John Pallatto

SAN FRANCISCO—Economic globalization and the overseas migration of service and information industry jobs is a fact of life, said Computer Associates CEO Sanjay Kumar to the Software 2004 conference here on Monday. The executive added that protectionist economic policies arent going to solve the problem.. The job of virtually anyone who “works behind a computer […]

The Department of Justices decision to file suit to block Oracles hostile bid to buy out PeopleSoft has driven a wooden stake through the heart of this misbegotten deal. But there likely will be plenty of frantic thrashing about until the buyout offer is finally laid to rest for good. Rather than simply throw up […]

On the face of it, Comcasts unsolicited $54 billion buyout offer of the Walt Disney Co. conjures up painful memories of some of the failed turn-of-the-century mega-mergers. Comcasts deal-making and vaulting ambition to become a media giant is uncomfortably reminiscent of the dizzying ascents of WorldCom and AOL-Time Warner. WorldCom used the Internet investment bubble […]

Comcast Corp. on Wednesday launched a bid to become one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the United States with a $54.1 billion unsolicited offer to buy the Walt Disney Co. Industry insiders said the move will let Comcast expand its holdings from the increasingly competitive cable-networking market and phone business to control […]

It appears increasingly unlikely that Oracle will succeed in its hostile takeover of PeopleSoft, even if it gets the green light from government regulators in the U.S. and Europe. Thats because it is now highly doubtful that Oracle will be able to persuade anywhere near a majority of stockholders to toss out the current PeopleSoft […]

SAN DIEGO—Customers attending Oracle AppsWorld here this week said they want to see evidence that Oracle Corp. has a coherent long-term vision for enhancing its own products regardless of whether it ever succeeds in buying out enterprise application software rival PeopleSoft Inc. Customers said they have seen little evidence that Oracle has been distracted in […]

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Oracle Corp. on Tuesday said it plans to release a new version of Oracle Warehouse Management in the summer season that will support radio frequency identification (RFID) and electronic product code (EPC) features. Oracle officials discussed the new Warehouse Management features at this weeks Oracle AppsWorld conference here. The new Oracle Warehouse Management […]

Adobe Systems got a bit of a black eye when the company recently acknowledged it complied with a request from government treasury officials to add a feature to its flagship PhotoShop graphics production software that blocks users from making copies of major international currencies. The news has caused a considerable stir among PhotoShop users who […]

Salesforce.com subscribers will be able to access and update their online CRM data using Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook as front ends with a new package called the Salesforce.com Office Edition. The new service will increase productivity by eliminating the need to cut and paste data from Salesforce.com applications and into spreadsheets and e-mail messages, […]

Attention taxpayers: The United States government is about to spend at least $10 billion to build a state-of-the-art nationwide computer system that will use biometrics to track the comings and goings of visitors to this country. Hang on to your wallets and a copy of the Bill of Rights. Congress has mandated that the Department […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Encouraged by Apple Computer Inc.s introduction of a PowerPC G5-based server, Sybase Inc. on Tuesday announced here the availability of its Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.5.1 relational database for Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” Server. According to Darryl Salas, principal consultant with Sybase, Apples new, powerful G5 Xserve and Mac OS X “Panther” Server […]

With the recent launch of its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Suite 1.2, Microsoft Corp. is once again sticking to its strategy of launching the business equivalent of a guerilla insurgency in yet another software sector. For the past 20 years, Microsofts strategy has been the same whether it was in the market for word processors, […]