Larry Barrett

Much to the chagrin of CNN’s Lou Dobbs and the ever-increasing number of Americans embracing economic isolationism, outsourcing– whether it’s customer service call centers, filming motion pictures or implementing an ERP system for a global investment firm– is only going to increase in the years to come. For the IT folks, the word outsourcing has become […]

So far this week, SAP has issued three separate press releases touting software deals with leading retailers. Sure, the news is a natural byproduct of this week’s National Retail Federation Convention and Expo in New York City, but SAP shareholders probably couldn’t care less. Not that Big Lots and 7-Eleven and even Grupo Pao de […]

Every major software vendor– and even some minor ones– have hit the ground running in 2008 with new products, services and strategies to help companies begin or continue their transformation to a service-oriented architecture (SOA). But unlike years past when the sales pitches were almost universally tailored for the software architects, the IBMs, HPs and […]

VMware on Wednesday released Virtual Desktop Manager 2 (VDM2), a new management and control layer for companies virtualizing their desktop environments on its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) software. Along with Citrix Systems and Microsoft, VMware is betting companies that are already reaping the considerable benefits of virtualizing applications and operating systems in their datacenters will […]

SAP on Wednesday offered investors a relatively modest sales outlook for 2008. Considering the current economic malaise, however, it looks downright bullish. The world’s largest business application vendor told analysts to expect sales growth of between 12 percent and 14 percent this year, identical to the forecast it provided — and eclipsed with 17 percent […]

If VMware is to virtualization software what “American Idol” winner Carrie Underwood is to country music, then IBM is Barbara Mandrell. The boys (and girls) in Armonk, N.Y. were knee-deep in virtualization—on the mainframe— way back in the ’60s, long before VMware’s ESX Server and Virtual Infrastructure 3 made virtualization cool. IBM on Tuesday dropped […]

VMware shares tumbled $21.86 a share, or 26 percent, to $61.14 Monday as investors punished the virtualization software company for falling short of analyst revenue estimates in its fourth quarter and offered less-than-scintillating guidance for 2008. In the quarter, VMware pocketed $103 million, or 26 cents a share, on sales of $412 million, topping analysts’ […]

A new report from the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) suggests that despite the numerous maladies plaguing the U.S. economy, software companies are doing just fine, thank you — and may play an integral in a broad recovery down the road. In its new study, the SIIA found that software companies continue to outperform […]

HP on Monday announced a new set of SOA  governance software and services to geared to help customers accelerate and simplify their SOA-related projects. The latest release of HP SOA Systinet software includes complete run-time governance of SOA services and service lifecycle management through an enhanced integration with its SOA Manager application. It also allows […]

Among the top-tier software vendors, imitation is less a form of flattery than a necessity to keep up with the competition. IBM on Wednesday made its first significant foray into the emerging but relatively low-profile complex event processing (CEP) market with its acquisition of privately held AptSoft. CEP applications aggregate information from corporate databases and […]

IBM on Wednesday acquired privately held AptSoft, a Burlington, Mass.-based developer of software used to identify and alert businesses to emerging trends and events, which are culled from real-time queries of data stored on all their disparate software applications. Along with identifying a pattern or potential problem — say a black boot is dramatically outselling […]

IBM and SAP on Monday announced plans to release a jointly developed application that allows employees to access SAP’s Business Suite applications through their Lotus Notes desktop client. Code-named Atlantic, the software will let users tap into SAP’s applications for workflows, reporting and analytics through the Notes applications they’re currently using to access e-mail, calendars […]