Beware if you’re shopping at a Safeway and attempt to exit with a shopping cart – you may get a severely bruised shin. Or worse, if you’re older with fragile bones. Most likely you can avoid the problem if you don’t patronize the Starbucks counter. (I’m sure Starbucks will be happy to hear that.) ExpectContinue reading “Safeway Bushwhacks Its Customers, Laughs It Off”
Author Archives: Merv Adrian
EMC Buys Greenplum – Big Data Realignment Continues
EMC’s acquisition of Greenplum, announced today as a cash transaction, reaffirms the obvious: the Big Data tsunami upends conventional wisdom. It has already reshaped the market, spawning the most ferment in the RDBMS (and non-R DBMS via the noSQL players) space in years. When I first posted on Greenplum over a year ago, I saidContinue reading “EMC Buys Greenplum – Big Data Realignment Continues”
Sybase SQL Anywhere 12 Extends Mobile Leadership
In my coverage of SAP’s Sybase acquisition, I noted that SQL Anywhere is a best kept secret among more than 20,000 developers who relish its ease of embedding and minimal database administration. Now Sybase is about to release its next version, SQL Anywhere 12, with ambitions to add to its claimed ten million users worldwideContinue reading “Sybase SQL Anywhere 12 Extends Mobile Leadership”
Migrate From Mainframe? To What?
From Joe Clabby, http://www.clabbyanalytics.com Gartner, the industry’s preeminent information technology (IT) research and analysis firm, has published several reports and case studies over the past few years that promote the idea that IT buyers should migrate their applications off of mainframes and move them to other, more “modern platforms”. Part of Gartner’s logic, it appears,Continue reading “Migrate From Mainframe? To What?”
The Mainframe Skills Shortage Urban Myth
Contributed by Joe Clabby (www.clabbyanalytics.com) In this CounterOpinion, we challenge the advice and opinions of the Gartner Group, a well-known and highly respected IT research and analysis firm, on the subject of IBM System z (mainframe) migration. In March, 2007, Gartner put forward research suggesting that, due to the aging of the current generation ofContinue reading “The Mainframe Skills Shortage Urban Myth”
Microsoft TechEd vs. Apple’s WWDC: Why Apple Won
By Rob Enderle, Enderle Group If you match Apple’s resources against Microsoft’s you see a huge imbalance. Microsoft earns more revenues, generates more cash, and its power is heavily leveraged through massive partnerships with PC and Server OEMs and service providers. Apple is a product company whose power is offset by its partnership with AT&T. Continue reading “Microsoft TechEd vs. Apple’s WWDC: Why Apple Won”
Microsoft STB’s Cloud Vision: Rashomon in Reverse
By Charles King, Pund-IT, Inc. On the surface, Akiro Kurosawa’s classic film Rashomon (based on the short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa) qualifies as a conventional police procedural, set in 19th century Japan. While traveling to their home, a samurai and his wife are confronted by a bandit, who rapes the wife and murders the husband.Continue reading “Microsoft STB’s Cloud Vision: Rashomon in Reverse”
Microsoft Murky on Cloud Licensing
By Laura DiDio, ITIC Microsoft did a very credible job at its TechEd conference in New Orleans last week, laying out the technology roadmap and strategy for a smooth transition from premises-based networks/services to its emerging Azure cloud infrastructure and software + services model. One of the biggest challenges facing Microsoft and its customers asContinue reading “Microsoft Murky on Cloud Licensing”
Just a Glimpse of Windows Phone 7
Roger Kay examines Microsoft’s much-needed new smartphone OS play. I’m delighted to welcome Roger to the blog. Next Iteration of Microsoft’s Mobile Platform Connects Well with Backend Services The much-missing Microsoft mobile effort was on display for a brief flash — which you could easily have missed if you sneezed at the wrong moment —Continue reading “Just a Glimpse of Windows Phone 7”
Microsoft’s Parallel DW – Still Waiting
Microsoft’s SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) has been eagerly awaited for a long time. It still is. Though much of the news at the BI Conference running in parallel with TechEd in New Orleans (discussed here) was generally quite good, the PDW story was much less so. It’s late, and it’s not all there.