BlackBerry App World: Show Me the Relevant Apps: Me too is very hard to do

REVIEW: eWEEK Labs' tests of Research In Motion's answer to Apple's App Store--BlackBerry App World--show that the RIM mobile device store provides a satisfactory experience but doesn't do enough to help users find relevant applications. Also, the store's reliance on PayPal for payment may be limiting. Apple started the march towards mobile apps stores and others are following. The article from eWeek demonstrates that it is not as easy as one would think.

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McKinsey Cloud Computing Report Conclusions Don't Add Up - Interesting report with a case study

McKinsey, the doyen of strategy consultants, published a report on cloud computing last week featuring a disguised real-world case study. While the report doesn't explicitly state the fact, it seems that the paper is a summary of the results of a strategy project with a financial services firm, which apparently engaged McKinsey to assess whether it would make sense to move all of its systems to Amazon Web Services. I expect there to be lots of write-ups on cloud computing, for and against and the competition is going to heat up.

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The Next Big ERP Innovator: Microsoft

CIO.com Tomas Wailgum concludes that he has complained and ranted and railed about the lack of ERP innovation coming from the Big Two enterprise software players—SAP and Oracle—as well as other traditional on-premise business software vendors. The article highlights Microsoft Dynamics to be a very strong contender going forward and this is coming from two research organizations: Ovum and IDC. I fully agree on this and think Microsoft understands how to build a software platform to build on.

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Analytics: Unlocking Value in Business Intelligence (BI) Initiatives: it is not about technlogy anymore

Most companies are making a colossal mistake in how they are approaching the business intelligence challenge because they fail to realize data does not equal information. There are lots of companies that just throw data at its end users calling it for business intelligence.. BI has not been about technology for many year.. it is about how well the information is used and how it is turned to analytics.

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Twitter Tips: How to Safely Blend the Personal and the Profe

Twitter can enhance your personal and professional lives, helping you connect more with friends and learn more from colleagues, customers and peers. But can you tweet to both crowds without getting in trouble or offending someone? Here are some good strategies to ensure a smart balance. Twitter has really achieved attention and we all wonder how much personal or business we should Twit about.. This article gives you some ideas.

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Microsoft Reveals Oslo Tools: DSM and DSL tools on the rise?

The recession is fostering interest in BI software, which helps companies analyze the data they collect for new cost-cutting or sales opportunities. Now or ever companies need to understand what their data is showing, how and what needs to be done.DSM (domain-specific modeling) and DSL is something that people are looking at.. and Microsoft is pushing this very strongly. DSL and DSM is the foundation for successful development in a given domain, on top of a software product platform. Companies, and ISVs should really look into this.

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Business Intelligence Software's Time Is Now: understand your data

The recession is fostering interest in BI software, which helps companies analyze the data they collect for new cost-cutting or sales opportunities. Now or ever companies need to understand what their data is showing, how and what needs to be done.

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IBM Building Analytics Clouds: new things and new innovation needs to happen

IBM is building analytics clouds it says will help its clients make better decisions and better utilize the data that is available to them.The analytics market is moving forward which also increases the competition and this is good for the end user clients. However, I hope that the consolidation of BI market does not kill innovation and crash the small innovative ISVs to flourish.

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Twitter: Building Businesses Tweet by Tweet: Another view of the benefits

Entrepreneurs are finding the fast-rising microblogging site to be a useful tool for reaching out to customers. I submitted another blog today about Twitter and its use, and this is another one that has a different twist.... Read on...

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destinationCRM.com: New Social Media Not Helping Sales... let's combine it witih the old

A recent study affirms that what's cool isn't necessarily what's selling -- or what's helping your company sell more.The information in this article is like with everything new... people think that the old stuff is outdated... Let's not assume something new will always replace what used to work in the past... but lets use the new to make the old stronger...

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Why CFOs and CEOs Hate IT: ERP: Intresting article

We're always trying to figure out why IT is vilified and demeaned by the "cost center" label uttered by CEOs, CFOs and other senior leaders. ("But, but...we're not really true business partners?!"). This article demonstrates well why these projects are seen cumbersome!

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Explaining Salesforce.com to the CEO: Top 5 Misconceptions and this applies to any solution in the SaaS world

When you're ready to revamp CRM and need to explain "why Salesforce.com" to the CEO, you must be aware of myths and preconceived notions already in place. Watch out for these big 5 items that could trip you up. The misconceptions that the article lists are as follows:Misconception 1: Buy the software, and sales results improve in a few weeks.Misconception 2: Salesforce.com usage can be simply mandated.Misconception 3: Salesforce.com is a glorified contact manager, with lots of metrics to help executives monitor sales reps.Misconception 4: SaaS CRM's initial lower costs ahould sell you.Misconception 5: The best way to deploy Salesforce.com is "big bang" style.When you read this, I am sure you would agree on all these points.

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Large Data Set Analysis in the Cloud: Amazon, Cloudera Improve Hadoop: New appraoch to BI and Data Warehousing?

Traditional business intelligence solutions can't scale to the degree necessary in today's data environment. One solution getting a lot of attention recently: Hadoop, an open-source product inspired by Google's search architecture. There has not been lots of innovation around data warehousing and business intelligence in the past 20 years and only time will tell when a new approach for data modeling will apprear in the horizon. This product - Hadoop - is not inspired by preexisting commerical BI or data warehousing products (such as Pentaho) but is based on a completely new approach.

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Some reasons why to participate in upcoming Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

The upcoming Microsoft Worldwide Partner Confererence is held in New Orleans 13-16th of July, 2009. You can find enclosed a few comments from partners why to visit New Orleans.


Microsoft Partners on the Value of WPC

Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1

Microsoft has released SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 with enhancements meant to ease deployment but no brand new features. According to Microsoft, this is a result of an emphasis on ensuring its database is feature complete before its release. I have worked with SQL Server 2008 and it has been very stable and the BI functionality is outstanding. I did not expect anything major new in the SP1, so it does not matter to me if there wasn't lots new stuff.

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The Trouble with Cloud: Vendor Lock-in

Amid all the hubbub about whether and how to get into the cloud, there's growing concern about how to get out. The concept of vendor lock-in is nothing new. In the past, I was locked in to AS/400 (iSeries) and this limited the move to some other environments. Today, when moving towards cloud computing, software vendors need to consider what the impact is for them in the long-run when choosing the platform.

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Web 2.0 Expo: Why social media marketing fails

Today at Web 2.0 Expo, “Forrester reunion” panel made up of Jeremiah Owyang, Peter Kim and Charlene Li told a packed room at Moscone West how they believe social media marketing is failing. Don’t fear, however, because they also discussed how they believe it can be fixed. This article talks about the challenges and what can be done.

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Redmond Channel Partner Online | Lee Pender: Storm Gathers as IBM, Microsoft and Others talk about Cloud Computing

Redmond Channel Partner Online/Lee Pender submitted an article today about Open Cloud Manifesto. Calls for interoperability, openness and standards are all well and good. But in the end, the market has the final say.A new -- or ostensibly new -- computing model is always a wonderful excuse for an old-fashioned slap-fest between mega-vendors. And so it is with cloud computing.The market is in fierce discussion of cloud computing standards, and this is one of them....

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