CRM News: Trends

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.

Facebook's Future May Still Be in Play
May 15, 2012

Half of Americans believe the social network giant Facebook is just a passing fad, and a similar number believe the expected asking price in its upcoming IPO is too high, according to a new poll. Since the dot-com boom of the 1990s ended with a dot-com bust, many once-dominant players have fallen by the wayside. Will Facebook share their fate?

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.

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.

The Un-Death of the PC
May 07, 2012

This occurred to me last Thursday when first-quarter PC sales came out. Apparently, sales are up 21 percent year-over-year and HP retook the lead from Apple in this segment. In this report, Apple's numbers include iPads, and sales for iPads collapsed in the first quarter. This got me thinking of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the cart is picking up dead bodies during the Black Plague and one "corpse" not only isn't dead but feels like dancing.

Tidal Wave of Tablets on the Horizon
May 05, 2012

By 2016, tablet PCs will reach an inflection point, a new study predicts: That is the year tablet shipments are predicted to outpace those of notebook PCs. That is one prediction in the quarterly NPD DisplaySearch Tablet Quarterly report. It also forecasts that shipments of tablet PCs will grow from 81.6 million units in 2011 to 424.9 million units by 2017.

The Shape of Wireless Things to Come
May 03, 2012

Congratulations to Samsung on earning the No. 1 position in the wireless smartphone sector. On the other hand, what is the problem at Nokia and RIM? What is happening? What other earthshaking changes can we expect in the wireless space next? Plenty. We are just getting started. So who and what will lead going forward? Things change quickly -- and this is just the beginning.

Global Smartphone Market Is on Fire
May 02, 2012

Samsung is top dog in the global smartphone market. No, wait -- it's Apple that is No. 1. Well, either way, Apple is making more money than Samsung. A recent flurry of reports analyzing the state of the mobile market has provoked some head-spinning. Some issues, such as the global competition between Samsung and Apple, are being hotly disputed by dueling consulting firms. About other trends, though, there is no doubt whatsoever.

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.

Closing the Tech Ed Gap: Earning a Degree in Employability
May 01, 2012

The current brouhaha over the possible increase of federal student loan rates masks a greater problem: We are graduating a generation of people with college-level skills that our companies don't value. This is the root of the "jobless recovery." Businesses need capabilities that fresh graduates don't offer; thus the recent Huffington Post report that half of today's college graduates are under- or unemployed.

What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Hactivists?
April 30, 2012

Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of IT pros believe their organizations will be the target of a cyberattack in the next six months, and three out of five (61 percent) say the attack will come from hactivists. That was one of the findings in cybersecurity firm Bit9's annual security survey released last week. What's surprising about the survey is the concern given to hacktivist attacks, said Bit9 CTO Harry Sverdlove.

Will Apple Sputter When It Runs Out of Jobs Juice?
April 27, 2012

Without Steve Jobs, Apple will fall from greatness, according to Forrester Research CEO George Colony. "Apple's momentum will carry it for 24-48 months," he wrote recently in his blog. "But without the arrival of a new charismatic leader," he continued, "it will move from being a great company to being a good company, with a commensurate step down in revenue growth and product innovation."

Can Nintendo Play a Winning Come-From-Behind Game?
April 26, 2012

Nintendo has reached a dismal milestone: For the first time ever, it posted a fiscal year operating loss -- down $458 million for the year just ended. It is an ignominious turn of events for the company, which created legendary games like "Super Mario Brothers" and innovative devices like the Wii. It's clear that not even Nintendo could withstand the paradigm shift that mobile devices have triggered.

Speakers Tussle Over Internet's Future at The Next Web Conference
April 26, 2012

The Next Web, a network of online technology outlets, kicked off its annual conference Thursday morning in Amsterdam. One of the morning's headline speakers was Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of the social news site Reddit, whose 25-minute talk discussed the ongoing -- and increasingly litigious -- battle over Internet rights.

CTIA Wireless 2012: A Show of a Different Color
April 26, 2012

Would it surprise you if I said the upcoming CTIA Wireless 2012 show will be very different from those in the past? I've been going to these wireless shows for more years than I can remember. Every few years, the show -- and in fact the entire industry -- changes. This is a great showplace for what is new and what is coming next in the wireless industry -- and next month's show should be no exception.

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.

Mobile Data Usage Exploding, Monetization Asleep at the Wheel
April 21, 2012

Innovations in wireless technology have made mobile Internet capabilities common and popular features on numerous portable consumer devices, including laptops, smartphones, tablets, netbooks and e-book readers. Data usage has increased dramatically as a result of more devices and consumer use of bandwidth-intensive services and applications.

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.