Oracle takes the fight to Amazon, Salesforce.com with new cloud services

Oracle is offering a series of new services that position it as a one-stop shop for all things cloud and directly target the likes of Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com.

While Oracle had already offered SaaS (software-as-a-service) applications, database-as-a-service and other products, it announced 10 additional cloud services at the OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

[ InfoWorld presents the Bossies 2013, the best open source software for data centers, clouds, mobile, and more. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]

They include Compute Cloud and Object Storage Cloud, both of which seem aimed at similar services from AWS. Oracle termed its own offerings as secure, "enterprise-grade" and "fully configurable." The services are currently in preview, according to Oracle's cloud services website.

Oracle also announced a new managed Database Cloud service that gives customers control over a dedicated instance of its database.

"We back it up nightly, we give you point-in-time recovery, we upgrade the software for it and we can also tune it for you if you need us to do so," Executive Vice President of Product Development Thomas Kurian said during a keynote address at OpenWorld on Tuesday.

Oracle is apparently offering the new database service in three tiers: Basic, Managed and Premium Managed. All three options were listed as being in preview stage on Tuesday.

That verbiage suggests Oracle wants to give customers the option of a higher-touch, and likely more expensive experience than they'd get from simply paying as they go for raw database capacity from the likes of AWS and Oracle itself.

Oracle also announced a Java Cloud that delivers clusters of Weblogic Server along with "full administrative control"; a BI (business intelligence) cloud that provides self-service tools for uploading data and generating dashboards; Documents Cloud, for file sharing and collaboration; Mobile Cloud, which includes tools for building secure mobile applications; and a database backup service. The latter three are also in preview mode.

In addition, Oracle announced a Billing and Revenue Management cloud service for companies that depend on subscription billing. This offering will directly compete with the likes of Zuora.

Finally, in a nod to Salesforce.com's AppExchange, Oracle is rolling out Cloud Marketplace, a site where partners can list applications that integrate with Oracle's own and customers can shop around.

Oracle apparently wants to present itself to customers as a company that can meet all of their cloud-related needs.

There's a benefit to this approach, said Senior Vice President of Applications Development Chris Leone, during a presentation earlier in the week.

View the original article here

Salesforce.com mobile app developers gain security tools

Good Technology has integrated its Dynamics Secure Mobility Platform with Salesforce.com's Mobile SDK to help developers build mobile applications that are more secure and easily managed.

The growing popularity of smartphones and tablets combined with the BYOD (bring-your-own-device) trend presents several challenges to IT departments, including developing mobile applications and then efficiently managing and protecting them. Salesforce.com's Mobile SDK (software development kit) helps with the former and Good's Secure Mobility Platform offers the latter.

[ Learn how to work smarter, not harder with InfoWorld's roundup of all the tips and trends programmers need to know in the Developers' Survival Guide. Download the PDF today! | Keep up with the latest developer news with InfoWorld's Developer World newsletter. ]

The goal with the integration is to make it easier for Salesforce.com developers to build apps compatible with Good's containerization technology, which offers features such as app-level encryption as well as compliance and jailbreak detection. Enterprises can also put in place data loss prevention and automated actions that lock and wipe applications without impacting a user's device or personal data, according to Good.

The Mobile SDK, which is available for Android and iOS, is a key part of Salesforce.com's accelerating mobile push. It lets developers choose between building applications directly for Apple and Google's OSes, web applications or so-called hydrid applications -- which make it possible to embed HTML5 apps inside a native container.

Recently, Salesforce.com announced version 2.0 of the SDK, which added the SmartSync data framework allowing developers to create applications that work with data both off and online.

Good isn't the only mobile management tool vendor that's working with Salesforce. On Tuesday, competitor MobileIron announced Anyware. The hosted enterprise mobility management service lets administrators distribute mobile apps to employees as well as manage their devices from the Salesforce administration console, MobileIron said.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com.

View the original article here

Salesforce.com mobile app developers gain security tools

IDG News Service - Good Technology has integrated its Dynamics Secure Mobility Platform with Salesforce.com's Mobile SDK to help developers build mobile applications that are more secure and easily managed.

The growing popularity of smartphones and tablets combined with the BYOD (bring-your-own-device) trend presents several challenges to IT departments, including developing mobile applications and then efficiently managing and protecting them. Salesforce.com's Mobile SDK (software development kit) helps with the former and Good's Secure Mobility Platform offers the latter.

The goal with the integration is to make it easier for Salesforce.com developers to build apps compatible with Good's containerization technology, which offers features such as app-level encryption as well as compliance and jailbreak detection. Enterprises can also put in place data loss prevention and automated actions that lock and wipe applications without impacting a user's device or personal data, according to Good.

The Mobile SDK, which is available for Android and iOS, is a key part of Salesforce.com's accelerating mobile push. It lets developers choose between building applications directly for Apple and Google's OSes, web applications or so-called hydrid applications -- which make it possible to embed HTML5 apps inside a native container.

Recently, Salesforce.com announced version 2.0 of the SDK, which added the SmartSync data framework allowing developers to create applications that work with data both off and online.

Good isn't the only mobile management tool vendor that's working with Salesforce. On Tuesday, competitor MobileIron announced Anyware. The hosted enterprise mobility management service lets administrators distribute mobile apps to employees as well as manage their devices from the Salesforce administration console, MobileIron said.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Upcoming Salesforce.com CRM release focuses on Chatter, customer service

Salesforce.com's next CRM (customer relationship management) software release will contain a slew of new features, with many focused on the Chatter collaboration and messaging tool as well as customer service, according to a set of official release notes.

Many new features associated with Chatter concern usability and access to the system. For example, now iOS device users will be able to launch Chatter Mobile from their Salesforce.com email.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Salesforce.com adds premium 'Performance Edition' bundle. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld Tech Brief -- subscribe today. ]

This is an important update "as most folks are still email-dependent," said analyst Ray Wang , CEO of Constellation Research.

Another major new feature, albeit available only as a pilot, is called Salesforce Files. It allows users to "securely sync files between Chatter and your desktop and some mobile devices," according to the notes. "This is the competitor to Box," and something customers should look at, Wang said.

For core sales automation, the upcoming release introduces Console for Sales.

This gives users "easy access to sales intelligence and helps you quickly contact leads, assess companies, and identify key contacts -- all in a dashboard-like interface that means more access to contextual data with fewer clicks and less scrolling," according to the notes.

Salesforce.com has also deepened the integration between its application and Microsoft Outlook.

Known as Winter '14, the new release also features improvements to Salesforce.com Communities, including the ability to assign a moderator to groups; and a series of usability updates within the Service Cloud product family, which includes Chatter Answers, Salesforce.com's knowledge base platform and Live Agent, among others.

Meanwhile, Winter '14's new feature lineup for analytics and mobile is less impressive, in Wang's view.

"Next to the mobile apps, analytics still is the weakest part of Salesforce.com," Wang said. "To be clear, it's better reporting and dashboards, not really analytics, as there are no predictive models, or algorithms applied here. This area will require the most attention in the long run but for now, reporting and KPIs are fairly decent."

Many of the new features in Winter '14 came from users' suggestions submitted through Salesforce.com's IdeaExchange, which is admirable on the company's part, Wang said.

As of November, Salesforce.com will no longer offer new customers the ability to purchase Unlimited Edition subscriptions, although it will support existing ones, according to the notes. Instead, the top-tier offering will be the recently announced Performance Edition, which costs more money but includes additional features.

It wasn't immediately clear Monday when the Winter '14 update will go live, although customers with Salesforce.com sandbox accounts can take part in a preview period that begins Sept. 6.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

View the original article here

SAP takes the fight to Salesforce.com, Oracle with social intelligence app

Many companies have begun using specialized software to analyze what people are saying about their products and services on social media, and now SAP says it can help them match up individuals' social profiles with customer history data from CRM (customer relationship management) systems.

Dubbed Social Contact Intelligence, the application can help sales and marketing staff find better leads for sales as well as gain more knowledge about their actual customers' likes and dislikes, according to SAP.

[ Explore the current trends and solutions in BI with InfoWorld's interactive Business Intelligence iGuide. | Discover what's new in business applications with InfoWorld's Technology: Applications newsletter. ]

Social Contact Intelligence is built on top of and dependent on HANA, SAP's in-memory database platform. It's part of a broader suite, Customer Engagement Intelligence, that is now in "ramp-up," SAP's term for an initial release with a small set of customers. Currently it's only offered on-premises, but SAP is considering cloud-based deployments for the future, according to a spokeswoman.

Core CRM software is "such a commodity it's almost relegated to a system of record," said Jamie Anderson, vice president of customer solution marketing. Thanks to the rise of social media and resulting changes to the way customers interact with companies and make buying decisions, "we've realized the CRM market is evolving faster than CRM products on their own."

SAP had already been reselling software from Netbase for social media analytics, but now the Contact Intelligence product brings internal customer data to the equation, he said.

The three other elements of SAP's Customer Intelligence Engagement suite include Audience Discovery and Targeting, for running segmented marketing campaigns; Customer Value Intelligence, which gives recommendations on ways to cross and up-sell products to clients; and Account Intelligence, a mobile application for sales representatives.

Tuesday's announcement comes after SAP's unveiling in November of yet another social CRM-themed product set called 360 Customer, which ties together HANA, CRM, social analytics from Netbase and the Jam social network.

Oracle, Salesforce.com and other vendors are also moving quickly to build out social software portfolios, seeing the market as a major opportunity to sell existing customers more software when they have little interest or need to expand their core CRM system.

The competitive climate can put customers at a disadvantage, according to a recent Forrester Research report.

"Decoding and navigating the crowded social technology vendor landscape isn't easy," wrote analysts Nate Elliott and Zach Hofer-Shall. "Most vendors offer a unique range of social technologies, but no single vendor covers the entire value chain. Meanwhile, buzzword-packed marketing materials make it difficult to differentiate the players and find the right fit."

The level of emphasis and investment that companies should place on social software investments depends on their size, according to another recent Forrester report.

Immature companies should start small, analysts Allison Smith and Carlton Doty wrote: "Track down a high-impact use case, find a listening platform partner who can guide you, and experiment. This is an iterative, test-and-learn kind of process."

View the original article here

SAP takes fight to Salesforce.com, Oracle with social intelligence app

IDG News Service - Many companies have begun using specialized software to analyze what people are saying about their products and services on social media, and now SAP says it can help them match up individuals' social profiles with customer history data from CRM (customer relationship management) systems.

Dubbed Social Contact Intelligence, the application can help sales and marketing staff find better leads for sales as well as gain more knowledge about their actual customers' likes and dislikes, according to SAP.

Social Contact Intelligence is built on top of and dependent on HANA, SAP's in-memory database platform. It's now in "ramp-up," SAP's term for an initial release with a small set of customers, and also part of a broader suite called Customer Engagement Intelligence. Currently it's only offered on-premises, but SAP is considering cloud-based deployments for the future, according to a spokeswoman.

Core CRM software is "such a commodity it's almost relegated to a system of record," said Jamie Anderson, vice president of customer solution marketing. Thanks to the rise of social media and resulting changes to the way customers interact with companies and make buying decisions, "we've realized the CRM market is evolving faster than CRM products on their own."

SAP had already been reselling software from Netbase for social media analytics, but now the Contact Intelligence product brings internal customer data to the equation, he said.

The three other elements of SAP's Customer Intelligence Engagement suite are generally available, Anderson said. They include Audience Discovery and Targeting, for running segmented marketing campaigns; Customer Value Intelligence, which gives recommendations on ways to cross and up-sell products to clients; and Account Intelligence, a mobile application for sales representatives.

Tuesday's announcement comes after SAP's unveiling in November of yet another social CRM-themed product set called 360 Customer, which ties together HANA, CRM, social analytics from Netbase and the Jam social network.

Oracle, Salesforce.com and other vendors are also moving quickly to build out social software portfolios, seeing the market as a major opportunity to sell existing customers more software when they have little interest or need to expand their core CRM system.

The competitive climate can put customers at a disadvantage, according to a recent Forrester Research report.

"Decoding and navigating the crowded social technology vendor landscape isn't easy," wrote analysts Nate Elliott and Zach Hofer-Shall. "Most vendors offer a unique range of social technologies, but no single vendor covers the entire value chain. Meanwhile, buzzword-packed marketing materials make it difficult to differentiate the players and find the right fit."

The level of emphasis and investment that companies should place on social software investments depends on their size, according to another recent Forrester report.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here