The Forrester Wave: Information-As-A-Service, Q1 2008

Another new acronym : IaaS ... Microsoft is doing well as an IaaS player ...

Forrester evaluated leading enterprise information-as-a-service (IaaS) vendors across 94 criteria and found that BEA Systems, IBM, Oracle, and Red Hat have established leadership positions, thanks to their IaaS capabilities, breadth of focus, and strong product and corporate strategy.

BEA Systems and Oracle were the only vendors that topped all IaaS use cases.

Ipedo, Composite Software, Microsoft, and Endeca Technologies are Strong Performers because their features and functionality are not sufficiently comprehensive to excel at all IaaS use cases, but Microsoft is among the Leaders in two selective use cases. Xcalia still has work ahead to build stronger features and functionality, but for now, it lags behind the Leaders in some key IaaS capabilities.

Source: The Forrester Wave: Information-As-A-Service, Q1 2008
"Noel Yuhanna, Mike Gilpin"
Date Published: Wed, 23 Jan 2008

Peter O'Kelly: Platformonomics - The Much Misunderstood Larry Ellison

Peter O'Kelly is on the ball as allways. He refers and comments on a post by Microsoft's Charles Fitzgerald. Peter anticipates Oracle making some major moves ...

Microsoft strategist Charles Fitzgerald reviews SaaS market dynamics, starting with an assessment of Larry Ellison's recent SaaS commentary.

... 1. One thing Charles is unsubtly pointing out is that, in the software + services landscape, vendors that have services but not (traditional, on-prem, etc.) software may well have some strategic and structural competitive disadvantages.

2. Oracle (and Larry Ellison personally, as founding investor in NetSuite and an original salesforce.com investor) will eventually make some major moves in SaaS -- perhaps ultimately acquiring both salesforce.com and NetSuite.

3. In this context, it's not about Bubble 2.0/Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0/etc. 2.0, despite all of the 2.0 headlines; it's about Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP competing to dominate applications (as in ERP, CRM, SFA, etc., not, e.g., desktop productivity applications) for organizations of all shapes and sizes. ...

Platformonomics - The Much Misunderstood Larry Ellison

Platformonomics - The Much Misunderstood Larry Ellison