Who needs an education anyway?

So by now you've probably read all about how SAP's shitty software basically shut down the entire Los Angeles school district. If not, see here. Apparently the administrators aren't yet sure whether the problem started with the MySQL database or the SAP installation. Anyway, now there's anarchy on the streets. Seriously. Kids are out of the classrooms and in the skate parks. They're listening to live punk bands instead of those dreary teachers. And thousands of these kids are talking to our Oracle recruiters. That's right people. As I write this, our dedicated employees are hitting the streets to find the little turd-droppers. We're calling it the A.S.S. (Application Support Services) initiative. Goes like this. We go out and find young tech-savvy individuals who want to make a difference. If they know about Linux, we give them our A.S.S. kit. It's a box full of things like condoms, Playboy magazines, O'Reilly programming books, a couple of marijuana joints to help them concentrate on the O'Reilly programming books, and a bunch of other information about open source projects. Because here's the thing. Those kids don't want to go to school their entire lives. They want to change the world and help people and do something meaningful. And what better way to change the world than to work on an open source project like Tomcat? Or maybe Fedora. Anything we can use and/or support.

Henning Kagermann has his ass handed to him

Today's articles were so negative that it really pained me to read them. And that's saying a lot coming from me. This article from MarketWatch says that SAP just destroyed its relationship with Microsoft. And this article from Forbes says that we're smiling over here at Oracle. Believe me, we are smiling. But put yourself in Kagermann's shoes for a minute. You're sitting there watching Oracle buy all of these companies and get further and further ahead. We're literally leapfrogging over your pathetic products. You look at SAP's numbers and then you look at Oracle's numbers and then you get all panicked and shit. Beads of sweat pop out on your forehead. You know you have to do something. But what? Your old tricks don't work anymore. The engineers are working as fast as they can and your R&D department is light years behind the competition. So you think, okay, if you can't beat them you'll join them. You'll take Oracle's consolidation strategy and apply it to SAP.

And that's the heart of the problem. Our consolidation strategy isn't going to work for SAP. They're just not that kind of company. And anyway, they're too late. They purchased a company that was being shopped around and they overpaid by a couple billion. Now Microsoft is going to turn against them. And guess who's going to benefit from that? We will, of course, but also MySQL and to a lesser extent Red Hat. After us, MySQL AB probably has the most to gain, because SAP will probably develop closer ties with them after they fall out of grace with Microsoft. Changes are coming, bros.

SAP thinks it's ready to rumble

Woo boy. Euro-hippie Henning Kagermann is really strutting his stuff today after writing a $6.8 billion check for Business Objects. See here. I didn't think the dude had it in him, honestly. I didn't think Kagermann could actually spend that much money. I also didn't think he was stupid enough to fall for our jack-the-price-up strategy. But he was, and he did. It all worked beautifully. Safra was actually thinking about pushing the price up into the $8 billion dollar ballpark, but I said, no way, let's not push our luck on this one. Because here's the thing. If we made the price for Business Objects too high, we could have ultimately pushed SAP into bankruptcy, and we can't have that. We don't want to completely screw our competition. We need to keep some of our weakest competitors around so the feds think we're competing with somebody. It's the illusion of competition. That's it. I mean, you don't think SAP is actually going to be able to make this Business Objects thing work, do you? Ha! Henning Kagermann, bastard of bloat, we salute you.

Shit for Brains is splashing into SaaS

See here. Yes, I know this is old news. What makes it interesting now is that Microsoft is competing with a growing number of companies in this market, including SAP, Salesforce, and NetSuite. Don't laugh at the Microturds yet, though. When the tough get going, the going gets tough. I know SFB is just another butthead fighting over the SaaS table scraps, but Silverlight is actually pretty good. It's nothing to sneeze at anyway.

And I'll tell you this. The only thing worse than Google-envy is Salesforce.com-envy. Don't worry: Stevie B. will want Salesforce.com. When he starts making his little mating call and doing that thing with his tongue, we'll start dropping the hints that we're looking into buying Salesforce. It's our jack-the-price up strategy. We don't really want Salesforce, but we do want to fuck Microsoft. So we'll pretend to want them and plant a bunch of articles in the press and drop some outrageous figure like $10 billion. Then SFB will get all huffy and try to outbid us. It works every time. Just like it did with Red Hat and JBoss. And just like JBoss, Salesforce.com would drag Microsoft down. It would be a terrible buy for Microsoft. But that's Shit for Brains for you. I swear the dude's exactly like the teenage girls I see shopping at the mall. He's always buying a bunch of shit he doesn't really want or need.

You know what we're doing with SAP and Salesforce, right?

Of course you do. So does Phil over at ZDNet. We're just going to kick back, pop the champagne, and watch these two butt heads for a while. They're going to fight over the scraps in the SaaS market while we land the big deals and sell the real thing. Because that's how this works, people. The software industry isn't going to operate like the fucking movie rental business. I don't care what Marc Benioff says. Software is just one of those things that people want to own. They want to have a physical copy of the application on their hard drive. They want to be able to back it up and start it by double clicking an icon. Don't ask me why they want it that way, but they do.

Sure, there's a fringe market for this type of stuff. Some people want to be on the cutting edge, and some admins are just plain lazy. Those are the people who go to SaaS. They're like the people who use Rhapsody instead of iTunes. They're convinced that Apple is stupid and evil, just like SAP and Salesforce customers are convinced that Oracle is stupid and evil. It's like 5% of the market. So go ahead, boys. Have at it. Be competitive. Drive each other into bankruptcy. If and when things get good in SaaS, NetSuite will be there to finish both of you off.

It's official: SAP belly flopped

So says InternetNews.com in a new article. See here. According to them, "SAP on Thursday got immediate and what can only be called less-than-enthusiastic feedback from the very people it most hoped to please." Yeah. That's an understatement if I've ever heard one. Look, people around Oracle are calling Business ByDesign the new Zune. It's painful to look at, impossible to use, and more expensive than the stuff you should really be buying. And then there's that quote from Bruce Francis, Salesforce.com's vice president of corporate strategy. "I feel like sending Henning Kagermann a fruit basket today," he said. "This is a fantastic thing. What SAP is doing is confusing their customer base and opening minds and markets for the SaaS model."

Right on, Bruce. I'm right there with you, bro. What SAP is doing is kind of like what Salesforce.com is doing with Force.com. That's why I sent you that fruitcake a couple days ago. Hope you enjoyed that, by the way.

"Business ByDesign is like, uh, you know. One of those thingamajigs. Kinda like the one Salesforce.com has."

So this is it. After months of wondering and waiting and reading articles that claimed A1S would fly us to the moon and back, Henning gives us this. Yet another complicated, one-size-fits-all, subscription-based package for small and medium-size businesses. What a downer. Jesus. SAP might as well called its announcement "Nap Time" or something. The reporters were nodding off, and you know it's bad when that happens. Even the valley girls over at Business Week knew what to make of it. According to them, "SAP's approach could present opportunities for competitors, including Oracle." Um, yeah. You think? Listen, SAP is like one of those oil tankers that takes 3 miles to turn a tiny bit to the right. If they make a wrong move or turn too late in the game, they're fucked. And that's what happened today. They just screwed themselves over, big time.