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After years of job losses due to the decline in the manufacturing and lumber industries, the Pacific Northwest may be seeing a bright spot for growth as call centers target the region. Oregon seems to have more pull when it comes to new centers being put in. Recently, Royal Caribbean chose the state...

With the recent release of Summer 04 and positive earnings news, Salesforce.com seems poised to capture more of the enterprise market, including larger companies that it has not targeted in the past. Founded in 1999 by a former Oracle executive, Salesforce.com provides customizable CRM applications ...

Microsoft has announced the release of its Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), but has noted that Microsoft CRM 1.0 and 1.2 are not compatible with the update yet. The company has stated that enhanced security features in SP2 changes some of the default behaviors of Internet Explorer and desktop securi...

SAP has announced that its second quarter earnings rose by 15 percent in software revenue, as well as by 15 percent in operating income and 14 percent in net income. The quarterly numbers are close to what the company had anticipated when it estimated its performance in early July. It released predi...

Just as technology has changed the landscape of corporate environments, it is predicted to transform how medicine is done, according to a recent survey. The 2004 Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study was conducted by Hospitals & Health Networks, a publication put out by the American Hospital ...

SAP announced Friday that after a preliminary review of its 2004 second-quarter performance, it expects a software revenue increase of 15 percent compared to the same quarter last year. At constant currencies, second-quarter software revenues could be up by 17 percent, and total revenues are expecte...

As more consumers and businesses turn to the Internet not just for information, but as a way to run their daily errands, the need for more sophisticated customer service grows unabated. The old one-two punch of call-center representatives and an online Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page does not ...

PeopleSoft today announced the release of Enterprise CRM 8.9, which the company calls the most significant release in its history. The release includes usability enhancements, analytics and new products in the areas of customer portfolio management and partner relationship management. "It's one of t...

SAP's Sapphire user conference in New Orleans kicked off last week with a keynote by SAP chief executive Henning Kagermann, who called for more efforts to streamline the company's applications and bolster Web services adoption. Those twin themes were echoed frequently throughout the week in conferen...

In creating a supply chain that serves a company's specific needs, it may seem as if hundreds of details must be examined to formulate an effective strategy. But in looking at nuances like transportation costs or the price of warehousing software, companies may be missing the big picture. There is n...

As part of cost-cutting measures, more companies are offshoring their tech-support divisions. Customers of companies like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, AOL and Dell regularly route their calls to overseas help desks, often located in India. Although training is available for these offshore personnel, ...

BroadVision, a developer of self-service Web applications, has released QuickSilver 2.0. The new version represents a significant upgrade to the application, which lets content managers and Web designers create and publish lengthy and complex documents in multiple formats, such as HTML, PDF and Post...

No matter how impressively a CRM or ERP application performs within a company, if it flunks with customers, it can become a staggeringly expensive piece of shelfware. To avoid this outcome, companies increasingly are purchasing software or services that monitor end-user interactions with application...

As more companies explore the cost effectiveness and power of open-source platforms like Linux, questions are arising about the interoperability of major enterprise applications like CRM. But the integration process does not have to be a struggle to fit a square peg into a round hole. "It's certainl...

Salesforce.com has announced the availability of Spring '04, a highly customizable on-demand CRM service. The product already has been deployed to salesforce.com's customers worldwide. The company expects it will fit well with its other offerings and will prove compelling for customers that have bee...

As part of its NetWeaver 2004 release, SAP has announced that its mySAP CRM suite will gain better analysis, performance and usability. The news came at CeBIT 2004, a huge technology trade fair held in Germany. SAP product director of analytics Chris Eldredge told CRM Buyer that the improvement to a...

At the CeBIT conference in Germany, Sun Microsystems has announced the release of a variety of products and services that will complement SAP NetWeaver 2004, which was also launched at the conference. The move is the latest in an ongoing partnership between Sun and SAP, and it stands as a significan...

As e-commerce companies hammer out ways to fulfill customer orders with greater speed and accuracy, more and more of them are offering same-day shipping. For a small e-tailer that processes only a few orders per day, taking this step is usually not difficult. But at a large company that receives sc...

Nearly everyone who has ever phoned a company's call center has encountered long hold times, multiple transfers and agents who seem too rushed to pay attention to customer queries. With the introduction of a new contact-center application, Siemens is hoping to file those common customer experiences ...

In late 2002, Microsoft rolled out the first version of its CRM software. In the intervening year, the company reports, more than 1,000 companies have purchased the product and praised its ease of use and painless integration. Not all companies are so enthusiastic, however. Some report software glit...