Larry Barrett

SAN FRANCISCO — Remember “coffee is for closers?” Maybe it’s time to update David Mamet’s classic “Glengarry Glen Ross” mantra for the Web 2.0 age: “Coffee is for chatters.” That’s apparently the deal for sales managers and reps who — like it or not — are embracing a bevy of Web 2.0 technologies to generate […]

SAP finally built it. Now it’s time to find out if customers will come for Business ByDesign. The enterprise software firm on Monday took what it hopes will be a step in the right direction when it announced 13 of its North American resellers will begin pushing its Business ByDesign product to the much-coveted small- […]

SAP late this week announced that Hitachi has signed a global enterprise agreement to provide enterprise resource planning (ERP) (define) software and services to facilitate the electronics manufacturer’s transition to a full-scale, enterprise-wide service-oriented architecture (SOA) (define). The deal, confirmed just ahead of next week’s SAPPHIRE 2007 conference in Miyazaki, represents the first of its […]

IBM rolled out new software this week that it says will lower the cost of managing all the disparate data sources residing in enterprise IT departments and speed the deployment of applications that deliver real-time business information from multiple sources. If the new applications are as good as advertised, customers will be able to, for […]

Oracle on Friday gave arch-rival SAP another reason for concern, making a $6.7 billion bid for embattled middleware software provider BEA Systems. There’s a very real possibility the bid may turn into a protracted hostile takeover, however. BEA’s board of directors flatly rejected Oracle’s $17-a-share offer, claiming the “unsolicited proposal significantly undervalues BEA Systems.” “BEA […]

With Microsoft poised to unleash its next collaboration and unified communication (UC) suite next week, rival IBM is launching a preemptive strike by promising a tight level of integration between its own UC platform and its new, free Lotus Symphony productivity suite. IBM said Sametime customers would soon be able to share and collaborate on […]

VMware has a major update planned for the end of the year. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based virtualization software company on Monday announced updates to its mainstay VMware Infrastructure software, including VMware ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5. Set to be available sometime “later this year” the software will include new features VMware said will make […]

After enduring a brutal six-year malaise following the dot-com implosion, venture capitalists are back on the prowl, investing billions in all types of software companies in the hopes of landing the next VMware. For the first time in more than a year, software companies garnered more start-up cash than any other industry sector in the […]

IBM thinks it’s time for companies to get serious about SOA. Judging from the quantity and depth of the new software and service offerings it’s set to debut today, Big Blue is plenty serious about at least providing options for companies that have yet to embrace service-oriented architecture (SOA) (define) techniques as well as for those […]

SAP on Tuesday will disclose the details of a new licensing model that it hopes will entice at least another 600,000 developers to start building new applications on its NetWeaver platform by the end of next year. Mark Yolton, vice president of SAP’s Community Network, couldn’t spill all the details of what’s expected to be […]