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Amdocs and IBM have entered into an original equipment manufacturer agreement in which Amdocs will embed the IBM DB2 Data Server and the IBM Optim Data Growth application in its CRM product line. It is the first OEM agreement IBM has inked involving Optim, Steve Tallant, senior manager of product li...

The vast majority of doctors aren't taking advantage of electronic medical records, with many citing the cost of adoption as a significant impediment, according to a new study that also suggests the tipping point toward broader adoption may be on the horizon. Just 17 percent of U.S. doctors have acc...

The audience for video games is zealous but fickle, and because of that, game studios have a unique challenge in attracting and retaining customers. While the tools they use are similar to those of other industries, studios have learned to be creative in the marketing tactics that support the effort...

I was at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last week. Good show, nice people, well run, and it was held at a swanky new Westin on the waterfront. It got me thinking, though, about the "two-dot-oh" phenomenon and how badly it needs a rethink. See, the problem -- whether we're dealing with Enter...

E-mail marketing has long been neglected in the larger marketing world. That's understandable -- e-mail marketing campaigns are easy to design and cheap to implement. Still, any tool worth using is worth using to its best advantage. Part of the problem is that e-mail marketers receive little to no f...

Having delivered on its goal of moving to a service-oriented architecture, SAP now aims to make use of that architecture as it drives innovation out to the fringes of its sphere of influence. CEO Henning Kagermann outlined in his keynote at the company's annual Sapphire conference a strategy to deli...

So you've decided to buy your solution instead of build one. This doesn't mean that it's easy to choose which product, or even what kind of solution to purchase. Take the choice between installing software on your own equipment -- the "on-premise" solution vs. leasing a solution that runs on the ven...

Despite repeated pleas of "Do you hear me now?" from customers the world over, few companies have done much more than turn a deaf ear. As a result, consumer frustration is at an all-time high while brand loyalty has hit an all-time low. The technologies that were supposed to open lines of communicat...

Oracle has released the third in a series of small, plug-and-play Web 2.0 tools designed to enhance specific features of its customer relationship management platform. Oracle Sales Prospector, previewed Monday at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, recommends prospective leads, rating the likel...

Lately I have been working on a keynote speech that I need to deliver in a few weeks, and in the process of doing my research, I came across some very interesting ideas that fit in well with my research focus. In the last half of the 20th century, a number of thinkers became increasingly dissatisfie...

As we've said here before, blogs have been an excellent leveler of the playing field for consumers. Had a poor customer service experience or are just feeling aggrieved with a service provider? Complain to management, yes, but then blog about it. While such posts are generally considered to be the r...

Microsoft and Kaiser Permanente announced plans for a pilot program that would exchange health information between the insurer's My Health Manager service and the HealthVault personal health records service. The partnership comes amid a push to give people greater control of and access to their medi...

SAP is a company in transition. The Walldorf, Germany-based enterprise software firm has been around since 1972, which makes it older than Microsoft. To hear observers and insiders tell it, the firm has been showing its age in recent years. A combination of its massive size -- it is the third-larges...

As a company grows in size, various information sharing challenges appear that can stifle that growth. One such speed bump sets in a few years into the growth cycle, when the company expands and each department develops its own information needs. That problem is called "Islanditis." The system that ...

Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has filed a civil lawsuit against Time Warner Cable, alleging it deceived and ripped off its subscribers, providing inferior service for months. The complaint accuses TWC of engaging in numerous fraudulent acts and business practices that resulted in consu...