Articles by Erika

Beagle Research is exploring one of the few categories of online videos that thus far has escaped formal scrutiny: the marketing videos of software -- specifically, CRM companies. The research group has announced "The Beagle Short Tale Awards" for 2011. A panel of five industry experts rated about 150 clips in such categories as production values,...

Nasdaq OMX startled the market this weekend with news that it found "suspicious files" on its computer servers. Hackers have apparently infiltrated the stock exchange's computer systems, gaining access to confidential data on the companies that list on Nasdaq. The files were found in the Directors Desk Web application, which is used by boards of d...

This week, the Internet reached a turning point in its history that presents a wide-ranging set of implications: from future electronic device design to law enforcement tactics -- even to online advertising. Simply put, it has depleted the pool of addresses available under Internet Protocol version 4, or IPv4. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authori...

When Microsoft began demoing early betas of its newest CRM iteration, Dynamics CRM 2011, it used map-based examples to show off the functionality. Problem was, there were no robust mapping features actually embedded in the application, which got Paul Reitmeyer, senior CRM consultant at Planet Technologies thinking. "We realized that we could offer...

Google has leveled accusations that Microsoft has been using its search results to improve Bing's listings. Google came to this conclusion based on the results of a sting operation its engineers launched after noticing unusual misspellings were cropping up in both Google and Bing search results.

Beginning July 1, Facebook will require games on its site to accept payments in its own virtual currency, Facebook Credits. It is not an exclusive requirement -- game developers can use other game currencies as well. Facebook, however, will motivate developers to use its system, dangling such plums as early access to new product features and bette...

Nestled in between the news of some excellent quarterly earnings -- namely a 29 percent increase in profit and revenue -- Google dropped a bombshell on unsuspecting shareholders: Eric Schmidt will turn over the CEO reins to Larry Page, who will handle the company's day-to-day operations. Schmidt will stay on as executive chairman, while Co-founder Sergey Brin will focus on strategic projects...

After a year-long review, the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice have approved Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal -- but only if a variety of conditions are met. Chief among them is that Comcast must give up management control of the video website Hulu The merger will create a new media force that touches not ...

OpenERP has rolled out version 6.0 of its open source ERP product. It is the first upgrade of OpenERP in close to two years, with significant enhancements to its business applications Going forward, the company has committed to more frequent releases of its major versions and point releases.

Facebook dropped a privacy bombshell on an unsuspecting user base before the start of the holiday weekend: Going forward, it will make a user's address and mobile phone number accessible as part of the User Graph object. That means that users' addresses and mobile numbers are now available to third party developers of such apps as, say, FarmVille F...

In a first for the product line, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer debuted the cloud version of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 release on Monday. "Sales professionals are at the heart of almost every successful business," Ballmer said.

Pegasystems has introduced its second major cloud offering within the last year: Pega Cloud for CRM. It follows the company's release of Pega Cloud for BPM. While the functionality is different, the application's approach to cloud computing is the same. In both cloud applications, the company takes a "no lock-in" approach by using the same code ba...

A supercomputer designed by IBM and dubbed "Watson" went up against game show Jeopardy's two all-time champions -- and won. Pitting champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter against Watson, the contest was a practice round for the main event: a televised face-off between man and machine next month on the popular game show.

A consortium set up by Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and EMC to acquire hundreds of Novell patents appears to have inadvertently faked out the open source community with its withdrawal of its proposal from the German Federal Cartel Office News reports on Tuesday noted the event and alluded to possible success of the lobbying efforts by such organization...

Oracle is debuting a business intelligence module -- for SAP users. Oracle Financial Analytics for SAP -- a part of Oracle's BI applications product family, release 7.9.7 -- is designed to help SAP users wring more value out of their financial systems. While they are at it, Oracle no doubt hopes, these users may opt to migrate more of their operations to the Oracle platform...

RIM's forthcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will be entering a highly competitive market burdened with a relatively short-life battery and minimal app store monetization, according to a research note authored by Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu. ...

Yahoo's grand scheme for repositioning itself is becoming more clear. Earlier this week, news came out that the Internet company was instituting widespread layoffs, with some 4 percent of its staff expected to be let go. It was a tough but necessary call, CEO Carol Bartz reportedly wrote in a memo to employees. Now comes the news that Yahoo is doi...

Zoho has enhanced its CRM app with new accounting and telephony functionality via integration with QuickBooks and several telephony systems. Zoho CRM for QuickBooks and Zoho PhoneBridge -- which hooks into PBX systems from Asterisk, Avaya, Elastix, and Trixbox -- each take about 20 to 30 minutes to download and configure, Raju Vegesna, Zoho evange...

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a ruling that delights privacy advocates and Fourth Amendment purists: In U.S. v. Warshak, it found that the government should have obtained a search warrant before seizing and searching defendant Stephen Warshak's emails, which were stored by email service providers In the criminal case, Warshak w...

A long-simmering legal dispute between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and two former Harvard University classmates is back in the public eye after partially redacted court documents filed this summer in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court surfaced on Radar Online.com. The documents, which apparently were leaked to the site, were fi...