Steve Lucas, president of SAP Platform Solutions, has high hopes for Vora

In another evolutionary move to push its technology platform, SAP introduced a query engine called SAP HANA Vora that leverages open-source technologies including Spark to...
European Union braces for Grexit

Amid a possible economic meltdown in Greece, the European software market is bracing for a host of challenges that could derail a fragile recovery. Interviews...
Unit4’s Jose Duarte aims to boost Cloud revenues further

Unit4 intensified its vertical strategy with an acquisition of a higher-education ERP application vendor, while cozying up with Microsoft to better leverage its Azure...
Anaplan CEO Fred Laluyaux, left, leads customer panel with HP’s Sue Barsamian, McAfee’s Jeff Brobst, Diageo’s Stefan Househam, and Aviva’s Darren Craddock

In the new world of Cloud-based enterprise planning software, Anaplan has assembled considerable fire power to challenge a host of competitors from EPM incumbents...
Salesforce.com’s Mark Benioff(left) and Sage’s Stephen Kelly in global Cloud partnership

In one of the most remarkable partnerships in the Cloud applications market, Sage and Salesforce.com are joining forces to build next-generation ERP applications for...
NetSuite’s Zach Nelson(right) partners with Microsoft’s Satya Nadella

The Cloud can make for strange bedfellows, and that was the case at SuiteWorld, NetSuite’s annual user conference, when CEO Zach Nelson announced a...
SAP executives chairman Plattner(clockwise top left), CEO McDermott, Product Head Leukert and Business Network Chief Singh detail different traits of S/4HANA, HANA Cloud Platform

The big SAPPHIRENOW conference ended on a high note with Jennifer Lopez as headline entertainment and a fitting tribute to the new chapter of...
SAP CEO McDermott expresses no interest in buying Salesforce.com

SAP is not interested in acquiring Salesforce.com, according to company CEO Bill McDermott who responded flatly to a question raised by Apps Run The...
SAP’s Denise Broady(left) with Curtis Cole of Weill Cornell Medical College, Don Whittington of Florida Crystals, Gary Hayes of Centerpoint, and Steve Convey of Accenture on Co-Innovation panel

SAP solidified its industry cloud strategy with growing adoptions of its next-generation ERP suite of applications, while capitalizing on near-term opportunities with an array...
Cloud Applications Vendors With At Least $100M In Private Funding and/or Private-led Acquisitions

The drive to bankroll some of the fastest-growing Cloud applications vendors has reached a milestone with at least $21 billion being raised so far. That...
Enterprise Apps M&A activities could rival 2007 peak level

The rising valuation of Cloud vendors, coupled with an insatiable appetite for well-established enterprise applications companies, could fuel a merger mania in 2014 bidding...
The trio of SAP - Product Chief Bernd Leukert(l), Chairman Hasso Plattner(c), CMO Jonathan Becher at SAPPHIRENOW

The second day of the giant SAPPHIRENOW conference took the Run Simple message one notch higher with SAP executives and customers providing more examples...
SAP CEO Bill McDermott is flanked by Bernd Leukert (L), its product chief, and Luka Mucic, who runs finance, at SAPPHIRENOW

SAP kicked off its biggest annual customer conference with a bang, or simply the unmistakable message of Run Simple. For a software company that has...
Simon Paris, Christoph Behrendt, Denise Broady (L to R) at SAP Industries Analyst Base Camp

On the eve of its biggest annual customer conference, SAP announced the Industry Cloud strategy with the goal of sustaining its momentum in the...
IBM Scales Marketing With Silverpop Purchase

IBM cast a wider net in Cloud applications market with the planned purchase of Silverpop, which specializes in email marketing software for 5,000 brands...
UNIT4’s transformation in full force with SMAC

Having become one of the largest ERP vendors in the world, UNIT4 is charting a new course by expanding aggressively into the Cloud and...
ERP, car sales and tropical aquariums have something in common

The Enterprise Resource Planning applications market is beginning to look a lot like the automotive industry where customer experience takes on greater urgency than...
Oracle Aims $2B Flight Plan To The Cloud

Never the one to lose in high seas or in the Cloud, Oracle is pursuing a $2 billion flight plan that could put any...
Karen Watts CEO & Founder, Apparancy

After years of running a hodgepodge of legacy and best-of-breed apps, many healthcare organizations find themselves with disjointed operational workflows that prevent them from...
SYSPRO has helped SMBs automate their manufacturing and distribution functions for decades. Now the new SYSPRO 7 ups the ante.

As the software industry begins to mature, staying fresh and relevant has become more important than ever for many vendors. The challenge begins to multiply...
John Elliot, owner of Davidson Chocolate Co. in Davidson, N.C., and a Sage customer, meets Sage bus.

After years of expanding via acquisitions and strategy shifts, Sage appears to have finally found the right engine to power its growth. Sage, the world’s...
As Cloud applications market heats up, SAP Chairman Hasso Plattner(left), CEO Bill McDermott(right) aim to prevail in new climate

On the last day of the huge SAPPHIRENOW conference, a trio of standup comedians appeared on stage lampooning everything under the sun with one...
Keith Block joins Salesforce.com as new president

Salesforce.com said it named Keith Block, formerly executive vice president of Oracle, as its new president and vice chairman, following a series of new...
With hybris, SAP is zeroing in on a full spectrum of eCommerce activities

A day after Salesforce.com’s $2.5-billion deal to buy social CRM vendor ExactTarget, SAP announced its plan to acquire hybris, a Zug, Switzerland-based ISV specializing...
Top line growth is the aphrodisiac that keeps Cloud vendors going.

When Salesforce.com announced its first quarter fiscal 2014 earnings two weeks ago, I made the prediction that it would make a major acquisition in...
Intuit, a company best known for its intuitive applications from TurboTax and QuickBooks

For Intuit, a company best known for its intuitive applications from TurboTax and QuickBooks, innovation has always been one of its key differentiators. Lately...
Food distributor Sysco revamps CRM systems

On the heels of one of the worst recessions in history, large organizations have started investing in business transformation projects that could breathe new...
Dassault products have been a constant presence at Daimler and its past and current subsidiaries.

The day before Thanksgiving, Siemens PLM dropped a bombshell on the automotive vertical by announcing the winning of Daimler AG as its latest CAD...
Salesforce.com’s venture into the platform play is fraught with challenges.

In the annals of the software industry, it’s often a zero sum game when vendors start jockeying for new positions in an effort to...
Deltek’s perseverance has begun to pay off as it parlays its domain expertise into new market opportunities and expanded product offerings

With a knack of automating professional services organizations and government contractors, Deltek has what it takes to steer these customers and ultimately reshape the...