Stories about: Salesforce.com

Lycos has released a new Web-publishing tool based on Google's OpenSocial API that allows users to create Web sites that take advantage of social networks, the company said Tuesday.

The battle to provide social networking in the enterprise is under way between solutions from established software vendors and readily available offerings such as Facebook and LinkedIn, with these sites possessing a lot of momentum, an industry insider stressed during a conference on Friday afternoon.

It's no secret that maintenance and support for enterprise applications is wildly profitable for vendors and, likewise, incredibly expensive for IT shops. Some of those IT shops, in fact, are overwhelmed by the cost and find too little return to justify paying for it.

Mobility and software as a service are changing customer relationship management and sales force software. Upstart Salesforce.com has made a significant dent in the market, and established vendors of licensed software are playing catchup. SAP AG's recent alliance with Research in Motion Inc. is the latest development as CRM vendors try to meet customer growing demand for mobility. And user interfaces are evolving to meet the expectations of people who have grown up with the Web.

Growing up in a family with a strong work ethic, I often heard variations of the phrase "keep your head out of the clouds and your feet on the ground." To my parents, if you had your head in the clouds you were a dreamer wasting your life on fantasies and unrealistic goals. The successful were those who had their feet firmly planted on the ground of reality.

A good CRM package does you no good if employees aren't willing to use it. Case in point: IMA Financial Group, a medium-sized financial services company based in the US. IMA had installed a commercial customer relationship management system that "was flexible and configurable and attractive on the front end," says business processes manager Jennifer Hallam.

Although Google always seems to be up to something, the past few months have seen a flurry of activity in a space long associated with IT: Google has driven its cloud computing applications -- Google Apps -- into businesses.

Google has made a significant gain in its attempts to replicate consumer successes in the blue-chip enterprise world. Construction and facilities management giant Taylor Woodrow said early this month that it has deployed about 1800 seats for Google Apps, the search giant's business-focused suite of applications for email, calendaring, voice calls, productivity and collaboration tools.

Salesforce is developing an e-commerce engine called Force.com Checkout, but for now only "native" applications that are built on its Force.com development platform -- as opposed to ones developed with other tools and then integrated with Salesforce -- can join the pilot program.

SaaS vendors, ISVs, telcos, and hosting providers in Asia are coming together to create powerful SaaS ecosystems that will accelerate the technology's adoption in the region, according to a recent research report by Springboard Research. The report was called SaaS Enablement -- The Emerging Ecosystem.

The contrast between old and new software couldn't have been stronger this week.