CRM

Lyris has upgraded its on-premises version of its email marketing application, ListManager 11. This product is the counterpart to its cloud-based version -- a more robust application that includes such features as specific database support. There are four major upgrades to ListManager 11, noted Bren...

What a week that was. I am still digging out from two snowstorms and dealing with bone-chilling cold, and so are friends across the country, except in the Bay Area, which only makes me envious. Perhaps none were as adversely affected as people on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. I take solace in two f...

Beagle Research is exploring one of the few categories of online videos that thus far has escaped formal scrutiny: the marketing videos of software -- specifically, CRM companies. The research group has announced "The Beagle Short Tale Awards" for 2011. A panel of five industry experts rated about 1...

When Microsoft began demoing early betas of its newest CRM iteration, Dynamics CRM 2011, it used map-based examples to show off the functionality. Problem was, there were no robust mapping features actually embedded in the application, which got Paul Reitmeyer, senior CRM consultant at Planet Techno...

The emergence of the social customer is forcing businesses to think differently about how they reach the people to whom they sell, and much has been written about ways for businesses to cope with this. However, as is all too common in CRM discussions, the customer is often forgotten as we default to...

Call it "Clash of the Titan," emphasis on the singular: a courtroom victory for software giant Microsoft over Matt Miszewski that restrains the former employee from joining CRM rival Salesforce.com. Miszewski, a Microsoft government services division manager until last December, violated non-compete...

Microsoft did some smart things last week when it announced its Dynamics CRM Online service. Most of the headlines will focus on the teaser rate or introductory pricing of only US$34 per seat-month for 12 months. Until June, users of Oracle CRM On-Demand and Salesforce who switch will have an adde...

To remain successful against the backdrop of complex market dynamics and increased competition, it has become critical for organizations to offer more evolved products and services that are not only cost-effective, but also extendable, scalable and focused on improved customer experience. Cloud com...

Tablet vendors at the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas had a coming out party. Driven by the wild success of the iPad, they introduced something like eighty -- that's 8-oh, my goodness -- tablet PCs to the world. Now, by itself, that's significant, especially for CRM, and ...

OpenERP has rolled out version 6.0 of its open source ERP product. It is the first upgrade of OpenERP in close to two years, with significant enhancements to its business applications. Going forward, the company has committed to more frequent releases of its major versions and point releases. "Our c...

In a first for the product line, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer debuted the cloud version of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 release. "Sales professionals are at the heart of almost every successful business," Ballmer said. Microsoft Dynamics CRM gives them a familiar user experience, enables greater c...

Pegasystems has introduced its second major cloud offering within the last year: Pega Cloud for CRM. It follows the company's release of Pega Cloud for BPM. While the functionality is different, the application's approach to cloud computing is the same. In both cloud applications, the company takes ...

This week, I interviewed a small business owner who told me a very interesting story. He'd done some planning before implementing his CRM solution, and his new technology took rapid care of the problems he anticipated. After that, however, he started finding new problems -- which he then found solut...

We're coming back. We aren't out of the proverbial woods, but we should be on the upswing from the long downturn. According the Labor Department, the U.S. economy added 103,000 jobs in December, bringing the unemployment rate down to 9.4 percent. Jobs are traditionally a lagging indicator, so eve...

In April and May 2010, Aberdeen surveyed 422 executives from a variety of different industries, and the results were clear: Rapid forecasters -- companies that collect and prepare reliable sales forecasts in less than half an hour -- significantly outperform slow forecasters in terms of their curren...