Well, the vultures are circling again. Looks like SF.com had some downtime again this month. 3% of their market cap was shaved off by this. I actually have to stand up a bit in support of SF.com on this one. All the major services I use now-a-days (Google included) are buckling under their growth. SF.com is growing with unparalleled speed, they are doing this all with a database back end (as opposed to just publishing pages like a blogging site), and in general they do a good job of it. We use SF.com at Newmerix and these blips don't deter me one bit from enjoying the simplistic utility of it. Lets give em some room to work out a better architecture and handle their growth.

http://news.com.com/2061-10798_3-6058595.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BA22030FC%2D0D09%2D421B%2D9E17%2DAEE51615683E%7D&siteid=google

Two days ago, SAP announced their acquisition of Virsa. This was a pretty expected move by them, but it does point out a few things:

1) SAP is being more open to growth through acquisition

2) They are investing in edge technologies that all of their customers are demanding/requiring

There is a good quote from Shai on this where he points out that SAP, because they are not mired in a multi-year integration problem, can actually focus on incremental value. For the time being, that argument holds water with me. Wether I think SAP can get to 100,000 customers in the next 6 years is a different thing.

Every once and a while the press actually asks the right questions. There is a good article today in Optimize magazine which asks the right question, "How do i innovate over the next 2-5 years without a major migration or having to pick sides between Oracle and SAP?" While the article's answer is nothing very new (check out my "Point, CounterPoint" blarticle if you want a deeper technical explanation of the same answer) - at least the right questions are starting to be asked by the press.

For those that frequent BigEndian (and Parallax), you will know that I am a firm believer that companies who provide the most development tools on their platforms, tend to emerge as the leaders in the long run. Well, Typepad has entered the fray with a whole series of Widgets. While there is mixed commentary on how well they are implemented (Fred Wilson's comments), I am simply glad to see them going about the blogging platform wars the right way (by providing as many development tools as possible). As a side note, Alexa's traffic rankings put the top two blog sites (in the context of the Top 500 sites) as:

19 - Blogger (Google)

131 - Typepad

Even if Alexa is way off with a 50% margin of error, the ranking difference would still be significant. I know i'm skipping stats like total subscribers versus active subscribers, paying subscribers, etc.. but in any count, typepad has a long way to go. Taking a platform is a good start.

I have written about 30,000 words on the Oracle versus SAP battle. I think the following 2 minute YouTube video pretty much blows anything I have said away. Darth Ellison battles the forces of Jedi ABAP and Jedi Java. Who knew those folks in Waldorf could be so whacky.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aAuxdYZ_mLQ

I have written a number of shorter and longer posts about how to win or lose a technology platform battle. I think in all the discussion I may have actually forgotten the most important rule to this game, "First declare you have a platform." Well, Microsoft finally seems to be getting this platform religion with the Office suite and is going full steam ahead on this front. Check out this article about their integration between Outlook and Siebel (Microsoft uses Siebel from CRM, not their own MS-CRM ironically). In addition, it appears that I have been sleeping at the blogging wheel and missed the first ever MS Office Developer Conference last year. A series of information related to it:

Sharepoint WebCasts

A blog summary

Microsoft Press Release

PCWorld Article

If anyone went to this, i'd love your commentary. This all bodes well, especially with new platform-focused entrants like Zimbra nipping at their heels.

Interested in media and the future, well now you can get paid. Apparently the New York Time has a job opening for a "Futurist". I wonder what shift this signifies in their editorial direction.

http://www.paidcontent.org/jobs/week_2006_03_26.shtml#054347

I tried to get to my news alerts today. I have been noticing more and more problems with basic Google services. Are the wheels coming off? Anyone else seeing problems?