Archive

Microsoft is slated to garner the majority of IT development spending over the next six months, according to a survey of more than 300 developers by Evans Data. The reason is more complex than Microsoft's dominance on the desktop or in corporate IT. Rather, developers are gravitating to Microsoft a...

Ending weeks of speculation, Salesforce.com has unveiled an expanded partnership with Google that will start by combining the on-demand software firm's Web-based CRM product with Google AdWords. The two companies, which have been linked in rumors for weeks, launched the product Tuesday in 43 countri...

If the reports of Avaya's acquisition are accurate, Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners are near to closing the largest leveraged buyout of a computer networking company. Avaya, TPG and Silver Lake are declining to comment, but reports say the two private equity firms will pay about $8 bill...

Cost reduction, chasing talent globally, aligning product life cycles to critical natural resources -- all form the mantra that has made outsourcing the silver bullet so many manufacturers and service companies reach for when the challenges of achieving financial objectives hit. What is troubling is...

Video rental purveyor Netflix and TV shopping channel QVC led a customer satisfaction index of the top 100 online retailers released Friday by ForeSee Results. The index, calculated twice a year by the firm, ranked the Web sites of Netflix and QVC, with scores of 85, as the kings of customer satisfa...

The other day a reader sent me an interesting e-mail that I think sums up what a lot of other people are thinking. The note reads, in part, "We've all read the same books, we all know who Clay Christensen is and none of this surprises us. So why are the big players letting themselves go down the sam...

Avaya is reportedly negotiating with private equity companies and at least two competitors about selling portions or all of its multifaceted telecom portfolio. Private equity firms are dazzled by Avaya's $6 billion cash flow and low debt levels. Silver Lake, a private equity firm that specializes in...

Paul Greenberg has one of the most prolific and wide-ranging minds in the CRM business. He wrote the CRM bible, CRM at the Speed of Light, which is now in its third edition. Greenberg is also an incredible gadget-head. He has all of the toys you can imagine -- phones, game consoles, entertainment ...

What should companies do -- and what should they refrain from doing -- when reacting to blog postings about their products or services? Robert Cox, president of the New York-based Media Bloggers Association and a consultant to consumer packaged goods companies, has very specific ideas on the subject...

A miracle year comes along very rarely, though any single year could be one depending on the subject matter. For example, as a member of Red Sox nation, 2004 will always be a miracle year for me, because my team won the World Series after 86 years of futility -- the Cubs are still waiting for their...

Oracle has taken what it deemed to be the best CRM features from Siebel 8 and PeopleSoft 9, as well as some of its own native functionality, and incorporated them into its latest E-Business Suite release, version 12. "There have been improvements made across all three applications," Mike Betzer, vic...

Salesforce.com and Google clearly hold each other in high esteem. Just how deep that mutual admiration runs is suggested by news that the two companies are working through details of a potential partnership. Possible developments from the reported tie-up could be a Web-based tool for integrating Goo...

Checkpoint Systems earlier this month rolled out a line of RFID-enabled labels with both advanced inventory control and item-tracking capabilities. The Thorofare, N.J.-based company said the dual-purpose label will help retailers consolidate their use of radio frequency identification technology. Ch...

Interactive Intelligence has introduced a mobile offering that duplicates many of the IP telephony functions available to workers on their desktop phones. Interaction Client, Mobile Edition provides users with presence management; company directory look-up; Microsoft Outlook contact access; call con...

If you want to see who's winning at retaining and attaining higher-than-ever customer loyalty, look no further than what is really happening inside sales reps, call center reps, their managers, and for that matter, their CEO. What is it? It's nothing on the outside -- while a new CRM system on a ho...