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Microsoft and Capgemini Expand Alliance to Go After Verticals

Microsoft and Capgemini announced an expansion of their seven-year agreement this week that will see them boost their joint offerings in six industries. The alliance between Microsoft and Capgemini, one of the world's largest technology consulting firms, has generated more than $2 billion in sales of Microsoft-based solutions and services since its formation, and nearly $1 billion over the last two years, the companies said. With this week's announcements, Capgemini and Microsoft have committed to spending $50 million to boost their ability to meet the needs of clients in three main areas, including healthcare and the public sector; automotive, manufacturing, and retail; and energy, chemicals, and utilities. The companies will also collaborate on expanding their joint offerings in the areas of security, mobility, server consolidation, integration, and migration to Windows.

Axapta ERP Will be Better Tuned for SQL Server

The Axapta ERP software from Microsoft Business Solutions doesn't run as well as it could on SQL Server, but Microsoft is working with Axapta developers to make the two Microsoft products work together better, an official said last week. "We've heard a lot from our MBS customers that SQL Server runs great with the old Great Plains technology but it needed a lot of tuning with Axapta, and we're working closely with the folks in Denmark to make sure that we can get the right tuning," said Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Microsoft's server platform division. "You'll see a lot of that work that will go into SQL Server 2005."

Lindows and Microsoft Settle Lawsuit

Microsoft will pay Lindows.com $20 million as part of a settlement of a trademark infringement case announced this week. In exchange for changing its name from Lindows to Linspire, Microsoft will pay $15 million to the San Diego software company by the end of July. Also, Microsoft will pay the company an additional $5 million by February in exchange for handing over certain Internet domain names. The case began about three years ago, when Microsoft sued Lindows, which distributes the Linux operating system and Linux applications, over allegations that its company name sounded too much like Windows.

Blades Push IBM xSeries Sales Up 18%

IBM's xSeries sales were up 18 percent last quarter, according to Big Blue's second quarter financial results, announced last week. Fueling sales of the xSeries, which run Intel and Advanced Micro Devices processors and Linux and Windows operating systems, were the IBM BladeCenter blade servers, which were bringing some customers into the IBM fold for the first time, an official said. Overall, IBM's revenues were up 7 percent to $23.2 billion, and net earnings were up more than $16 billion to almost $2 billion. Hardware sales for the quarter were $7.42 billion, up 12 percent as reported and 10 percent at constant currency. Sales of iSeries and pSeries lagged, while sales of zSeries mainframes surged by 44 percent.

IBM to Acquire J2EE Business Intelligence Developer Alphablox

IBM last week announced its intention to acquire Alphablox, a privately held developer of business intelligence software based in Mountain View, California. Alphablox offers a series of reusable components (called "blox") designed to be embedded into existing applications, thereby making it easier to provide business analysis without hiring expensive programmers. In addition to the six blox already created by Alphablox, the company's offerings include a J2EE-based development framework, which enables non-programmers to assemble the analytic applications that are then deployed on standard Java Web application servers. IBM currently offers DB2 Alphablox for Unix and Windows, and says it plans to further integrate the technology with DB2 Data Warehouse, WebSphere Business Integration Monitor, the Rational toolset, and WebSphere Portal and IBM Workplace applications. Whether the Alphablox technology will be made available to DB2/400 is not known; IBM had not responded at press time. Financial details of the transaction were not announced, and the acquisition is expected to close later this month.

Foundry Networks Commits to Supporting Microsoft's NAP Technology

Foundry Networks, a provider of switches, routers, and other network systems, pledged last week to support Microsoft's Network Access Protection technology roadmap. Network Access Protection, announced last week at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, will enable a sort of "health check" for anybody who attempts to access Windows network resources. Network Access Protection will provide a configurable framework for checking things like the presence of antivirus software on a client or the state of the client's patch level. If these don't meet certain minimum qualifications set by the customer, they will not be granted access to network access. Network Access Protection is expected to be available with the R2 release Windows Server 2003. For more information on Network Access Protection and Microsoft's firewall, see "Microsoft Targets Network Security with ISA Server 2004 and NAP."