This year, the CRM Evolution event was true to its name. The organization of the show reflected the way thinking about CRM has changed over the years, with a breakdown into three tracks: CRM, Social CRM and Deployment Strategies. Really, the tracks parallel the state of CRM for its users — or rather, where users are on their CRM journeys. There are many seeking guidance to deploy and integrate... 

Facebook, one of the most popular sites on the Web — now claiming 500 million users — also has the dubious distinction of being one of the lowest-ranked in terms of customer satisfaction. Facebook scored a paltry 64 on the 100-point scale of the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report. That puts it in the bottom 5 percent of all measured private sector companies, drawing... 

The most popular concept of sustainability revolves around energy use, and while I have no issues with energy as an issue, I think in business the idea goes further — all the way to products and customers. I will leave the last couple of ideas for another time and concentrate on energy today. Actually, energy is a huge topic, and the only thing I want to focus on is the data center, not whatever... 

There are multiple ideas about the shape of the future competing for primacy in the electronic village. I am pushing on sustainability, but another idea that I really like is called “the subscription economy,” championed most vociferously by Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora. Subscriptions fit well into Tzuo’s company plan, since his company has a billing and payments system for subscription... 

It had to happen sooner or later; the only question in my mind is why it has taken so long. It appears that the backlash against social media is beginning. All I can say is, yippee! With trends like social media — or almost any trend — we tend to over-imbue the idea or offering with our own expectations of what’s possible and inevitably we are disappointed when we learn that nothing... 

News of Dell’s upcoming Streak device arrived as the news about tablet computing heated up. Apple’s iPad continues to sell like hotcakes, passing the 2 million milestone and leading analysts to suggest that total 2010 iPad sales will reach between 5 and 7 million units. Apple CEO Steve Jobs and others have suggested that tablets are on track to supplant traditional PCs and notebooks. Microsoft... 

So-called smart grids are among the first real-world examples of what expansive IT vendor initiatives like IBM’s Smarter Planet envision. Just what are smart grids? Designed for deployment by utility companies, smart grids incorporate sensors embedded in electric, gas and water meters to communicate usage and performance data to central data centers. In turn, the information gathered from smart... 

The economic hardships hitting businesses worldwide over the last several months have compelled may an IT department to steer costly new initiatives into indefinite holding patterns. However, these stalled technology upgrades are beginning to find new corporate support. A new survey by Robert Half Technology reveals some organizations are finally planning to implement projects that earlier had been... 

The global market for mobile phone applications is expected to soar to $17.5 billion by 2012, surpassing the total value of CDs sold, new research forecasts. The revenue from mobile apps is expected to increase at a 62 percent compound annual growth rate from $4.1 billion in 2009 to $17.5 billion in 2012, according to a research report by Chetan Sharma Consulting. In comparison, the total value of... 

The database market will see lots of activity during the 2010-2011 timeframe as nearly 60 percent of organizations move to upgrade or expand existing and legacy networks. That statistic comes from new ITIC survey data, which polled 450 organizations worldwide. Not surprisingly, the survey shows that longtime market leaders Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and Sybase will continue to dominate the DBMS market...