John Pallatto

Salesforce.com subscribers will be able to access and update their online CRM data using Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook as front ends with a new package called the Salesforce.com Office Edition. The new service will increase productivity by eliminating the need to cut and paste data from Salesforce.com applications and into spreadsheets and e-mail messages, […]

Attention taxpayers: The United States government is about to spend at least $10 billion to build a state-of-the-art nationwide computer system that will use biometrics to track the comings and goings of visitors to this country. Hang on to your wallets and a copy of the Bill of Rights. Congress has mandated that the Department […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Encouraged by Apple Computer Inc.s introduction of a PowerPC G5-based server, Sybase Inc. on Tuesday announced here the availability of its Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.5.1 relational database for Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” Server. According to Darryl Salas, principal consultant with Sybase, Apples new, powerful G5 Xserve and Mac OS X “Panther” Server […]

With the recent launch of its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Suite 1.2, Microsoft Corp. is once again sticking to its strategy of launching the business equivalent of a guerilla insurgency in yet another software sector. For the past 20 years, Microsofts strategy has been the same whether it was in the market for word processors, […]

In 2003 there have been a number of positive developments that brought encouragement to a recession- and war-weary nation. But there was no shortage of scary sights among the best and worst developments of the year. The economy continues to recover even though unemployment remains stubbornly high. This in turn has helped buoy the stock […]

Computer Associates International Inc. on Tuesday completed its withdrawal from the application software market with the sale of its interest in ACCPAC International Inc. to Sage Group PLC for a total of $110 million, company officials said. Computer Associates, based in Islandia, N.Y., will receive $88 million in cash for ACCPAC, company officials said. CA […]

Salesforce.com, which survived the dot-com bust to achieve profitability, Thursday filed registration papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public stock offering worth $115 million. Salesforce.com, which provides access to customer relationship management (CRM) software over the Internet, set the stage for the IPO this fall when it disclosed that it had […]

Surebridge Inc. officials on Wednesday said the company added an anti-spam application based on CipherTrust Inc.s IronMail appliance to its menu of hosted software services. Surebridge, based in Lexington, Mass., will offer the IronMail service as SureHost Managed Anti-Spam. It will provide spam detection and policy-enforcement features designed to block unwanted spam messages while allowing […]

When it comes to embracing a hosted CRM service, Siebel Systems has certainly gotten religion. Siebel spent years denying that CRM application service providers represented a serious challenge to licensed CRM software sales. The company complained loud and long that CRM ASPs were peddling an inferior product that couldnt hold a candle to licensed software […]

When a company is the target of a hostile corporate takeover, what its customers, employees or even management think doesnt matter much. Money talks. Right now there is $7.3 billion on the table saying very loudly that it wants to give Oracle the right to dismantle and absorb not one, but two companies, PeopleSoft and […]