Products

Microsoft last week shared new information about its upcoming Dynamics 365 cloud service: the addition of 100 new apps; the inclusion of Solution Integrator partners in Appsource; the division of apps and features into Enterprise and Business Editions, the latter for SMBs; and a new subscription mod...

Salesforce last week unveiled the Salesforce Commerce Cloud, billing it as the fastest path to unified commerce. It's built on technology from Demandware; Salesforce completed its acquisition of the company this summer. Commerce Cloud enables brands to provide personalized experiences for shoppers a...

INSIGHTS

Oracle OpenWorld

Larry Ellison was having too much fun. In his second keynote of this year's Oracle OpenWorld user conference, he was talking about his company's database, Oracle 12c, and comparing it highly favorably to Amazon's competing databases. It seems Ellison always has fun, which is one likely reason that t...

Just two months after announcing the integration of its CRM and ERP platform under the Microsoft Dynamics 365 umbrella, Microsoft this week announced a six-year agreement to deploy the service to HP Inc.'s ranks. Under the agreement, HP will deploy the Microsoft Dynamics platform -- including Azure,...

Why do companies invest in CRM, sales performance management software, business intelligence, and every other component of the customer-facing technology stack? The obvious response is ROI. CRM paid back $8.71 for every dollar invested in it, Nucleus Research reported way back in 2014. Business anal...

INSIGHTS

Dreaming Up Einstein

Salesforce isn't waiting for Dreamforce to begin the drumbeat over its artificial intelligence offering which is -- or will be -- called "Einstein." There is so much to discuss about this turn of events that it's hard to begin, so rather than starting at a conventional jumping-off point I'll start w...

The deal is worth about $582 million, according to a Salesforce filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Quip provides a chat feature that's built into every document and spreadsheet. It lets users direct-message team members and comment directly on any piece of content.

Oracle Hauls In NetSuite

Oracle has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NetSuite -- the company its former chief marketing officer, Zach Nelson, cofounded in 1998 -- for $9.3 billion. NetSuite offers various software packages as cloud-based services, including ERP, accounting, CRM and sales force automation. What...

LinkedIn this week announced three updates to Sales Navigator. One is deeper integration with Salesforce CRM data, allowing leads and accounts to be imported into Sales Navigator automatically. More than 20 LinkedIn customers already are using this feature. The second is direct integration of Sales ...

In a bid to augment its cloud services business with more flexibility on pricing and customization, Microsoft on Wednesday announced the launch of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft AppSource, which will integrate its ERP and CRM solutions. The combined cloud offerings, which will become available...

Microsoft on Monday made its Dynamics CRM Spring 2016 Wave generally available to customers. The application focuses heavily on machine learning and the Internet of Things. It offers field service and project service automation capabilities, as well as four preconfigured Web portal solutions for cus...

INSIGHTS

Deeper Connections

Salesforce held its Connections 2016 user event in Atlanta earlier this month. About 7,000 people attended, but in the Georgia World Congress Center and airplane hangar, attendance seemed smallish. It might have been held down by Gov. Nathan Deal's slow response to vetoing a religious freedom law la...

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