John Pallatto

Oracle plans few changes to Reteks retail-management application software offerings other than to “globalize them and put them on steroids,” said Charles Phillips, Oracle co-president, on Friday. Retek Inc. customers have nothing to fear from the Oracle Corp. buyout, Phillips said, because, “We dont have these products…there is no overlap” between the two companies product […]

The sudden resignation Wednesday of Siebel Systems CEO Michael Lawrie is an object lesson for all veteran corporate managers who believe they can turn any company around. Lawrie arrived at Siebel last summer after building a sterling career at IBM, where he worked as a turnaround specialist at several divisions at that sprawling technology company. […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Salesforce.com Tuesday previewed a new partner portal development tool and an updated version of its Sforce application-integration tool that are key elements of the Summer 05 edition of its hosted customer relationship management package. The Sforce Partner Portal Toolkit is designed to make it easy for companies to build Web-based portals that allow them […]

Affecting all the XP users who have been avoiding or procrastinating about installing the Windows XP Service Pack 2 upgrade, Microsoft is about to make the decision for them. On April 12, Microsoft Corp. is scheduled to turn on its Automatic Update service, which will deploy the XP Service Pack 2 to all PCs connected […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Long-established producers of enterprise application software will have to contend with a rising tide of vigorous competition from open-source software developers, according to Larry Augustin, CEO of Medsphere Systems Corp., a maker of open-source electronic medical records management software. Open-source software developers are poised to become a “fundamental disruptor of the enterprise software model” […]

Computer Associates International Inc. is addressing a serious security problem that is difficult to solve without automated tools with the acquisition this week of eTrust Cleanup, a mainframe identity management system from InfoSec Inc. The eTrust package is designed to automatically discover and remove unused, obsolete or rogue user identities that provide an opportunity for […]

Counting the first two months of income generating from its newly acquired PeopleSoft assets, Oracle on Tuesday reported that third-quarter revenue and earnings soared as it reported hefty increases in sales of its core database technology. Based on these results, Oracle Corp. officials raised their estimate for fiscal year 2005 earning per share from 62 […]

Retek Inc., a struggling producer of retail applications software, seems an unlikely target of a bidding war between SAP America and Oracle. But there is no accounting for Oracles determination not to be stymied in its effort to buy out Retek, which it has been courting for months. The question now becomes whether good business […]

Yahoo on Tuesday confirmed that it will start beta testing a new community service this month that will let users share blogs, photos, music and other content with their friends. The “invitation-only” beta test for the new service, called Yahoo 360, is scheduled to start March 29, said Paul Brody, senior director of community products […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—The proposed merger with SBC Communications Inc. wont derail AT&T Corp.s plans to aggressively develop its SOIP (services over IP) strategy, according to AT&T executives who spoke at the VON Spring 2005 conference here. “There is going to be much more investment beyond what has already been announced individually by the two companies,” […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Congress will likely look deeper into the problem of “port blocking” since the Federal Communications Commission ruled last week that Madison River Communications could not resort to this practice to prevent customers from using voice-over-IP applications. That was the view of two congressional analysts who discussed legislative initiatives in the U.S. relating to […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—America Online Inc.s disclosure on Tuesday that it will introduce a voice-over-IP telephone service will definitely add credibility to the technology, but it is unlikely to provide the long-term growth engine that would ensure the companys survival. This was the view of three telecommunications industry executives who were attending the VON Spring 2005 […]