There's no question that data analytics are playing an increasingly important role for marketing departments, but many marketers aren't getting what they need from the CIO. If IT can't deliver, CIOs should expect CMOs to go around them.

VoloMetrix's enterprise analytics technology uses social engineering to let CIOs quickly identify bottlenecks and pain points in their organization. Using that data, they can better allocate time, energy and resources. The only catch is they have to mine employees email to get that data.

Salesforce.com's second-quarter earnings conference call featured the usual dose of chest-thumping by CEO Marc Benioff as the company posted US$957 million in revenue and raised its full fiscal year forecast to at least $4 billion.

Researcher IDC today slightly lowered its tablet shipment forecast for 2013 and beyond, blaming competition from larger-sized smartphones and futuristic wearable computing devices.

If you're afraid the future of touch-enabled smartphones, tablets, and PCs are going to rip your keyboard from your cold, dead hands, fear not.

Developers can sell physical and digital items from Amazon.com within their apps using the new Mobile Associates API for Android-based devices.

Salesforce.com's next CRM (customer relationship management) software release will contain a slew of new features, with many focused on the Chatter collaboration and messaging tool as well as customer service, according to a set of official release notes.

The Internet reacted to the news that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plans to retire within 12 months as might have been expected – with a flurry of jeers, opprobrium and the occasional heartfelt farewell.

An accumulation of perceived missteps under Steve Ballmer's leadership may have hit a tipping point this year, leading to Friday's groundshaking announcement that Bill Gates' former right hand and heir, as well as Microsoft's fiercest cheerleader, will step down as CEO within the next 12 months.

Waitrose is considering using mobile phone GPS technology to know when customers are close to stores to pick up online shopping orders.

Software AG is adding mashup and real-time analytic capabilities to its lineup with the acquisition of JackBe. Terms of the deal, which was announced Thursday, were not disclosed.

After Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a coalition with several other major tech companies to bring the Internet to areas of the globe that remain disconnected, the tech world reacted with a mix of criticism, mockery, doubt and praise.

Many companies have begun using specialized software to analyze what people are saying about their products and services on social media, and now SAP says it can help them match up individuals' social profiles with customer history data from CRM (customer relationship management) systems.

Apple and Samsung were almost equally able to keep customers in their respective smartphone folds over the last 12 months, an analyst said Monday.

The self-described nerds of President Obama's presidential campaign last year were back using big data analytics, this time to help Newark Mayor Cory Booker achieve a landside primary win Tuesday in the New Jersey Democratic primary for a vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Move over Hadoop, there is another highly scalable data processing powerhouse in town: Apache Giraph. Facebook is using the technology to bring a new style of search to its billion users.

Facebook said it is buying Mobile Technologies, a company known for its speech recognition and voice-to-voice translation technology.

SAP has given customers a peek into how it will compete with the likes of Oracle and IBM in the growing market around CEM (customer experience management) software with the acquisition of commerce software vendor Hybris.

Quick Response codes were once as ubiquitous as Twitter hashtags on advertisements, but the emerging technology now seems like an afterthought. Poor QR codes--they never even stood a chance.

Whether you're new to predictive analytics or have a few projects under your belt, it's all too easy to make gaffes. "The vast majority of analytic projects are riddled with mistakes," says John Elder, CEO at data mining firm Elder Research.

Jive is rolling out of its software assembly line a new version of its enterprise social networking (ESN) suite with enhanced gamification and sharper analytics, as well as deep integration with Salesforce.com's Chatter, Microsoft's Yammer and Evernote.