Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) $13.9 billion bid to buy Electronic Data Systems (EDS) made it through U.S. antitrust review, the companies reported Monday. The deal still hinges on approval by European regulators and a vote by EDS shareholders, who will meet July 31.

It remains unclear how the deal will affect channel partners from both companies. HP CEO Mark Hurd has said that there will be no bumps in the road for channel partners since EDS and HP play mostly in different fields. Still, concerns run high among partners and will until the future unfolds after final approval. It is also unclear what will happen to the long-term relationships EDS holds with HP competitors like Cisco Systems, Dell and IBM. Read more »

It’s that time of year for the database market share squabble. IDC has released its numbers–at least to the vendors–and two of the three big database players are claiming victory.

From the snippets the vendors themselves release, it’s hard to draw conclusions. It’s like the blind men and the elephant: You can’t judge the entire gestalt from mere fragments.

On its earnings call last night, Oracle president Charles Phillips crowed about IDC data showing Oracle’s database share at 44.3% vs. 21% for IBM vs. 18.5% for Microsoft.

Read more »

Being an Oracle partner can be a pricey business.

For example: If you’re a select Oracle partner who wants face time with Oracle reps at the vendor’s yearly sales kickoff, you can pay either $6K, $10K or $25K for the privilege.

For that amount you get to be an Exhibitor Partner at the big Las Vegas event. The idea is to get your pitch to Oracle sales reps. There are many. The event draws some 40,000 people in early June. Maybe even (knock wood) get a look from Charles or Larry. Read more »

MySQL execs took to the road this week, talking up the database’s increasing relevance to big businesses.

The message at a Boston event Tuesday night, was that Sun Microsystems’ buyout of the open source database company gives MySQL easier entry into very large accounts.

Read more »

Bill Gates just finished what Microsoft has billed as his last public speech as a company full timer. Gates is stepping down from day-to-day involvement as of July 1.

At TechEd 2008 part one (for developers) Gates hit on some familiar themes and presided over demos of upcoming modeling, database, and development technologies. Read more »

Colin Steele’s story this week on IBM taking on Microsoft’s SharePoint dominance with Quickr depicts just the latest skirmish in the continual war between two companies going way back to Microsoft Excel vs. Lotus 1-2-3.

It started when Microsoft challenged Lotus’ 1-2-3 spreadsheet dominance with the aforementioned Excel. Then it went after Lotus’ Notes email-and-collaboration success.

Since then much has changed: IBM bought Lotus for big money, for example, but the rivalry continued.

Microsoft took on Lotus Notes in mail-and-collaboration with Exchange Server. Then it switched strategy, deciding to enlist SharePoint its proxy warrior in collaboration, irritating partners that had been encouraged to write tools for Exchange. Anyone remember XSOs?Or Office Designer? Didn’t think so.

A common parlor game each January before Lotusphere was anticipating what Notes-to-Exchange migration tool would be announce that week.

Now IBM says that Quickr can uproot SharePoint in portals/collab. That’s a big statement given how SharePoint has spread like kudzu — largely because Sharepoint licenses are included in volume license agreements.

Anyway, with this Sharepoint-to-Quickr push, what’s old is new again. But somehow it seems desultory. The big question is whether, in this economy and with stressed IT budgets, anyone outside the vendors and their partner partisans care any more about these melees.

Barbara Darrow can be reached at bdarrow@techtarget.com.

After reading about a gagillion articles on the Microhoo meltdown, the big mystery remains. (The only more popular topic in my household is the Roger Clemens death spiral, but it’s a close call.)

Is Steve Ballmer a diabolical genius who pushed Yahoo away only to end up getting it in the end? For less dough? Don’t kid yourself: That could still happen.

Proponents of this theory cite how BEA Systems crawled back to Oracle in the end. Although not for appreciably less money than Oracle was offering

Or did Ballmer waver, Hamlet like, and merely end up looking foolish?

One Microsoft insider put it this way: If you talk about an unsolicited bid (which Ballmer did) and hint about a hostile takeover (which Ballmer did) you’d better be prepared to go for the gusto (to quote the great Ballmer himself). And that means if the difference between you and them is a measly couple of dollars among the tens of billions already on the table, then GO FOR THE GUSTO!

But, face it: As for looking foolish, Steve B. may have some egg on his face, but Jerry Yang got the whole omelet. It stretches credulity to think that Yang did not KNOW the offer had been raised to $33 as has been reported. And institutional shareholders are out for blood. Yang will probably spend what’s left of his reign in full damage control mode.

In any case, as a former Microsoft exec said the other day: The only winner here is (guess who?)

“Google.”

“You’ve got the number 2 and 3 search guys battling it out tooth and nail and Google gets to sail along,” he said. (As a Microsoft shareholder, btw, he is not happy about this.)

Added bonus for Google: It gets to play the role of white knight to its number one rival and can act as savior to the whole Silicon Valley culture which has been dying to knock Microsoft off its perch.

So, maybe Google is the new Microsoft. I don’t throw that phrase around lightly seeing as how some remember when Borland was going to be the new Microsoft. Didn’t happen.

It’s not that Google has more money than … well, more money than Microsoft (which it might); it’s that Google is now blessed with a  rivals who are obsessed with beating it at all costs, that those rivals now end up with omelets on their faces.

Microsoft’s worst nightmare is not that it is the new IBM. It is that it may become the new Lotus.

Barbara Darrow can be reached at bdarrow@techtarget.com.

Are you a citizen of Second Life? Does it make sense to build a business establishment in a fake world?
Unclear, but some VARs, including Ira Chandler, president of Curbstone Corp.,  are aboard. Here he is. Or rather, here his avatar  is:

IBM and Cisco have built their own virtual online presences, IBM on Second Life and Cisco with its own “PartnerSpace.”  Here’s what that looks like:

And here:

For more on VARs in (virtual) space, see Alice LaPlante’s story on SearchITChannel.

Few figures in tech are more revered than Lou Gerstner, the oft-proclaimed savior of IBM Corp. When he entered the scene, a demoralized IBM had long lost the luster of technology-and-service leadership.

When he left, IBM appeared refurbished. Some argue that the big come-back had more to do with ruthless-if-well-needed cuts  than any particular vision, but still.

Gerstner himself took credit for teaching that elephant to dance.

But Gerstner’s golden touch is being questioned in the wake of Carlyle Capital’s dramatic and much-publicized meltdown. Part and parcel of the Carlyle Group, home to business-and-government stars, the Carlyle Capital investment firm may soon turn its keys over to creditors.

In a March 13 statement Carlyle Capital  said that despite working diligently with lenders “the Company has not been able to reach a mutually beneficial agreement to stabilize its financing. The Company expects that its lenders will promptly take possession of substantially all of the Company’s remaining assets.”

Carlyle Group’s chairman is none other than Lou Gerstner.

As Fortune put it: “It’s a steep fall for a division of the once invincible-seeming Carlyle, which has long populated its corridors with luminaries like former Secretary of State James Baker and longtime IBM chief Louis Gerstner.’

The TimesOnline chimes in with: “The apparent overnight meltdown of a $22 billion (£10.9 billion) credit fund is a huge embarrassment for Carlyle Group, the US private equity firm with unrivalled links to big business and global politics.”

Barbara Darrow can be reached at bdarrow@techtarget.com.

Vendors, like seventh graders,  fall all over themselves to seem cool. And in the process they end up looking more out of it than ever. Witness this week’s IBM-Apple PR debacle.

The  AP reported a few days ago that IBM would announce Notes/Domino for the iPhone this week at Lotusphere.  The universe picked up that story.

Well, Lotusphere came and no word re. IPhone. Now IBM spokespeeps are backing s-l-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y away from the story.

The technology isn’t ready, they say. Only problem with that is since when has IBM ever waited for something to be truly ready before announcing it?

It’s too bad for Domino partners for whom iPhone connectivity might be a much-needed boost.  The news was probably very welcome; the retraction of said news not so much. Gartner and other analysts have skewered Apple for not making the iPhone a good corporate citizen so a Domino tie-in could help there even if it did cost the handheld some of its cache.

A betting person would wager that this is what happened. IBM, always anxious to seem hip, cool and happening (witness its Second Life fixation) couldn’t resist playing up the iPhone link. Apple was probably aboard –  in theory. What Apple most notoriously does not suffer gladly, however, is being pre-empted or short-circuited by stodgier, less cool rivals. If there is noise to be made, it had better be made by — or at least be controlled by — Apple. At minimum it must be done professionally.

But the leak nuked all that.  Within a nanosecond of that AP story , the alarms started ringing at Infinity Loop. And the kibosh was on.

Now IBM has some ‘splaining and groveling to do in Cupertino  before the iPhone connectivity hits. A very similar scenario played out last year over a Microsoft Exchange-to-iPhone connection. Microsoft leaked, Apple balked.

What’s your take? Send your thoughts to bdarrow@techtarget.com.