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Sales forecasting never has been easy, and over time it has gotten a lot harder. This brings up a couple of points that every sales manager and CEO has to deal with: how to forecast deals and how to track them Forecasting has gone through several generations of approaches that have been tied directly to sales practices. Unfortunately, some of us h...

Another new Apple product, another "-gate" debacle. This time, it's bendgate. On the heels of the release of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets earlier this month has come an uproar over an unexpected weakness: In short, when stashed in a pocket of a tight pair of pants, the iPhone 6 Plus bends -- and it doesn't return to its original shape when removed.

BlackBerry on Wednesday officially launched its new square form factor smartphone, the Passport. This new handset has the size and shape of most national passports, which the company dubbed the "international symbol of mobility." The Passport is now available for US$599 in an unlocked version, or about $250 with a new contract. AT&T is the first U....

Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanner is a step up from passcodes for protecting iPhones, but it's far from totally secure, as a researcher showed on Monday Lookout Mobile Security's Marc Rogers fooled Touch ID on Apple's new iPhone 6 by crafting a false fingerprint from a do-it-yourself forgery kit that cost about US$200 to assemble....

The power of e-commerce lies in the simplicity and ease of use delivered to customers. Giving customers the ability to quickly find a product, buy it and have it delivered -- without visiting a store or even speak with a salesperson -- lets companies sell on a massive scale with little overhead. However, behind the simple purchasing process that t...

Pi-Top, a Raspberry Pi Model B+ powered build-your-own-laptop kit, soon could enable users to learn computer programming, designing and 3D-printing skills The Pi-Top team recently released details on its construction of a prototype computer in a Reddit post....

Just as businesses used to fool themselves into believing they controlled the customer conversation, many businesses today think they define the customer experience. They think that by assembling the right combination of processes, environment and people, they can develop an experience that will delight the customer. In most cases, however, and es...

Google on Monday publicly denounced the conservativeAmerican Legislative Exchange Council for lying about climate change. "We funded them as part of a political campaign for something unrelated," Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt told a caller to NPR's Diane Rehm Show. "I think the consensus within the company is that was sort of a mistake. We're tr...

Apple appears to be planning changes for the Beats Music streaming service, following its US$3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics in May Information from five sources supposedly in the know indicated the company was planning to discontinue the service, TechCrunch reported; the publication later updated the story to report that Apple told it t...

An unplanned convergence of Android apps and the Chrome OS may be setting the stage for a wide-open cross-platform architecture that combines Android and Chrome Freelance programmer Vlad Filippov, aka "Vladikoff," discovered a way around Google's limitations on its ARC, or App Runtime for Chrome, which is essentially a Chrome extension application ...

The pernicious program Citadel has been around for awhile, but it's using some new tricks on new targets From its humble origins as a "man in the browser" thief of banking credentials, Citadel has become a knave of all trades. Once it lands on a computer, it can be configured in a number of ways with a file from a server operated by Web predators....

Attackers for months have been using eBay listings to redirect visitors to password-harvesting scam sites, the BBC reported. They use cross-site scripting to hijack eBay shoppers and trick them into handing over personal data Smartphones, televisions, hot tubs and clothing are among the items supposedly for sale in listings infected with malicious ...

Jive Software recently unveiled the latest series of upgrades to its Summer Cloud release of its two flagship products -- the Jive and JiveX communication and collaboration suites. There has been a slew of improvements to both suites, ranging from better UIs, mobile optimization and third-party integration to new community management tools.

Intrigue is thick surrounding EMC these days. The story line, pieced together from various reports, goes something like this: An activist shareholder is pressuring EMC to sell itself to companies that are interested -- or at one time were interested -- in acquiring the data storage giant. Considering EMC's size, the list of suitors is short. The two names that keep circulating are HP and Dell.

Apple's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus went on sale Friday and shattered previous opening-weekend records, selling more than 10 million units during the period. Those sales may just be the start of a virtuous cycle for Apple -- a cycle that could include new product introductions and weighty revenue growth "Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our ex...

Sony Computer Entertainment on Monday confirmed that nearly 700 games will be available for its PlayStation TV system when it launches in the United States and Canada on Oct. 14. They will include popular and classic franchises such as Killzone: Mercenary, Final Fantasy, Twisted Metal and Metal Gear Solid. Known as the "PlayStation Vita TV" or "PS...

Marriott Hotels last week introduced a new vacation opportunity: instant teleportation from New York City to the beaches of Hawaii or downtown London -- no uncomfortable airplane trip required. The journeys are virtual, using 4D sensory technology based on Oculus Rift Travel enthusiasts are able to see, hear and even feel what it's like to be prese...

The U.S. government is about to embark on a major information technology program dealing with personal health records. The program is being launched by the U.S. Department of Defense, which issued a request for proposals to health IT providers late last month The initiative, known as the "Defense Health Care Management Systems Modernization program...

Uplinq, Qualcomm's big -- and it was big -- developers' conference, took place last week. There were two parts that were particularly interesting. One was its new robotics effort, and the other was the announcement that it's pushing Vuforia, its augmented reality platform, into wearable head-mounted displays (think Google Glass on steroids). Qua...

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