News of Swine Flu continues to permeate American media outlets.

“Is it safe to take my children to Disneyland next week?” one parent asked an expert during a segment on this morning’s The Today Show. (The answer was, Yes, it’s okay to travel — Just not to Mexico.)

“Should I avoid eating pork products?” (No. You can’t contract the Flu from bacon.)

As Jessica Tsai pointed out in her April 29 post, the Swine Flu pandemic has led to a media frenzy — not only on the 24-hour news channels, but all over the Web. The Facebook map indicates that not only are people reading to educate themselves about the healthcare news, but they are talking about it with friends. The chart below indicates the jump in the number of blog posts referring to Swine Flu and also maps Twitter posts referencing Swine Flu.

It’s interesting to me the extent to which people react to sensational healthcare news. They scurry to buy surgical masks, but are these same consumers as concerned with other forms of disease management? Have they updated their electronic medical records and engaged with personalized medicine? My guess — and yes, it’s only a guess — is no.

I’m in the process of researching an upcoming CRM in Healthcare feature. Part of what I am looking to uncover is the real-time technologies that allow for awareness to be brought forth in an instant such as what has happened with Swine Flu. However, another major topic in which I am researching is that of the attitude of the average healthcare consumer. From what I gathered at a Consumer Health World conference last winter, the healthcare consumer is for the most part categorized as uninformed, lazy, and unsatisfied with the industry. I wrote about the lack of adoption of Health 2.0 initiatives back in December. Yet, I’m fully aware that the consumers are not fully to blame for slowing of the next generation of healthcare. Many information gaps exist. As one source told me, there’s a flawed delivery system which is to blame for many of the problems facing both providers and patients.

So, with the buzz generating around consumers protecting themselves from Swine Flu, it leaves me wondering whether with the social Web we are entering a new era of health education and conversation, or whether this is a reaction to a sensational news story. Amidst the news and education circumnavigating the Web, there is a great deal of misinformation, too. Opinion writer Evgeny Morozov highlighted some of this in this NPR.org post.

Morozov presented the following misinformed tweets about Swine Flu:

Short Ribs! How long before the Swine Flu hysteria crashes the pork market? 2 hours? 3?

be careful of the swine flu!!!! (may lead to global epidemic) Outbreak in Mexico. 62 deaths so far!! Don’t eat pork from Mexico!!

Swine flu? Wow. All that pork infecting people….beef and chicken have always been meats of choice

The bottom line here is that it’s great to see so much awareness coming forth about a potential health hazard. However, people will be people — sometimes fickle, lazy, misinformed, and confused. Conversation is happening and that, at least, is a step in the right direction.

If you haven’t met me before, you know I believe companies live or die by their customer service.

I attended the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco earlier this month, and it was great. I’ll write more about that soon, but what I wanted to focus on here was how surprised I was by my hotel accommodations. I was also surprised that I was surprised.

Let me start at the beginning: As I was getting ready to go to the conference, I realized a lot of the hotels were already booked. Since I wasn’t sure where to stay, a friend suggested I call the Pickwick Hotel.

[More after the jump...]

Read on… »

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s an epidemic going around. It’s caused (according to Wikipedia) by a “reassortment of several strains of influenza A virus subtype H1N1,” a virus also found in birds and swine, which explains why it’s called the swine flu. In addition to all the medical-related sites tracking breakouts of this disease around the globe, you’ve probably seen the mass coverage from Google, Facebook, Twitter (Twitterers are going crazy with this). Of course, the authorities on the issue, i.e., World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are also trying to post the latest news, but the “citizens” may be doing a better job of spreading the news.

WHO on Wednesday raised the pandemic alert to phase 5 (out of 6) and New Scientist magazine twittered that WHO Chief Margaret Chan “called for less hugging in response to #swineflu.” Certainly not an official statement, but it just goes to show how the news–along with the jokes and the panic–are spreading. No doubt, as great as social networking is at keeping us updated, it’s causing some people to either run out to deplete the local pharmacy’s stock of face masks, or just roll their eyes in skepticism.

This map of the United States shows the percentage of Facebook users in each region discussing ‘swine flu’ through Wall posts.

Oracle announced a $7.4 billion deal for Sun Microsystems just a few weeks after the IBM deal for Sun fell through. Oracle now controls a significant open-source alternative and a nice piece of the high-end computing business.

These open-source components had been viewed as the alternative to the dominance of the Big 4 (or “MISO” — Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and Oracle). In addition, Oracle gains an innovation engine with the assets of Sun’s Labs groups, which pioneered a series of advances that include potential enterprise solutions for the virtual world.

The deal continues Oracle’s path to acquiring deeper components of the enterprise-computing stack, including appliances. Here’s how the addition of Sun expands the stack:

• Middleware — While Java and Solaris may appear to be the crown jewels in the deal, Oracle has managed to slowly buy out other stack competitors (i.e. BEA and now Sun) and integrate them into the Fusion Middleware suite of tools for custom development and its own Fusion Applications product lines. Sun complements BEA. In addition, the open-source stack will also provide Oracle with a new avenue to the reach the small-and-midsize business (SMB) market.
• Database — Oracle takes out the low-cost competitor to SQL server on the low end and gets a shot at converting them to Oracle DB instead of IBM. Adding Sun’s MySQL expands an SMB entry point as well as the removal of a competitor.
• Hardware — Oracle gains another great recurring revenue (maintenance) base with Sun’s Solaris. This complements Oracle’s large and profitable existing database installations on Solaris that would have fallen prey to the IBM DB2 team. While there’s some talk about Oracle selling the hardware side — see this eWEEK article — this seems unlikely as Oracle focuses in on the appliance market. Even more important is the fact that Oracle can take Sun’s tools and create a purpose-built appliance running its database, middleware, and applications.

The bottom line: Oracle succeeds at post-merger integration where others often fail.

Despite skepticism, Oracle has made these acquisitions work from a financial perspective, with year-over-year quarterly profit growth that has generally been well above 20 percent. Some key success factors include:

• Acquiring companies for the recurring revenue. Oracle’s first set of deals (i.e., PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems) focused on installed-base acquisitions that provided a strong foundation of support-and-maintenance customers. This base of recurring revenues provided Oracle with the room to continue strong research-and-development investment while reducing overall costs. With this deal, Oracle gains another highly profitable maintenance base, adding pressure to competitors. This acquisition delivers Sun’s profitable Solaris revenue stream while enabling Oracle to move into a maintenance business for open-source software.
• Eating its own dog food. In the late 1990s, Oracle made a major commitment to re-engineering its back-office processes using its own applications. As a result, Oracle has become highly efficient, with a ratio of general and administrative expenses to revenues of 3 percent to 4 percent — in most calendar quarters, one percentage point lower than SAP’s and even lower than other large software vendors such as Microsoft and Symantec. Expect Oracle to put the Sun assets into its arsenal of tools for delivering software innovation.
• Mastering post-merger integration. With two former investment bankers at the helm, Oracle has one of the best post-merger integration teams in the business. Oracle’s profit performance signals that it has been able to add new companies — and those companies’ streams of revenues — while keeping costs down. Sun will provide considerable synergies in both the short and long run.

Related Coverage:

• 20090420 CNBC – Squawk Box with Karen Tso & Maura Fogarty “VIDEO -Oracle Snatches Sun, Foils IBM’s Bid“
• 20090420 The Associated Press – Jordan Robertson and Michael Liedtke “After IBM dalliance, Sun goes to Oracle for $7.4B“
• 20090420 USA TODAY – Jon Swartz and Leslie Cauley “Oracle to buy Sun for $7.4B after IBM drops bid“
• 20090420 SearchOracle.com/TechTarget – Ed Scannell “Will Sun help Oracle eclipse IBM?“
• 20090420 DestinationCRM – Lauren McKay “Oracle Takes a Shine to Sun Microsystems“
• 20090420 Managing Automation – Emily-Sue Sloane “Oracle to Spend $7.4B to Buy Sun Microsystems“
• 20090420 The Guardian – Andrew Clark “Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems comes as surprise to software industry“
• 20090420 Computer Zeitung – Hans-Thomas Hengl “Mit der Kontrolle über Java sitzt Oracle am Schalthebel des Softwaremarkts“
• 20090420 Internet News – Alex Goldman “Oracle Buys Sun in IBM’s Wake“
• 20090420 Infoworld – Tom Sullivan “Can Oracle make sense of Sun’s hardware?“
• 20090420 eWeek – Nicholas Kolakowski “Oracle, Sun Deal Strengthens Competition Against IBM, HP, Cisco“

Your Point of View
What do you think about the acquisition of Sun? Did you count on Sun as your open-source stack alternative to the Big 4? You can leave public comments on this post, or send a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com. Comments are preferred! Thanks, and looking forward to your POV!

R “Ray” Wang is an analyst at Forrester Research. His personal blog, A Software Insider’s Point of View, can be found here: http://blog.softwareinsider.org. This post first appeared on his site and appears here with his permission.

As I’m sure you have noticed from various media outlets, promotions, events, etc, that today is Earth Today. It’s a nice chance to raise awareness about our environment and what we could be doing to live more sustainably. It’s also interesting to see how various retailers are using the day to promote their green or natural products.

For example, The Polish Bar of Brooklyn ( a salon in my Brooklyn neighborhood) today sent out a e-newsletter introducing its new line of eco-friendly cosmetics. The text reads: “By educating ourselves and our customers, we are doing our part to create a healthy environment for our Glamour Gals.”

Other Earth Day marketing messages include:

A local IKEA store in Canton Township is giving away 1,000 blue spruce saplings in honor of Earth Day. The giveaway is not a companywide initiative.

Department store chain Macy’s today is selling reusable shopping bags for $1.95. They are then giving $1 from each sale to the National Park Foundation.

Some larger retailers are making Earth Day headlines with corporate-wide initiatives:

Today super retailer Wal-Mart announced it will increase its use of solar power. According to a USA Today article, Wal-Mart plans to double its usage of solar power energy by adding rooftop solar arrays to as many as 20 stores and distribution centers in California.

Today Delta Airlines sent its mile counters this an email newsletter with this message: “To celebrate Earth Day, we will match all carbon offset donations made April 22 through May 22 at delta.com. Together, our efforts will help The Conservation Fund’s Go Zero® program plant trees and restore habitats for wildlife.”