SapphireNow Day One – Getting Virtual Events Right, And More

I got some great messages today from people who enjoyed my tweets “from” SapphireNow in Orlando – although I wasn’t there. That’s a tribute – not to me; we’re only talking tweets, for goodness’ sake – to SAP for pulling off a two-continent, video-streaming, full-on collaborative event I was able to participate in meaningfully fromContinue reading “SapphireNow Day One – Getting Virtual Events Right, And More”

Sybase Database Value to SAP – Long Term and Short

It’s not what you think – the hidden jewel for the near term may just be SQL Anywhere. Read on. Disclosure: I worked at Sybase in the last millennium, when it hit the wall at $1B the first time and bounced. Over the next few years, Oracle dramatically outdistanced itself, in large part, as itContinue reading “Sybase Database Value to SAP – Long Term and Short”

SAP – Sybase: Synergies? Suspect So.

SAP announced today that it will acquire Sybase for $65.00 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $5.8 billion. The announcement says that “customers will be able to better harness today’s explosion of data and deliver information and insight in real time to business consumers wherever they work so they can make faster, moreContinue reading “SAP – Sybase: Synergies? Suspect So.”

New TPC-H Record – Virtualized by ParAccel, VMware

You can set performance records in a virtualized environment – that’s the message of the new 1 Tb TPC-H benchmark record (scroll down to see the 1Tb results) just released by ParAccel and VMware. Running on VMware’s vSphere 4, the ParAccel Analytic Database (PADB) delivered a one-two punch: not only the top performance number forContinue reading “New TPC-H Record – Virtualized by ParAccel, VMware”

RainStor Adds Funding, Investors, Readies Nearline Archive Rampup

RainStor, a firm I discussed as Clearpace in a June 2009 post, had some very good news this week.  $7.5 million in Series B funding came in from Informatica, Storm Ventures and its previous investors Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures and The Dow Chemical Company. RainStor plans to “use the funding to expand into new markets,Continue reading “RainStor Adds Funding, Investors, Readies Nearline Archive Rampup”

Programmers: Pervasive’s Parallelization Provides Punch, Profit

After 27 years of steady growth, Austin, Texas-based Pervasive (PVSW) has become a $47M annual run rate software provider. Its portfolio includes a “zero admin, light footprint database” (the former BTrieve, now PervasiveSQL), data integration software (for SaaS and on premises applications), and data synchronization products for such apps as salesforce.com, Quickbooks and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. In 2009, it began leveragingContinue reading “Programmers: Pervasive’s Parallelization Provides Punch, Profit”

Microsoft and HP Announce New Application-to-Infrastructure Model/Partnership [Yawn]

(Co-authored with Charles King of PUND-IT, Inc.) Microsoft and HP announced a new investment of $250M into their Frontline Partnership, designed to deliver integrated stacks supporting applications from Microsoft’s Exchange and SQL Server and beyond into the cloud. As part of this effort, the companies plan to deliver solutions built on what they defined asContinue reading “Microsoft and HP Announce New Application-to-Infrastructure Model/Partnership [Yawn]”

Sybase Will Step Up In-Memory Message With New Release

Sybase has quietly racked up a string of successful growth years, riding its pioneering status in commercial analytic databases (ADBMS) and holding on to its loyal base in everyday DBMS after being elbowed aside by Oracle a decade ago. Its steady market performance has not been driven by dramatic innovations: Sybase has seemed to lag the Big Three (Oracle,Continue reading “Sybase Will Step Up In-Memory Message With New Release”

Additional Caveats Obscure Oracle’s TPC Benchmark

Since my piece on Oracle’s recent TPC-C was posted, interesting emails have pointed me to additional price/performance data, and I thought I’d offer a bit of that to my readers. One of the more interesting came from the admittedly biased Conor O’Mahony, a DB2 product manager for IBM. In his blog, Conor points out some interestingContinue reading “Additional Caveats Obscure Oracle’s TPC Benchmark”

Oracle’s TPC Assertions Don’t Help Its Credibility

Oracle has been making much of its recent benchmark results. Its new TPC campaign may backfire, however; its deceptive assertions do it no credit, and obscure some interesting technical advances (such as its first use of flash technology) behind mislabeling and deliberate omission of important facts. The “benchmark wars” are far less active than theyContinue reading “Oracle’s TPC Assertions Don’t Help Its Credibility”