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Simon Cowell Left American Idol to Launch CRM Idol. But He Did Not Make the Final Cut.

Posted on April 25, 2011 ·
Paul Greenberg did.  Simon is off doing X-Factor instead Smile

Paul Simon Greenberg Cowell 1

Joke apart,  if you are in the CRM business, or interested in CRM, or even just social software, chances are you’ve heard of Paul Greenberg. Simply said, he is the Godfather of CRM. And Godfathers get to make decisions.  If you follow Paul’s annual CRM Watchlist series it’ll be obvious that Paul keeps on expanding the horizon for CRM, covering lots of vendors not traditionally thought of being in the CRM space.  Now he invites even more CRM-Social-yourfavoritetermhere small companies (“small” < $12M revenue) to the podium offering otherwise hard-to-achieve exposure.  Paul assembled an amazing team of Judges, and I am humbled to be on his Team.  Talk about Judges… just like on the other Idol, you don’t have to “win” to win. Smile

CRM Idol 2011: The Open Season is here – see Paul’s full announcement below.

(PG Note: The post you see below represents the “official” launch of CRM Idol 2011 and is one that all eight primary judges endorse. For me personally, this is my “angelic” side – the side of me that wants to support an industry that has been good to me. On my more edgy side, some of the reason that this was hatched was because of PR agents who basically don’t do their homework and pitch me all day long without an inkling about me as an actual human. They think I’m an influential CRM cyborg. Dealing with that from the other side, Brent Leary and I will be launching a music video in a few months from Playaz Productions. Heh. Heh.

But the side of me that’s grateful to an industry and friends and those companies that actually have honored me by listening to me blather all these years, is enthralled by the idea that we may be able to give back to all of you through CRM Idol. So, thank you for everything over the years and welcome to CRM Idol 2011: the Open Season!!)

Okay, everyone this is the big one. CRM Idol 2011: The Open Seasonis here and we’re ready to take your companies and find out which one of you in the Americas and which one of you in EMEA is not the next CRM Idol but the FIRST CRM Idol.

The Idea

Most of what we’re trying to do was outlined in the pre-announcement announcement of CRM Idol last week. But it bears some repeating:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Business · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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Facebook and T-Mobile Launch Bobsled. With Huge Privacy Glitch. Or is it By Design? Skype, Google Voice and Telcos Beware, Anyway…

Posted on April 19, 2011 ·

Out of left field, T-Mobile and Facebook launched Bobsled, a VOIP service that allows voice calls to anyone on your Facebook list for free.  At this moment the entire blogging world is busy writing about it, so I skip the basics… and just run to some funny experience while testing it.

First, here’s how you call from your Chat list: click the phone button.. then voila!:

bobslead0

As it happens, none of my contacts pick up my test call – I suppose the feature is too new, nobody knows where the funny sound comes from or how to react.  They will get used to it.  But here’s the real surprise: it has VoiceMail.  To the World.  Literally:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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The Tethering / Hotspot Debate: No, You’re Not a Thief. But Somebody Else is a Highway Robber.

Posted on April 4, 2011 ·

 

Interesting debate at ZDNet over wireless data plans:  James Kendrick claims that unpaid tethering makes you a thief.   Thankfully his fellow ZDNet-er Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has the common sense to dispute  this tethering thief nonsense.

Yes, technically if your wireless contract includes an anti-hotspot clause and you turn this feature on, you are in violation. Of the contract, that is.  Your provider has the right to levy additional charges, or terminate your contract. But does that make you a thief?  I’d much rather conclude your provider commits highway robbery.

Remember this device?

Yes, phones used to look like that.  And there was a time when phone companies (actually, “the” phone company, Ma Bell) charged extra when you had more then one outlet in your home….

Remember the early days of cable TV?   You had to ( well, were supposed to) pay extra for each additional cable outlet.

How about the early days of the Internet, before wireless became pervasive?  Yes, ISPs expected you to pay extra for each outlet…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Business · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The First Thing Microsoft Wants You to Do After Upgrading to IE9…

Posted on April 2, 2011 ·

… is to upgrade to IE9.  No kidding:

It’s not even April 1st anymore…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , ,
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Variations on Hype Quadrants.. no Magic Hype… no, Hype Cycle.. or is it Magic Quadrant?

Posted on April 1, 2011 ·

Gartner introduced their Real (Magic) Quadrant:

gartner real quadrant

Not bad.  But let’s not forget the customers’ prospective. Welcome to the Magik Kvadrant:

magik quadrant

But perhaps most revealing is Phil Fersht’s Painsharing Paradox:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , ,
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Now You Can Get Your Google Apps Data Backed Up for Free. Startup Econ 101: When Giving it Away is a Good Deal.

Posted on March 15, 2011 ·

Ouch that’s a longish title. OK, I admit, I am tired, could not decide between two messages and ended up combining them.  Well, let’s see the messages.

The Art of Pricing

The other day I got into a tweet convo with a Startup Entrepreneur whose product I found interesting, at least at first glance.  But he has a problem: the entry point for one user is $20/month – and then the price scales up.  I tried to convince him to drop the entr

y price point to either free, or $1-$2 – something that allows impulse buy.  He defended his pricing on a value basis.  In principle he is right – but there’s the small problem that nobody knows about his product.  In this case “giving away” value would become his marketing, would allow for growth, and he could scale his pricing as aggressively as he wanted. He badly needs enthusiastic users that become his marketing army.

My friend and fellow Enterprise Irregular Charlie Wood (that was my bias disclosure…) understands this…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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$25K … No, $100K… No, One Million Dollars to Charity by Atlassian

Posted on March 4, 2011 ·

Two years ago I reported on Atlassian’s initiative to to raise funds for the benefit of Room to Read, an organization that builds schools, libraries in rural communities in Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Laos, Zambia …etc. Giving away $1,200 worth of software licences for $5 in a 5-day drive, they first planned to raise $25K, then increased the target to $100,000.

@Krishnan and I thought we should put our money where our mouth (pen? keyboard?) is, and both purchased a bunch of licences just to help push Atlassian towards the finish line.  The last minutes were dramatic:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Business, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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No For Kno, Finally. It Was DOA Anyway.

Posted on February 21, 2011 ·

Boomtown reports Kno, makers of the flip-open dual tablet designed for the education market is planning to sell off the hardware business, and focus on software only. Says Kara Swisher:

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Oh, really?  I think not.  It’s not about marketing.. it’s about recognizing the product was Dead On Arrival… a ridiculously impossible design.  And no, I’m not just discovering it now, I declared in DOA when it was announced:

The Kno is Not a Tablet. It’s a Workout Device

At 5 and a half pounds it’s not exactly a lightweight tablet you would want to hold for hours…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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ON that Personal Computing Nirvana Again

Posted on February 17, 2011 ·

This will be a fairly short post – because all I do is refer to this piece I wrote recently:

Motorola Takes Us a Step Closer to Personal Computing Nirvana–and it’s Not Even a Computer

Why bring it up again?  Because Walt Mossberg just validated the concept:

Today’s best smartphones are really hand-held computers. They run a vast variety of applications, from productivity programs to games, that mimic what laptops do. Their biggest limitations for serious work, gaming, Web surfing and multimedia are their small screens, cramped keyboards and tinny speakers.
So, what if you could use the brains and connectivity of such a hand-held computer to drive a laptop-size screen, keyboard and speakers, thus overcoming these limitations? Well, Motorola Mobility has devised a new phone and accessory that aim to do just that: to make the phone the only computer you need.

Read his full post here.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Technology · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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