It’s been a little over a year since Oracle gobbled up PeopleSoft and it seems that users are finally feeling comfortable with the acquisition scenario. This past year, Oracle has been busy smoothing feathers and keeping the installed base on the client list. But there is still some trepidation about Oracle’s Fusion, the latest iteration of its applications suite. Nearly 50 percent of users polled indicate that they’re still a little wary of deployment and software benefit. Industry pundits believe that a faster delivery of the vendor’s product road map would go a long way to shoring up confidence.

For more on Oracle customer trends:
- read this article at Computerworld

Rarely are market share reports so interesting while so unsurprising. A case in point: IDC’s latest report found that Windows server sales amounted to $17.7 billion in 2005 versus $17.5 billion for Unix. That’s the first time Windows led. Also intriguing: Linux beat IBM’s mainframe z/OS for third place, $5.3 billion to $4.8 billion. Vendor-wise, the leaders were IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Sun Microsystems, in order. Low-end servers and blades grew the most.

For more on the report:
- see this News.com article

ALSO: Routers, switches topped $19 billion in 2005. Article

SAP launched its long-awaited hosted CRM product yesterday. The official name is “SAP CRM On Demand” and it costs $75 per user each month with a 100-user minimum subscription, officials said. On the back end, the software integrates with traditional SAP applications and runs on IBM DB2 databases. So the application seems cheap and solid enough to try, but it’s probably wise to wait six months while they work out any bugs.

For more on the software:
- see this Computerworld article

ALSO: Is hosted CRM right for you? Article

> SAP to announced hosted CRM today. Article

> Cambridge, MIT plan citywide WiFi. Article

> RSA Security announces Key Manager. Article

And Finally… IRS buys computer for Gates’ taxes. Article