Motorola is not doing well

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Schaumburg, Ill., telecommunications-equipment maker Motorla said it intends to cut 7,500 jobs and reduce annualized costs by $1 billion through the end of this year and next. In January, the company had said it planned 3,500 job cuts and $400 million in annual cost savings this year. It said yesterday it is on track to reach those 2007 goals on time.

My feel is that these vendors are going to face tough challenges in the future as well and Motorola is not alone with this.

Norton Internet Security is out - Windows Live One Care is in

I have been a longtime user and client of Norton products. As an entrepreneur, I have spent money right and left on them and for the most part, I have been happy. Let me tell you what happened the last two weeks or so. My Norton Internet Security 2006 started crashing on me (yes, I did buy two years of maintenance) and it started to become a hassle to me. I have been watching Microsoft to enter this space, but have so far hold off. The big time switch was made 2 days ago when I visited a local Best Buy store. I could get 3 Windows Live Onecare licenses for $29,99 so I decided to buy three packages and uninstall EVERY laptop and computer I have from Norton. Microsoft is a new player.... but what I have seen so far, the product is pretty slick and will be good enough for my company and my family. Also, I read an interesting article from Ziff Davis PC Magazine that somebody else had done the same thing. The change is done now.... good or bad, but I will be sticking with my decision.

SAP fills gaps with two Nordic acquisitions - is there an end to the acquisitions

In line with its acquisition strategy to fill technology gaps, SAP has purchased two privately held Scandinavian software companies according to InfoWorld web. The big software companies continue buying smaller ones and now two of the targests are from the Nordic countries, one from Espoo Finland. The buying spree is impacting end user organization behaviour as well.... whom should they trust to be on the market after five years?

SAP's Plan to Globalize Hits Cultural Barriers - interesting article in Wall Street Journal

Wall street Journal had an interesting article on May 11th, 2007 about its initiatives of globalization and the impact of moving product development outside Germany. This process has not been without its problems and it is said that Shai Agassi left the company party of these reasons as well. SAP and other similar large companies will have lots of challenges going forward.

Microsoft Outlines BI Strategy, Platform

Microsoft declared the opening day of its first BI conference, May 9, "a new day" for business intelligence, with the same old goal every BI vendor has had for years: To make BI ubiquitous in the enterprise, used by all relevant workers, not just by executives and IT (who jigger reports for executives). Microsoft is coming fast with multiple things in the BI space and I am looking forward of playing with PerformancePoint and what it can do for organziations.



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Next Version of SQL Server Slated for 2008

Microsoft kicked off its first-ever Business Intelligence (BI) Conference in Seattle with a keynote speech by Business Division President Jeff Raikes, who spoke in general terms about Microsoft’s efforts to integrate existing products into businesses processes, without offering much in the way of specifics.



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BizTalk R2 Beta Released - exciting new release from Microsoft

People aren't talking much about RFID, which is indicative of the technology’s slow growth curve. But Microsoft hopes that the second beta of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 changes all that. I happen to have been listening to the speech given by the client they article refers to during Convergence 2007 in San Diego



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WEB 2.0 and Business Intelligence is melding together

I knew this would be happening soon, now business intelligence discussion is moving over to BI and Analytics. Check out an interesting article in Ajax World Magazine that explains the whole thing.

How Web 2.0 Makes Business Intelligence Smarter
The advent of Web 2.0 has upset the Internet in some interesting ways, particularly with regard to user experience and participation, the creation, derivation, and relevance of metadata, and the ability to deliver new functionality by leveraging existing sites, thereby accelerating time-to-market. This article considers how these concepts can be applied to benefit the world of business intelligence (BI). We'll discuss how users can benefit and a number of issues and requirements of corporate IT to implement and benefit from such solutions.