Siebel’s doing just fine

Well founder Tom Siebel is anyway. According to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Tom earns 7,538 times as much as the average American worker, whilst presiding over a company whose share price has dropped 90% from its peak. Apparently Mr Siebel’s attempt to sidestep uncomfortable questions on this subject, by conducting the AGM online, thereby denying any interaction, was not well received by shareholders.

Tectonic activity in EA marketplace

Upheaval on a geological scale is taking place in the enterprise application marketplace. Peoplesoft is planning to buy JD Edwards. Both sides appear happy. Oracle has decided to buy Peoplesoft. Peoplesoft and JDE are not happy. Nor is credit ratings agency Moody’s for that matter. SAP seeing its rivals lose their customer focus has decided to capitalise on this chaos by launching a charm offensive to lure away anxious clients.

Microsoft anti-virus alert

The ubiquity of Microsoft’s software products has made it the ideal target for virus makers. The lack of ‘techno diversity’ coupled with Microsoft’s security philosophy has accelerated the spread of viruses and consequently the associated anti-virus marketplace. Rather than address its security shortcomings, Microsoft has decided to attack the problem by buying its own anti-virus company, GeCAD of Romania. This has worrying consequences. Microsoft could kill the anti-virus market in one fell swoop, should it decide to embed the newfound technology into its Windows platform. This would fit in with its migration from cash (sell a product) to cash streams (sell a service). Are McAfee and Norton the new Netscapes.

Sun to dumb down Java

So you think you understand what Sun Microsystems is up to in respect of Java, its platform independent programming language? Today we have J2ME, J2EE, J2SE, EJB, Applets, Servlets, Beans, JSP 220 and Swing. This isn’t going to help Sun turn Java into a household brand such as Intel (remember the ‘Intel inside’ logo). To simplify matters this acronym soup will be replaced by simply ‘One Java’. Sun also plans to make Java simpler to widen its appeal. I don’t think it will be too long before we see new terms such as J4PP (Java for pseudo programmers) and J4K (Java for kids).

Management by annual email

Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer recently fired off his annual ‘state of the union’ email to the staff worldwide. It flagged the danger of Linux and open source software. This had a seismic affect on the market, sending Linux vendors’ (Red Hat and VA Software) shares north and Microsoft’s south. Interestingly Mr Balmer chose to release the email after he had sold $1bn worth of shares. On the basis that he had privileged information in that he knew he was going to send a ‘stock depressing’ email, could this be construed as insider trading?

Clash of the titans

IBM emboldened by its number one ranking in the database marketplace has decided to drive home that advantage by pursuing Microsoft in the SME (small and medium sized enterprise) database arena. This is a marketplace that Microsoft effectively owns. Of particular note is that the new product DB2 Express is written for Intel-based servers and optimised for Windows and Linux. This is part of a trend in which major technology suppliers are looking for ways to conquer the SME marketplace. Those that own the SME relationships will be well placed to exploit this current imbalance.

Palm reunited

Handheld computer maker Palm looks set to grab rival Handspring (Hamstrung?), which was formed by a group of disenchanted Palm employees. It is likely that the general ‘nose diving’ of the palm top marketplace in favour of mobile phone technology has had the effect of re-enchanting the Palm alumni.