Oracle's
Value
Added Distributor re-marketer program, launched last year, has picked up
the business of more than 250 new resellers doing business through 25 VADs,
the company said. Oracle's 1-Click ordering process has also taken more than
1,000 orders for Oracle software in less than a year.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/14/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Keeping in mind, as always, that very few people actually
know
what's going on with this deal, Microsoft and Yahoo continued their awkward
courtship this week after Yahoo's rejection of Microsoft's first buyout overture.
With Valentine's Day approaching, this story has
all the makings of a romance that wobbles at first but then blossoms, like
something out of a lame but popular romantic comedy (actually, is there any
other kind?). With a major Yahoo investor telling Microsoft to up
the ante a bit, we basically have the female lead's (Yahoo's) eccentric
but influential best friend encouraging a potential beau (Microsoft) to keep
calling and sending flowers -- or something like that. We can hear it now: "She's
very independent! You've got to win her love!" (Um, we're not screenwriters,
OK?)
The only question is whether Yahoo will eventually fall for the multibillion-dollar
gleam in Microsoft's eyes or whether some quirky-but-cool guy will slide in
at the last minute, expose Microsoft as a big jerk, and make off with Yahoo's
affections for himself. (The role of the quirky guy -- another buyer -- is still
very much open at this point.)
Most pundits seem to point to an eventual Microsoft-Yahoo kiss under a white
gazebo at sunset followed by a blissful wedding (then, possibly, years of acrimony
-- stop us if you've heard this before), but then again, nobody really knows
what's going to happen. That's what makes the story so exciting!
We haven't had too much reaction to Microsoft-Yahoo so far. Let us know what
you think at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/13/2008 at 1:21 PM1 comments
Some years ago, in the World's Most Exciting City (New York, in case you were
wondering), your editor worked briefly and mostly unsuccessfully in the dark
arts of public relations. (Journalism has turned out to be a much better gig,
fortunately.) Much of what came out of the PR experience was negative, honestly
-- but there were a few positives, such as a lasting friendship or two and a
greater understanding of just how the "business world" really works.
Now, some of you might have been involved in mergers and acquisitions already
-- and, by involved, we mean actually sitting at the table at which decisions
are made, not just waiting to hear whether you still have a job after a new
owner comes in. For everybody else, though, this short story might be of interest.
Our little team worked in the financial wing of a small but determined PR agency
that served clients in a few select verticals (including technology). One of
our clients, a trust company, was selling a local bank in upstate New York to
another, much larger financial institution. It was our job, as representatives
of the seller, to coordinate with the buyer and make sure that press- and employee-directed
communications made sense and sounded as sensitive and caring as "most
of you will probably be fired" can possibly sound.
Anyway, this was a deal involving public companies on the buying and selling
sides, so we all signed documents in which we swore ourselves to secrecy and
promised not to use our insider knowledge to make a bundle in the stock market.
Then, we had a few meetings with our client and the buyer, came up with a very
basic, essentially textbook communications strategy, wrote a draft press release
and...waited. And waited. And waited.
See, we couldn't do anything until the deal was final, and it wasn't final
when we started our planning. In fact, we didn't know when it would be final
-- but we knew that as soon as it was, we'd have to blast out a press release,
quickly find a space for a press conference and prepare to start telling employees
of the bank that they might want to explore exciting new career opportunities...like,
right now. We were basically on-call -- nights, weekends; kind of like a lot
of IT people, really -- waiting for the other shoe to drop. We knew more than
99.9 percent of people in the corporate world knew about the deal at the time
-- namely, that it was going to happen -- and yet we didn't know when the big
wigs in the conference room where the deal was going down would pull the trigger
and finalize everything. It was a fairly tense time, actually.
There's a whole long ending to the story that we won't get into because we
at RCPU have already made our point, which is this: Almost nobody knows what's
going to happen now that Yahoo
has rejected Microsoft's initial
takeover offer. Oh, there's plenty of speculation, namely that Microsoft
will go for a hostile takeover, or that Yahoo will look
for some other company to bail it out.
There are even shareholder groups trying to sway the deal (one group of Yahoo
investors would welcome
Microsoft with open arms, while another thinks that Yahoo's just holding
out for more dough), and there's talk that Microsoft might have stepped
on somebody
else's private-equity bid for Yahoo.
In the days to come, we'll hear analysts, pundits and other experts telling
us what they think is likely to happen, many of whom will have an air
of certainty about their predictions. Some of them, of course, will end
up being right. But, as anybody who has been through this sort of thing knows,
no deal is done until all parties involved have signed it on the bottom line.
And in this proposed-and-then-rejected deal, nobody has come close to signing
anything yet.
So enjoy the speculation, but keep in mind that aside from the executive teams
at Microsoft and Yahoo and a few of their advisors -- all of whom will keep
their lips zipped under penalty of law -- nobody even knows what the companies'
next moves will be, much less whether Redmond will end up with its prize. Remember,
the Patriots were supposed to win the Super Bowl by a couple of touchdowns (and,
no, we're not over it yet here in Boston), and we all saw how that turned out.
Sometimes, somebody has to state the obvious just as a gentle reminder, and
that's what we at RCPU are here to do. You know as much as we do about this
deal, and we know about as much as most analysts, experts and pundits know --
which is nothing, or at least nothing concrete beyond what's already come out
in the press. As is always the case with this sort of thing, we're all just
waiting. Some of us just have a better idea than others of what that's like.
Have a take on Microsoft-Yahoo? Shoot it to [email protected],
and look for it in a special Friday edition of RCPU this week.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/12/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Microsoft's Office Live product, which isn't really a Live version of Office,
has some
new
features and support options.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/12/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Microsoft has a
deal
with the phone maker, which will use Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating
system in a device for the first time.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/12/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Danger! Danger, Steve Ballmer! Microsoft is
buying
the company that makes the T-Mobile Sidekick phone.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/12/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Well, using the words "recession-proof" might be stretching a point,
but apparently the channel has already weathered a downturn in the services
industry.
RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker
explains.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/07/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
3K Computers is a computer manufacturer, not just 3,000 random computers that
suddenly and shockingly got to together to start a VAR program. Anyway, read
more
here.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/07/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
You folks in health care might be interested in
this.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/07/2008 at 1:21 PM0 comments
You know the story: Microsoft says that Vista's raking in the dough, and lots
of users still say that they don't like it and won't touch it. That pretty much
sums up Vista's first year.
So, into that fractured atmosphere stumbles (or will stumble, in March, anyway)
Vista
Service Pack 1, the possible savior of -- or possibly irrelevant follow-up
to -- the embattled operating system. Apparently, from a technical perspective,
SP1 is no small deal; there will be some fairly serious changes, including a
revised
kernel. There might also be some sneaky
fixes that Microsoft doesn't bother to document.
But will any of it matter? That's the question. XP has become a favorite
cause for many users, like some sort of save-the-whales or anti-global-warming
movement. The XP worship has almost taken on a life of its own. Can a simple
service pack, large though it may be, really put a dent into that kind of popular
movement?
Add to that the fact that Microsoft is already talking timetables for Vista's
successor, and there's enough smoke to suspect that a fire of companies
skipping Vista is burning somewhere. But let's be real about this. If Microsoft
is talking about releasing Windows 7, the would-be son of Vista, in 2009, we
can probably expect it in 2011.
And Microsoft is going to end-of-life (hey, it sounds better than kill) XP.
That's just what Microsoft does. So, eventually, maybe begrudgingly, companies
that upgrade their computers or their infrastructures are going to switch to
Vista. That fact that an SP1 will soon exist might even help speed up the process
a bit.
Most of us will be running Vista within a year or so just the way we run XP
now. And who knows? Maybe Windows 7 will be so bad that we'll have Vista nostalgia
by the time Microsoft kills Vista. Probably not -- but, hey, you never know.
Does Vista SP1 mean anything to you? Sound off a [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/07/2008 at 1:21 PM4 comments