What’s Next For Salesforce.com?

SaaS customer relationship management (CRM) vendors Salesforce.com and RightNow recently reported second quarter results that beat estimates. Salesforce.com has been on an acquisition spree, acquiring eight companies over the year. What will be its next move? Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dan Raju, CIO Of TradeKing (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: All right, so, let’s move to your second point.

Dan Raju: Our second point of value is very simple, as it is for everyone else, and that point is infrastructure as a service. Infrastructure as a service has been great for us as a company that was very small and has grown tremendously big in the past five years. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dan Raju, CIO Of TradeKing (Part 3)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Rajdeep Ramsay

Sramana Mitra: Before we talk about budgeting capabilities and such, I think it would help readers to understand better if you gave a use case of a particular instance?

Dan Raju: Absolutely! So, for example, most of us in technology do two things. We say, I am going to spend X amount of dollars today, and based upon these criteria, this is what my expense is going to be over the next three to five years depending on how budgeting is done in a particular company. So there are two factors to this, right? There is saying, I am spending this amount of capital, and then there are what my operational expenses for the next couple of years are going to be. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dan Raju, CIO Of TradeKing (Part 2)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Rajdeep Ramsay

Sramana Mitra: You said you have 250,000 investors working on this platform?

Dan Raju: Yes.

SM: The reason I ask this question is that from a cloud technology problem point of view, the problem is serving these 250,000 customers, which is the scale of the customers you are serving, correct? >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dan Raju, CIO Of TradeKing (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Rajdeep Ramsay

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Dan. Welcome to our Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing series. Let’s begin by talking about what TradeKing does, and what your business is, and what is the scope of cloud deployment we are talking about for your company. Also, would you give us some background about you. >>>

Taleo Expands In Europe

Over the past two years, there has been tremendous M&A activity in the talent management sector as companies like SuccessFactors (NASDAQ:SFSF) and Taleo (NASDAQ:TLEO) look to provide end-to-end talent management solutions and fill the gaps in their portfolio. Taleo in the last quarter announced its plans to acquire European vendor Jobpartners for $38 million. Let’s take a closer look.

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Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Steven John, Strategic CIO Of Workday (Part 8)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

Sramana Mitra: Do you have any other thoughts on entrepreneurship directions, ideas, or open problems?

Steven John: Sure. I think there are some interesting things. I am helping to set up ecosystem architectures because we are not used to that in IT; we are used to connecting to server to server. As you move into the cloud you have to connect on-premise, you have to connect cloud to cloud. How does all that work and who in the organization is doing it? Maybe that is an emerging skill or job role as opposed to an entrepreneurial opportunity. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Steven John, Strategic CIO Of Workday (Part 7)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Siddharth Garg

Sramana Mitra: All that being said, right now we are also doing a parallel series on outsourcing, and outsourcing as an industry is absolutely booming. The players, the vendors and the segment are all doing really well, and I think that will continue for a while. I think there are many regions that are not mature. In the same way that India developed on the wings of outsourcing, there would be other major development economic stories that will come out on the wings of outsourcing.  There will be a labor arbitrage equation that would still be operative for a long time. >>>