Enterprise Apps

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...

I have been wracking my brain for an adequate metaphor to describe the situation that has developed in the CRM world and in enterprise software in general. It started about two years ago when Larry Ellison of Oracle looked at the enterprise software market and decided that SAP could conquer the wor...

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 executiv...

My Web survey of SAP users is producing some interesting results. More than any other factor, customer references influenced buyers to choose SAP, quelling their concerns about the potential risks involved in taking that step. In fact, at this point in the survey, 80 percent of respondents said they...

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...

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 -...

The vast majority of SAP applications get sold because there is an ERP instance somewhere in the organization to tie back to. Rarely, if ever, in the years of doing primary research on SAP's customer base, would I find a reference to one that had just come on board for its channel management applic...

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...

NetSuite has introduced more than 30 vertical applications that were developed by partners using the company's latest integration tool, the NetFlex Applications Program. An integration platform, NetFlex was introduced almost a year ago to help customers connect the NetSuite application to third-part...

Microsoft has posted sample code and technical guidance for an internal project it has been working on for more than a year that integrates Outlook with Siebel CRM using Visual Studio tools in Office. More of an approach than a product or even a complete code, Project Elixir has been watched closely...

It is one of those technologies that has been predicted to explode in popularity, only to be relegated to moderate growth, and while there are still doubts, some indicate that mobile CRM may finally make its move in 2006. There are still some issues of securing mobile access to customer data, shippi...