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The Tawny Titan of Tattle hustled through Times Square, dodged the Naked Cowboy and took a cab to the posh 21 Club on 52nd to cover a schmoozefest at the venerable victualer sponsored by BEA and Blue Titan.
The event was a potpourri of Wall Street software analysts, vendors and the press. There was plenty of buzz in the room, but Spencer couldnt tell if it came from his martini or the speculation that Blue Titan will find a home under the HP brand.
BEA still claims it will remain independent, but was that ever the plan? Bill Coleman started BEA in 1995 with a promise to his wife to donate half his earnings to aid people with learning disabilities and to help his buddies Ed Scott and Al Chuang share in the wealth. So it makes sense, as some dinner guests speculated, that BEA might sell itself to a company that needs a Web-based application development platform—which covers just about every tech company still in business.
A Wall Street maven in attendance said that when Oracle quits its quest for PeopleSoft, it, too, may focus on BEA. Of course, Larry has a cameo in everyones gossip these days—one Katt crony recently claimed Ellison may make a move on Siebel Systems. Siebel Chairman and CEO Tom Siebel recently confirmed that Ellison approached him about an acquisition last year. “Mmm, Ellison squaring off against the cranky Siebel would provide more fun than his current donnybrook with PeopleSofts Conway,” cackled the Kitty.
As the Katt crawled under a table to retrieve an olive that slipped from his glass, he heard talk that IBM may buy ATG. The companies announced an extension of their Web server integration partnership earlier this month. “It would be easy for IBM to extend its tentacles to ATG, which is in Cambridge, Mass., near the assimilated Lotus,” reasoned the Rumormonger. Still under the table, the Katt picked up a conversation about Cisco users anger over the company telling its largest customers first about the recent IOS flaw. It seems Cisco gave the big ISPs and backbone operators a head start, then published a bulletin alerting the rest of the world. The imbibing Inquisitor was finally escorted from the premises after he tried to engage one of the clubs decorative jockey statues in a chat about the “Seabiscuit” flick.
Skatting back to his hotel, he came upon a juicy McNugget from a Tabby tattler: Business Objects President John Olsen said of Hyperions recent acquisition of Brio, “Hyperion buying Brio is like catching a falling anvil. Do you want a Happy Meal or a share of Brio? Theyre about the same price.”
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