Stories by Thomas Wailgum

12 Tech Survey Topics That Should Die in 2011

I receive a lot of promotional e-mails that blast "new," "game changing" and "dramatic" survey results that relate to technology--whether in the consumer or enterprise (B2B) space.

ERP application consolidation: When it is time to cut?

Remember Aron Ralston? He was the mountain climber who, back in 2003, was forced to cut off his own arm, which was trapped under a boulder, to save his life. Ralston had recklessly hiked alone and neglected to tell anyone where he was headed. His grave six-day ordeal was extraordinary and captivating.

Acquire me! Oracle's and SAP's next targets

Oracle and SAP have not been shy about making strategic and expensive acquisitions during the past several years. The numerous deals have been both big and small-some costing billions, others millions-and have filled out specific vertical-industry product offerings that allowed the enterprise software vendors to present a more all-encompassing, horizontal set of goods and services. The buys have also granted access to vast, new customer bases.

The Problem with Mature ERP Systems

The word <em>inheritance</em> usually connotes something of value being passed down from one generation to the next. Money is always good, as is expensive art work and other antiquities.

Midmarket ERP Customers Declining Upgrades

The post-Y2K <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/361015">priority of Tier I and Tier II ERP providers</a> has been to go after the <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/388413">fertile sales grounds of the midmarket</a>: These maturing companies <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/337963">needing more ERP horsepower</a> than what their QuickBooks or Excel spreadsheets have provided in the past.

Why ERP is still so hard

Steve Berg knows what intense pain feels like: The man has been Tasered, in fact-not because he ran afoul of the law, but as VP of IT at Taser International he's partaken in a corporate rite of passage. "It's the worst five seconds of your life," he says. "You cannot move."

SAP upgrades: dos and don'ts from an ERP guru

According Jon Reed, ERP consultant, author and SAP analyst, there is no shortage of SAP ERP upgrade advice available to companies and IT departments today. One problem: "Most of this advice, as truthful as it is, has reached the point of cliche," Reed writes in a new report on SAP ERP upgrades.

Users rate SAP consultants and partners online

To help its 60,000-plus membership, Americas' SAP Users' Group, or ASUG, released a web-based product called Edge earlier this year to help users sort the consultancy wheat from the partner chaff.

ERP skills shortage pushes customers to SaaS

It used to be that companies weighed the purchase of a vendor's software mostly by its merits &#8212; whether the packaged application was robust enough for a company's needs, how it would play with the company's other back-office systems, how long it took to implement and, of course, whether the customer could get a good price from the vendor.

Five best practices for implementing SaaS CRM

CRM software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications have made the big leap, claims <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/378313/subject/Forrester+Research+Inc.">Forrester Research</a> in a recent report. SaaS CRM offerings "have moved beyond their previous status as a specialized deployment option and into the mainstream," write Forrester analysts William Band and Peter Marston in the May 2008 "Best Practices: The Smart Way To Implement CRM" <a href="www.forrester.com/go?docid=45139">report</a>.

A look at IT executives' big paydays in 2007

Recent financial data, filed by publicly listed IT companies, reveals that those situated in the executive suites at some of the leading vendors had a very good year financially.

Why business analysts are important

For two decades, the CIO has been viewed as the ultimate broker between the business and IT. But while that may be an accurate perception in the executive boardroom, down in the trenches, business analysts have been the ones tasked with developing business cases for IT application development, in the process smoothing relations among competing parties and moving projects along.

Can PeopleSoft veterans drive on-demand apps?

PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield and former vice chairman Aneel Bhusri have a long history of selling on-premise enterprise systems to CIOs. Duffield founded ERP vendor PeopleSoft in 1987; Bhusri joined the company in 1993 and held various senior-level product strategy and marketing positions.

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