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In his keynote address at Microsoft's Convergence 2007 conference in San Diego last week, CEO Steve Ballmer included a preview of the company's upcoming Dynamics CRM application, code-named "Titan." "It was the first time we demonstrated it live in front of public audience," Brad Wilson, general manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, told CRM Buyer....

As it grows, a successful Web site or application generates more and more traffic. Unless infrastructure can be scaled to match, its increasingly slow performance will discourage users from coming back, and a promising application will have failed Raising the ante is the fact that many new applications are produced by startup ventures, who cannot a...

As the saying goes: You can't change the weather -- but you can prepare for it Recent, highly-publicized airline and product call center overflow problems have highlighted the serious and potentially humiliating problems that can occur when a call center is not sufficiently staffed to handle a crisis....

For some time there has been a drive to smooth the process of building applications over existing call platforms. Also, more and more PBX operators have been moving platforms to open source -- Cisco Call Manager 5.0, for instance, is Linux based. Now the next step in developing robust open source unified communications is apparently here: an open source desktop client...

I'm spending some time thinking about missed and anticipated opportunities this week. In looking at Windows Server, I've become convinced that it is the wrong product for the Unix displacement market. In fact, in my head, it really always has been -- I just don't talk about servers much, so it doesn't come up On the desktop side, Dell is considerin...

Cell phones are increasingly becoming miniature PCs. In keeping with that trend, majormobile carriers throughout the world have been enhancing their services to support IM functions, further blurring distinctions between the two devices While the change should enable users to exchange information more easily, the transformation may proceed slowly b...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offered some harsh criticism of Google, widely considered to be the software giant's primary rival, in comments made to students at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business A truly entrepreneurial company reinvents itself over and over again, according to Ballmer, but Google has relied on its ad-supported search...

Making good on its promises to expand Flickr into other languages, Yahoo said Friday that it plans to launch a Chinese language version of the photo-sharing service later this year The site will initially target Hong Kong users, according to reports, extending to Taiwan after that. It will reportedly offer the same set of features as the current En...

CBS on Thursday announced a deal with YouTube to form a new Web channel featuring clips and highlights from the annual NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) basketball tournament known as "March Madness." The deal comes just days after CBS' former sister company, Viacom, filed suit against YouTube -- and its owner, Google -- seeking more ...

The European Union's 27 telecommunications ministers came to an agreement on planned regulations to reduce mobile phone roaming fees Thursday. The announcement came after an informal meeting at this year's CeBIT technology trade show held in Hannover, Germany. The EU ministers said they want to see an EU regulation passed by the start of summer "E...

Open Linux system platform and open source technology provider a la Mobile announced this week the availability of a complete Voice over IP (VoIP) Linux system stack for WiFi/GSM dual-mode phones The new stack is part of the company's Market-Ready Series of Linux-based solutions for smartphones....

Cingular Wireless will refund US$18.5 million to former California customers who were charged penalties for canceling substandard wireless service. The company will also drop its plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court Under an agreement reached with the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC), Cingular agreed to issue refunds to all c...

SAP has ratcheted up its campaign to increase its middle market customer base with the rollout of several new applications. At the CeBIT trade fair now taking place in Hannover, Germany, the company introduced an enhanced All-In-One application that offers some 80 micro verticals and is componentized even further for rapid redevelopment by partners and deployment by customers...

Mario must be feeling super today. The latest game console sales figures for America, compiled by NPD Group, show his creator, Nintendo, outdistancing the competition by thousands of units There were 485,000 Nintendo DS units sold in February and 335,000 sales of Nintendo's newest console, Wii, according to the NPD report. That means Nintendo almos...

The Japanese Internet mogul who became emblematic of the high-flying Internet sector in that country was found guilty Friday of fraud and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Takafumi Horie, the 34-year-old founder of Internet portal, Web services and interactive marketing firm Livedoor, was found guilty of securities laws violations related to the m...

Cisco has agreed to pay a pretty penny for WebEx. By any measure, the US$3.2 billion -- in cash -- represents a hefty premium. The company obviously has big plans for this product line. Either that, or it wanted to take WebEx off the market so no one else would acquire it. Or both Indeed, ever since the news hit that Cisco was going to buy WebEx -...

When Google announced Wednesday that it will adopt new privacy measures designed to make it harder to connect searches with the individuals who request them, it promoted the move as a big step Whereas last year the search engine giant went head-to-head with the U.S. Department of Justice over just this question when it was subpoenaed for a list of ...

We all negotiate one thing or another almost on a daily basis. When you negotiate, you are trying to achieve a goal through discussion and compromise. Typically, both elements have to be present in order to arrive at a successful outcome. Therefore, you must be able to communicate and be willing to compromise There are ways to add power to your ne...

If I've learned one thing in my career in retailing and the Internet, it is that people love the opportunity to save money. They hate it when somebody else is getting a bargain when they aren't This is actually how I got started in the online couponing business. I noticed when I was "checking out" online, there were these "boxes" for discount codes...

As Web access becomes more streamlined and efficient, the Internet -- free-floating and nonrestrictive by nature -- may gradually render the traditional office obsolete. Bye-bye cubicles and water coolers Scene: Master Bedroom. The sun is not yet out, but ticklish feet are searching for lost slippers, and rested fingers stretch in preparation for a...