Archive

You don't have a lot of technology resources inside your company. In fact, just getting your office printer to work all the time seems like a monumental challenge. Investing in technology, whether it's new software or hardware, means dealing with a lot of stuff that just may not work like you expect...

I got a lot of mail on the piece I wrote last week about retail data collection. The mail ran two to one in support, but it was still interesting to gauge the reactions of those who think the notion of collecting data like ZIP codes, drivers license numbers and the like is kosher. Let me say again ...

The newly released American Customer Satisfaction Index provides fresh data illustrating consumers' growing love affair with e-commerce. The e-commerce industry registered a score of 80 on ACSI's 100-point scale -- less than a percentage point away from its all-time high score of 80.8 in 2003, accor...

On-demand business management software firm NetSuite announced on Thursday the release of an advanced e-commerce business suite that extends the functionality of Software as a Service applications to the online operations of mid-sized companies. NetSuite also announced new features added to its e-co...

When Dave Asiala, Dow Chemical's shared services IT director, is talking about his company's RFID initiatives and wants listeners to have an "Aha" moment, he tells them about Dow AgroSciences' use of RFID tags in its in-ground Sentricon Termite Colony Elimination System. "Essentially these are bait ...

Microsoft is offering new business intelligence features for its Dynamics CRM product. It can be downloaded for free from CodePlex, Microsoft's open source project-hosting Web site, and the Microsoft CRM Sandbox, a GotDotNet project created for Microsoft CRM users. Called "Microsoft Dynamics CRM Ana...

The not-so-pretty underside of CRM became apparent again recently with the revelation that TJX Companies, parent of more than 2,500 outlets including TJ Maxx, Marshalls and other retailers, had a break-in that may have compromised customer data. Increasingly, retailers are becoming the targets of th...

When data loss or unintended exposure occurs, organizations face myriad challenges in communication and crisis management. "Most companies will try and bury any security breach as rapidly as possible, trying to gauge what the impact on them will be and firefighting," Clive Longbottom, service direct...

Verint Systems has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Witness Systems for $27.50 per share in an all-cash deal that will total roughly $1 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter, pending approval by regulators and Witness Systems stockholders. The combined pro...

About 51 percent of organizations contacted for a recent study by Nucleus Research and KnowledgeStorm are using at least one on-demand application. This finding was not surprising to Rebecca Wettemann, Nucleus Research's vice president, because even though the technology has been around for only a s...

More than one third of the Web analytics market will be upgrading, replacing or deploying systems in the next 12 months which will create new opportunities for application vendors, according to a report released Tuesday by Jupiter Research. A survey of executives found that 12 percent of respondents...

Salesforce.com issued a press release last week that by now looks rather ho-hum by its standards. The company announced that Deloitte & Touche had signed on as a systems integration partner and that got me thinking about how many things have changed, and how many have not. It wasn't that long ag...

Organizations of all types are increasingly turning to business intelligence applications -- a combination of data mining, statistical and numerical analysis and data visualization -- to better manage and make sense of the ever-growing amounts of data they are collecting. Continuing the mantra of Pa...

RightNow Technologies has added new capabilities to its voice application, which it first introduced in June 2005 when it acquired Convergent Voice, a voice automation vendor. In this major upgrade, the firm has enhanced the application's inbound functions and has begun developing outbound features,...

Achieving real-time visibility into an organization's financial status means making key information not only current but transparent for the executives who need it to make decisions. Business intelligence and enterprise resource planning systems help accomplish that, but an increasing number of comp...