- Mythbuster busts his own tale
- 10 open source companies to watch
- Sony recalls 73,000 Vaio laptops
- Tool to evade China's Web censorship
- Chrome and Firefox and add-ons
Newsletters | Podcasts | Chats | Opinions | RSS Feeds | This Week In Print | IT Careers | Community | Reports | Downloads | Slideshows | New Data Center
Partner Sites:App Performance | On Demand Security | Networking Solution | SOA | Value of WDS
Another day, another Oracle acquisition. Oracle seems to buy up companies based on if there is a 'Y' in the day although informed sources that it always checks the weather first. If there is weather on the day, it goes ahead and purchases.
I'm being silly, of course, but with the database giant having added 43 firms to its roster since January 2005, president Charles Phillips must have a sore arm from writing so many checks. The latest deal to buy insurance applications developer Skywire Software is small beer compared to the likes of PeopleSoft and Siebel but it begs the question of whether all this deal-making is good for the CIO.
If you like your glass half full, you could argue that rationalization in enterprise software is a positive thing. CIOs have fewer suppliers to deal with, thereby saving valuable time that could otherwise be lost to procurement, negotiation, and running the due-diligence rule over yet another company.
Those of a more pessimistic mind could equally well argue that the rapid rate of mergers and acquisitions deprives them of choice and leads to a greater risk of being locked in to one of the giants that roam the earth and account for a disproportionate, and growing, portion of IT spend. Just as important is the possibility of disruption as billing systems, technology roadmaps, sales reps, management and support staff go through the M&A thresher.
For small companies and their backers, these deals offer a reward for faith and hard work. For Oracle shareholders, growth can be sustained by buying up companies. For customers of either party, however, I'm not sure that the net result of these buying sprees is positive.

In this whitepaper learn how Retrospective Network Analysis (RNA) has proved a different type of...
SNMP Monitorin One Critical Component to Network ManagementSNMP is a valuable tool to any network administrator who requires complete visibility into the...
Monitoring and Managing App PerformanceThis paper defines application analysis, discusses the different categories of tools on the market,...

Double-Take (r) Software and Microsoft are teaming up on September 9, 2008 for a webinar focusing...
PoE Plus: Impact on the PoE MarketThe standard for Power over Ethernet (PoE), IEEE Std. 802.3af(tm)-2003, advanced networking,...
Intelligent Mobility: BlackBerry Technical Seminar 2008The virtual BlackBerry Technical Seminar keeps growing in popularity every year, and we want to...

Find out why analysts say approaching virtualization with an ounce of caution is wise. And also why...
Closing the Loop: Extending Wireless LAN Security to Wireless PrintersEnterprises cannot overlook wireless printers when assessing network security. The print jobs and...
Ethernet Services: WAN options matureWAN Ethernet services are reliable, cost-efficient offerings that are widely available and in a...
Partner Content
NetScout is one of the world's premier providers of integrated network and application performance solutions.
www.netscout.com
Know First
Get Proactive — Move from Troubleshooting to Monitoring to Management with nGenius K2's Service Dashboard & Intelligent Early Warning Alarms
Watch the Video
Know Where
Get Rapid Performance Problem Isolation with nGenius Performance Manager and Diagnose Problems up to 70% Faster!
Learn More
Know Why
Get the Details to Validate and Solve your Toughest Performance Issues with nGenius InfiniStream and Sniffer Intelligence Modules
Read the Whitepaper
Comment