Google continues to spiff up Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and other Google Apps. Cash in on the improvements with these smart tips. Google grabbed plenty of headlines this year, from its advancements in Google Glass to Android news to the company’s mysterious barge inside the San Francisco Bay. However the search giant also pushed out updates to its cloud tools, Google Apps.   More than 5 million businesses and 50 million people now use Google Apps, which launched in 2006 and includes Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This year, Google announced a big redesign of Gmail that included customizable tabs to show you how to organize emails; it revamped the Google Drive menu; and it launched a brand new interface for Google Groups. Google released more than a few other new productivity features and tools, from Google Wallet integrations to tweaks that make composing emails, managing your calendar, and sending files easier. [ Google’s Web-to-TV media device has also been updated. See Google Chromecast Adds... Read More »

IBM will shed its low-margin, low-end server business for $2.3 billion after greater than a year of on-again, off-again negotiations with Lenovo. IBM announced Thursday that Lenovo has agreed to purchase IBM’s x86 server business for $2.3 billion. The deal gets IBM out of a low-margin business where revenue declined 16% last year. The business Lenovo is acquiring includes System x, BladeCenter, Flex System blade servers and switches, x86-based Flex integrated systems, NeXtScale and iDataPlex servers and associated software, blade networking, and upkeep operations. IBM had hopes of marketing the x86 business last year, but widely reported negotiations with Lenovo broke down, and IBM announced in May it will not realize what it hoped probably a $5 billion divestiture. IBM will continue to develop its Windows and Linux software portfolio for the x86 platform. It’ll also continue to sell several systems according to x86 processors through its PureApplication and PureData appliances, high-margin products that still include IBM software. [Want more on IBM’s... Read More »

Microsoft advances cloud, mobile, social, and marketing options for Dynamics apps. Delta Airlines touts massive Windows Phone point-of-sale deployment. Microsoft on Tuesday announced a wave of latest Dynamics CRM and ERP applications and improvements, tying the selling, social, mobile, and cloud-deployment enhancements to the theme of improving customer experience. The new apps and contours, announced in Atlanta on the company’s annual Convergence Conference, include Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and Microsoft Social Listening applications in accordance with the company’s MarketingPilot and NetBreeze acquisitions. The goods were partially integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM soon after their purchase in 2012 and 2013, respectively, however the new Microsoft branding denotes a completed transition to consistent, Office-inspired interfaces, and cross-application data access and workflows.  Microsoft isn’t alone in mixing marketing and social capabilities with CRM. Competitors Salesforce.com and Oracle have followed the identical path. Salesforce.com acquired Radian6 for customer-sentiment analysis in 2011, and it added Buddy Media in 2012 and ExactTarget in 2013 to strengthen its Marketing Cloud services. Oracle acquired... Read More »

HarperCollins uses a knowledge-driven technique to make quicker, bolder marketing decisions. Why do book readers choose specific titles? Favor certain authors? Shop at select retailers? Consumer research data often contains these pearls of wisdom, but finding them in a quick-changing publishing landscape can prove a frightening task to old-school booksellers. HarperCollins Publishers, which have been around in various incarnations for greater than 200 years and is likely one of the world’s largest publishing companies, found itself facing this problem. Previous to 2013, its staff couldn’t directly access consumer-research data — a first-rate weakness in an era where tablets, e-readers, and other mobile devices are dramatically changing the manner readers experience the written word. The company decided to refocus its marketing strategies. It needed faster, data-driven insights to customise sales and pricing plans for its books and authors. Doing so, however, might disrupt the venerable publishing firm’s traditional ways of doing things, specifically those in line with generations of expertise in place of on cold, hard... Read More »

LG’s Chromebase all-in-one computer runs Google’s Chrome operating system and can debut next year. Google Chromebook Pixel: Visual Tour (click image for larger view and for slideshow) LG on Wednesday announced the Chromebase, a desktop computer that runs Google’s Chrome operating system. LG hopes the Chromebase will entice those seeking inexpensive, non-portable computers for the house, office, school, and other business settings. The Chromebase is an all-in-one system that bears an uncanny resemblance to Apple’s iMac line of desktop machines. It includes a 21.5-inch full-HD screen with 1920 x 1080 pixels. LG says the in-plane switching LCD offers viewing angles of 178 degrees. The screen doesn’t support touch input, and users must rely upon tried-and-true input devices to have interaction with the Chromebase. The machine is powered by a fourth-generation Intel Celeron processor with an unknown clock speed. According to LG, the processor offers good enough horsepower to run the kind of web apps frequent on Chrome computers, in addition to games and media content.... Read More »