The mystery is over as to who will be Hewlett-Packard's next CEO. The company late today announced it has appointed Leo Apotheker as president and CEO and named former Oracle president Ray Lane as non-executive chairman.
Apotheker, a 20-year veteran of SAP, spent his last year there as SAP's CEO. I was among those betting that HP would turn to an insider such as Todd Bradley, who runs the company's client systems business, or Ann Livermore, who runs its large services organization. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 30, 20101 comments
Microsoft this week revealed pricing and licensing for its new Lync Server, the product previously known as Office Communications Server.
The company announced the name change and imminent release two weeks ago. Lync is Microsoft's effort to replace or augment PBX or office telephone systems with a software-based telecommunications platform that integrates with Office and Exchange Server. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 29, 20100 comments
SAP has fallen way short of its goal to get 10,000 customers onto its Business By Design Web-based business software after three years. According to The Wall Street Journal, only about 100 customers have signed on for the product.
"It was not as successful as expected," Rainer Zinow, SAP's senior vice president for Business By Design tells the Journal (see report). "You can do everything you want under lab conditions, but when you are in the real world, sometimes things look a bit different." More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 29, 20100 comments
Under siege by Microsoft and Citrix Systems, virtualization leader VMware Inc. is stepping up its efforts to engage its channel partners to go after greenfield opportunities and gain stronger competencies in specific areas, such as SQL Server and Exchange Server.
The company last week launched its Solution Enablement Toolkits, or SETs. As the name implies, the tools are designed for the VMware Partner Network to offer packaged repeatable suites and selling best practices. It is targeted at the VMware Certified Advanced Professional Level, who have what the company calls VMware Solution Competencies, says Doug Smith, senior director of VMware's global partner strategy and programs. Smith says there are 3,500 such partners today. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 29, 20100 comments
Web developers are predicting that Google's Android mobile platform has a better long-term outlook over Apple's iOS, according to a survey released today by Appcelerator and market researcher IDC.
More than 58 percent of respondents to the survey said Android has a better long-term outlook than iOS, Apple's platform for the iPod, iPhone and iPad. By comparison, nearly 35 percent of developers believe iOS has a better long-term outlook. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 27, 20100 comments
The Web site Gizmodo last week posted a brief video review showing what appears to be a prototype of HP's forthcoming Windows-based slate PC.
While HP has said it will deliver a slate-based on Windows 7 in the coming months, a company spokesman declined to comment on the Gizmodo video, which highlighted a form factor that was similar in size to Apple's iPad. The reviewer, Kat Hannaford, who described the performance of the HP slate as fast, said the HP slate is a bit lighter than the iPad. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 27, 20102 comments
What do data backup and modeling have in common? If you're CA Technologies it means they have the same umbrella channel program, even if there is little overlap between the customers and partners.
The company's Recovery Management and Data Modeling (RMDM) organization now has a new general manager: Mike Crest, a 12-year veteran of the company, who was previously GM of CA's Northern U.S. territory. Crest's predecessor, Adam Famularo, was promoted to the position of GM for CA's cloud business several months ago. Famularo is driving CA's entire cloud strategy. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 23, 20100 comments
It's looking like Hewlett-Packard's board is leaning toward an insider to replace Mark Hurd as CEO.
Among the leading candidates are Todd Bradley and Ann Livermore, The Wall Street Journal reported. Bradley heads up HP's PC business and Livermore is responsible for the company's huge server and services business. Also a contender is Dave Donatelli, who heads HP's storage business, though he is seen as a dark horse. Donatelli, who came to HP from EMC, helped lead HP's bidding war for 3PAR. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 22, 20100 comments
Microsoft is looking to up the ante with its Windows Server HPC platform. The company released its third iteration yesterday and signaled it would like to see broader use of its high-performance computing platform.
"Think of this as one of the key shifts in our fleet for what we look at as this future of technical computing," said Bill Hilf, Microsoft's general manager for technical computing. Hilf made his remarks in his keynote address at the High Performance Computing Financial Markets conference in New York. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 21, 20100 comments
Reports that Windows Phone 7 initially won't be available at launch on the Verizon Wireless network are hardly a surprise, given that all test units were assigned to AT&T. But now comes word that it might be awhile before Verizon Wireless users will be able to get their hands on Windows 7 Phones.
That's because, according to News.com's Ina Fried, Microsoft will need to create an upgrade to Windows Phone 7 to support CDMA networks. Both Verizon Wireless and Sprint's networks are CDMA-based while AT&T's and T-Mobile's networks are GSM-based. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 17, 20101 comments
Apple's decision to loosen the guidelines of its App Store means you should could soon be seeing Flash-based content on iPhones and iPads.
But that remains to be seen. While the company's move will allow developers to use third party tools including those used to create Adobe Flash code, that doesn't mean iPads, iPhones and iPod Touch devices will be able to run Web-based Flash content. Still, it suggests that may be in the cards at some point. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 10, 20103 comments
Windows 1.0 got off to its auspicious start on Thursday Nov. 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Invitations to the launch were sent to the press in a box with a squeegee. The header read: "For a clear view of what's new in microcomputer software please join Microsoft and 18 microcomputer manufactures for a press conference…"
But, like many versions of Windows that would follow it, the first release didn't ship until two years after that fateful press conference, leading many to refer to it as "vapor-ware." Finally, Microsoft released Windows 1.0 in November of 1985 at Comdex. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on September 10, 20103 comments