Renee Boucher Ferguson

As companies integrate more and more systems, both internally and externally, the reality of having one single version of data—master data management, in other words—becomes crucial. SAP AG, Oracle Corp. and IBM are taking different approaches to MDM: Oracle with its customer data hubs, and IBM by buying functionality. Having spent the last year rebuilding […]

Microsoft Corp. took another step down the path of service-enabling its enterprise applications with the release of Dynamics SL 6.5 Thursday. The upgraded suite brings more personalization features, bank account management capabilities and tighter integration with Office—particularly Outlook, according to Mary Jo Foleys Microsoft Watch newsletter. SL 6.5, formerly known as MBS Solomon—one of four […]

While Oracle Corp. is still evaluating its underlying platform decision for Project Fusion, its next-generation application suite under development now, some users are quite certain which technologies they need included to consider an upgrade. Oracles Project Fusion plans, which bring together functionality from the Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise and J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne suites, must […]

Oracle Corp. announced Tuesday that it has certified its PeopleSoft Enterprise applications to run on Oracle Fusion Middleware 10g Release 2, a move that will provide more integration capabilities for Enterprise users—and streamline the upgrade path to Oracles next-generation application suite, Project Fusion. Oracle acquired PeopleSoft and its Enterprise suite (and J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne suite) […]

The customer relationship management landscape continued its rapid evolution last week, as vendors rolled out new and updated offerings designed to give enterprises greater control over their customer relationships. Microsoft Corp. announced last week its long-awaited Dynamics CRM 3.0, which brings a hosted capability through partners, rounds out the suite with marketing capabilities, and adds […]

Open source customer relationship management software provider SugarCRM Inc. announced Monday the beta release of the 4.0 version of its open-source platform. Sugar Suite Version 4.0, the biggest launch in the companys history, brings a host of new functional upgrades—reporting, customizable dashboards, campaign management and workflow management—along with some upgrades to the previous suite. The […]

While some TIAA-CREF customers reported IT issues that resulted in them not being able to access their retirement funds, others have come forward to say that they are receiving far too much money. Its not clear exactly what the system issues are. eWEEK initially reported late last month that TIAA-CREF (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association […]

As SAP AG and Microsoft Corp. hammer out the 1.0 version of Mendocino, their combined development project to offer mySAP process functionality in Microsoft Office for a seamless working environment between the two platforms, theyre also pounding out the second iteration. Mendocino 1.0, expected in July of next year, will hone in on four scenarios—budget […]

Entering the next phase of its SOA strategy, Tibco Software Inc. released new software and services this week to help users become service-enabled faster. On Wednesday at Gartners Web Services and Integration Summit in Orlando, Fla., Tibco announced Version 5.0 of its Portal Builder product, and new Accelerated Value Framework that offers best practices around […]

During its annual Analyst Summit in Las Vegas this week, SAP AG outlined its development plans for the coming year—plans that involve an absolute-process view of the world. That approach is central to the next version of SAPs NetWeaver integration platform, which with its release in 2006 moves from being a composition platform to becoming […]