Oracle tops corporate software usage study

Fresh from its annual OpenWorld conference, Oracle has earned top rankings in a corporate software usage study released recently by ChangeWave, an investment research firm.

The study, which was conducted during October, surveyed 1,780 people involved with IT spending in their organisations.

It found that 36% of respondents use Oracle's business intelligence software, up eight points from the last survey, which was conducted in July. However, Microsoft followed closely behind with 35%. Hyperion Solutions, which Oracle acquired this year, was counted separately from Oracle in the survey and also showed gains for its BI offerings, moving up five points to 19%.

For CRM software, Oracle maintained the 26% usage rate pegged by the July study, followed by SAP and Microsoft with 17% and 16% respectively. Oracle also made modest gains for ERP, rising two points to 32% behind leader SAP, which had 38% usage. Microsoft showed much stronger momentum here, however, shooting up 15 points to 29%.

ChangeWave also asked respondents to reveal from which vendors their companies planned to purchase software in the next three months. Oracle showed a 5% uptick, while SAP remained flat and Microsoft dipped by five points.

"Oracle is showing surprising strength in an otherwise calm macro environment," says Paul Carton, director of research at ChangeWave.

The study also found that 18% of respondents planned to spend more money on software within 90 days of answering the survey and 14% planned to spend less.

Carton says the findings regarding increased software spending are a positive sign for the industry overall. "The fact is we've seen this downtick all year, and to see it stabilising now is interesting," he says.

Carton says 83% of ChangeWave's pool of about 10,000 potential respondents are in the US and 17% are in Canada and Europe, and the survey results should be viewed accordingly. "Essentially, you're looking at the Nasdaq economy and how it buys stuff," he says. But, he asserts, "It's always been great at measuring market share."

The study findings arrive several days after the conclusion of OpenWorld in San Francisco, during which Oracle previewed its next-generation Fusion applications and launched a virtualisation product, Oracle VM.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ computerworld.co.nz

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Microsoft more open than Oracle? Who'd have thought it?

Oracle may be signalling its intention to strong-arm customers over to its new virtualisation platform, but Microsoft is doing just the opposite.

As part of news announced recently regarding its virtualisation-enabled Windows Server 2008 and its new standalone Hyper-V Server software, Microsoft also unveiled its Server Virtualisation Validation Program.

The programme, which will become available next June, is intended to help companies using Windows Server in conjunction with third-party server virtualisation platforms get support if technical problems arise, according to a posting late last week on Microsoft's official Windows Server division blog.

The program allows companies such as VMware, or Xen provider Citrix Systems "to self-test and validate a specific virtualisation stack (hardware + hypervisor) to provide customers out-of-the-box support for Windows guest OSes," Alessandro Perilli, an Italy-based consultant, wrote on his Virtualisation.info blog.

Previously, Microsoft would only try to support Windows Server users using non-Microsoft virtualisation if they paid for pricey Premier Support, according to Frank Artale, vice president of business development at Citrix, who confirmed the vendor's plans to join the program.

"Now, Microsoft and Citrix can work together to jointly support customers, exchange bug info and solve problems," he said.

Until now, Microsoft only had a joint support relationship for non-Microsoft hardware virtualisation software with Novell

Virtual Iron Software also plans to join the programme, which will enable joint support for Windows Server 2000, 2003 and 2008. Other vendors expressing support are listed online.

Market leader VMware, which has been tangling with Microsoft all year on virtualisation, "intends to review and participate" in Microsoft's programme when more details emerge, wrote Dan Chu, vice president for emerging products and markets at VMware, in an e-mail.

"VMware and Microsoft have extensively discussed joint support for our mutual customers in the last year," Chu wrote. "We're currently working to ensure that customers receive the support they need, and that VMware environments are optimised for Microsoft operating systems and applications.

"Microsoft and VMware already handle customer support issues together through TSAnet and the direct relationship between our companies," he wrote. "The development of this programme further extends Microsoft's support policies and enhances customers' ability to choose the right virtualisation platform for their environment without worrying about the artificial constraints of support policy."

The programme does not apply to Microsoft applications such as SQL Server, although the Windows Server blog hinted that could change.

Oracle executives, in contrast to Microsoft, said last week during the OpenWorld conference that customers running Oracle applications in non-Oracle virtualisation platforms break their enterprise support contract.

VMware asserted that Oracle has been supporting their joint customers since 2006. Despite Oracle's "marketing spin," VMware is confident that Oracle will continue to its support, pointing to statements by CEO Larry Ellison and language in Oracle's own support contracts.

Citrix's Artale noted that this is "an interesting case where Microsoft appears to be much more open than other vendors" such as Oracle. He said he had not yet spoken with Oracle about Oracle's support plans, though he said any pulling of support would affect Citrix less than VMware. Most of Citrix's customers for XenServer virtualise Windows Server rather than Linux, upon which Oracle applications tend to run, he said.

In any case, some Oracle users are unfazed.

This "is nothing more than a 'good cop, bad cop' ploy'" from Oracle, said Karl Ehr, IT operations manager at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. The school plans to move some of its Oracle applications to VMware within half a year. Oracle pulling support for big users such as Golden Gate, he says, "is not going to happen."

Author: Eric Lai @ Computerworld.com

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Oracle scores with partner portal

Oracle has reaffirmed its commitment to the channel by unveiling a range of new tools to help its partners drive business forward.

At its Oracle Partner Network Day event last week at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium, the database software vendor unveiled its Oracle Marketing Services for Partners portal that will offer tools and services to help VARs carry out effective and targeted marketing activities.

The vendor also launched a new Oracle Business Accelerator Authoring Tool based on its JD Edwards software, which will give partners the ability to design and build new interactive questionnaires.

Stein Surlien, vice president of EMEA alliances and channels at Oracle, said: “Partners are very important to Oracle. About 44 per cent of our total licence revenue last year came through the channel and it has been showing double digit growth for the past five years.

We are spending $40m in partner development every year. Partnering excellence is one of our five key drivers and profitability is key.”

David Forrest, director at Oracle certified partner Percipient, said: “Over the past five years there have been changes in our relationship with Oracle. It has been a great relationship in terms of marketing, lead generation, advertising and exhibitions.”

Author: Sara Yirrell @ www.channelweb.co.uk

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