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The Oracle portal strategy gets a little murkier with the acquisition. Oracle now has it's own legacy portal, the Aqualogic portal acquired from BEA and the Sun web portal. It's anyone's guess which one get the R&D buck from Oracle.

In the deal Oracle acquires all of Sun’s JAVA intellectual property and that has to have IBM a bit scrambling to assess the impact; not because of Oracle controlling the Java standard, but because Oracle will have a stronger hold on the evolution of the Java application server market. This ought to enable Oracle to compete more aggressively with IBM and MQ everything.

Sun/Oracle may consider bundling hardware & software. For example selling massively scalable database appliances that could compete with IBM, Netezza and other DBMS appliance vendors.

Oracle might decide to leverage the Sun Data Center / Cloud Computing solutions to create appliance bundles delivering Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft or Seibel on a software as service or as a rack based all-in-one solution.

Lastly, the acquisition lays the foundation for an Oracle cloud computing infrastructure that positions it to compete with Microsoft, not only on the .Net versus Java front, but with Microsoft, Google, Amazon EC2, Salesforce.com et al.

Moreover, it leaves IBM struggling to figure our how they'll play in the cloud; perhaps forcing them to acquire EMC and it's child company VMware.

What is surprising is the news that the Microsoft planns to build 20 datacenters at a cost of about $1 billion each in hopes of dominating the cloud.

Now that's chump change compared to the TARP, but in a more rational world $20 billion is still real money, and there aren't that many techs out their with pockets that deep. Google is in that financial league, and it's clear that Microsoft is hoping to "out Google" Google.

"Google has done a great job of hyping its prowess. But we're neck and neck with them," Debra Chrapaty, Microsoft's vice president for Global Foundation Service, told Burrows.

I'm not so sure about neck and neck Maybe from a technology perspective, but Google seems way ahead in the mindshare game. Microsoft, the organization, is not structured efficiently to dominate the architecture of the cloud. There are several negatives that Microsoft will need to overcome.

What's Microsoft's strategic direction with Business Intelligence? What does the Microsoft BI stack really look like and how will it evolve. These questions and many more were recently answered in a seminar hosted by Microsoft and Collective Intelligence Inc.

The seminar was delivered on March 18th, 2009 at the Radison Hotel in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. The conference was Sponsored by Microsoft and Collective Intelligence Inc.

Michael Murphy, Microsoft Business Development Manager, spoke about the strategic nature of business intelligence and charted the path Microsoft BI would take over the coming months.

Chuck Russell, Senior Partner of Collective Intelligence presented the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform and provided a deep dive demonstration of several Microsoft BI tools and also provided insight into how Microsoft BI is integrated within Microsoft SharePoint 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007.

Presentation materials are available in PDF format after the break:

You've automated your business processes and invested in CRM, ERP and other operational systems. Yet, you feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of data residing within these systems. Isn’t it time to monetize your operational investments and transform this data into a strategic asset that your key stakeholders can leverage?

Review this presentation to discover how to use your data as a competitive weapon and facilitate companywide adoption of cutting edge tools and techniques. Learn how other organizations have successfully capitalized on Business Intelligence to identify and achieve corporate objectives while overcoming the three key informational challenges surrounding: data integrity and trust, consolidation and automation of performance metrics and user adoption of business intelligence technology.

This presentation was delivered on March 6th, 2008 at the Holiday Inn, Harrisburg Pennsylvania. The conference was Sponsored by Business Objects and Collective Intelligence Inc.

The new CTF-based NAND flash memory increases the reliability of the memory by sharply reducing inter-cell noise levels. Its surprisingly simple structure also enables higher scalability which will eventually improve manufacturing process technology from 40 nm to 30 and even 20nm.

AppExchange is a sandbox where application developers (and power users) can extend the functionality of the core features of Salesforce.com. AppExchange applications can be deployed to the enterprise and are made available to users via the sophisticated salesforce.com provisioning subsystem. AppExchange applications can be purchased in an on-demand fashion from their authors and can be rapidly integrated within a preexisting Salesforce.com instance.

The SAS-CRM vendors are beginning to move into the verticals. There is CiviCRM for non-profits and politicos. Sugar-CRM aims to lower the cost of CRM by delivering a widely deployed, open source solution for the mid-market. Microsoft has produced a viable solution with Microsoft Dynamics 3.0.  Of course there is the big gorilla, Salesforce.com, which has the most mature SAS CRM platform.

Vendors like LinkedIn, Ryze, Friendster and firms like Plaxo have functionality that rests on the periphery of CRM. These folks manage and mine the interconnected web of connections contained within the CRM adding value to data collected via sales and marketing activities. MovingOn is experimenting with CRM integration by providing Salesforce.com functionality within the blogging network.

All of the firms mentioned share one thing in common; each provides a web service framework so that it can be easily integrated with other services and functions. Web services are, of course, a trademark of Web 2.0. 

Web services may be the soul of Web 2.0. but CRM is the heart. Web 2 is about relationships and, after all, that is the CRM ‘suite spot’.

1. Database: SOD has been designed and tuned to run on IBM DB2 for performance and scale
2. WebSphere: migration will require porting to Fusion middleware
3. Search: IBM was deeply involved with the development of this intellectual property, which Oracle will have to re-write
4. Hosting: Siebel once claimed having “secure web hosting leader” IBM as their hosting partner was best for customers, now Oracle is a “cheaper” strategy per Phillips?

This migration will require significant time and resources.  It should alarm existing SOD customers, who ma now be treated as second class citizens running on a retired architecture.

This presentation provides an overview of the Business Intelligence feature stack and links the evolution of business intelligence to the revolution ocurring in the field of Scorecarding, Dashboards and Performance Management. The Enterprise Portal is a key component in providing users with secure access to actionable corporate information and serves as the foudation of Collaborative Business Intelligence.

The conference was sponsored by Plumtree Software, DreamFactory and Salesforce.com. Get a more in-depth look at the conference, downoload copies of the presentations and access white papers authored by industry experts.

This presentation is based largely on a survey Plumtree conducts annually of its customers, which we believe are the most mature in terms of portal adoption and in terms of evolving demands for portal software and allied technologies. The 2005 survey was conducted in February of this year and encompassed 186 respondents from more than 100 customers. Plumtree produced a white paper summarizing the results of the survey, along with synthesized research from the market, vendor and analyst community.

This presentation provides an indepth overview of the standard features of the enterprise portal as well as upcoming features as the industry comes to grip with Web 2.0.

Lean how Rich Internet Applications (RIA) will enhance the experience of web portal applications. HTML interfaces will become a thing of the past. DreamFactory is a complete RIA development environment that deploys applicatons which execute within a plug-in similar to Flash & Shockwave.

We've built several web portals using Jahia in the last year. After quite a bit of research we determined that the Jahia product is currently the most powerful and affordable integrated midrange Java Content Management and Corporate Portal Server on the market. That's right...it isn't free; however the source code is delivered with the product.

Built from the "ground-up" on the multiforce platform, DreamTeam gives Salesforce.com users the benefit of a single data store and far greater visibility into all of the activities that impact job performance. By tightly integrating Team Collaboration with Project and Document Management, DreamTeam fosters the cross fertilization of ideas within your organization. DreamTeam's highly engaging UI's "cast the net" of these established business practices to a far broader range of users. The advantages of this approach include:

• Better predictability and visibility into key project activities
• Better collaboration on the document lifecycle and associated group tasks
• Better communication on ideas, issues, and problems

The end result of improved collaboration is better and faster output, whether you're managing a competitive sales campaign, a new product release, an expansive marketing campaign, a professional services engagement, or any project critical to your company's success.

Visit DreamTeam Web Site

The allegation, filed in Washington state court, is the latest salvo in an increasingly nasty court fight triggered when Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee jumped to Google in July in what Microsoft claims is a violation of a one-year, non-compete agreement.

In a sworn statement made public Friday, Mark Lucovsky, another Microsoft senior engineer who left for Google in November 2004, recounted Ballmer's angry reaction when Lucovsky told Ballmer he was going to work for the search engine company.

It seem that Microsoft is getting a taste of its own medecine. In other posts on AlwaysOn other members have posited that Google is preparing to eat Microsoft's lunch. What do you think?

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View the Presentation Here

Read the Commencement Speach Here

Pillar Data Systems Inc. will officially launch its company and Pillar Axiom storage system next week.

Formed in 2001, the storage startup featuring 325 employees has received more than $150 million in private funding from Tako Ventures LLC, the private equity firm of Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp.

The fledgling storage company's hardware and software product portfolio is designed to unify and manage SAN (storage area network) and NAS (network attached storage) environments together or separately on a single platform, said Dr. Michael Workman, president and CEO of San Jose, Calif.-based Pillar.

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The basic premise stems from the fact that people are trying to ensure security by hiding certain facts of their software or architecture design from regular users. This is equivalent to someone hiding a house key under a pot of plants in front of his house.

However, Auguste Kerckhoffs, a 19th century Flemish cryptographer, said it should be assumed that attackers know the design of the entire security system, except for the keys. This concept, known as Kerckhoffs' law, basically rejected the notion of security through obscurity (your key hidden under your potted plant) and suggested that a system should be secure even if everything's public knowledge, except the key.

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Like Firefox, Wine is open-source software that provides an important piece of the Linux desktop puzzle. IBM's reluctance to promote Wine underscores some of the complex legal and technical issues surrounding Linux adoption.

The Wine software essentially masquerades as the Windows operating system, letting software that was written for Windows run on a Linux desktop. IBM employees have used it internally as a way of running the Lotus Notes desktop client, according to sources familiar with IBM's efforts, who say that Wine and the Notes client are part of the Linux version of IBM's standard desktop client, called the Client for eBusiness. IBM's goal is to have all their internal users running Linux, but they have not publicly said how many users currently run the operating system.

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The x460, announced Wednesday, is powered by Intel Corp.'s Xeon processors that can run both 32- and 64-bit applications. The system will enable customers to build the system as their needs grow and to pay only for what they need, said Jay Bretzmann, vice president of eServer products for IBM, of Armonk, N.Y.

"It provides complementary technology for customers who want an end-to-end solution," Bretzmann said.

IBM in February introduced its X3 architecture, the next generation of its Intel-based xSeries systems, and a chip set code-named Hurricane, designed to bring mainframe technologies such as virtualization and faster I/O to the volume system space.

IBM's first X3 system was the x366. The x460 will offer greater scalability with Xeon chips than is offered by Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., Bretzmann said. Dell, of Round Rock, Texas, is focused on one-, two- and four-way systems. HP's largest systems are being standardized on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chips.

St. Paul Travelers Insurance Co. Ltd., in Redhill, England, has brought in an x460 for evaluation and expects to get the system into production this month, said Matthew Barlow, infrastructure development manager. St. Paul currently runs an x445 for an environment supporting virtual machines from VMware Inc.

Barlow said the ability to grow the system incrementally is attractive to a rapidly expanding company like St. Paul.

"This offers a far, far more flexible way to grow our business," Barlow said. "We didn't want to have a lot of eight-ways and then have to jump to a 16-way. We can grow as our business grows."

The x460 will be available in the middle of this month