ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Can Your Sales Force Trust Salesforce.com?

Posted by Mark Smith on 17 December 2010

At the 2010 Dreamforce conference (Twitter #df10) in San Francisco, about 18,000 people gathered to learn about the latest in salesforce.com’s applications and technology. Attendees from sales organizations might have been looking for some depth on the next generation of applications to support their sales processes or what the vendor will do to help sales managers manage, sales reps sell... Read More

Topics: Sales, Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service

SAP Energizes CRM with Analytics and Interactions, But Will It Work?

Posted by Mark Smith on 14 December 2010

At the SAP Global Influencer Summit (Twitter #SAPSummit) that I just assessed the company addressed, among many other things, its SAP CRM vision and recent advances. SAP has shifted its focus from standard customer relationship management (CRM) to the customer lines of business where professionals increasingly see that the enterprise customer experience should span channels and processes in... Read More

Topics: SAP, Customer Experience, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Performance, CIO, Customer & Contact Center, Enterprise Software, CRM

HP Gives Up on Business Intelligence and Analytics Markets

Posted by Mark Smith on 05 December 2010

No one has seemed to notice that in the last several months, Hewlett-Packard has quietly made changes to its participation in the enterprise software market; this will significantly change HP’s value for CIOs and IT organizations in regards to business intelligence (BI) technologies. Essentially, the change is this: The company has decided to leave the BI market, which includes analytics and data... Read More

Topics: Data Warehousing, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Enterprise Software, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), HP, Information Applications, Information Management, HP Neoview

Kronos Goes Usability and Mobility in New Releases

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its annual user conference in Las Vegas, Kronos unveiled the next stage of its approach to workforce management to its customers and partners, showing an aggressively confident posture after completing its fiscal year 2010 with revenue increased 9 percent to $741 million. Kronos is the largest provider of workforce management systems for time and attendance, scheduling, absence tracking,... Read More

Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Kronos, Mobile Applications, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Management

Microsoft Hopes for a Miracle with Windows Phone 7

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

Mobile computing isn’t new anymore. The capabilities of smartphones, among other things, enable businesses to run applications across an enterprise and workers to collaborate across business and social networks. In this endeavor Microsoft was early to market with its Windows CE devices that provided e-mail and Web browsing to phones. For the first years it was a low-level battle among Microsoft,... Read More

Topics: Microsoft, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Mobile Technology, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Mobility, Digital Technology

Saba Dedicates Itself to People and Collaboration

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its annual user conference in Boston, Saba provided insights to industry analysts on its progress over the last year and its direction for 2011. Best known for its learning management system (LMS), collaboration and more recently its talent management applications, Saba now has more than 19 million users in 1,400 customer organizations that are mostly in the public sector, have 5,000 or more... Read More

Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Learning, Mobile Applications, Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Saba, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics

Teradata Advances Analytics across the Board

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

The battle for business analytics rages on. IBM, Oracle, SAP and SAS as billion dollar and larger companies each combine analytic computation and processing in the underlying data but Teradata remains a key player. For its part Teradata used its annual Partners conference to tout the next generation of analytics in its product portfolio and brought along customers to testify to their success in... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, Teradata, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Information Management, Information Technology

Plateau Brings Mobility to Talent Management and Simplifies Applications

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its 2010 user conference in Miami, Plateau Systems reviewed for analysts its progress in the market for talent management software. Plateau has a unified platform and suite of applications that cover learning, compensation, job performance and analytics. The company’s financials have been steadily growing as more customers adopt its platform and show good year-to-year growth in its... Read More

Topics: Learning, Performance, Plateau, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics

IBM Brings Business Analytics and Information Management to Center Stage

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

This year IBM joined its annual Information on Demand conference with the new IBM Business Analytics Forum. Some 10,000 attendees came to learn about managing information assets using analytics for business, and the value of integrating business intelligence (BI) with information assets across the enterprise. All these topics are relevant, as large organizations have created thousands of silos... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, IBM, Information Management

SuccessFactors Takes a Calculator into the Cloud?

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

SuccessFactors is known for applications in performance and talent management but has been working to expand its portfolio more broadly into business. This year the company expanded its focus to workforce analytics with the acquisition of Inform, which I assessed. I have assessed that Inform needed to improve the usability of its tools to compete better which is now more easily possible with a... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, SuccessFactors, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Talent Management

iWay Software Connects Salesforce Chatter to the Enterprise

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

It is not easy for businesses to make their operations more efficient, partly because their information systems do not provide notifications of events as they are happening. Most enterprise technology uses batch processing and is designed to move data from one database to another; otherwise it requires people to go and find the data they need. To be more responsive, new technologies capture and... Read More

Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, Information Management

HR Technology Conference Brings Insight to Opportunity

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

The annual HR Technology conference in Chicago provided a glimpse into the activities of HR organizations and their technology investments. It was a busy event with large attendance and much movement between sessions and the exhibit floor as attendees sought to learn more about the technology and what it can do for them. As always event organizers presented a large number of awards and... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Business Performance, Workforce Performance, HRMS, Talent Management

Oracle Expands Its Playbook at OpenWorld

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its annual conference Oracle OpenWorld this year Oracle flexed its muscles as a technology giant. The company has been steadily growing through acquisitions to expand its database, middleware and applications, and the recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems gives it a way to sell hardware for servers and storage. This momentum is enabling Oracle to develop new streams of revenue, which were on... Read More

Topics: IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Enterprise Software, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology

Sneak Preview and Analysis: Oracle Fusion Applications for CRM and Sales Organizations

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At Oracle OpenWorld this week the company announced its next generation of business applications call Oracle Fusion Application , , which Larry Ellison touted in his closing day keynote at last year's conference, as I noted then. I attended the conference partly to learn what Oracle is doing in providing applications for sales organizations. In the late 1990s Siebel Systems introduced customer... Read More

Topics: Sales Performance, Sales Operations, Operational Performance, CRM, Sales Performance Management

Sneak Preview and Analysis: Oracle Fusion Applications for Human Capital Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At Oracle OpenWorld this week the company announced its next generation of business applications call Oracle Fusion Applications , which Larry Ellison touted in his closing day keynote at last year's conference, as I noted then. Oracle's head of strategy, Gretchen Alarcon, and head of development, Clive Swan, presented the introduction to one of the seven Fusion families, Human Capital... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Talent Management, Workforce Performance Management

IBM Makes Major Buy in Analytics Market with Netezza

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

IBM has announced its intention to acquire Netezza, one of the world’s fastest-growing providers of data appliances, for approximately $1.7 billion. Founded only 10 years ago, Netezza has over 500 employees and 350 clients including brand names Burlington Coat Factory, Con-way Freight, Estee Lauder, Marriott and Nationwide Insurance. IBM has been investing in analytics software for five years and... Read More

Topics: Data Warehousing, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Information Management, Netezza

Talent Management Market Contracts Further as SumTotal Acquires Softscape

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

The market for talent management software continues to consolidate as SumTotal will acquire Softscape to bring together a combination of customers, people and products that reaches more than 25 million users and 1,800 customers globally. This purchase follows three other recent ones: ADP acquiring Workscape, Kenexa acquiring salary.com and Taleo acquiring Learn.com. The result is fewer but... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Softscape, Business Performance, Workforce Performance, HRMS, SumTotal Systems, Talent Management

ActuateOne Advances Information Platform with Analytics and Business Intelligence

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

Actuate has announced a major new version of its software called ActuateOne. Its technology is integrated in a single platform and set of tools for performance management, analytics, business intelligence (BI) and information applications; the product can be managed on-premises or in the cloud and is accessible via mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone and iPad. Actuate has been in the BI... Read More

Topics: Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Information Management

SAP Unveils Next Generation of Business Analytics

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

On Tuesday in Silicon Valley, SAP introduced its latest business software: business analytics applications for specific vertical industries. The event was kicked off by SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott, who demonstrated the simplicity of the applications on an Apple iPad, which has become the demonstration system of choice for SAP as well as a tool it provides for its sales force. Bill and EVP of... Read More

Topics: SAP, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Information Management

Oracle Hopes Mark Hurd Brings New Herd of Business

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At the eye of the tornado of accusations, rumors and gossip in Silicon Valley that began with CEO Mark Hurd’s departure from Hewlett-Packard are the internal politics and lack of management procedures and oversight at the company. I have pointed out a connection not discussed elsewhere to issues around the enterprise software efforts at HP (See: “HP Scandal Reflects on Enterprise Software... Read More

Topics: Sales Performance, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Enterprise Software, Information Technology, Oracle