SAP’s Tough Guy Ready To Rumble

May 30th, 2007

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The 18-Fold Trickle-Down Impact of Microsoft Windows Bill Gates boasted about hardware innovation and platform opportunity at the 16th annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles on Tuesday. For starters, Gates cited strong sales momentum and positive customer response to Windows Vista in its first 100 days. Then he unveiled the new name for the next Microsoft Windows platform release: Windows Server 2008, formerly code-named Longhorn. Gates also took the opportunity to showcase new technologies for businesses and consumers.”A wave of great new hardware products from our partners has played a major role in the strong demand we’ve seen for Windows Vista,” Gates told the WinHEC audience in his keynote address. “Going forward, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 will provide a platform for hardware innovations that will deliver more intelligent and compelling computing experiences for consumers and business users, driving increased demand for a wide range of new PCs and new devices.” http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52332 http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52332 Wed, 16 May 2007 14:33:38 -0500
Oracle Buys Agile in Chess Game with SAP Enterprise solutions giant Oracle announced Tuesday that it is enlarging its corporate family with the purchase of Agile Software, a company that provides product-lifecycle management (PLM) software. The acquisition is yet another that Oracle has made in the past few years, buying companies, such as PeopleSoft, to expand its suite of enterprise solutions and to position itself in its rivalry with SAP. The Agile deal involves a cash merger of $8.10 per share, worth about $495 million.Managing ProductsEngineers, manufacturing, and supply-chain professionals use Agile’s solutions to collaborate across the supply chain and to help manage product innovation and product introductions. The company said in a statement that its products “help customers make better product portfolio decisions, accelerate new product introduction, improve manufacturing quality, and manage regulatory compliance.” Regulation compliance includes following rules from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Union, among others.The addition of PLM to its suite of enterprise tools will help Oracle further its “strategy of delivering industry-specific enterprise applications,” Oracle President Charles Phillips said in a statement. He added that PLM was “one of the fastest growing application segments” and that Agile will “serve as the foundation of our PLM offering.” In an indication of the move’s importance in the corporate chess game with SAP, Phillips said that the purchase will “offer yet another strategic application to SAP customers.”SAP’s Own Buying SpreeSAP has been on its own strategic buying spree as it also fills out its suite of enterprise solutions. On Monday, it announced that it intended to acquire MaXware and Wicom Communications.Wicom provides contact center and other business communication software that is entirely IP-based. The current worldwide business environment, SAP said, involves customers connecting through many channels, and the Wicom acquisition can “deliver a multichannel, all-IP, end-to-end contact center solution,… http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52330 http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52330 Wed, 16 May 2007 11:43:10 -0500
Motorola Unveils Second-Gen Razr Facing stiff competition from rival Nokia, and an impending game-changing Apple iPhone release, Motorola unveiled on Wednesday a new Razr and several other 2007 mobile devices.The Razr2, which goes on sale worldwide in July and is part of a product line that Motorola described as “the first culturally iconic phone,” features CrystalTalk technology for better call clarity, a real-time point-to-point video capability so that friends can “See What I See,” an improved camera, and space for up to 2 GB of on-board memory for storing as many as 1,000 songs.And, on the apparent assumption that thin is still in, the newest member of the Razr family is two millimeters thinner than previous models.Haptic FeedbackChris Hazelton, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said that one of the best features of the new Razr is its outside touch screen, with which a user can interact even when the phone is closed. “You can text message with prepopulated messages” when the phone is closed, he said, using messages supplied by Motorola or ones you create yourself. He also noted that the new Razr has “haptic feedback,” often called touch or force feedback, so that the phone vibrates a bit when you touch a button. It’s useful, he said, because “you know that you have successfully pushed a button.”Although he admitted he was expecting an entirely new device from Motorola, he found the new Razr to be a “very rugged, good-looking phone” with new functionalities. It’s not a countermove to the iPhone, he said, but rather a step in the continued evolution of the Razr. Prices were not announced, but Hazelton said he expects the new Razr to be “over $200,” noting that an indication of the model’s success will be whether Motorola can keep the price at that level.’A Media Monster’Also presented… http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52329 http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52329 Wed, 16 May 2007 10:28:01 -0500
Bill Gates Says Phone Is the New PC Microsoft is betting on mobile phones to bring computing to developing countries. “The phone is going to be the PC, and the PC is going to be the phone,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates declared in his opening keynote at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles.Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft, stressed that the mobile phone will become a key part of the company’s strategy to bring technology to developing countries.”People in those rural environments are already buying computers,” he said. “They happen to call them cell phones.”Mundie suggested that, as smartphones continue to evolve into personal computers, the current mobile phone system could become the preferred platform for connecting to the Internet while performing tasks that users typically associate with a traditional desktop environment.Mundie demonstrated a system in which a smartphone environment was used to remotely unlock access to medical care in remote rural areas.In an attempt to overcome patient illiteracy, the system uses a series of icons to allow the patient to describe symptoms and receive an instant diagnosis and instructions through video clips.The mobile phone could also become an avenue for entertainment, according to Mundie.”You may be able to bootstrap a lot of people into an Internet-based experience with music and video and some type of creativity application even before we find that they can afford [traditional PCs],” he said.Microsoft appears to be hedging its bets for emerging economies, however, as the company is also pushing its traditional desktop operating system.Redmond has teamed up with Intel for its Classmate notebook computer, for example, and unveiled a $3 software bundle of Windows XP and Office applications earlier this month that will be available in selected markets.Microsoft is facing fierce competition from Linux, however, most notably the One Laptop Per Child project to ship low-cost… http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52303 http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=52303 Wed, 16 May 2007 10:48:15 -0500
Finding the Best Web Analytics Solution Choosing a Web analytics solution is much different than choosing a word processor, a graphic design program or an accounting application — and with good reason. There are more than 100 Web analytics vendors on the market today. While they may seem to produce similar results — colorful graphs, charts, top 10 lists and plenty of stats — each boasts a unique value proposition. Indeed, across the Web analytics market you’ll find varied technological capabilities, price points, and levels of customer support. Some are free, others offer distinguishing innovations, and still others meet specific server or host requirements. Price, then, is only one factor to consider when trying to find your Web analytics tool of choice. You also need to decide whether you prefer a client-side, server-side or hosted solution, which we discussed in an earlier article. You can narrow the field substantially by making that single decision. From there, it’s a matter of comparing what each vendor can offer your individual business. http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=51068 http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=51068 Wed, 16 May 2007 11:47:14 -0500

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Entry Filed under: Mobile Phones