eWEEK Newsbreak March 4th 2011

This week, Apple announced details of the new iPad2. The popular tablet has been completely redesigned to be dramatically faster, thinner and a little bit smarter. Among the new features is a dual-core processor, a built-in gyroscope and front- and rear-facing cameras. It will also boast iOS 4.3, which includes a speedier JavaScript engine, iTunes home sharing for wireless streaming from PC to iPad, improvement tweaks to Airplay, built-in Photobooth and Facetime; SAP has just announced a new on-demand application, called Sales-On Demand that could soon rival Salesforce.com and Microsoft CRM Online. Sales OnDemand is part of a series of on-demand applications SAP is positioning as extensions to its on-premises ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems; Salesforce.com also unveiled its Service Cloud 3 platform. The third iteration of Salesforce’s cloud-based customer service platform lets businesses analyze and respond to customer feedback filtering from social networks such as Twitter and Facebook; Cisco announced two unified communications platforms aimed at small and midsize businesses and a global sales productivity initiative called Cisco Partner Advisor, which will provide agents to give partners immediate and personalized sales support to accelerate sales.