Microsoft

Fail for today: Microsoft apps PR

October 14, 2009 General

It’s a very busy period with conferences merging into one another. Earlier in the year, Microsoft canned its European Convergence event then out of the blue contacted me to say they are running a sort of road show and would one of the dates fit. The only date that looked reasonable is 29th October when [...]

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Mamut One: a software and services play

September 28, 2009 Cloud Computing/SaaS

Earlier today I spoke with Bryan Richter, UK country manager for Mamut about the release of Mamut One. Mamut hasn’t quite found saas/cloud religion but is betting that accounting types will continue to prefer core transaction data is kept on premise while other services are built around it that can be served up via the [...]

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Why you can safely ignore Google ChromeOS

July 8, 2009 General

Over on ZDNet I wrote a long piece about why all the hubris about Google ChromeOS makes little or no sense. As an example of the more extreme things written today, check this from Michael Arrington, founder and co-editor of TechCrunch: Don’t worry about those desktop apps you think you need. Office? Meh. You’ve got [...]

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Parsing Intuit's IPP: much to consider

June 4, 2009 Cloud Computing/SaaS

Intuit Partner Platform announcement has had me thinking and today I caught up with Alex Barnett and Alex Chriss from the company to explore what it means and where it might go. Prior to that conversation I spoke with  Ben Kepes and Phil Wainewright to get two very different assessments. Ben thinks it’s the greatest [...]

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I'm a PC video stunt caught me out

April 16, 2009 General

This could easily be one for the Mac Fanboys and Girls but when I saw this video I was taken in, only to be told it is in fact a stunt.Just goes to show that ADD is bad enough that I’m clearly not paying enough attention. The more interesting point: when I first saw it, [...]

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PaaS risks

February 24, 2009 Cloud Computing/SaaS

The demise of Coghead last week raises a number of questions. Aside from the inevitable speculation about what SAP will do with the acquired assets, Phil Wainewright raised the ‘elephant on the room’ question: The problem with PaaS, as Coghead’s customers are now discovering to their dismay, isn’t so much lock-in as lock-out. They knew [...]

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Microsoft's payroll blooper

February 22, 2009 General

msletter Publish at Scribd or explore others: The Microsoft haters were predictably out in force on TechCrunch, following apparent errors in calculating severance pay for at least some former employees culled in its recent cutback of 1,400 staff. Microsoft has acknowledged that errors have been made but has not quantified the extent. Much of the [...]

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Saas scorecard

February 11, 2009 Cloud Computing/SaaS

We’re part way through the reporting season for US based software vendors. I’m paying attention to the big players like SAP and Microsoft but also keeping an eye out for how the saas vendors are performing. In the last few days we’ve heard from talent management specialist SuccessFactors, CRM provider RightNow and most recently from [...]

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What do you make of all this cloud talk?

February 6, 2009 General

Dave Turner, head of marketing at CODA [disclosure: CODA is a sponsor and client] turns up the heat on uber analyst group Gartner, characterizing their assessment of growth in the cloud computing market as ‘wide of the mark.‘ That’s a strong statement which Dave justifies by saying that: In the report Gartner appears to make [...]

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Cloud confusion

February 2, 2009 General

Irregular My ZDNet colleague and fellow Irregular Phil Wainewright is almost gushing in his enthusiasm for the latest IDC numbers indicating that the counter cyclical nature of on-demand/saas computing means that IDC has to uplift its predictions for saas uptake in 2009. I usually take analyst numbers with a sack of salt. They’re always wrong, [...]

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