Articles by Erika

You wouldn't guess there's a recession under way -- at least, not if you were going by RightNow Technologies' recent earnings. By any measure, the Software as a Service vendor closed the year on a high note, completing seven million-dollar-plus deals in the last quarter. In fact, CEO Greg Gianforte told CRM Buyer, "our sales teams delivered the hi...

Part 1 of this two-part series describes the emerging trend toward Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings and touches on how some vendors are experimenting with this model in the customer relationship management software space Open development platforms and their offspring -- mashups -- are behind the significant changes in CRM functionality that h...

Mark Amtower -- author, speaker, CEO coach, radio host and consultant -- is very picky about who represents his products and services -- and whom he represents. Still, he is a fan of the affiliate networking model, which is based on third parties or Web sites promoting products or services for a fee. Amtower has formed his own network, populated w...

Microsoft has filed complaints against TomTom in both the U.S. District Court in Seattle and with the International Trade Commission, alleging that the GPS gadget maker has infringed eight of its patents. Is this another day, another tech patent suit story? If it were any other plaintiff, perhaps The patents Microsoft claims TomTom has violated: "V...

Google and Mozilla have formalized their support for the European Union's current antitrust proceedings against Microsoft by acquiring third-party status in the proceedings. They join several other firms that have also entered the fray The EU is investigating whether Microsoft is violating its antitrust regulations by bundling Internet Explorer wit...

Yahoo is fine-tuning its online advertising platform with the launch of three new targeting tools. The company introduced them Tuesday morning, during its keynote presentation at the annual conference of theInteractive Advertising Bureau. The new products:...

Earlier this month Zuora, a startup that's less than a year old, launched Z-Commerce, a platform that gives developers access to its applications as well as Z-Force's API (application programming interface) documentation, sample code and toolkits. There is also a sandbox environment, currently available in private beta. A few years ago, this might...

Microsoft has introduced an initiative to provide up to 2 million people with job training on its applications. Called "Elevate America," the program consists of two main offerings: free training available through an online portal; and more elaborate, hands-on training offered in conjunction with several states including Florida, New York and Washington...

When Christopher Cabrera, president and CEO of Xactly, says his Software as a Service sales performance management company began 2009 with a big bang, he didn't -- as one might assume in this economy -- mean it in a bad way. In January, the company acquired Centive, its primary competitor. In February, it lured a new CFO on board -- Steve Cakebrea...

The federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against Microsoft over marketing claims for its Vista operating system has reversed an earlier decision to certify the suit as a class action designation. She also deniedMicrosoft's motion for summary judgment U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman allowed the case, Dianne Kelley, et al. v. Microsoft Corp, to be c...

Verizon Wireless has picked Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson as its main contractors in its planned deployment of its forthcoming Long Term Evolution network LTE, reputed to be so fast that users can download a song in mere seconds, is considered the next industry benchmark for carriers to meet. Verizon's project -- which it outlined at the industry tra...

Swedish prosecutors have dismissed about half the charges brought against defendants accused of copyright violations through their operation of a P2P (peer-to-peer) Web site that connectsusers to content -- mainly music and movies -- on other users' PCs Last year, the owners of The Pirate Bay -- a Sweden-based Web site that's reportedly one of the...

Software as a Service has become the business and software delivery model of choice among new vendors -- not to mention companies seeking to invest in IT. Surprisingly, considering the model's growing market share, few companies have sprung up to offer SaaS applications for the providers themselves. Enter Zuora. Not quite a year old, it can count ...

Sales are down. You don't even need to add a qualifier to that sentence -- such as industry or name of company. Across the board, corporate and consumer sales are down. Enter firms like Demandbase, which promises the latest in lead generation functionality. The company debuted last year with Demandbase Central, a Software as a Service platform tha...

It should come as no surprise that Maurice Ramirez -- an emergency room attending physician with Florida Hospital's Flagler division -- is in favor of widespread adoption of automated personal health records, or PHRs. Ramirez was once chief medical officer for a company that was developing such an application, but that's not his only reference poi...

IBM and Amazon Web Services have inked an agreement to offer Big Blue's software through Amazon's cloud offering. Over the next few months, software images for full production of some of IBM's most popular software will launch in beta IBM, of course, has a well-established footprint in the cloud and regularly rolls out new initiatives -- most recen...

Part 1 of this two-part series on search engine marketing for small businesses explains how low or no-cost technology tools are breaking down barriers to a strong Internet presence Small businesses have been reluctant to spend precious resources on a marketing medium that traditionally has not delivered -- at least to them -- on its promise. That m...

IBM has rolled out new products and services -- along with a joint network offering with partner Juniper Networks -- that solidifies its foothold in the enterprise cloud computing space The IBM-Juniper offering is an infrastructure play targeting IBM's private cloud clients. Specifically, it's a hybrid cloud service that allows users to extend thei...

For a long time, small businesses were reluctant to embrace the latest in search engine marketing and other online advertising tactics. The SEM industry was unable to deliver to this group of typically local-interest, cost-conscious companies what they wanted the most: a means to assess how their investments were performing "Small businesses are a ...

A team of hackers exploited a SQL injection vulnerability to gain access to a customer database protected by security company Kaspersky. It appears the attack did not compromise any data, according to Roel Schouwenberg, a Kaspersky senior antivirus researcher. However, it certainly dealt a blow to the company's reputation "A Romanian hacker team fo...