It is odd to see a company filled with open source wonks excited about working closely with Microsoft. However, the guys in Redmond have a pretty strong vision for cloud computing in Azure – one that I personally feel is different than anyone making a major play for the cloud today.
Why? Well, for a number [...]

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So Marc Benioff had a few choice words to say about SugarCRM in his new book, Behind the Cloud. In the book, Marc relates an anecdote from 2006, back when Salesforce.com was starting to really become a huge marketing machine and a little CRM startup was at their first conference ruffling feathers. As Marc puts [...]

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For the last month I’ve been following a perfect, if unfortunate, example of how important it is for a company’s executive staff to be in touch with the needs of the consumer and their industry. The long awaited turnaround of Sears by hedge fund impresario Edward Lampert may never happen, and I think it has [...]

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I was initially going to write a very quick mention that Starbucks is looking to better merge its online and offline viral marketing activities, which I think is a great idea. In this economy, a lot of people’s first discretionary cutback is a $4 latte. Starbucks has had an uphill battle to climb in a [...]

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I just had an interesting conversation with an analyst over at Datamonitor about lead management, or more importantly, how it can lead not just to improved sales, but circle back around and result in improved customer segmentation by marketing.
How companies segment their customers for their products and service is one of the most strategic activities [...]

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We’ve seen the web itself turn into a 2.0 concept – fostering interactivity among both people and the technology we use. The new state of the web has turned everyone into experts – yelping their reviews for others to read en route to their next meal or gadget purchase, or otherwise editing the facts of [...]

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I’ve had some great conversations with our partners – and they are very interested in how the Sugar Open Cloud will affect their operations in terms of customizations, provisioning customers etc.
I think this description of the evolving Sugar Cloud Console (formerly known to some as Data Center Edition) will bring some of this to light. [...]

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Lots of really great news coming out of Sugar HQ this week, the biggest of which is of course the announcement of Sugar Express.
Available in 1-5 user or 6-10 user bundles, Sugar Express has all the great core CRM features individuals and small businesses need, plus tools like the Outlook, Word and Excel plugins, the [...]

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I had a great media brief this morning with a new upstart British online publication called Sales Pro. I like their model, because it is less about technology and more about enabling sales professionals to do their job better. People in this business too often forget that at the heart of CRM, there’s people.
The reporter [...]

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Because it’s a Friday, and to end our blogging for 2008 (at least consistently. I’ll be blogging on and off throughout the holidays), I’ve decided to end on a slightly lighter note.
Fresh off my blog from yesterday about CRM and airline travel, I saw the U.S. Federal Aviation Association has given the green light to [...]

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