
ERP’s Disruptive Moment
At Dreamforce Zuora, like many other emerging companies allied with Salesforce.com, decided to hold a user group meeting. As long as the customers jointly held by Salesforce and Zuora were in town the logic went, why not have them in for a day of education, listening and a pep talk form the boss. It was […]

Robert Scoble (still) doesn’t understand enterprise software
Yet again, we open the thorny debate of enterprise vs. consumer software.

Attributes of a Socially Optimized Business
Once again, I had the great pleasure to work with my colleagues on an XPLANATiON with our Social Business Council members. We interviewed a core group of our members to identify the attributes that comprise the whole of the socially optimized business. I think you will agree, the results are fabulous. Where are you on […]

IDC Names 2011 Innovative Application Software Companies Under $100M to Watch
Today, for the third year in a row, IDC published the Innovative Software Companies Under $100M to Watch, in an effort to recognize innovation in the software around specific hot trends. The selection for the Application Software vendors was conducted…

Three Tactical Analyst/Blogger/Influencer Relations Engagement Tips
I used to write from time-to-time on the ways that the provider community can get the attention of the more busy (and senior) bloggers and analysts. Many of these approaches are now old hat (e.g., focus on conversations outside of form…
Say goodbye to the organisational hierarchies please
It all started by John Tropea’s post, then the discussion moved onto Google+. My first comment was “I’m still puzzled why all still accepts “organisational hierarchies” as a given… after all they’re nothing but frameworks for work processes, of the push kind mostly, based on technology like quills, whips and shoe leather.” As always, succinctly […]

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. What Does It Mean?
Less than you’d think, probably, but enough so it’s worth hashing over. It means Oracle will spend less and less time running down the Cloud and more and more time monetizing it for their own coffers. That’s no surprise. Consider this the final signal that the Cloud is here to stay and it’s mainstream. In […]

Oracle, Endeca and RightNow
What’s behind the deals Oracle (ORCL) recently announced with Endeca (private) and RightNow (RNOW)? Here’s my quick back of the napkin math regarding these two transactions: re: the RNOW deal. RightNow is a SaaS CRM provider. This deal will be for $1.5 billion and involve 2000 customers according to Wikipedia and other sources. That works […]