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Rumors have been circulating that one of the reasons the Romney campaign was able to raise so much money was that it had a robust back-end system, Denis Pombriant, principal with Beagle Research, told CRM Buyer. "It makes sense -- he has a smaller base and needed to be methodical in order to hit everybody he could."

SAP's abrupt announcement that golden boy Shai Agassi was leaving the company last week hit like a proverbial ton of bricks. The initial announcement said all the right things about Agassi wanting to pursue other options, and board chairman Hasso Plattner made the usual remarks about still being friends and the mutuality of the decision -- but you have to suspect that there's a back story...

Two things impressed me about Salesforce.com's Spring '07 release: the community portal and the influence of the IdeaExchange on the direction of the product. A lot of people point to the portal as the more significant and I suppose it is, but maybe only by a whisker ...

"It is not the only quote configuration tool in the tool box, but companies look for simple apps to encourage and train salespeople to use Salesforce in the first place," Denis Pombriant, founder of Beagle Research, told CRM Buyer. "It is a quasi front end-back end type solut...

There is a dandy little market share war taking place right now in the compensation management sector. Vendors are making claims to uniqueness and superiority and trashing each other in ways that we haven't seen in a few years -- and it's great sport ...

"People are too willing to trust something if it sounds official or is labeled with a prestigious-sounding name or organization," Denis Pombriant, founder of Beagle Research, told TechNewsWorld. "My advice to anyone relying on the wonderful wizardry of the Web for information is to consider the season and demand proof."

Over the last three weeks I have received an intensive course in what it means to be The Customer, and I really liked it ...

Every disruptive innovation requires a minimum of two parties to play the game. There has to be a disruptor -- someone who does the disrupting -- as well as one or more disruptees -- the party or parties being disrupted. Identifying either party is difficult, but for different reasons ...

Six to eight weeks. That's about what it seems to take to get an on-demand solution up and running these days. This information comes from an analysis of nine on-demand vendors that we surveyed for our annual WizKids report which will be out this week ...

"All of these companies are offering users technology or services that are completely new to the market," Beagle Research principal and report author Denis Pombriant told CRM Buyer The On-Demand Wave...

There have been a lot of things to write about this week. The two things that pique my interest, and that I think will have long range implications, are the emerging discussion of customer rights and Salesforce.com's latest announcements of its financial vertical focus. I don't see how the two overlap and I won't try to relate them, but I think they each deserve some analysis. First, let's talk about customer rights...

"It remains to be seen how quickly, if at all, they will react to the challenge," Denis Pombriant, principal with Beagle Research Group, told CRM Buyer. Siebel didn't take Salesforce seriously at first, he noted The Salesforce versus Siebel fight has been somewhat mischaracter...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

I am still thinking about SAP's announcement last week that it would invest in a new business model to bring its new SOA mid-market products to the marketplace. I thought it was a significant enough announcement that I wanted to offer an opinion on it right away, which is why I did a piece last week, and a few days' perspective have given me additional thoughts...

I always chafe at the saying, "The proof is in the pudding" in part because it is a truncation of a longer phrase, but mostly because it means nothing by itself. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" is how the phrase really goes, and it is the one thing that came to mind when I heard about SAP's announcement in Germany about a new business model and new mid-market products...

I had meetings last week with each of the big three on-demand CRM vendors -- Salesforce.com, RightNow and NetSuite -- and made some observations. Sometimes I get complaints from some of them when I mention more than one in an article because they like to pretend that they are unique. My grudging conclusion after my meetings is that maybe they are right. Let me elaborate...

Axel Schultze is a serial entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley. Perhaps that is not a very useful description since the valley seems to be littered with them, but Axel is, in my mind, an interesting case ...

It is part of the American Experience to be always searching for self-improvement, and I think that contributes to our obsession with New Year's resolutions. I have made a few of my own over the years and 2007 will be no exception. In the last few days, I have witnessed this urge to plan and improve in others around me -- and I am not immune to it...