QAD, which makes manufacturing software, is in the same boat as everyone else. Or should we say on the same cloud as a 53-percent increase in subscription revenue from cloud software sales helped the company to an 11-percent revenue increase for the first quarter ended April 30. The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company also sliced its loss to $76,000, compared to a year-earlier loss of $1.3 million and posted operating income of $298,000 in the most recently ended period, as opposed to an operating loss of $1.7 million a year ago.

There has been a lot of news about a town worried about that a large, beached animal may explode. "You mean the dead blue whale in California?" I was asked. "No, Toronto mayor Rob Ford." ... Political advisors have determine the best way to keep Ford from embarrassing statements is to have rocker Ozzy Osbourne give him elocution lessons. That way Ford can continue make gaffs, but no one will understand him. ... It is widely believed by scientists, because they play such an important role in our society, if the Kardashians did not exist, we would have to invent them.

FinancialForce.com, the company jointly owned by Unit4 and Salesforce.com, has received $50 million in private equity money. The investment comes from funds managed by Advent International, which just acquired Unit4 via a tender offer. FinancialForce is certainly optimistic. Its CEO, Jeremy Roche, issued a statement that said, "The company is on track to transform the ERP market in the same way that Salesforce.com has for CRM."