Venture Outlook Bullish on Cloud, Enterprise Startups
I was hoping to save this idea for either a year-end story or something focusing on the new year but events seem to have a mind of their own. The story, whenever it would be issued, would go something like this: Enterprises are picking up more cloud computing solutions and as they do there is [...]
Enterprise software pivots to new stacks
Despite being unsexy in many people’s eyes, enterprise software has been getting a lot of VC loving of late — or at least, a certain type of enterprise software. Last month there was Workday’s mammoth $85 million round and the equally eye-popping $81 million raised by Box.net to pursue its enterprise market ambitions. Yesterday come [...]
When Capital Isn’t Scarce
For a long time VC’s and other investors bemoaned SaaS. I head more than one say that nobody would ever be able to raise as much money as Salesforce did to IPO–$70M–so you just had to figure out how to do it much more cheaply than Salesforce had. This morning I read that Marketo has [...]
2.5 Trillion Reasons for RPM
A couple of weeks ago, Marketo announced its research-based belief that its form of revenue performance management (RPM) could help grow global GDP by $2.5 trillion by 2015. I love it when emerging companies talk about big plans this way. It reminds me of the young plumber who upon seeing Niagara Falls for the first [...]
More on Salesforce and Radian6
All the chatter about the Salesforce acquisition of Radian6 is quite interesting. A couple of postings from people I respect make good points. First Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua: “Conspicuously absent from Salesforce’s network of role-specific “Clouds” is one that centers on the marketing function. Is the Radian6 acquisition the beginning of a Salesforce Marketing [...]
Revving up Revenue
The long recession and the rise of social CRM were not simply co-incidental. I believe they happened together. That’s not to say that social CRM happened for some cosmic reason, I neither subscribe to the belief that all things happen for a reason nor do I believe I am qualified to hold forth beyond what [...]
The CRM Watchlist 2011 Part III: Representing the Pillars
Recapping the Past Week Okay, last week, I launched the CRM Watchlist for 2011. The first two posts (of six) were published. If you haven’t read them, please do. There is something of a method to the madness so it would be kind of important to read at least the first one to understand how [...]
Can Marketo Give Marketers Some Cred?
Some of the EI’s took a briefing today from Jon Miller, Co-founder and VP of Marketing for Marketo. Jon briefed us on their new product – Revenue Cycle Explorer, which purports to be able to accurately analyze ROMI – your…
Event Report: Oracle Open World 2010 – The Wrap Up
Oracle Continues To Demonstrate Benefits From An Effective M&A Strategy A quick poll of 61 attendees at Oracle Open World 2010, revealed that 57.4% (35/61) of Oracle customers were positive, 29.2% (19/61) were neutral, and 10.8% (7/61) were negative about Oracle’s application strategy to date. A continued stream of product enhancements and releases may be [...]
Marketing Automation Consolidation?
Many VC’s and other practitioners of the Art of Startup view consolidation as a normal part of the evolution of a market. At first there are lots of companies founded in a space and lots of hype. Over time, a handful emerge as leaders. Once the handful is obviously head and shoulders above the rest, [...]
