It - CRM latest news

Ease of use and software simplicity have been mainstay messages in CRM for many years. I have watched as this messaging has alternated with financial benefits for a long time, and I am not sure if it's random alternation or if there might be economic undertones, but it seems like we're trading themes at the moment.

The larger the business or government agency is, the bigger the volume of data it deals with. That translates into massive efforts to manage that data to meet ever-increasing compliance regulations for adequately maintaining electronic records. Any software company that can figure out how to manage this process better than its competition can become king of the vendor hill.

The entire United States is debating whether the country is in the midst of an economic slowdown. Some of the signs are fairly explicit: steadily rising gas prices and their cascading effects on the average consumer, unemployment rate bumps, and the continued fallout from the housing market bubble.

When C.C. Chapman noticed a blemish in his high-definition television's reception during the NBA playoffs recently, he blasted a quick gripe about Comcast into the online ether, using the social network Twitter. Minutes later, a Twitter user named ComcastCares responded, and within 24 hours, a technician was at Chapman's house in Milford, Mass. to fix the problem. "I was so floored," said Chapman, who runs a digital marketing agency and advises companies to do what he experienced with Comcast -- listen to what customers are saying about them online and respond. "When it actually happened to me, it blew me away," he said. "Now I have a case study." Chapman's experience is one example of the ways customer service is changing in an age when a single disgruntled consumer with a broadband connection can ignite a crisis. It also shows the potential of the Internet to turn miffed customers into fans in a more organic way than an advertising campaign. Chapman, for example, made a podcast ab

Magazine buying may get an Internet-era makeover in September when Time Inc. launches Maghound, a service that promises to blend the convenience of subscriptions with the flexibility of newsstand sales. Customers will pay a monthly fee for home delivery of the publications they want. But unlike with subscriptions, which typically run for fixed terms, users can go online and swap one title for another whenever they want. "The magazine industry is a little challenged now" in circulation and ad sales, says Maghound Enterprises President Dave Ventresca. "It needs some innovation. And this is our best swing at it." He will begin with 300 consumer magazines. They'll include Time's most popular titles, including People, Sports Illustrated and Fortune. Although he won't name others, he expects to have deals with Hearst, Hachette, Rodale, Conde Nast, Meredith, Source Interlink, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Reader's Digest Association and Wenner Media. "It's a great concept," says Patric

Bill Gates, who walked away from full-time work at Microsoft last month, was perhaps the foremost applied economist of the second half of the 20th century. Gates and Microsoft fundamentally shaped how people think about the behavior of modern markets in which technology plays a central role. Under Gates, who co-founded the company, Microsoft also challenged the conventional wisdom about competition, business strategy and even antitrust law. Now, in the early years of the 21st century, google is the company prompting a rethinking of assumptions. Microsoft was a master practitioner of "network effects," the straightforward precept in economics that the value of a product or service often goes up as more people use it. There is nothing new about the concept. It was true of railroads, telephones and fax machines, for example. Microsoft, however, applied the power of network effects more lucratively than any company had done before it. Microsoft attracted consumers and software deve

Executives from major Internet players are due for a grilling about online privacy in a Senate committee Wednesday, but the company likely to get the most scrutiny is a small startup called "NebuAd." NebuAd has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates in recent weeks for working with Internet service providers to track the online behavior of their customers and then serve up targeted banner ads based on that behavior.

Salespeople know the right word can seal a deal. The question is which word is the right one? An Alpharetta, Ga., company has technology that could provide the answer. Recordant, a 5-year-old firm, has developed a computer program that pinpoints passages in recorded conversations that can be analyzed to improve job performance, including sales.

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston this month, attendees received new details about the software giant's push into the realm of SaaS (software as a service). Tailored to meet the needs of an entire workforce, the Microsoft Online Services platform is designed to delivers enterprise-class software to businesses of all sizes -- from employees using a PC infrequently to information workers in need of more advanced capabilities, said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft business Division. "Microsoft Online Services is a key component of the software plus services Initiative, and we're seeing customers, partners and even competitors embrace this flexible approach to the cloud," Elop explained. "Our vision is that everything you can do with our on-site servers, you will be able to do with our online services." An Online Smorgasbord The Microsoft Online Services lineup, which will be hosted by Microsoft and sold through partners, includes Microsoft Exchange,

Salesforce.com , the market and technology leader in software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service , today announced that one of the ten largest commercial bank holding companies in the U.S. has standardized on Salesforce for Financial Services.