Spotlight Features

The use of RFID technology in the retail industry has been increasing, albeit tentatively. Meanwhile, proponents are finding that RFID adoption is easier in the manufacturing sector and upstream in the supply chain, in areas such as asset tracking and inventory management, as well as security relate...

As more phones and other small-form handheld devices get "smarter," so does the potential for people to use them more often, and for many varied and different purposes. The number of mobile cell phone subscribers worldwide surpassed 1 billion in 2006, and technological innovation continues apace as...

The Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE, has earned a reputation as a leader and successful innovator in the field of exchange-based energy and commodities trading. Having launched a string of new exchange and over-the-counter traded energy derivatives contracts this past year, the ICE's total 2006 f...

In late November, AT&T's Sterling Commerce acquired Comergent, a competitor in the e-commerce/order hub management platform market, for $155 million in cash. The merger brought together two industry leading companies, though they operated on different orders of magnitude. In this interview with ...

2006 was a quiet year for buyers and sellers of enterprise applications. There were no startling leaps of new functionality; no dramatic bids for competing vendors; and no large plunge in revenues thus prompting vendors to give way at the negotiating table. The year wasn't as quiet for small and me...

The digital lifestyle has taken root in U.S. living rooms, primarily with the TV set and the home PC -- and, like the couch potato, it's beginning to spread. From set-top boxes and time/place shifters such as TiVo and Slingbox to iPod's home stereo and TV component, the shift seems to be centered on...

In Part 1 of this series, I talked a bit about how COBOL is everywhere. From telephones to credit cards to supermarket checkouts to ATMs -- sometime during the day, just about everyone touches COBOL. They don't see it directly, but drivers don't see under the hood while they're driving either. COBOL...

I had meetings last week with each of the big three on-demand CRM vendors -- Salesforce.com, RightNow and NetSuite -- and made some observations. Sometimes I get complaints from some of them when I mention more than one in an article because they like to pretend that they are unique. My grudging con...

With ongoing technological and process improvements in the alternative and renewable energy sectors -- and with concerns about energy sources, supplies and environmental degradation increasingly at the forefront of social and political issues -- energy and commodities have become a focal point for b...

In looking back at the last few years for the CRM industry, 2001 was the year Siebel reigned supreme; 2002 was the year the recession took hold and companies held off on new CRM and other IT investments; 2004 was the year of mergers and acquisitions; and 2005 was the year those firms that remained s...