Holding a single version of the conversation
Here at the RightNow EMEA conference this morning, the SaaS customer service company is presenting its vision of the future of customer experience [disclosure: RightNow paid my travel and accommodation to be here]. RightNow’s customers are typically prosperous consumer brands at the leading edge of serving today’s socially networked, iPad-toting, metropolitan consumers. Those individuals expect [...]
Cloud-y Days Ahead
Good to be a Cloud Software Shareholder (but not a customer!) Any doubts anyone had about the legitimacy of cloud application software should have been laid to rest the last few weeks. When Oracle weighs in to buy RightNow as part of a larger acquisition strategy to acquire cloud software products, then the landscape of [...]
News Analysis: Oracle Buys RightNow For $1.43B
The Acquisition Machine Heads To The Public Cloud Users gathered at the Customer Summit 2011 at the Broadmoor Hotel woke up to the shocking announcement that Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) announced a $1.43B acquisition of leading SMB CRM vendor RightNow Technologies (NASDAQ: RNOW) today. According to Thomas Kurian, “Oracle is moving aggressively to offer customers a [...]
RightNow buy opens Oracle’s SaaS gambit
When Oracle announced its new Public Cloud earlier this month, it promised a “complete suite” of applications ranging across financials, human capital, supply chain, procurement, CRM and much more. At the time it seemed the applications would be from Oracle’s existing portfolio, but today a new strategy became clear. With the acquisition of early SaaS [...]
Oracle buys RightNow Technologies
This morning Oracle announced its intent to acquire RightNow Technologies, a SaaS customer service / CRM application vendor for ~$1.5B. The acquisition is positioned to expand Oracle’s recently announced Public Cloud offering and signals a shift in focus for Oracle’s acquisition strategy. Oracle’s Public Cloud offering, up to this announcement, was presumed to be composed [...]
Monday’s Musings: A Working Vendor Landscape For Social Business
Confusion Persists In The Social Business Market As with any new disruptive technology, the social business solution landscape faces a dynamic, confusing, and converging market. As vendors seek to grab mind share and market share, customers and prospects remain confused as to what are the right business problems to address with social business. However, rampant [...]
Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Social Business And Cloud Computing
Executive Profile Series Delivers The Inside View On Disruptive Technologies Starting this week, we’ll be kicking off an on-going series of interviews with the people behind the technologies in Cloud Computing and Social Business. The interviews should provide insightful points of view from a customer, industry, and vendor perspective. The transcript of the 30 minute [...]
The CRM Watchlist Part II: The Usual Suspects
I have to imagine that Kevin Spacey is getting sick and tired of the use of his movie’s title for pretty much everything related to a regular event. So this “Sigh” is for him. Sigh. In the first CRM Watchlist 2011 (long) post I covered the Big 4. In round 2, we’re going to look [...]
Next year is a strategic opportunity
Recessions are always a good time to rebuild your competitive infrastructure and the slow growth/recession of the last couple of years has been no exception. On the stock market, the technology sector seems to be doing quite well. After bottoming in the middle of the summer the software companies especially seem to be rebounding. Microsoft, [...]
Quarterly Financial Tracker: Q3 CY 2010 Enterprise Software Vendors Solidify Performance Turnaround
The super majority (26 of 27) of publicly traded software vendors in the Software Insider Index® delivered turnaround stories for Q3 Cy 2010 year-over-year (YoY) performance. SaaS vendors and middleware vendors led the charge with solid double digit gains against tough comps. Performance of on-premises apps vendors reflected the easy comps from a dismal 2009 [...]
