It’s official: Everyone loves the CMO. But should they?
photo: Shutterstock / Inq
With IT giants including IBM now actively targeting CMOs as primary buyers of IT solutions, you have to wonder if this is really a great idea. Read more »
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Cloud security market landscape, 2013–2017
Cyber threats are now a critical issue affecting the national security of nation countries worldwide. At the same time, the IT world is witnessing a wave of new innovation, and there are numerous business opportunities for technologies built around the emerging market sectors of mobile and cloud computing. These technologies and the companies creating with them will form the future of cloud security over the next several years. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em, says Kinvey, as it partners with Google
MBaaS player Kinvey says new integration will make it a snap for mobile developers to develop on Kinvey and deploy on Google App Engine, or vice versa. Read more »
SAP strikes again, buying hybris to boost e-commerce push
photo: Shutterstock / Luiz Rocha
And we’re off to the races again as SAP buys hybris, a Swiss e-commerce specialist, to expand its reach into a $37 billion market. Read more »
What the web is saying about Salesforce’s $2.5B ExactTarget buy
In picking up ExactTarget, Salesforce.com is setting the new standard for reaching customers, but at a big cost. Here’s what the internet had to say about the deal on Tuesday. Read more »
Salesforce.com seeks more advertising, marketing revenue from social
photo: Jordan Novet
By connecting its customer-relationship-management system with social-media monitoring and publishing tools it’s taken on in the past two years, Salesforce.com looks eager to become an advertising and marketing destination. Read more »
New Salesforce.com features meld social media, marketing and CRM
photo: Salesforce.com
To help businesses focus their ad spending on specific social-media users, Salesforce.com is adding the ability to combine existing customer-relationship management lists with social monitoring and publishing tools. Read more »
Infer takes $10M to find the sales leads most likely to pay off
photo: Infer
A startup called Infer has taken on $10 million in venture funding to help more companies get a better idea of which leads to focus on in their sales and marketing lead lists. Read more »
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Sector RoadMap: Social customer service in 2013
“Social customer service” refers to those services that provide customer support via social media channels. Providing such services is no longer merely a niche or specialty sideline. Challengers, or disruptors who were early with the new technology, are working to expand and integrate their offerings into enterprise systems and processes. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Social first-quarter 2013: analysis and outlook
Social business technologies remain in the foreground of discussions about business transformation, but the events of the first quarter of 2013 raised as many questions as they answered, or more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cloud adoption: It’s not about the price, stupid
photo: Corbis / Don Mason
Remember when the decision to go to Amazon Web Services was all about saving dough? Smart consumers now know that’s not the real reason to move workloads to the cloud. Read more »
Salesforce.com and Rackspace gear up for mobile developers
Industry giants are adding more development and platform goodies for mobile app developers. This may have the more targeted MBaaS providers a little perplexed. Read more »
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Cloud and data first-quarter 2013: analysis and outlook
Cloud computing is finally starting to add value to business, as those in charge of cloud within enterprises are moving from talking to doing. That much was very evident in the first quarter of 2013. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
AppMesh says its mobile apps will help salespeople get out in front of email and deals
photo: AppMesh
Two former Salesforce.com employees who founded AppMesh have developed iPad and iPhone apps salespeople can use to tackle email and track sales deals on the go. Read more »
MuleSoft rakes in more moolah to connect your applications to the world
MuleSoft wants to push its Anypoint Platform as the Switzerland of application integration,and now it has $37 million to promote that vision. Read more »
Hurd? Capellas? Let’s be bold. How about Gerstner, Bradley, Bartz, Otellini as new Dell chief?
photo: HP
Blackstone reportedly reached out to Oracle co-prez Mark Hurd to gauge his interest in being Dell CEO should Blackstone’s buyout bid succeed. Here are a few much more interesting options. Read more »
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Sector RoadMap: SQL-on-Hadoop platforms in 2013
Today’s most successful companies are the ones with the ability to capture and analyze all data available to them. Enter SQL-on-Hadoop solutions, which increase the accessibility of Hadoop and allow organizations to reuse their investment learning in SQL. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Microsoft buys into multi-lingual social analytics with Netbreeze acquisition
photo: Flickr / ToddABishop
Netbreeze promises to bring multi-lingual access and analysis to Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube streams via Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Read more »
Salesforce rolls out new mobile features for its Chatter social network
photo: Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com recognizes the need to give employees the power to work on the go with mobile devices, and now they can view and share more through the company’s internal Chatter social network. Read more »
What if your cloud dashboard isn’t telling the truth? Hint: It ain’t good
photo: Shutterstock 3Art
Many businesses already get the heebie jeebies when it comes to deploying workloads to the cloud. They have to trust their provider and the metrics it provides. That’s why the Heroku-Rap Genius kerfuffle is important. Read more »
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is still in a buying mood
photo: Rani Molla
Marc Benioff says SaaS leader will continue to buy companies and technologies — and also build internally — to bolster its marketing and services businesses. Read more »
Obama CIO: Location, location, location (and personalization) will be key to next campaign
photo: Rani Molla
2008 was about social networking, 2012 about big data and analytics and 2016 could well be about personalization and location, says Michael Slaby, former CIO of Obama for America. Read more »
Salesforce.com mobilizes its service cloud
The latest Salesforce.com effort brings in-app support, chat and co-browsing to users of specified shopping, banking and gaming apps. Read more »
Box woos the enterprise with more security features, partnerships
File-share-and-sync vendor Box will announce more enterprise-friendly security features and alliances at the RSA Conference on Monday. Read more »
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Best practices in optimizing content for social engagement
Optimizing content is crucial as customers migrate from being passive recipients to becoming active contributors. This opportunity presents a fresh set of challenges, not only for those in traditional broadcast industries but also for content managers and enterprise leaders. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Salesforce re-does Do with Dropbox, Google integrations
Salesforce.com’s Do is morphing into Do More with easy links to Google Drive, Dropbox, Harvest, Wufoo, Contactually and Desk.com Read more »
Hey devs, need some hand holding? Heroku adds premium consulting services for you
So you’re building an important application on Heroku’s Platform-as-a-Service but need some help configuring it? Now you can now get that. For a fee. Read more »
Box trots out IBM, Oracle integrations to boost its enterprise cred
As enterprise software companies build their own Box functionality, Box is wooing them to integrate with its own file-share-sync-and collaboration service. Read more »
Yahoo vets back Tomfoolery to put some pizzazz in enterprise software
Tomfoolery aims to make enterprise apps mobile and fun; now it has $1.7 million from Jerry Yang, Brad Garlinghouse and others to get started. Read more »
The 2013 task management tools market
The task-management market is growing, in part because users need to coordinate with teams via mobile. In this case, heavier-weight solutions like Yammer, IBM Connections, and Podio don’t always suffice. But the demand for digital to-do lists that can be shared across project teams is increasing. Read more »
Oracle beefs up marketing applications savvy with $871M buy of Eloqua
For its $871 million buyout of Eloqua, Oracle will get more marketing automation expertise and access to more than 1,000 customers. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2013 and continues Oracle’s fourth quarter buying spree. Read more »
Cloud Sherpas hauls in $40M to sell more Google Apps and Salesforce
photo: Flickr/401(K) 2012
The Atlanta-based integrator will use its new funding to keep up with what it calls accelerating demand for cloud applications and to keep serving existing Salesforce.com and Google Apps customers. Read more »
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Social 2013: The enterprise strikes back
With investment souring on consumer-focused companies, 2013 will be more about the social enterprise, with a different set of companies driving innovation and perhaps a little disruption. Look for the likes of Salesforce.com, Jive Software, and other enterprise players to make headlines in the new year. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
CipherCloud secures $30M to secure enterprise apps
Startup CipherCloud will use fresh funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures and T-Systems to beef up sales and marketing and its global presence, says CEO and founder Pravin Kothari. Read more »
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IT spending update, fourth quarter 2012
Many factors have driven the recent high demand for IT products and services. However, relentless global economic weakness and uncertainty have resulted in a deterioration of worldwide IT spending through the third quarter and will continue to be an anchor in the fourth quarter. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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The future of India’s IT services
India’s major tech firms have become competitive enterprise outsourcers and systems integrators on a global scale. Firms such as Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services are looking for technology to provide the next competitive advantages in the market. The cloud provides that opportunity on several levels. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Heroku now lets you play with your data without making a mess
People love platforms as a service because they are easy so Heroku’s new Fork tool that allows you to copy your database with one click should be a nice feature for users who want to play with their data without making a costly mistake. Read more »
Hubspot nets $35 million in new cash to fuel hiring and M&A
A new $35 million funding round gives inbound marketing SaaS specialist Hubspot the wherewithal to buy companies and hire staff as needed, says company CEO and Co-founder Brian Halligan. It also paves the way to an IPO. Read more »
Open-source CRM player SugarCRM talks up IPO
photo: Flickr/401(K) 2012
Encouraged by Workday’s splashy initial public offering, SugarCRM a provider of open-source customer relationship management software-as-a-service, is gearing up for an IPO of its own next year, according to CEO Larry Augustin. It looks like enterprise SaaS is the place to be for IPOs. Read more »
Salesforce.com chief scientist on how and why the cloud is here to stay
photo: JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY
Although older generations might still view cloud computing as an emerging trend, their children take it for granted, largely forgoing physical devices for cloud services. We might as well come get on board and maybe change the world in the process. Read more »
