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Chasing up their recent announcement of half-completion of their new international CRM system, Applied Biosystems today announced the launch of a new software development community, with a mission statement dedicated to “encouraging innovation in life science research software applications.”

As part of the initiative, Applied Biosystems will provide life scientists and ISVs open access to its genetic analysis data file format and a data file converter in hopes of facilitating the development of further bioinformatics applications on Applied Biosystems’ genetic analyzers and PCR sequence detection systems.

The new plan marks the latest collaboration between Applied Biosystems and ISVs directly or through organizations such as the BioIT Alliance. Along with the announcement, Applied representatives also stated that Geospiza had joined the new club with a just-produced tool that seeks to improve data analysis workflow and provide better sharing of research and discovery project data across workgroups using the software platform Geospiza Finch Suite.

Applied Biosystems is a life sciences technology provider focused on the following basic research, commercial research (pharmaceutical and biotechnology) and standardized testing markets. Applied Biosystems has an installed base of approximately 180,000 instrument systems in nearly 100 countries. Applied is an operation group of Applera Corporation.

Add another media outlet to the list of those proclaiming an imminent death to Microsoft software. InformationWeek.com has just put up a piece by CRN’s Barbara Darrow entitled “Businesses Don’t Need Microsoft Software.” An attention grabber? No doubt.

Darrow’s piece profiles solutions in the CRM world and others which find hosted alternatives to the megagiant firm. “Imagine a world without Microsoft software,” beckons Darrow in the lead. Darrow’s premise begins with the recent announcement by the Google brain trust that that firm is testing “Google Apps For Your Domain,” a product that would merge gMail, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Page Creator (plus possibly a word processor and spreadsheet) for enterprises.

The Google package is a response to Microsoft’s future hosted offering, Office Live Essentials, and the beta test version will reportedly be made available this coming Monday. Darrow sees Google as a “linchpin” in the “anti-Microsoft movement.” Google is now doing what sales-force automation and CRM players are currently plunking lots of marketing money into. Naturally, Darrow makes it only a few paragraphs in without mentioning – go ahead, guess who. I’ll give you one try. – Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.

In talking with Benioff for a previous piece, Darrow said that the outrageous CEO had “spent nearly as much time touting Google’s Writely app and spreadsheet offering as he did talking up Salesforce.com’s new Google AdWords integration.” NetSuite has also since tied in Google to CRM modules. Google’s moves are “fantastic news for ISVs, VARs and integrators who want to focus their energy and creativity on customer success, not the drudgery of break-fix-patch-upgrade with client/server.”

Perhaps realizing he had the opportunity to get in another great quote, Benioff went on to say that the Microsoft stack “is stuck. Worst of all, the stack has stuck it to the customer.” Darrow goes on to posit “other solution providers” who find an integrated Microsoft stack attractive but that the “very integration poses problems. For example, the upcoming Windows Vista and Longhorn releases will not support SQL Server 2005 code previous to the upcoming Service Pack 2 release.”

To be fair, Darrow quotes a couple of folks sympathetic to the Microsoft cause. Database Solutions president George Brown sees the anti-Microsoft philosophy as a lot of hot air: “People have to look at cost and functionality and flexibility, and I’m not sure that Salesforce.com and others offer what Microsoft does,” he says in the piece. And BI consultant Dan Linstedt is quoted as saying, “The Microsoft puzzle pieces fit together nicely—usually with a little tweaking. Multivendor stacks [mean that] the vendors will continuously fight over revenue streams.”

A great article from Darrow, to be sure, but in the end it’s some analysis and lots of speculation. The only certainly about the future, Benioff’s near-guarantees aside, is that things are uncertain for Microsoft. Barbara Darrow is the industry editor for CRN magazine.

At least one new major hire kicked off the week this week: ReachForce, Inc., a worldwide provider of OnDemand marketing automation products and services, announced the naming of Bob Riazzi to the position of chief operating officer.

Most recently Riazzi was the vice president / general manager of worldwide services at 3Com. As COO, Riazzi will focus on international ReachForce services delivery and customer operations.

Prior to his time at 3Com, Rizzi spent seven years at Dell Inc. as director of services product management, strategy and marketing. ReachForce, Inc. is based in Austin, Texas, and is a privately held venture-backed company.

IDC Research has recently undertaken and released a pair of reports that are worth the while of those in the biz in Oceania. The report intriguingly (if long-windedly) titled “New Zealand Enterprise Applications 2006-2010 Forecast and Analysis: Change, the Only Constant“ details the analyst firm’s five-year forecast for the New Zealand enterprise applications market, including enterprise resource management, supply chain management, and CRM.

Bottom line first, then. As IDC sees it, 2005 revenue for the New Zealand enterprise applications market will be in the area of NZ $99 million (approximately US $63.5 million). Fueled by growth due to “Increased complexity of business processes …, application consolidation, emerging technologies, new regulatory compliance standards, and increased popularity in the small and mid market segment,” IDC’s prediction for 2010 puts the market at NZ $138.3 million (approximately US $88.75 million), a 6.9 percent compound annual growth rate.

The immediate conclusion drawn: IDC recommends that “vendors focus on selected partners that bring expertise in a vertical and/or geographical domain. Competition amongst partners could harm commitment and credibility in the market.” The full report is available at www.idcresearch.com for US $4,500 (cheap). Meanwhile, an IDC report on Australian broadband, “Australia Home Networking 2006-2010 Forecast and Analysis: Armchair Surfers Carving the Multimedia Wave,” states that home networking adoption is “trailing approximately five years behind residential broadband household adoption rates.”

IDC figures that home network penetration of Australian households is expected will increase from six percent in 2005 to 33 percent in 2010. Residential broadband penetration reached 31 percent in 2005, according to IDC numbers. IDC believes home networking will remain data-centric in the short-term, due to broadband sharing’s status as a major driver in home networking adoption, with broadband service providers boosting shipments of wireless routers to their subscriber base. IDC analysts go on to predict that the second generation of home networking will be multimedia-oriented. In the study abstract, authors exhume IDC’s Australia Digital Home Consumer Usage Survey 2006 to remind that the main obstacle barring multimedia networking is the difficulties faced by consumers when setting up their home networks.

IDC also urges vendors in Oz to “think beyond entertainment,” with potential in the home automation and home healthcare markets. “Those who want to play in the entire home environment,” warn IDC analysts, “will need to lay out that roadmap now.” IDC is a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC now has some 850 analysts in 50 countries. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, a leading technology media, research, and events company.

Representatives of Dalco Technologies Inc. today introduced the Free Personal version of Qasper Business Organizer, an on-demand business information organizer.

The Free Personal version of Qasper is ad-supported, comes with twenty modules and promises to be “highly” customizable. Among Qasper’s integration and coordination business functions are those of contact, connection, opportunity, help desk, document and project management, action and activity tracking, order processing, time charges and email.

Qasper’s Paid Personal version is ad-free and works with Microsoft Outlook. Qasper is an outgrowth of Dalgleish & Company, a firm specializing in remote-enabling technologies. The company’s first product, dbOvernet, hit the market in 1998. Dalgleish converted to the Microsoft .NET framework in 2003 and began creation of Qasper in 2004.

SYSPRO representatives today announced the worldwide release of the latest version of their firm’s flagship product, SYSPRO 6.0. SYSPRO 6.0 Issue 010 comes with a handful of new customization capabilities and new modules, including a new user interface. SYSPRO 6.0 Issue 010 also features the brand spankin’ new SYSPRO Reporting Services, a reporting tool that incorporates an embedded version of Crystal Reports XI.

The “Electronic Signatures” program now embedded in SYSPRO 6.0 provides the option of authenticating operators as they are processing transactions. Other enhancements include improved financial visibility and expanded multi-site management. The program is designed for specific vertical niche markets such as pharmaceutical, medical device and electronic manufacturers.

Founded in 1978, SYSPRO is a producer of ERP software. SYSPRO is marketed globally through regional territory distribution centers and a global reseller network in the U.S., Canada, Africa, Asia Pacific, Australia and the U.K. SYSPRO product is now used at 12,000 licensed companies in more than 60 countries.

Mitek Systems, Inc., a provider of image analytics and character recognition software, today announced that it has signed an agreement with CRM solutions provider StayinFront, Inc. to integrate Mitek’s SignProject signature validation software into StayinFront’s sample compliance solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.

StayinFront will implement SignProtect into StayinFront Signature Compliance, a system compatible with StayinFront Pharma 9.3 and StayinFront Sample Inventory Management System 9.3. The new solution will be available in October 2006. This comprehensive solution promises to allow pharmaceutical companies to automatically validate the authenticity of signatures, using image processing, encryption and signature authentication.

The program is designed to assist pharmaceutical manufacturers ensure comprehensive compliance with the policies of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and with certain regulatory requirements. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Mitek Systems is a specialist in image analytics used to detect fraudulent signatures, forms and documents. Mitek software is today used in the processing of an estimated 8 billion-plus transactions per year.

StayinFront, Inc. is a leading provider of CRM applications, decision support tools, data services, sample inventory management solutions and eBusiness systems. StayinFront solutions have been implemented in twenty-one countries and twelve languages. StayinFront also offers support services. Headquartered in Fairfield, New Jersey, StayinFront has offices in Illinois, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Ireland, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand.

And a bit of a strange announcement from Oracle representatives yesterday, who reiterated that their firm’s PeopleSoft 9 rollout is continuing.

The PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 applications suite was released to the public on Monday, and promises an integrated suite of analytic applications, featuring improved enterprise planning in budgeting and forecasting, financial control and reporting. Oracle today said that the firm had increased the integration between PeopleSoft performance management software and other PeopleSoft products.

As the company sees it, PeopleSoft serves as proof of Oracle’s plan to enhance existing applications while working in parallel on Fusion a new applications suite. This commentary comes from John Wookey, senior vice president of application development at Oracle. Wookey’s comments were part of what appears to be a media blitz regarding PeopleSoft in the face of some criticism. Oracle is halfway through delivering PeopleSoft Enterprise 9, as the CRM software earlier is now available.

A definitive September date has now been promised for the financial portion of PeopleSoft. Oracle also announced that early Project Genesis product is to be released in September, and will represent the integration of its Telephony@Work acquisition with extant Oracle CRM applications.

Others announcement by the firm stated that Oracle plans to release Siebel 8.0 and its homegrown Oracle E-Business Suite 12 before the end of 2006. Hosted CRM application Siebel OnDemand is promised for integration with Oracle e-Business Suite by the end of this year.

The Department of Education of the Philippines announced a very big deal on Sunday, releasing details of its newly signed memorandum of agreement with Oracle Philippines. The memorandum of agreement is worth US $380 million in grant value and, under terms of the contract, will incorporate the Oracle Academy into its secondary education curriculum.

The agreement was announced as “the start of Oracle and the department of education’s alliance to integrate technology into the school program, which supports the government’s 10-point agenda to provide quality education for all in the Philippines.”

The Oracle Academy partnership with the department of education carries a mission statement to raise the awareness and standards of information technology and technical skills in the Philippines. Education Undersecretary Fe A. Hidalgo touted the agreement as “a significant step to help expand the opportunities available to teachers, students and the general community … [this will] help develop new opportunities that will help transform this country.”

The agreement will give further push to already extant Oracle Philippines programs and educational initiatives in the country such as Think.com and Thinkquest for primary and secondary students, and the Oracle Academic Initiative for universities. The Oracle Academy is a partnership between Oracle and secondary schools, designed to equip students with database, SQL, Java programming, and other business skills.

Oracle provides teacher training, professional development, support, curriculum materials, and online learning. Under terms of the agreement, the Oracle Academy program will be rolled out in two phases. Phase One is a training for 60 teachers from 30 schools across the Philippines. Phase Two of the program will prepare another 1,500 additional teachers from 750 schools across the country.

The Oracle Academy currently serves 6,675 students in 267 schools in countries across the Asia Pacific region, including in China, Hong Kong and India. Through other education initiatives, Oracle provides access to Oracle technologies and resources for over 200,000 students in the region.

Servoy BV, a supplier of development and deployment tools for business software, has announced its reaching an agreement for venture capital. Lead by European investment firm Private Plus Fund, the funding links several private investors who had previously provided financial support to Servoy. Servoy CEO Jan Aleman immediately promised to “accelerate the execution of our business strategy."

Servoy is based on Java and allows development of enterprise-class Java applications with support for SaaS, SOA and AJAX. Servoy runs on most operating systems including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Unix, and can connect to any SQL database. The Servoy target market is mainly comprised of independent software vendors who seek to write applications for vertical markets, and in-house software developers who seek to create custom telemedicine applications. Servoy has customers in more than 30 countries.

Servoy is headquartered in the Netherlands and has a wholly-owned subsidiary in Los Angeles, Calif. Servoy Strategic partners include Sybase and iAnywhere; among Servoy’s clientele are Sony, Procter & Gamble, Wells Fargo, USGS, UCLA, Stanford Medical, and Technicolor.