Word: sapping
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...upward of 110 degrees, and U.S. troops who had hoped to be home in time for July 4th cookouts instead find themselves facing an enemy indistinguishable from the (often hostile) civilian population. And the enemy's strategy is to avoid ever presenting himself as a visible target, hoping to sap American morale and alienate the U.S. from the local population through hit and run attacks, and sabotage of reconstruction efforts...
...most recent quarter. But Ellison also faces a whole range of challenges. His biggest asset is Oracle's Database software: 70% of all packaged business applications worldwide run on it, making it as hard to ignore as Microsoft Windows. Even Oracle's biggest rival, German giant SAP, chooses to use Oracle Database over its IBM and Microsoft-made counterparts. Oracle Database is a huge part of that virtual plumbing system known as back-office software, which helps keep track of payroll, makes sure products leave warehouses on time--and remains mostly invisible to all but the client company...
...came," says Erin Kinikin, vice president of Forrester Research. Oracle's e-business suite, known as 11i, was plagued by early reports of bugs that turned installations into nightmares. Meanwhile, Microsoft was making inroads into the database business with its fast-growing SQL Server software. And SAP just kept getting larger. Its share of the market for enterprise applications has grown from 51% to 54% in the past year alone. By contrast, Oracle has a 15% share and PeopleSoft...
...more. The companies are not a natural fit since both are heavily invested in the back office. The only way it makes sense is if Ellison is taking a leaf from the Microsoft playbook: getting bigger, with less competition, is better. Although a combined Oracle-PeopleSoft would not rival SAP's user base, it would be in a more competitive position--and create an ever wider market for Oracle Database. "[Ellison] doesn't need PeopleSoft's products," says Reg King, an analyst for WR Hambrecht & Co. "But what's wrong with buying its customers...
...when she presided over its rechristening as a high-tech "Future Store" designed to showcase and test interactive shopping technology. She was the star that day, but the shop's owner, German retail chain Metro AG, and its 39 partners in the venture - including the likes of Intel and SAP - are more interested in the response of people like Birgit Hüsken. She regularly uses the store's most prominent tool, the Personal Shopping Assistant (PSA) - a cart-mounted computer that advertises sales as she moves from section to section and keeps a running total of purchases. A central...