Joel Martin
I have over 15 years IT market experience managing products, performing qualitative and quantitative market analysis, developing new business and partnerships, and creating business/product strategies. My experiences vary from Microsoft to IDC where I have enjoyed the challenge of working with industrious and smart people both from a vendor, consultant, and customer perspective.
Homepage: http://softwarestrategies.wordpress.com
Jabber/GTalk: twitter.com/sftstrtgy
Posts by Joel Martin
Why read blogs?
Just finished reading and excellent bog on “Why Blog” and it’s a shame that ITW’s Blog Idol 2010 is coming to an end, nonetheless I thought I’d toss in my 2 cents on why I think people should read blogs. Personally I think there are 3 primary reasons, these are: 1. To learn. If you [...]
Is there peace without a Smart Phone?
April 30, 2010 - 8:06 pm
Tags: apple, blackberry, Gizmodo, Google Andriod, HTC, iPhone, Motorola, Nokia, rim, Starbucks, WindowsMobile
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 3 comments
Over the past 2.5 years I have been addicted to my smart phone, not the worlds greatest, I’ve had both HTC Touch and Touch Pro with Windows Mobile 6.0 then 6.1. Yes, the web browsing was basic, the phone (voice calls) was bearable, but I have really enjoyed the syncing of all my email and [...]
VMforce: No Software + No Hardware?
April 28, 2010 - 3:13 pm
Tags: FinanicalForce.com, java, Oracle, PaaS, SaaS, salesforce.com, SAP, SFDC, VMforce.com, VMware
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 2 comments
After hobbling thru the choppy live webcast yesterday and trying to piece together all the PR fluff, blogger commentary and random 140 character posts on Twitter I am still not sure how VMforce will be a monetize-able joint venture between VMware and SFDC. At one point in the conversation it was remarked that SFDC and [...]
facebook do we still trust thee?
April 28, 2010 - 8:34 am
Tags: CNN, facebook, Open Graph, privacy, social media
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 2 comments
I use facebook. I was late to the party and started only a year or so ago. But my posts and any information that I place have gotten fewer over the last six months as I simply am not sure I trust facebook. I enjoy communicating with my friends outside of email, but as fb [...]
Getting Social in Canada: Jive Software
April 27, 2010 - 2:48 pm
Tags: BI, ERP, facebook, Jive Software, Microsoft, Oracle, SaaS, SharePoint, twitter
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 5 comments
Today I attended Jive Software’s Get Social tour stop in Toronto and left impressed not only with the company’s software and strategy, but with the quality of attendance at the event. The event featured a hour (and a bit) of keynotes including a look at how Canada’s RIM has used Jive’s SBS to deploy mybackberry.com. [...]
SFDC and VMware: Software + Services comes to AppExchange?
April 14, 2010 - 1:58 pm
Tags: 6) Cloud Computing, AppExchange, ChatterExchange, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, salesforce.com, vmforce, VMware
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 2 comments
Salesforce.com continues to ramp up its cloud offering and bolster its position as a leading business applications provider for companies of all sizes. News is now out that later this month there will be a big announcement from SFDC and VMware of a joint product announcement – you can even see the mock up landing [...]
Buying a PC: Feature or Fashion?
April 13, 2010 - 3:41 pm
Tags: apple, Dell, HP, Intel, Lenovo, MacBook Pro, ThinkPad, Toshiba
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 1 comment
Got an email today from Apple with the subject “More speed. More power. The new MacBook Pro family.” Sure enough the new MacBook Pro line was out! What!?! (you gasp I am sure) Apple can sell something besides and “phone” or “pad“?!? I like Macs so I took a look at the new machines and [...]
Team Twitter
April 13, 2010 - 6:53 am
Tags: hootsuite, twitter
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | No comments
This morning when I dutifully headed over to Canadian-developed Twitter dashboard Hootsuite I was prompted that one of my profiles had multiple owners and that I needed to assign one as primary, then once entering the upgraded API there were a slew of new tools for each of my twitter accounts where I could administer, [...]
The Business Gets Social: SalesForce’s Chatter and SAP’s StreamWork
April 9, 2010 - 4:28 pm
Tags: AppExchange, Business Intelligence, Chatter, ChatterExchange, collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, facebook, Google Wave, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, Search, SharePoint, StreamWork, twitter
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | No comments
Late in 2009 both SalesForce.com and SAP began beta testing social applications that proposed businesses could use social tools within their walls to address a variety of needs from financial management and sales tracking to impromptu group collaboration. Since then both of these solutions have gone live and are beginning to garner much interest in [...]
CRM: Customer engagement challenges lay beyond Technology
April 9, 2010 - 11:00 am
Tags: collaboration, communication, CRM, enterprise, information sharing in enterprise, SaaS
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | No comments
I recently read a blog entitled “Why we cannot get CRM (and SCRM) right” that triggered several thoughts; not as much on CRM but with regards to a challenge I used to face when ‘us’ marketeers wanted to try something drastically new. The more I thought I realized the problem (that I’ll try to illustrate [...]
iPad O/S outdated in a day…
April 8, 2010 - 9:24 pm
Tags: apple, iMac, Ipad, iPhone, Kindle, Microsoft, Newton, Smart Phone, Tablet PC, WIndows 7
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 1 comment
I have an iMac and love it. I have a Win7 notebook and think its great. I’d love a new smart phone and would consider an iPhone. However, I am stumped by how Apple continues to rise above the fray. Case & Point: Apple releases the iPad to rabid millions with tones of hoopla. Reviews [...]
ERP Software-as-a-Service: Choosing the Duck versus the Chicken
April 8, 2010 - 8:46 pm
Tags: .net, 6) Cloud Computing, Bing, Clouds, collaboration, enterprise, ERP, google, information sharing in enterprise, J2EE, java
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | 1 comment
Have you ever noticed the price premium of duck over chicken in restaurants? There are many reasons (e.g. numbers raised in captivity, diversity of usage across products, cost to domesticate, maintenance, etc.) and I am sure you can come up with more on your own,. Fundamentally though, ducks and chickens are both birds and I [...]
Thinking of SaaS: Churn, Partner Channels, and SaaS Master Agreements
April 8, 2010 - 9:46 am
Tags: BI, CRM, ERP, SaaS
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | No comments
Recently I noted that SaaS vendors that specialize in business applications are attempting to roll out new programs to attract channel partners and reduce customer churn based on more stickiness in their contracts. One example is here. As such, I did some research around the web and found a really good blog here that is [...]
The Hybrid Cloud: Est. Midmarket and Large Orgs adjust to the future of IT
April 7, 2010 - 1:15 pm
Tags: 6) Cloud Computing, data center, ERP, hybrid cloud, ISV, SaaS, storage
Posted in Blogging Idol 2010 Archives | No comments
I have been thinking of a hybrid cloud for a while. Over the past several years it was my opinion that certain technologies made sense to offer as a SaaS business model. Tried and true IT services such as data centre, processing power, storage, application hosting etc. allowed for businesses of all sizes to access [...]
