The New Nation - Internet Edition

Oracle delivers rapid ROI to Asia Pacific customers

Oracle has gained a wide following for its market leading, social CRM solution - CRM On Demand - across a range of industries including: Automotive, Communications, Financial Services, High Tech, Life Sciences, Media, Professional Services, Property, Public Sector, Retail and Distribution as well as Not for Profit.

In the last 15 months, companies that chose Oracle CRM On Demand included:

Australia/New Zealand: Alphawest Services Pty Ltd, ASG (Asia Pacific) Pty Ltd, BP Australia, Career Wise, Coates Hire Operations Ltd, Clontaff Foundation, Hertz Australia, IOOF Limited, The Business Store, Trafficads, VicUrban, Phoenix and The Business Store New Zealand

Greater China: 3M Taiwan Ltd, Changan Ford Mazda Automotive Ltd, Chep, Ferrier Hodgson Limited, Hanstar Hardware International, Olympus HK & China Ltd, Vanceinfo Technologies Ltd, Sinova Management Consultancy Limited, Miramar Hotel & Investment and Solomon Systech Limited

Korea: Sejong Telecom

India: EBZ Online, Artha Money, Fine Organics Industries Pvt. Ltd, Axiom Estates Advisory Services, BirlaSoft Ltd, Ingersoll Rand, Macmillan India Ltd, Mercury Travel Ltd, Nous Infosystems Pvt Ltd, O3 Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd and TAG Media Network Pvt. Ltd

Asean: Holcim Lanka (Sri Lanka), Lahore University of Management Sciences, Jaffer Brothers Pty Ltd (Pakistan) and Indochina Capital (Vietnam)

CRM Packs a Punch with Collaboration on Web 2.0

David Mitchell, Senior Vice President, IT Research for Ovum, has highlighted that Oracle's software-as-a-service (SaaS) -based applications have the potential to transform the way that CRM is used and greatly improve its effectiveness. In their report , Ovum noted that most CRM systems support limited amounts of collaboration and do not adequately provision for more variable, less structured collaboration in the real world. While bringing some team collaborative tools into the process can help to carry out less formally structured processes, there is still a need for an integrated set of collaboration with the right mix of capabilities for sales, marketing and services, and with the right integrations into the underlying CRM systems. Oracle is noted for heading towards the path to unite CRM with the right collaboration tools.

Built on Siebel's award-winning CRM application, over 12 years of experience and more than 5 million customers globally, Oracle CRM On Demand offers the most comprehensive and cost-effective hosted CRM solution in the market.

Leveraging on Web 2.0 capabilities, Oracle CRM On Demand helps companies take advantage of the of the wealth of data and information about customer relationships contained in blogs, social networks, online communities, shared bookmarks and mashups.

Supporting Quotes

"With 15 releases in the past four and a half years, Oracle delivers even more ease-of-use enhancements to Oracle CRM On Demand customers. Coupled with Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant, our customers can continue to access CRM and enjoy productivity while on the go using their mobile devices," said Simon Banks, General Manager, CRM On Demand, Oracle Asia Pacific. "In our latest offering, the Oracle Sales Prospector is the first of a new class of Oracle Social CRM Applications that leverage collective intelligence and analytics help sales professionals qualify leads faster based on buying patterns. Using Web 2.0 for end-user collaboration and productivity, Oracle demonstrates its commitment towards Enterprise 2.0 by tying social networking and collaboration directly into Oracle's CRM offering," Banks added.

Smriti Kingsley, Marketing Head, Holcim Lanka Pvt Ltd said, "Being part of a global leader in cement manufacturing, it is imperative that we facilitate and adopt the use of best practices in our operations. Our investment in Oracle's CRM On Demand solution, especially the Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant, is expected to greatly improve field sales productivity and customer responsiveness, even in areas without network coverage. We are confident the use of Web 2.0 will foster more collaborative engagements with our customers, suppliers, employees and partners, resulting in increased profitability for our business."

With Jerry Yang gone, what Yahoo should do next

Om Malik

Jerry Yang, after a tumultuous reign as the chief executive officer of Yahoo(s YHOO), the company he co-founded with David Filo, announced today that he is stepping down from the top slot. The news was first reported by Kara Swisher and later confirmed by Yahoo in a press release. He is going to make way for someone else, but will stay on the board of Yahoo and will be known as Chief Yahoo. More importantly what does Yahoo need to do in order for Jerry to hang on to the title of Chief Yahoo! Yang's decision to move on isn't a surprise - it was clear from his talk at a recent industry conference that he was tired and perhaps a little out of his depth. His choice to the head the company that was looking down a deep abyss a while back was an ineffectual one, and a total and absolute failure on the part of Yahoo's board of directors. In June 2008, I wrote about the systematic rot inside the company.

What hasn't been discussed is that the company isn't really facing up to the fact that its layers of management have resulted in a state of masterful inactivity, masked perhaps as a culture of consensus. This starts at the top - from the company's boardand senior management down to VP level where people are prone to organizing and attending twenty meetings before deciding the fate of a project. Some senior managers including the ones who are deserting the company are skillful players in this game of hiding ennui behind grandiose plans and a great future that never happens.

DataStream Technology for 3G mobile multimedia content

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) has been selected by DataStream Technology Sdn Berhad ( DST), a leading communications provider in Brunei Darussalam, for a nation-wide deployment of a state-of-the-art mobile multimedia content service delivery solution. This will enable DST 's 3G subscribers to enjoy a wide range of high-quality digital content and services via their handsets while on-the-go.

The technologies deployed - Ericsson's Mobile Service Delivery Platform (MSDP) and Ericsson Content Delivery System (ECDS) - will help DST grow new revenue streams from its 3G multimedia content offerings, as well as attract new subscribers to expand its market share in Brunei.

Deployment and integration of Ericsson's solutions has been completed in October 2008.

Ericsson has deployed its Mobile Service Delivery Platform (MSDP) solution to support the launch of DST 's 3G multimedia portal.

The technology is designed to allow mobile operators, such as DST , to introduce and charge subscribers for multimedia content delivered on any mobile device, over any mobile network and delivery channel.

In addition, the MSDP solution makes it possible for DST to manage both content and content providers more efficiently from the same platform.

DST's 3G portal and its mobile TV services is available to all DST mobile subscribers from November 14, 2008; subscribers will now enjoy real-time news, entertainment, sports as well as music and religious content from the convenience of their 3G handsets. Haji Marsad Haji Ismail, Group Chief Operating Officer, DST , says: "The launch of 3G multimedia content, together with our attractive package of new services and applications, is the perfect springboard to introduce our customers to the possibilities of advanced multimedia services.

Ericsson's cutting-edge technology and in-depth experience are pivotal in enabling us to deliver first-class customer experience in our latest 3G initiative."

"We are excited to be DST 's strategic partner in the introduction of its premium 3G multimedia services.

The latest technology puts DST in strong position to capitalize on the increasingly important mobile TV application and to further strengthen its leadership position in Brunei 's telecommunications industry," says Ann Emilson, President & Country Manager, Ericsson Singapore and Brunei .

Ericsson's Mobile Service Delivery Platform (MSDP) offers an end-to-end, multi-channel solution for establishing a profitable mobile service delivery business to help operators mobilize and charge for any content to any kind of mobile device, over any mobile network and delivery channel.

The MSDP technology is commercially deployed in more than 60 telecom operators in 35 countries, managing millions of transactions every day. Ericsson acquired Drutt and its solutions in June 2007.

Ericsson's mobile TV solution leverages the existing cellular network to allow operators to capitalize on existing network infrastructure investments.

The flexible and scalable solution can also accommodate broadcast technologies such as Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service, as they become available.

-Internet

Microsoft e-mails detail internal fight over 'Vista Capable' changes

Gregg Keizer

November 17, 2008 (Computerworld) Numerous Microsoft employees, including some top executives, urged their company to hold the line on the graphics requirements for the "Vista Capable" marketing campaign, both before and after the decision was made to loosen the rules, according to insider e-mails recently unsealed by a federal judge.

Relaxing the requirements for the program, which was designed to promote currently-available PCs as capable of running Windows Vista when it shipped months later, allowed the entry-level Intel 915 integrated graphics chipset to qualify, a move that pleased Intel but made another major partner, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), furious.

In the months leading up to the late-January 2006 decision to drop support for Windows Device Driver Model (WDDM) as a requirement for a Vista Capable PC, Microsoft employees lobbied hard to hold fast even as some computer makers started to complain. WDDM was Vista's revamped driver architecture.

In June 2005, for instance, Dell Inc. essentially asked for a waiver that would let it build and sell systems with graphics that did not support LDDM, but still sport the Vista Capable sticker. (LDDM, or Longhorn Device Driver Model, was the name for WDDM when the operating system was still code-named "Longhorn.")

Microsoft refused Dell's request. "We have discussed this with the graphics team. We will be holding the line on LDDM for Standard Logo," an unidentified Microsoft employee wrote in an e-mail explaining the waiver rejection. "LDDM is fundamental to stability and graphics is one of the primary contributors to OCA [online crash analysis]."

Another internal message around the same time expanded on why LDDM was important to Vista Capable. "Our data shows that customers are significantly impacted by the stability of the display drivers, and the LDDM architecture in LH [Longhorn] is explicitly designed to address that customer issue."

A third message spelled it out even plainer that the LDDM/WDDM requirement was where Microsoft would draw a line in the sand. "We NEED to hold the line here. LDDM = LOGO. no LDDM, no LOGO," the message read.

These e-mails, and others, were included in a motion unsealed last week in which the plaintiffs asked U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman to rule that Microsoft's decision to change the Vista Capable requirements meets the definition of an "unfair or deceptive act or practice" under Washington state law. The motion quoted extensively from the documents and messages that the plaintiffs' attorneys have received from Microsoft during the discovery process, but it did not always attribute them to an individual. The plaintiffs have until next week to file the supporting documents, which will conceivably include the cited messages.