Renee Boucher Ferguson

Microsoft Corp. is acting to soothe its ailing partner channel with a slew of initiatives, including Version 2.0 of its Microsoft Partner Program and product-upgrade highlights across the board, all announced at its Worldwide Partner Conference last week in Minneapolis. But while the new initiatives amount to incremental steps forward, the efforts to smooth channel […]

At its SOA Executive Summit in London last month, IBM announced an initiative to help ISVs and system integrators successfully develop and implement a service-oriented architecture with their customers. The program—part of IBMs initiative to empower ISVs and system integrators using IBM software and services—will enable partners to access IBM resources. Included in the initiative […]

Best known for its Enterprise Message Service, TIBCO Software Inc. is having much less success with its BPM efforts. TIBCO, of Palo Alto, Calif., faces five shareholder lawsuits alleging the faulty integration of Staffware plc., the business process management software developer TIBCO acquired in April 2004 for $217 million. The total cost of the acquisition […]

At Microsoft Corp.s 2005 Worldwide Partner Conference in Minneapolis this past weekend, Microsoft worked to soothe its ailing partner channel with a slew of new initiatives including the 2.0 release of the Microsoft Partner Program and product upgrade highlights across the board. As part of the upgraded Partner Program, announced in 2003, Microsoft will launch […]

MINNEAPOLIS—As Doug Burgum, the senior vice president in charge of Microsofts Business Solutions group, began his abbreviated keynote address to some 6,000 partners Friday at Microsofts Worldwide Partner Conference here, more audience members were leaving than listening. Generally an insightful, if rambling, speaker, Burgum got right to the point in todays address: Any partner who […]

Oracle can thank much of its fourth-quarter 2005 success to increased sales across its entire product line, with database sales actually proving out a smaller increase than applications or middleware sales. The applications business saw a recovery in the fourth quarter. New license revenues were up nearly 52 percent for the quarter, to $350 million, […]

SAP announced in June the acquisition of Lighthammer Software Development, a company that develops manufacturing intelligence and collaboration software. Terms of the deal were undisclosed, but SAP officials said the acquisition is expected to be completed in July. Lighthammers employees are expected to remain in their Exton, Pa., headquarters and operate under the aegis of […]

Two product lifecycle management stalwarts are beefing up their respective suites to further widen the circle around product development—a crucial area for engineers and manufacturers as they look to get new products to market faster. UGS Corp. announced last week the latest iteration of its Teamcenter suite, which adds functionality for new product development and […]

Integration and messaging software providers IBM and TIBCO Software Inc. announced Wednesday that they are joining Cisco Systems Inc.s IIN initiative that aims to do what it says: add more intelligence into networks. Ciscos Application-Oriented Network, announced this week at its Networkers 2005 conference in Las Vegas, is the third part of the companys four-phased […]

To help users suss out pertinent information, some enterprise application integration developers are adding new capabilities to their software. Vitria Technology Inc. will announce this week a new ResolutionAccelerator Business Process Application—part of Vitrias family of process-centric integration applications—which lets companies automatically manage exceptions in business processes at the system and human level. /zimages/5/28571.gifClick here […]

SAP AG announced Wednesday the acquisition of Lighthammer Software Development Corp., an Exton, Pa.-based company that develops manufacturing intelligence and collaboration software. The terms of the deal were undisclosed, but SAP officials said the acquisition is expected to be completed next month. Lighthammers employees are expected to remain in their Exton headquarters and operate under […]

Oracle Corp. plans to couple business intelligence and adaptive business process capabilities to applications in the next generation of its product suites. John Wookey, Oracles senior vice president of application development, detailed the companys philosophy on application development at Oracles Application User Group conference in Grapevine, Texas. The philosophy will be implemented starting with E-Business […]