Month in review
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11 September 2007
September's news reviewed.
- Enterprise application giant SAP released its long-awaited on-demand suite, Business ByDesign, to a mixed reception. The product is aimed at smaller companies than SAP’s traditional target market and won praise for the breadth of its offering. However, some doubt SAP’s ability to successfully transition to a monthly license subscription revenue model. Further concerns were raised about the product’s ability to integrate with other applications. A subscription will cost $149 per user, per month for a minimum of 25 users, although a cut down version will be available for groups of five or less, priced at $54 per user per month.
- A European Union court upheld the landmark 2004 anti-trust decision against Microsoft, which found that the software maker had used its dominance of PC operating systems to damage smaller rivals. Microsoft claimed that other technology companies would now find it hard to protect their innovations. Microsoft now faces a E497 million fine for the original offence plus an additional E281 million for failing to comply with the original decision.
- The UK’s telecoms regulator, Ofcom, unveiled proposals to extend coverage of 3G mobile telephone services, which would see it reclaim the 2G license it gave away in the 1980s and auction them off. A consultation program was launched covering the 900MHz and 1,800MHz bands currently used by Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange for their 2G services. Under present regulations, the mobile operators cannot use this part of the spectrum for 3G services.
- Technology heavyweight IBM became the latest company to try and challenge Microsoft’s dominance in office productivity software, by giving away a free collection of desktop applications. Sun Microsystems and Google already offer similar products, but IBM is banking that the cachet of its Lotus brand will attract users. IT claimed 100,000 users downloaded the software in its first week.
- IT services giant EDS tried to restructure its cost base by offering early retirement to 12,000 of its highly-paid US-based workforce. EDS is looking to reduce costs to compete in the cutthroat world of IT services by growing its capabilities in low-cost centres such as India, Brazil and the Czech Republic. The offer, which is open to 11% of its total workforce, could cost EDS as much as $130 million.
- German applications giant SAP agreed to acquire business intelligence (BI) vendor Business Objects for E4.8 billion ($6.8 billion). Some analysts were surprised that SAP had chosen to make its largest-ever acquisition, particularly as it already makes some similar products and has strong ties to a number of BI vendors – partners that will now become competitors. SAP has promised product roadmap details will be available soon.
- UK government officials confirmed that various departments had suffered cyber attacks, thought to originate in China. The revelation stoked fears that the Chinese authorities are ramping up their electronic spying capabilities and could potentially use the Internet to destabilise governments.
