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 »

Microsoft Office 365 Message Encryption feature will encrypt all messages by default, though recipients will need an Office 365 or Microsoft Account ID to read the mail. 10 The way to Fight Email Overload (click image for larger view and for slideshow) Microsoft is planning to roll out a brand new Office 365 feature that allows you to allow users who sign up for one of many company’s high-end enterprise hosting plans to send encrypted email messages. Dubbed Office 365 Message Encryption, the optional feature will work with more than a few email clients, including Exchange Server, Outlook.com, Gmail, Yahoo, Lotus Notes, GroupWise, and Squirrel Mail. Encrypted message recipients will see an encrypted message attachment of their email, which when double-clicked will open in a browser window. To view the message, a recipient will first need to authenticate using an Office 365 or Microsoft account ID. Microsoft Exchange product marketing manager Shobhit Sahay said in a blog post that the approach “is designed that will... Read More »

Workday taps HTML5 to bring the appear and feel of Google, Amazon, and LinkedIn to corporate apps on desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Cloud-based enterprise applications vendor Workday announced Thursday that it’s bringing a client-web-app appear and feel to its human capital management and fiscal applications. Expanding its use of HTML5 from mobile devices to the desktop, Workday says it’s poised to deliver a clean look, better usability, and a consistent user experience to desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Going beyond interface design, Workday has also introduced an agile-development, test, and release approach that it says will improve the company’s strategy to introducing new features. Workday’s new look is already visible to customers in preview mode. Those people who are able to take it into production could be ready to turn it on once Feb. 3. Inspired by the likes of Google, Amazon, and LinkedIn, the hot look is described as simple and utilitarian, with a good number of white space and user-friendly... Read More »