In the busy application programming interface market, CA Technologies' deal to acquire Layer 7 is a good move. But it must be followed up with real execution of a unifying road map that fits Layer 7 into CA's wider offerings.

The combination of Intel's well-established market presence and the Mashery brand's popularity in the API management space could create a tough competitor in application services governance deals.

If Brother Industries’ proposed acquisition of Kodak’s document imaging business proceeds, it will strengthen Brother’s image capture portfolio and help Kodak’s financial rehabilitation.

A new project shows how a focus on clinical outcomes is driving changes in the life sciences supply chain. Device manufacturers should bolster their value propositions to improve patient outcomes and the total cost of care.

The OpenDaylight Project will likely delay the adoption of enterprise software-defined networking solutions and stifle innovation from smaller, SDN-focused startups with open SDN-based applications and related capabilities.

Maporama Solutions will help Tibco Software differentiate its Spotfire offering with accessible geospatial analytics features, which could make complex and previously inaccessible types of analysis easier for business users.

Accelrys's launch of a laboratory information and management system demonstrates the convergence of lab, quality and manufacturing processes in life science manufacturing. But deployments may need some time to realize ROI.

Camilion’s enhanced rating, product configuration and ISO content fill gaps in SAP’s solution, and its customer base and expertise will help SAP compete in the North American property and casualty policy management market.

Violin and Toshiba will collaborate to manufacture and sell PCIe SSD cards to data center customers. Combining PCIe technology with direct access to flash memory manufacturing will boost both companies to market leadership.

Intel’s launch of an Apache Hadoop distribution reflects the open-source framework Hadoop’s growing market maturation and potential, and may alter the balance of the big data industry.

The migration from offset printing is opening up new markets to digital print technology providers. Impika technology will help Xerox compete in the industrial, commercial, security, label and packaging printing markets.

GM’s LTE commitment will raise the bar for automakers’ connected-vehicle efforts. But its carrier partnerships, like the one with AT&T, must offer attractive customer pricing options to succeed.

SAP plans to buy SmartOps, the last pure-play multiechelon inventory optimization vendor. This will enable the software vendor to use SAP Hana across its supply chain planning portfolio to catch up to its rivals in MEIO.

Rally has extended its agile development platform by buying the Flowdock social collaboration hub for teams. Development teams using Rally products will benefit from this latest step in the trend to enable collaboration.

xMatters' acquisition of Bamboo, a mobile app for incident management, should appeal to companies looking to integrate emergency/mass notification services and offline access to recovery plans in a mobile platform.

Acquiring the software-as-a-service vendor Eloqua will help Oracle expand on its investment in marketing automation and enhance its digital marketing capabilities.

Fiserv has acknowledged problems with Acumen, its core processing system. DNA, its likely replacement, will bring Fiserv strong technology, but also raise concerns for Acumen customers and prospects.

The GT Nexus-TradeCard merger shows that global commerce requirements are influencing the evolving multienterprise business application market. These capabilities will be critical in extended supply chain orchestration.

Triple Point’s purchase of Wam aspires to integrate sourcing, trading and supply chain planning. Gartner believes this is consistent with a demand-driven vision, but current user motivation and readiness needs confirmation.

3D Systems will expand its value to customers by buying a software provider that streamlines the conversion of real-life objects into digital models. The acquisition will have a transformative effect on the 3D printer market.

Kodak's sale of its digital rights management patent portfolio could help its U.S. operations emerge from Chapter 11 protection. Any investment decisions should consider Kodak's ability to support and advance its technology.

The adoption of a social banking platform by a major player in the Indian market shows that banks believe that customers banking products can be socialized. Bank CIOs will need to work with customers to develop social offerings.

Redshift challenges design assumptions by bringing Amazon Web Services’ cloud experience for platform as a service to data warehousing and analytics. This will increase instances of on-premises/cloud data management hybrids.

North Plains gains Vyre's tools for managing creative production, brand assets and fulfillment. It can appeal to marketers by integrating these products with its digital asset and workflow management offerings.

Infor’s acquisition of Orbis Global will enable it to integrate Orbis' marketing management features into Epiphany CRM suite and Inforce Marketing, to boost its competitiveness in the market.

A store opened by 3D printer firm MakerBot features a booth that makes 3D portraits. Innovations like this will continue to boost awareness and market momentum for 3D printing, which has many promising business applications.

A guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will help firms develop compliance programs, but offers little technology advice. A spike in demand will create much vendor hype, but no complete solution exists.

Siemens' purchase of LMS International addresses manufacturers’ growing need for deep engineering support. While customers will benefit from this deal, delivering value will take time.

Navigation and location-based experiences must evolve from an app-centric approach toward a holistic, multi-mobile-device customer experience. Here could become a market leader if it can quickly win commercial customers.

The proposed acquisition of cloud-based PPM provider Instantis by Oracle appears to be a smart move, potentially benefiting three parties: Oracle, Instantis and Instantis customers.

Acquiring Vordel could enable Axway to mix integration, governance and cloud functions in a B2B infrastructure offering with API management capabilities. But its success depends on deep integration and effective marketing.

With Newspage now part of its merchandising/direct store delivery, Accenture CAS gains a competitive advantage for at least a year over other vendors that are working to build distributor management functionality internally.

RedPrairie’s private equity partner plans to buy JDA Software to create a $1 billion diversified supply chain management software provider. However, strategic plans around product integration will remain unclear for a while.

Printer manufacturers must improve hardware price/performance ratios to encourage color printing in the office. HP’s PageWide inkjet technology promises faster color printing speeds and reduced costs..

Buying Silver Tail will give RSA a boost, but the firm must protect Silver Tail's innovative spirit. Silver Tail should benefit from RSA's global brand and sales force, and Silver Tail customers may see lower pricing options.

Printer manufacturers must transition from commodity print sellers to document service providers. With the addition of Autonomy’s content management strengths, HP can help enterprises to optimize their document workflow.

Trilogy will create Aurea, an intelligent business operations company, from four former Progress Software middleware tools. But Trilogy’s current focus on industry solutions may complicate its evolution of these tools.

Microsoft’s indirect revelation of its planned 15% price increase for user-based Client Access Licenses contrasts with its communication over previous price hikes, and could surprise some customers with unexpected expenses.

Microsoft's purchase of MarketingPilot will enable Microsoft Dynamics CRM to compete in the integrated marketing management market, but only with sustained investment. Customers of both firms will benefit from the deal.

Softbank’s $8 billion capital infusion will improve Sprint’s financial viability and could accelerate its 4G LTE network update. But it’s unclear whether Softbank will be able to replicate its Japanese mobile market success.

Acquiring PhoneFactor gives Microsoft a strong but narrowly focused set of authentication technologies. This may not be the best fit for either company's customers, and may present an opportunity for PhoneFactor competitors.

The deal enables Lithium to add core social customer service functionality to its peer-to-peer community solution. Clients seeking a social customer service solution can add Lithium to their limited options.

Informatica's planned purchase of Heiler will enhance Informatica's master data management of product data capabilities and its MDM footprint in Europe. But it needs to explain how it will rationalize its three MDM products.

Renew OnDemand's approach to managing recurring revenue may seem like just another way to handle renewals. But it highlights the need to assess this growing revenue stream, and for providers to go beyond traditional tools.

In the new version of Exadata, the X3, Oracle validates flash's value, improves performance and freezes hardware costs. Oracle customers will need to buy additional licenses.

In response to market demand for enterprise file sync and sharing services and competing offerings, Chatterbox aims to enrich salesforce.com’s social enterprise platform and deliver FSS services in a drop-box-like capability.

U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller asked Fortune 500 CEOs to outline their firms' cybersecurity game plans. While we advocate that firms respond, they should take a balanced and reasoned approach to sharing cybersecurity measures.

Microsoft aims to boost the Windows 8 ecosystem and cloud-based Azure development with the launch of Visual Studio 2012.

Some potential outcomes of Oracle's legal complaint against its former partner CedarCrestone could limit the number of service providers that deliver third-party application maintenance and support services.

Infosys will gain management consulting, SAP implementation and European manufacturing and life sciences capabilities through its planned acquisition of Lodestone, but must still address integration and global coverage gaps.

IBM's partnership with Ogilvy & Mather will combine creative and technology skills for e-commerce initiatives. Partnerships like this target companies trying to unite marketing and technology to improve customer experiences.

Arrow Electronics will add another IT asset disposition vendor, Redemtech, to its rapidly growing portfolio. This move further consolidates the ITAD market and expands on Arrow’s strategy to be a leading global ITAD provider.

IBM's planned acquisition of Kenexa is as much about social business as it is about talent management applications, services and big data.

GD has agreed to acquire network security monitoring vendor Fidelis. As a GD subsidiary, Fidelis will need to evolve from being an add-on advanced threat detection solution to competing in the intrusion prevention market.

Google will migrate all Postini email hygiene customers to Gmail infrastructure during 2013. This move underscores its desire to consolidate email operations and eases the transition to enterprise Gmail for Postini customers.

Agile Advantage’s forecasting and cost-tracking capabilities, which translate developers’ efforts into management-friendly terms, will bolster Rally Software’s position in the agile application life cycle management market.

Organizations running Windows XP may interpret a recent Microsoft statement as a recommendation to skip Windows 7 if the migration is not yet under way. In most cases, this would be the wrong move.

PTC’s plan to acquire Servigistics could give manufacturers true end-to-end product and service support and access to service data from a single source. In the short term, expect tactical, separate sales to continue.

Accenture's announced plan to acquire Octagon represents a key trend in bringing regulatory and clinical process together as well as willingness of life sciences companies to outsource related functions.

A Senate filibuster has shelved the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2012, but bipartisan agreement that the government must strengthen its cyber defenses of critical infrastructure will eventually revive it.