David Needle

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. —IoT devices collect a lot of data, but companies that deploy them aren’t seeing enough return on their investment in devices and archived data. That was a central theme of a media briefing this week at Oracle headquarters that detailed new features designed to help business get more value from all the […]

SAN FRANCISCO—CloudBees made several big announcements at its annual JenkinsWorld conference here on platform enhancements designed to help standardize and scale software development projects in the enterprise. Leading the news is a new version of CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise that sports a more intuitive interface to help teams collaborate more efficiently to solve business problems. Among […]

Looking to expand the appeal of its Trailhead learning system, Salesforce.com now offers users and trainers a way to customize the learning experience by creating a kind of mixtape or Spotify-type playlist of selected modules. So, for example, if a user was interested in specific aspects of becoming a Salesforce admin, they could create a […]

In a bid to help retailers and other companies better connect with customers, Salesforce.com has introduced improvements to its Community Cloud that makes it easier to create online communities by leveraging the same tools companies may already be using to create their websites. Community Cloud also integrates with the Salesforce CRM system so custom communities […]

A new survey of 400 sales executives found that 80 percent of companies spend at least $1,000 per sales person annually to outfit representatives with technology designed to help the­­m do their jobs more effectively. However, the survey, sponsored by SugarCRM, also found that 49 percent of those surveyed in the United States and the […]

Salesforce.com has announced the “next generation” of its Service Cloud platform that has been redesigned with new features as well as improvements for easier application setup and management. Service agents can manage and resolve customer issues regardless of whether they are on the road, at the home office or at a customer’s site using the […]

The use of sales technology, including Customer Relationship Management systems productivity apps and social media sites increased rapidly in the past year, according to a LinkedIn-sponsored survey by Censuswide. The survey found that 91 percent of sales professionals say they are using such technologies to shorten lengthy sales cycles, close bigger deals and grow their […]

Information Builders wants to give a boost to enterprise customers who use the company’s WebFocus BI and analytics platform to develop enterprise applications. The company is promoting its own approach to the “Design Thinking” methodology that it says will help customers improve and optimize their BI and analytics projects and deliver a better return on […]

Salesforce.com is kicking off its Trailhead developers’ conference June 28 with the release of Einstein Platform Services, a set of new tools designed to help users better understand and anticipate customer demand. The company is also releasing a beta version of Einstein Object Detection, another developer tool that helps with the creation of apps that […]

PALO ALTO, CALIF.—HP says it’s time for individuals and businesses to consider the security risks posed by aging network printers “Printers are a very vulnerable part of the network. All the data and protocols flow through the network,” said Enrique Lores, president of HP’s imaging and printing business, during the Power of Print event here […]

SAN JOSE, CALIF – Hortonworks and IBM have formed a new partnership promising to extend access to data science and machine learning to more developers across the Apache Hadoop ecosystem. The companies plan to combine the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) with the IBM Data Science Experience and IBM Big SQL into new integrated solutions created […]

Salesforce has announced new applications designed to give companies a more comprehensive and integrated Account-based Marketing (ABM) system than traditional offerings. ABM systems are designed to better align marketing and sales efforts. “Account-based marketing is not new, but we’ve seen a significant shift of B2B companies doing more broad-based marketing and shifting to ABM because […]