Year: 2012

2012 in summary: social acquisition frenzy, Salesforce.com v Oracle, Microsoft’s missing year, and SaaS’s final victory… Acquisitions were a big feature of 2012, as the larger CRM software vendors looked to build out their functionality, particularly in respect of social capabilities, and the enterprise players looked to fluff up their Continue Reading

The main point from my last post was that most CRM software is implemented by CRM implementation partners, rather than the company that develops the software, and while good CRM implementation partners are pretty much essential for success, particularly if there’s any complexity in what you’re doing, they’re surprisingly hard Continue Reading

There have been reams written over the years about the reasons for CRM project failures. But one aspect seems to get very little attention – poor implementation partner selection. A lot of effort gets focused on CRM technology selection, but for some reason the partner side of things is often Continue Reading

In summary: Microsoft’s Q4 release guide leaves a few questions unanswered, SAP gets powered by HANA, and a SugarCRM IPO in 2013? Microsoft kicked the month off with the publication of their much anticipated Q4 release guide for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, following the last minute postponement of the key features Continue Reading

Back in July I posted that Microsoft’s six monthly development schedule seemed to be in some disarray. If anything’s clear from November’s ‘Microsoft Dynamics CRM December 2012 Service Update – Release Preview Guide’, it’s that their CRM development strategy is still in a state of flux. Back in 2011 the Continue Reading

In summary: the social arms race continues, Oracle appoints a new guest antagonist, and Microsoft’s surprising marketing acquisition…. When we left off last month Oracle OpenWorld 2012 was just kicking off in a San Francisco recently vacated by Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce event. In contrast to Dreamforce, OpenWorld represents a much broader Continue Reading

In summary: duelling conferences, the implications of Dreamforce, and guerrilla marketing at Oracle OpenWorld It’s perhaps counter intuitive that at a time of rising fuel costs, restricted budgets, environmental concerns, and a plethora of technologies designed to make face to face meetings largely unnecessary, that live events and conferences should Continue Reading

In summary: Salesforce.com, Salesforce.com, more Salesforce.com, and is IBM shaping up to buy SugarCRM? I imagine the conversation in most CRM companies went something like this: ‘well, it’s the Olympics and people will be away on holiday, so let’s keep new announcements on ice until September’.  But in a conference Continue Reading

July was the month that Microsoft and Salesforce.com stumbled, the acquisition feeding frenzy continued unabated, financial results seemed to exceed expectations, and an EU court ruling was delivered that could have far reaching effects for software vendors. So, first to Microsoft. A somewhat under the radar blog post from Microsoft Continue Reading

As of Friday, Microsoft’s new agile six monthly development schedule looked to be in some disarray. Twelve months ago the arrival of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 seemed to signal a new dawn for Microsoft. Not only were there an array of functional enhancements, but the software was now available as Continue Reading