Barker Bites Back
A look at some newsy stuff and interesting bits as well as those hopefully amusing byways of technology.
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.
Wednesday 18 March 2009, 10:10 AM
IBM could buy Sun Microsystems
Talks are possibly underway for the systems giant IBM to buy Sun Microsystems, according a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in what could be a grab for market share.
However, the WSJ did say that, "it is unclear whether the negotiations will result in a transaction".
The two companies have a common interest in the use of open source, Linux and Java, in the data centre which could free them from being reliant on software from Microsoft.
Any deal would also strengthen IBM as it fights with HP to be the number one in the systems market and in the data centre. HP took the number one spot from IBM when it purchased EDS in 2008.
It is too early in any transaction to know the value of a possible sale of Sun to IBM but the WSJ did suggest that "IBM is likely to pay at least $6.5bm (£4.6bn) in cash to acquire Sun".
This is a time of likely change in data centre strategy by the major companies. Part of this will be as a result of Cisco's move into data centres on Monday. Both IBM and HP will have been working out how to react to Cisco's move into their specialist area and a move by IBM to buy Sun would be a first step.
Tony Lock, an analysts with Freeform Dynamics said that a possible purchase of Sun by IBM would be a "logical move" but that the companies had "very complementary strategies".
However, the WSJ did say that, "it is unclear whether the negotiations will result in a transaction".
The two companies have a common interest in the use of open source, Linux and Java, in the data centre which could free them from being reliant on software from Microsoft.
Any deal would also strengthen IBM as it fights with HP to be the number one in the systems market and in the data centre. HP took the number one spot from IBM when it purchased EDS in 2008.
It is too early in any transaction to know the value of a possible sale of Sun to IBM but the WSJ did suggest that "IBM is likely to pay at least $6.5bm (£4.6bn) in cash to acquire Sun".
This is a time of likely change in data centre strategy by the major companies. Part of this will be as a result of Cisco's move into data centres on Monday. Both IBM and HP will have been working out how to react to Cisco's move into their specialist area and a move by IBM to buy Sun would be a first step.
Tony Lock, an analysts with Freeform Dynamics said that a possible purchase of Sun by IBM would be a "logical move" but that the companies had "very complementary strategies".
Thursday 12 March 2009, 4:53 PM
Juniper offers scalable network options
Juniper Networks on Monday, extended its range of network firewalls with two more options for scaling networks from the mid-range to the largest networks.
Aimed at the data centre but for use in networks from medium scale to high-end, Juniper Networks are intended to keep it ahead of its much bigger rival, Cisco, the company said.
Juniper has a hard task ahead since Cisco is far ahead in all round networking and it is planning a new product launch for Monday, themed, "Unified Computing".
Meanwhile, Juniper's new firewalls the SRX3400 and SRX3600 SRX series, extend the company's SRX3000 line of network and security products for the data centre. Juniper said that the gateway products can lower total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 65 percent but, perhaps more significantly, it said that the arrays need less rack space and can reduce power consumption.
The arrays have different footprints based on the types of services and number of input/output and services processing cards (SPCs) stocked on each array. The idea is that unlike single-purpose security appliances or traditional chassis platforms which will only handle one type of service the SRX Services Gateways can have a range of services at the same time.
The aim, said Juniper's solutions marketing manager for Europe, Gilles Trachsel is to offer a flexible network solution."With others you get one chassis, one network, one service, but with this solution you could have one chassis with multiple networks," he told ZDNet UK.
The idea is flexibility, Trachsel said. When asked how Juniper could compete with the largest company in the market, Cisco, Trachsel said, "They cannot offer the service level we have, and I think we score on network access control (NAC)."
Aimed at the data centre but for use in networks from medium scale to high-end, Juniper Networks are intended to keep it ahead of its much bigger rival, Cisco, the company said.
Juniper has a hard task ahead since Cisco is far ahead in all round networking and it is planning a new product launch for Monday, themed, "Unified Computing".
Meanwhile, Juniper's new firewalls the SRX3400 and SRX3600 SRX series, extend the company's SRX3000 line of network and security products for the data centre. Juniper said that the gateway products can lower total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 65 percent but, perhaps more significantly, it said that the arrays need less rack space and can reduce power consumption.
The arrays have different footprints based on the types of services and number of input/output and services processing cards (SPCs) stocked on each array. The idea is that unlike single-purpose security appliances or traditional chassis platforms which will only handle one type of service the SRX Services Gateways can have a range of services at the same time.
The aim, said Juniper's solutions marketing manager for Europe, Gilles Trachsel is to offer a flexible network solution."With others you get one chassis, one network, one service, but with this solution you could have one chassis with multiple networks," he told ZDNet UK.
The idea is flexibility, Trachsel said. When asked how Juniper could compete with the largest company in the market, Cisco, Trachsel said, "They cannot offer the service level we have, and I think we score on network access control (NAC)."
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