Having trouble sleeping at night? Lots of people are these days, and for good reasons.

The economy is in the dumps. Jobs are on the endangered species list. We’re steadily running out of oil. And terrorists are trying to kill us. Now, if all that isn’t enough to keep you awake at 4 o’clock in the morning, there’s always the fact that the planet is threatening to terminally overheat.

Yup, life can cause insomnia, but I’ve found the cure. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series started with me lamenting my inability to attend the Deltek Insight 2010 conference. However, I recently had an in-depth post-event recap instead with Deltek’s in-the-know staff members.

What then followed in Part 1 were descriptions of the major developments that transpired at Deltek Insight 2010 in terms of already released products and those that were only sneak previewed (but will be released down the track). Part 2 will analyze the corporate announcements and some new (perhaps refreshing) directions, as well as provide a glimpse of what we might expect at Deltek Insight 2011.

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In a past life I was a consultant on behalf of an enterprise software company. This is a tale of what happened during one engagement to install a new system.

This involved travelling to different cities every week in order to do implementations and the like. I regularly saw the impact of software selection processes that ought to have been more thorough. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended ERE Expo online by following the live stream, which by the way was really great, with no interruptions and good sound/video quality. In a way, I’m glad I couldn’t be there in person, since the conference was in Florida, the weather was great and the location was very close to the beach—following online from rainy Montreal allowed me to concentrate better. On the other hand, it seems that the networking was great and people really had fun attending.

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My recent series about the merger of JDA Software and i2 Technologies raised the issue whether any independent software vendor (ISV) can at the same time be a successful professional service provider (even without considering a possible conflict with its service provider partners). Coincidentally or not, in early October Ariba sent a message to the market that its focus going forward will be on becoming a trading partner network provider with its on-demand software at the core to facilitate trading transactions.

What happened? Accenture acquired the sourcing services and business process outsourcing (BPO) business from Ariba for a reported US$51 million price tag (after scrutinizing Ariba’s Form 8K filing with the US SEC, it appears that the actual net purchase price was in the neighborhood of US$40 million). This transaction involved approximately 160 people operating in about 20 countries with notable category expertise, sourcing process expertise, and strategic sourcing execution expertise. 

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