Undoing the dupe: A way out of your Big Software contracts

By Roger Burkhardt, CEO, Ingres

(Last month Burkhardt wrote about how Big Software companies lock customers into restrictive software licensing agreements and continue to raise prices, even during tough economic times. Here Burkhardt offers some tips for effectively renegotiating contracts with your current Big Software suppliers.)

Burkhardt tells how to untangle your company from Big Software. Photo: Ingres

For decades now many of us in corporations have been paying loads of money to work with Big Software companies like Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM) and SAP (SAP). Our information technology employees are familiar with these software vendors and their technologies (and their proprietary licensing models) and may even identify their careers with them. So, while we may suspect we are being overcharged, and could spend millions less running our IT departments, we have remained comfortably, and expensively, locked-in.

But we want to be back in charge. And we deserve to be; we’re the customers that line the pockets of all Big Software companies. Without us, who would buy all that software?

But we question whether it is even possible to break away from this perverse reality where software leviathans dictate both economic terms and the technology road maps that are critical to our business. More

How enterprise software giants separate you from more of your company’s money

By Roger Burkhardt, CEO, Ingres

Burkhardt reveals Big Software's secrets. Photo: Ingres

Here’s how the software business really works: A software company charges your firm an enormous upfront licensing fee and locks you into escalating costs for decades to come, often using a set of hardball tactics.

But with the growing popularity of pay-as-you-go and subscription-based software and services, the old way is being exposed for the unfair financial model that it actually is. And the new open, more flexible models are starting to make the old ones look downright deceitful, especially when you show them against the backdrop of a deep recession.

Many companies have been forced to downsize to make it through these tough economic times. And as information technology and C-level executives examine the financial books together, many are discovering the unfortunate news that their Big Software contracts are harming their business’ bottom line and cannot be downsized – at least now without a fundamental change of approach.

Perhaps it’s not always intentional, but if you’re an IT decision maker with several of these licensed-based software contracts on the books, it’s very likely you’re getting duped. More

Remember how cloud computing was supposed to kill client/server? Turns out it’s more of a wedding than a funeral.

First, some background: The hype surrounding cloud computing in recent years has been nothing short of wild. If you believed the popular wisdom, the traditional computing model was toast. Businesses were going to stop loading specialized programs onto workers’ PCs and buying expensive software and servers for data centers.

Instead, we’d have the cloud. Service providers like Salesforce.com (CRM) and Amazon (AMZN) would own the hardware and software, and let companies plug in over the Internet and use it on demand. More

Is it time to dust off the party hats?

From the cheery headlines accompanying the latest round of tech earnings, you’d think so. Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt declared last week that, “the worst of the recession is behind us.” IBM (IBM) actually boosted earnings targets for the year. Taken along with the stimulus potential of Windows 7, Microsoft’s (MSFT) critically acclaimed PC operating system that launches this week, some say happy times are here again.

Not so fast. As we head into week two of this round of tech earnings, it’s important to keep in mind what these numbers show, and what they don’t. More

Shaw is the latest non-technologist to ascend at Intel. Photo: Intel.

Who rules techland? Increasingly, it isn't the inmates.

In May, when Craig Barrett retired as chairman of Intel (INTC), the choice of his replacement marked a momentous occasion for the granddaddy of the semiconductor industry.

That Jane Shaw became nonexecutive chairman of Intel is a big deal, but not because she is Intel's first outsider to chair the board or because she is the first woman.

What makes her role noteworthy is that she is the first non-technologist in that seat. Yes, she has a science background, with a doctorate in physiology and a career in the pharmaceutical industry. But she's not a technologist in the Silicon Valley sense. More

Ellison asks if Microsoft matters. Photo: Oracle

Oracle's Ellison gives the tech world a topic. Discuss among yourselves.

Does Microsoft matter? That's the question the noted Microsoft (MSFT) hater and Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison found himself answering at a Silicon Valley event Monday night. The short answer, as Jon Fortt reported here, was yes.

The longer version of his answer on the one hand shows Ellison as the old zen master that he is, making a backhanded and self-serving swipe sound like an innocuous observation. At the same time Ellison raises a fascinating point that's worth exploring further.

First consider his comments in their entirety when asked about the relevance thing by former Sun (JAVA) president and Motorola (MOT) CEO Ed Zander.

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Billionaire Oracle CEO Larry Ellison doesn't expect the U.S. economy to significantly improve until halfway through the next decade – a gloomy scenario he dubbed an L-shaped recovery.

"The American consumer is so deeply in debt, this is not going to come back, certainly for five years," he told a packed ballroom at a Churchill Club event in San Jose. "I believe we're going through some fundamental changes." More

Strong first quarter earnings underscore the prowess of Oracle's Ellison.

Ellison is as engaged as he needs to be. Photo: Oracle

I spent most of the summer reporting and writing a feature story about Safra Catz, the enigmatic co-president of Oracle (ORCL).  I talked to oodles of people about Catz's ambitions, her value to the company, the likelihood of her becoming CEO, and her relationship with Charles Phillips, Oracle's other co-president.

All this is in the article, published in the current issue of Fortune. The conclusion is that Catz is a complicated, competent, intelligent pile-driver of an executive who makes Oracle hum.

Left explicitly unsaid in the quest to find out as much as possible about Safra Catz is just how successful her boss, Larry Ellison, has been as CEO of Oracle. This was my single greatest takeaway from my reporting.

There was a period, years ago, when Ellison became disengaged from actively running the company. Because his extracurricular activities get so much attention — the America's Cup battles, the yachts, the homes, the marriages, and so on — the world that watches Oracle from afar doesn't quite get that Ellison's era of disengagement ended a long time ago. More

Apple's (AAPL) "It's only rock and roll" event Wednesday triggered a flurry of fresh reports from analysts who track the stock, including Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Caris's Robert Cihra, Needham's Charlie Wolf and RBC's Mike Abramsky. (See AppleInsider for a concise summary of their generally positive remarks.)

But we were particularly taken by the report issued Thursday morning by Brian Marshall, who took over the Apple beat at Broadpoint AmTech when Shaw Wu left for Kaufman Bros.

Borrowing a device Wu liked to use — and one that reflects the way investors talk about Apple on the financial boards — Marshall set it up as a debate between the Apple bulls and the Apple bears:

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