Archive: June, 2006

We just switched from Sugar CRM to Salesforce after trying to use Sugar CRM for maybe 3 months. I’m not going to write a review of Sugar CRM, or writing up a commentary. We simply switched because the Sugar CRM tool didn’t allow us to do the things we needed to do efficiently.

Having moved to Salesforce CRM, my staff are all thrilled with the product, but as always, there’s one feature that did work in Sugar CRM which the staff would love to see in Salesforce: a scheduled “Task Reminder pop-up.”

I’ve heard a few people wishing for this tool today; Anyone heard of such an add-on coming?

It’s no secret how powerful the Internet is as a democratizing agent. The obvious comparison is to Gutenberg’s printing press, which finally placed the written word in the hands of the general population outside of monks and monarchies. However, unlike the early years of traditional print the Internet knows no bounds. Internet users in the West are privy to almost any source of information they want, and gratification is immediate (for now anyway).

China is a different story. Although China has undergone drastic changes over the last few decades, the government still upholds a number of strict laws over its citizens. For instance, freedom of speech and access to information is highly controlled. You may have read about Google’s dumbed down portal in China and the backlash it received for conforming to China’s principles. Then there’s the notorious situation involving Yahoo, which reported one of its users to government officials for blogging about items the government didn’t approve of.

The question is how long will the Chinese government be able to manage Internet usage? Like the rest of the world, the amount of Internet users in China has exploded. It will become increasingly difficult to fasten a watchful eye over what people see and do unless the watchdog infrastructure can keep up with the pace. Maybe it can.