Barker Bites Back
A look at some newsy stuff and interesting bits as well as those hopefully amusing byways of technology.
Thursday 2 April 2009, 3:12 PM
A free tool from VKernel for tracking VMs
The virtualisation software supplier, VKernel announced the free tool last week. It can help in the documentation and inventory recording of virtual machines (VMs), the company said.
Called SnapshotMyVM, it is a standalone application that can do the tedious job of documenting and recording all the virtual machines that are available and that work with VMware's ESX server environments. The tool is available from the company's website at no charge.
"Documenting physical servers is one of a systems administrator's least desirable and time-consuming tasks ," VKernel founder and chief executive, Alex Bakman, said in a statement. "In a virtual data center, it becomes even more challenging as the environment is dynamic and static documentation becomes quickly outdated."
SnapshotMyVM is intended as a tool to automate the process and so make it easier to identify, document, and get an inventory of virtual machines.
Called SnapshotMyVM, it is a standalone application that can do the tedious job of documenting and recording all the virtual machines that are available and that work with VMware's ESX server environments. The tool is available from the company's website at no charge.
"Documenting physical servers is one of a systems administrator's least desirable and time-consuming tasks ," VKernel founder and chief executive, Alex Bakman, said in a statement. "In a virtual data center, it becomes even more challenging as the environment is dynamic and static documentation becomes quickly outdated."
SnapshotMyVM is intended as a tool to automate the process and so make it easier to identify, document, and get an inventory of virtual machines.
Wednesday 1 April 2009, 5:08 PM
Rackable puts $25m offer in for SGI
On Wednesday, the storage supplier Rackable Systems surprised many people with the announcement that it wanted to buy the assets of Silicon Graphics International (SGI) for $25m (£17.3m).
One reason for the surprise was that also on Wednesday, SGI filed for bankruptcy protection with debts of $526.5m on assets of $390.5m.
A company spokesperson for Rackable said that an offer had been made and now it will wait for some details to be cleared up before any deal can be finalised. In a statement Rackable said any deal was "subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, plus the assumption of certain liabilities associated with the acquired assets" or as the spokesperson put it, "some whatnot".
The spokesperson also told ZDNet UK that it was expected that the sale of SGI's assets would be completed within 60 days.
According to Reuters, SGI's operations would be part of any sale but would not be part of the bankruptcy process.
SGI had only just emerged from a previous Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2006. That experience was blamed on declining revenue and increased competition.
For its part, Rackable said that it had suspended its previously announced plan to repurchase of up to $40m of its own stock.
One reason for the surprise was that also on Wednesday, SGI filed for bankruptcy protection with debts of $526.5m on assets of $390.5m.
A company spokesperson for Rackable said that an offer had been made and now it will wait for some details to be cleared up before any deal can be finalised. In a statement Rackable said any deal was "subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, plus the assumption of certain liabilities associated with the acquired assets" or as the spokesperson put it, "some whatnot".
The spokesperson also told ZDNet UK that it was expected that the sale of SGI's assets would be completed within 60 days.
According to Reuters, SGI's operations would be part of any sale but would not be part of the bankruptcy process.
SGI had only just emerged from a previous Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2006. That experience was blamed on declining revenue and increased competition.
For its part, Rackable said that it had suspended its previously announced plan to repurchase of up to $40m of its own stock.
Tuesday 31 March 2009, 4:50 PM
ERP suppliers are slow to adopt SaaS, says Gartner
Just about everybody is agreed that software-as-a-service (SaaS) is being adopted quickly but, according to the analysts Gartner, some are decidedly quicker than others.
In a survey conducted recently, Gartner looked at three European countries, the UK, Germany and France and looked at different applications running SaaS, including CRM and ERP which, appears to have made little headway in the field.
The survey found that companies in France and the UK "are significantly ahead of those in Germany in terms of SaaS adoption", Gartner said in a statement. However, Gartner also said that the responses from German organisations suggested "that the difference in adoption levels will shrink if users follow through on their plans for SaaS adoption in 2009".
In terms of the number of companies using SaaS, 71 percent of those surveyed said that their organisations were currently using SaaS applications. The level in the UK was only slight below at 68 percent.
Only 45 percent in Germany said they were using software.
The survey also looked at actual levels of SaaS use compared with the number of employees an organisation could have using SaaS. The results showed that higher levels of usage and adoption were in France.
The survey findings on the length of time that SaaS applications have been in use across the three countries showed that France has a slight lead in terms of adoption. Only 4 per cent of French respondents said that they had used SaaS applications for less than a year, compared with 17 per cent in the UK and 21 per cent in Germany.
Gartner said that it has been "a traditional assumption" that the UK is more advanced in the adoption of SaaS than France and Germany and so it was revealing that this metric showed that the opposite was true, said Gartner.
“We believe that North American vendors have enjoyed greater success in the UK because less effort is required to localise products and sales and marketing strategies,” said Chris Pang, research analyst at Gartner.
The companies that have been most successful in driving through adoption of SaaS are Salesforce.com and RightNow Technology, Pang said. "They typify the reason why companies are able to success in SaaS," said Pang. "The most successful applications are easy to deploy and to deploy many times with more or less the same software."
For the same reason, ERP vendors have struggled to be successful in SaaS, said Pang. "They run very complex applications with lots of different parts of the software that need a lot of changes and adapting before you will get the software to run in quantity," Pang told ZDNet UK.
"Look at an application like WebEx, there is not a lot of customisation required so it has been a success," said Pang.
SUPPLEMENT ON ERP AND IDC:
On Wednesday (the say after writing the blog) this came in from IDC:
"A recent IDC survey in Western Europe shows that 2009 spending on ERP applications will be strongly impacted by the current economic crisis. 21 percent of all respondents said their ERP spend would be lower or much lower in 2009 than in 2008. France will be particularly hard hit, but the Nordics and Germany will feel less of an impact. A closer look at ERP spending plans also shows that larger enterprises with more than 2,500 employees will be most vulnerable to ERP spending cutbacks.
"On a more positive note, respondents hinted at increased average spending in 2009 for all other software categories, including security software, storage software, databases, systems management, and systems software. This confirms IDC's view that infrastructure software spend will be the most resilient to macroeconomic fluctuations. There are also clear indications that CRM applications will see increased spending in 2009.
"IT cost reduction was the most popular IT priority for 2009, selected by 23 percent of all respondents. However, this implies that 77 percent of all respondents had other IT priorities besides cost, including IT security, support of new business requirements, IT infrastructure consolidation, and business applications, each of which were selected by at least 10 percent of all respondents."
In a survey conducted recently, Gartner looked at three European countries, the UK, Germany and France and looked at different applications running SaaS, including CRM and ERP which, appears to have made little headway in the field.
The survey found that companies in France and the UK "are significantly ahead of those in Germany in terms of SaaS adoption", Gartner said in a statement. However, Gartner also said that the responses from German organisations suggested "that the difference in adoption levels will shrink if users follow through on their plans for SaaS adoption in 2009".
In terms of the number of companies using SaaS, 71 percent of those surveyed said that their organisations were currently using SaaS applications. The level in the UK was only slight below at 68 percent.
Only 45 percent in Germany said they were using software.
The survey also looked at actual levels of SaaS use compared with the number of employees an organisation could have using SaaS. The results showed that higher levels of usage and adoption were in France.
The survey findings on the length of time that SaaS applications have been in use across the three countries showed that France has a slight lead in terms of adoption. Only 4 per cent of French respondents said that they had used SaaS applications for less than a year, compared with 17 per cent in the UK and 21 per cent in Germany.
Gartner said that it has been "a traditional assumption" that the UK is more advanced in the adoption of SaaS than France and Germany and so it was revealing that this metric showed that the opposite was true, said Gartner.
“We believe that North American vendors have enjoyed greater success in the UK because less effort is required to localise products and sales and marketing strategies,” said Chris Pang, research analyst at Gartner.
The companies that have been most successful in driving through adoption of SaaS are Salesforce.com and RightNow Technology, Pang said. "They typify the reason why companies are able to success in SaaS," said Pang. "The most successful applications are easy to deploy and to deploy many times with more or less the same software."
For the same reason, ERP vendors have struggled to be successful in SaaS, said Pang. "They run very complex applications with lots of different parts of the software that need a lot of changes and adapting before you will get the software to run in quantity," Pang told ZDNet UK.
"Look at an application like WebEx, there is not a lot of customisation required so it has been a success," said Pang.
SUPPLEMENT ON ERP AND IDC:
On Wednesday (the say after writing the blog) this came in from IDC:
"A recent IDC survey in Western Europe shows that 2009 spending on ERP applications will be strongly impacted by the current economic crisis. 21 percent of all respondents said their ERP spend would be lower or much lower in 2009 than in 2008. France will be particularly hard hit, but the Nordics and Germany will feel less of an impact. A closer look at ERP spending plans also shows that larger enterprises with more than 2,500 employees will be most vulnerable to ERP spending cutbacks.
"On a more positive note, respondents hinted at increased average spending in 2009 for all other software categories, including security software, storage software, databases, systems management, and systems software. This confirms IDC's view that infrastructure software spend will be the most resilient to macroeconomic fluctuations. There are also clear indications that CRM applications will see increased spending in 2009.
"IT cost reduction was the most popular IT priority for 2009, selected by 23 percent of all respondents. However, this implies that 77 percent of all respondents had other IT priorities besides cost, including IT security, support of new business requirements, IT infrastructure consolidation, and business applications, each of which were selected by at least 10 percent of all respondents."
Friday 20 March 2009, 4:53 PM
Samsung ships fast 2Gb DDR3 memory
The South Korean company, Samsung Electronics said on Thursday it had begun shipping what it claimed were the first high-density, 2Gb DDR3 memory modules using 50nm technology.
Designed for use in servers, the range available, include a 16GB inline memory module and an 8GB registered dual inline memory module (RDIMM). Last year, Samsung used 50nm technology in 2Gb DDR3 module in PC applications.
DDR3 RAM memory is technically known as double data rate three, dynamic random access memory and is used in storage applications that require a high-bandwidth so that they can operate more quickly.
Part of the synchronous dynamic random access (SDRAM) family of chip technologies DDR3 is an improvement over its predecessor SDDRAM 2 as it can transfer twice the data rate so that the memory bus is faster and it supports higher peak rates.
However, even as the performance of memory continues to improve the semiconductor market is having a difficult time because the price of DRAM is falling. According to the analysts, Gartner, the industry is facing a consecutive decline in annual revenues for the first time in its history.
Worldwide semiconductor revenue for 2009 is forecast to total $219.2bn (£142.7bn) — a 16.3 percent decline from 2008 revenue, Gartner said in December. The decline between 2007 and 2008 was 4.4 percent.
"This market was originally forecast to do a modest loss and then revenues fell off a cliff," said Andrew Norwood, a research vice president at Gartner at that time. "Next year, we get the full brunt of the downturn."
Designed for use in servers, the range available, include a 16GB inline memory module and an 8GB registered dual inline memory module (RDIMM). Last year, Samsung used 50nm technology in 2Gb DDR3 module in PC applications.
DDR3 RAM memory is technically known as double data rate three, dynamic random access memory and is used in storage applications that require a high-bandwidth so that they can operate more quickly.
Part of the synchronous dynamic random access (SDRAM) family of chip technologies DDR3 is an improvement over its predecessor SDDRAM 2 as it can transfer twice the data rate so that the memory bus is faster and it supports higher peak rates.
However, even as the performance of memory continues to improve the semiconductor market is having a difficult time because the price of DRAM is falling. According to the analysts, Gartner, the industry is facing a consecutive decline in annual revenues for the first time in its history.
Worldwide semiconductor revenue for 2009 is forecast to total $219.2bn (£142.7bn) — a 16.3 percent decline from 2008 revenue, Gartner said in December. The decline between 2007 and 2008 was 4.4 percent.
"This market was originally forecast to do a modest loss and then revenues fell off a cliff," said Andrew Norwood, a research vice president at Gartner at that time. "Next year, we get the full brunt of the downturn."
Wednesday 18 March 2009, 4:10 PM
Autonomy begins integration of Interwoven
On Tuesday, Cambridge-based infrastructure software company Autonomy completed the purchase of Interwoven, the US content management company.
The sale was due to be completed for £560m. The acquisition is intended to marry Autonomy's strength in enterprise search with Interwoven's skills in web-content management. The combined customer base is more than 20,000.
Autonomy immediately went to work when it said that on Thursday it would be ready to announce its first product that would integrate software from the two companies. However, the company would not release any details ahead of time.
As a result of the acquisition, Anthony Bettencourt, who formerly was chief executive of Verity when it was bought by Autonomy, will be chief executive of the Interwoven part of the joint company, Autonomy Interwoven.
Joe Cowan, who was chief executive of Interwoven, will now be part of the group management working for Dr Michael Lynch, OBE, Autonomy's founder and chief executive.
Lynch commented that, "with the addition of Interwoven to the Autonomy group, the intelligence of Autonomy's Idol technology can be used to extend Interwoven's web content capabilities across 100,000 corporate websites, intranets and extranets already powered by Interwoven".
Autonomy's Idol software is one element of Autonomy's plans to expand its market share of the regulatory, legal and compliance market. Idol, or 'intelligent data operating layer', is part of Autonomy's infrastructure software, which helps organisations automate the analysis of their information.
The sale was due to be completed for £560m. The acquisition is intended to marry Autonomy's strength in enterprise search with Interwoven's skills in web-content management. The combined customer base is more than 20,000.
Autonomy immediately went to work when it said that on Thursday it would be ready to announce its first product that would integrate software from the two companies. However, the company would not release any details ahead of time.
As a result of the acquisition, Anthony Bettencourt, who formerly was chief executive of Verity when it was bought by Autonomy, will be chief executive of the Interwoven part of the joint company, Autonomy Interwoven.
Joe Cowan, who was chief executive of Interwoven, will now be part of the group management working for Dr Michael Lynch, OBE, Autonomy's founder and chief executive.
Lynch commented that, "with the addition of Interwoven to the Autonomy group, the intelligence of Autonomy's Idol technology can be used to extend Interwoven's web content capabilities across 100,000 corporate websites, intranets and extranets already powered by Interwoven".
Autonomy's Idol software is one element of Autonomy's plans to expand its market share of the regulatory, legal and compliance market. Idol, or 'intelligent data operating layer', is part of Autonomy's infrastructure software, which helps organisations automate the analysis of their information.
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