Even as PeopleSoft Inc. readies to complete its acquisition of J.D. Edwards & Co., Oracle Corp. is affirming its continued interest in buying PeopleSoft. One of the last hurdles to PeopleSoft's acquisition of J.D. Edwards has been removed, PeopleSoft disclosed on Monday. The U.S. Department of Justice has said that the proposed deal does not need to wait the entire period specified under the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust law and is free to go forward, PeopleSoft officials said.
Enterprise software developer PeopleSoft, of Pleasanton, Calif., last month offered to buy Denver-based J.D. Edwards for $1.7 billion. That would make PeopleSoft the No. 2 enterprise applications maker, jumping ahead of Oracle but still trailing SAP AG.
Microsoft announced Monday that its next generation portal server based on SharePoint technologies will be sold as SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) 2003 when it is released later this summer. SPS 2003, known simply as SharePoint Portal Server v2.0 during the beta, is the high-end companion to Windows SharePoint Services 2003, which the software giant will provide free to Windows Server 2003. SPS 2003 builds on SharePoint Services by providing enterprise customers with a way to create so-called portal Web sites through which companies can communicate with their workers, partners, and customers.
Thanks Ditto!
Dear beta tester;
We have made several changes to the SMS 2003 database upgrade checker since we last ran the database upgrade bug contest. Because of the positive responses we received during the contest, we are pleased to run the contest again and offer you a chance to win some more Microsoft software. This time though, we will be awarding software to only failure results from production SMS 2.0 or SMS 2003 Beta 2 site databases (test lab databases do not qualify). Your submission must meet the following criteria:
- The database copy must be from a site that has been in production for at least 6 months
- The database copy on which the upgrade test is run must be an SMS 2.0 or SMS 2003 Beta 2 database
- The failure must be one that has not been previously reported (determined by the SMS product group)
Irrespective of winning software, we encourage you to run this check on a
copy of your production site database to ensure it can successfully upgrade to
SMS 2003.
How to run the test database upgrade:
NOTE: Running Setup.exe /TestDBUpgrade is a destructive process. Do NOT run this test on a production SMS site database.
You can test a database upgrade using a copy of your SMS site database by
running Setup /TestDBUpgrade. This procedure should be performed on a copy of
your SMS 2.0 SP4, SMS 2.0 SP5 or SMS 2003 beta 2 database. The procedure is as
follows:
- Backup the production SMS site database.
- On a test computer running the same version of SQL Server, restore the SMS site database. Note you do not need to install SMS on this test computer.
- Copy the contents of the SMS 2003 RC1 CD to a local drive on the test computer.
- From the SMSSETUP\BIN\I386 folder, run:
The TestDBUpgrade command line option runs the SQL portion of the SMS 2003
upgrade process. The results of this test are indicative of how the production
database would fare during upgrade to SMS 2003. Results are logged in \smssetup.log,
which is usually at the root of the C:\ drive.
How to submit your results:
Send e-mail to ????????@microsoft.com with the following
- The smssetup.log created from the test upgrade (as an attachment)
- In the subject line, enter "Success" or "Failed" for the outcome of your test upgrade
- In the mail body, include your contact information:
- Name
- Company Name
- Phone Number
- E-mail address.
Note: We may request additional information about your database or SMS
configuration in order to investigate any issues found.
How long is this contest open?
This contest is open from July 11 2003 until mid-night on August 1, 2003
How will winners be notified?
Winners will be notified on an on-going basis by e-mail. They will then be
expected to choose a software package from the appropriate groups below:
Microsoft Office XP Professional or Home (English) Visual Studio .Net
Professional (English) Microsoft Project 2003 (English) Microsoft Visio 2002
(English) Any available Microsoft PC or Xbox Game (English)
Microsoft is world's biggest company again
Microsoft and General Electric (GE) continue to flip-flop in terms of market capitalization, as the world's biggest corporation. This week Microsoft is back on top, thanks to a tech-stock rally. Microsoft's market cap is now $294.4 billion, compared with $292.5 billion for GE. And, yes, you can start humming the opening notes to "The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)" now, if you're so inclined.
Adobe chooses Windows XP over Apple for Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems' decision last week to release its next high-end video-editing platform, Adobe Premiere Pro, only on XP garnered a lot of media attention, with Apple Computer fans claiming that Adobe was abandoning the Macintosh only because of
the quality of Apple's Final Cut Pro software. But as Adobe itself noted, the rationale behind making Premiere Pro an XP-only product was rooted in some commonsense observations. First, XP is the most stable and reliable platform for video editing. Second,
the Intel-based systems on which XP runs offer the highest performance. And third, the quality of Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series technologies lets Adobe's products support high-definition video and 7.1-channel surround-sound streaming audio.
Some other interesting notes...
- Microsoft donates to Iraqi relief
- Sun admits that it's the other high-profile SCO UNIX licensee
- Microsoft released a 64-Bit desktop before Apple. Well, Duh.
- Rest of the world wakes up to Windows XP's quality
When Microsoft released the Xbox in November 2001, it was heralded as far more than a game machine. Even as the Xbox took aim at Sony's PlayStation 2 game empire, the console was meant to lead Microsoft's broader invasion of the living room. Incorporating a hard drive, which made it more readily adaptable than other consoles, the Xbox had the potential to be a digital-entertainment nerve center.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said at the time, "We're going to put new software that runs on Xbox that, both in the gaming dimension and other dimensions, will amaze people with the power that's in this box."
Microsoft on Tuesday at its Redmond, Wash., campus plans to hold a summit meeting to seek input on the Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-ReliableMessaging) specification for Web services-based integration, according to sources familiar with Microsoft's plans. Microsoft and co-developers IBM, Tibco, and BEA Systems in March announced publication of WS-ReliableMessaging.
Sun Microsystems, for one, has been critical of IBM and Microsoft for what Sun claims have been attempts to promote in-house specifications as industry standards without going to a standards body. OASIS, for its part, has even formed a technical committee around the issue of reliable messaging for Web services.
Microsoft and the Organization of American States (OAS) have partnered to promote the adoption of Internet-based systems among Latin America's municipalities and public-sector agencies, they said Wednesday.
Microsoft, through its Latin America division, is contributing $6 million worth of software and IT services to this e-government initiative. Meanwhile, the OAS, through its Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development (IACD), is providing personnel and administration services to the initiative, which, along with contributions from other participants, have been estimated to have a value of about $3 million, said Rafael Pérez, regional director of government and education at Microsoft Latin America.
Attorneys general from approximately 30 states this week intensified their review of Oracle's $6.3 billion unsolicited bid for PeopleSoft, according to sources. State antitrust attorneys were busy signing confidentiality agreements, which would enable them to share information on Oracle, PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards among one another and with the U.S. Department of Justice, sources familiar with the situation said. And although the move by no means signals that they will file a lawsuit to block Oracle's bid, it does indicate their level of interest in taking the next step to review the deal--and gives a glimpse into the number of states that could ultimately be party to a concerted action.
"White knights" are for fairy tales, according to a new research report that concludes no other software makers are likely to make a play for Oracle acquisition target PeopleSoft. The Gartner report sees IBM as the company with the most to lose from an Oracle takeover, but says Big Blue is unlikely to react in time to prevent such a move.
"Although IBM is the most-plausible candidate for a white knight, it has not reached the point of being compelled to change its strategy," according to the report. "This could be to IBM's detriment, because, by the time it has no other options, its position will be substantially weaker than if it acted in advance of inevitability.
Oracle's attempt to buy PeopleSoft is "destructive," but it's driving potential customers to Microsoft, said Orlando Ayala, an executive building a new business-software group at the Redmond company.
Ayala said customers affected by the merger have been calling Microsoft. He expects that uncertainty around the deal will help Microsoft as it makes a concerted push into the business-software market.
Microsoft is expanding its focus beyond the small business market with a growing line of business applications, productivity software and network computer software. The sales team has quotas to sell Microsoft's business-application software in addition to its software for desktop PCs and network server computers, Ayala said.