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Salesforce.com closed out the week with a handful of announcements and moves.

Biggest kudos go to the on-demand software giant for being named to the 2007 SD Times 100 list of technology influencers. The list of Influencers consists of companies that the SD Times has identified as “having the greatest impact on the software development landscape.” Salesforce joined heavy-hitters like IBM, the Eclipse Foundation, Business Objects, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft (natch), and the ever hustlin’ Google on the list.

“In the last year we have witnessed some amazing milestones for the software development industry,” said Salesforce chairman/CEO Marc Benioff upon announcing the award. “Not only the delivery of Salesforce Platform, the industry’s first platform for building and running on-demand applications, but also the introduction of Apex, the industry’s first on-demand programming language.”

(Indeed, it can be said the Apex probably ensured Salesforce’s place on the list this year.)

Salesforce.com’s citation in the SD Times 100 dropped some surely loved metaphors over at the company, reading: “Disruptive technology as a mission statement. With Salesforce.com in the water, no fish is safe from having its lunch eaten out from under its nose.”

Salesforce puts the SD Times trophy on the mantelpiece with their other recent honors, including inclusion on the Forbes Top Ten Disrupters 2006 (that mission statement again!), the Forbes 25 Tech Newcomers, the Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award from the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), the Business 2.i Leadership Award, the VARBusiness 60 Top Channel Executives, two ISM Top 15 CRM Software Awards, Wired Magazine’s Wired 40, two CODiE Awards, the 2007 BPT Partners Steppin’ Out Award, Ethisphere Magazine’s list of top ethical companies, and the CRM Magazine Service Elite Awards.

Welcomed to the AppExchange this week was LogiXML (also an SD Times 100 member), which yesterday announced the availability of the Logi Connector Pack, a software package that integrates data generated from web-based applications and sources. The initial release of the Logi Connector Pack supports integration of data from Salesforce applications with the Logi 8 Business Intelligence platform.

Finally the Salesforcers announced that the company’s 2007 annual meeting of stockholders will be held on Thursday, July 12 at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The meeting is to be held at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. The record date for the meeting was May 22, and only stockholders of record on that date are eligible to attend the meeting.

However, as is traditional at Benioff’s baby, an audio webcast will be available to the public on salesforce.com’s website after the show has run.

You gotta love a good AMI-Partners study. The most recent release out of the consultancy is the 2006-2007 U.S. SMB Business Applications and Solutions Segmentation Report.

Based on AMI’s 2006-2007 U.S. Small and Medium Business end-user surveys, the report is authored by AMIs Sau Lam and Laurie McCabe. Lam and McCabe detail major trends and spending forecasts across accounting, CRM, ERP/SCM, web-based solutions, and IT and business process outsourcing services.

Employed in the study is “AMI’s proprietary segmentation methodology,” which appears to be another spin on statistical categorization. In any event, the study shows that enterprise adopters (a.k.a. Tier 1 SMBs in AMI parlance), who view the use of IT solutions as a strategic way to drive growth, are significantly more likely to use enterprise software solutions than SMBs in other tiers.

“Tier 1 SMBs account for the smallest percentage of the overall SMB universe,” said study co-author and AMI-Partners research analyst Sau Lam. “But, in general, they outspend Tier 3 and 4 SMBs on IT. In the enterprise software arena, this gap is even more pronounced.”

AMI-Partners’ proprietary segmentation model categorizes and analyzes SBs and MBs in four distinct tiers, based on IT behavior, adoption, needs and attitudes for customer targeting, product positioning and focused offerings.

The four tiers are defined as:

Tier 1, or “Enterprise Adopters,” as mentioned above.

Tier 2, the “Early Adopters.” These folks embrace new IT solutions to optimize productivity, but lack resources needed to deploy full-scale solutions. AMI has this population estimated at less than twenty percent of SMBs.

Tier 3, the “Value Adopters,” who implement IT solutions after others have done so, and have “a relentless focus on costs.” This group needs education on the business benefits of IT solutions, and are a “pragmatic, economically driven target for IT vendors” comprising over 25 percent of the big pie graph.

Tier 4, the “Needs Help Adopters,” who employ IT solutions “only at the threat of losing customers or suppliers.” This group is nearly half the IT universe.

Among findings from the study (be prepared to refer to the above list frequently):

• Tier 1 SBs make up just over 6 percent of the field, but spend an average of ten times more on IT, and twice as much on CRM and ERP solutions as Tier 4 counterparts.

• Tier 1 MBs spend about four times more than Tier 4 MBs; Tiers 1 and 2 MBs account for more than three-quarters of CRM and ERP spending.

• 41 percent of Tier 1 SBs, and 33 percent of Tier 2 SBs expect to increase Software as a Service spending. Tier 2 MBs are most likely to expect to spend more on SaaS.

• Tier 1 and 2 SBs are more likely to buy software directly from packaged software vendors, while Tier 3 and 4 SBs are more likely to do so from regional or national retail chains.

The 2006-2007 U.S. SMB Business Applications and Solutions Segmentation Report is available at the AMI-Partners website.

Is this being underrated or am i overrating it? Serena Software, Inc., a software company of sole focus on application lifecycle management, today announced the appointment of Rene Bonvanie as senior vice president of worldwide marketing, partner programs and online services.

Bonvanie has jumped ship from Salesforce.com, where he was named AppExchange general manager. Bonvanie said in a statement that he left so soon because "opportunity knocked."

Apparently, he’s been hearing quite a bit of knocking lately, as he came to Salesforce via SAP, a company with which he put in one year as senior vice president of global marketing. Prior to SAP were stints as Business Objects CMO and Veritas Software Corporation senior vice president. And that’s only since 2003, when he left Oracle after a bit of a longer stay.

Bonvanie’s job description is defined in part as “includ[ing] developing business and marketing strategies to consolidate Serena’s position as the leader in ALM and capitalize on future trends in application development, such as Service-Oriented Architecture, web services, and Software-as-a-Service. He will also lead Serena’s efforts to develop partner relationships and go-to-market activities for new products and services.”

So is this really no big deal? Perhaps not. Computer Business Review’s verdict: It’s “really a non-event. It’s hard to see Bonvanie, a chronic job hopper, making any significant difference during his short stint at Salesforce.com, apart from pulling a fat monthly paycheck.”

The folks over at LucidEra announced today that its first solution, LucidEra Forecast-to-Billing, is now available on the salesforce.com AppExchange.

Here comes the gauntlet, replete with the “R” word: “The first on-demand revolution was for CRM and other transactional applications. These solutions were focused on getting the data ‘in.’” said LucidEra co-founder/CEO Ken Rudin. “LucidEra is leading the second major on-demand revolution – the ability to get the data ‘out’ and analyze all the data captured by transactional systems.”

A bit less hyperbolically, LucidEra cleverly includes an analysis user interface that “eliminates any distinction between creating and viewing a report.” Users may directly drag and drop data into a macro for analysis.

LucidEra Forecast-to-Billing is designed for finance and sales operations managers, combining sales data from Salesforce, accounting applications, Excel and the ‘net.

Canada-based technology consulting firm and gold certified Microsoft partner Ideaca Knowledge Services announced today that Catalyst Paper Corporation has now fully implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Catalyst and Ideaca together created the “Outlook Sales Portal” solution, an application bringing together Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft SharePoint Services and SAP data accessed directly from Microsoft Outlook.

Headquartered in amazing Vancouver, British Columbia, Catalyst Paper Corporation is a leading producer of mechanical printing papers in North America. The company also produces pulp and owns what is purportedly Western Canada’s largest paper recycling facility. Catalyst has a combined annual capacity of 2.4 million tonnes of product.

Ideaca currently employs over 150 information technology professionals in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver offices. Ideaca foci include Microsoft Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM, portals and collaboration tools, custom application development, business intelligence and application integration.

In cyberspace, everyone can hear you say “oops.” Even from Australia.

Oz-based website Career One recently met with a bit of a snafu. Until Monday, the site’s customer relationship management base was somehow made open to the public. Some 485 business clients had their login details revealed and over 5,100 potential clients’ contact information was fully accessible.

With regard to clientele, Career One employee comments were also on display, reportedly including derisive epithets like “retard” being thrown around.

News Digital Media, host of the Career One ‘page, has announced an internal investigation into the matter.

The company’s official statement promised today that “The company immediately removed a URL that exposed old client information today … We take security and privacy issues extremely seriously and are currently reviewing our practices as a matter of urgency.”

Much to Apple’s embarrassment, the company may well be on the wrong side of what might become software’s underdog story of the year.

Itty bitty Whangarei, New Zealand-based software company Orbitcoms (the firm employs six including its CEO) is being threatened with legal action by big bad Apple over the name of its Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner software, Orbitcoms iPop, née iPop.

Orbitcoms CEO Tony Shi is well-quoted (well, well-quoted in New Zealand, anyway) as explaining that the “i” stands for “information, intelligence and integration” and the “Pop” is there because the program creates popups when used with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

When Shi and co. applied to trademark the solution as simply “iPop,” Apple argued that the name was “too similar to iPod.” Out went a second application for the name “Orbitcoms iPop,” but Apple reportedly argued the same way again.

Reportedly, the cost for Orbitcoms to fight a legal challenge could be as high as $50,000, an expense the Kiwi firm cannot realistically take on at present.

The iPop case harkens back to an Apple product name controversy earlier this year, namely the legal threat brought by technology provider Cisco. Within hours of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ intro the iPhone at the MacWorld Expo in January, Cisco spokesfolk announced they were bringing suit for trademark infringement in a Northern California U.S. District Court.

Cisco had released its Linksys iPhone line the previous month and, in fact, had owned the trademark on iPhone name since 1996, in the category of “computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerised global information networks.”

Cisco senior vice president and general counsel Mark Chandler at that time stated that “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.” Chandler claimed that his firm were negotiating with Apple over the name and that Apple had “repeatedly” asked permission for use of “iPhone.”

The name of the line did cause confusion in some quarters pre-unveiling on the parts of those who figured that, since Apple has a million products carrying the “i” prefix from iPod to iMac, the “iPhone” must be a Macintosh.

The parties settled up in February, but one wonders if Apple is eventually going to attempt to sue for the legal trademarking rights for all products beginning with “i.”

Apple has yet to comment on the Orbitcoms flap.

Finally, it just goes to show that sometimes the best partner is the one you used to have. The folks at Schwab Institutional have just discovered this principle, announcing that the firm would be used Junxure in its CRM upgrading.

Schwab had employed Junxure until 2001, when the firm switched to its in-house solution “PortfolioCenter Relationship Manager.” In making the switch back, Schwab officials stated that “resources are better spent upgrading [the] back-office accounting software.”

Schwab will upgrade all clients of PC Relationship Manager to Junxure 7 at no additional cost.

The gurus over at research and advisory ‘site VendorGuru.com have released a new white paper to kick off the week. “Tips for Cost-Effective Customer Retention Management” by Gina Pogol seeks to lend a hand in dissecting the balancing act of retaining customers and attaining customers.

To wit, reads the abstract: Acquiring and retaining customers is crucial to an organization’s long-term success and growth. Finding new customers is more expensive and labor-intensive than maintaining a current client base. Haphazard marketing plans can be costly and ineffective, but customer loyalty solutions don’t have to be expensive. There are customer retention tools that can help marketing teams hold on to existing customers.

“Tips for Cost-Effective Customer Retention Management” by Gina Pogol can be gotten for free at the Vendor Guru website. (There’s a registration process, but it’s mostly harmless.)

Business consultancy How to Experience CEO David Williams has a bit of a scathing editorial running at CRM2day.com. In a piece entitled “The Customer Focus Myth,” Williams takes nearly every organization he has dealt with (and over ten years in the biz, that would appear to be quite a few) in simply failing to go the extra mile for customer loyalty.

“The last 10 years have convinced me that virtually all organisations could do ‘customer focus’ better,” Williams writes in CRMToday.com. “The internal ‘stickers and brochures’ campaigns, the new bold talking PowerPoint are harmless and well meaning. But they change nothing and challenge no one. At worst, they are divisive – with unclear objectives that distract the organization from its core objective.”

For a positive example, Williams cites – as many such authorities do, it seems – Virgin Atlantic airline, a firm “brave enough to invest in things around the customer’s real needs” in Williams’ view.

Ultimately, Williams makes an “Emperor’s New Clothes”-like deduction that is surprisingly unique: “Often, CEOs are too far removed from the service reality. A middle management layer protects the status quo. In one PLC, it emerged the service director used the engaged tone on one of its call answering lines … because calls lost in this manner didn’t affect the headline call answering metrics. Good customer focus initiatives change the metrics and understand the business impact of actions.”

CRMchump is down with Williams on this one. This writer has ranted on such a topic for some time, as middle management’s job in the late 20th/early 21st century has more often than not consisted of a lot of rah-rah cheerleading prompted by guys with university degrees doing things by the (school)book.

“The Customer Focus Myth” can be read in full at CRM2day.