Microsoft Azure Enters the Crowded Cloud Computing Market | Profy | Internet news and commentary

Learned about this from Profy. Is this the software DBM is using? Need to check it out.

Microsoft Azure Enters the Crowded Cloud Computing Market | Profy | Internet news and commentary: "Basically the cloud OS by Microsoft is intended to serve as a platform for developers who may want to host their web applications remotely in Microsoft’s network of datacenters. Mary Jo Foley has a great explanation of the platform architecture and principles of operation.

Of course it is not a Windows operating system as we usually think of it - Windows Azure has almost nothing to do with our desktops as end users will still have to have an operating system on their desktops and browsers installed to access web applications hosted on Azure. At the same time the Microsoft’s cloud platform will serve as a new web-based environment for application developers.

But what is important to me as a consumer of web applications and everything that works out of the cloud, is how exactly the platform will be used and how it will benefit an ordinary user. First of all, the platform will host a few Microsoft’s own applications, like SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Dynamics CRM Online. Also third-party developers will code and deploy applications of their own to run on the platform - these developers will pay for use of the service to Microsoft with no details of the pricing available for now..."

Marketing as a personalized experience

In my opinion, marketing is the result of everything a company says and does.

Consumers and buyers have an increasing role in the marketing mix.

It's now all about how we provide consumers with a consistent, personalized experience across the many available channels of communication.

For companies to keep customers, they have to be able to interact with them on all the channels customers use.

Nothing about marketing is simple anymore.

In CRM it's the customer that is getting into the driving seat.

SmartPhoneToday: News: SAP Is Wooing the BlackBerry CRM Crowd

SmartPhoneToday: News: SAP Is Wooing the BlackBerry CRM Crowd: "SAP Is Wooing the BlackBerry CRM Crowd. By Richard Adhikari May 6, 2008. In a move that might herald sweeping changes for the mobile workforce, SAP has natively integrated its customer relationship management (CRM) application into the Research In Motion BlackBerry hand-held device. This will give the mobile workforce full access to all of SAP CRM's functionalities, which will be pushed out to them over the BlackBerry. BlackBerries with SAP CRM natively integrated will be generally available within the next few months, and SAP will natively integrate the rest of its business applications into the BlackBerry."

I wrote a story in Finnish today about a Estonian - Finnish joint venture leading to a CRM-tool for Nokia Symbian 60 mobile smart phones. I still have to check how the pilot projects have proceeded since 2006.

A specila day

Today was a special day. We visited Tekes and no need disclose what we were talking about in the meeting. Tekes produces quite a number of publications for FREE. Some of them are both informative and valuable information. I will present some of the publications later on. We discussed the Basecamp and its meaning for the project.

• It’s an extension of my blog
• Important for me from a business perspective
• The idea about how to work different, co-creating, open innovation
• The Open Enterprise web book s designed for release in a few months time
• To understand the power of design thinking
• Personal watching and learning perspective
• There is an enormous amount of entertainment out there
• Drama in the soap opera world
• Ask the builders is just one good example
• The “how to do” videos are telling DIY people about new possibilities
• There is someone to help you with do it yourself issues
• The presidential election is going to use the YouTube a lot

Making friends fast

This man wrote about how he learned to make friends in retail in 30 seconds. We tend to spend lots of time building our customer relationships. Scott Ginsberg comes from St.Louis and I think what he says about high-speed customer relationship building is correct. I haven't read all the other things he was written about. For me the 30 second notion was important. "We do business with our friends." Scott Ginsberg concludes.