Archive

Last week, and for many other weeks, I discussed CRM 2.0, but today I am thinking more about the world beyond 2.0. Maybe it will be CRM 3.0, or maybe some wise guy like Paul Greenberg will change the numbering and call it "CRM 20xx," who knows? My reading and research tells me that there will be a n...

Google and Salesforce.com have rolled out a Force.com toolkit for Google Data application programming interfaces that's designed to help developers integrate Google Apps data and content with Force.com's database, logic and workflow capabilities. These open source tools and services, which are model...

The Google-Salesforce.com partnership grows ever more intertwined. The latest development occurred Monday when Salesforce.com released a Google Data client library for the Force.com platform that provides access to the full suite of Google Data APIs using Apex code, allowing developers to integrate ...

Oracle has reached an agreement to buy Skywire, a firm that makes software for the insurance business, as the database and applications giant continues to build out its menu of industry-specific tools. The purchase of Skywire marks the second consecutive acquisition in the insurance space for the vo...

The Internet has seen massive adoption. Online retailing has continued to dramatically build its customer base and more and more companies are sending their offline customers to the Internet for service and support. To service both these old and new customers, the Internet has already had an abundan...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission reportedly is expected to rule against Verizon in a complaint filed by three cable companies against the telco. The FCC plans to tell Verizon it cannot try to talk phone service customers into staying instead of switching to a cable competitor, according to...

The launch of Healthline Networks' HealthSTAT last week is one more indication that the Internet ad platform wars are far from over. To be sure, Google remains the giant to beat -- and it looks as though it's settling into its role as the long-term dominant player. However, HealthSTAT may be on the ...

Amdocs and IBM have entered into an original equipment manufacturer agreement in which Amdocs will embed the IBM DB2 Data Server and the IBM Optim Data Growth application in its CRM product line. It is the first OEM agreement IBM has inked involving Optim, Steve Tallant, senior manager of product li...

The vast majority of doctors aren't taking advantage of electronic medical records, with many citing the cost of adoption as a significant impediment, according to a new study that also suggests the tipping point toward broader adoption may be on the horizon. Just 17 percent of U.S. doctors have acc...

Attracting and retaining fans are the keys to success in the crowded and competitive online games industry. The Net's growing multimedia communications capabilities are providing not only games developers but businesses of every size and stripe a vastly richer yet less structured environment for CRM...

I was at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last week. Good show, nice people, well run, and it was held at a swanky new Westin on the waterfront. It got me thinking, though, about the "two-dot-oh" phenomenon and how badly it needs a rethink. See, the problem -- whether we're dealing with Enter...

E-mail marketing has long been neglected in the larger marketing world. That's understandable -- e-mail marketing campaigns are easy to design and cheap to implement. Still, any tool worth using is worth using to its best advantage. Part of the problem is that e-mail marketers receive little to no f...

Having delivered on its goal of moving to a service-oriented architecture, SAP now aims to make use of that architecture as it drives innovation out to the fringes of its sphere of influence. CEO Henning Kagermann outlined in his keynote at the company's annual Sapphire conference a strategy to deli...

So you've decided to buy your solution instead of build one. This doesn't mean that it's easy to choose which product, or even what kind of solution to purchase. Take the choice between installing software on your own equipment -- the "on-premise" solution vs. leasing a solution that runs on the ven...

What is the potential opportunity for Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise space? A whopping $4.6 billion a by 2013, according to a tally Forrester Research arrives at in a report released earlier this year. Spending on Web-based enterprise technologies, including social networking, RSS, blogs, wi...