5 Companies That Had A Rough Week

The Week Ending Oct. 25

This week's list of five companies that had a rough week includes another problem for Microsoft's Surface RT tablets, a significant change in cloud strategy for SAP, the departure of a major consumer electronics company's channel chief and a sales shortfall at a major security technology company.

SAP Scales Back Development Of Business ByDesign Cloud Apps

Software giant SAP this week said it is scaling back development of Business ByDesign, the vendor's first cloud computing application set, and will focus instead on developing an ERP application platform on its HANA in-memory database.

Rivals such as NetSuite portrayed the move as a retreat by SAP in the cloud computing arena.

Business ByDesign got off to a slow start when it launched in 2007, then was relaunched in 2010 with a new architecture. But despite huge investments in development and marketing resources by SAP, only about 1,100 businesses are currently using Business ByDesign.

Windows Update Glitch 'Bricks' Some Surface RT Tablets

Microsoft this week halted a Windows 8.1 RT update when a glitch in the software caused a wide range of problems for some Surface RT customers. Some users' tablets froze or "bricked" while other users saw the dreaded "blue screen of death."

The problem comes just as Microsoft seems to be gaining some market traction with its Surface tablets, which have been slow to take off since they became available one year ago.

The problem surfaced late last week and Microsoft confirmed the problem on Monday. On Tuesday Microsoft said it had fixed the problem, which the company said affected only "a very small number" of Surface RT devices.

Panasonic Loses Longtime Channel Chief

Longtime Panasonic Channel Chief Sheila O'Neil has left the company, CRN learned this week. O'Neil, who has been with Panasonic for 16 years, said she was leaving to take her career in a new direction.

O'Neil joined Panasonic in 1997 as a channel sales manager and was promoted to vice president of channel sales and distribution in 2008. Earlier this year, she was named to her latest position of vice president of channel management.

Panasonic channel partners said O'Neil's departure is a significant blow for the company. Panasonic, so far, hasn't commented.

Obama Administration Calls For 'Tech Surge' To Fix Stumbling Healthcare Site

Yes, the software problems plaguing the Obamacare websites following its Oct. 1 launch made this "Rough Week" list two weeks ago. But the scale of the disaster has reached such proportions that it's on our list again.

This week the White House finally addressed the complications in a press conference, where administration executives said they were working on fixing the problems with a so-called "tech surge." But specifics about the plan were lacking.

The Affordable Care Act enrollment system's flagship site, healthcare.gov, has been plagued with problems and struggled to maintain uptime. Although first blamed exclusively on unexpectedly high traffic, many of the problems are now attributed to underlying software design and system integration problems.

Symantec Blames Second-Quarter Revenue Decline On Sales Model Changes

It's one thing when a vendor's sales take a hit because of economic conditions, reduced customer demand or other external factors. But it's another when a company's own actions lead to a sales shortfall.

This week Symantec said second-quarter sales fell nearly 4 percent to $1.64 billion from $1.70 billion in the same period one year ago. Symantec said the sales shortfall was due to disruption caused by changes in the company's sales coverage model. The company is transitioning more than 90 percent of its direct sales force into information management or information security specialists, a move that disrupted new license sales both direct to customers and through partners.

"We underestimated the impact of the go-to-market changes we made, and it was a challenging quarter," Symantec CEO Steve Bennett said in the company's conference call Wednesday. "However, we remain solidly convinced that these changes are required to position Symantec for long-term success." Symantec said it also expects its third-quarter results to come in below expectations.