Oracle Done With Sun. Are Chips Next?

Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) last week reported a strong quarter that beat analyst estimates. Increased spending on cloud computing by companies in many industries has been beneficial to Oracle, which entered the more difficult server business with its acquisition of Sun. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Informatica An Even More Attractive Target For Oracle

The data integration market is attracting big-name players. Last year, Dell acquired Boomi, a SaaS integration leader, and IBM acquired Cast Iron, a cloud computing integration company. Although Oracle hasn’t made any purchases recently, the market remains abuzz with rumors that Informatica may be at the top of its list. As I have mentioned earlier, this would be a move that would benefit Oracle significantly by helping it build on its in-house data quality, profiling, or metadata solutions.

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Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Judy Spitz, CIO of Verizon (Part 8)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: Let’s explore these from an organizational standpoint. In your organization, in the business units or functional units that interface with the IT organization, what is their thinking on these kinds of cloud-related issues? What is the perspective of your CMO or your head of customer support? What is the thought leadership partnership within your organization on these kinds of topics? >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Judy Spitz, CIO of Verizon (Part 7)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: There is one thing I want to share related to what we discussed just now about social Web trends so that we can get the large enterprise perspective. Here is a scenario. We often have this experience: Right now our lives are so electronics-dependent right? Electronics-, equipment-, and gadgets-dependent, and I am sure that Verizon, being a telecom company, receives a ton of phone calls from customers on how to configure some of these pieces of equipment. Whether it is a router sitting in a small business office or a bunch of smart phones that you are hooking up to your customer base, whatever it is. There are a lot of customer technical support configuration calls, and at some level I feel that the social Web is a good place to tackle some of these calls. As an executive at a large enterprise, what are your thoughts on this trend? >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Judy Spitz, CIO of Verizon (Part 6)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: Given the strategy you have followed thus far, what have you been able to accomplish from a cost reduction point of view?

JS: Let me answer the question this way. Say in terms of applications that have flexible or volatile demand, which includes several of the ones I have mentioned, the cost structure is very favorable. I will add to that mix those applications that have a limited time demand. What I mean by that is an application that you might want to set up temporarily, or say you are prototyping or piloting, and you are bringing up the application for n number of weeks or months as opposed to applications that may stay up for years. Those are all proving to be significantly cheaper for us to run in a cloud environment. I’m not going to provide you with dollars and cents, and it wouldn’t [be] applicable, because again you have to understand that our cost structure is highly efficient. We have virtualized a lot of our data centers and applications, and we have probably some the best pricing on enterprise licensing agreements with software vendors as anyone. So, we have set the bar, and the bar is pretty high for a company like ours. There are others, financial institutions and such, that run these kinds of big environments, too. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Judy Spitz, CIO of Verizon (Part 5)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: What applications have you moved to the cloud? You have described the principle of which applications you are moving. Would you give me examples of those that fit that model? >>>

Talent Management Leans Toward Learning

The year 2010 saw a great deal of M&A activity in the talent management sector as Taleo (NASDAQ:TLEO) acquired Learn.com; SuccessFactors (NASDAQ:SFSF) acquired CubeTree, Inform, and YouCalc; and Kennexa acquired Salary.com. That trend looks set to continue this year: Taleo already announced an acquisition and Learn.com’s rival GeoLearning was acquired by talent management vendor SumTotal Systems. GeoLearning was a close partner for SuccessFactors, and this acquisition forces the latter to consider an acquisition in the space.

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1M/1M: Cloud Computing Module Of The Curriculum Is Ready

Entrepreneurs, the Cloud Computing module of the 1M/1M curriculum is also ready. In my opinion, this is an area that you can build some exciting companies in, and it is also possible to bootstrap ventures. The module, as usual, contains video lectures and case studies, as well as a discussion of major trends and blue-sky opportunities.

You can access it on the 1M/1M site, here.