Salesforce.com might be leading the charge when it comes to bringing social networking to customer relationship management but it's not the only CRM vendor banging the social drum.
Nimble on Tuesday released a new version of its eponymous cloud-based CRM offering. The new Nimble 2.0 adds tighter integration from third-party social networks, including Facebook and Google+. In addition, Nimble 2.0 consolidates notifications from the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. The aim is to allow sales reps to better serve customers based on their social network interactions. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 02/14/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Oracle on Thursday said it has agreed to acquire Taleo, a leading cloud-based provider of human capital management (HCM) apps, for $1.9 billion.
The move is hardly surprising. In December, two of Oracle's key rivals made similar moves; SAP announced its $3.5 billion deal to acquire SuccessFactors and Salesforce.com agreed to acquire Rypple. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 02/09/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Alfresco on Thursday released a major new version of its enterprise content management software platform that will help enterprises transition the use of ECM to the cloud.
The new release, Alfresco Enterprise 4, introduces an HTML 5-based user interface targeted at supporting mobile devices, notably iPads. The new UI embeds key social network features such as the ability to favorite, like and comment on content. It also integrates with social networks and has links to GoogleDocs, Microsoft Office and Quickoffice HD for iPad users. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 02/02/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Amazon remains secretive about revenues from its business in providing cloud services to enterprises, and nothing was said in this week's earnings announcement to shed further light on the question. But if you consider the amount of content stored in its cloud service as any indicator, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is growing like gangbusters.
At the end of 2011, there were 762 billion objects in Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), up nearly three-fold, or 192 percent, from the 262 billion objects stored at the end of 2010. "S3 grew faster last year than it did in any year since it launched in 2006," said AWS evangelist Jeff Barr in a blog post that revealed the latest metric. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 02/01/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Joyent is getting ready to bring online new datacenters that it says will equip it to compete with cloud behemoth Amazon Web Services.
San Francisco-based Joyent is building new datacenters in Europe and in the Asia Pacific. The datacenter in Europe should be up and running next month and the Asia Pacific facilities are slated to go online by May. Also, through a partnership with telecom provider Telefónica, Joyent is establishing a series of alliances to add further capacity around the world. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 02/01/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Salesforce.com on Tuesday launched a cloud-based help desk offering conveniently called Desk.com.
Based on Salesforce.com's September 2011 acquisition of Assistly for $50 million and its procurement of the Desk.com domain earlier this month, the subscription-based help desk service will let businesses offer customer support from mobile devices and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/31/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Wednesday introduced a service that lets enterprises connect their on-premises data with its cloud-based storage.
The company's AWS Storage Gateway consists of an appliance that sits in the customer's datacenter and allows them to mirror their local storage with the cloud. This lets customers create backup and disaster recovery scenarios using Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3). More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/26/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Scribe Software, which last year released a cloud service to connect Microsoft Dynamics CRM data with other business applications including Salesforce.com apps, is extending its capabilities to synchronize content more easily with disparate premises-based business-critical software.
The company is billing Scribe Online Synchronization Services (SYS), released this week, as an alternative to integration middleware such as Dell Boomi, IBM Cast Iron and Microsoft's own SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and BizTalk connectivity software. Scribe Online SYS connects Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Salesforce.com data with business critical apps using third-party connectors via the cloud. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/25/2012 at 1:14 PM1 comments
AppDynamics, a provider of cloud-based application performance management (APM) software, last week received an infusion of $20 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). The C-Series funding adds KPCB as its latest investor, joining Greylock Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
AppDynamics' namesake software helps IT manage distributed Web applications running on premises and in the cloud, and is targeted at both operations and development teams. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/24/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Looking to build on its e-discovery, compliance and storage management portfolio, Symantec this week said it has acquired cloud archiving provider LiveOffice for $115 million.
The deal will allow Symantec to extend its push into helping customers address retention of e-mail and other content. EMC, IBM and Hewlett-Packard all have competitive offerings. Thanks to its $10.3 billion acquisition of Autonomy last year, HP has become a major player in the market for enterprise search and e-discovery software and services. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/19/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
AT&T is the latest major IT provider to add a public cloud service. Revealed at its developer conference in Las Vegas alongside the Consumer Electronics Show last week, Cloud Architect is targeted at enterprise app developers.
I caught up Wednesday with John Potter, AT&T's VP of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), to discuss how Cloud Architect, available now, will extend the telecommunications carrier's existing enterprise cloud offerings and compete with IaaS offerings from the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Rackspace Hosting. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/19/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments
Salesforce.com has nabbed Vivek Kundra, the United States' first CIO, as executive VP of emerging markets.
The company announced Kundra's appointment Monday. Kundra, who was named by President Barack Obama as the country's first CIO in 2009, stepped down last summer to take a fellowship at Harvard University as a joint fellow at the Kennedy School and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. More
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/17/2012 at 1:14 PM0 comments