Microsoft’s Cloud Outage Postmortem: What Went Wrong in Texas

By:  Kurt Mackie Microsoft this week released its report on what went wrong with its cloud on Sept. 4, when a lightning strike at its U.S. South Central datacenter region caused a widespread service outage. The outage affected regional operations (“South Central U.S.”) as served up from Microsoft’s datacenters in San Antonio, Texas. However, it […]

Look Out, SAP And Oracle: Workday Launching Serious Assault On ERP Market

By:  Bob Evans CLOUD WARS — Hoping to combine its superb track record for customer success with a big recent acquisition in the operational-planning category, Workday has begun positioning itself as a full-fledged ERP provider whose modern technology and customer-centric approach will begin peeling customers away from market leaders SAP and Oracle. Workday CEO Aneel […]

The 3 Things Salesforce Management Can’t Stop Talking About

By:  Danny Vena There was plenty of good news when Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) reported its second-quarter financial results. The company continued its habit of “beat and raise,” beating expectations and raising its forecast for the remainder of the year. Revenue for the quarter grew 27% year over year to $3.28 billion, surpassing analysts’ consensus estimates […]

Openprise Announces Openprise Data Orchestration Platform for Microsoft Dynamics 365

Solution Automates Dozens of Processes to Help Marketing & Sales Teams Clean Data, Focus on the Right Targets, and Scale Operations Openprise, the leader in data orchestration solutions for marketing and sales, today announced the general availability of Openprise Data Orchestration Platform for Microsoft Dynamics 365. The solution automates all the painful, manual processes that sales automation and marketing […]

Microsoft Cloud Services Stumble After Outage Hits Texas Datacenter

By: Kurt Mackie Various Office 365 and Azure cloud services went down this week after a Sept. 4 lightning strike temporarily disabled Microsoft’s datacenters in the South Central U.S. region. The lightning strike on a San Antonio, Texas datacenter temporarily knocked out the power, leading to service outages that have affected many regional South Central […]

The man in the red polo: Meet Scott Guthrie, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s front-line general in the cloud wars with Amazon and Google

By:  Matt Weinberger Meet Scott Guthrie, the executive VP of Microsoft’s cloud and artificial intelligence business. He’s a long-time Microsoft exec, and a trusted lieutenant to CEO Satya Nadella — the two worked together to get the Microsoft Azure cloud business off the ground. In this interview, Guthrie discusses what he learned from working with […]

How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing ERP

More than sixty years after artificial intelligence was first launched, it is finally being used to streamline and boost business efficiency and productivity. Today, the building blocks are in place for AI to deliver results.  Sensors track products at every stop of their life cycle from the shop floor to customer sites.  Cloud solutions enable […]

Salesforce Management Highlights 2 Growth Drivers

By:  Daniel Sparks There’s little doubt about software-as-a-service company Salesforce.com ‘s (NYSE: CRM) strong momentum. The company’s fiscal second-quarter earnings release highlighted broad momentum across its subscription clouds, industry segments, and geographies. Further, Salesforce’s revenue growth has accelerated for two consecutive quarters, rising 27% year over year in Q2. As investors dig into the numbers behind […]