StraightTalk

Oracle vs. UsedSoft verdict is not a big deal for enterprise software

In July 2012, the European Court of Justice reached a verdict in the Oracle versus UsedSoft case, which related to the resale of enterprise software licenses. The court ruled in favor of UsedSoft, adding another element of legality to the resale of pre-owned software licenses at owner-determined discounts.

Third-party maintenance set for rapid expansion (if its legality can be established)

It is unlikely that the question over the legality of third-party maintenance (TPM) will be settled soon.

Infor’s new strategy appears to be working

Infor is an interesting enterprise applications vendor. In the past three years it has transitioned from being a mix of acquired vendors and technologies held together by a holding company-like structure to a bona fide integrated ERP vendor with a common strategy and a common user experience.

Using “social” and “gamification” to provide UX improvements

Ovum believes that in many cases, "social" and "gamification" are little more than user experience (UX) improvements and should be viewed as such. Framing these two ideas as UX improvements would allow enterprises to incorporate vendors’ social and gamification capabilities in selection decisions.

Social media monitoring: understanding sentiment analysis

Social media monitoring (SMM), like most emerging software markets, is awash with terms of imprecise meaning and the unconscious and sometimes deliberate merging of terms. This can cause confusion and delay adoption, and there must at least be an attempt at removing any ambiguity.

Incorporating user experience in enterprise software selection

User experience plays a major part in shaping real user opinion. For a long time, user experience of enterprise software was uniformly bad. However, with the rise of consumer software that "just works", a section of the vendor community now provides excellent UX, and Ovum believes the time has come to incorporate UX in selection decisions.

Selecting a social media monitoring vendor

Selecting a social media monitoring provider is a difficult problem because there are many vendors, their capabilities differ considerably, and research is scarce. The first step is understanding the two major market segments: monitoring and engagement vendors, and social media analysis (SMA) vendors.

Bring-your-own: software as big a problem as devices

Ovum's ongoing research into software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications indicates that the current availability of applications relevant to individuals and small groups seriously compounds the bring-your-own issue

The “not-so-big” switch: SaaS hype must be met with caution

Enterprise software industry practitioners and observers are continuously bombarded with messages about impending world domination by software-as-a-service (SaaS). But across many enterprise software markets, SaaS remains a marginal force at best.

Oracle BPM Process Accelerators are ripe for deployment

Oracle OpenWorld 2011 included several announcements relating to Oracle Business Process Management Suites 11g, but the most significant was the launch of BPM Process Accelerators.