David Needle

Oracle’s lawsuit over alleged trade secrets theft by an SAP subsidiary seemed to be on the back burner, but heated up quickly today. The company announced that “several managers” and Andrew Nelson, the CEO of TomorrowNow, “have chosen to resign.” Also, SAP said it is considering selling off the subsidiary. In September, a U.S. District […]

AT&T on Monday announced the purchase of privately-held Ingenio and plans to integrate the company’s pay-per-call advertising platform into its local directory search and Yellowpages.com network. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Pay-per-call is designed to help businesses better manage ad programs and generate more phone leads. Founded in 1999, Ingenio describes itself as […]

Just as Apple shook up the phone industry with its advanced iPhone, Google hopes to do the same with the networks that manage mobile devices. Earlier this year, Google made clear its intent, under the right conditions, to make a $4.65 billion bid for the 700 MHz wireless spectrum the Federal Communications Commission is putting […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Looking to shake its image as “just” a major distributor of competitively priced technology, Dell yesterday talked up a number of tech innovations it has in mind for the holiday season and beyond. During their presentation here at Oracle OpenWorld about Dell’s campaign to simplify IT, company executives previewed several client devices […]

SAN FRANCISCO – Oracle’s famous CEO didn’t need musician Billy Joel to introduce him at Oracle OpenWorld to get the audience’s attention, but if you can afford it, why not? “Do you want me to sing while you play piano?” Larry Ellison asked as Joel walked off stage and the crowd laughed. But Joel didn’t […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Sun Microsystems upstaged its own announcement in a keynote address here at Oracle OpenWorld today by making way for a surprise onstage visit to the company’s keynote address by Michael Dell. The main focus of Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s talk was the company’s introduction of Sun xVM, its new virtualization technology. But […]

Robbie Brillhart had one of those rare opportunities in IT to start over. The tech press is rife with new technology announcements that sound great, but before most companies consider implementation they have to take their entrenched or legacy systems into account. New software, for example, requires training and may present compatibility issues with the […]

IT spending in 2008 will increase by only low single digit percentages and may be closer to flat, according to research released this week by Computer Economics. On the plus side, a solid majority – 66 percent – of organizations surveyed expect their IT budgets to increase in 2008, while only 12 percent expect cuts. […]

Postini, a wholly owned subsidiary of Google purchased earlier this year, continues to enhance its e-mail security service with an eye toward business users. New content policy features announced today add several content policy management features for administrators such as the ability to identity credit card and social security numbers in outgoing e-mail and attachments. […]

IBM made a significant move to shore up its database line with today’s announcement of a $5 billion all-cash deal to acquire Ottawa-based Cognos. The deal had been expected following moves by Oracle and SAP to acquire their own business intelligence companies. Just last month, SAP announced its intent to buy Business Objects in a […]

Jeremy Burton has fought both sides of the employee communications battle. As executive vice president of the data management group at Veritas, he tried to ban e-mail between employees on Fridays. That was in 2004, before the company merged with Symantec. “We had over a hundred people sitting within 50 yards of each other sending […]

A new study by Barracuda Networks indicates more corporations and organizations are limiting employee access to social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. Barracuda is a leading provider of e-mail and Web-security appliances. “We’re seeing a shift with our customers who’ve primarily focused on stopping viruses, spyware, pornography and other inappropriate content,” Dean Drako, CEO of […]