Enterprise Apps

Organizations of all types are increasingly turning to business intelligence applications -- a combination of data mining, statistical and numerical analysis and data visualization -- to better manage and make sense of the ever-growing amounts of data they are collecting. Continuing the mantra of Pa...

RightNow Technologies has added new capabilities to its voice application, which it first introduced in June 2005 when it acquired Convergent Voice, a voice automation vendor. In this major upgrade, the firm has enhanced the application's inbound functions and has begun developing outbound features,...

Sage Software has introduced SageCRM Version 6, with upgrades that enhance the usability and productivity of the application, as well as new administrative capabilities. Much of the development that went into this release targeted end-user adoption, said Chris Reich, the group's director of CRM prod...

Oracle has released new versions of all five of the major application sets in its software lineup. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company announced the release of Siebel CRM 8, Oracle E-Business Suite 12, PeopleSoft Enterprise 9, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 and JD Edwards World A9.1 during its A...

The use of RFID technology in the retail industry has been increasing, albeit tentatively. Meanwhile, proponents are finding that RFID adoption is easier in the manufacturing sector and upstream in the supply chain, in areas such as asset tracking and inventory management, as well as security relate...

SugarCRM, a provider of open source CRM, has added multi-channel marketing and business analytics functionality to its Sugar Open Source, Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise product lines. This development is welcome news to the group of companies that are investigating open source as a viable a...

Thanks to the increased processing power of today's microprocessors and significantly improved data access and storage technology, it has become easier than ever to apply some rather sophisticated statistical analyses to better understand both business processes and customer behavior. However, the r...

Autonomy has introduced a new contact center application, the Intelligent Contact Center, which provides a range of higher-end capabilities, including the ability to detect anger or emotion in a call, multichannel analysis at the point of interaction and real-time agent support. The rollout, Autonom...

In almost every industry, new entrants are constantly facing an uphill climb to take market share away from established players. Companies entering the Software-as-a-Service space can count on having additional challenges, according to a new report by Tier1 Research. Right now, there are more than 1...

Amdocs has overhauled the functionality in its flagship CRM-billing suite with the release of Amdocs 7 on Tuesday. Providing telcos with support for new convergence technology and services is chief among the new capabilities in the application. The system does not exclude any providers or service of...

2006 was a quiet year for buyers and sellers of enterprise applications. There were no startling leaps of new functionality; no dramatic bids for competing vendors; and no large plunge in revenues thus prompting vendors to give way at the negotiating table. The year wasn't as quiet for small and me...

A year and a half after its first foray into the on-demand space, Kana has introduced the third leg of its Software-as-a-Service CRM suite -- a self-service application. This release is available as a stand-alone product or as part of an integrated suite of previously released SaaS applications that...

I had meetings last week with each of the big three on-demand CRM vendors -- Salesforce.com, RightNow and NetSuite -- and made some observations. Sometimes I get complaints from some of them when I mention more than one in an article because they like to pretend that they are unique. My grudging con...

Oracle on Tuesday upgraded its self-service offering with the release of Siebel Communications Billing Manager 5.1.1 and Siebel Communications Billing Analytics 5.1.1 -- applications built on Siebel's acquisition of eDocs in 2005. New changes to the systems will give users increased online access to...

In looking back at the last few years for the CRM industry, 2001 was the year Siebel reigned supreme; 2002 was the year the recession took hold and companies held off on new CRM and other IT investments; 2004 was the year of mergers and acquisitions; and 2005 was the year those firms that remained s...