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The Rise of Open Source May 16, 2012 
SugarCon, the SugarCRM user meeting held in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, did some important things for Sugar. It was a coming out party of sorts for a company with a distinct business model and strategy, namely open source. It was also validation of that strategy and, for many, a new realization of what open source means.
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E-Commerce Companies Pleasing Customers More Than Ever May 09, 2012 
E-tailers are getting better and better at making their customers happy, according to the annual E-Retail Satisfaction Index released by ForeSee. In this year's report, a record 36 online retailers out of 100 achieved the so-called "threshold for excellence," with scores of 80 or higher on the 100-point scale. That compares with 28 sites achieving this distinction in 2010 and 2011, and six reaching it in 2009.
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Sustainable CRM May 09, 2012 
There was an interesting article about airlines in The New York Times last week, "When Flying 720 Miles Takes 12 Hours," but the subtext was all about CRM, or at least where CRM has to go. If you know me at all, you know I closely attend to macroeconomics and energy issues, and they are all over this article.
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Spring Renewal May 02, 2012 
I read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in college, and now every April brings me back to the opening verses about springtime and renewal. This April was especially memorable in our industry, and as the month has just passed I wanted to take a moment to discuss some of the things I witnessed. Mostly, for me, there was an unmistakable sense of renewal in CRM and in the tech sector more generally.
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Kicking Off CRM Idol - Season 2 May 01, 2012 
Small CRM players have a chance to get their names out in the market if they win top spot at the second annual CRM Idol competition, which kicked off Monday. Hopefuls have until 6 p.m. Pacific time on May 25 to file their submissions. Contestants will be assigned a mentor to help them prepare the briefing or demo.
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Salesforce.com Reaches for Bigger Slice of Government Cloud Pie April 25, 2012 
Salesforce.com has unveiled a new series of cloud computing initiatives for the government user base -- a highly lucrative niche for tech vendors, especially those that can present their products in a budget-friendly light. The new offerings, bundled under the name "Government Cloud," include a dedicated, multitenant instance of Salesforce.com's cloud infrastructure, a new AppExchange for the Government, and a Salesforce Government Partner Accelerator Program.
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Oracle's Big Pivot Point April 25, 2012 
This might be the year we look on in hindsight as the time Oracle got its groove back. It is well known that CEO Larry Ellison thinks in 10-year cycles and about how the industry seems to morph like a caterpillar about every decade. He's not the only one. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, has referenced the decade cadence, and others have too.
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Customization on the Cutting Edge April 20, 2012 
Every day, I meet retailers who are eager to learn how they can add a co-creation, customization, or personalization feature (collectively "Customization" with a capital 'C') to their existing offerings. They often start the conversation off with an overview of their current products and quickly move to a discussion about which of them cater to the "customization" demographic.
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Zuckerberg's Instagram Poker Face April 18, 2012 
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently lives by the idea that it is better to ask forgiveness than permission. This seems to have been the case with his decision to acquire Instagram earlier this month. Zuckerberg reportedly alerted the board of directors only hours before making its largest acquisition ever, a billion-dollar deal for the digital photo-sharing service, which had only launched in October 2010.
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When It Pays to Start With Mobile April 18, 2012 
CRM vendors that have wondered about the necessity of porting their applications to the small screen should take note of last week's acquisition of Instagram by Facebook. Instagram is the tip of a big iceberg and is perhaps a signal of yet another disruption in a disruption-prone industry.
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US Agency Takes 'Private' Approach to Streamlining IT Procurement April 14, 2012 
Information technology vendors seeking business from the federal government are well advised to keep an eye on the requirements of big agencies such as the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security. Within big departments, there are big components -- such as the Food and Drug Administration or the Bureau of the Census.
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Nordstrom Tries On Bonobos for Size April 13, 2012 
Upscale retailer Nordstrom has become known for its advanced online initiatives in recent years. However, the store chain is pushing the envelope in this area with an investment in Bonobos, an etailer that specializes in well-tailored men's pants. The intriguing part of this investment, which reportedly totals $16.4 million, is that Nordstrom will sell Bonobos clothes in 100 of its stores, as well as on Nordstrom.com.
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A Tale of Two Decision-Making Systems April 11, 2012 
Thanks for the overwhelming response to last week's post, "Why CRM Works." It was surprising and gratifying that so many people read and tweeted about it, given its length -- almost double my usual contribution. Since it was based on Daniel Kahneman's groundbreaking work, I give all the credit to him and his great career in trying to understand how we think.
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Vendors Must Deal With More Federal 'Commodity' IT Purchasing April 10, 2012 
Federal agencies will be moving significant portions of their annual IT spending to "commodity" type procurement vehicles by the end of 2012. As part of continuing reforms in IT acquisition and management, the White House Office of Management and Budget has directed agencies to immediately begin the process of consolidating IT procurement, with a focus on shared service arrangements.
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Oracle Trumpets Analytics Bona Fides April 06, 2012 
Oracle President Mark Hurd delivered a speech before Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo that emphasized the rapid buildup in analytical functionality the company has made in recent months. He touched upon previous developments, such as the Big Data Appliance announced at the start of the year, as well recent news, such as its update of Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management.
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Why CRM Works April 04, 2012 
I have great admiration for the work of Daniel Kahneman. He's an Israeli psychologist whose work with the late Amos Tversky won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002, even though neither was obviously an economist. The pair built the foundation for behavioral economics and did early work on framing, or how we perceive issues based on what other information surrounds them.
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Microsoft: Turn the Corner, Connect the Dots March 28, 2012 
To get a sense of all the wonderfulness surrounding Convergence, you need only glance at some of the many observations made by the likes of Paul Greenberg, Brent Leary, Dennis Howlett, Josh Greenbaum and many others. So kudos to Microsoft. My observations will be somewhat different. While I also think Microsoft has made important strides and I applaud its CRM team, I want to focus on what's around the bend.
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Telework Growth Spurt Drives Feds' Hunger for Mobile Tech March 27, 2012 
The market for mobile information technology will grow sharply in the next few years as employers increasingly embrace both "at home" telework solutions and the use of other remote access capabilities, including smartphones and tablets. In a February forecast on mobile data traffic, Cisco Systems predicted that such traffic will grow at a compound annual rate of 74 percent in the U.S. between 2011 and 2016.
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