Vendors

If you read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, you get a good sense of the rivalry between Jobs and Bill Gates and Microsoft, or between Apple and the rest of the world more generally. But the rivalries were really between that past/present -- and the future -- and Jobs and Gates were only playing part...

You can gauge the success and financial health of almost any company by looking at revenues. At least this is true in the short term. Since revenue is a lagging indicator -- with the exception of monthly recurring revenue that subscription companies measure -- it only tells you where you've been, ...

Salesforce.com hit it out of the park with quarterly earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter and full fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31, 2012. Total Q4 revenue was $632 million, an increase of 38 percent on a year-over-year basis, topping the $624 million expected by analysts. For the full fiscal year...

Avaya has released its IP Office 8.0 -- the latest iteration of its trademark unified communications platform for small and mid-sized businesses. The new application comes with a number of new features, some of which focus on the company's core competency of communications, collaboration and presenc...

Zoho has rolled out a major update to its CRM app, completely redesigning the user interface and adding new social and productivity features. It is a massive overhaul, Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna told CRM Buyer -- one the company plans to extend to other applications throughout its business suite o...

Every year around this time, I write two columns -- one on the year that was and another on what I expect the new year to bring. There is no methodology for this process, and I believe this lack of method is important. I take a blank screen and fill it up with what has been on my mind for the last ...

SugarCRM, an open source CRM provider, has released 6.3, a new version of its flagship product line. It has also upped the ante in the cloud wars by partnering with IBM on its SmartCloud platform. The upshot, said CMO Nick Halsey, is a CRM app more than able to go head to head with long-established ...

On an otherwise slow news week, I spotted a story emanating from a Gartner analyst, Dennis Gaughan, at a recent Gartner talk in Australia. The article was on Business Insider, and I found it interesting. The headline told the story, as good headlines often do. "What Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and SAP Do...

The big number always seems to be there. The big number is the amount of money the U.S. federal government invests in information technology. In constant dollars, that number has hovered slightly above or slightly below $80 billion per year since 2007, according to TechAmerica. That funding level is...

Results Software has rolled out the latest iteration of its longstanding CRM business suite product. In this version, it builds on its recent three-way integration with QuickBooks, Outlook and SmartVault. That integration with three applications widely used by small- and medium-sized companies is wh...

When the so-called experts dispense advice about CRM implementations, whether they're first-timers or replacements of old systems, they always include a caveat about the future. You need to solve today's problems with the new system, but you also need a way to "future-proof" your investment so that ...

You have probably transacted business with Paciolan at some point in your life, even if you don't recognize the name. Perhaps you did it just by purchasing event tickets. Paciolan is a 30-year-old, private-label vendor that powers ticket sales for college athletic games, professional sports and perf...

Fujitsu has jumped into the CRM cloud computing space with its own marketplace as well as a new application. The marketplace is called the "Business Solutions Store." Besides Fujitsu's new cloud-based app, the store also makes available in SaaS format software and business processes from its partner...

The CRM Idols have been announced. The goal of the contest was to identify the best corporate video developed by an up-and-coming CRM company. In the Americas, the winning firm is Get Satisfaction. In the EMEA region, it is BPMonline. The companies were chosen by popular vote of subject matter exper...

At Dreamforce, Zuora, like many other emerging companies allied with Salesforce.com, decided to hold a user group meeting. As long as the customers jointly held by Salesforce and Zuora were in town, the logic went, why not have them in for a day of education, listening and a pep talk from the boss?...