CRM, Data Quality and the Cloud
With most data, you expect a unique key and an unambiguous match. But what do you do when you don’t have a key to match on? In the good old days, every table had a unique key and table joins…
David Needle
David Needle is an experienced technology reporter, based in Silicon Valley. He covers big data, mobile, customer experience, social media, and other topics. He was previously the news editor for Enterprise Apps Today, TabTimes editor, and West Coast bureau chief of Internet.com.
Content Drives New Business Social Network GageIn
How do you keep up with the flood of information, news, social media and more across the Web? The answer is you can’t. Whether you visit aggregator sites, employee RSS feeds, or simply surf like crazy, it’s impossible to stay…
Socialtext Brings Social Networking to Corporate Intranets
How popular is your company’s intranet? Socialtext has added new features to its enterprise social networking system that are designed to bring more interactivity and relevance to corporate intranets that haven’t always kept up with the times. “We literally heard…
CRM and the Named Account Model – Square Peg, Round Hole?
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are typically designed with a new prospect lifecycle that starts with Leads (someone who has said they want to know more, but is completely unqualified) and moves through the qualification and conversion process before the…
SAP Opens Up Business ByDesign Feature Pack
SAP announced several enhancements to its on-demand Business ByDesign software today, following the general release earlier this month of the related Feature pack 2.6. The enterprise software giant said the more open Business ByDesign platform will let a broad ecosystem…
Facebook Pioneer Launches Social Media Management Platform
Is Facebook ready for business? That’s a question that’s been bandied about for years as a growing number of companies have hoped to leverage the popularity of the social networking site that has exploded to more than 500 million users…
New Box.net CMS Release Leverages Cloud, Partnerships
PALO ALTO, Calif — Box.net unveiled a redesign of its cloud-based content management (CMS) and collaboration system at a press event here today at company headquarters. The new interface, features and partnership announcements with NetSuite, Samsung and VMware are all…
Do Enterprises ‘Get’ Social Media?
“Wake up and smell the tweets!” That’s not a quote by Scott Klososky, author of the new book “Enterprise Social Technology,” but perhaps he’d agree with the sentiment. Klososky, who’s been working in IT for over 30 years, has fully…
SAP Reports Record Quarterly Sales
SAP (NYSE: SAP) took out a bit of the sting of losing a $1.3 billion copyright infringement case last November to rival Oracle, by reporting record sales for the fourth quarter that beat analyst’s expectations as well as its own…
Oracle Goes After SAP with New Business Intelligence App
The multi-billion dollar business intelligence (BI) software industry is driven by one basic value proposition — to get users the information they need in a timely fashion even if it’s buried in a data warehouse containing terabytes of customer data…
Socialtext Unveils Yammer Migration Service
The latest news from enterprise social network provider Socialtext isn’t really a new feature, but an aggressive marketing move aimed at a competitor. Today, Socialtext announced a free migration service designed to move companies with users of the Yammer microblogging…
Bullish Forecast for Enterprise Social Media Software
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg won Time magazine’s Person of the Year award, but it looks like the social media software revolution he helped launch is reaching well beyond consumers. Research firm Gartner sees healthy revenue growth for enterprise social media software…
Oracle Tops Wall Street Earnings Estimates
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) reported a bang up second quarter, beating Wall Street profit estimates. The enterprise software and hardware company reported software license updates and product revenues grew 12 percent in the quarter to $3.7 billion, and new software license…
The Truth About Sales Leads
The business purpose of a customer relationship management (CRM) system is to capture new customers faster, grow them more predictably, and keep them as loyal repeat customers. A CRM system should streamline the revenue business process and make every dollar…
Enterprise 2.0: Social Media? Anyone Can Do It
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — You might not think of the U.S. State Department as a leading edge user of technology, but Richard Boly, director of the department’s Office of eDiplomacy, went a long way toward dispelling that notion here at…
Socialtext 4.5 Adds Salesforce.com Connector
Enterprise social network vendor Socialtext has released a major update to its platform that adds a Salesforce.com “connector” and an advanced search feature called Socialtext Explore. Socialtext says the new connector, available now as a beta release, lets Socialtext users…
Oracle’s Former President Charles Phillips Gets CEO Gig
Charles Phillips has rebounded from his awkward exit from Oracle, landing the CEO spot at ERP and CRM provider Infor. Phillips, the former president of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), left in September after the company appointed former HP (NYSE: HPQ) Mark…
Socialcast Puts Social Media in Enterprise Context
Aiming to separate from the pack of players offering enterprise-friendly social media applications, Socialcast unveiled Reach, an extension of its core micro-blogging platform. Where companies like Salesforce (Chatter), Socialtext (Signals) and Yammer give enterprises Twitter- and Facebook-like capabilities behind the…
Endeca Combines Search and Business Intelligence in Hybrid Enterprise App
Enterprise search provider Endeca Technologies says its latest release makes typically complex business intelligence (BI) applications more accessible. Endeca Latitude, released Monday, gives IT a centralized platform for deploying BI applications across a wide range of diverse and changing data…
Oracle OpenWorld: Salesforce.com Bashing, CRM, BI and Fusion Apps
In his OpenWorld keynote address yesterday, Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison reiterated his criticism of CRM rival Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), threw in some jabs at SAP (NYSE: SAP) too, and also managed to discuss some of the company’s products…
Salesforce Talks Up Twitter-Like Chatter 2
Salesforce unveiled a new version of its Chatter collaboration tool at Oracle OpenWorld today. Chatter 2 adds a number of new features to the real-time social media tool that Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) debuted in June. For example, Chatter Filters is…
Oracle’s Earnings Growth Powered by New Software Licenses
Database giant Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) reported a big first quarter today, including a 38 percent rise in earnings to $2.1 billion or $.0.42 per share, easily topping analysts’ estimates of $0.37 per share. Total first-quarter revenue grew 48 percent to…
Appirio’s CloudWorks Aims to Break SaaS Logjam
Enterprises adopt SaaS applications for cost savings, flexibility and scalability. And while companies can choose from different SaaS providers, relying on multiple SaaS vendors can be a headache since their offerings don’t necessarily interoperate all that well. Enter Appirio, which…
Marketers Look to Improve Customer Support With Real-Time Chat
Demandbase has enhanced the capability of the Real-Time ID service it introduced last month by integrating it with LivePerson’s live chat platform. The combination of the Demandbase Business Identification application with LivePerson is designed to give sales agents and support…
Google Eyes Enterprise Software Apps Marketplace
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Recent bad weather moved Google’s “Campfire One” developer event indoors, but it was still quite a coming out party here at the Googleplex Tuesday night. The search giant unveiled Google Apps Marketplace, an online store for…
Tracking Ad Success in the New Era
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Few things thrill online advertisers more than metrics — those magic statistics that, at least in theory, enable them to know exactly who is viewing their ads and whether those viewers successfully made a purchase, clicked…
LinkedIn Targets iPhone, Other Mobile Devices
Social networking site LinkedIn is the latest online service to take a more mobile-friendly stance, as wireless devices continue to become more Web-enabled and attract applications typically used by desktop and notebook computer users. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company today…
TomorrowNow Execs Gone Today
Oracle’s lawsuitover alleged trade secrets theft by an SAP subsidiary seemed to be on the back burner, but heated up quickly today. The company announced that “several managers” and Andrew Nelson, the CEO of TomorrowNow, “have chosen to resign.” Also,…
SAP In Acquisition Mode
SAP announced two significant acquisitions at its SAPPHIRE ’07 international customer conference in Vienna, Austria. The one that directly impacts the enterprise software giant’s flagship NetWeaver platform is the purchase of MaXware, a privately-held provider of identity management software with…
CRM With Google Flair?
Applications software vendor Etelos showed it has a little bit of Google in it with the beta availability of CRM for Google. The software, which takes the look of the search giant’s standard search interface homepage, is available in a…
IBM Promos SAP on the Mainframe
IBM further cemented its relationship to long-time partner SAP with today’s announcement of a $40 million investment by Big Blue. Specifically, IBM said it plans to spend the money over the next five years to test, enable and support SAP…
New and Improved Salesforce.com?
Salesforce.com is expanding its horizons. The company’s new “Unlimited Edition” is no longer centered on customer relationship management applications for the mobile sales representative. Now users can run all of their business apps over the Web. The company also promises…
SAP Plays On-Demand Field
PALO ALTO, CALIF. — If further proof was needed that on-demand software in the enterprise is growing, software giant SAP provided it today with the unveiling of its first entry to the market. SAP’s on-demand solution is for customer relationship…
SugarCRM Expands Open Source Package
SugarCRM has added to its suite of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) products with the release of Sugar Enterprise Edition. The upstart CRM provider said the new offering is designed to extend the reach of its platform into…
Siebel Scores High CRM Marks
After facing numerous hurdles this year, there is some good news for Siebel Systems . The customer relationship management software company suffered from a revenue shortfall for the quarter ending June 30 on top of having to ease into the…
Hosted CRM Solution Delivers Quick Payback
Keeping tabs on sales opportunities and maximizing leads is a business necessity. But when a company grows at an accelerated rate through worldwide acquisition, the task of keeping track of sales efforts becomes all the more difficult, especially if newly…
CRM ‘Big Wins’ Will Influence Skeptics
As more enterprises design and install CRM systems, they’re learning that “privacy” must discussed in the same sentence as “customer service.” IT research firm Gartner Inc. says 40% of enterprises already with customer relationship management systems will rethink them with…
Despite Banks’ IT Spending, Productivity Gains Lacking
While many industries have turned to information technology to boost labor productivity and lower the costs of doing business, many retail banks are awaiting the payoff following an era of big investment in technology. That’s the thrust of a new…
Giving Up on E-CRM?
It wasn’t long ago that the Internet was going to change direct marketing as we know it. The vehicle for that change? Something called electronic customer relationship management, or e-CRM. Quite simply, e-CRM would allow companies to instantly track and…
Case Study: Hospital’s Prescription: A Dose of Database Software
Technology has led to countless lifesaving medical advances, such as the mechanical heart, the chip-embedded pacemaker and the CAT scan. Now, technology is catching up to an age-old health care problem — medical errors caused partly by physicians’ poor handwriting.…
Can Handhelds Improve Support? Part 2
These days, handhelds are an indispensable part of business. However, they mostly are used to manage personal information like contacts and appointments. What if you could use wireless handhelds to provide better end user support for less money? In Part…
Can Handhelds Improve Support? Part 1
A user calls the help desk with a problem. All your technicians are out in the field, but one who is near the new problem sees an alert on the wireless handheld he is carrying. After finishing the first job,…
CRM Spending Skyrockets
E-businesses’ push to connect more effectively with their customers will continue to drive robust spending on customer relationship management applications this year. Tech analyst firm eMarketer says spending on CRM will grow to $10.4 billion by the end of 2001,…
CRM Software Now Has a Voice
“We firmly believe these applications will change the way companies do business.” PeopleSoft Inc. has teamed up with JustTalk to release JustPractical with PeopleSoft CRM Sales application for eBusiness. Pleasanton, CA-based PeopleSoft is a leading provider of customer relationship management…
Envive Measures Time It Takes To Buy Online
Sure, shopping online is quicker than getting in your car to travel to your favorite store, but how much quicker? Mountain View-based Envive Corp., a provider of e-Business performance management solutions, has put its technology to use to measure just…