DataSolutions Blog

April 2009 - Posts

• How do you view your data? Reporting...

  There seems to be an increase in the number of web apps we use, and I wanted to how you all were looking at the data you created.  Ever think about it?  We are all working on line, typing in data (I am using Zoho right now, sorry Microsoft), where does it go?  I guess as long as we are assured it is safe and that we can get to it later, we don't really care where it goes.  But we do want to touch it, massage it, twist it, slice it, dice it.  We want reporting! We want to know.  We want to know how many invoices I created in FreshBooks this week.  We want to know how many checks I wrote in Coda2Go today, and while I am at it, who did I write the checks to, and for how much!  I want to know, you want to know, everyone, including Inquiring minds, want to know. But how do we get those answers?  I gave you three choices, using the reporting features that come with the software, using a third party tool, or some combination of the two.  Almost none of you chose 3rd party tools exclusively.  In fact 80% said the opposite, you said you use either a combination of tools (including the features of the app) or just the built in app features themselves. It is the latter stat that says something huge!  For the last three decades we have really changed a lot.  In the 1980's it seemed that we did not hold many application vendors accountable for the reporting.  In fact a lot of the reporting was performed by tools that accessed the data directly from the DB, today that would make most CIO's cringe.  In the 1990's reporting tools and analytics really started to mature, but were mostly considered a third party tool.  Today while there are lots of analytics companies that produce separate tools, their biggest successes seem to come as integrated reporting tools that work as part of the application. For example take a look at BlinkLogic they are offering their reporting engine as part of your application.  I wonder how many people are using services like these and think they are using features that their favorite application vendor wrote. I predict that as web based applications continue to proliferate, these types of embedded plays will increase.  My own company, Pervasive Software, offers embedding of integration engines both on premise and as part of SaaS stacks.  The point is no company can afford to offer everything. Even those who do will never be able to serve the requirements of every customer.  Embedding technology like reporting and even integration is one way to not only stay in the game, but the have the greatest chance in winning. This Weeks @Bjacaruso One Question Survey In our office, like your I am sure, we have been working with Twitter.  Trying to maximize its use, while remaining good Twittizans.  We have an every growing list of tools we use.  But I would like to know what you are using.  I provided a "fill in the blank" because I know my list will be way incomplete: Twitter Tools - What do you use? Posted Apr 27 2009, 04:44 PM by bjacaruso with no comments

• Does Size Matter? How Big is Your Business?

  The government says, "Small businesses make up the majority of the US economy". They are right! You, Twitter and I have confirmed it. Companies that have less than 200 employees for well over half the responses in last week’s survey (76%!). Only 24% of the responses came from companies of 200 employees or larger, and the majority of those were between 200 and 500 employees, only 2% people worked for a company considered massive (thank you Google and Intuit people). So what does this really say about the economy? Exactly what we all knew, that these entrepreneurs are our great hope. It is the small groups of garage ideas that grow up to become the Oracle’s of the world and buy the Sun’s of the world when they cannot continue business. It also makes you wonder how many of these businesses will be around next year, or the year after. It is especially challenging in these last few quarters. But my guess is the entrepreneurial spirit will prevail. After all they are innovators by nature. Yes some of them will fail, in fact most of them. But there will be some that find a way to streamline their operations to meet the lean times. And some will come upon the idea of the next big thing. It will be those businesses that keep this economy moving in the right direction. This Weeks @Bjacaruso One Question Survey We have asked a lot of questions about a lot of different data sources; CRM, ERP, even some social networks...the thought occurred to us, if these people are looking at data from so many sources how do they analyze or report on it? This weeks question is just that, what type of tools do you use to report or analyze your data? Posted Apr 20 2009, 08:24 AM by bjacaruso with no comments

• Toil and trouble while testing (video)

  We've been hard at work testing out a new easy-to-install trial version of our product. Through each iteration, we learn something new that we've overlooked. We're right at the finish line about to release this fantastic new version, but the redundancy is making it difficult. Whatever it takes to make a better experience for our customers! Here's a video link Posted Apr 16 2009, 03:34 PM by csakon with no comments

• Kryptonite for the Force.com?

  Our survey last week was geared to answer the question, "What CRM system are you using?". The result of the survey answered that but it also opened a whole new line of questioning, that until now I had not considered at all. But first let’s take a look at the results of the question... The boring and obvious news is Salesforce.com was the number one CRM choice of the respondents.  I take two things away from this; first the Salesforce crew recently added Twitter to the Salesforce repertoire, meaning there is a recent influx of Salesforce users on Twitter. Some of them are possibly filtering via TweetDeck on #CRM, thus biasing the results of this survey some.  But, secondly Salesforce went from zero to a billion dollars in revenue in the last 10 years. Translation: there are a lot of Salesforce users out there! The results, even if skewed a little are probably not that far from the truth. I can safely say that Salesforce.com is a widely popular CRM solution, quite arguably the number one choice, Twitter or not. But the more interesting thing that came back in the survey results is the Sugar CRM number.  SUgar has made a serious showing in a random survey of Twitter users. Open source folks have always argued it is a viable alternative. And slowly but surely (according to this survey) they are making their presence known in the enterprise business space. All of this is not news and it takes no stretch of the imagination to see it. Open source intitiatives like Sugar are a sustainable and successful business idea. Given the above, here is my new thought that may take a little "vision". Recent noise from the real media has been centered on cloud computing.  Rightly so, cloud computing is offering some real options for everyone, enterprise or not. Salesforce has been very vocal in its support of cloud computing. But here is the rub, Salesforce is a closed cloud, if you want to build a Force.com you must follow the rules as dictated by Salesforce. This strong showing by Sugar indicates that Salesforce and the other closed cloud vendors should take notice; open source is not going away.  If Sugar can leverage what Salesforce is doing for cloud computing, it is possible that the future of hosted applications may not be on Benioff’s Force.com, but on someone’s open source platform. I am not suggesting for a second that Sugar is that platform, that remains to be seen. But here is what I will say, a vendor that shows up with a cloud that allows development teams a choice of how to develop, allows the adoption of native intellectual property, provides the billing, metering and marketing services that a cloud like Salesforce has, could be a threat. Amazon and Google are much closer to this than Salesforce would probably like to admit. Here developers can build and host on demand applications, and users can as they use them. The application vendors can build on their platform of choice, they can even use a preconfigured one. What they lack is a marketplace like Salesforce's AppExchange and Apples AppStore. But doesn’t that just mean that these tow mammoths decided to build it from the ground up, rather than from the application down? Salesforce has a great head start in some obvious places and a very large and seemingly loyal user base in the business applications world. It’s difficult to imagine an infrastructure eco-system (Amazon) displacing an application vendor, gone platform vendor. But wait isn't a platform supplying infrastructure just another name for an application development environment?   Amazon and Google are able to provide services that the database driven application called Force.com will never be able to supply.  Amazon for instance has already offered up several different storage services.  It may take a while, but soon someone is going to build a killer application on one of these clouds… It could be an interesting next 2 to 3 years for us all. This week's @Bjacaruso One Question Survey: What are the profiles of the companies of the people using Twitter?   In other words when it comes to Twitter usage: “Does Size Matter?” Posted Apr 13 2009, 06:59 AM by bjacaruso with no comments Filed under: Salesforce.com, salesforce, Solutions

• Twitter Uses

  Wow! Finally a week with no surprises! The majority of Tweople on Twitter are leveraging the service for both business and personal. Makes sense. What was interesting, was the few number of people who said they use Twitter for business only. Not surprising mind you, just interesting. Actually, a confirmation. I think a lot of people log on thinking somehow they will spam their way to riches.  The then find themselves pulled into the eclectic conversation threads and ever expanding URL lists that make up the majority of traffic on Twitter. They then become a port of the community that they came to capitalize on, and find themselves defending it as vehemently as those who came before them. My guess is that many spammers (business only users) have shown up on Twitter only to be ousted by #SPAM. In fact they were ousted from the community by the community. I recently had the privilege to review a presentation given by @MissRogue (aka Tara Hunt). The presentation is called The Whuffie Factor. Ms. Hunt's message is very relevant to the results of this survey. If you are going to be note worthy (and enduring) in this world of social media, you have to think of others, not just yourself (my interpretation @MissRogue). Summary: Use Twitter for personal or business or both but follow Miss Hunt's advice. Add to your Whuffie. Give back to that which is so freely given to you. This week's survey: We shift back to business this week with a look at the CRM world. What CRM do you use? Posted Apr 05 2009, 01:47 PM by bjacaruso with no comments