Mark Smith's Analyst Perspectives

Plumbing the Salesforce Clouds is Your Business

Posted by Mark Smith on Sep 25, 2012 11:26:54 AM

Salesforce is a global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company to be reckoned with. The swarming crowds at its Dreamforce event last week were estimated to exceed 90,000. The company is rapidly growing an ecosystem that includes Sales, Service and Marketing Clouds; Force.com for building applications; and Data.com for storing data in the cloud centrally for use across Salesforce products. It is also focusing on social computing, as I outlined at the beginning of the event. Hundreds of Salesforce partners complement and in some cases compete with the company with a large range of applications and tools available on the Salesforce AppExchange.

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Topics: Big Data, Master Data Management, Salesforce.com, Social Media, Operational Performance Management (OPM), SnapLogic, Zyme Solutions, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Integration, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Informatica, Information Builders, Information Management, Business Performance Management (BPM), Customer Performance Management (CPM), Data, data integrity, database.com, IT Performance Management (ITPM), Kapow, Sales Performance Management (SPM)

Salesforce Struggles to Deliver on the Dream of Analytics

Posted by Mark Smith on Sep 21, 2012 12:35:51 PM

I was at the Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference this week to hear about the latest advancements from the cloud computing software giant. Salesforce has helped revolutionize cloud computing for business, and its social media and collaborative technologies help advance business processes in sales, customer service and improve the interactions between employees, partners and customers. Salesforce has made great advancements in cloud, social and mobile technology, as I have assessed and my colleague did too.

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Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, QlikView, Salesforce.com, Social Media, Gooddata, Operational Performance Management (OPM), SnapLogic, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, InetSoft, KXEN, Operational Intelligence, Business Performance Management (BPM), Cloud9 Analytics, Customer Performance Management (CPM), Domo, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Information Applications (IA), Information Builder iway, Information Management (IM), Roambi, Sales Performance Management (SPM)

Are You Dreaming Social? Salesforce Is!

Posted by Mark Smith on Sep 18, 2012 10:47:07 AM

The annual Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference (Twitter: #DF12), just underway, may be the largest software conference ever, with attendance, physically and on the Internet, expected to be 90,000. Certainly, as one of the largest software events of 2012, this conference will be heavily covered via social media, while under the roof of the Moscone Center and surrounding hotels Salesforce will be demonstrating the power of using social media concepts in the enterprise and combining those concepts with collaboration software. Salesforce, which has become a cloud computing and software–as-a-service force in the industry, is publicizing its new efforts in marketing and in work applications. Once a conference for marketing and sales professionals, Dreamforce is now a technology and IT event that interests many IT organizations that are examining how renting software on the Internet can help their efforts and support their business priorities more efficiently than purchasing it.

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Topics: Big Data, Salesforce.com, Social Media, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Research, SFDC, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Operational Intelligence, Business Performance Management (BPM), Customer Performance Management (CPM), Dreamforce, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Information Applications (IA), Information Management (IM), Sales Performance Management (SPM), Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM), Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Oracle Presents a Taleo Future for Human Capital Management

Posted by Mark Smith on Sep 14, 2012 5:06:50 PM

I attended Taleo World to see how well Oracle is integrating Taleo after acquiring the company in 2012. I assessed the announcement by Oracle earlier this year; it was clear then that Oracle needed to make this acquisition to boost its cloud computing and talent management efforts. In the three-hour keynote session, a business overview and software demonstrations indicated what Oracle has in store for the applications and how it plans to fuse its applications and technology to add value to organizations.

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Topics: Big Data, Social Media, Human Capital Management, Recruiting, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Oracle, HireVue, Hiring, HR, JobVite, Talemetry, Taleo, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Look Who’s Hot in Data Integration for 2012

Posted by Mark Smith on Sep 7, 2012 11:54:05 AM

Ventana Research has just released the 2012 Value Index for Data Integration, in which we evaluate the competency and maturity of vendors and products. Our firm has been researching this software category for almost a decade. Our latest benchmark research in information management found that data integration is a critical component of information management strategies, according to 55 percent of organizations. Our benchmark research on organizations using this software not only uncovers best practices and trends, but it also highlights why IT is using data integration to advance its competencies across people and processes.

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Topics: Big Data, Master Data Management, Microsoft, Pentaho, SAP, SAS, Social Media, Talend, Operational Performance Management (OPM), SnapLogic, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Integration, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), IBM, Informatica, Information Builders, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Oracle, Business Performance Management (BPM), Customer Performance Management (CPM), Financial Performance Management (FPM), Information Applications (IA), Information Management (IM), IT Performance Management (ITPM), Sales Performance Management (SPM), Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM), Syncsort, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)