Renee Boucher Ferguson

At its annual Convergence conference in San Diego March 11-14, Microsoft will make a plethora of announcements around its Dynamics brand of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management suites, from the release of Titan, its multitenant version of Dynamics CRM, to something called Sure Step, a family of model-driven configuration, implementation and migration tools […]

Oracle is honing its focus on an area that is becoming near and dear to many corporations facing a daunting list of mandates and regulations: governance, compliance and risk. But as in other areas in the business applications market where the two companies continually go head-to-head, Oracle is facing a stiff competitor: SAP. Oracle announced […]

At its annual CUE conference in San Diego March 4-7, Lawson Software is announcing a slew of new and expanded products, including an IBM-hosted version of its enterprise resource planning software, new business intelligence capabilities, upgraded software for manufacturers and an expanded middleware partnership with IBM that will embed WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus in Lawsons […]

After a rising tide of concern over the security, privacy and monetary implications of the Department of Homeland Securitys Real ID Act, the Department has handed down proposed regulations that drastically alter its original intent. The proposed regulations, handed down March 1 by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, suggest using machine-readable bar code technology rather than […]

Oracle announced March 1 that it intends to acquire business intelligence software developer Hyperion for about $3.3 billion, or $52 a share. Oracle expects the transaction to close, pending standard regulatory approvals, in April. About a year ago Oracle (along with other business applications developers) started focusing heavily on BI, moving away from software geared […]

Events at the state and federal level are converging around the Real ID Act, as a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Feb. 28 that regulations outlining technology mandates could be handed down as early as March 1. At the same time, as many as 38 states, under a coalition formed by Missouri […]

Some startling numbers emerged from Salesforce.coms fourth-quarter earnings announcement on Feb. 21, including a 58 percent increase in sales—the company added an impressive 90,000 net new subscribers for the quarter—tempered by a 91 percent drop in quarterly profits, mainly as a result of spending on the business. Now the company has outlined its strategy for […]

Microsoft is honing in on business process management with the formation of the Microsoft Business Process Alliance and the release of a BPM roadmap that will include a key standard—Business Process Execution Language—in the Windows Workflow Foundation. The company announced Feb. 26 at the Gartner BPM Summit in San Diego that it has formed the […]

Hurricanes in Florida. Floods in Louisiana. Fires in California. CEOs in hot water over regulatory concerns. Couple those issues with a cyclical profit-and-loss business model that tries to factor in the unknown, and theres a potential recipe for trouble for insurance companies. Around 2000, Chubb, a global company that specializes in insuring individuals and companies […]

Henning Kagermann is staying on as CEO at SAP AG through May 31, 2007, the companys board announced on Feb. 15. Kagermanns contract was set to expire at the end of the year. The 59-year-old executive will turn 60 in July; under SAPs bylaws, board member who are 60 and older have their employment contracts […]

Salesforce.com is building momentum around its Apex on-demand programming language and development platform, hiring seasoned staff to evangelize the technology and holding packed-to-the-rafters seminars and webinars to familiarize developers with the Apex code. Its still very early days for Apex. The programming language code, in beta now, was released in January, and it wont be […]

Microsoft is pushing business intelligence capabilities into its customer relationship management software, following a trend by many in the business applications market to include analysis capabilities in their applications. Microsoft announced Feb. 12 the availability of its namesake Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation, tools that enable analysis and management of customer-facing processes. The goal with Analytics […]