Business in Europe was a major factor in a 6.6-percent increase in organic revenue for Sage's first quarter ended December 31. The company said this week that a 10.4-percent rise in organic recurring revenue was driven by a 35.7-percent hike in subscription income. The first quarter "does represent good progress," CFO Steve Hare said during a webcast of the trading update. In trading updates for the first and third quarters, European companies do not release actual revenue and earnings.

Kirill Tatarinov, who headed Microsoft's Dynamics operations from July 2007 through October 2015, has been appointed president and CEO of Citrix. The Citrix webpage with the press release announcing the move carried the sub-headline "Veteran Microsoft Executive Brings Product Leadership to Citrix", which seems to sum up the reason for his hiring.

Scientist Stephen Hawking has issued a warning that humanity may be wiped out by nuclear war, genetically engineered viruses or global warming. He has earlier warned of the dangers of killer robots and human aggression. Vegas bookmakers have already posted odds for the new entries. Personally, I think we may not survive Vegas. ... Storm Jonas will be forgotten as easily as this year's boy band. ... Federal, state and local officials are scrambling to explain the decision by Flint, Mich., to take its drinking water from the Flint River, which has produced elevated lead levels.

With CEO Bill McDermott in his finest "resistance is futile" form, SAP reported strong results for the year ended December 31. In this week's earnings webcast, McDermott painted a picture of the software giant as a company that is in no bad markets and is crushing the competition. "We are one of the few companies that is growing both in the cloud and in license revenue," McDermott said. The German organization, he continued, has the most cloud customers of any software company and its performance is driving "gains about both core and narrowly focused cloud competitors" with the percentage of predictable revenue growing every year.