Archive

Few industries in this online era can lay claim to a longer or more venerable history than newspapers can -- but today, it's no secret that newspapers are in trouble. The rise of the Internet has wrought changes to the competitive landscape that are drawing away both readers and advertisers, leaving...

Social networking technology. Blogs. Evite applications. Discussion forums. These, of course, are the heart of what has come to be called "Web 2.0." Now, what was once strictly a toy for consumers is transforming itself for corporate use. In the case of the sales function, that would be Sales 2.0. A...

Journyx, a provider of Web-based time tracking and project accounting applications, has released a stripped-down version of some of this functionality for the consulting industry. Called the "Customer Cost Tracker," the Software as a Service tool's primary purpose is to help consulting and other ser...

Once the software industry absorbed this week's news that SAP would be acquiring the French business intelligence vendor Business Objects for close to $7 billion, speculation immediately shifted to what would happen to Cognos. With Oracle's digestion of Hyperion complete and the Business Objects sal...

Let's face it, SaaS is sexy these days. Nearly everybody is either starting entirely new companies to capitalize on the benefits of SaaS or madly rushing to get their applications ported to it. At a recent conference I presented at in the Bay Area, this became abundantly clear. Every session hosted ...

It is turning into a busy end of the year with the CRM and Software as a Service industries advancing on multiple fronts. So far, we've had Dreamforce and all of the announcements that went with it. SAP has announced SAP Business ByDesign, available in 2008, and last week made NetWeaver available by...

Interactive Intelligence introduced a new iteration of its flagship contact center automation and enterprise IP telephone software platform. Customer Interaction Center and Vonexus Enterprise Interaction Center version 3.0 include upgraded security, new deployment and integration technologies, as w...

The uninsured and underinsured in this country will be a top focus in the run-up to next year's presidential elections as competing candidates face off over who has the best plan to solve the burgeoning problem. One doesn't have to wait until the primaries are held, though, to know that whatever can...

SAP has announced it will acquire Business Objects for about $6.78 billion. The French business intelligence vendor is one of the few assets on the market able to go head to head with Hyperion, which Oracle bought earlier this year for $3.3 billion. The acquisition will allow SAP to move into the BI...

Improving RFID systems for specific applications and industry sectors -- along with mandates from governments and large companies with extensive supply chains and logistics needs -- is spurring adoption by a wider range of small and medium-sized businesses in the public and private sectors. SMBs nee...

Channel partner opportunity management firm BlueRoads announced on Sept. 17 a new lead referral module designed to help vendors gain strategic insight into the management of better sales channel yield. The new software module captures new referrals from a vendor's extended partner community and harn...

Microsoft has introduced HealthVault, a portal for consumers in which they can store their health data -- either manually or by uploading data from, say, a heart monitor -- as well as search for related healthcare information. The portal includes an online component and client software called the He...

Silicon Valley venture capitalists Bay Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners have pooled resources with Salesforce.com to roll out a fund that will invest in companies' development activities on Salesforce.com's platform. Typical investments will equal about $500,000 each, totaling $25 million over...

The big news when Saleforce.com released its latest version of what is hot in the CRM space -- Winter '08 -- was Force.com. The immediately understood subtext was that Salesforce.com had officially begun its migration to a platform on-demand company, launching the first salvo in what Denis Pombriant...

Just a couple of weeks ago, two terms, on-demand and Software as a Service (SaaS), were used interchangeably -- it was truly a difference without a distinction -- but a lot has changed in a short time. First, Salesforce.com introduced Force.com, and a day later SAP announced a long awaited on-demand...