Articles by Erika

The many laws enacted by states to ban textingwhile driving appear to be for naught, suggest findings from anew study by the Highway Loss Data Institute.It found no reductions in crashes after theselaws took effect. In fact, the bans were associated with a slightincrease in the frequency of auto insurance claims: Crash reports were upin three of the four states studied for the project after the bans wereinstituted...

Many mobile apps for CRM tend to deliver comprehensive versions of the original application. For example, one can use the mobile Salesforce.com app on a mobile device to carry out just about any CRM-related function that's possible using the enterprise version on a PC -- from monitoring the pipeline to contacting a lead Not so with Mellmo's Roambi ...

Tech circles are buzzing about a pilot project Intel is trying out atselect Best Buy stores, initially brought to light by Engadget. Intel is apparently marketing a US$50 "upgrade" card for the PentiumG6951 dual-core LGA1156 Clarkdale processor that powers the GatewaySX2841-09e The card offers the consumer a chance to boost the PC'sperformance from...

IBM has made a US$1.7 billion offer toacquire Netezza, a data warehouse specialist that allows usersto analyze huge amounts of data very quickly by integrating hardwarewith analytics applications Since IBM announced its offer, Netezza's stock price has risenpast the $27 per share price it reflects. That could signal a bidding war ahead....

Two tech stalwarts -- Oracle and Research In Motion -- posted solid quarterly earnings, not only goosing their own shares, but delivering a boost to the stock market in general The bigger surprise was RIM, which posted higher-than-expected second quarter earnings and gave a forecast for the third quarter that also beat analyst expectations....

RhoLogic, a division of Logic Appeal, an integrator of SugarCRM software, last month released RhoLogic Mobile for SugarCRM. The app is now generally available for download at the iTunes App Store and Android Market. The company is working on a BlackBerry version, as well asversions for Windows Phone 7 and Symbian The app itself is fairly straightfo...

After resisting pressure from advocacy groups and attorneysgeneral for more than a year, Craigslist has decided to permanently remove its adult services section from its online classified ads in the United States.Elsewhere around the world, the section will remain live The site closed the section at the beginning of the month, but it wasunclear abo...

SAP has stepped up its analytics offerings with the launch of a family of industry-specific BusinessObjects applications, many of which were co-designed with users SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott introduced the analytic offerings at DEMO Fall 2010 on Tuesday, joined by a slew of early adopter customers who discussed their experiences with the tools....

Twitter is revamping its Web page so that users will actually stay on the site. With its reliance on 140-character messages that typically link to other content, Twitter's model was tailor made to send users elsewhere The design changes and new partnerships with content providers are meant to keep users at the site longer -- and hopefully draw in m...

HP has announced it is acquiring security-software makerArcSight for US$1.5 billion. It is the second major acquisition thecompany has made since the departure of its CEO Mark Hurd last month It won a bidding war against Dell to acquire storage company 3Par for $2.4 billion -- much more than the company is worth, according to critics of the deal.

Sage SalesLogix's OnTheGo is the first iteration of a new CRMapplication it developed with business partnerNet@Work using a new cloud-based mobile platform It is a new mobile paradigm for the company, said Dave Wallace, Sage SalesLogix director of product management.

Nokia has announced that President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo will leave his position on September 20, handing the keys to Microsoft executive Stephen Elop. Kallasvuo's departure is likely due to Nokia's failure to crack the smartphone market -- the U.S. market in particular -- under his guidance. That goal appears to be the main mission for the...

Google has introduced a change to its search offerings -- a new feature called "Google Instant" -- that has online advertisers wringing their hands over its implications. Google Instant lets users see results as they're typing a query. Each letter and word triggers its own predictive search. The user, who doesn't even have to hit the enter key any...

Salesforce.com has announced it is making its social tool Chatter available for mobile devices within the next several months Chatter Mobile offers much of the same functionality that's available with the desktop version of Chatter, which was generally released in June....

Mark Hurd, the former CEO of HP who resigned in disgrace last month, has joined Oracle as co-president. At the same time, Charles Phillips, co-president and a member of Oracle's board of directors, has resigned. Hurd will serve alongside Co-President Safra Catz Wall Street investors are excited about the move: Oracle's shares wereup by 5 percent on...

Consumer Watchdog, a privacy advocacy group, is running a 15-second spot on a 540-square foot digital display in Times Square to promote a longer video the group made highlighting what it perceives to be Google's intrusions on privacy ...

HP has won the bidding war it waged with Dell for data-storage company 3Par, whose shares were trading at US$9.65 when Dell first tried to acquire it in mid-August Dell decided not to match HP's $2.4 billion ($33 per share) offer,which topped Dell's bid of $32 per share. Dell first triedto acquire 3Par with an $18 per share offer on August 16, whic...

Sony has updated its e-reader family of devices: the Reader Pocket, Reader Touch and Reader Daily. The new Readers offer touchscreen functionality based on infrared sensors that read taps made by a finger or a stylus. They are smaller and lighter, and have redesigned user interfaces In some respects, the upgrades represent a significant leap for...

Intel is acquiring Infineon's wireless business for US$1.4 billion -- the second major transaction for the company in as many weeks, coming on the heels of its surprising announcement that it would purchase McAfee for $7.7 billion Unlike the McAfee deal, however, the Infineon buy does not have analysts scratching their heads....

Salesforce.com is a top provider of CRM software in large part because its application is intuitive and easy to use and deploy. It is interesting, therefore, that many Salesforce.com users are opting for Salesforce.com Mobile because it is even easier and more intuitive to use than the desktop version, according to the company "I personally like us...