Chuck Hollis scares me. If you aren’t a regular reader of his blog you’re missing out. He has a deceptively disarming way of painting the picture of technoloy’s future that makes you feel better about the coming apocalypse. Chuck just put out a series of great posts on The Changing Face of Information.  He posts often on VMWare and virtualization in general and for the series he included this post where he argues that virtualization reduces friction in IT delivery.  It makes me wonder, with no friction - how do you hold on to it. Or better - how do you hold on to IT. (more…)

Last Thursday, EMC announced it acquired PI Corp. Like many of you I had never heard about PI. But I really like naming conventions. Many of you missed the one from last week’s post that still makes me laugh. Alchemy was a science that failed in its attempt to turn ordinary metals into gold. PI makes me think of a number that goes on and on forever.

The PI site reminds me of Relevance, Documentum $3.65M acquisition in 1998. (more…)

Sometime between the age 30 and 45 men loose their minds. It’s called a mid-life crisis. You go to your high school reunion compare yourself to the jocks, cheerleaders and geeks you went to school with and take stock of your life. The old joke is that you hit this phase and get a new wife, a new car and a new job. Congratulations Microsoft - at 33 you’ve hit your crisis.

I can’t help but think that Microsoft took a good look at Apple and decided to start dating again. (more…)

This week’s announcement from Microsoft that they will be giving away developer software free to students and the BLOG posts on the topic, left me with two very different opinions I wanted to share.   

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Well looks like SDL did it again. Today they announced the acquisition of Idiom Technologies for $22m. This comes not even 2 1/2 years after they acquired Trados for $60m. If you’re wondering who they are and why you should care - they were the three market leaders in translation management and now there’s no contender in site.

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I commented some weeks ago on the possible role that EMC, Oracle and SAP might play in the search vendor acquisition game currently playing out. The question on the table in the thread was whether or not Autonomy would remain autonomous. Now we learn that SAP and Intel have invested a total of $15 million in search vendor Endeca. The deal doesn’t suggest that they are looking to buy a search engine to replace Trex but rather enhance the specialized search capabilities. This ultimately may say something about their strategy for a particular vertical market.

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When all is said and done, I wonder if organized labor could be the ultimate beneficiary of  IBM’s recent decision to settle the overtime lawsuit. In the settlement, 8 thousand workers were reclassified as non-exempt and made eligible for overtime but were immediately given a 15% pay cut so that expenses wouldn’t change. This certainly falls under the category of “be careful what you ask for.” With a possible economic slowdown looming and the potential for reduced career mobility, will more workers seek representation in retaliation?

In a post from October Alan Pelz-Sharp lamented over the ECM SaaS Dilemma. While his points on technical integration issues are well founded - there is a dimension of the issue that API’s and architecture don’t directly address.

In ages past I was responsible for evaluating content management solutions for a Fortune 50. In the role I would often be approached by business units that had found a hosted content management or collaboration solution tailored to their specific business need. (hosted is what we used to call it - yes - I know the difference) Even armed with an enterprise license of Documentum and eRoom, it was difficult and often impossible to compete with point solutions marketed to very narrow business requirements.

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