CRM

How can companies establish effective customer relationship management in the heat of battle? We're not talking about a military action; the conflict in this case exists between entertainment companies and their customers. "For the most part, the entertainment industry and its customers have been at...

It's hard to avoid comparisons between Microsoft and Salesforce.com this week. While many see a zero sum game being played out in which Google plus Salesforce.com somehow equals a diminished Microsoft, I think there's more. In each case, we see major technology companies building elegant products fo...

Microsoft is slated to garner the majority of IT development spending over the next six months, according to a survey of more than 300 developers by Evans Data. The reason is more complex than Microsoft's dominance on the desktop or in corporate IT. Rather, developers are gravitating to Microsoft a...

Ending weeks of speculation, Salesforce.com has unveiled an expanded partnership with Google that will start by combining the on-demand software firm's Web-based CRM product with Google AdWords. The two companies, which have been linked in rumors for weeks, launched the product Tuesday in 43 countri...

Video rental purveyor Netflix and TV shopping channel QVC led a customer satisfaction index of the top 100 online retailers released Friday by ForeSee Results. The index, calculated twice a year by the firm, ranked the Web sites of Netflix and QVC, with scores of 85, as the kings of customer satisfa...

Avaya is reportedly negotiating with private equity companies and at least two competitors about selling portions or all of its multifaceted telecom portfolio. Private equity firms are dazzled by Avaya's $6 billion cash flow and low debt levels. Silver Lake, a private equity firm that specializes in...

A miracle year comes along very rarely, though any single year could be one depending on the subject matter. For example, as a member of Red Sox nation, 2004 will always be a miracle year for me, because my team won the World Series after 86 years of futility -- the Cubs are still waiting for their...

Oracle has taken what it deemed to be the best CRM features from Siebel 8 and PeopleSoft 9, as well as some of its own native functionality, and incorporated them into its latest E-Business Suite release, version 12. "There have been improvements made across all three applications," Mike Betzer, vic...

Salesforce.com and Google clearly hold each other in high esteem. Just how deep that mutual admiration runs is suggested by news that the two companies are working through details of a potential partnership. Possible developments from the reported tie-up could be a Web-based tool for integrating Goo...

Interactive Intelligence has introduced a mobile offering that duplicates many of the IP telephony functions available to workers on their desktop phones. Interaction Client, Mobile Edition provides users with presence management; company directory look-up; Microsoft Outlook contact access; call con...

If you want to see who's winning at retaining and attaining higher-than-ever customer loyalty, look no further than what is really happening inside sales reps, call center reps, their managers, and for that matter, their CEO. What is it? It's nothing on the outside -- while a new CRM system on a ho...

Private equity heavyweight the Blackstone Group is taking another publicly traded software company private. It has announced it will purchase Alliance Data Systems for $7.8 billion, including the assumption of certain debt, or $81.75 per share in cash. That is a premium of 30 percent over the $62.96...

Oracle has entered the product lifecycle management niche with a flourish through its acquisition of best-of-breed vendor Agile Software. While there are other active PLM vendors, Agile offers a difficult-to-replicate line of products and functionality that address product innovation and the introdu...

It has taken some time to assemble the ingredients, but the CRM industry is finally poised to deliver robust mobile offerings. If you think you've heard this before, that's because you have -- in 2004, in 2005 and, yes, last year as well. To be sure, there are mobile CRM apps available on the market...

RightNow Technologies has introduced its third industry vertical and appears to be poised to introduce a fourth -- in Consumer Goods Products -- in the near future. Thus far, the company has focused on industry groups in which it has a strong expertise and a large number of clients, such as higher e...