CRM Watchlist 2012 Winners – The Marketing Mavens
Last year saw a major explosion of interest in marketing automation a.k.a. revenue performance management and social marketing in particular. What makes this interesting is that we also saw the first clumsy attempts from a strategic standpoint to alig…
The Biggest Misperception in Talent Management
After digesting just about every blog post, discussion thread, and email predicting what will happen with SAP and SuccessFactors now that they are one, I’ve noticed a prevailing theme – the Talent Management market has changed overnight and even some are predicting the death of independent Talent Management vendors. While I believe the Talent Management [...]
SAP and SuccessFactors- buying the past or the future, the corporation or the human?
When news first rolled in, back in December, that SAP was going to acquire SuccessFactors my first reaction was – makes sense, that brings them some much-needed scale, with 15k customers and the potential for volume economics. And of course an aggressive sales force that lives and breathes cloud deals. But then a week or [...]
The Social Revolution Has Just Begun
Depending on whom you ask, 2011 was either the year of the iPad or the year of social. The truth is that they were and are equally weighted because they are catalysts for each other, and while each can exist without the other, imagining such a thing is like trying to imagine a world where [...]
My 2 cents on Oracle, Salesforce and the Cloud
Have been following the chatter closely on StockTwits, among the Enterprise Irregulars, and elsewhere after Oracle’s big miss. Here’s my 2 cents… Cloud/SaaS/OnDemand software (choose your buzzword) is a powerful long-termtrend – buyers are shifting strongly in this direction and it represents a tremendous market and investment opportunity. This is long-term bullish for flagship vendor Salesforce.com ($CRM) and a [...]
Lars From Mars, The Wookey, Carmen Miranda And Me
Island Of Lost Souls — 1932 When Ron and I moved near DC in 1977, there was a late night TV program, called “Creature Features,” that we loved. It was hosted by Dick Dyszel who, for reasons lost in the mists of marital life, I nicknamed Lars from Mars. Dick played rarely shown early SciFi films, many [...]
The Cloud Wars – 2012
It seems, based on the last few acquisitions in enterprise software by three of the largest software vendors, that cloud computing has moved past its tipping point. The acquisitions, RightNow by Oracle, SuccessFactors by SAP and DemandTec by IBM, also…
SAP Partners with NetBase – Another Proof Point for the Arrival of Enterprise Social
SAP AG and NetBase today announced that SAP will resell NetBase solutions in order to combine traditional business intelligence with social analytics. This partnership is aimed at “enabling the socialization of enterprise processes and applications” and providing a “wider and deeper perspective on a range of activities, from product development to marketing to customer support.” [...]
Appirio acquires Saaspoint for push into Europe
In its fourth acquisition of the past 12 months, cloud integrator Appirio has announced it is buying long-established European pureplay Salesforce.com integrator Saaspoint. The acquisition is Appirio’s first significant foray into the European theater, delivering on the international expansion promised after GGV Capital and Salesforce.com invested in the company in August. Saaspoint was founded in [...]
Salesforce & the Social Marketing Cloud: Round 1 Goes to…
Don’t get me wrong. I love Radian6. I truly do. Now that it it is an extended platform with its incorporation of the superbly conceived and executed “Insights” addition (kudos to Ryan Strynatka), it is easily the social media platform to beat (not the community platform). There is no better and, to my mind, this [...]
