February 2008 Archives
Send up of Juno - with a Schmear...!
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/user_day_toolkit/index.htm
A nifty SAP toolkit for organizing all aspects of user validation meetings.
http://www.dsag.de/index.php?lang=en
Interesting information here - the most active SAP group in EMEA, SAP's biggest market.
Frequently Asked Questions - NetWeaver Portal - BI Integration
The extended section of this post includes 35 FAQs from SDN on the system landscape requirements for BEx Web in NetWeaver 7.0 (2004s)...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7243247.stm
Aircar: 120 mpg, weighs 350kg, costs £2,500, zero in-town emissions…
Massachusetts-based MITRE organization is one of the largest non-profit think tanks in the world, with 6,700 employees. MITRE's mission major IT projects and research for US agencies. I've written elsewhere of Enterprise Architecture (EA) thought leadership within the government, exemplified by the impressive DOD intiative headed by former Silicon Valley executives Fisher and Brinkley.
With strong ties to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MITRE is heavily involved in EA research and disciplines. Read MITRE's Guide to the Enterprise Architecture Body of Knowledge, a widely a cited reference which organizes and characterizes the knowledge content of the Enterprise Architecture discipline. | download pdf |
More on MITRE...
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/1595
Why a calculator?
Industry trends are directing IT organizations to put more emphasis on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment (ROI) impact analysis. But industry studies have shown that the majority of organizations don’t perform formal analyses – in many cases because IT executives don’t believe that they have the knowledge or tools to do so. With support from SAP, Consensure developed a Microsoft Excel-based tool to provide customers with a flexible model for calculating the TCO and ROI for SAP NetWeaver projects...
Source: BusinessWeek
…in between rallies and airplane flights on the campaign trail, Obama
has also taken time to consult on the economy with billionaire Warren Buffett,
whose support of rolling back the Bush tax cuts Obama often cites in
his stump speeches. Obama has also been in touch with former Federal
Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker…
Facebook Platform, an application program interface (API) that developers can use to build applications within the social-networking site Facebook, has created a Silicon Valley gold rush.
Delver debuts socially connected search engine by ZDNet’s Dan Farber
Delver introduced its socially connected search engine, which uses public profiles from social networks to improve the relevancy of search results. “People want trusted information from their friends,” Liad Agmon, CEO of Delver told me at Demo 08. “We aggregate your social graph.” Similar to the people search engine Spock, Delver allows registered users to can claim their profiles and verify the data sources.
From http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-11-29-new-travel-websites_N.htm
"Sure, you can go online to one of the biggies like Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity for hotel, rental car and air fare. But there's a whole new collection of websites for savvy travelers. Some are aggregators, following the successful model of Kayak.com, which pulls data from a variety of sources so you can compare airfares. Others combine social networking and consumer reviews, such as VibeAgent.com. Some are improved versions of old favorites, like OrbitzTLC Traveler Update, which allows travelers to share information about conditions at more than 40 airports in the U.S." (extended post - complete listing)
U.S. SAP Business All-in-One Partners:
- Partner of the Year Award, honoring the partner who delivered the most new accounts, performed best against targets and exceeded customer satisfaction measures, went to IDS Scheer of Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
- “Achievement of Plan” Partner of the Year Award, honoring the top annual revenue-producing partner, went to Answerthink, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia.
- Customer Satisfaction Awards, honoring the partners with the consistently highest customer satisfaction ratings, were awarded to both Bramasol of Palo Alto, California and IDS Scheer of Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
- Growth Leader Award, awarded to the SAP technology and SAP Business All-in-One partner with the most improved revenue growth figures, went to International Business Machines (IBM), Corp. of Armonk, New York.
- Overall Top Performer Awards, recognizing sales and customer achievements among individual partner employees, were presented to Ernie Perno of Answerthink, Inc. and Jim Brown and Mark Hester of IDS Scheer.
(extended)
I will have to ask why WMU but not GVSU?
http://www12.sap.com/about/press/press.epx?PressID=8978
The following students received scholarships through the program: Nicole Smith, Ball State University; Greg Turcotte, California State University, Chico; Lora Atanasova, Drexel University; Matthews McGarity, Penn State University; Scott Pudlewski, Rochester Institute of Technology; Arthur Cardillo, Villanova University; Kyle Raschen, Villanova University; Marie Chapman, Western Michigan University; Richard Pode, Western Michigan University; and Noah Pascarell, Widener University.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/abc-news-sunlen.html
There have been many articles covering predictive markets and the current presidential election, including ABC news. CNN has gone a step further, and created thier own market. At some point obviously market participants will use investments as advertising donations to influence perceptions about their candidate.
In the first 24 hours after Super Tuesday last week I reported on the rise and fall of Clinton and Obama respectively on the Intrade Prediction Markets
In the seven days since Super Tuesday however the prediction market has reversed strongly. Contradicting national polls showing them in a very close race, prediction shares now favor Obama to Win the Democratic Nomination, rising to $58 from $40 in seven days, while Clinton dropped from $60 to $42, leaving Obama with a valuation premium of $16 against Clinton.
Charts, Week Ending 2/9/08
Obama
Clinton
China’s Power (lacking) Grid Leads to Supply Disruptions Across Industries
Compared with India, China often comes out looking like the far more
advanced country from an infrastructure perspective. But looks can be
deceiving, especially when available demand outstrips capacity the
energy sector. After all, without power, you don’t have the means to
operate a production line for any type of continuous period (generators
are too expensive in China for most factories to have them as a back-up
option). I recently learned of the current energy crisis from a few
sources including this Industry Week article...
Researchers tell us that prediction markets have been proven more accurate than polls in predicting election outcomes, most notably by Wolters in the book “Freakonomics” and other researchers (see extended post for references).
Before Super Tuesday Obama was predicted to win the Democratic nomination. However, over the past 24 hours, the prediction market InTrade has shown a reversal for Obama, with Clinton now in the lead, andObama dropping 25%:
Clinton, last 24 hours ending 11:08 AM 2/6/08:
Obama, last 24 hours ending 2/6/08:
For more, a central site is the "Institute for the Future", http://iftf.org, which follows prediction markets issues. Other references are shown in extended post including Wolter’s Prediction Markets in Theory and Practice research paper and review of the field of prediction markets on “This week in Science” (mp3 file).
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/index.php?blogthis=1&p=159
A useful article by ZDNet’s Hinchcliffe who is following this key issue very well.
openid: The once and future enterprise Single Sign-On? by ZDNet’s Dion Hinchcliffe — The decision two weeks ago by Yahoo! to support the burgeoning openid initiative, where users choose their preferred user account provider for logging into other Web sites, was a defining moment for the increasingly popular effort to bring order and sanity to the often confusing world of user identity on the Web. This major move by Yahoo! underscores how new models for user identity and security are becoming strategically important in the online world, and it also has long-term implications for the enterprise as we’ll see.
Check out these Next-Gen Flash visualizations from Digg - a picture is worth a thousand diggs!!!
Micro-hoo!? Yasoft? Here is the MSFT press release today (February 1, 2008)
Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share
Press Conference Call to Discuss Microsoft Proposal to Acquire Yahoo! Inc. – Feb. 1, 2008
Transaction valued at approximately $44.6 billion in cash and stock; provides 62 percent premium to current trading price for Yahoo! shareholders; combined entity to create a more competitive company, providing superior value to shareholders, better choice and innovation for customers and partners
REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.
“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.” (continued)
