Articles by Martin Middlewood

In a terse, one-sentence press release, Siebel Systems today confirmed it has closed 175 new transactions for its hosted product, CRM OnDemand, since the start of Q2 2004 and that the number includes 62 new OnDemand customers Siebel and IBM first announced the hosted CRM cooperative product, which the two companies jointly developed, distribute and...

For the fourth time, Pleasanton, California-based PeopleSoft has responded to Oracle's latest takeover offer of US$21 per share with a resounding "no." Previously, the company's board had rejected three other escalating offers of $16, $19.50 and $26 per share PeopleSoft spokesperson Steve Swasey told CRM Buyer that the board rejected the new, lower...

Your broadband connection is down, and you can't get online to download the necessary patches to fix it. Frustrated, you turn to the telephone, trying to connect with the right vendor. Who you call depends on what you think the problem is -- hardware, software, a virus, connectivity or something else. Once you find someone who can help, you have t...

A drive to improve citizen services is part of a long-term push by the U.S.government to be more responsive to taxpayer needs and to diminish itsunresponsive, bureaucratic image. This push began during the Clintonadministration and has continued through President Bush's tenure Now, the U.S. Census Bureau has revealed it has turned to a hosted-CRMso...

After surviving the dot-com bust, proving the viability of a Web-based subscription model for CRM, achieving profitability and surviving an initial round of U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) scrutiny, salesforce.com is riding a bumpy road toward its eventual IPO Last week, the SEC put a timeout on the company's public debut, which had bee...

Just a month after announcing it would introduce 23 vertical industry solutions, Siebel Systems shipped the first two this week. Overall, the company's vertical CRM product line is designed to improve functionality, business processes, integration and customer analytics while reducing corporate customers' total cost of ownership (TCO) The first two...

The dynamic duo of IBM and PeopleSoft has launched an initiative that the two companies say will expand their existing alliance, allowing them to focus more sharply on small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) worldwide. The alliance calls for joint hardware and software development of vertical applications, joint marketing efforts, cooperative Linux development and industry-specific solutions for resellers...

Like the Trojan War, the battle between Oracle Corp. and PeopleSoft, Inc. has languished for a while but soon may reach epic proportions. In this tale, however, the weapons are hostile takeover offers and the soldiers are chief financial officers, technical experts and attorneys. It's not clear yet which side will win, as the U.S. Department of Ju...

Customer-service managers are always looking for ways to boost agent productivity by shaving seconds off calls and increasing upsell rates. Indeed, if there were a customer-service crystal ball that could search through all customer interactions and spot future trends, visualizing patterns and noting irregularities, the pressures on call managers ...

About 7,500 C-level and senior executives from mid-size to large companies are gathering this week to attend SAP's annual Sapphire conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year's event will feature a New Orleans-style Motown concert starring the Funk Brothers, Chaka Khan, Joan Osborne, Aaron Neville and American Idol winner Ruben Studdard In a mo...

Rapid growth of information technology among small and medium businesses (SMBs)with between 100 and 1,000 employees has not been lost on some major integration players, including Microsoft and IBM. With this week's launch of IBM WebSphere Business Integration Server Express, Big Blue is attempting to bring middleware to the masses and provide SMBs with tools to integrate their often-varied mix of IT solutions...

Onyx, a mid-market provider of CRM software, has unveiled upgrades to its Contact Center product that are designed to help it branch deeper into the contact-center and vertical markets. The improvements include call-center scripting and enhanced Web self-service capabilities, and they will benefit current customers that choose to upgrade, according to Onyx...