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Retailers are finding that a blog that is supportive can translate into measurable new sales, but they are exercising caution, despite the word-of-mouth advantages blogging can bring. Blogging is a dual-edged sword: A well-trafficked blog that is critical can deliver a blow. Eva Yusa is not crazy a...

Oracle reportedly is set to announce that it will cut more than 1,000 jobs now that its acquisition of Siebel has closed. Its US$5.85 billion purchase of the customer relationship management software company was finalized on Jan. 31, several months after the firms jointly announced the deal. It was ...

The business intelligence software market is poised for steady global expansion, according to Gartner, which projects a compound annual growth rate of 7.3 percent from 2004 to 2009. Growth will vary region by region, the research firm noted, with the more mature markets of North America and Europe e...

SalesGene, a provider of a relatively new CRM subsector technology dubbed "marketing-sales effectiveness," has introduced Landslide, a portal-styled application that provides guidance on how to navigate certain sales situations, as well as live administrative assistance for one-on-one advice to indi...

Five9, an on-demand provider of customer interaction management, has introduced a new application aimed at addressing the most troublesome portion of agent-customer communication: the inbound call. Five9 Virtual Call Center Inbound is essentially a repackaged application carved out of the company's ...

Both Oracle and Siebel have developed a reputation for maintaining a hard line on pricing. Now that they are merging, buyers of CRM and related software are apprehensive about how the consolidation will affect pricing. In one bleak scenario, Oracle becomes even more rigid, causing CRM pricing to spi...

There is greater demand than previously thought for a hybrid software-as-a-service product, suggests a Yankee Group survey scheduled for mid-February release. To assess sales and marketing effectiveness, Yankee Group, in conjunction with WebSurveyor, recently polled 315 sales and marketing executive...

SAP has unveiled its hosted customer relationship management application, putting an end to the recent flood of speculation about when it would arrive and what it would look like. Called SAP CRM on-demand solution, it is a hybrid application that allows users to move to an on-premise system with lit...

SAP and its partners plotted new mid-market strategies at the company's 2006 Field Kick-Off Meeting, or FKOM, which drew to a close in San Antonio, on Wednesday. In addition, SAP partners used the conference as a launchpad to introduce a slew of vertical and micro-vertical applications. On Thursday,...

Oracle's US$5.85 billion acquisition of Siebel is expected to be finalized on Tuesday, after a scheduled vote by Siebel shareholders to approve the transaction, which was first announced in September. The wait has given Siebel users a chance to contemplate what the future may bring under Oracle pare...

Dell has indicated it will continue to expand its ties in the Indian outsourcing market, building on the contact center and R&D operations it already has established. Its most recent initiative? Plans to establish a customer contact facility in Gurgaon to complement its existing operations in Ba...

Siebel, it is clear, has been on a tear to close out what is likely to be its last quarter as an independent company as strongly as possible. Announcing robust fourth-quarter revenues, CEO George T. Shaheen credited "the market opportunity in customer facing solutions and business analytics, the imp...

Along with its preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter, SAP gave the markets notice that its hosted-CRM application will be available in February. CEO Henning Kagermann made the revelation during an analyst briefing on Wednesday morning. As with previous quarters, SAP's earnings reflect...

SplendidCRM, formed in November 2005, is getting set to enter the increasingly crowded open-source CRM marketplace. It released a second beta version of SplendidCRM 1.0, an application licensed, in part, under the SugarCRM Public License. It plans to offer this version -- give or take a few tweaks -...

Sparking the interest of retailers around the globe, UK supermarket chain Tesco announced it will be selling Internet-based phone service and handsets on a pay-as-you-go basis. Tesco's move is more than a product announcement; by private labeling a VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, service, Tes...

Communispace, BlueRoads, Rearden Commerce, Knowlagent, Five9, ShareMethods, RightNow Technologies, Eloqua and Salesforce.com are the winners of this year's CRM WizKids Awards, annual accolades bestowed by Beagle Research Group. A few of the recipients -- notably Salesforce.com, RightNow and Five9 --...

At a recent corporate event, Oracle provided much additional detail about integration and architecture plans for its Fusion project -- the company's strategy to deliver next-generation applications, middleware and architecture based on its recent acquisitions. However, the CRM sector is still in the...

Microsoft has introduced an upgraded version of a product it quietly rolled out last year. Called Customer Care Framework 2005, it is a desktop application for contact-center operators that provides customer-care information via e-mail, instant messaging, interactive voice response and the partner-d...

Salesforce.com has made a newly expanded version of the AppExchange -- a platform that extends its CRM suite to other business lines -- generally available with its Winter '06 release. The AppExchange connects users with new applications developed by such third-party vendors as Adobe, Business Objec...

IT vendors -- from RFID tech providers to supply chain management software companies -- have descended upon the National Retail Federation's 95th annual convention and expo in New York City to show off their latest applications and technologies. In the CRM space, vendors such as SAS Institute and Ep...