SAP said this week that midsize companies that purchase the Business All-in-One suite or SAP ERP will also receive its CRM (customer relationship management) application.
The offer comes with a catch, however. Customers will get the CRM licenses at no charge, but must pay annual maintenance costs on them, a spokesman said.
In addition, companies must buy at least 15 "application professional" and 15 "application limited professional" licenses for the ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications. The offer is available until Dec. 18.
Business All-in-One is one of three lower-end ERP product lines sold by SAP beyond its flagship ERP application. It also markets Business One, which is for small companies, and is mounting an incremental rollout of Business ByDesign, an on-demand suite with a wide range of functional modules.
SAP's CRM discount offer is no doubt an effort to shore up slumping license sales amid the dismal economy. But it could also be an indication that customers aren't pleased with Business All-in-One's native CRM functionality, which SAP added in May 2008, said 451 Group analyst China Martens.
Overall, though, SAP's announcement was just the latest move this week by a major vendor to court midmarket customers.
Microsoft announced it had purchased a range of industry-centric technologies from partners to help it boost the vertical capabilities of its Dynamics AX ERP suite, and Oracle made a fistful of product and strategy announcements aimed at midmarket customers, including a new portal, midsize.oracle.com.
These concurrent events are no accident, given the vendors' fierce competition for these customers, not only from each other but SaaS (software as a service) pureplays such as NetSuite and Salesforce.com.
Vendors realize "that growth will have to come from the midmarket. It's a greenfield of companies with legacy or no ERP systems. The midmarket is the future," said Altimeter Group analyst Ray Wang.
While vendors have certainly made some headway into the segment -- Oracle's announcement claimed it had grown its midmarket customer base by 7,000 in the past three years -- many midsized companies are slow to adopt new software.
An Aberdeen Research study issued in August found that only 28 percent of 313 respondents were on the latest release of their ERP system. Thirty-one percent were one release behind, 13 percent were two behind, and 13 percent were still three versions back or more, according to the study.
Source
Monday, September 28, 2009
IRS Scam Now World's Biggest E-mail Virus Problem
Criminals are waging a nasty online campaign right now, hoping that their victims' fears of the tax collecter will lead them to inadvertently install malicious software.
The spam campaign, entering its third week now, is showing no signs of slowing down, according to Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham. This one campaign accounts for about 10 percent of the spam e-mail that his group is presently tracking, he said. "This is the most prominent spam-delivered virus in the world right now," he said.
Since first spotting the spam on Sept. 9, antispam vendor Cloudmark has counted 11 million messages sent to the company's nearly 2 million desktop customers, said Jamie Tomasello, abuse operations manager with Cloudmark. That number is "very high," she noted.
The messages typically have a subject line that reads, "Notice of Underreported Income," and they encourage victims to either install the Trojan attachment or click on a Web link in order to view their "tax statement." In fact, that link takes the victim to a malicious Web site.
The IRS says not to open attachments or click on links included in e-mail that claims to come from the tax-collection agency.
What makes this campaign particularly ugly is that the malware that accompanies the fake IRS messages is a variant of the hard-to-detect Zeus Trojan. This software hacks into bank accounts and drains them of money as part of a widespread financial fraud scheme. Researchers estimate that the Zeus criminals are emptying more than a million dollars per day out of victims' bank accounts with the software. Small businesses have been particularly hard-hit by this fraud, because banks have sometimes held them accountable for the losses.
Testing a recent variant of Zeus on the VirusTotal Web site, Warner found that only five of the 41 antivirus detection systems used by VirusTotal managed to spot it.
Although antivirus vendors have other techniques for blocking the malware -- they can stop people from visiting the malicious Web sites, for example -- the spam is giving the companies a run for their money.
"It's difficult to stay ahead of it via antivirus because the Zeus binaries are changing a few times a day to evade detection," said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with Trend Micro, via instant message. "It's definitely a problem."
Source
The spam campaign, entering its third week now, is showing no signs of slowing down, according to Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham. This one campaign accounts for about 10 percent of the spam e-mail that his group is presently tracking, he said. "This is the most prominent spam-delivered virus in the world right now," he said.
Since first spotting the spam on Sept. 9, antispam vendor Cloudmark has counted 11 million messages sent to the company's nearly 2 million desktop customers, said Jamie Tomasello, abuse operations manager with Cloudmark. That number is "very high," she noted.
The messages typically have a subject line that reads, "Notice of Underreported Income," and they encourage victims to either install the Trojan attachment or click on a Web link in order to view their "tax statement." In fact, that link takes the victim to a malicious Web site.
The IRS says not to open attachments or click on links included in e-mail that claims to come from the tax-collection agency.
What makes this campaign particularly ugly is that the malware that accompanies the fake IRS messages is a variant of the hard-to-detect Zeus Trojan. This software hacks into bank accounts and drains them of money as part of a widespread financial fraud scheme. Researchers estimate that the Zeus criminals are emptying more than a million dollars per day out of victims' bank accounts with the software. Small businesses have been particularly hard-hit by this fraud, because banks have sometimes held them accountable for the losses.
Testing a recent variant of Zeus on the VirusTotal Web site, Warner found that only five of the 41 antivirus detection systems used by VirusTotal managed to spot it.
Although antivirus vendors have other techniques for blocking the malware -- they can stop people from visiting the malicious Web sites, for example -- the spam is giving the companies a run for their money.
"It's difficult to stay ahead of it via antivirus because the Zeus binaries are changing a few times a day to evade detection," said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with Trend Micro, via instant message. "It's definitely a problem."
Source
Tata Docomo will launch Samsung Galaxy i75000 in India at Rs.28,990
Samsung announced its partnership with Tata Teleservices to launch the Android handset, ‘Galaxy’ in India under this exclusive tie-up. Accordingly, Tata DoCoMo will offer its subscribers who purchase Samsung Galaxy(i7500) a monthly free download of 500 MB for six months.
Samsung Galaxy i75000 is the first Android based handset comes with preloaded with google mobile service.Samsung Galaxy is similar looks like HTC and thinner compare to magic. It is a Google Android OS 1.5 powered smartphone that comes with 3.2 inch full touch screen with HVGA resolution and a 5 MP camera. Samsung Galaxy is a cutting-edge Smartphone, featuring 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and WiFi connectivity, providing users access to Google Mobile services and full Web browsing at excellent speeds. Samsung has revealed the price of the phone at Rs.28,990.
Samsung Galaxy i75000 is the first Android based handset comes with preloaded with google mobile service.Samsung Galaxy is similar looks like HTC and thinner compare to magic. It is a Google Android OS 1.5 powered smartphone that comes with 3.2 inch full touch screen with HVGA resolution and a 5 MP camera. Samsung Galaxy is a cutting-edge Smartphone, featuring 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and WiFi connectivity, providing users access to Google Mobile services and full Web browsing at excellent speeds. Samsung has revealed the price of the phone at Rs.28,990.
Along with supporting a 5-megapixel camera and various multimedia codec formats, the I7500 also provides a long battery life (1500mAh) and generous memory capacity (Internal Memory of 8 GB and Expandable External Memory up to 32 GB) to enjoy all the applications and multimedia content. The phone also boasts a slim and compact design—it is a mere 11.9mm thick.
Tata Docomo has launched its services across eight telecom Circles in the country already, and the same has been received with great enthusiasm. Samsung Galaxy will target the tech-savvy and up market consumers who are always on the move and need to have constant access to information, entertainment and interactive mobile experience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)