Articles by Erika

Cerberus Capital Management has put an offer on the table to takeAffiliated Computer Services private in a US$5.9 billion buyout. That translates to $59.25 per share, a 15.5 percent premium over the ACS closing price on Monday ACS, a provider of business process outsourcing and information technology solutions, has been a likely acquisition target ...

After promising to maintain a civilized tone, Sen. Barack Obama has sent a shot across the bow of Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign in an advertisement for his 2008 bid for the presidency now appearing on YouTube Or did he? The video -- a biting commentary on Clinton's presumed frontrunner status for the Democratic nomination -- suggests it was gen...

Salesforce.com's Spring '07 release, specifically the AppSpace product, is being hailed as a quantum leap forward in functionality that will support users in fulfilling their corporate missions AppSpace, which hasn't been activated as yet, is a new product that provides users with a place to engage with their customers, partners, or other companie...

Data theft has become the raison d'etre for malware on the Internet, according to the latest figures released by security vendor Symantec As in previous years, the vendor reported upticks in data thefts, malware and phishing scams. What is different about this year, said Alfred Huger, vice president of engineering at Symantec Security Response, is...

In his keynote address at Microsoft's Convergence 2007 conference in San Diego last week, CEO Steve Ballmer included a preview of the company's upcoming Dynamics CRM application, code-named "Titan." "It was the first time we demonstrated it live in front of public audience," Brad Wilson, general manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, told CRM Buyer....

For some time there has been a drive to smooth the process of building applications over existing call platforms. Also, more and more PBX operators have been moving platforms to open source -- Cisco Call Manager 5.0, for instance, is Linux based. Now the next step in developing robust open source unified communications is apparently here: an open source desktop client...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offered some harsh criticism of Google, widely considered to be the software giant's primary rival, in comments made to students at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business A truly entrepreneurial company reinvents itself over and over again, according to Ballmer, but Google has relied on its ad-supported search...

SAP has ratcheted up its campaign to increase its middle market customer base with the rollout of several new applications. At the CeBIT trade fair now taking place in Hannover, Germany, the company introduced an enhanced All-In-One application that offers some 80 micro verticals and is componentized even further for rapid redevelopment by partners and deployment by customers...

Cisco has agreed to pay a pretty penny for WebEx. By any measure, the US$3.2 billion -- in cash -- represents a hefty premium. The company obviously has big plans for this product line. Either that, or it wanted to take WebEx off the market so no one else would acquire it. Or both Indeed, ever since the news hit that Cisco was going to buy WebEx -...

FrontRange has acquiredEnteo, a privately held Germany-based company, at undisclosed terms. The firm's product offerings include applications for patch management, distribution of operating systems and applications, license management and compliance, and configuration management. It has 1,200 customers Initially, FrontRange intends to integrate its...

Taking direct aim at Microsoft, Cisco plans to acquireWebEx Communications for US$3.2 billion. Under the agreement, Cisco will purchase all of the outstanding shares of WebEx for $57 per share. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2007 The deal dramatically ups the stakes in the competitive Web conferenc...

Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed that it plans to acquire Tellme, a privately held speech recognition vendor. The deal gives Microsoft functionality in Tellme's core competencies: voice-activated nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search Founded in 1999, Tellme doesn't have the name recognition of ...

The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration is setting aside close to US$1 billion to help consumers who will be forced to migrate to digital television after Feb. 17, 2009 -- when analog broadcasting is scheduled to cease The Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 also provided for t...

Without a doubt, adoption and use of radio frequency identification (RFID) accelerated dramatically when Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense (DoD) gave their respective suppliers marching orders to implement the technology However, suppliers for the most part were not happy with the additional costs and resources that had to be diverted into the...

Cisco and IBM are expanding their long-standing partnership with the extension of their Global Services Alliance into 46 new countries The two partner firms collaborate on many initiatives and products. The expansion of this particular initiative suggests that it is going exactly as the companies planned, Charles King, principal with Pund-IT, told ...

Microsoft is introducing a number of productivity tools to its Dynamics product line that should extend ERP (enterprise resource planning) functionality and data throughout the enterprise using the familiar user interface (UI) and productivity tools in the Microsoft Office system This release -- specifically a license package of Microsoft Dynamics ...

Sun Microsystems, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, announced it would open source its online game server platform, called "Project Darkstar," which is written entirely in Java technology The source code for Project Darkstar will become available under a GPL (general public license) in the coming months, the company stat...

As part of its crackdown on fraudulent e-mails promoting bogus investments, the Securities and Exchange Commission has suspended securities trading of 35 companies that have been the subject of such e-mails Sometimes called pump-and-dump schemes, these e-mails typically urge the recipient to buy a stock -- usually an over-the-counter or pink sheet ...

One of the editors in charge of monitoring Wikipedia's content has been discovered to be a fraud EssJay, whom the site had assumed was working under a false name for privacy, had presented himself as a tenured professor of religion with expertise in canon law....

SugarCRM, a provider of commercial open source CRM software, is expanding its reach to Europe -- an essential step for any small, high growth software company more than a few years old The company is opening its European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. Company cofounder Clint Oram will be the general manager of Sugar Europe....