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Five years ago, megadeals were all the rage in the business process outsourcing (BPO) world. Global players such as IBM, Accenture, ACS and CSC were racking up billion-dollar multiyear contracts, mainly for accounting, human resource and procurement functions. Now that's changing. ...

Late on a summer morning recently I got a call from my wife saying "On Point," a public radio program, was doing a show on about cloud computing. "Isn't that what you write about?" she said. "You should listen or call in." ...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told analysts last week that ultra-thin PCs will be the answer to the growing popularity of netbooks. I doubt that, but I can certainly understand Ballmer's interest in backing the ultra-thins, and this obviously has implications for larger issues like cloud computing ...

I am hearing from vendors that their on-premise CRM sales in the early part of this year are pretty good. No one has briefed me ahead of their earnings calls, but the results from late last year and Q1 seem to be pretty good ...

What a summer for remembrances. Forty years ago, a couple of people landed on the moon, and a half-million of them landed on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York for the Woodstock festival. [*correction] ...

My ride from San Francisco Airport to Redwood Shores, Calif., tells the story of my entire trip to the West Coast last week. ...

This story was originally published on April 17, 2009, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series ...

This story was originally published on Dec. 4, 2008, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. ...

Kudos to all those who participated in, organized or even attended the Enterprise 2.0 conference in drizzly Boston last week. There is a lot to write about ...

Events taking place on the streets of Tehran may have an important effect on how social networking rolls out across the rest of the world, and that includes the CRM world. Last week, the media began carrying stories about a "cyber revolution" that may be happening in the Islamic Republic, but those stories fail to account for the whole story -- the yin and yang of social media...

What do these things have in common? Maybe nothing other than that the movie has a sequel and the two-dot-oh suffix is a sequel. Also, the start of blockbuster movie sequel season overlaps with trade shows like Sales 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. ...

Business schools have been discussing General Motor's loss of market shar for decades already, and the added denouement of the company's bankruptcy filing will no doubt drive many academic papers for decades to come ...

Clara Shih is a friend I met through Salesforce.com. She recently published The Facebook Era, which looks at the relationship of social networking to front office computing. She is really busy these days promoting the book, and she recently left Salesforce to pursue new ideas in social networking and to form a company dedicated to the task. ...

A lot happened at Insights, the Sage partner meeting held in Nashville earlier this month, though not necessarily at the press release level. I was there and got a sense of change happening. It was the first anniversary of new CEO Sue Swenson coming on board and our first opportunity to see the imprint she is making on the company. Last year, Swenson had been with the company for only a matter of weeks and as CEO could only talk about the future. With a year behind her some results are apparent, but the expectation is that there is a lot of work ahead. ...

RFID has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride. It started with a bang a few years ago, when Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense issued their edicts that all suppliers would need to get on the RFID bandwagon within a set time frame. Well, that deadline has come and gone, and uptake has fallen well short of the mark. ...

Today's column is a little different from the usual fare. Beagle Research Group has once again recognized a handful of companies with its annual WizKids award, this time for their innovations in front office computing. The idea behind the award -- and a report that goes with it -- is that innovation is happening all the time, and the best ideas can change our world. The 2009 WizKids all have that capability.

"If you can't make money at it, you don't have a business, you've got a hobby." ...

I wanted to write a piece about the wisdom of crowds for a long time, but I needed a clip from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" to make it work. After a lot of procrastinating, I went to YouTube, did the hard work of reviewing all of the Python clips and found the right one. There is no limit to the effort I will make to write a piece -- this research was physically demanding and my sides still ache...

This is the eleventh and final installment in a series on building a Web site for your small business. Part 1 looks at essential elements of a business Web site. Part 2 offers basic site design guidelines. Part 3 tackles some advanced design issues.Part 4 examines social media tools for building traffic.Part 5 compares outsourcing with doing maintenance work in-house.Part 6 offers tips on marketing your site. Part 7 covers analytics for measuring effectiveness.Part 8 delves into content management issues.Part 9 investigates security and transaction processing.Part 10 discusses issues concerning customer privacy...

Zuora, the on-demand billing service for on-demand companies, is turning 1 year old. Last week, the company announced 100 product improvements with its 2.0 version and said that it had attracted 100 customers in its first year. Why all the attention to this startup? ...