In the financial quarter that just ended, arguably one of its most important quarters ever, Microsoft had a chance to bounce back after an unprecedented year-over-year revenue drop last quarter.
But it was not meant to be. Microsoft has reported historically poor earnings for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009.
As the financial world went into shock on the infamous Lehman Brothers Monday of September 15, 2008, finance chiefs across North America and Europe struck a line through billions of dollars' worth of technology spending.
Major vendors, including SAP, Intel and Microsoft, felt the squeeze almost instantly, and warned investors to expect huge declines in revenue in coming months.
Working with multiple partners is a reality for a number of networked enterprises, but this also exposes them to some risks.
“If you don’t work together [with] who is doing what, then you can either have the gap or the double up,” says Terry Shubkin, head of operations, Unisys New Zealand. “Something goes wrong and everyone says and points their fingers in a different direction and say, ‘but it was their [the other party’s or parties’] responsibility to do that’.
An Australian e-script project, eRx Script Exchange, which Auckland company Simpl began in September last year, has been rolled out in the states of Victoria and New South Wales.
The platform enables GPs and medical specialists to send prescriptions electronically through a secure gateway, for retrieval from a patient’s pharmacy.
Sun has accepted a revised, cut-price offer from IBM after promising to push through with an acquisition in the face of "intense regulatory scrunity", the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The newspaper first reported rumours of an approach by IBM to Sun last month. At the time, the deal was thought to be worth US$6 billion in cash, which would make it IBM's largest-ever acquisition.
Nothing says "cost cutting" like a big outsourcing deal. Some firms will either panic or simply be forced to pull the trigger on outsourcing deals without laying the foundation for success with effective internal preparation. Some of these deals will work based on brute force and luck, but luck is not a good business strategy, and many deals will not meet expectations. For firms that must execute or renegotiate an outsourcing deal, there are some steps that improve the chances of success.
Intermec’s global sales and service senior vice president Mike Wills, says it has been “very dramatic” to see how CIO priorities have changed in the plast couple of months.
“Without a doubt inventory management and working capital improvement is the number-one priority these CIOs are facing today. Typically, they have a metric scorecard that they run their business by and it i’s everything from customer satisfaction, customer service levels, loyalty and of course the balance sheet metrics.”
Cisco Systems stirred up a hornet's nest among server vendors with the announcement that it was explicitly getting into the blade-based server market.
David Caspari, vice president of EDS in Australia and New Zealand, foresees a strong 2009, citing the outsourcing company's third consecutive year of strong profit and cash flow.
“The current environment is good for EDS. In a difficult economy, CEOs are asking CIOs to reduce costs and take a look at the balance sheet," says Caspari.
The virtualisation marketing wars that heated up the summer competition among VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, then dampened and cooled with the winter weather, are heating up again.
These are tough times for IT. There are less people and resources to get things done, budgets are shrinking and everyone still expects the same levels of service and functionality. Something has to give. With budgets being so constrained it's even more important than ever to get the best value for every dollar spent. Even in this tough, budget conscious, economy there are still some purchases that must be made, services that have to be paid for and maintenance contracts that have to be renewed. So how do you ensure that you are getting the best deals possible from your vendors?
Specsavers opened 11 stores in New Zealand late in 2008, with plans to have 30 stores operating locally by the end of the year. In 2010 it aims to open more stores, says Simon Baxter, director of IT, Asia Pacific, of the global optical group.
This rapid rollout is facilitated by its agreement with Reliance Globalcom, which designs, implements and manages Specsavers’ global wide area network (WAN). This network currently connects more than 1100 stores in nine countries.
Microsoft recently cut 1,400 jobs of its planned 5,000 person layoff-and it's not alone. Other big tech companies like IBM, Sprint Nextel and Google are also laying off people by the thousands. So how is it that Apple is still sailing along? It has the consumer to thank.
According to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at The Enderle Group, Apple is still driving people to products despite the economic downturn. Apple is still a "consumer company" and its success isn't based on contracts, except really for iTunes, which is only a minor part of its revenue.
Sun Microsystems has appointed Andrew Goodlace as acting managing director for Australia and New Zealand.
Goodlace, who was most recently director of sales for ANZ, replaces Duncan Bennet who has resigned to pursue other interests, the company said.
Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch has conducted a robust defence of his firm's agreement to acquire Interwoven in an exclusive interview with CIO UK.
Speaking on the same day that Autonomy announced the US$775 million deal, Lynch said the move should be seen as more of an extension of the firm's shift towards serving the governance, risk and compliance market rather than an embrace of traditional enterprise content management (ECM).