Sony’s IP Disaster and Amazon’s Cloud Crash — Rough Times Ahead for Hosted Solutions and Data?
It’s been a challenging few weeks for those dependent on the cloud, despite the continued stratospheric valuations of some companies embracing virtual deployment and network business models. Even though we’re not as likely to be i…
Handicapping Ariba’s Ultimate Potential — Two Perspectives (If You Believe and if You Don’t)
Following Ariba’s quarterly results, which showed solid growth last week (yet I believe are at least partially representative of a rising tide lifting many procurement vendor boats), I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the poten…
Rant: Custom Software Development – Is There a Point?
I had a demonstration earlier this year with an organization (that will go unnamed) that decided to build its own internal Spend Management applications, starting first with an application to span the traditional purchase to pay (…
Will Ariba’s Currency Serve as a Means to a Dominant End?
We’ll be reviewing Ariba’s most recent quarterly earnings performance in detail starting later today, looking at clues about its implications for customers, competitors and the broader market (if you want financial analysis, there…
Friday Rant: How Will Rearden Cut Its New Ketera Cards?
Last week, Spend Matters covered Rearden Commerce’s Acquisition of Ketera in three posts:
Rearden Commerce Acquires Ketera, Creating a New, Broad Spend Management Offering
With Ketera, Will Rearden Prove a Viable P2P Competito…
Rearden and Ketera — Acquisition Implications for Ketera Customers
While Rearden’s acquisition of Ketera has many implications for the broader P2P and Spend Management market — ranging from an evolving competitive landscape with greater choice of stable vendors for customers to a potential re-in…
With Ketera, Will Rearden Prove a Viable P2P Competitor to Ariba, Basware, Coupa, SAP, Oracle, etc.?
See our initial coverage of Rearden’s acquisition of Ketera here. One thing has been for sure in terms of Ketera in recent years, and that’s the fact that few dispute whether the vendor has gotten enough at bats relative to compet…
Friday Rant: For Procurement and Supply Chain Apps, Will Mobile Matter?
Earlier this week, I tackled the subject of D&B’s latest mobile-dedicated browser interface (not a true “app”) that delivers a variety of supply risk alerts, details and search capabilities to a variety of smartphone platforms (Se…
Bristlecone and Hubwoo — Two SAP Ecosystem Rivals Decide to Work Together (Part 2)
In the first post in this series examining the recently announced partnership between Bristlecone and Hubwoo, I explored a number of background elements that led to the partnership as well as some of its highlights. In today’s ins…
Business All-In-One Goes Buyside — SAP Brings SRM 7.0-Like Capability to the SMB Market (Part 1)
The middle market remains without a definitive eProcurement solution. Ariba, despite aggressive price points and leading overall market-share in the broader eProcurement market by our analysis, has failed to distance itself from Coupa and others within the middle market. In this environment, SAP has opted to toss its hat into the middle market eProcurement fray [...]
