economy and subsequent license revenue misses delayed the extent to which this occurred, it is clear that the company intends to move to a 35% non-GAAP operating margin before increasing investment in the business to drive future growth. While the company won’t be pinned down on when this margin will be achieved, it seems that it could be as early at CY10 and no later than CY11.
Merger and acquisition speculation abounds. Bahl said he expects SAP to become more acquisitive. Meanwhile, MacMillan stoked the IBM-SAP rumors:
While we don’t think any game changing event between SAP and IBM is imminent, we do think the two companies continue to work ever closer together. We believe SAP and IBM are close to signing a new co-development agreement, which will further align some of IBM’s infrastructure software products (Websphere Middleware, Tivoli System Management and Rational Development and Testing) with SAP’s products.
More reading:
May 12th, 2009
Cutting software maintenance costs 101
Maintenance and support costs are increasingly gobbling up more of your IT budget despite the occasional bone thrown to you from your friendly neighborhood software vendor. The larger question is what can be done about this maintenance inflation.
Luckily Forrester Research has a few answers.
In a report timed shortly after SAP and Oracle made a few maintenance concessions, Forrester Research provides a few pointers.
The situation as we know it via Forrester analyst Duncan Jones:
It’s one of the unwritten rules of software that maintenance costs only go up — never down. But we used to say that about house prices too. Today, software vendors are coming under increasing pressure from customers to cut maintenance bills, but the vendors are robustly defending their lifeblood with age-old, inflexible policies. However, enterprises’ imperatives to reduce cost and the contrasting flexibility of new commercial models such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) are making the perpetual licensors realize that they may have to change their ways if they are to be in place to win new business when budgets return.
However, these negotiations won’t be a cakewalk for customers. In fact, you’ll have to scrap for every dollar saved. Why? It’s about the profits. Maintenance revenue generates the profits. As Rimini Street CEO Seth Ravin noted, the business models behind printers and enterprise software are the same. Get folks in the door and then charge them on an annuity basis. Ink vs. maintenance revenue all looks the same after a while.
Also see: Rimini Street chief: Where’s the maintenance cost ‘peace dividend’?
You’d have to be an idiot not to protect these margins:
And to protect that revenue enterprise software vendors have to resort to a few trendy techniques:
Charging you for shelfware, the stuff you bought for a discount but haven’t deployed. Duncan reports:
The traditional policy that buyers find hardest to accept is the policy that customers pay maintenance based on all licensed products, even if they aren’t using some modules and haven’t deployed to full capacity. We only found one company that would admit to allowing customers to take a maintenance holiday on shelfware and then reinstate licenses at a later date when it needed them again. Most would allow customers to reduce cost by scrapping shelfware — irrevocably waiving rights to excess products or capacity, but customers are loath to dump assets that they may need again later. Some won’t even allow customers to do that.
Bundling support with upgrade rights.
And keeping potential competition at bay. Other companies, say Accenture supporting SAP, could support enterprise software but they fear the backlash from valued partners.
The good news? Duncan reports that software vendors will cave “if the market forces them to.”
Along those lines enterprises should:
Cancel nonessential maintenance contracts. The purpose of this move is to send a message to your application vendors. These cancellations will be easier if a company isn’t committed to a product for the future, don’t need an upgrade and can support an application in house. That last point is notable since Forrester even questions third party support.
Third-party support, if it is available for the product concerned, will almost certainly be cheaper than the vendor’s offering. Many IT departments will be able to self-support mature versions or noncore products — the risk that serious bugs will have a significant impact on the business may be too low to justify the annual insurance premium. The vendor manager should collect data on support incidents so he knows how many there have been, how quickly they were fixed, and what the business impact was in the meantime.
Go for the maintenance cut not the license discount. Enterprises should take shelfware off support, move to lower service levels and negotiate global deals to get economies of scale.
Use the “strategic vendor” line to get cuts. Forrester writes:
The software companies we spoke with admitted that they would consider requests for maintenance cuts in exceptional circumstances. They know that technology investment budgets will return and that giving ground now might be essential to be in a good position to win their fair share when they do. For instance, the head of IT sourcing at one Fortune 100 company told all of its technology vendors, “either you are a strategic vendor, or you’re not. This is table stakes to continue in the game.”
The catch: You need to lay out your strategy and how it lines up with the vendors. No vendor will give you cuts without proof that they’re strategic. Toss in an agreement to be a reference customer and you may convince your vendor to accept fee cuts now in return for keeping you.
May 12th, 2009
Rimini Street chief: Where's the maintenance cost 'peace dividend'?
Enterprise software maintenance and support—the cash cow that keeps giving—has becoming a hot topic amid an economic downturn that has customers questioning a never-ending stream of price increases.
Rimini Street is at the forefront of taking advantage of some of this ire. Rimini Street, a third party support outfit, promises to save customers 50 percent off of their maintenance bills. On Monday, Rimini Street announced that it will begin offering support for SAP applications (a timely move given the SAP fee hubbub). The company, which had $86 million in 2008 revenue, had previously focused on Oracle applications including Seibel, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards.
I caught up with Rimini Street CEO Seth Ravin (right) via phone from the SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando. Here are the highlights of our chat:
May 11th, 2009
Rimini Street goes after SAP support
Rimini Street, which is a third party maintenance and support vendor, said Monday that it is launching services for SAP customers.
Rimini, which has typically offered third party support for Oracle’s Siebel, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards software, appears to be trying to take advantage of the well publicized angst over SAP support costs (statement). SAP recently backtracked on its maintenance fees after customers protested.
Specifically, Rimini will support SAP R/3 4.x, ECC 5.0, ECC 6.0, and BW 3.5 and earlier releases. Those releases are used by most SAP customers. Rimini’s sales pitch is that it can save Oracle and SAP customers at least 50 percent off their annual support fees. Rimini made the announcement at SAP’s Sapphire customer powwow in Orlando, Fla.
The SAP support program will include the same features as Rimini’s Oracle services. Those features include: Support through 2020 for existing releases; local support engineers; 24×7 support and flexible contracts.
May 5th, 2009
SAP and Oracle announce software enhancements
SAP and Oracle today both announced updates to business software suites.
Following an initial ramp-up period, SAP said today that it was broadly releasing its SAP Business Suite 7, a next-gen suite enabled by service-oriented architecture. In a statement, Jim Hagemann Snabe, a member of the SAP Executive Board, said:
The general availability of the new SAP Business Suite marks the arrival of a clear path forward for companies that struggle with the high cost and complexity created by disparate applications and middleware solutions. With the new SAP Business Suite, we continue to deliver on our promise to provide customers with market-leading services and solutions that deliver extraordinary value in today’s business environment.
Separately, Oracle announced the latest release of Oracle’s JD Edwards World and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools, which are part of the company’s “Applications Unlimited” strategy.
The company said the updated offerings include “hundreds of enhancements,” including new modules, new tools and improved technological capabilities.
May 1st, 2009
Oracle about to step up its SaaS efforts?
Update: Oracle is reportedly getting more aggressive about software as a service with plans to expand its on-demand lineup.
The Wall Street Journal and Reuters report that Oracle has been briefing analysts about its SaaS strategy. And apparently these plans go beyond simply buying NetSuite, which is majority owned by Ellison, or gobbling up Salesforce.com.
The Journal’s Ben Worthen writes:
The software giant is working on seven new online products, including offerings to help business run sales campaigns, keep track of employees and job applicants, according to people briefed on the plans and a company document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Oracle is developing online software to handle marketing and product management as well as a product targeted at the insurance industry, the document shows.
Update: There are a few questions about the Journal report. Sources indicate that Oracle isn’t planning any big strategy shift and it’s even questionable whether there are 7 new SaaS products planned.
Also see Dennis Howlett: Oracle’s cloudy announcements
To date, Oracle’s on-demand software efforts have mostly revolved around Siebel. But in recent quarters Oracle appears to have become more serious about SaaS and has continually added features to Siebel CRM On Demand (below). Indeed, the Salesforce.com mentions on Oracle conference calls have skyrocketed. Oracle execs now pan Salesforce.com as much as they do SAP these days.
The move runs counter to Ellison’s previous contention that there’s no money in SaaS. That’s largely true relative to Oracle’s overall business but the database giant is clearly dabbling in SaaS.
Also see: Enterprise vendors: in pursuit of reality
However, the SaaS deployments are getting larger by the day. Once SaaS players are starting to land big deployments Oracle has to start paying attention. For instance, SuccessFactors landed a 300,000 user deployment at a large retailer that is most likely Wal-Mart, according to two sources familiar with the matter. If SaaS is good enough for a massive retailer it’s probably good enough for Oracle too.
Why does Oracle need to make its SaaS move now?
For starters, there’s a big move by CFOs to cut IT costs and that means turning capital expenditures (large ERP implementations) into operating expenses (SaaS). Meanwhile, customers are pushing back on maintenance hikes (see SAP’s retreat). Then there’s good old fashioned competition—Workday, which landed a big wad of VC funding, Salesforce.com, NetSuite and a bevy of others are all threats to Oracle, which has to be getting bored buying struggling companies like Sun and BEA. And the final kicker for Oracle: SAP is still dawdling with its BusinessByDesign SaaS effort and to date is basically still a pilot. Oracle could leapfrog SAP as engineers overthink BusinessByDesign features.
More reading:
April 29th, 2009
SAP software revenue skids in first quarter; Maintenance terms tweaked
SAP’s first quarter software revenue—an indicator of maintenance and services health skidded 33 percent due to a “difficult operating environment” and a tough year ago comparison. Meanwhile, SAP altered its maintenance pricing plans to allay customer concerns.
SAP on Wednesday reported first quarter net income of €204 million, down from €242 million a year ago. Revenue was €2.39 billion, down from €2.46 billion a year ago. SAP managed to hold software and software-related service revenue flat at €1.74 billion in the first quarter compared to a year ago. The enterprise software company’s first quarter results a year ago were pumped up by the acquisition of Business Objects.
The results were worse than expected. A Dow Jones Newswire poll forecast SAP profits of €261 million on revenue of €2.55 billion. By region, SAP saw U.S. revenue fall 13 percent with Japan declining 16 percent. Europe, Middle East and Africa declined 3 percent.
Also see: SAP software revenues plummet, announces new deal on maintenance
Here’s a look at the key SAP charts:
April 20th, 2009
Oracle: A complete industry in a box
Near the end of this morning’s announcement (at 5:30 a.m. Pacific time) of Oracle’s lightning acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle co-president Charles Phillips gave a glimpse of what lay in store.
The merger of Oracle, with its wide range of database and enterprise software, with Sun, with its Solaris operating system, Java programming language for Web applications and high-performance hardware, would make it possible tightly integrate everything a corporate customer might want, from application to disk storage. Server hardware and software, operating system, virtual machines, storage.
Also see: Oracle buys Sun; Now owns Java; Becomes a hardware player
Oracle buys Sun posts as they come in
This could lead to, in effect, shrink-wrapped suites of hardware and software for specific sectors of the economy, from retailing to banking to communications. He called this delivering “a complete industry in a box.”
The promise is that corporations will have what they’ve always said they wanted: one neck to choke.
Oracle will deliver, now, soup to nuts computing services for the enterprise. It can deliver a “true system with consistency” because it will be responsible for, tweaking and rationalizing all pieces of hardware and software a customer will need. It won’t be a system integrator. It will, instead, have an integrated system, that it expects will give it a leg up on IBM, SAP or even HP, even if it relies on HP to continue to provide HP Oracle Database Machines.
What you’re really seeing from Oracle is a complete computing industry in a box.
Here’s the tally of big names in enterprise computing sucked up by Larry Ellison and crew in the last five years:
- PeopleSoft, human resources software, $10.3 billion, 2005
- Siebel Systems, customer management software, $5.85 billion, 2006
- Hyperion, enterprise performance management software, $3.3 billion, 2007
- BEA Systems, enterprise software, $8.5 billion, 2008.
And now,
- Sun Microsystems, high-performance servers, Solaris operating system, Java programming language, $7.4 billion, 2009.
This is clearly a case where the sum has become greater than the parts.
This is why Oracle had a market cap when Monday began of $95 billion and its historical ally and would-be peer, Sun Microsystems, a value of $5 billion.
And why it now can put an entire computer industry’s wares inside a Sun (someday to be rebadged “Oracle”) box, ready to run and later upgrade, monitor, and fix remotely. With additional Oracle software and services.
March 16th, 2009
Salesforce.com: Pondering the next 10 years
Salesforce.com turns 10 Monday and in the last decade it has cemented its standing as a leading enterprise software vendor and leader of the software as a service and cloud computing charge. However, the next 10 years may be much more interesting.
Salesforce.com, officially launched in a San Francisco apartment March 16, 1999, finds itself at an inflection point. The company is posting solid financial results, saw fourth quarter sales jump 34 percent from a year ago and continues to poach customers who are sick of high maintenance costs. And the company is the first of its ilk to hit the $1 billion revenue mark.
The big question: Where does the company go from here? It has developed Force.com a platform for on-demand applications and a marketplace for software, but is largely a SaaS customer relationship management software firm (its ticker is “CRM”). Salesforce.com is increasingly targeting large enterprises—the playground of Oracle and SAP, two companies with a lot more sales resources. Here’s a look at my five top unresolved issues for Salesforce.com in the years ahead:
March 11th, 2009
SAP, Sybase partner to deliver apps for any device
SAP and Sybase announced a non-exclusive partnership today, building a bridge - as they explained it - between SAP’s enterprise software offering and the mobile platform provided by Sybase. (Techmeme)
Both companies said the new partnership wouldn’t impact existing or future partnerships with other companies. Both, for example, are already partners with Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry. Instead, the offerings would be enhanced. While I didn’t think that was earth-shattering news worthy of a splashy NYC press conference, there were two pieces of the puzzle that struck me as interesting.
The first is the integration with all mobile devices, whether Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, Windows Mobile, Android or others. In a post this morning, Larry Dignan looked at the various mobile platforms that developers are dealing with. At some point, he wrote, the developers will be forced to make some choices - they can’t spend all of their time writing and supporting apps for a long list of platforms. At the same time, the mobile worker who already has an iPhone shouldn’t necessarily be forced to carry a Blackberry, too, just because the company’s mobile app only works on the one device.
The second was the outlook for the future. I was impressed that Sybase CEO John Chen recognized that today’s announcement itself, while definitely a big deal, wasn’t the most exciting part of the new partnership. Instead, he said, the companies can now collaborate and “look way beyond” what they’ll deliver in the next 12-18 months. The mobile app space is still in its infancy and Chen is right that there are possibilities for the future that no one even has thought about yet.
During a webcast with the media, SAP and Sybase executives talked up how the mobile worker can be unleashed to be more productive and efficient. That’s nothing new. In many instances, it’s being done already. Salesforce, for example.
But the two also but talked about how the ramp-up investments - training, systems integration and so on - would be minimal, largely because workers would using devices they already know. And while the companies say their solutions will also be affordable, they did not offer specifics on pricing, other than to say that it would be a “good value” for customers.
The services will begin rolling out in the second half of 2009 and will continue into 2010. The U.S. appears to be the initial launch point, with the companies eyeing other regions, notably Latin America and Asia.
Also see: SAP, CRM 2.0: The Culture Shift Begins
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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