John Pallatto

Executives who head a variety of software-as-a-service businesses say that Microsoft Corp. has no choice but to move deeper into the on-demand software business or possibly face being outmaneuvered by a host of smaller, more nimble competitors. Microsofts introduction this week of Windows Live and Office Live is just the first tentative step that the […]

With both its business intelligence and customer relationship management strategies, Microsoft is attempting to make its Office desktop productivity suite the Swiss Army knife of enterprise applications. On the face of it this seems to make a lot of sense because it provides a familiar way for users to get information into and out of […]

Sun Microsystems Inc. Tuesday launched the latest assault on the proprietary Microsoft Word document format by offering a new Sun Grid utility service that will convert Word files into ODF (open document format). Another Sun Grid utility will convert text files into audio files for podcasts or for playback on Web sites, said Tom Goguen, […]

Tighter integration with Microsoft Office and improved customization tools are among the new features in Microsoft CRM 3.0, which the company released to public beta this week. The beta for the Customer Relations Management package is scheduled to run for the next 60 days, after which if all goes well the product will be released […]

Open-source application software companies have grown to the point where they are starting to catch the attention of venture capital firms looking for new places to put their money. Previously, open-source operating systems, development tools and database developers had received the lion share of investment from major VC firms. But this week SugarCRM Inc. announced […]

Siebel Systems, while waiting to close the buyout deal with Oracle Corp., has become the latest enterprise resource planning software company to join the application platform wars. The Siebel Component Assembly is the product of Project Nexus, the companys three year effort to provide a CRM (customer relationship management) development and integration platform based on […]

Faster performance and new sales and inventory management features have been built into the latest version of QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, Intuit Inc. announced Monday. Version 6.0 of Intuits top-of-the-line financial and business management package, which is due to ship on Nov. 7, runs three to five times faster than earlier versions, according to Bill Lucchini, […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Enterprises are not making a significant move to processor-based licensing despite the wide discussion over the past year about the value of these licenses prompted by the advent last year of multicore CPUs. This is one of the key finds of the second annual study on software pricing and license policy sponsored by […]

SANTA CLARA, CALIF.—Microsoft Corp. customers reacted with surprise and even some disbelief Monday at the software giants announcement that it was simplifying its software licensing terms for virtual machine environments. Under these terms that go into effect on Dec. 1, customers will only pay license fees for the time they actually start running a new […]

The appointment of former PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway as a Salesforce.com board of directors member is surprising, and a bit dismaying, considering that he was fired by his previous employer when it was in the midst its tenacious legal battle to avoid a hostile buyout by Oracle. The firing, of course, didnt necessarily mean he […]

Salesforce.com is wasting no time in launching a campaign to lure away customers and employees from Siebel Systems in the wake of Oracles proposed $5.85 billion buyout of struggling Customer Relationship Management software. In the June 24 edition of this column I related how SAP took advantage of the dislocations caused by Oracles buyout of […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif.— Adoption of SOA is still in the very early stages, but the introduction of new development tools from BEA Systems, combined with open-source components, will help the process along. This is the view of some of the developers and system architects who attended the BEAWorld customer conference here this week to compare […]