ShadowRAM: January 12, 2004
And here's another example of the American mentality. How would you like to spend a week cruising the Caribbean this spring? Azure water, sugar-sand beaches %85 and constant access to the Web. That's what Web Services at Sea, a seminar series co-produced by IBM and developerWorks, promises passengers who book a seven-day cruise on a Carnival ship to Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. We think we'll pass. A connection to the Web,and work,is the last thing we want on a cruise ship. When leaving the office for a little R&R, we always dutifully inform our boss that we can be reached at "General Delivery, The Beach."
Analysts are speculating that BEA may purchase tools vendor Compuware sometime soon. The two recently strengthened their partnership, and although BEA has a visual Java development tool with WebLogic Workshop, the company still lacks a Java IDE for more serious coding. We'll point out that BEA partners with Borland, too. But Borland will probably stay independent, whereas Compuware is a more feasible buyout target, analysts say.
Another analyst spy tells us that Computer Associates is beefing up its strategy to combat IBM Rational in the modeling tools space and will link its offerings to its network management software. IBM promised to do the same between its Tivoli products and the Rational line when it bought Rational about a year ago, but it has not delivered.
CA will try to capitalize on that delay with an application life-cycle management strategy that also incorporates network management.
HP solution providers are anxiously awaiting the verdict: With HP's commercial and enterprise channel organizations morphing into a single unit, who's going to emerge as HP's top channel chief, Dan Vertrees or Kevin Gilroy? The latter heads North American commercial channels, while the former presides over the enterprise side of the house. An informal survey of solution providers and channel executives gives the edge to Gilroy,with the caveat not to count out Vertrees. HP's decision could be made public as early as this week.