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Specifically, Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, outlined a four-point plan to the 200-odd financial analysts for increasing profits:

1. Cloud computing – Emphatically and repetitively, we have heard Microsoft say they are “all in” on cloud computing. Turner believes that Microsoft not only can be, but is “by far the market leader” of the cloud. Microsoft has been quietly developing cloud support for its business solutions, and only now in 2010 has been busting them out.

2. Windows 7 and Office 2010 – in the meantime, Microsoft’s standard software product line will be chugging along. The steadfast popularity of both of these products will drive predictably massive sales.

3. Customer satisfaction. Simple enough of a business objective.

4. Grow market share. Similarly simple.

Microsoft gives every impression of utmost confidence in its IT goliath standings. They believe in their edge over every other cloud competitor out there: Salesforce and Google fall “far short of what [Microsoft is] doing from an Azure perspective” (Google also has laughable productivity applications in comparison to Office), Amazon provides only “a limited set of platform as a service capabilities,” and VMWare is losing to Microsoft’s “better and less expensive virtualization offering.” Turner also noted that the shares for Microsoft servers and databases are growing faster than those of Linux, IBM, and Oracle. Clearly, these are children among one large-headed man.

Microsoft still views itself as a spry, innovative corporation. In regards to cloud computing, the company is in it for long term development. Turner says, “This is going to be a multiyear journey. We’re not going to accomplish this in the next twelve months.”

New Microsoft products are also rolling out: the Windows Phone 7 OS and the Kinect video game motion sensor for the Xbox. Now my tongue may be stuck in cheek, but one will enter the market outclassed by Apple and Google, and the other is foiled by gamers who enjoy lying down.

But don’t mind me. You go win those investors, Microsoft.

A webcast of the whole affair is available at Microsoft’s website.

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The Forrester reports stated that Oracle CRM On Demand “has achieved success in the market by offering the same benefits as other CRM SaaS solutions: quick time-to-value, strong usability, and low upfront costs. This value proposition attracts midsized organizations, and it is finding increasing acceptance in units of large companies.” The reports also praised Oracle’s “innovative” features, including social CRM. Oracle’s social CRM helps increase collaboration within organizations. It also helps companies deliver differentiated sales and services. The report continued to say, “The product offers strong sales force automation (SFA) capabilities and partner channel management, and it provides sound support for customer service, customer data management, and analytics.”

Oracle’s Siebel CRM was named a leader for large organizations. The report said, “Siebel CRM is designed to provide robust capabilities that empower users to better address customer needs… the Siebel CRM product for large organizations has achieved best-of-breed status for most CRM functionalities, including: sales, marketing, customer service, field service, partner relationship management, and customer data management.”

Oracle is delighted to have been recognized by Forrester. The SVP of Oracle CRM, Anthony Lye, said, “Oracle CRM enables organizations of all sizes to transform their customer experience by promoting customer acquisition, increasing loyalty and lowering the cost of marketing, selling and servicing. We are pleased that Forrester recognized Oracle for its diverse range of solutions, targeted industry expertise, and flexible deployment options.”

Oracle’s E-Business Suite CRM and Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM were also mentioned in the Forrester Report as good ERP options. The E-Business suite provides easy integration and is useful in sales compensation management. PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM also provides strong integration benefits.

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Robert Redding, Director of Redding Associates, says, “With vtiger CRM On Demand, we set up our own version in just a few minutes and began using the solution right away. And with the vtiger cloud solution we can tap into the open source community for low-cost add-ons, extensions or services. This is of great help in controlling our costs.”

Benefits of CRM On Demand, as stated by vtiger, include:

• Savings of up to 60% in software licenses over competitive products
• Accessibility via any standard web browser
• Complete customization through community-built add-ons or whatever other enhancements client IT staff add to their own versions
• Simple deployment, as there is nothing to install, maintain, nor update

vtiger CRM On Demand is currently available at $12 per user per month and as a 30-day free trial. As an option, vtiger can also provide dedicated servers to customers.

vtiger CRM is a community-based, open source CRM software project. The software helps automate business functions such as sales, marketing, and customer support. There have been a total of over 1.5 million software downloads. The company vtiger is a private, limited corporation based in Bangalore, India, and with offices in Chennai, India and Sunnyvale, California.

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Businesses have different needs and different ways they want to approach their customers, so Google broke up the CRM applications into three different categories- CRM, Social CRM, and Project-Based CRM.

Their CRM app list include apps that focus on selling and serving customers. The list includes Zoho CRM, an app to manage leads and contacts, Applane CRM, one that manages the sales cycle, and Capsule CRM, a way to keep track of customers and follow-ups. The CRM list also includes TimetoNote, a way to collaborate and share contacts, and Tactile CRM, a way to track the companies you do business with and how to grasp opportunities.

The Social CRM list included those apps that focused on collaborative customer conversations via social network sites, like Facebook. The list includes Batchbook, an app that monitors social network leads, Bantam Live, which has a social workspace for collaboration, and Gist, which provides a full view of your contacts. The list also has Rapportive, which searches the social web for leads, and Etacts, which manages leads and contacts.

The project-based CRM list is for apps that focus on project collaboration pre and post sale. Insightly is a proposal and project management application on the list. Also on the list are Solve 360 CRM, which manages client projects for small teams, and Smartsheet pipeline, which has sales and service templates.

Evaluate the apps further with the detailed overview on Google’s Enterprise Blog. They can be very useful for managing and connecting with prospective or current customers. Improve sales and customer satisfaction with CRM applications. Google’s marketplace is continuously updated and adding new CRM applications, so check back frequently to see if there are any that are right for your company.

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“Imagine for a moment that the power of your desktop computer is now in the palm of your hand,” said Richard Keith Latman, Chief Executive Officer of iMagicLab. “Using DealerCRM for iPhone, car salespeople can, for the first time, cut the cord and have their complete customer profiles, their total inventory and the award-winning DealerCRM anywhere they are. It’s never been easier to stay connected, engaged and responsive to the ever-increasing demands of today’s tech-savvy car buyer. Essentially we’ve turned the iPhone into the iCRM and the bottom line is that every user will make more money than they did the day before they installed it.”

In 2004, iMagicLab was the first dealer technology company to offer mobile-enabled lite versions of their automobile-dealer CRM, and now DealerCRM for iPhone raises the bar to a whole new level. Using the full power of the iOS 4 operating system and of Apple’s revolutionary multi-tasking engine, DealerCRM for iPhone delivers real-time leads, active alerts, tracked outbound-calling, full email-template support, enhanced duplicate-checking and much, much more.

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The Stevie Awards recognize positive contributions of various organizations. There were over 40 categories and 2,700 entries from organizations of all sizes. Over 200 business executives voted to determine who would win each Stevie Award.

A Stevie Award

Salesforce.com received the Most Innovative Company of the Year award for its groundbreaking and comprehensive CRM technology. The winning nomination stated that Salesforce.com won for “redefining the enterprise software industry with cloud computing.” Salesforce.com also took cloud computing to the next level, Cloud 2, with Salesforce Chatter.

The receipt of the Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year award was no shock because of Marc Benioff’s well known dedication to charity. He has made many large personal donations of his own in addition to ensuring that part of Salesforce.com’s profits go to charity. Benioff created the Salesforce.com Foundation which emphasized the 1/1/1 integrated philanthropy model, which says that powerful companies should use their resources to give back. Salesforce.com gives 1% of its time, 1% of its product and 1% of its equity to various nonprofits. Benioff’s 1/1/1 model has also inspired many other companies to do the same. The Salesforce.com Foundation received the award for “affecting change for social well-being. To date, Salesforce.com employees have contributed more than 192,000 hours of volunteer service, more than 8,500 nonprofits run their operations with donated Salesforce.com products, and more than $20 million in grants awarded to nonprofits since the Salesforce.com Foundation was created.”

Salesforce.com is very excited to have received these two coveted Stevie Awards. Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com’s CEO, said, “We are extremely proud to win Stevie Awards for attributes we consider core to our company’s success- innovation and corporate philanthropy. We thank our customers for being the catalyst behind our innovation as well as our employees who have proven that integrated philanthropy can truly make a difference.”

These awards are two of many that Salesforce.com has received recently. Salesforce is rapidly growing as one of the most powerful and influential companies in the technology industry. Find out more about their products and charity on Salesforce.com. Also, you can read more articles about Salesforce.com here.

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