Archive

As I watch the proceedings unfold between Oracle and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), I wonder if these two entities are even on the right page. The same page? Sure. But the right page? I dunno. In this wild world we call the "free market," I wonder how Oracle can come to the conclusion that th...

In 1997, Keith Raffel founded UpShot Corporation, the first company to offer Web-based, hosted sales-force automation and CRM. UpShot launched its initial product two years later. By 2003 its products included UpShot for small and midsize businesses and UpShot XE for larger organizations. Today Raff...

On Monday, VeriSign announced the rollout of a new anti-phishing service. Called "Email Security Services," the new offering is designed to dovetail with the VeriSign Intelligence and Control Services to help businesses combat spam, e-mail viruses and phishing, a type of online scam that has become ...

Let's face it: CRM continues to be the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise applications. It doesn't get nearly the respect it deserves. Despite many research firms' take on the aggressive growth of customer-based initiatives inside manufacturing and services companies alike, CRM itself continues to go ...

Wednesday's salesforce.com IPO offered a rare opportunity for smaller CRM companies to elbow their way into the media spotlight. Many of these competitors claimed that they were taking customers away from the now-public company's customer entourage. Although a salesforce.com spokesperson said that t...

Hosted CRM vendor salesforce.com made its NYSE debut Wednesday, and got off to a quick start. After announcing its initial public offering of 10 million shares of common stock at US$11 per share, the company's stock soared to around $17 per share by day's end. The previous day salesforce filed a pre...

In my world I have discovered that diversification is instinctive in children. I have been collecting data for more than a dozen years now, and it looks to me like the second child is a natural-born brand manager. Whatever numero uno does, number two will find a way to play a riff that differentiate...

In 1816, Eliphalet Remington II turned to his father's forge and began working on a better rifle. At that time he wasn't worried about supply chains or customer relationship management. But almost 200 years later, his one-man startup is Remington Arms Company, a US$360 million enterprise selling fir...

About three weeks ago, Oracle issued a security alert describing multiple SQL injection vulnerabilities in its E-Business Suite 11i and Applications 11.0. The alert carried the company's highest severity rating, which it associates with a flaw that is "high risk and requires little specialized knowl...

EmergeCore Networks announced Thursday that it is shipping a CRM upgrade for its "IT in a Box IT-100" network appliance. The upgrade is free for existing owners of the IT 100, while new purchasers of the IT 100 or future IT in a Box models will also get the CRM software gratis. About the size and sh...

After the market closed Tuesday, Oracle disclosed that it earned US$990 million, or 19 cents per share, for its fourth fiscal quarter ending May 31st. The company's total revenue rose 9 percent to $3.1 billion during the quarter with its software revenue up 12 percent to $2.5 billion, and services r...

The reason for trade shows has always been the dissemination of information. Whether you are a vendor or a buyer, you go to trade shows to participate in an information exchange. Buyers get product information, and vendors justify the time and expense as lead-generation activity. At least that's the...

At Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI), the numbers told the story: About 180 customer-service reps were using old "green screen" technology. With dumb terminals connected to a claims-processing system, trying to handle a total of 900,000 calls per year. Each call took about 10 minutes, ...

The first week of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) trial against Oracle's US$7.7 billion hostile takeover attempt of PeopleSoft has proven to be as much a high-stakes poker game as the enterprise software market in which the two compete. Oracle opened its case with the previously undisclosed Mic...

The same week software giants SAP and Microsoft own up to merger discussions, a new study shows how consolidation forces within the enterprise-level applications and services space are working to shrink the number of vendors. The study, released Thursday by consulting firm Bain & Company, deline...