CRM - January 2008 - (Page 17)

CRM TRENDS AND NEWS ANALYSIS ON THE SCENE ORACLE OPENWORLD 2007 Even amid the late-year flurry of trade shows, user conferences, and product launches, Oracle OpenWorld has grown to a monstrous size—43,000 attendees piled into San Francisco’s Moscone Center and snarled city traffic, much to the chagrin of the locals twittering (and Twittering) about their displeasure. Oracle President Charles Phillips’ keynote made clear the theme of nostalgia that ran through this year’s event, which marked the 30th anniversary of the founding of the firm that would one day become Oracle. Phillips also struck the “innovation” note early and often: “Our history of innovation is something that really speaks to the essence of what this company has become,” he told the crowd, before coining a phrase to embody Oracle’s company-purchasing frenzy over the last four years: “Acquired Innovation.” Phillips broke down Oracle’s operations into what he called its three major businesses: • Databases: Phillips reiterated Oracle’s stranglehold on the database marketplace, noting not just that Oracle had 47 percent of the market, but that its share was more than the next two closest competitors combined. • Middleware: Oracle’s a “Leader” in more than a dozen of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant assessments of various middleware components. (Notably, Phillips made no mention of Oracle’s as-yetunsuccessful attempt to acquire middleware competitor BEA Systems.) • Applications: The next stage for Oracle is “to go beyond just ERP and CRM,” Phillips said. “Now we’re adding many more capabilities going beyond that with applications specific to [industries]. That’s a new change in our strategy.” Continued on page 18 The first three Fusion Applications are for the sales force, and have Web 2.0 technology. Facebook’s About-Face The social networking company introduced a marketing plan many of its members hated—and changed course accordingly Like most of the targeting technology s if giving marketers access to user information wasn’t currently available, marketers don’t know enough, Facebook wanted who “you” really are. (See “Oh, Behave!,” to pave the way for mar- page 24.) They don’t have your personally keters to snoop directly into users’ per- identifiable information, but they do recsonal pages. The initiative, known as Face- ognize your online behavior. That’s book Beacon, tracks members’ purchases enough for them to give you what they think you’re interested in. and activities anywhere on the “If we found the right balWeb, but within days of the “What we do on ance, Beacon would give peoNovember 2007 launch, a very one site, in one ple an easy and controlled way vocal protest erupted—spon- transaction, with to share more of that inforsoring a MoveOn.org petition mation with their friends,” and, ironically, spreading word one business, of the unrest through Face- [should stay] within Zuckerberg wrote in his blog post. “But we missed the book pages—effectively forc- that business.” right balance.” ing Facebook to dial back its The new parameters change the proinitiative, and to issue a major mea culpa. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes building gram from an opt-out system (that this feature, but we’ve made even more users complained was difficult to opt out with how we’ve handled them. We sim- of) to an opt-in model that includes ply did a bad job with this release, and I what Zuckerberg called “a privacy conapologize for it,” wrote founder Mark trol to turn off Beacon completely.” Zuckerberg in his blog in early December. Continued on page 18 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JANUARY 2008 A www.destinationCRM.com 17 http://www.MoveOn.org http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - January 2008

CRM - January 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Facebook's About-Face On the Scene: Oracle OpenWorld 2007 CRM Market Set to Double Customers, Meet your Makers Required Reading Oh, Behave! Fine-Tuning the Channel Listen Up! The Master Piece Flying High on Customer Service Let's Get Digital The Big Rigs Get Revved Up Putting Asia in Your Pocket Secret of My Success Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - January 2008

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