CRM Magazine Blog

Web 2.0 Expo NY, Lessons Learned

Lauren McKay — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:07:05 +0000

Keep your eyes peeled: you never know who might sit down next to you — a potential mentor, a potential partner, or, in the case of presenter Soren Stamer, a potential wife. Stamer, who presented Tuesday morning on “Surviving and Thriving in a Web 2.0 World” met his wife two years ago at the Web 2.0 [...]

GUEST-BLOG: SugarCRM Calls Salesforce.com’s Cloud a “Smokescreen” #df09

Denis Pombriant, founder and managing principal, Beagle Research Group — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:20:19 +0000

By Denis Pombriant, founder and managing principal, Beagle Research Group SugarCRM’s satirical send-up of Marc Benioff’s “Behind the Cloud” memoir, distributed today at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference has barely opened its doors and there’s already plenty of howling going on. Yesterday, I reported that Microsoft had set up an ersatz truth squad for the [...]

GUEST-BLOG: Former Salesforce.com Exec Picks Benioff’s Top Plays #df09

Tien Tzuo, cofounder and chief executive officer, Zuora — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:45:15 +0000

By Tien Tzuo, cofounder and chief executive officer, Zuora I spent nearly a decade at Salesforce.com, eventually as chief strategy officer, and I learned first-hand what it takes to build a $1 billion company. (In fact, I’m trying to do it again.) [Editors' Note: Zuora was named a Rising Star in CRM magazine's 2008 CRM Market Awards.] We’re really [...]

The Tweetstream: Salesforce.com’s 3rd Quarter Call #df09

Joshua Weinberger — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:36:57 +0000

At Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco's Moscone Center, CRM Associate Editor Jessica Tsai is live-twittering Marc Benioff's opening keynote as we speak — find her tweetstream at @jesstsai, and the conference hashtag is #df09; her coverage will appear here on the blog and over at destinationCRM.com for the rest of the week. Meanwhile, we thought we'd thrill you with the live-twittering from the company's conference call with media and analysts last night to discuss its third-quarter financial results. Benioff and CFO Graham Smith were on the call, and you can find my tweets after the jump. But first, a teaser — and Comment bait: Tu 11/17 Promising a major, MAJOR pair of surprise guests on Thursday at #df09. #Benioff Tu 11/17 [Any guesses about #Benioff's teaser? @ciscosystems' John Chambers? @Google's Brin/Page? Leave them in the Comments, below...] Tu 11/17 One last guess (for now) abt the "major, MAJOR" guests #Benioff teased for #df09 on Th: #Apple's Steve Jobs? [Benioff talks at length in his new book about his admiration for Jobs, dating back to Benioff's short stint at Apple in the ’80s.]

Welcome to Dreamforce 2009 #df09

Jessica Tsai — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:21:42 +0000

Some 19,000 people are expected at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2009 and we’re all filing into the conference hall awaiting CEO Marc Benioff’s morning, two-hour-long keynote. I’m set up in the sweet press/analyst section where we not only have Internet connection but outlets! (After going to as many shows as we have this season using laptops with abysmal [...]

Get Changed Right in the (Online) Store

Jessica Tsai — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:37:31 +0000

The harder retailers work to get us to buy on their products, it seems, the lazier we can be. Who needs to go into the store now that product recommendation engine RichRelevance and interactive marketing firm, and member of the Augmented Reality (AR) Consortium, Zugara just unveiled Fashionista, a solution that allows shoppers to try on [...]

SugarCRM Names Larry Augustin Full-Time CEO

Christopher Musico — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:30:12 +0000

Today, open-source CRM pioneer SugarCRM announced that the “interim” has been officially removed from now Chief Executive Officer Larry Augustin’s title. I had the chance to speak with him in advance of the announcement about what he is most looking forward to in his role, as well as the future he sees for open source [...]

EXCLUSIVE: Compensation Management Pioneer Liz Cobb Joins Xactly

Joshua Weinberger — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:45:42 +0000

In a move that many will claim to have seen coming, Xactly Corp. is announcing tomorrow that Liz Cobb — founder of both Centive (recently acquired by Xactly) and Makana Solutions (acquired, even more recently, by Salary.com) — will be joining the company. Cobb will be handling Xactly’s small-to-midsize business (SMB) initiatives — a role reflected in [...]

Live, from New York, It’s Saturday Night NetSuite!

Joshua Weinberger — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:12:03 +0000

Well, here's something unexpected. In addition to the news of a new partnership between NetSuite and InsideView — you can see Associate Editor Jessica Tsai's coverage here — I happened to breeze past NBC.com's page for streaming video of the network's Saturday Night Live — I swear it was work-related...or at least it became work-related — and there was NetSuite, gaping at me from a dynamic banner ad atop the page. NetSuite banner ad atop NBC.com, captured Nov. 10, 2009 Now, I don't have any way of knowing if that media buy was universal (no pun intended, NBCU), or a cookie-generated placement based on my admittedly CRM-specific browsing history, but either way, it's certainly the most mainstream appearance for NetSuite marketing I've ever seen. Ironically, NBCU is a Salesforce.com client — and its use of Salesforce.com earned a CRM Elite award from us in September, as part of the 2009 CRM Market Awards. More screencaps after the jump, and I'll see if NetSuite will be at all forthcoming about the marketing plan behind the media buy.

The Art of Usability #SageSummit

Lauren McKay — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:43:49 +0000

Today at Sage Summit, I had the opportunity to venture to one corner of the conference center I had never been before — the Usability Labs. My conversation today with Sage’s Larry Ritter piqued my interest about the usability testing that Sage does in developing new releases of its software. So, I moseyed on down [...]