Uncategorized

"Smart" shopping carts have been around for a while, but until recently, they haven't managed to gain much traction. Now, some momentum is building, according to proponents of the computer-rigged market baskets that -- with a swipe of a card -- can flash an alert that a customer's favorite brand of ...

Two-year-old Demandbase has planted its own stake in the rapidly emerging next-gen lead generation and lead conversion space with the introduction this week of Demandbase. A Software as a Service platform, Demandbase Central consists of sales and marketing applications as well as a search, scoring a...

In a slow news week, Salesforce.com had no trouble attracting our attention with a $31.5 million acquisition of InStranet. The skinny on this company is that InStranet enables customers to build knowledge bases for service and support applications. It was an area where Salesforce was relatively li...

With the release of its August '08 version, RightNow Technologies continues to shift both its platform and its lineup of products and features to Web 2.0. This latest upgrade includes a customer portal that offers widgets, video, forums and blogs. Its studio development environment now allows users ...

Some of your employees have a blog -- approved, of course -- as do some of your customers. In addition, your employees have been posting videos from the latest trade show on your Web site, as well as on some of your partner Web sites. Your latest project is the funneling of customer comments from yo...

The real beauty of baking soda isn't what it does in the oven but what it does outside of the oven. It's flexible. It's dynamic. It does everything it does extremely well. In addition to playing a key role in cakes, breads and pastries, it keeps refrigerators smelling fresh, can clean a bathroom or ...

Talisma has introduced version 8.1 of its Knowledgebase application. The point release represents a significant shift in the company's approach to enterprise search, Bob Perry, director of Knowledgebase product management, told CRM Buyer. In this upgrade, Talisma has OEM'ed the Autonomy search engin...

Salesforce.com has acquired InStranet for $31.5 million, a transaction that includes the assumption of $4.2 million in cash on InStranet's balance sheet. This deal is grander in scale than any of Salesforce.com's previous acquisitions; the company's past purchases have been small one-off technology ...

I am sitting on a train heading to New York from Boston for a CRM conference. Not driving, not flying -- I prefer the train for this trip for a bunch of reasons. Rail brought us traveling troubadours like Woody Guthrie, circuses and baseball, and it helped define a job type: the traveling salesper...

It's rare to see Google command anything less than a large presence in just about any given e-business study these days, and the latest annual American Customer Satisfaction Index from the University of Michigan is no exception: ACSI scores for e-business rose 5.5 percent to 79.3 on ACSI's 100-point...

Do loyal customers translate into steady sales or profits? Intuitively, the answer should be yes -- and indeed, customer loyalty is a significant metric by which companies rate their performance. However, there a few problems with the concept of customer loyalty and a corporate strategy to develop i...

Warning: Your personal data may be at risk. As RFID devices work their way into consumers' everyday lives, the potential for data breaches grows rapidly. RFID technology used to be used primarily to track warehouse operations and perform inventory control through. Now, this same technology is findin...

CRM is not just about tracking and recording names, addresses and standard constituent information. Today, organizations' online presences and peer-to-peer technologies are making it possible for politicians, businesses and non-profit organizations to get personal with their voters, customers and do...

This week, Sage Software is bringing out version 11 of ACT, its high-flying contact management software. ACT has been around since the mid-1980s and has been through multiple incarnations and owners in that time. ACT was what you used back then if you were tired of keeping notes on paper and wanted ...

Microsoft will be rolling out eight CRM "accelerators" for its Dynamics CRM product line in the second half of 2008. On the Javista blog, Microsoft's Reuben Krippner gives readers a thorough update on what they will offer customers. On the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog, he shares information for ...