Michael Hickins

BOSTON — Microsoft Dynamics has turned the corner. This brand, a group of enterprise research planning (ERP) solutions united under the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) umbrella, has been bleeding cash and struggling to gain acceptance in the market. Created in 2001 with the acquisition of Great Plains, and further expanded by the 2002 acquisition of […]

BOSTON — Microsoft   wants to keep pace with Web 2.0 without driving its Windows platform into irrelevance. George Moore, general manager of the Windows Live platform, told developers at Microsoft’s Tech Ed 2006 conference here that Windows Live leverages the social-networking aspect of the Web to create a cycle that will benefit users, developers, […]

BOSTON — Microsoft is extending features of a product it hasn’t even brought to market yet. The new feature (LOBi, for line-of-business interoperability), is billed as a future set of capabilities that will work together with Microsoft Office client applications and Office SharePoint Server 2007 — which should be available in October — and make […]

Microsoft wants to prove that it can still walk the talk. Today, it is introducing Dynamics AX 4.0, the re-baptized and more muscular version of its Axapta ERP product, in the hopes of showing strong growth in the large enterprise market. The Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) division, of which Dynamics AX is a part, is […]

The software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecosystem just got bigger. Employease, an on-demand provider of HR solutions, has released a new web services offering that allows companies to integrate various solutions onto a single platform. It’s own. According to Jeff Beinke, vice president of product marketing, Employease Extend will allow companies to link data from their HR system […]

Fresh off a stinging loss in a House vote last night, supporters of a network neutrality bill licked their wounds and looked to the Senate, where an equally desperate fight awaits them on the issue. Last night, the House roundly defeated an amendment (269-152) proposed by Ed Markey (D-Mass.), that would have made network neutrality […]

Microsoft is heralding a steady stream of product announcements around Office 2007, perhaps in the hopes that folks will forget the most glaring fact of all: Microsoft isn’t Vista-ready. The French call it drowning the fish. In its latest public display, the company brought together business partners and journalists to announce a product roadmap for […]

IBM and BEA Systems command more than half of the red-hot application integration and middleware (AIM) market combined. Embracing open source will not only help them keep fast-charging rivals like Microsoft at bay, but may even help them widen the gap. AIM is a driving force in IT spending — growing at a faster clip […]

Everyone knows that an asteroid the size of Mars is going to crash into the Earth, ending life as we know it. Some day. In the next million years. In the meantime, more immediate dangers are lurking in the form of hurricanes and pandemics, wreaking potentially disastrous effects on human resources, supply chains and, of […]

NEW YORK — Proponents of legislation codifying net neutrality rules may be able to hang their hats on an unlikely peg. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is so keen to reform funding to the Universal Service Fund (USF) that he may be willing to insert language protecting net neutrality in order to get […]

NEW YORK —- Nice way to earn a bonus. Entice customers to renew their software-as-a-service subscription (in a sector that already enjoys a high retention rate), and you pocket more fun money. That’s what one software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider is building into its compensation packages for certain employees. Speaking at a panel on SaaS at the […]

NEW YORK — Socrates is credited with saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. Technology vendors might add that the undifferentiated company is not worth investing in. And then there is Yogi Berra who said: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up someplace else.” Good point. For presenters at […]