The company has been notoriously lagging in software-as-a-service. Enter one energetic and eccentric executive, Lars Dalgaard.
FORTUNE — SAP’s Lars Dalgaard has been called irrepressible, energetic and eccentric (and, according to at least one analyst, a “lunatic”). But he may be just what the stodgy company needs to give it a shot in the cloud.
As nimbler players like Salesforce (CRM) and soon-to-be-public Workday have expanded their cloud offerings and customer base, MORE
SAP’s latest earnings report shows some progress in the software giant’s quest to remake itself. Now it wants to become the fastest-growing database company in the world.
FORTUNE — SAP’s efforts to become more nimble and innovative appear to be working—to some extent. Revenue from new products like an in-memory database technology called HANA and cloud-based software from recently-acquired SuccessFactors is growing, but it still makes up a small fraction of MORE
Between talk about increased software sales and the company’s new cloud service, Larry Ellison and his posse took plenty of time to bash their rivals.
FORTUNE — There are some in the tech media who think covering enterprise technology is a major snoozefest. But it can actually be incredibly entertaining — especially when Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison goes off on a tirade against his competitors.
Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle announced its MORE
The Mountain View, Calif. startup is offering a cloud-based product that unites groups of users of several different videoconferencing services.
FORTUNE — Videoconferencing has become (almost) mainstream, but there are still plenty of challenges getting different technologies like Cisco’s (CSCO) TelePresence and Skype to work together. In industry-speak, that’s called interoperability — or lack thereof.
Enter Blue Jeans Network, a Mountain View, Calif.-based startup that says it’s found a solution to the MORE
Larry Page has successfully refocused the company on its core products. What he needs to do now is recapture some of the firm’s early magic with bold new products.
By Kevin Kelleher, contributor
FORTUNE — When was the last time Google did something dazzling?
For a company that turns 14 this summer, Google (GOOG) has a history thick with moments when it surprised the web — many outlined on the company’s site, starting in MORE
Companies are generally slow to adopt new online tools consumers love. That has been true of social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Until now.
By Kevin Kelleher, contributor
FORTUNE — What do you get when you cross a buzzword like “social networking” with an eye-glazing term like “enterprise software”? A buzzkill — in this case, one called “enterprise social networking.”
As long as the web has been around, the consumer side of things MORE
Intel’s mobile processor is finally getting some love from mobile phone manufacturers.
FORTUNE — After years of trial and error, Intel’s (INTC) Atom processor is finally getting some love from mobile phone manufactures. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be a hit with consumers. To win over the smartphone-wielding masses, the company will need to get everyday buyers to believe that phones with Intel inside are somehow superior to phones that run MORE
Goaded on by a smaller rival, Cisco is changing its approach to firewall technology.
FORTUNE — For the past few years Cisco’s firewall business has been losing market share to a much smaller rival called Palo Alto Networks. Now the network equipment giant is set to unveil its answer to Palo Alto’s disruptive technology — its own next-generation, so-called “context aware” firewall.
The announcement was made Monday afternoon, a day before the MORE
Data has broken outside the typical confines of most companies. Now, guarding against security breaches means looking to world around you.
By Marc van Zadelhoff, contributor
FORTUNE — Already in the first two months of 2012, high profile hacks are threatening to make 2011, characterized by experts as “The Year of the Security Breach”, seem tame. It’s becoming a common occurrence to hear about companies and governments falling victim to security attacks.
Therefore MORE
The Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications company has gotten into plenty of scrapes with American firms. Now, it wants competitors to know it isn’t going anywhere.
FORTUNE — Last week, China-based Huawei unveiled its latest effort to make nice with corporate America, announcing it will spend more than $6 billion on processors and other components from Broadcom (BRCM), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Avago Technologies (AVGO). The company has spent the last few MORE
The chipmaker is making a bigger play in cell phones — one that could spook competitors.
FORTUNE — The battle for the teeny-tiny chips that power cell phones is heating up. Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker Nvidia just announced the ZTE Mimosa X, the first phone that runs on its Tegra 2 processor and an Nvidia-made modem chip (and quite possibly the first phone named after an alcoholic beverage).
Why is this significant? MORE
Apple’s iPhone almost singlehandedly saved AT&T and Sprint. But it come at a steep price, one that the mobile carriers will be paying for years.
By Kevin Kelleher, contributor
FORTUNE — The iPhone has been, by many measures, one of the most successful products in business history. Nearly 200 million iPhones have been sold in four and a half years, 37 million of them in the last three months of 2011. Apple’s MORE
Google’s sales to large businesses are still relatively small, but the company is making rapid gains. And it plans to ride the wave of “consumerized” IT to even greater heights.
FORTUNE — Here’s Google’s (GOOG) strategy for selling to the enterprise: Take a popular consumer product, make a few small enhancements and tack the words “for business” on the end of the name. Sound simplistic? Turns out, it works. Larger and larger MORE
Oracle’s $1.9 billion acquisition of cloud-based talent management software maker Taleo is a shot across the bow to rival SAP.
FORTUNE — Take that, SAP. Oracle just announced it is buying Taleo, maker of cloud-based talent management software, for $1.9 billion. The move comes just two months after rival SAP said it would acquire HR software provider SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion.
Both tech giants have been buying their way into the cloud. MORE
Not yet. But for the first time in a while, it’s showing positive signs of a working turnaround.
FORTUNE — Cisco’s turnaround efforts are starting to pay off — slowly. The networking equipment giant released better-than-expected profits and sales on Wednesday, but it still has a long road ahead.
MORE: Stocks only look cheap
First, the numbers: Cisco (CSCO) reported second-quarter profit of $2.2 billion, up from last year’s $1.5 billion. Revenue came in MORE
The Jeopardy-playing supercomputer is interesting in doing more than sparring with Alex Trebek. So it’s going into business.
FORTUNE — Beating lowly humans on Jeopardy was just the beginning. IBM’s famed Watson supercomputer will soon be available as a commercialized analytics tool for data-heavy industries like healthcare, telecom and financial services.
It’s been one year since Watson followed in the footsteps of its chess-playing predecessor Deep Blue and proved — just in MORE
The brouhaha over the American internet piracy bill has died down, giving way to proposed international legislation with many similar elements.
By Dan Mitchell, contributor
FORTUNE — It’s only fitting that a loud, global outcry over ACTA, an international agreement to govern intellectual property, began just after the anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA were shelved by the U.S Congress in the face of massive public pressure. If “copyright maximalists” can’t get legislation MORE
Disappointing quarter aside, it’s too early to tell whether Google is fundamentally doing better or worse under Larry Page. But the company is more focused, more willing to take risks and — for the first time in years — more interesting.
By Kevin Kelleher, contributor
FORTUNE — It may be unfair to grade a work in progress, but in the case of a closely watched company like Google, it’s inevitable. In the MORE
The troubled phone maker’s new CEO has had a very bad introduction. Here’s why he may not be right for RIM right now.
By Kevin Kelleher, contributor
FORTUNE – If only they hadn’t released that video.
The good news, the part that investors had been clamoring for, came first. Mike Lazaridis, who co-founded Research-in-Motion (RIMM) in 1984, and Jim Balsillie, who joined the company in 1992, were stepping down as co-CEOs and co-chairmen of MORE
Intel and Microsoft helped usher in the era of personal computers. Now the two companies are reinventing themselves in an industry where PCs are no longer the primary driver of innovation and growth.
FORTUNE — Both Microsoft and Intel are still money-making machines–they raked in $20.9 billion and $13.9 billion, respectively, in quarterly earnings announced on Wednesday. But their core businesses are increasingly under threat because they’re largely dependent on demand for desktops MORE
