By now, it's become a tired old tech industry bromide: CIOs need to be business-savvy.

Salesforce.com is hoping to set the standard for how government bodies deliver online services to citizens using mobile devices.

Yahoo has confirmed widespread reports that it will acquire the popular blogging service Tumblr, and also promised not to "screw it up." The deal is worth about US$1.1 billion, nearly all in cash.

About half of the world's companies will adopt BYOD programs by 2017 and will no longer provide computing devices to employees, a new Gartner report predicts.

Anyone remotely within the orbit of SAP lately knows that its number-one focus is the HANA in-memory database and development platform. At this week's Sapphire conference in Orlando, the vendor sought to show the progress it is making in both building out HANA's capabilities as well as attracting developers and partners to HANA.

Selling SaaS (software as a service) applications aimed at specific lines of business is one way that SAP has tried to stake a claim in the world of cloud computing and during the Sapphire conference it unveiled a broad series of updates to the portfolio.

SAP's software is known for its role running many of the world's largest companies, but not necessarily for its user-friendliness. As part of an ongoing effort to change this perception, SAP unveiled Fiori, a set of 25 lightweight "consumer-friendly" applications that can run on desktops, tablets and mobile devices, on Wednesday at the Sapphire conference in Orlando.

Capitalizing on apparent demand from customers, NetSuite is adding new capabilities aimed at manufacturers to its cloud-based ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.

SAP is hoping to win points with professional sports teams by showing how its HANA in-memory database, analytics, mobile software and other technologies can help them make fans happier, find better players and improve their operations.

SAP's HANA Cloud Platform, consisting of the core in-memory database plus application development tools, analytics and integration services, will eventually underpin all of its cloud-based applications, the company said at its Sapphire conference.

You know you're not in iTunes anymore when the app you're eyeing has a US$1,050 price tag, but SAP is nonetheless expanding its online shopping experience in a bid to entice its customers to purchase enterprise software the way they shop on their smartphones.

SAP's Sapphire conference kicks off next week in Orlando, setting the stage for the company to sell customers on its visions for cloud-based applications, in-memory computing and mobility.

NetSuite is beefing up its cloud-based ERP software's order-processing features by acquiring OrderMotion, a move that could strengthen its appeal to customers in retailing. Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed.

SAP is set to offer customers the option of running their applications on top of a cloud-based version of its HANA in-memory database technology.

BMC has agreed to be acquired by a private investment consortium headed by Bain Capital and Golden Capital, in a deal worth about $US6.9 billion.