Following on its repurchase of $18 billion worth of its own stock last year, IBM decided to re-coup some of its investments and spend some of its own money on itself by buying back $15 billion worth of stock today. The markets are happy with this kind of confidence and even the bleak news about housing foreclosures in the U.S. hasn't brought it down.

However, buried in its release of the new version of IBM's System Z out today is the new on demand analytics software, Cognos 8 BI.

IBM today is announcing new Information on Demand software for System z, including Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) for System z. IBM Cognos 8 BI for System z combines the proven reporting and analysis capabilities of IBM Cognos 8 BI with the power and reliability of System z, enabling customers to use their data for competitive advantage, improve decision-making and optimize their business performance. IBM is also announcing a Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z customer beta program. IBM Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z will be available in the second half of 2008.

IBM’s Information on Demand strategy is helping customers gain access to the right information they need, when they need it, along with key business insights needed to address and respond to changing market demands. By deploying Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z, customers will be able to easily report and analyze hundred of millions of transactions directly on the mainframe - ensuring everyone across the organization can quickly identify and respond to critical business trends.

IBM is also announcing the immediate availability of DB2 for z/OS Value Unit Edition, which provides a new one-time-charge offering that enables the deployment of new application workloads. This offering strengthens the role of System z as a cornerstone for key business initiatives such as SOA, Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence and packaged applications such as SAP. DB2 for z/OS Value Unit Edition and IBM Information Server enable System z clients to further deliver trusted information for their dynamic warehousing requirements.

In addition, IBM will bring new Master Data Management capabilities to System z in the second half of this year. This will include the InfoSphere Master Data Management Server for Linux on System z, which allows businesses to centrally manage customer, product, and account data for use across an enterprise.

Posted by elizabeth in BI • SaaS | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Folks, it looks like Boomi is working to build a better mousetrap. But don't take MY word for it!

“With a significant customer base to build on and all the right partnerships in place, it's no surprise that the Boomi On Demand beta has been a success so far,” said Dennis Callaghan, Analyst with The 451 Group, a technology industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation, in his report. He continued in the report, “Boomi On Demand has the potential to redefine SOA from the customer's perspective.” This comment appeared in an independent report, titled “Boomi shifts to on-demand model for SaaS/on-premise integration,” published on November 7, 2007.

And from Dave:

David Linthicum, an analyst at ZapThink, stated, “Boomi solves SaaS integration by deploying an integration solution on the same platform, the Internet. This solution provides enterprises looking to find SaaS integration solutions with a better and more cost-effective alternative to traditional enterprise integration solutions. The use of integration technology over the Internet just makes sense as many IT resources move from inside to outside of the firewall.”

Boomi's full bell-and-whistles press release, available here, takes aim and fires at "traditional enterprise integration software" as we know it. I quote:

As the acceptance and popularity of SaaS applications has continued to rise dramatically, traditional enterprise integration software has become the Achilles heel of the SaaS industry. Traditional integration software products are inconsistent with the values of SaaS in terms of cost, complexity and time to implement. Boomi On Demand offers the first complete integration solution delivered in an on-demand model, breaking the barrier to SaaS adoption for companies of all sizes and marking the end of the software approach to integration.

These are some pretty strong statements. Any thoughts or comments?

Posted by elizabeth in SaaS | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our own Dennis Byron has been watching Zimbra for some time, but I don't think anyone predicted that it would be bought by Yahoo! for $350 Million. Yet another independent open source collaboration tool maker bites the dust.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), a global Internet company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zimbra, Inc. (www.zimbra.com), a leader in next generation e-mail and collaboration software. Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! will acquire Zimbra for approximately $350 million.

Following the acquisition, Zimbra will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo!. Satish Dharmaraj will continue to lead the Zimbra team based in Yahoo!'s Sunnyvale headquarters and will report to Brad Garlinghouse. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval. It is expected that the transaction will be completed in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Posted by elizabeth in SaaS | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is with great pleasure that I share the news that ebizQ has welcomed SaaS Week as a premier partner in its network family. Saas Week is a labor of love for a member of our ebizQ team, and I heartily congratulate Prakash Kannoth on his personal and professional insight into this around-the-curve technology set. With the help of SaaS Week, we are looking forward to bringing the ebizQ reader more news about this fast growing 2.0 industry concept, Software-as-a-Service. SaaS Week can be visited now here.

From the ebizQ release on this subject:

"We recognize that companies like Salesforce.com are starting to permeate the market in terms of providing and securing business agility for companies on an ad-hoc basis," said Les Yeamans, ebizQ president and publisher. "Our research team has been involved with SaaS Week since its inception and with its lead, Jayaprakash Kannoth, and we look forward to welcoming SaaS Week to our ebizQ network," he said.

ebizQ.net is a portal for blogs, webinars, podcasts, news, features, white papers, and virtual conferences. The site includes content from the leading industry analysts and experts. ebizQ events including webinars and virtual conferences provide an interactive interface where visitors and ask questions and interact with other visitors. The ebizQ community is over 100,000 strong. All of ebizQ's content through each of its channels is freely available to subscribers.

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I just got off the horn with David Bradshaw, principle analyst at Ovum, an analyst firm headquartered in London with offices around the world. Ovum specializes in the software, IT and telcom space.

David was briefed by the powers that be and shared some comments with me on today's global alliance announcement between Google and Salesforce.com.

David explained that the excitement is mixed with a higher degree of anticipation because of the relative position of the two companies in the global marketplace. "The predominent company in the consumer space (though Google is by no means only a consumer company) is linking up with the predominant company in the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) space," he said.

"Two strong forces in their separate domains are linking up and aligning themselves together and generating new stuff out of that. A higher view of that is moving lives, the way people work, further online and away from on-premises-type software. The truth of it is, the current state of affairs is very much governed by on-premises, on your computer. And this deal seeks to change that."

David made some additional comments on the first product announcement made by the alliance:

The first fruits of this alliance is an 'edition' of salesforce.com called 'Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google Adwords' (SGEFGA?) that enables its users to make use of keyword ads in Google. From within salesforce, you can bid for keywords in Google and set your budget. Salesforce will automatically generate the HTML for a 'landing page' on your website, so that when a prospective customer arrives on the landing page, it asks them for their details and automatically generates a sales lead in salesforce.com. Additionally, you can track the results for each keyword you have bought in Google via a new dashboard (one of three dashboards added in SGEFGA). This capability comes from Keiden, a company that salesforce bought last year.

SGEFGA replaces salesforce's Team Edition (normal price is $995 per year for five users). All existing Team Edition users gained the functionality in SGEFGA from this morning. The normal price is $1,200/year (UK and European prices have not been set yet), but there is an initial promotional price for new users of $600 per year, including a $50 Adwords promotional credit. Users of Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited editions of salesforce can get the same functionality for free from the AppExchange.

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