Salesforce.com shares slip

Shares of Salesforce.com slipped nearly 7% in trading after the corporate software provider disclosed plans to raise $500 million in debt, and a Wall Street analyst cut its rating on the company, reports the Wall Street Journal.

San Francisco-based Salesforce.com, which provides software hosted online and accessed through a subscription, plans to offer $500 million in convertible notes, and will use the resulting proceeds for purposes including acquisitions.

Standard & Poor's analyst Zaineb Bokhari believes "much of the capital raised" by Salesforce.com through the offering will be used for acquisitions. Bokhari says the company's move is likely part of a more general impending consolidation in the market for Internet-hosted business software, amid "slowing growth rates".

Wipro Technologies and Oracle have unveiled Oracle Application Integration Architecture Process Integration Pack (AIA PIP) for the retail industry, states TMCnet.

The Oracle AIA PIP offers customers a pre-configured, supportable and upgradeable integration of the retail merchandising execution applications with the financial operation control applications.

Oracle AIA provides an open, standards-based approach for organisations to integrate end-to-end business processes across a range of custom, Oracle or third-party applications.

GetApp.com, a portal for software, SaaS and cloud-based business applications, has made its debut, says The Washington Post.

GetApp offers professional IT services and software buyers a chance to browse and research business tools, give providers a low-cost way to be found in the directory, and guide both parties in getting the most out of the experience.

Buyers can go to GetApp.com to find, compare and select from a wide range of business applications, organised into categories by IT and business needs and by industry. The search functionality allows visitors to filter results down to a single vendor or enterprise-grade applications.