Customer Relationship Management - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Salesforce.com CEO Benioff says company landing more big deals

  Salesforce.com's rapid growth is now being fueled increasingly by large deals for its cloud software, according to CEO Marc Benioff.

• Oracle buys Blue Kai, gains massive consumer data mart

  Oracle is moving into the market for big customer data by buying BlueKai, which aggregates data on consumers and offers it to marketers via a platform for running targeted marketing campaigns on the Web, offline and on mobile devices. Terms of the deal, which was announced Monday, were not disclosed.

• Microsoft marshals marketing, service, social for Dynamics CRM, aims anew at Salesforce.com

  Microsoft is about to make a fresh run at its CRM (customer relationship management) rival Salesforce.com with new capabilities for marketing automation, customer support and social media monitoring.

• Salesforce.com courts Microsoft .NET developers with new tools

  Salesforce.com has announced a new set of tools aimed at Microsoft .NET developers, in a move that acknowledges customers' existing investment in .NET and which could help expand the size of Salesforce.com's developer community.

• SAP expects revenue of $30 billion by 2017, driven by cloud

  SAP plans to increase its total revenue to at least €22 billion (US$30 billion), with revenue from its cloud business expected to grow up to €3.5 billion by 2017.

• Microsoft buys Parature for customer self-service software

  Microsoft is rounding out its Dynamics CRM (customer relationship management) product by acquiring Parature, maker of cloud-based software companies can use to create self-service portals for customers.

• SaaS predictions for 2014

  While the bulk of enterprise software is still deployed on-premises, SaaS (software as a service) continues to undergo rapid growth. Gartner has said the total market will top $22 billion through 2015, up from more than $14 billion in 2012.

• Oracle buying marketing software vendor Responsys for $1.5 billion

  Oracle is set to acquire business-to-consumer marketing software vendor Responsys for US$1.5 billion in a bid to flesh out its own capabilities as well as strike back at rivals such as Salesforce.com and Microsoft.

• Why CIOs stick with cloud computing despite NSA snooping scandal

  Explosive revelations in the past six months about the U.S. government's massive cyber-spying activities have spooked individuals, rankled politicians and enraged privacy watchdogs, but top IT executives aren't panicking -- yet.

• Trojan program steals log-in credentials, other sensitive data from SAP client applications

  A recently discovered malicious program steals log-in passwords and other sensitive information from SAP client applications and allows cybercriminals to access SAP servers from infected workstations.

• Salesforce.com and HP to offer 'Superpod' for large enterprises

  Customers of Salesforce.com who want their own dedicated infrastructure within the vendor's cloud will now be able to get one through a partnership with Hewlett-Packard.

• Salesforce.com unveils Salesforce1 platform

  Salesforce.com aims to establish its image as a full-blown CRM (customer relationship management) development platform built for the world of social media and mobile devices with the launch of Salesforce1, which will be unveiled this week at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.

• Salesforce.com customers making broader investments, survey says

  Salesforce.com's customers have become more loyal and committed to using products from the vendor and its partners over the past year, according to a new report from consulting firm Bluewolf in collaboration with the MIT Sloan School of Management.

• Zoho adds enterprise features to its CRM software, eyes Salesforce.com

  Zoho has added a series of features to its CRM (customer relationship management) software in a bid to appeal to larger companies as well as lure away customers from the likes of Salesforce.com.

• SugarCRM goes after Salesforce.com with new interface, emphasis on lower cost

  SugarCRM is hoping to gain inroads against its much larger rival Salesforce.com with a revamped user interface it says places emphasis on the needs of individual users, not business managers seeking a wide view of sales activity in their company.