Renee Boucher Ferguson

On-demand customer relationship management software provider RightNow Technologies unveiled a new vertical market offering—Consumer Electronics—earlier this week that brings the companys industry offerings to eight separate markets: government, retail, high tech, travel, higher education, financial services and telecommunications. The Consumer Electronics capabilities, announced Sept. 24, are based on RightNows pre-configured industry best practices culled from […]

Microsofts Excel application—widely used by much of the business world—is having issues calculating numbers, but only in a dozen “very specific” use cases, according to the companys Excel blog on the Microsoft Developer Network site. The problem was apparently introduced when Microsofts development team made changes to the Excel calculation logic in Office 2007. The […]

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has some definite opinions on the software-as-a-service sector and reaching the lower to midmarket customers traditionally interested in on-demand software: neither area is worth pursuing. During Oracles fiscal first-quarter 2008 reporting call with analysts Sept. 20, Ellison expounded on SAPs release the previous day of its Business ByDesign suite, formerly code-named […]

There are obvious comparisons between Salesforce.com and SAP. Salesforce.com is selling on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) software and a development platform that enables customers and partners to develop add-on applications, including ERP (enterprise resource planning) software that integrates with Salesforces development platform. SAP will also sell, as early as 2008, an integrated suite of ERP […]

NEW YORK—After perhaps the biggest build up in recent memory, at least in the business applications sector, SAP unveiled its on demand suite built for the mid-market Sept. 19 at an event here at the Nokia Theater. SAPs long-standing code name for the product, A1S, is now officially buried. The new product name: SAP Business […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Salesforce.com is rolling out two new applications that are designed to extend its application set from four to six, but will still keep the company rooted to its origins: CRM. The new Salesforce Content and Ideas applications, announced at the companys Dreamforce user conference here Sept. 17, will grow the use of Salesforce.coms applications […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Salesforce.com is changing the name of its development platform to Force.com. The moniker is a reference to several themes that have flowed through the company—including at this event—since Salesforce.coms inception nearly nine years ago. During his keynote address here Sept. 17 on the opening day of his companys Dreamforce user conference, Chairman and CEO […]

Until now, there had been no getting around it. Salesforce.com partners and ISVs using the company’s Apex platform to develop on-demand applications had a central complaint: Every application, regardless of who the end user was intended to be, carried the Salesforce brand. The logo kept ISVs at a distance from their customers. Salesforce is out […]

Salesforce.com partners—and there are a lot of them—talk about the company with a near religious fervor. And for good reason. Salesforce.com has grown in the past decade to become the preeminent SAAS (software as a service) provider in the business applications sector. It has expanded its core CRM [Customer Relationship Management] technology to include an […]

Following the acquisition of Cartesis in April and the outline of an integration road map when the deal closed in June, Business Objects has for the most part assimilated Cartesis enterprise performance management software into its product portfolio. The result, announced Sept. 12 in a Webcast that had at least one surprising twist, is EPM […]