CRM Daily

Ballmer Says Windows 7 Sales Double Those of Vista

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:19:49 -0500

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer isn't talking turkey when it comes to the software giant's newest operating system. At a shareholder meeting Thursday in Bellevue, Wash., Ballmer told investors that Windows 7 sold double the number of copies in one month as its previous Windows Vista operating system.

During the meeting, which was broadcast over the Internet, Ballmer wouldn't say exactly how many licenses or copies were sold to consumers and businesses, but previous reports that put Vista's sales in the first month at 20 million makes it easy to calculate sales of Windows 7 at about 40 million.

Since its Oct. 22 release, Windows 7 has received good reviews from consumers and developers. That doesn't mean, however, that Microsoft can sit back and relax.

Minimal Impact

Gartner analysts expected the launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 to have a minimal impact on PC sales, although inventory adjustments around the same time could artificially affect shipments during the third and fourth quarters.

Recent Windows releases haven't driven PC market growth, according to Gartner's Mikako Kitagawa. The timing of Windows 7, however, is favorable for the industry because of expected economic improvements and an overdue hardware replacement cycle.

Gartner also anticipates more consumers and small businesses will upgrade during the holiday season because of the Windows 7 release. On the corporate level, analysts expect Windows 7 adoption won't ramp up until late 2010.

Shipments Better Than Expected

While analysts predicted the PC market this year would suffer substantially compared to 2008, shipments of PCs have been doing better than expected, according to a Gartner report.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 80.9 million units in the third quarter, a 0.5 percent increase from the third quarter 2008, according to Gartner.

While most PCs are shipped with Windows operating systems, Apple continues to increase its share of Mac shipments year over year, according...

TreeHouse Enhances Marketing View Tool

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:21:31 -0500

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah -- TreeHouse Interactive�, the technology leader in on-demand partner relationship management (PRM), channel sales force automation (CSFA�) and demand generation solutions, announced today new functionality in its Marketing View product that will give marketing and sales teams better tools to target campaigns; qualify, capture and score leads; and create dynamic nurturing triggers. These tools include extensive bi-directional salesforce.com integration, download resource management, and the ability to publish remote forms.

Salesforce.com Advanced Integration Enhances Communication with Prospects and Partners

Earlier this year, TreeHouse announced Marketing View integration with salesforce.com and availability on the AppExchange. This Salesforce.com Basic integration from TreeHouse allows marketers to pass sales-ready leads to salesforce.com based on multi-layered triggers from landing pages or micro sites. It enables dynamic mapping of landing page data to contact or lead objects in salesforce.com and allows for de-duplication. The new Salesforce.com Advanced integration from TreeHouse goes far beyond this, enabling real-time, bi-directional synchronization of lead and contact data between Marketing View and salesforce.com. It enables sales and marketing teams to launch nurturing campaigns directly from salesforce.com based on any change in any lead or contact field in salesforce.com. The Salesforce.com Advanced integration from TreeHouse also incorporates revolutionary new search term and search engine functionality to allow customers to better track, target and nurture prospects based on any search terms used to find a website and to better understand the effectiveness of paid and organic search terms, search engine and landing page efforts.

"We expected sales and marketing teams to use the new functionality to keep contact databases synchronized, determine how and when to nurture leads and to send unqualified leads back to the demand generation system for further development," said Erich Flynn, CEO, TreeHouse Interactive. "We are pleasantly surprised with the innovative ways companies are using the integration. One company...

Virtualization for Service Management Providers

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:46:53 -0500

Newport Beach, CA � November 19, 2009 -- LiveTime Software, a leading provider of Web based ITIL 3 Service Management and Help Desk software, today announced the release of the LiveTime Virtual Appliance 6.0. The new virtual appliance has been specifically designed for SaaS-based Service Management providers, offering full isolation and a simple menu driven interface. Each appliance can operate in as little as 512Mb of RAM and can scale the number of virtual processors and memory to meet the needs of any customer.

As a standalone platform, the LiveTime Virtual appliance also includes an auto update facility so customers can automatically remain current with the latest LiveTime release. Simply choose the update option and LiveTime will automatically download and install the latest release direct from the console.

Designed around open standards the LiveTime Virtual Appliance includes Apache 2.2, Tomcat 6.0, Java 6 and LiveTime 6.0, optimized for LiveTime service delivery. Version 6.0 includes an updated kernel and support for VMware vSphere 4.0 and Citrix XenServer 5.5 with guest tools for each environment. In addition, LiveTime supports the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) and Microsoft's Hyper-V environment.

Organizations can now leverage LiveTime's highly scalable ITIL Service Management software with the ease of installation of traditional software. The virtual appliance provides the necessary scalability and security that is difficult to achieve when deployed on existing hardware and operating systems. Since the system has been hardened at the operating system layer, LiveTime provides Just Enough Operating System for its needs. This makes the system easy to update and maintain and provides a very small footprint and a 200Mb download.

About LiveTime Software

Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, LiveTime Software, Inc. is a vendor of Web 2.0, Open Standards based ITIL service management, help desk and support software for medium to large enterprises such as Verizon, NEC and...

Watchmakers Seize the Moment for iPhone

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:11:18 -0500

It was not so long ago that the spread of the mobile phone sent waves of fear through the reserved world of fine watchmaking. The practicality of a portable phone that doubled as an accurate digital timekeeper made the necessity for a wristwatch vanish almost overnight.

But now, with the popularity of the iPhone and its myriad applications, the watch industry finally has been able to embrace a product that once was considered the biggest threat to its survival.

A wide range of brands, from the big names like Breitling, Piaget, Van Cleef & Arpels, Dior and Bell & Ross to independents like Dewitt, have introduced iPhone applications in the past six months that highlight their watch lines. The applications, all free, are available from the online Apple store.

Some might argue that the efforts are just another way of marketing to timepiece aficionados, but within the industry they are seen as a way to reach a younger and more digitally savvy customer and a natural extension of the close-knit world of watch collectors that thrives online with fan forums and blogs.

After all, Apple announced in early November that it now has more than 100,000 applications available. "The high-end watch world has indeed flourished since the Internet has become so widespread," says Elizabeth Doerr, author of "12 Faces of Time," a book on independent watchmaking scheduled to be published in February by teNeues. "The independents, in particular, have greatly profited from the technology in that they can communicate more directly with aficionados and collectors."

"The apps that have thus far appeared -- and will continue to do so until the next big social marketing tool is discovered -- are an extension of the rapidly changing world of watch marketing," she adds. "Brands are looking for less costly ways of more effective and direct marketing,...

Runa Unveils Conversion Marketing Service

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:37:08 -0500

Mountain View, CA, Thursday, November 19, 2009 -- Runa announced its launch into the emerging e-commerce arena called "Conversion Marketing," � which takes over where SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) stops. Runa's service focuses on converting web traffic into sales while shoppers are still on the website. With its new service, Runa is addressing a real opportunity for e-businesses to increase sales from their existing traffic and marketing spend by dynamically presenting optimized sale prices and incentives.

Over the past several years, online marketing has focused on driving traffic to websites through SEO/SEM. Last year alone, e-tailers spent $21 billion, or 15% of their revenues, in online marketing to drive traffic to their websites. However, the average conversion rate of actual visitors that resulted in sales transactions was a dismal 2-3 percent. Runa solves this costly business problem by helping e-tailers rescue lost sales, optimize their SEO/SEM investments, and protect profits through its new conversion marketing service.

Price is the New Black

Due to the ongoing economic downturn, most purchasers have changed their shopping behavior and become real value- and deal-seeking shoppers. This current behavior is expected to last well after the recession concludes. Therefore, focusing on delivering the right price to the right shopper at the right time is more important than ever. Runa is leading the new breed of providers that are focused on helping e-tailers use 'price' as a sales lever to both increase conversion and maximize profits.

Conversion Marketing

Most pricing strategies are rule-based where there is one price for all shoppers. Conversion marketing-focused solutions, on the other hand, use real-time shopper insights and merchant business rules to deliver dynamic sale prices and incentives to individual shoppers. Rather than simply setting a price and establishing a corresponding markdown and promotion strategy,...

Salesforce Chatter Brings Social Networking To Business

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:01:24 -0500

Social networking has been the face of Web 2.0 for many years now. But until now the phrase has been synonymous with Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Despite the efforts of companies like LinkedIn to bring social networking into the business world, in many ways organizations have been slow to adapt to the new technology.

Salesforce.com wants to change that. Speaking to 19,000 attendees at the company's Dreamforce conference, CEO Marc Benioff announced Salesforce Chatter, a social-networking product for Salesforce customers.

"Why do I know more about strangers on Facebook than my own employees?" Benioff asked. "Now, through Salesforce Chatter, my business is tweeting me. My employees can use the models they love to get the collaboration they need."

Transforming Decision-Making

Why should businesses enable social networking, which to many people is the epitome of time-wasting Internet use? According to Salesforce's promotional materials, the "Collaboration Cloud" allows companies to "stay on top of everything that's happening in your company with real-time updates on people, groups, documents and your application data. And all of it will fuel better -- and faster -- business decisions."

Chatter features pretty much every trick in the social-networking toolbox, including profiles (Facebook), status updates (Twitter), Groups (Yahoo), feeds (RSS), collaborative documents (Google Docs), collaborative applications (Salesforce), as well as integration with Facebook, Twitter and Google directly.

So should small and midsize businesses rush out to add social networking to the mix? Maybe not so fast, Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, said in a telephone interview. King pointed out that IBM beat Salesforce to the social-networking party with LotusLive, introduced in January.

Before launching the service, IBM deployed LotusLive internally to every employee around the globe for VoIP telephony and avatar-driven virtual meetings. IBM's work may represent the largest beta test ever of social networking in the enterprise and the jury is...

Astadia Extends Salesforce.com's Service Cloud 2

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:20:20 -0500

SAN FRANCISCO, Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference (November 18, 2009) -- Astadia, a global leader in technology enabled business consulting and a top salesforce.com partner, today announced that it is adding a Customer Service and Support practice focused on salesforce.com's Service Cloud 2.

"Customer service is moving quickly to the cloud and we're helping contact centers take advantage of the move," says Ron Goldman, Service Cloud Director for Astadia. "Gartner says that by 2013 at least 75% of customer service organizations will be using a form of cloud computing and Astadia plans to be a strategic leader in adoption for the industry."

"The Service Cloud is the next generation solution for customer service, leading the industry in market and customer momentum," said Alex Dayon, SVP Service Cloud Product Management at salesforce.com. "The Service Cloud bridges the gap between traditional contact center technologies and cloud computing platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Having experienced consulting partners like Astadia is strategic to ensuring customer success and rapid adoption of the Service Cloud. Astadia's proven cloud consulting expertise and deep knowledge of the contact center industry is the perfect addition to salesforce.com's technology."

Astadia is helping clients leverage salesforce.com's Service Cloud to improve Average Handle Time (AHT), First Contact Resolution (FCR), customer satisfaction and loyalty, and customer self service. Astadia is also helping clients design and implement home agent programs.

In over 100 projects, Astadia has delivered Customer Service and Support solutions including contact center strategy, extracting business value from social media, telephony and legacy systems integration, and all elements of Service Cloud implementations.

Astadia's salesforce.com expertise enables the company to develop integrated social media strategies that deliver seamless, end to end customer relationships shared among sales, marketing, and customer service.

Services in their Customer Service and Support practice include: Customer Service...

Court To Hear AT&T, Verizon Ad Fight

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:09:10 -0500

A federal court [Wednesday] will consider the fate of a Verizon ad campaign that features side-by-side wireless coverage maps showing it has five times more 3G coverage than AT&T.

AT&T isn't contesting the accuracy of Verizon's claim, but says the ads are misleading. Verizon, in its legal response, says AT&T is suing because the "ads are true, and the truth hurts." AT&T wants the court, which will hear arguments today, to force Verizon to pull the five ads. Three are holiday themed.

Regardless of the outcome, legal experts say the lawsuit has put a spotlight on an even bigger problem for wireless consumers: the reliability of ad claims in general. Trying to win customers, carriers are increasingly bending the truth or omitting facts in ad campaigns, says Joel Kelsey, a lawyer with Consumers Union. All carriers do it, he says.

Consider AT&T's current advertising claim: "Nation's Fastest 3G Network," which it has spent billions promoting to people who use advanced devices such as the Apple iPhone, which runs exclusively on AT&T. To hear the claim, Kelsey says, "You'd think they offered 3G from the foothills of Kentucky to the mountain tops of Alaska."

The reality: AT&T doesn't offer 3G in parts of the West, South and most of the Midwest. And where it is offered, if the local 3G network is loaded, you'll default to slower "2G" or "Edge" networks.

The ads don't get deep into detail on network issues because AT&T wants to make it easy for customers to understand, says AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel. We think our ads are "straightforward and honest," he says.

Tony Melone, Verizon chief technical officer, says network capacity is the real issue. AT&T "does not have enough 3G capacity ... to handle demand."

Siegel says AT&T "does not have a capacity issue. We think we're doing a great job."

U.S. District...

Business Owners' Holiday Giving Plans

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:09:44 -0500

Customers will get their holiday cheer this season, but employees and charitable organizations may find their stockings empty, a new survey suggests.

The annual American Express OPEN Small Business Holiday Monitor tracks small business owners whose companies have fewer than 100 employees to gauge their plans for the holiday season. This year, 516 interviews were completed by Echo Research from Oct. 6 to Oct. 14, with questions about entrepreneurs' plans for holiday gifts, bonuses, parties, and raises, says Alice Bredin, founder and president of Cambridge [Mass.)-based marketing consultancy Bredin Business Information and an adviser to American Express OPEN. She spoke recently to Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein about the results of the survey. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

Nearly half of small business owners in your survey say they plan to give gifts to customers this holiday season, similar to last year's survey results. And their total customer gift budgets remained steady vs. last year. Was that surprising, given how many small companies have suffered this year?

It was not so surprising to me, because one of the things small business owners are really good at is prioritizing. They know where they can cut some corners and what they need to do to survive and thrive, and they're particularly good at that in tough times.

What they've done of late is to cut expenses and renegotiate for better deals on their rent or leases. But when it comes to giving gifts to customers, business owners are savvy enough to know that that is not a place to cut corners.

On the other hand, your survey shows that substantially fewer small business owners plan to give gifts (35 percent in 2009 vs. 46 percent in 2008), yearend bonuses (31 percent in 2009 vs. 44 percent in 2008), or raises (16 percent vs. 30...

Senators Blast Web Sites for Scamming Shoppers

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:17:28 -0500
With Cyber Monday, the unofficial start of the Internet holiday shopping season nearing, a Senate committee Tuesday condemned three online companies, saying they are tricking consumers into signing up for subscription services they don't want.
Internet companies Affinion, Vertrue and Webloyalty are using aggressive sales tactics to scam millions of customers, the Senate Commerce Committee said.
According to a committee report, the three companies enter into agreements with other more familiar Internet shopping sites that sell movie tickets, flowers and other items.
Just before a customer completes the sales confirmation process the customer gets an offer that often promises $10 cash back or other rewards, and appears to be connected to the shopper's original transaction.
When the shopper clicks "continue," or "yes," the shopper -- often without knowing -- enters into a new financial contract with a membership club operated by Affinion, Vertrue or Webloyalty, the report said. The shopper's credit card information is sent to the membership club company, which charges monthly fees, by the shopping site the shopper originally visited.
"Beware if you're a consumer," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "I worry about this because the holiday shopping season is just beginning." He added that while the companies insist they are not breaking any laws, "just because what you say you do is legal doesn't make it right."
While the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, historically the point when retailers start to turn a profit, the following Monday has become known as Cyber Monday because it's the day when many shoppers begin trolling the Internet for bargains from computers at work or home.
The three Internet companies said in statements that they have put additional safeguards into effect, including clearer disclosure statements and new requirements that customers must enter the last four digits of their credit card number to...