Year: 2012

I’d barely pressed the publish button on a blog post suggesting that Microsoft might be in denial on social media when rumours circulated – based initially on an overheard conversation in The Creamery in San Francisco – that Microsoft was in the process of acquiring Yammer, a social collaboration tool. Continue Reading

I met up with Chris Bucholtz, editor of CRM Outsiders, who was in town for the Gartner conference, on Tuesday, and was bemoaning the fact that I didn’t get to write as many pieces about implementation strategy these days (which has been our traditional fare over the years), because there’s Continue Reading

I wonder, when we look back, how significant the last thirty or so days will prove to be in the battle for the enterprise CRM market. First Oracle bought social engagement company Vitrue for an undisclosed sum, but thought to be in the region of $300 million. Then Salesforce.com bought Continue Reading

There’s something of a titanic struggle going on between Salesforce.com, Oracle and SAP at the moment, and the chess pieces were flying round the board in May. Salesforce wants to extend its presence in the enterprise market and sees social functionality as the means to bridge beyond its traditional CRM Continue Reading

April was quite a month for SugarCRM. It announced a further $33 million in funding, the release of the latest version of its CRM software, first quarter revenues up 118%, a shake-up of its reseller channel, and, to cap it all, at the SugarCon convention IBM appeared to let slip Continue Reading

A couple of weeks back I wrote about using CRM technology to support major account planning, and that while it wasn’t perhaps the most glamorous use of CRM technology, it was a very cost-effective means to increase revenues. Another one of these ‘dull but effective’ uses of CRM is in Continue Reading

One company you couldn’t keep out of the news in April was SugarCRM. Early in the month it announced it had raised $33 million in additional funding to support ‘its advancement into the enterprise market and to pursue strategic business opportunities’. This brings the total investment in the company to Continue Reading

I was working with a professional services client a few years back. As our interview process progressed a recurring theme emerged which was the gains one of their key competitors had been making in recent years. Both companies sold to large corporate customers and the competitor seemed to have developed Continue Reading

As I touched on in last week’s March CRM news round-up, the mid-range CRM market looks to be opening up a little. If you’d asked me last year I would have said that Microsoft and Salesforce.com had a stranglehold on the market, but things seem to be changing. Sugar CRM Continue Reading

The month started with a little bit of puzzlement as Salesforce.com suspended plans to build a new head office campus in San Francisco’s Mission Bay area. Salesforce cited the immediate need to accommodate its growth in head count, but the move seemed to mystify some of the financial community. There Continue Reading