The results for software vendor Infor for the second quarter ended October 31 are difficult to describe. The company swung to a loss over the prior year with a drop in revenue. However, Infor is being impacted by a switch of its fiscal year end from May 31 to April 30, which means the push for sales by the ends of quarters is different. The loss for the most recently ended quarter was $2.9 million, compared to income of $13.1 million a year earlier. Revenue dropped to $663.3 million, down 3.3 percent from $685.6 million in the year earlier quarter.

Microsoft has not issued statistics about Microsoft Business Solutions, the organization that has pretty much disappeared, in a long time. But on his LinkedIn page, former MBS head Kirill Tatarinov said that MBS "was a $2B business unit developing and marketing the family of Dynamics ERP and CRM solutions". Since Tatarinov has more than 500 LinkedIn connections, this is not exactly a secret. Tatarinov said in his tenure of eight years and four months that he doubled revenue, which fits previously known information.

The folks at Dynamics Communities cornered me last month for an interview as part of their series of Enterprise Software Podcasts. Much of the discussion is not about software, but about how a journalist can keep on top of the news. My theories have always revolved around competence—know as much about the topic as possible—and work—investigate every possible source of information, especially if it seems like competitors will not.