In Brief

High-level news at a glance

A Joyless Sun. Sun Microsystems cofounder and chief scientist Bill Joy left the company at age 48 to pursue other challenges. Joy is largely responsible for the creation of the Java programming language.

Hosted CRM Gains Popularity. Nearly half of all surveyed would not consider buying hosted CRM, when asked in January. By July, 85% said they would consider it. The most popular use is salesforce automation, but executives expressed increased awareness of and interest in customer feedback analysis. Aberdeen Group conducted the research in coordination with CRM Web portal RealMarket.

SAP Launches Developer Network. From this year's TechEd conference, SAP announced its developer network: a platform for the SAP technical community to obtain and share the latest knowledge and information on SAP technology. The initial focus will be on SAP's NetWeaver and xApps technology. The community, built on the NetWeaver platform, is hosted at www.sdn.sap.com.

MicroStrategy Cleared of Patent Infringement. BI vendor MicroStrategy Inc. won summary judgment dismissing a lawsuit brought by rival Business Objects alleging that MicroStrategy infringed its "semantic layer" patent. The court ruled that Business Objects' claims were factually and legally unsupported.

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