Microsoft Sues Salesforce.com
I just got a copy of a brief Microsoft filed in the U.S. District in Seattle alleging that Salesforce.com infringed on nine of Microsoft’s patents. It’s not clear at this writing how valid a case Microsoft has, nor has there been any official response from Salesforce.com posted on the company’s website. So a full analysis [...]
Passing On Know-How in the Internet Era
Technology changes such as cloud computing and social networking are usually looked at in isolation, but their impact on the nature of business is part of a bigger picture that encompasses a raft of Web-enabled technology factors. The big picture…
What Google I/O 2010 Means to Me
This morning I hopped on a jetBlue flight from Austin to San Francisco to attend Google I/O. I usually avoid industry conferences, but I make it a point to attend this one. I find it has a supernormal signal-to-noise ratio….
NetSuite vs SAP … Round #n. A Game Changer?
In my recent Suites post I said there were exactly 1.5 (one and a half) integrated full business solutions (SaaS Suite, SaaS All-In-One, SaaS ERP, SaaS SMB ERP – take your pick or create a new one) offered as a service. The one in that equation was NetSuite, and the half is SAP’s Business ByDesign. [...]
Crowdsourcing is the New Internship
In a conversation with my friend and crowdsourcing industry leader, John Winsor (@jtwinsor), we were talking about some of the non-obvious intrinsic benefits of participating in crowdsourcing. John runs a revolutionary agency called Victors and Spoils, which is a ground up brand-focused agency using crowdsourcing techniques to produce innovative solutions for their brand clients. They [...]
SAPPHIRENOW Photo Caption Challenge
Last night, after a couple of drinks at the SAPPHIRENOW reception, Oliver Marks and I cooked up the idea that it would be fun to make up captions for the huge photos that adorn the Global Communications Center and the rest of the show floor. The photos are really beautifully photographed, but the compositions are [...]
Sapphire 2010 Orlando Day One: Nerdcore
Kind of struggling to work out the key narratives from Sapphire this year. Well other than the fact that SAP really doesn’t like not having nerds in charge. Leo Apotheker was SAP’s first ever CEO without a development background… he lasted less than a year before getting nuked by Chairman Hasso Plattner. The geeks are [...]
The SapphireNow version
As I spend a couple of days at SapphireNow, the SAP user conference in Orlando, it is timely to acknowledge the impact of the vendor on many sections of upcoming book, The New Polymath. Several SAP customers, partners, Mentors, present and former employees like John Dean, Mike Prosceno, Marilyn Pratt, Gretchen Lindquist, Dennis Howlett, Craig [...]
SAP: Fox or Hedgehog?
Edward Carr, the editorial director of the Economist , is quoted in my book, The New Polymath: “Isaiah Berlin once divided thinkers into two types. Foxes, he wrote, know many things; whereas hedgehogs know one big thing.” Several EIs had a chance to sit down with Bill McDermott, co-CEO and Vishal Sikka, CTO of SAP [...]
