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Everyone has a year-end synopsis these days, and it's fun to see what each person deems important. Sometimes you wonder if you lived through the same experiences, but it's a good thing to recall everything one more time and maybe reconsider how you'll remember each. Here's my synopsis -- which is no more or less valid than anyone else's. ...

I was doing some research in the Time Magazine archives (the best ones I have seen, by the way) the other day and came across this nugget from 1962: ...

On Dec. 6, Apple announced that it would begin making some Macs in the U.S., reversing a trend building over several years of manufacturing computers in China and setting an interesting precedent. Apple isn't alone in this: HP has also begun shifting some of its PC production back to the U.S. of A ...

Has the emergence of social technology been faster than the rollout of other advanced technologies like CRM and ERP? If it has, why? ...

Have you voted yet? Not in the presidential election -- this is more important! I am talking about voting in the CRM Idol competition. It's time! ...

Incorporating analytics in a vendor's solution set was once enough to qualify the vendor as very forward looking and a leader in the market. I think that's true in CRM for sure, and this metric could be spreading. Ever since Salesforce introduced its Marketing Cloud at Cloudforce New York, however, that hasn't been enough ...

I tried to wait a bit before commenting on the election and the Social CRM implications partly out of respect and in part to give everyone a chance to rev down. Besides, these observations have much more to do with social media than with any political party or policy initiative, so please believe me when I say I come in peace ...

Microsoft is flying high, certainly internally, after four important announcements in the last couple of weeks: Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, its all-important new Surface tablet, and the MarketingPilot acquisition. It has also made some important announcements around Dynamics CRM. I was at one of its campuses last week for a couple of days' worth of briefings and conversations, so there is a lot to unpack and in the interest of not perseverating there may be some things that get scant attention here, not due to lack of interest, but for respect to your eyeballs. ...

This story was originally published on May 30, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series ...

I spent a day last week in Boston attending a conference called the "Inbound Marketing Summit" organized by my friend and former analyst Allen Bonde. Inbound marketing IMHO is taking off in some important dimensions ...

It's been a little while since I wrote about the impact of energy costs on business, but just because I have been silent doesn't mean the issue is quiescent -- just the opposite. Demand is stronger than ever and supply is trying to catch up, but it will fail ...

I went to Oracle OpenWorld as a guest of Oracle and came away with a variety of observations that I can share. Some of what I saw was under NDA and that will remain undisclosed, though I have to tell you that I did not see any labs or next-generation products beyond what my colleagues saw at the show. My secret experiences revolved around customer stories...

I've been at OpenWorld for two days as I file this, but so far I have little CRM-oriented material. CRM really kicks in on Wednesday when the company focuses on CX -- or customer experience -- the moniker that Oracle has given to much of its CRM focus ...

It's over, Dreamforce that is, and I have gotten some needed sleep on the flight back to Boston. As I contemplate Dreamforce 2012 and its meaning, I have three observations ...

As you read this, Dreamforce 2012 is underway and Marc Benioff is giving his keynote presentation. I've been in San Francisco since Monday and have watched the city -- especially near the Moscone Center -- swell like a pumpkin on a vine in late summer. If Salesforce's 70,000 registered attendees doesn't impress you, consider that they have another 30,000 people attending a Web conference as well...

I made a decision this week that pleased me and will drive some of my thinking about the CRM business well into next year. I opened up a contest called the WizKids Award. That might not seem like much and it might seem self-serving for me to write about it but maybe there's more ...

Now is the golden age of marketing. I was tempted to write the second golden age since history sometimes seems to repeat but I am more of the Mark Twain school of history and he believed that history did not repeat itself but that it rhymed ...

My sources tell me that Salesforce.com will be handling its major Dreamforce announcements differently this year. Rather than letting us drink from a firehose at the event, they promise to tell us much of their news beforehand so that they can spend the keynotes (I assume) drilling down into more of the substance of their announcements. ...

Pascal Houillon, the CEO of Sage North America, has been at the job for a bit over a year. He took over the reins at last year's Sage Summit where he famously introduced a new branding exercise. Houillon's idea was to make Sage a more prominent brand by de-emphasizing the individual product names, in many cases renaming them. ...

It's good to be busy, but I remember when August was a slow month, sort of like January, and for the same reasons. The holidays are out of the way, there's less to do -- other than eat the Christmas chocolates or the summer squash and tomatoes, and think about spring or going back to school. The August doldrums were a time of clambakes and vacations. Now? Clambake, si! Vacation, no mucho!...