ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Oracle Fusion Agentic Apps May Address AI Cost and Control Issues

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 July 2026

Oracle’s recent announcements around Fusion Agentic Applications represent a meaningful evolution in enterprise application architecture, especially as it facilitates automation and, ultimately, process transformation. Rather than following a prevailing view that assumes agentic systems must capture the nuances of every business process top-down, which would be prohibitively expensive and... Read More

Topics: Governance, Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, digital finance, Procure-to-Pay, Consolidate and Close Management, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies, Order-to-Cash, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies, AI & Machine Learning, Supply Chain & Operations

Boomi Enables Enterprise Data and Agent Activation

Posted by Matt Aslett on 29 July 2026

As an increasing proportion of enterprise software becomes replaced or augmented by artificial intelligence agents, capabilities for application, data and API management are evolving accordingly. Orchestrating communication and integration among applications, data, systems, tools and processes is essential to enabling agents to execute business processes through autonomous actions. Established... Read More

Topics: Operations, Generative AI, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning, AI Governance

Providers to Watch in Sales Performance Management

Posted by Barika Pace on 28 July 2026

Sales performance management is shifting from a pay administration discipline into a strategic revenue execution capability. This means CROs, CFOs and revenue operations leaders can no longer view SPM as a back-office system used only to calculate commissions and resolve payout disputes. The complication is that many organizations still manage territories, quotas, incentives, forecasts and seller... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

AI Is Making IT Asset Management Strategic Again

Posted by Jeff Orr on 23 July 2026

Artificial intelligence is giving IT Asset Management (ITAM) an unexpected second act. Over the past decade, Software Asset Management (SAM) gradually lost strategic visibility as organizations shifted toward SaaS subscriptions and decentralized technology purchasing. Business units acquired applications directly. Developers consumed cloud services on demand. Employees adopted productivity tools... Read More

Topics: ITSM, Observability, IT & Technologies, IT Management & Operations, AI Governance, Software Asset Management, SAM, Software License Management, SaaS Management, AI Asset Management

MariaDB on Track to Address Data Platform Requirements for Agentic AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 21 July 2026

I recently wrote about the ecosystem of products and providers related to the MySQL database, noting the long history of friction in the MySQL community regarding the ownership and licensing of the open-source project. Perhaps the clearest illustration of that friction is the existence of MariaDB, which was specifically created in response to concerns over the ownership and licensing of MySQL.... Read More

Topics: Data Platforms, AI & Technologies, Streaming & Events, AI & Machine Learning

More on the SaaS-Pocalypse That Won’t Happen

Posted by Robert Kugel on 16 July 2026

The “SaaS-Pocalypse,” which I commented on earlier this year, is a persistent yet cresting technology and Wall Street analyst narrative that rests on three flawed assumptions. First, advanced AI assistants and autonomous agents will make traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise applications and their business models obsolete. Second, AI will allow ordinary workers to vibe code custom... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, digital finance, Procure-to-Pay, Consolidate and Close Management, Order-to-Cash

Is Your Learning Platform Smart or Just Full of Content?

Posted by Matthew Brown on 16 July 2026

Your learning platform may know what content you have. That does not mean it knows what your workforce needs. That is the uncomfortable distinction many L&D leaders need to confront as the market fills with promises of personalization, AI-powered recommendations, skills intelligence and adaptive experiences. The language has evolved quickly. In many enterprises, the operating model has not. Many... Read More

Topics: Employee Engagement, Learning Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Moving Towards a Holistic Approach to Data Management and Operations

Posted by Matt Aslett on 15 July 2026

As enterprises embracing artificial intelligence move from initial pilots and trial projects through deployment and into production at scale, many are realizing the critical importance of reliable data management and agile, responsive data operations (DataOps) processes to improve trust in the data used for AI and business intelligence. With an emphasis on agility, automation and continuous... Read More

Topics: Operations, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning, AI Governance

Personal Productivity AI Versus Enterprise AI

Posted by Robert Kugel on 14 July 2026

In the first stages of any major technology breakthrough, there is often a three-blind-men-describing-an-elephant effect at work. In the case of artificial intelligence (AI), its vast potential has people looking at it from their single perspective to the exclusion of others. It’s that narrow focus that has lent itself to the “Saaspocalypse” meme earlier this year. AI is already having a... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Supply Chain Planning, Analytics, Business Planning, Workplace, Enterprise Resource Planning, supply chain management, Digital Business, Generative AI, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies, Vertical Industry, AI Governance

Verint Unveils Its Post-Calabrio Direction

Posted by Keith Dawson on 09 July 2026

Any merger creates a certain amount of uncertainty about how it will impact customers: Questions about the roadmap or duplicate product lines invariably arise. In the case of Verint and Calabrio (now collectively named Verint), June’s Verint Engage customer event was an opportunity to finally discuss the changes and demonstrate how it plans to move forward. And expectations are high: The industry... Read More

Topics: Calabrio, Contact Center, agent management, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence

Databricks Unites Operational and Analytic Workloads on the Lakehouse

Posted by Matt Aslett on 08 July 2026

I recently wrote about the emerging category of data platform products that facilitate the deployment of Online Transaction Processing workloads on data lakehouse architecture. Databricks Lakebase is a prime example of this OLTP-on-lakehouse approach, which was added to its Databricks Data Intelligence Platform in 2025 and became generally available earlier this year. At the company’s recent Data... Read More

Topics: Governance, Data Platforms, Generative AI, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, Streaming & Events, AI & Machine Learning

NiCE World: How Cognigy Looks One Year In

Posted by Keith Dawson on 07 July 2026

Ten years ago, NiCE acquired inContact, and, in the process, began a radical transformation from its core business as a workforce application provider into a full-blown CCaaS and platform provider. It was a transformation as audacious and (ultimately) as well-executed as any I’ve seen in this industry. Now it’s clear that buying Cognigy last year will turn out to be just as significant a bet on a... Read More

Topics: Governance, Contact Center, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service, Conversational AI, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Cognigy

AI in Learning: What Helps and What Just Looks Cool

Posted by Matthew Brown on 07 July 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) has given the learning market new energy, but not all of it is pointed in the right direction. Providers are racing to show generative AI (GenAI) features, buyers are trying to understand what matters and the media cycle keeps rewarding whatever sounds most futuristic. That creates a familiar market problem. The easiest things to see are not always the most valuable... Read More

Topics: Learning Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Digital Commerce in the Agentic AI Era: Why the Storefront Is Becoming a Decision Engine

Posted by Barika Pace on 02 July 2026

Digital commerce is moving from a transactional storefront to an intelligent decision environment. Buyers no longer expect a site to simply display products, accept orders and process payments. They expect it to understand intent, guide comparison, reduce uncertainty and help them make the right decision faster. This changes the role of digital commerce leaders. The storefront can no longer be... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Revenue Performance Management, Revenue Lifecycle Management, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

IBM Addresses Autonomous Database Administration for Db2

Posted by Matt Aslett on 01 July 2026

I have previously written about the emerging requirements for database management systems, including the use of artificial intelligence to automate and accelerate the execution of database administration tasks. These emerging requirements have provided an opportunity for new and established data platform providers to differentiate in a crowded and competitive market. IBM is a prime example of an... Read More

Topics: Operations, Business Planning, Data Platforms, Generative AI, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning

Performance Software: Progress Engine or Ritual Machine?

Posted by Matthew Brown on 30 June 2026

Performance management has always carried an uncomfortable contradiction. Organizations say they want better goals, coaching, feedback and decisions, but many still anchor the process in reviewing events that arrive too late to change performance. The language has evolved. The software has improved. Workflows have become more continuous, automated and AI-enabled. Yet too many organizations still... Read More

Topics: Employee Engagement, Talent Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

The Room Where It Happens: Digital Sales

Posted by Barika Pace on 18 June 2026

B2B buying has moved into a more fragmented operating model: more stakeholders, more digital research, more internal consensus-building and fewer moments where the seller actually controls the conversation. The implication for CROs is clear: Revenue teams need better technology to manage what happens between meetings, not just what happens inside the CRM. The complication is that many sales... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

Is Sprinklr the Model for a Post-CCaaS CX?

Posted by Keith Dawson on 16 June 2026

Nothing illustrates the degree to which the contact center market has changed as much as the emergence of Sprinklr as a competitive player in CCaaS. Here is a company that comes directly at the service environment from a role in MarTech (specifically social media management and monitoring), with no legacy baggage to weigh it down. The change we’re seeing is the convergence of once-separate... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Field Service, CCaaS, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Sprinklr, Unified CXM

Assessing the Health of the MySQL Ecosystem

Posted by Matt Aslett on 10 June 2026

I recently wrote about the increasing popularity and range of adoption choices for the PostgreSQL database. Having done so, it is also worth taking the time to assess the health of another significant open-source database: MySQL. As with PostgreSQL, potential adopters of MySQL have a variety of different options available, thanks to a broad ecosystem of service, support and software providers.... Read More

Topics: Data Platforms, AI & Technologies

Providers to Watch: The Platform War Reshaping Revenue Intelligence

Posted by Barika Pace on 09 June 2026

Revenue intelligence was never supposed to become a platform war, but that is exactly what is happening. What started as a category focused on pipeline visibility, conversation capture and forecast accuracy has rapidly expanded into something far more strategic. Providers are no longer competing to provide insights; they are competing to own execution. For CROs, that shift changes the buying... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Revenue Performance Management, Revenue Lifecycle Management, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies