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Consistency and the Customer Experience: Wise or Foolish? December 08, 2011 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote famously in his essay "Self-Reliance" that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." These days, many people drop the "foolish" out of the statement and thus completely pervert the saying's meaning, creating a justification to bash the idea of consistency.

US Agency Sharpens Tool for Protecting Software Code December 06, 2011 Software programmers work hard to produce secure, error-free code. Of course, bad things can happen -- but really, with increasingly diligent effort, how many things can go wrong? Quite a few, according to NIST. Because cybersecurity is a national goal affecting both the private and public sector, NIST and DHS are involved in a joint program to protect the development and use of software.

The Role of CRM in Logistics Companies' IT Strategies, Part 1 December 05, 2011 The logistics industry faces several challenges with the tremendous growth observed in the last two decades. Global manufacturers in industries such as automotive, IT and consumer goods have outsourced supply chain activities such as distribution and warehousing to third parties. The industry has begun to offer additional value-added services around processing of products.

SugarCRM Gets Sharper Interface, Speed Boost December 02, 2011 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 vendors. SugarCRM "put in a significant amount of enhanced administration control and management capabilities," he said.

Gates Tells Jury Microsoft's No Bully November 22, 2011 Microsoft's star witness, the company's chairman and former CEO Bill Gates, took the stand in a long-brewing antitrust civil lawsuit that pits Redmond against software maker Novell. The suit is based on an oft-repeated accusation against Microsoft: that it abused its dominant position in the market to shut a rival out.

Results Software Strengthens Bonds With SMB Apps November 18, 2011 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 what President and Founder Naseem Saab says is the application's secret sauce.

Microsoft Gets a Breakup Call November 16, 2011 The board was re-elected, company executives were questioned about corporate strategy, a proposal to create a sustainability committee was killed. All in all, it was business as usual at Microsoft's annual shareholders' meeting Tuesday, except for some uncomfortable talk -- uncomfortable from Microsoft's perspective, that is -- about whether parts of the company should be spun off.

LeadLife Gives Marketing Automation Web 2.0 Chops November 07, 2011 LeadLife Solutions has released a second-generation marketing automation product that combines a Web 2.0 user interface with a visual campaign builder designed to make marketing automation easier for companies. The new solution provides an easy-to-use alternative to complex marketing automation offerings, the company said.

SAP Gets Serious About Mobility November 04, 2011 SAP has updated SAP Business One, rolling out its 8.82 iteration for both the on-premises and hosted versions. A point release, the upgrade cannot be said to be a major leap forward in terms of functionality, but it does offer solid enhancements to the application's bread-and-butter feature set, as well as some mobile computing additions.

Siteforce Coaxes CMSs Into the Mobile, Social Marketing Era October 28, 2011 Salesforce.com has a developed a new tool for companies to help them develop and publish Web pages and landing pages specifically for marketing campaigns. The tool, called "Siteforce," is built on the Force.com platform. It focuses specifically on new technologies that legacy content management systems do not tend to support.

Microsoft Adds Firepower to Dynamics CRM October 25, 2011 Microsoft is rolling out a service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for both the partner-hosted and on-premises deployments. The update includes its promised "Activity Feeds," as well as administrative enhancements and stepped-up disaster recovery practices. Microsoft has put Dynamics CRM on a rapid release schedule, said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Federal CIO Steps Up Data-Consolidation Pressure October 25, 2011 The potential for saving money through data center consolidation among federal agencies is so great that the newly installed federal chief information officer has now challenged information technology managers to move further and faster to implement the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative.

RightNow Buy Gives Oracle Extra Ammo Against Salesforce.com October 25, 2011 Oracle has scooped up RightNow Technologies for a reported $1.5 billion. The acquisition price is a hefty 20 percent premium over RightNow's closing price last week. The acquisition fills a missing gap in Oracle's cloud-based CRM functionality. The deal also provides an excellent exit strategy for RightNow, especially as competition continues to become more intense, said Nucleus Research Vice President Rebecca Wettemann.

Microsoft's Cloud Push Begins to Pay Off October 21, 2011 Microsoft beat sales estimates Thursday when it announced record-setting revenue levels in its fiscal first quarter, thanks in part to strong sales in the cloud-based business operations, which overcame slow growth in the PC and mobile markets. The software giant posted net income of $5.74 billion and earnings of 68 cents per share.

Novell Gets to Have Its Say October 19, 2011 The Novell v. Microsoft antitrust lawsuit entered its trial phase in the Utah U.S. District Court this week, with jury selection taking place on Monday. The case, which Novell originally filed in 2004, has traveled a long and winding road. Novell won the right to go forward with the trial in May 2011, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed a March 2010 summary judgment in favor of Microsoft.

Silverpop Sees Location-Based Marketing as Golden October 14, 2011 Facebook, check. Twitter, check. RSS feeds, absolutely. Mobile, heck yes. In short, email marketing and marketing automation vendor Silverpop has been steadily adding the social and mobile channels to its range of offerings. Now it is pulling the "check-in" channel into the mix with its acquisition of PlacePunch, a location-based services marketing platform.

A FOSS Success Story: LibreOffice Turns 1 October 10, 2011 It seems hard to believe it was just a year ago that LibreOffice was born, so ubiquitous and widely accepted is the software today. Yet it really was just 2010 when tensions were building about Oracle's treatment of OpenOffice, ultimately prompting the Document Foundation to form and create the new fork that 25 million of us now love and rely on.

CRM's Place in IT Spending Plans October 10, 2011 Half of U.S. companies plan to invest more on IT resources in 2012 than in 2011. In fact, 10 percent of the companies recently surveyed were planning an increase of 10 percent or greater; only one out of 10 planned to decrease spending next year. "Our survey shows that companies view technology investments as a means to drive efficiencies and make existing employees more productive," said Nucleus Research VP Rebecca Wettemann.

Yesware Lets Sales Reps Say 'No' to Paperwork October 07, 2011 Yesware has gone to market with a new cloud-based email productivity application that is based on the simplest of concepts: Salespeople hate to waste time inputting data into their CRM systems. However, companies need that data salespeople hate to bother with. Ergo, a system that automatically inputs the data from work that salespeople are already doing -- that is, sending emails -- would save a lot of time and frustration.

The First Step to CRM Success: Name Your Problems October 06, 2011 My friend Hank retired from the Coast Guard after a 20-year career, and now he's pursuing a second career of service as the executive director for the Alameda Food Bank, another truly worthy career path. During a recent party, we got to talking about work -- me about CRM, him about the food bank. As it turns out, the food bank had a need for CRM, much as many nonprofit organizations do.