Enterprise software

What's the 'Internet of Everything' worth? $613 billion, Cisco reckons

Cisco Systems wants its customers to know that there is a huge amount of money to be made if they focus their strategy and IT budget on what the company and others call the Internet of Everything.

That's the idea that more than half of the people and 99 percent of the things on the planet are unconnected and that by connecting them and riding the wave of industry transformations, such as smart factories, digital health, mobile collaboration, virtual assistants, and connected commercial vehicles, giant profits will follow.

In other words, the companies that invest in the "connections … Read more

Ready or not, compulsory Creative Cloud cometh

It's been a bumpy few weeks for Adobe since announcing its controversial decision to move all its "perpetual license" Creative Suite applications to a subscription-only plan -- almost 32,000 people have signed a petition against the move and our own survey with Jeffries indicates that "Creative Suite users loathe Adobe's subscriptions" -- but as of Monday night it's officially here.

If you've bought into or opt to buy into the plan, you'll get a host of interesting application updates, settings sync via the cloud, and access to all of Adobe'… Read more

IBM to buy cloud specialist SoftLayer

IBM said Tuesday it is buying SoftLayer Technologies, as the computing giant aims to bolster its cloud computing efforts.

While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal said the acquisition is worth around $2 billion, citing a person familiar with the deal.

IBM will create a new cloud services division within its Global Services unit that will house SoftLayer as a standalone company. It will act as a junction box between other cloud services the company owns.

Big Blue says the acquisition will help it to beef up its ability to integrate public and … Read more

City of Boston drops Microsoft Exchange for Gmail

As Google gears up for its big week in the spotlight, it's making another notch in its business software belt. The city of Boston has decided to switch the e-mail provider of its 20,000 employees from Microsoft to Google, The Boston Globe reported Friday.

In addition to using Gmail instead of Microsoft Exchange, Boston will also swap in Google Docs for word processing and Google's cloud service for storing documents. The city will pay Google about $800,000 for the move but will save around $280,000 a year for dropping the Microsoft products.

Google told the … Read more

Wix: Come for our site builder, stay for Google Apps

The popular Web-site builder Wix has inked a deal with Google to help small business customers install branded Google Apps.

Wix, which lets individuals and businesses build sites in HTML5 via an app market and drag-and-drop editor, announced Thursday that its partnership with Google will allow small businesses to sign up for Google Apps with one click. A subsequent two-click process will set up and brand apps -- including Gmail and Google Drive -- for companies.

"Branded email has been one of our most frequently requested features, and it was this that led to our decision to integrate Google … Read more

Azure, Yammer help shape next-gen Microsoft Office

In a break from the past, Microsoft's Office team has begun working much more closely with other groups, especially the Windows Azure, SQL Server, and Windows Intune teams -- all of which are part of another business unit, Microsoft's Server and Tools Business.

"Before, we had to land in very complementary dates," explained Jeff Teper, corporate vice president of Office Servers and Services. "But now, if Azure has a new feature, we can say we'd like to do work around it." With services, "there's no magic date when a computer has … Read more

How Microsoft is shifting the Office trains into high gear

Microsoft's Office team has run like clockwork for at least the past decade. The 5,000 or so Office engineers delivered a new version of Office every two and a half to three years without fail.

But these days, two or three years between new product releases is considered an eternity. While it's all well and good for the trains to run on time, the trains need to run a lot faster. In addition, the various Office client, server, and services trains don't all need to be on the same schedule these days.

Microsoft's Office team … Read more

Salesforce.com launches self-serve social ad app

Salesforce.com is turning things up a notch for its Marketing Cloud platform with a new product styled similarly to its other cloud-based products: Social.com.

Social.com stems from Salesforce's acquisition of Buddy Media and its subsidiary, the London-based Brighter Option.

Thus, the Marketing Cloud now boils down to three core areas: social media listening (Radian6), publishing content (Buddy Media), and branding (Social.com). The new service is described as a self-serve application for use by agencies, brands, developers, retailers and advertisers in developing, automating, and managing social ad campaigns.

Touting it as the first platform that connects … Read more

Oracle preps 128 security patches; Java gets 42

Oracle will release today 128 fixes for security vulnerabilities that affect "hundreds" of its products.

The software giant and Java maker said in a pre-release announcement today that four of the patches include fixes for Oracle's flagship database product, which can be exploited remotely without the need for a username or password.

Also, 29 security fixes will arrive for Oracle Fusion Middleware, with 22 of these also for preventing attacks without the need for authentication.

Affected components include Oracle HTTP Server, JRockit, WebCenter, and WebLogic.

Both Oracle products have a common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) rating of … Read more

Icahn to limit Dell stake but can talk with other investors

Activist investor Carl Icahn has agreed to limit his stake in Dell but will be allowed to speak with other investors about a bid to buy the PC maker.

In a filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dell said that its special committee has reached an agreement with Icahn. The agreement bars Icahn from buying more than 10 percent of Dell's shares or partnering with other shareholders to own more than 15 percent of Dell. However, as part of the pact, Icahn has been granted a limited waiver that allows him to "engage" with other … Read more