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Oracle, Salesforce and the Brewing Cloud Wars


Ejected from Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) Open World. An impromptu gathering at a nearby restaurant. Fulsome explanations from PR flacks and tweets galore. The relations between Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) chief Marc Benioff went from wary and grudging mutual admiration, to red hot rhetoric. How red hot? Well, for starters, Ellison referred to Salesforce.com as the "roach motel" of cloud services this week.
Not that Benioff made out badly. He was reportedly willing to pay US$1 million for the chance to deliver the OpenWorld keynote. He'll get that back -- plus all the free publicity he could ask for.
The two sides appear more than eager to give their spin on the keynote kerfuffle to any and all who will listen -- although neither company was able to produce a spokesperson to talk to the E-Commerce Times about its cloud computing services for this story.
Which is, after all, what the whole circus was really about: Oracle is encroaching on Salesforce.com's turf with its own public cloud service. Competition is seriously ramping up.
"It is important to recognize that Oracle Public Cloud is still very early -- and like any version 1.0 product, there is reason for customers to be cautious, Nucleus Research Vice President Rebecca Wettemann told the E-Commerce Times.
"However, the real winners are customers that now have more choices," she said.

A Look at Public Cloud

Oracle Public Cloud, as described by Ellison, provides customers access to Oracle Fusion Applications, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Database, all of which are managed, hosted and supported by Oracle.
Its cloud offering, which runs on Oracle systems, also includes Oracle Fusion CRM, HCM, Social Network, Java and Oracle Database Cloud service. In short, it offers several different business applications via the cloud.

The Drawbacks of Multitenancy

It is positioned as the answer for customers that do not like the drawbacks of multitenant Software as a Service applications.
"Virtualization is an effective approach -- one that Oracle is good at -- and Oracle is clearly taking advantage of that," said Wettemann.
Salesforce.com, for its part, put a stake in the ground years ago with its firm belief in the value of multitenancy, although lately it has relaxed its stance. Earlier this year, it announced a new Database.com Data Residency option that lets companies keep readable versions of data on premises.

A Java Shop

Other considerations that prospective users should factor in are the advantages and disadvantages of using a Java-based system versus a proprietary one, said Wettemann, and whether a company will need the myriad business applications Oracle has available.
Whether the system is Java-based or proprietary, in particular, will be an important distinction for a lot of customers, she said. "Certainly it raises questions about vendor lock-in."

The Hybrid Model

Oracle is also pushing its hybrid approach to computing -- that is, the ability to move users and workloads from the enterprise to the cloud and back seamlessly, noted Muneer Taskar, head of Persistent's cloud computing practice.
"This is ideal for customers that want to either test out the cloud or want to use the cloud in a limited manner," he told the E-Commerce Times.
However, only a small subset of users would be interested in this functionality, Wettemann pointed out.

Who's the Most Reliable?

Both vendors promise reliability, but this is a no-contest question, according to Taskar. "It is too early in the game to be able to speak to Oracle's reliability, whereas Salesforce is a proven platform -- multiple times over."

CRM vs. Oracle DB

Then there is the matter of a CRM-focused approach versus an ERP, database-oriented one.
"When [you] look at Oracle, you have hundreds of different modules for all areas of the business. Salesforce.com is more CRM and custom-app focused," Wettemann observed.
Here Oracle is the hands-down winner, said Taskar -- that is, if you want an Oracle DB and allied enterprise services in the cloud.
"That makes sense for enterprises that already have Oracle products installed. Salesforce has focused on the social enterprise and has the framework built in for feeds, sharing, collaboration and APIs to enable consumption via external app. Oracle has yet to elaborate on social networking support."

Opposite Directions, Same Goal

Basically, Oracle and Salesforce are heading to the same destination, Taskar concluded, but they are coming from opposite directions -- with completely different features to boot.
"Salesforce.com has been wildly successful with its flagship CRM product," he said. "With that success it is safe to say that they understand the cloud, and particularly SaaS, better than anyone else. This is Salesforce.com's edge. What remains to be seen is whether they can capitalize on this edge and replicate the success they have had in CRM as enterprises move other pieces of their IT pie to the cloud."
Oracle, on the other hand, is taking its success in enterprise IT -- and in some cases, complete dominance -- and trying to replicate it in the cloud, continued Taskar.
"The technology Oracle is moving to the cloud is already proven," he maintained, "and more importantly, widely entrenched. Not having to learn, or do, anything new or proprietary is a powerful pro in enterprise IT decision making, and this will work in Oracle's favor."

iPhone 4S cues up iOS 5, holds back iPod touch 5, iPod classic death

The good news regarding Apple’s decision to go with an iPhone 4S this month instead of finding a way to get an iPhone 5 to market in 2011 is that it hasn’t held up the launch of iOS 5. The operating system which should have come with the fifth generation iPhone has instead become a part of the iPhone 4S generation, including all of its features previewed in June along with the new Siri voice assistant feature. The bad news, at least for those who still care about the iPod, is that the entire iPod lineup appears to have been punted back by a year as a result. If there was to be an iPod touch 5 it likely would have mirrored the new hardware styling of the iPhone 5. Instead Apple has left the existing iPod touch 4 in place, spec for spec and feature for feature, with the singular exception of launching a white model. That move has in turn left the iPod touch stranded at a sixty-four gigabyte ceiling capacity (interestingly, now finally on par with the iPhone 4S and its new 64 GB ceiling), meaning that the iPod classic gets to live on another year. And there’s other fallout to the Apple lineup as well…


If it’s to be assumed that Apple product launches have been on the backburner of late as the company has had to deal with the transition to Tim Cook as CEO even as Steve Jobs was living out what Apple appears to now have known were his final days, then the company can be forgiven for serving up the iPhone 4S and very little else this month. But it’s worth pointing out that most Septembers have come with a full revamp of the iPod lineup, and this is the first year in half a decade that hasn’t happened. The iPod touch remains the same product. The iPod classic didn’t go away as a result, with its hundred and something gigabyte hard drive capacity the only reason it’s still on the market. The iPod nano, which was completely revamped last year, didn’t even get Apple’s usual off-year treatment in which the nano has traditionally seen cosmetic hardware changes in the years in which it wasn’t fully revamped. The iPod shuffle now enters its second identical year. Apple TV saw no hardware updates of any kind, a year after having seen its biggest (or smallest, based on physical shrinkage) revision to date. The iPad 3 or iPad 2S, which some expected would be spring in time for Christmas so the iPad could be positioned as a “new” generation heading into the holidays, never got a mention. Now it’s up to the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 to carry Apple’s momentum through at least the next season. And that’s actually a lot…


Siri voice recognition alone will sell a good number of iPhone 4S units, even to those who are upgrading from an identical-looking iPhone 4. Additionally, other iOS 5 features which have been extended to older iPhone models like the 4 and 3GS will run more slowly or a limited fashion on the comparatively outdated hardware, leading some to upgrade to a 4S who were quite adamant that they never would. Early iPhone 4S preorder sales figures point to a multitude of people not needing any convincing before buying. Overall, the iOS 5 feature set arguably brings more new major features and makes more fundamental changes to the iPhone experience than iOS 2 through iOS 4 combined. That makes the iPhone 4S, in a software sense, the biggest upgrade in iPhone history. And that’s a wave Apple will now attempt to ride through at least the end of the holidays, before regrouping in early 2012 with whatever comes next. Here’s more on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5.

Who will be the next Steve Jobs?


SAN FRANCISCO - Since the day in 1977 that he introduced the Apple II, the world looked to Steve Jobs for leadership on computing, technology and design.
On Thursday, admirers and competitors alike awoke to a sobering new reality - a world where the oft-asked question "What would Steve do?" was giving gave way to the wistful "What would Steve have done?"
Jobs' death last week at age 56 leaves a void unlikely to be filled by one person, historians and analysts said. The Apple co-founder's ability to envision new markets and seemingly will them into existence was without peer.
"I don't think in the history of the computing business, possibly in American business, there has been someone who was a tastemaker, an evangelist, and a technologist, all at the same level," said Chris Garcia, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
It is not for lack of trying. Any number of forward-thinking technologists are waiting in the wings:
Jeff Bezos continues to expand Amazon.com in sales and ambition, recently unveiling a tablet computer widely expected to become the iPad's first credible challenger for market share.
Mark Zuckerberg is quickly transforming Face-book into the Internet's central hub for connecting people and sharing content, and has recently shown off both improved presentation skills and a stronger focus on product design.
Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin remain consummate Silicon Valley technologists, continually refining the world's best search engine while pursuing left-field innovations in lunar exploration and self-driving automobiles.
Jack Dorsey took on the Jobsian challenge of running two companies at once: Where Jobs had Apple and Pixar, Dorsey has top roles at Twitter and mobile-payments startup Square, both of which have grown rapidly while keeping a sharp focus on product design.
Then there are the deputies Jobs left behind at Apple, from CEO Tim Cook to design chief Jony Ive. With a Jobs-approved product road map that stretches through 2015, analysts say, Apple's days as a taste-maker need not necessarily be behind it. In Jobs' last years at the company, he reportedly instituted an executive training program known as Apple University, designed to instill his values and product sense into every corner of the company. With Jobs now gone, his successors' moves will be watched with even greater scrutiny.
Princess Diana?
Yet even among those running the largest tech companies in the world, no other CEO has managed to capture the public imagination like Jobs did. The global reaction to his death, as measured by the memorials found at Apple Stores around the world on Thursday, has drawn comparisons to the outpouring of grief that followed the death of Princess Diana.
To view him as a mere technology figure likely undervalues his contributions to the world, saidSteve Blank, an entrepreneur and Silicon Valley historian.
"Jobs transcended Silicon Valley in the last five years," said Blank, a lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. "He became the standard by which every CEO in the 21st century will be measured. Forget who's better in Silicon Valley - who was a better corporate CEO at any other company on the planet?"
Blank pointed to Apple's stock price, which increased by more than 400 percent in the past five years, and Jobs' model of continuous revolution inside the company, where new products like the iPhone and iPad were launched even though they ate into sales of iPods and laptop computers.
"There are billions of people who don't even know where Silicon Valley is who know Steve Jobs' name," Blank said. "Ninety percent of the people who are feeling bad right now can't even find Cupertino on a map. Yet his company's market cap is the biggest in the world. What other conversation do we need to have?"
Silicon Valley
And yet while Jobs' loss will be felt around the world, on Thursday it was being felt most acutely at home.
"For Silicon Valley, he has, in many ways, been the star around which we all orbit," Jonathan Schwartz, former CEO of Sun Microsystems, wrote in a tribute to Jobs posted on his blog. "His absence is disorienting. I can't think of a better way of describing it."

Finance ministry to reopen assessments of taxpayers with secret foreign assets



NEW DELHI: The finance ministry is considering reopening assessments of taxpayers found to possessundisclosed foreign assets and bank accounts to up to 16 years as against six years now.
"We are examining allowing opening up of reassessment to up to 16 years to verify older information and establish money trail, it is necessary to have a provision for opening of older assessment," said a finance ministry official.
A government panel on black money has pitched for reopening assessments of such taxpayers as part of the measures to tackle black money. The official explained that such a law will also help the government secure information under its revised tax treaties such as the one with Switzerland.