Posts by Ian Campbell

I was doing a bit of analysis on the ROI case studies we competed in the past three years and found a few interesting data points. If we assume the decision to move forward with a project was made 2 years before the case study then the years 2011 through 2013 cover the decision period…

I ask this question of almost every vendor I meet and I’d say only a third of them can answer it directly. The other two thirds either can’t answer the question or quickly transition into a technical discussion of what they do. It’s a shame, because a crisp answer to that question sets the direction…

Amazon’s drone delivery caused a flurry in the news recently. Delivering light packages by Amazon-logoed quadcopter made for an interesting animated video and sent the brain trust at CNN into hours of vacuous discussion and debate. I’m not seeing it. Yes it made for a great futurist idea and conveniently, and likely not unplanned, puts…

With our top 10 predictions for 2014 published I thought I might take a moment to look back at our 2013 predictions. My personal favorite prediction was the rise of 3D printers and that made the news throughout the year. I’m confident 3D printers will prove to be the next true disruptive technology and the…

In the past 20+ years as an analyst I’ve met with a lot upstart vendors, some memorable, some not so memorable. I’ve met with visionaries who painted big pictures, kids burning through venture funding, technologists with “shiny object syndrome,” and a few true winners. I’ve become a bit harsh about assessing whether a vendor will…

The end of the year is 30 days away and that means every sales rep is scrambling to book business and maximize commissions. If the deal isn’t in the pipeline by now it’s probably not going to happen, but if it is in the pipeline what can be done to drive it through? Focus on…

We just published a research note that deserves special attention. Research note n167 – Enterprise software must adopt the principles of Dark Cockpit challenges vendors to rethink the human interface. Vendors can learn a lot from the evolution in the 70’s and 80’s of aircraft cockpit design. Let’s face it; workers have only so much…

Gamification is a hot topic in the CRM space but I’m wondering if it’s really a good idea or a waste of money. The underlying premise seems sound. Make interaction with the technology fun and recognize employees (particularly sales employees) for efforts such as entering information the CRM system. The assumption is that the more…

At OpenWorld this past September, Oracle further embraced the cloud with three new offerings: Database, Java, and Infrastructure. This from a company that was lukewarm on the cloud trend a few years ago. I won’t go on about the benefits of the cloud other than to point out we found cloud-based CRM delivering 1.7 times…

The telephone on your desk is going through a dramatic evolution – like a moth becoming a butterfly. Copper wires and phone plugs went out years ago as companies moved to internal VoIP.  That too is changing.  We recently discarded our Allworx phone system in favor of a fully hosted solution with OnSIP.  With our…

We recently got into a discussion about gamification and CRM.  It’s true that the more information in the CRM system the better the value of the CRM system.  Gamification encourages sales reps to enter more information but there a problem. Sales reps should be selling, not entering data in CRM.  Logically we know sales reps…

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld is an editor I’ve known and respected for a long time.  He’s an established tech veteran and a genuinely good guy to chat with about the industry if you get a chance.  His latest effort is CruxialCIO.com, a news and information center for the technology and business leader.  CrixialCIO is part of IBT…

Give some analysts a push and they’ll drone on for pages congratulating themselves on their ability to define a topic. I’m starting to think “Big Data” and “Little Data” has fallen into the over-definition phase. Organizations don’t buy big data or little data, they buy solutions. We looked at the value of information some time…

Jane Hendicks, our Principal Analyst for the Human Management space, released a research note earlier this week on HRTech and some of her thoughts about the announcements that occurred during the show.  She points out the underlying messages from the vendors is to move beyond transactions to end-to-end human management, which fits with Nucleus’s overall…

You could call it an occupational hazard but when you look at ROI every day you tend to evaluate everything in terms of value. Nucleus just published a guidebook on LogMeIn’s join.me, a solution that provides cloud-based screen sharing and meeting tools, and found great value and enthusiastic users. I’m not surprised since I’ve been…

Updated – Please read to the very bottom. Possibly not the worst in the world but they seem to be tirelessly persevering to get that top spot.  We’ve written extensively about the benefits of the cloud. Technology is marching ahead and there’s no need for companies to gain expertise in systems or applications.  Why manage…

Our VP of Research, Rebecca Wettemann just published the second half, 2013 CRM Value Matrix and with this report comes a small but significant change to the matrix.  We’ve added trendlines to the points, indicating our analyst’s estimate of where the product is going in the next six months relative to others in the market. …

The search is well underway for the new Microsoft CEO and we’ve had a few calls from reporters interested in our guess. It can be either an internal or external hire, and there are a number of qualified candidates, but we’re hoping it’s a confident adult, not a Silicon Valley kid with a mild case…

We’ve been working with the OneSign folks at Imprivata, a great product that provides single sign on, and that reminded me of a research note we published back in 2006 (read it ). Here’s the problem with passwords: what’s the right balance between increased password security and lost productivity plus the likelihood users will write…

It’s no secret that we haven’t been fans of Steve Ballmer’s tenure at Microsoft. Steve is a manager, and a competent one, but “visionary” should not be in his LinkedIn description. Despite owning the desktop, giving the company envious depth in the corporate world, Microsoft has stumbled along in the past decade, only recently figuring…