Renee Boucher Ferguson

At Microsofts Worldwide Partner Conference in Boston July 11-13, the company again is hoping to go vertical via its massive Microsoft Business Solutions partner channel to become a bigger enterprise resource planning player. At the Worldwide Partner Conference in Minneapolis last year, the push from on high was to create a sea change within the […]

After yet another change in its Customer Assurance Program on Monday, PeopleSoft Inc. said today it would extend the program until Dec. 31. PeopleSoft amended its assurance program on Monday with a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amendment stipulates that a change in PeopleSofts board of directors that results in an acquisition […]

An upgrade to WRQ Inc.s Verastream integration software enables IT departments to reuse applications and business logic when linking new software to existing enterprise data sources. With Verastream 9.0, users can build a central repository of interchangeable components that identify and expose hidden business logic and data in legacy host systems, call centers, Web-self- service […]

Oracle Corp. late Thursday quietly issued a marginally successful earnings report for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2002. In a press release posted on the Oracle Web site, Larry Ellison, Oracles normally brash CEO, said that in the wake of Tuesdays terrorist attack on the United States, the Redwood Shores, Calif., company has […]

Yahoo announced on April 9 that it will acquire IndexTools, an online advertising analytics provider, a purchase that should improve Yahoo’s position to take on Google and Microsoft in the battle for online advertising dollars. Microsoft meanwhile continues its threat to acquire Yahoo, forcefully if necessary, in an attempt to compete with Google. IndexTools, otherwise […]

BEA Systems is one step closer to being acquired by Oracle. The company announced April 4 that its shareholders voted nearly unanimously in favor of Oracle’s plan to acquire the platform provider for approximately $8.5 billion. BEA said in a statement that 99.9 percent of its shareholders voted to adopt the Agreement and Plan of […]

The March 31 deadline for states to apply for an extension to the federal Real ID mandate-one that critics say amounts to the creation of a national ID card-has come and gone. Now every state in the nation is in compliance with the mandate, whether they intended to be or not. After a skirmish with […]

The appointment of Leo Apotheker as co-CEO of SAP signals much more than the impending retirement of incumbent CEO Henning Kagermann in 2009. It signals a sea change in the company’s business plans as it shifts its effort from making huge investments in new software products and acquiring companies to reaping the highest possible profit […]

SAP promoted Deputy CEO Leo Apotheker to Co-CEO, alongside Henning Kagermann on April 2 and confirmed weeks of speculation that Kagermann will step down in March 2009. Peter Zencke, a pivotal development leader at the company, will also leave later this year when his contract expires, the company announced. Zencke will spend the next year […]

Oracle’s earnings report March 26, which came in at the low end of guidance and under analyst expectations, spooked Wall Street and suggested that the U.S. economic downturn is having a deleterious impact on Oracle’s strategy of buy-’em-as-it-sees-’em. Oracle reported fiscal third-quarter 2008 license revenue of $1.62 billion and total revenue of $5.37 billion, below […]