Business

Your new salespeople have very specific expectations of how their workday should flow. These 20-somethings want to sign a contract poolside, then post about it on Instagram -- #workingpoolside, anyone? They want to approve a purchase order on the go as they head to post-work Pilates and pizza. They ...

An attendee at a two-hour question-and-answer session during a Facebook company meeting held in July leaked a recording of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's comments that reveal deep insights into his thinking.

Customer-centric CEOs are putting their most important stakeholders, customers and employees, at the top of their agendas, and with good reason. Today, no matter what channel customers use to interact with a brand --phone, email, text, chat, online communities -- companies must be able to create pos...

Google need not comply with the right to be forgotten outside of the EU, according to a European Court of Justice ruling. A global de-referencing would meet the EU's data protection objectives, the court said, but it found that numerous third states do not recognize the right to de-referencing or ha...

I was speaking to an Oracle executive about some of the company's announcements at OpenWorld, and my impression that the company has changed so much that it is difficult to recognize it from the entity it was just a few years ago. On the macro side it's easy to see that Oracle has transitioned from ...

Fledgling e-commerce company PriceWaiter aims to save customers money, time and energy by negotiating better-than-Amazon deals on top-rated products -- simply, quickly and privately. PriceWaiter's pitch to sellers is that it can help move inventory, maintain more margin, and make MAP moot, resulting...

Gone are the days when businesses just did business. Now, it's almost expected that business values and ethics will play a significant and enduring role in a company's identity. From the products they sell to the way they treat their employees, businesses are finding that they no longer can separate...

Q1 in any business is the toughest for generating revenue and Oracle is no exception. In its Q1 earnings call it admitted missing by about $70 million on a $9.2 billion nut: small but consequential. No need to run for the smelling salts though, Oracle has been here before and it's got this. It shoul...

It has been my belief for several years that our industry is trending toward the formation of an information utility. I draw this conclusion carefully based on my understanding of how markets develop and commoditize. I consider the beginning of the modern IT era as the early 1970s. You can graph a r...

California Assembly Bill 5, which would require many businesses to hire workers as employees rather than independent contractors, has passed its second reading. After a vote on amendments in a third reading, it likely will go to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has indicated he will sign it. Bill AB 5 ext...

The attorneys general of 48 states, plus those from United States territory Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., have joined in an investigation into whether Google stifled online advertising and search competition. The only holdouts are the attorneys general of Alabama, where Google is building a $600...

Digital transformation has left hardly any industry unshaken. In broadcasting, it's safe to say that it has transformed completely the way we create, deliver and consume content. Undoubtedly, the most noticeable change lies in the shift toward the OTT format. Traditional TV now plays second fiddle: ...

Implementing shipping software can be a big step in scaling your e-commerce business -- providing a way to create shipping labels quickly, to gain access to carrier discounts, and more. With the holidays not too far away, now is the time to get smart about your options. Before deciding to buy, it's ...

So now Oracle is appealing the Pentagon's award to Amazon of its $10 billion JEDI contract to provide cloud computing solutions. "The Court of Federal Claims opinion in the JEDI bid protest describes the JEDI procurement as unlawful, notwithstanding dismissal of the protest solely on the legal techn...