Renee Boucher Ferguson

There is a storm brewing in the online behavioral-advertising world, where consumer clicks are tracked and tabulated to help online advertisers better target promotional messages. At this point, the argument boils down whether the rapidly evolving industry that makes its money advertising to people surfing the Web-and by figuring out exactly which ads those people […]

Pervasive Software, a 20-year-old data management and integration software vendor, is betting that its older, legacy technologies will give it an edge in a crowded “in the cloud” integration platform market. Pervasive’s DataCloud platform, announced March 25, taps the company’s flagship tool kit, the Pervasive Data Integrator, which performs a number of functionalities that really […]

During the Watergate scandal that eventually toppled President Richard Nixon, confidential source “Deep Throat” advised two enterprising Washington Post reporters to “follow the money” to uncover the scandal’s ringleaders. Now MAPLight.org, a small, not-for-profit company, is developing a database and application mashup that will allow the public to follow another money trail-the connection between campaign […]

On the tailwinds of Sun Microsystems’ Network.com and Amazon.com’s EC2, grass-roots startup DigitalRibbon is looking to start a revolution in trading computational resources in the cloud. The concept: Build a virtual marketplace where big suppliers of computational power-mammoth computing entities like the National Center for Supercomputing-can put their excess computing resources up for sale to […]

Technology stocks are sustaining substantial losses in the current economy, particularly in the on-demand sector, which is down about 30 percent year-to-date, according to one stock index. But the state of the economy could be good news for SAAS (software as a service) vendors if a simple premise holds true: that companies really do save […]

At its annual Conference and User Exchange, held March 18-20 in Las Vegas, Lawson Software introduced a new Smart Office user interface, a Human Capital Management suite and an upgraded traceability engine for process manufacturers. But perhaps the most interesting news is what’s buried in the company’s new functionality-the use of Lawson’s Landmark application development […]

10 Cool CRM Developments By Renee Boucher Ferguson 10 Cool CRM Developments – Students of CRM The Bronx Lab School- 10 Cool CRM Developments – Come to Kassel The Kassel region in Germany uses SugarCRM as a social networking platform to attract businesses, tourists and potential residents. The site won the Most Innovative CRM Deployment […]

Lawson Software announced March 17 that it has acquired the product lifecycle management division of Freeborders, a developer of retail and apparel lifecycle management software. While the acquisition strengthens Lawson’s PLM capabilities in two key vertical markets for the company, it also raises the question, Will PLM finally have its day in the enterprise? PLM […]

IBM’s not in the business applications business, but that doesn’t stop it from expanding relationships with business applications providers. The company announced March 17 an expanded relationship with CRM (customer relationship management) software provider Kana Software that will have the two companies jointly developing new software, and Kana implementing IBM’s software in its existing products. […]

ORLANDO, Fla.-At Microsoft’s annual Convergence Dynamics user conference here this week, Brad Wilson, general manager for customer relationship management at Microsoft, sat down with eWEEK Senior Writer Renee Boucher Ferguson to talk about Microsoft’s quiet platform-as-a-service strategy that’s emerged with CRM 4.0, the company’s December 2007 release of CRMthat includes multitenant, on-demand capabilities. It seems […]

ORLANDO, Fla.-The focus of Microsoft’s annual Convergence Conference here has always been about the company’s line of Dynamics business applications. This year’s conference is no exception. However, Microsoft’s focus will likely shift slightly this year with a spotlight on software-plus-services, Microsoft’s parlance for on-demand software that weaves other aspects of the company’s technology into the […]

ORLANDO, Fla.-Despite the revolving door management history at its Dynamics applications division, Microsoft is steadfastly committed to the Dynamics brand. That’s the message Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer imparted to the 9,500 Dynamics partners, customers and potential customers in attendance at this year’s Convergence conference: Dynamics is Microsoft’s brand for its four ERP (enterprise resource planning) […]