Live by free software, die by free software.  That’s the message IBM and Yahoo just delivered to Google with a new free, entry-level, enterprise search application that undercuts one of the few things for which Google actually charges money. The Google Mini, an appliance loaded with Google search software starts at $1,995 for 50,000 documents and […]

The Enterprise Irregulars clubhouse is all abuzz these days about SaaS (Software as a Service, aka on-demand, utility, cloud, utility/cloud computing in a multitenant environment, whatever) and whether it will put an end to enterprise computing as we know it.  The consensus among the heavyweight software gurus who gather there is that is that it will, it won’t, […]

It is a truth held to be self-evident among IT professionals:  geeks are from Krypton, suits  are from Uranus.  The antipathy between members of the code is poetry tribe and the non-IT managers for whom they often work is so common and all-prevailing that it has even become a marketing cliche–like the obnoxious propeller head in the CDW commercials who […]

Tim O’Reilly, the tech media titan who gave Web 2.0 its name and defined many of its characteristics in a seminal paper called What is Web 2.0, is peddling a new report called Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices.  The 101-page report was actually written by John Musser of Programmableweb.com, using O’Reilly’s original 5-page paper as […]

When it comes to social networking, sites that target businesspeople are pretty small potatoes.  LinkedIn, the category leader, has 7.8 million members, a respectable niche, but not in the same eyeball league as MySpace or Facebook. 
There are at least a couple of reasons why.  My theory, not entirely original, is that the big consumer sites are not about social networking at […]

Among the toughest tasks that marketers face daily is tracking what is being said about their company or its brands in the media, identifying which of the external voices are most influential and are having the most impact–positively or negatively–and then devising a strategy and specific tactics to influence the influencers. 
None of the existing tools for performing these tasks has proven adequate to the challenge of social media […]

One of the sure signs that there is money to made in a technology sector is when the big sharks start gathering around spots where the little fish have been happily churning up some waves.  
Today’s announcement that uber-shark Oracle has come up with a “new” product called Oracle WebCenter Suite that “uses Web 2.0 technology to create […]

Show me a good corporate environmental citizen and I’ll show you a company that is more concerned about cutting costs or saving money by eliminating waste from its processes than it is about melting Arctic ice floes.  This is not a criticism.  As a motivator of human behavior, short-term payback trumps long-range fear any day of the week.  We all […]

When Jeff Nolan announced his departure from SAP a month or so ago, there was lots of speculation among his extended family of enterprise software colleagues about where he would end up.  The mystery is now solved.  Nolan is the new CEO of a hot little startup called Teqlo, which occupies the fast-growing online application building […]