Spotlight Features

There's a policy issue before Congress so pressing that even Hollywood actors like former "Charmed" star Alyssa Milano are blogging about it. It's called "net neutrality," and its purpose is to control what network owners can charge for their services. Such a plan would harm consumers and crush di...

When the sales team operates with urgency, the soul of a company is alive, thriving and growing. The sales department is the company's heartbeat and is absolutely necessary to create a sense of purpose and maintain a constant focus on delivering value to customers. Great salespeople are constantly t...

Richard Stallman is a free software pioneer. As president of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the GNU Project, he is also an evangelist of a free society in which people have inaliable rights to run, study, copy and distribute software. As such, Stallman is often grieved when he reads new...

Recent news headlines have chronicled instant messaging worms and viruses authored by malicious thieves intent on stealing identities. That's only half the story. There is another side to the IM vulnerability threat: internal theft. Internal theft not only compromises privacy assurances, but also pu...

I attended the Linspire-sponsored Linux Desktop Summit last week, where the discussion included reasons the folks who build PCs don't want to do Linux. Indeed, some of the commentary at the event related to Microsoft and its vulnerability when it comes to large business and government accounts. Ther...

Most of us are aware of the fact that many startups fail. But, we don't go the next step and analyze the reasons behind such failures. There are many critical issues in the startup process, which if ignored, will almost certainly guarantee the demise of a startup. Although it should go without sayin...

Customer events have replaced trade shows as the big-spend item in many software vendors' and analyst and advisory firms' marketing budgets. Implicit in this shift of spending is the precision possible for targeting CEOs and CIOs with relevant content. The challenge however is getting these senior ...

The European Court of First Instance buzzed with energy this week as Microsoft and the European Commission squared off over a damaging 2004 ruling that, along with a fine of 497 million euros (US$613 million), creates a new Microsoft product and exposes the company's valuable intellectual property.

You don't need to go far to see how different the 00s are from the 90s, just take a look at selling. Ahh, the 90s, lots of people in sales tell me you didn't make sales calls in the 90s, it was more like making appointments to take orders. Gurus of selling like Jim Dickie of CSO Insights, reported...

Acquisition of existing enterprises offers the quickest, safest route to entering new markets and expanding rapidly within existing markets. The alternative route is organic growth through traditional sales and marketing efforts. We begin here by recognizing the limits of conventional sales and mar...