Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB, an open source icon and developer of open source databases for approximately $1 billion in total consideration. The acquisition accelerates Sun’s position in enterprise IT to now include the $15 billion database market. With millions of global deployments including Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile, MySQL will bring synergies to Sun that will help drive new adoption of MySQL’s open source database in more traditional applications and enterprises. The integration with Sun will extend the commercial appeal of MySQL’s offerings and improve its value proposition with the addition of Sun’s global services organization. MySQL will also gain new distribution through Sun’s channels including its OEM relationships with Intel, IBM and Dell. MySQL’s open source database is the “M” in LAMP – the software platform comprised of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl. Sun is committed to enhancing and optimizing the LAMP stack on GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows along with OpenSolaris and MAC OS X. The database from MySQL, OpenSolaris and GlassFish, together with Sun’s Java platform and NetBeans communities, will create a Web application platform across a wide range of customers shifting their applications to the Web. Following completion of the proposed transaction, MySQL will be integrated into Sun’s Software, Sales and Service organizations and the company’s CEO, Marten Mickos, will be joining Sun’s senior executive leadership team. In the interim, a joint team with representatives from both companies will develop integration plans that build upon the technical, product and cultural synergies and the best business and product development practices of both companies. MySQL is headquartered in Cupertino, CA and Uppsala, Sweden and has 400 employees in 25 countries. As part of the transaction, Sun will pay approximately $800 million in cash in exchange for all MySQL stock and assume approximately $200 million in options. The transaction is expected to close in late Q3 or early Q4 of Sun’s fiscal 2008. Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. The deal is expected to be accretive to FY10 operating income on a GAAP basis. http://www.mysql.com, http://sun.com
Category: Enterprise software & integration (Page 22 of 30)
MuseGlobal announced the adoption of its content integration platform by Microsoft’s SharePoint Server 2007 enterprise suite. With Muse technology, SharePoint customers are now able to present local and licensed content to their enterprise users in a controlled and protected environment. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is an enterprise portal platform that makes it easy to build and maintain portal sites. Through consolidated access to existing business applications and content, companies can drive consistent performance of common business tasks, and SharePoint’s integrated Web content management capabilities enable people to publish Web content with a content authoring tool and a built-in approval process. MuseGlobal search integration and management systems enable institutions to build search products and services, unifying a wide range of content sources into custom search solutions. http://www.museglobal.com
BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS) and Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) announced they have signed an agreement across four products. The companies will work together to provide customers with a design environment for rich Internet application (RIA) development. Separately, they will bring together application server technology to help enterprises develop customer engagement applications. BEA will bundle Adobe Flex Builder 2 software with BEA Workshop Studio, allowing developers to build cross-platform RIAs that integrate with SOA and Web 2.0 infrastructure for enterprise mash-ups. Further, every Workshop Studio developer will now have access to Flex technology for building RIAs. The agreement also calls for Adobe to distribute evaluation licenses of BEA’s application server, WebLogic Server, with Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES) software. The new Workshop Studio bundle includes Flex Builder 2, Adobe’s Eclipse-based IDE, and the Adobe Flex SDK, which is planned to be released under the open source Mozilla Public License. These RIAs can then be integrated with other BEA products, such as those from the company’s WebLogic and AquaLogic product families. Organizations also will be able to deploy these applications using Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), a new cross-operating system application runtime that allows developers to extend RIAs to the desktop. http://bea.com, http://www.adobe.com
Business managers serving on WCM product-selection teams or attending technology conferences sometimes ask for definitions of “Web services” and “service-oriented architecture (SOA).” They say they are confused by their IT teams’ usage of the terms as though they were synonymous, and that when the managers themselves use the terms interchangeably, they get corrected. Why does this happen?
Web services, a technology standard, and SOA, an architectural design methodology, are highly complementary. Yet they are distinct. “Web services” refers to technologies that allow enterprise applications of all kinds (WCM, CRM ERP, BI, etc.) to communicate with each other. Common forms of Web services include application programming interfaces (APIs), which are connectors written by software vendors that allow for a standard way of communicating with their applications. Vendors often publish or sell these APIs as a straightforward means of connecting. Another common – and more generic – example of a Web service is any message, often in XML format, exchanged between a client (a Web browser, for example) and a server (your bank’s database) using the SOAP protocol. There are variations on these two themes, but the important concept to remember about Web services is that, simply put, they allow for a standard means of communication between software applications which may or may not rely upon transmission over the Web. Web services very frequently communicate only over corporate networks.
SOA, on the other hand, is not a technology. Rather, it is a way of designing connections between objects (application code components), applications, and other technology infrastructure. Like the frame of a building with respect to its windows and floors, SOA only defines the relationships between technology components, not their composition. SOA’s goals are to achieve self-sufficiency for each component – i.e. that each component will perform one complete task or “service” – and for each component to offer its “service” to all of the others. It stands to reason then, that Web services and SOA often fit together well because SOA provides a framework within which discrete components can interact with each other, and Web services provide a standard way of building the components.
Vamosa has launched free content analysis and migration software for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The free software combines Vamosa Community Edition and Vamosa developed SharePoint 2007 connector technology. Vamosa Community Edition was originally released in November 2006 as generic content analysis and migration software downloadable for free from www.vamosa.com. It combines the full functionality of Vamosa’s software, Vamosa Content Analyser and Vamosa Content Migrator, into a single product. The extension of Vamosa Community Edition to include the Microsoft SharePoint 2007 connector allows the SharePoint community to capitalise on the benefits an automated approach to analysis and migration has to offer. Although the software will continue with the limitation of 1000 pages users will be able to: Gain a detailed understanding of up to 1000 pages of content in the fastest manner possible, Improve content quality through the removal of duplicate and out-dated content, Enhance content via the application of relevant metadata, and Reduce the pain involved in migrating content to SharePoint. Vamosa plans to release further editions of Vamosa Community Edition for other leading ECM vendors. Offerings for IBM and Interwoven are due in the near future. Vamosa Community Edition for SharePoint can also be downloaded from http://www.vamosa.com/sharepoint2007
Atlassian announced the release of Confluence Hosted, a new hosted service to make wiki-based collaboration more accessible for small, mid, or large organisations or groups with limited IT resources. Confluence Hosted is based on the Atlassian Confluence enterprise wiki. Features include: Immediate accessibility with no installation required, Unlimited pages and unlimited spaces, WYSIWYG interface, Ability to store and search across all types of files (PPT, Word, PDF, GIF, etc), Enterprise-grade security and permissioning, and Email and RSS integration and support. Confluence Hosted customers can remain on Hosted indefinitely or they can bring the wiki on-premise at any time. Contegix, a provider of managed hosting applications, was selected to provide hosting services. A free, fully functional 30-day evaluation of Confluence Hosted is available. Its tiered pricing model starts at US$49 per month. http://www.atlassian.com
Day Software (SWX:DAYN) (OTC:DYIHY) announced that the company is delivering a Java Technology API standard (JSR 170) connector for FileNet P8 Content Manager. Other connectors that are in development include interfaces for Microsoft SharePoint, IBM Domino.doc, and Software AG Tamino, among others. The FileNet P8 Content Manager connector is part of Day’s Content Integration family of products that enable enterprises to access and manage all organizational content through a standardized API. This technology allows the implementation of content access, synchronization and consolidation, leveraging future-proof standardization, even if the content resides in data stores that do not provide a JCR compliant API. http://www.day.com
Ipedo announced major enhancements to the XQuery Views capabilities in Ipedo XIP. In conjunction with the W3C’s formal establishment of the XQuery standard, Ipedo now provides organizations with enhanced XML query processing and data virtualization in their EII platform. Ipedo’s XQuery Views – a data virtualization approach that allows data to be combined without the need to copy, stage and transform it – also enables queries across combinations of data from remote XML and relational sources. This feature increases access to data and content across organizations. Ipedo’s XQuery can be used in conjunction with the XML processing and XQuery now available in Oracle 10g, DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server. Ipedo XIP allows XQuery Views results to be cached natively in XML. The new XQuery engine implements query operators that stream data values, so that query evaluation is memory efficient. XQuery Views can now be invoked directly via a Web Services API. Ipedo XIP can automatically generate the WSDL file needed for a particular XQuery View. In addition to standard data sources, Ipedo’s XQuery extension framework now makes it possible for users to make custom data sources, such as in-house applications accessed using custom APIs. In addition to the above features, Ipedo has developed further enhancements to XQuery in Ipedo XIP’s Dual-Core Query Architecture, including access to stored procedures in relational databases with support for parameterization of the XQuery Views that access them, and extended query plan description that will allow deeper drilldown of the steps involved in XQuery execution. These enhancements are available immediately for Ipedo XIP version 4.2 on Windows 2000, Windows NT, Sun Solaris, Red Hat Linux and SuSE Linux. Pricing is on a per-CPU basis. http://www.ipedo.com
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