And to think I believed Mike Olson and his Sleepycat team had gone to sleep in the bowels of Oracle. Not so, as this press release from Oracle attests: Juniper Networks will be integrating Sleepycat's Berkeley DB into its JUNOS software, the network operating system that powers its routers.
Sounds like a really sweet deal to me. And likely a very big one. But why Berkeley DB?… Read more
MySQL's Zack Urlocker published an article called Sitting Duck, which gives you a great 13-point checklist to figure out if your company is screwed. If you do a quick analysis you can predict a bit of the future and also use hindsight to figure out if the company's strategy went sideways.
In light of all the hub-bub around Oracle trying to acquire BEA let's take a quick pass and see if the company is flailing based on a few of Zack's points.
Is everyone in your market having trouble? No. In fact the application server/middleware/SOA space is growing at an alarming rate. The fact that Oracle wants BEA means that they see more opportunity that can be exploited and that they are more capable of generating dollars than BEA is with that product set. If we agree that BEA is struggling, they seem to believe it's because of their cost structure and not their products. Which leads to... … Read more
Paul Kedrosky paints a not-so-pretty picture of BEA's future. Now that it has rejected Oracle's offer of $17/share through pocket veto, all the while begging for a higher price, it's almost certainly going to get a lower offer the next time around.
What happens next is rarely pleasant. Absent a change of heart, or a new offer somehow emerging, the initial acquirer will likely come back and make another offer -- this time, however, for less than was originally offered. Why not? After all, the market just told it that it offered too much, so it … Read more
I'm at Openbravo's first ever community event, and I'm impressed. In a market so heavily dominated by the big ERP vendors (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft), it's gratifying to see a room filled with people interested in an open-source alternative to proprietary, clunky ERP software (with 800 companies contacting Openbravo to become partners).
I particularly like the fact that Openbravo is coming "clean" to the small-to-medium-sized ERP market. Oracle and SAP are trying to go "down-market" to reach this demographic (spending piles of money to sell for a low price to SMEs...?), but this rarely works, as Clayton Christensen has pointed out. It's hard to support the cost model needed to reach this market unless you're built to fit that market, as Openbravo is.
The other thing I like about Openbravo is that it proves you don't have to be based in Silicon Valley to succeed. The company is based in Pamplona (i.e., the running of the bulls). And yet its success has been global and impressive, a true testament to the power of open source:… Read more
A few years ago market share data clearly demonstrated Linux server growth outpacing Windows server growth. Today, Linux server growth has apparently slowed while Windows is picking up, according to IDC. Why? The rate of migration from Unix to Linux has slowed.
In other words, Linux may have hit the end of Unix's low-hanging fruit (which also might mean that Sun's OpenSolaris has picked up...?).
Linux growth in the U.S. x86 server market has, over the past six quarters, started to falter and reverse its positive course relative to Windows Server and the market as a whole.
The annual rate at which Linux is growing in the x86 server space has fallen from around 53 percent in 2003 (45 percent globally), when Windows Server growth was in the mid-20 percent range, to a negative 4 percent growth (less than 10 percent globally) in calendar year 2006, IDC Quarterly Server Tracker figures show.… Read more
Microsoft sure is taking its time dying. What with open-source cutting it off at the knees and all, I would have expected it to be packing its bags and heading home. But no, the company continues to frustrate my prophecies with great earnings. Microsoft's only weak area was online. Everything else is booming to the tune of $4.29 billion in profit.
Which begs the question: who wins in the standoff between open source and proprietary software? And when?
In the short term, the answer is clearly that open source and proprietary vendors will coexist relatively peacefully because there's still plenty of room for Oracle's consolidation play, Microsoft's ecosystem play, and IBM's...IBM play ("We're IBM, always have been, and always will be, so buy from us"). Open source has plenty of room to grow without unduly upsetting these three.
I don't think we'll have any head-on friction between these major players and open source until an open-source ecosystem player emerges.… Read more
Ever wonder what the sales guys at BigCos like IBM are thinking about? Seems that IBM has assembled "what it calls a Viper 500 program with IBM's account teams to replace Oracle in more than 600 accounts."
I do enjoy a slap-fight amongst software vendors... "I am actively hiring people to go kick their teeth in," said Mike Borman, IBM vice president, worldwide sales for the IBM Software Group in a wide ranging 90 minute interview earlier this week before the hostile Oracle bid for BEA.Despite it sounding a little bit silly, this is … Read more
While it cools its heels waiting for a response from BEA Systems, Oracle is moving forward with other acquisitions.
The database and enterprise applications software maker announced Wednesday it plans to snap up Interlace Systems, which develops operational planning software. The deal aims to bolster Oracle's Enterprise Performance Management System by integrating Interlace's software that's designed to help companies re-evaluate scenarios across various functions, change operational assumptions and evaluate the effect on their business.
The deal is expected to close next month, which is in contrast to Oracle's efforts to acquire BEA.
Oracle on Tuesday announced … Read more
BEA Systems yesterday entered the final phase of capitulation to Oracle, throwing out a "but we're worth so much more than $17 per share!" counter to Oracle's offer.
Most acquiring companies would take mercy on the desperate gesture of BEA at this point, but Oracle might very well hold out.
Oracle is the sort of company to drag the companies it woos through a bit of hell and humiliation to make them good and desperate to be acquired at its price. This is very likely what will happen with BEA.
In other words, BEA's plea for more money will probably result in the opposite: an even lower offer a year from now, after BEA's public subjugation to Oracle is complete. Oracle is demanding an answer by this Sunday, but it can afford to wait much longer on the response it wants.
In the meantime, BEA will flounder, just as PeopleSoft did before it.… Read more
It's great to be king (aka "Oracle"), but apparently the peasants are secretly in revolt. According to a survey of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) [PDF], open source adoption is rampant within the rank-and-file of Oracle users...including widespread adoption of MySQL.
Uptake is still small, but the cracks in the part iron, part clay feet are starting to spread:
There was an increase in the number of organizations reporting that they are running over half of their applications on open source software, increasing from 9 percent in 2006 to 13 percent in the 2007 report. Currently, more than one-third of the respondents report that they have deployed an open source database in production, with nearly three-quarters of that group having MySQL installed. Interestingly, the availability of "Express Edition" databases from Oracle, Microsoft and IBM has not slowed the adoption of open source databases - at sites with an "Express Edition" installed 56 percent also reported MySQL installed and 22 percent reported PostgreSQL. … Read more
Technically Incorrect
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Christina Milian and the gadgets she loves
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