News

News

• August 12, 2022 12 Aug'22

  Cobbling together a recruiting software empire

  Employ Inc. was created earlier this year to lead a growing portfolio of recruiting software companies that aim to sell to any customers, no matter the size.

• August 11, 2022 11 Aug'22

  At 50, SAP finds itself at another crossroads

  Over its 50-year history, SAP rode business and technology trends to the top of the ERP industry, but it now is at a crossroads and will need to continue to innovate to thrive.

• August 10, 2022 10 Aug'22

  Oracle CX layoffs: What customers should do right now

  After the turmoil that has hit Oracle's customer experience division, here's what current enterprise customers need to do next to preserve their technology investments.

• August 10, 2022 10 Aug'22

  Salesforce adds headless commerce capabilities

  Salesforce enables 'composable commerce' -- headless e-commerce, where users bring their own interface designs -- for large brick-and-mortar retailers and online-only sellers.

• August 05, 2022 05 Aug'22

  Despite layoffs, hiring still 'red hot'

  The hiring spree isn't slowing down, according to data from a new U.S. jobs report. Many employers expect to add workers through the year.

• August 04, 2022 04 Aug'22

  As hybrid work shrinks offices, motion sensor use might grow

  Hybrid work is changing when people work and how they use office space -- employees might want more collaboration space. Measuring office use could be a job for motion sensors.

• August 04, 2022 04 Aug'22

  Microsoft to release Teams for Apple silicon

  Microsoft's native version of Teams for Apple silicon should help performance-sensitive Mac users, like programmers, graphic designers and video editors.

• August 02, 2022 02 Aug'22

  Oracle's 'widespread' layoff aired on LinkedIn

  Employees affected by an Oracle layoff turned to LinkedIn Monday to post the news. Several called it 'widespread,' but it seemed limited to certain business units.

• August 01, 2022 01 Aug'22

  Zoom IQ provides more intelligence for sales teams

  Zoom's latest enhancements to IQ for Sales represent a product diversification strategy focused on delivering better intelligence to sales teams.

• July 28, 2022 28 Jul'22

  Republicans criticize remote work, White House defends it

  Republicans want to end remote work and force federal workers back to the office, but White House officials say it's essential in competing with private sector employers.

• July 27, 2022 27 Jul'22

  Zoom, RingCentral, BlueJeans improve virtual whiteboards

  Zoom, RingCentral and BlueJeans have released updates to their virtual whiteboards to make them more useful for meetings between office and home workers.

• July 27, 2022 27 Jul'22

  Saueressig: SAP's future is multi-tenant SaaS ERP

  SAP's Thomas Saueressig explains the future of multi-tenant cloud ERP for SAP customers and why it will take some large companies longer to get there.

• July 26, 2022 26 Jul'22

  Layoffs, hiring freezes spell trouble for HR tech market

  General Motors is imposing a partial hiring freeze, and Shopify is cutting 10% of its workforce. Actions like these may trickle down to HR budgets.

• July 26, 2022 26 Jul'22

  Oracle releases major Fusion Sales CRM update, facelift

  Oracle Fusion Sales users get a new UX and new features, including microsites called 'digital sales rooms,' which parallel Microsoft and Salesforce sales collaboration features.

• July 25, 2022 25 Jul'22

  Google to test AR glasses in public

  Google will seek to iron out challenges for AR as it tests a lightweight, glasses-type device. The company already has a foothold in the enterprise with its Glass AR glasses.

• July 25, 2022 25 Jul'22

  SAP green CX tech aids sustainable retail, B2B sales

  SAP users can tackle sustainable e-commerce -- and be accountable to customers wary of 'greenwashing' -- with a bundle of Qualtrics, CDP, e-commerce and other tech tools.

• July 22, 2022 22 Jul'22

  SAP earnings reveal cloud as largest revenue stream

  SAP reported strong cloud revenue for Q2 2022, driven by increased adoption of Rise with SAP. But it faces a challenging Q3 due to inflationary pressures and the Ukraine war.

• July 20, 2022 20 Jul'22

  Microsoft makes Viva more like Facebook

  Remote and hybrid workers will use a Microsoft Viva app to share and react to posts and build relationships with other employees.

• July 20, 2022 20 Jul'22

  Acumatica CEO brings cloud ERP customer perspective to role

  In this Q&A, Acumatica CEO John Case discusses how his experience as a customer informs issues like the degree of standardization in SaaS ERP and industry-specific ERP.

• July 19, 2022 19 Jul'22

  Microsoft releases cloud contact center platform

  Contact center platform technology buyers have another option: Microsoft assembles a CCaaS from Nuance, Power Platform, Teams and -- for those who need it -- Dynamics 365 tech.

• July 18, 2022 18 Jul'22

  Tulsa group will spend $11M on remote workers in 2022

  A new pathway to building local talent pools may be to give remote workers cash incentives to relocate. One city, Tulsa, is spending millions to bring in new workers.

• July 15, 2022 15 Jul'22

  SAP exec talks new opportunities S/4HANA Cloud provides

  In this Q&A, Thomas Saueressig, SAP's head of product engineering, discusses the advantages of S/4HANA Cloud, along with the complexities that customers face in making the move.

• July 14, 2022 14 Jul'22

  IFS expands EAM software portfolio with Ultimo acquisition

  IFS' acquisition of cloud-based EAM vendor Ultimo provides it with midmarket options to add to its enterprise level platform in a growing EAM marketplace.

• July 13, 2022 13 Jul'22

  Meta plans to make VR headset business-friendly

  Meta will eventually let companies create and manage accounts for its virtual reality headsets. The move is part of a push to make the hardware more appealing to business.

• July 12, 2022 12 Jul'22

  HubSpot releases free CMS with marketing, CRM integrations

  HubSpot small-business users are the focus of free CMS, marketing automation and CRM features, after the company spent several release cycles wooing enterprise customers.

• July 11, 2022 11 Jul'22

  Optimizely CEO talks roadmap plans, A/B testing and DXP

  Optimizely CEO explains why the company bet big on digital marketers' perpetual need for A/B testing. Also: how content management systems morphed into experience tech.

• July 08, 2022 08 Jul'22

  UKG looks within to find new CEO

  UKG has appointed its former president, Chris Todd, as its new CEO. Todd replaces Aron Ain, who became UKG's CEO after the merger of Kronos and Ultimate Software.

• July 08, 2022 08 Jul'22

  Growing number of risks tests supply chain continuity

  In this Q&A, supply chain expert Zachary Collier looks at some ways supply chains are threatened today and how companies need to avoid a single point of failure in supply chains.

• July 07, 2022 07 Jul'22

  Zoom One bundles services to draw single-vendor customers

  Zoom ties its services together in Zoom One as it evolves from a video conferencing app to a communications platform. The company targets firms that want a single UC vendor.

• June 30, 2022 30 Jun'22

  Microsoft will sign idle users out of Office web apps

  Hybrid work puts corporate data at risk as employees use various devices to access company resources. Microsoft has worked to address that risk in Office web apps.

• June 30, 2022 30 Jun'22

  Abortion travel benefits expand despite prosecution threat

  A legal battle between employers offering abortion travel benefits and states that ban abortion may be brewing.

• June 30, 2022 30 Jun'22

  Meta intends to win metaverse wallet race with Meta Pay

  Meta plans to let metaverse users pay for digital items, retain the proof of item ownership and manage their identities with the newly rebranded Meta Pay.

• June 30, 2022 30 Jun'22

  OpenText bolsters secure file sharing with Teams integration

  OpenText Cloud Editions customers get Teams-Core integration among a raft of new features, as OpenText kicks off 'Project Titanium' to harmonize public and private cloud features.

• June 29, 2022 29 Jun'22

  Mexico-based education firm named best HR tech startup

  A Mexico-based educational platform beat out U.S. firms to win Society for Human Reource Management's HR tech startup competition. It may signal a rise in international competition.

• June 29, 2022 29 Jun'22

  Salesforce users get more low-code automation, including RPA

  Salesforce integrates MuleSoft RPA and Composer with Salesforce Flow, which avails low-code process automation and bot creation to line-of-business users.

• June 27, 2022 27 Jun'22

  Supply chain technology critical for dealing with issues

  As supply chains face new and unprecedented pressures on a number of fronts, companies look to emerging technologies to automate tasks, get intelligence and become more resilient.

• June 24, 2022 24 Jun'22

  Tech layoffs up, job offers gone, but much hiring

  Even with the prospect of a recession, many employers are still filling jobs and trying to hold on to knowledge workers, but tech layoffs at startups are beginning to rise.

• June 23, 2022 23 Jun'22

  Microsoft Viva Sales takes on Salesforce-Slack tandem

  The Salesforce-Microsoft rivalry reignites as CRM applications vendors focus on employee experience by automating tasks that subtract selling time from a sales rep's day.

• June 23, 2022 23 Jun'22

  Salesforce Financial Services Cloud features focus on EX

  Salesforce for Financial Services adds employee experience tools -- a nod to evolving digitization of banking, wealth management and insurance users' operations.

• June 22, 2022 22 Jun'22

  Slack will add video to impromptu meeting app Huddles

  Slack brings video meetings to Huddles this fall to encourage people to hold quick conversations without switching to Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

• June 21, 2022 21 Jun'22

  Zoom provides app tools to more developers

  Educators, doctors and finance professionals use Zoom differently, so the company wants developers to help it meet each group's specific video conferencing needs.

• June 20, 2022 20 Jun'22

  AWS Amazon Connect adds case management tools

  The AWS contact center as a service, Amazon Connect, previews tools to manage cases. The features will drive more self-service workflows based on case data.

• June 16, 2022 16 Jun'22

  Salesforce Sales Cloud Unlimited Edition adds AI, automation

  Pricing stays the same for Salesforce Sales Cloud's highest-level subscription, but formerly a la carte tools are now included that span AI-powered analytics and automation.

• June 15, 2022 15 Jun'22

  At SHRM conference, HR prepares for the next crisis

  The SHRM conference this week took stock of the economic challenges facing HR managers, as well as some business policies and tech moving up in importance.

• June 15, 2022 15 Jun'22

  Process mining becomes acquisition target, altering the terrain

  Enterprise technology companies like SAP and Microsoft see value in process mining technology, but the current rate of acquisition is rapidly altering the market.

• June 14, 2022 14 Jun'22

  Microsoft updates Teams to filter out echoes

  Microsoft will make Teams calls more like telephone conversations, using AI to filter out background noise and echoes that disrupt conversations.

• June 14, 2022 14 Jun'22

  Cisco links Webex to ThousandEyes internet intelligence

  Integration between the Cisco Webex Control Hub and ThousandEyes lets IT administrators spot internet problems before they can affect video conferences.

• June 14, 2022 14 Jun'22

  Adobe adds CDP functionality for B2B use cases

  Adobe catches up with the competition with the release of new customer data platform features for marketers, including a 'data clean room' and tools for B2B users.

• June 13, 2022 13 Jun'22

  Stipends for remote work emerge as polarizing issue

  As remote work becomes a broader norm, there's debate about whether employees should be reimbursed for home office expenses, especially if it's their choice to work from home.

• June 13, 2022 13 Jun'22

  Cisco adds calling during internet outages to Webex

  Cisco will make Webex Calling less reliant on internet connectivity to increase its appeal to healthcare and other industries requiring a highly reliable phone service.

• June 08, 2022 08 Jun'22

  Companies ready for rocky economic HR tech market

  When adopting HR tools from startups, managers protect themselves from economic trouble in the HR tech market with careful analysis before investing.

• June 08, 2022 08 Jun'22

  Apple Mac performance, features boost business appeal

  The upcoming MacBook Air and Pro models will feature Apple's high-performing M2 chip, which will help workers in creative businesses edit videos and images faster.

• June 08, 2022 08 Jun'22

  Salesforce moves forward with controversial NFT Cloud pilot

  Salesforce integrates with TikTok and adds marketing and e-commerce features to its platform -- including NFT Cloud, which sparked controversy earlier this year.

• June 07, 2022 07 Jun'22

  Epicor ERP gets integration automation capabilities

  Epicor released Epicor Automation Studio, an integration PaaS embedded into its ERP systems, Epicor Kinetic for manufacturing and Prophet 21 for distribution.

• June 06, 2022 06 Jun'22

  Contact center orchestration features on tap from Genesys

  Genesys is set to productize contact center technology from LogMeIn Bold360, Exceed.ai and Pointillist acquisitions to better compete with Microsoft, Zoom and Salesforce.

• June 03, 2022 03 Jun'22

  Elon Musk signals the risk remote work faces

  Tesla CEO Elon Musk's decision this week to end remote work at the automaker may be an early indication of what's to come during an economic downturn.

• June 02, 2022 02 Jun'22

  Tesla purges remote job openings after Elon Musk edict

  Elon Musk has emerged as a leading critic of remote work, saying employees who work from home only pretend to work.

• June 01, 2022 01 Jun'22

  Microsoft updates Teams for manufacturing

  Microsoft aims to make Teams more appealing to manufacturers with a new app, expanded walkie-talkie features and integration with scheduling software.

• June 01, 2022 01 Jun'22

  SAP exec: Begin to prepare a sustainability strategy now

  In this Q&A, SAP's Jim Sullivan discusses why sustainability has become an issue that companies need to take seriously, taking into account more regulation and consumer attitudes.

• May 31, 2022 31 May'22

  The Readability Consortium's lessons for marketing content

  The University of Central Florida, Adobe and Google band together to study digital readability. Those who create marketing content can get an edge if they pay close attention.

• May 26, 2022 26 May'22

  Microsoft to open Loop to third-party developers

  Microsoft's latest collaboration tool will consolidate content across Outlook, Teams and third-party products, such as the Zoho project management application.

• May 26, 2022 26 May'22

  SAP's S/4HANA Cloud goal is outcomes, not deployment model

  In this Q&A, Sven Denecken of SAP discusses deployment options for S/4HANA Cloud and how the cloud offers more flexibility for changing conditions.

• May 26, 2022 26 May'22

  Microsoft won't lower software costs on AWS, Google clouds

  Microsoft plans to loosen restrictions to lower the cost of running Office and Windows on clouds smaller than Azure. The changes won't affect running the products on its largest rivals.

• May 25, 2022 25 May'22

  Remote work gives introverts a voice at meetings

  Digital tools are helping quieter employees ask more questions and raise more concerns at meetings, something both Toyota and Google have found in the shift to remote work.

• May 25, 2022 25 May'22

  Skytap targets staged HANA migrations for IBM Power Systems

  SAP customers who want to begin a cloud migration to HANA but aren't ready for a full migration can move workloads onto IBM Power Systems to the Skytap IaaS on Microsoft Azure.

• May 25, 2022 25 May'22

  ServiceNow procurement software centralizes teams, processes

  Jumping into the fast-growing procurement management market, ServiceNow debuted software that centralizes procurement teams and processes across an enterprise.

• May 25, 2022 25 May'22

  Lob launches direct mail automation platform

  As direct mail makes a comeback, longtime API vendor Lob launches a web front end to automate physical mail campaigns directed by marketing automation data.

• May 24, 2022 24 May'22

  Remote work and the politicization of tech locations

  Tech's response to abortion restrictions has been to offer health travel benefits. But there's debate about just how it will affect remote work and business location decisions.

• May 23, 2022 23 May'22

  Faced with growing demand, 3 companies turn to S/4HANA Cloud

  Three companies explain why they selected S/4HANA Cloud as a core system for digital transformation. One key takeaway: Good change management is required.

• May 20, 2022 20 May'22

  Oracle plugs customer data platform into customer service

  Oracle Service adds Unity CDP integration to afford contact center agents a historical view of customer interactions and new features.

• May 16, 2022 16 May'22

  Customer experience technology's next phase as teams regroup

  In this Q&A, Eastern Bank CX head Rich Dorfman discusses how the pandemic shifted approaches to tech, transformation, and measurement of customer and employee experience.

• May 16, 2022 16 May'22

  Microsoft Viva gets OKR, shining a light on a niche HR tech

  Microsoft is adding an objective and key result -- or OKR -- application to Viva, its employee experience platform. OKR is designed to improve business alignment.

• May 16, 2022 16 May'22

  Sapphire 2022 provided scaled-down value

  Rise with SAP took a backseat to sustainability at SAP Sapphire 2022, which returned as a live event. There were no big products announcements, just a flurry of updates.

• May 13, 2022 13 May'22

  Google adds AI summary feature to Workspace

  AI-generated meeting and document summaries can help workers find important information, according to Google. The company will add the feature to its Workspace apps.

• May 13, 2022 13 May'22

  Federal warning on AI hiring bias now comes with teeth

  Federal regulators have been warning employers about the risk of AI bias in hiring. The Justice Department is now involved, which means investigations may be next.

• May 12, 2022 12 May'22

  Privacy groups urge Zoom to abandon emotion AI research

  Privacy organizations want Zoom to ditch emotion-tracking AI. The tech is invasive, discriminatory and doesn't work, the groups said.

• May 11, 2022 11 May'22

  SAP Sapphire focuses on speed, disruption, sustainability

  At SAP Sapphire 2022, the ERP vendor highlighted accelerating business transformation, disruptions to supply chains and sustainability as main challenges that businesses face.

• May 11, 2022 11 May'22

  Zendesk enhances CRM, low-code customer service chatbots

  Zendesk's Answer Bot moves past the knowledge base and gets a low-code interface so that business users can orchestrate automated conversations.

• May 10, 2022 10 May'22

  SAP reboots Service Cloud, adds retail recommerce

  SAP venture-backed Feather by SAP integrates marketplaces for retail users to give their customers a place to resell goods they've bought from them.

• May 06, 2022 06 May'22

  Visier's collaboration analytics buy is about team dynamics

  Collaboration analytics is designed to understand how people and teams work together, a capability Visier is gaining with its recent acquisition of Yva.ai.

• May 06, 2022 06 May'22

  Business conditions upend digital supply chain investments

  A new PwC survey of supply chain leaders indicates that most companies are not yet seeing results from investments in advanced supply chain technologies.

• May 06, 2022 06 May'22

  Square exec discusses metaverse, electronic payment trends

  Millions of physical and online merchants use Square's payment processing services. We discuss retail tech trends with Roshan Jhunja, Square head of retail.

• May 06, 2022 06 May'22

  PwC upgrades employee benefits with two week-long shutdowns

  Professional services firm PwC is improving its employee benefits and learning and career development programs. It wants employees to have more control over their careers.

• May 05, 2022 05 May'22

  Video conferencing found to harm worker creativity

  Research shows video conferencing curbs the creation of new ideas, so managers should also schedule in-person brainstorming sessions.

• May 05, 2022 05 May'22

  Worldwide remote jobs market may globalize hiring

  The outlook for worldwide remote job opportunities is creating an opportunity for startup Oyster, which enables overseas hiring. It reached $1 billion valuation in two years.

• May 04, 2022 04 May'22

  SAP Sapphire returns as a scaled-down live event

  SAP Sapphire 2022 is back with an in-person and virtual program. Rise with SAP will be a hot topic, but SAP also needs to focus on SAP Business Network and Business Technology Platform.

• May 02, 2022 02 May'22

  Metaverse shopping 101, from Forever 21's Roblox store creator

  The founder of the agency behind Forever 21's Shop City explains what it is -- and what it isn't -- and what retailing in the metaverse will eventually look like.

• May 02, 2022 02 May'22

  Starlink coverage can make remote work very remote

  The internet coverage from Starlink satellites can enable remote work just about anywhere, but user experience is not perfect and some cite dropouts during video calls.

• April 29, 2022 29 Apr'22

  Contact centers struggle to improve employee experience

  AI, better workforce management tools and conversation intelligence are key technologies to help customer service teams get through the current rough patch.

• April 28, 2022 28 Apr'22

  Meta pumps the brakes on metaverse, long-term spending

  Meta's slow earnings growth means less money to spend on its long-term metaverse project. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is laying the groundwork for 2030.

• April 27, 2022 27 Apr'22

  Salesforce-Slack sales, marketing, service integrations in beta

  Slack integration apps for Salesforce Service Cloud, Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud move into beta; MuleSoft takes on API management and governance.

• April 27, 2022 27 Apr'22

  Qualtrics hardwires sentiment analysis into contact center tools

  Qualtrics beefs up its contact center offering by embedding new sentiment detection tools as well as social listening across review sites, social media and other digital channels.

• April 27, 2022 27 Apr'22

  Salesforce pushes automation for Slack

  Salesforce's low-code automation tool Flow and programming language Apex will soon work on Slack. The company said the move will help workers avoid rote tasks.

• April 26, 2022 26 Apr'22

  'Trust but verify' may boost employee productivity monitoring

  For some firms, employee productivity monitoring tools are part of a trust-but-verify approach to the adoption of remote work, four-day workweeks and flexible hours.

• April 26, 2022 26 Apr'22

  Robots in manufacturing help Cheer Pack meet labor needs

  Cheer Pack, which makes spouted pouches, uses an IFS ERP system to manage a team of robots in its manufacturing operations, saving on labor and eliminating mistakes.

• April 25, 2022 25 Apr'22

  AI virtual assistant grooms skier experience at Snowbird

  Using an AI-powered chatbot designed with the friendly likenesses of avalanche dogs, the famed Utah ski resort is able to quickly respond to customers' questions.

• April 22, 2022 22 Apr'22

  Microsoft bolsters Teams Operator Connect options

  Microsoft plans to bring more telephone companies into its Teams Operator Connect program. The initiative pairs telcos with integrators experienced with Teams telephony.

• April 22, 2022 22 Apr'22

  Retailer: Informed humans still the hottest e-commerce trend

  Sweetwater, the largest online audio gear and musical instrument retailer, uses AI to augment -- not replace -- its agents. Mike Clem, chief growth officer, explains why.

• April 15, 2022 15 Apr'22

  Microsoft responds to cloud antitrust complaints

  Microsoft has drawn antitrust scrutiny for rules that make it more expensive to run Windows and Office on rivals' clouds. The company promised a fix but has provided no details.

• April 15, 2022 15 Apr'22

  Marketing to Gen Z takes new tech, channels, strategies

  Gen Z consumers will change the world. Savvy, nimble brands know to give them digital platforms for sharing their values as corporate America catches up to their worldview.