News

Marc Benioff rails against Microsoft’s copilot

Salesforce’s boss doesn’t have a good word to say about Microsoft’s AI assistants, saying the technology is basically no better than Clippy 25 years ago.

ServiceNow, Rimini Street partner for a new ERP cost-saving model

The offering is designed to provide enterprises with an alternative to disruptive ERP transformation strategies, such as rip and replace, and lift and shift.

Companies to shift AI goals in 2025 — with setbacks inevitable, Forrester predicts

Forrester Research’s predictions for 2025 underscore a shift from 2024’s bold gen AI experiments to the pursuit of bottom-line gains, but not all progress will prove linear.

Given IBM consulting’s genAI rollout, should CIOs rethink consulting strategies for 2025?

Although there are various factors in play, the most critical element is AI ownership. When does it make sense to use — and pay for — the consultant’s AI, and when does it make sense to force them to use yours?

Gartner: 13 AI insights for enterprise IT

Costs, security, management and employee impact are among the core AI challenges that enterprises face.

How Anthropic’s new ‘computer use’ ability could further AI automation

Anthropic’s has upgraded its Claude 3.5 Sonnet LLM with a new ability, computer use, opening up new opportunities in robotic process automation (RPA) and more.

Ericsson’s return-to-office policy is causing trouble

Ericsson recently tightened its policy for office attendance — but the decision was taken too quickly, according to union officials, forcing some staff to take meetings in the toilets.

CIOs face mounting pressure as AI costs and complexities threaten enterprise value

Spiraling costs and employee resistance are derailing AI success for CIOs, according to Gartner.

Layoffs, AI demand create mismatched talent market for IT skills

Amid a third year of massive tech layoffs, organizations are pivoting to recruit AI talent, resulting in a broader pool of talented IT pros seeking work — but without the skills in high demand.

AI dominates Gartner’s 2025 predictions

Enterprises will use AI to eliminate middle management positions, board members will use AI guidance to challenge executive decisions, and bad actors will use AI agents to carry out nefarious activities, Gartner predicts.

SAP: good figures, but bad mood

Employee engagement is suffering from the ongoing restructuring at SAP, although the software company reported good figures and has raised its outlook.

Riled by SAP’s AI policy, customers issue list of demands

SAP’s strategy of offering AI innovations only in the cloud continues to attract a lot of criticism from its user base. Here’s what SAP customers would like to see happen.

Singapore unveils AI system guidelines, emphasizing secure-by-design

A secure-by-design approach for AI systems can be challenging, as it requires specialized skills and may involve significant costs.

SAP sustainability tracking rollout focuses on data consistency, outlier detection

Enterprise CIOs are under increasing pressure from global regulators to rein in sustainability shortfalls due to partner problems. SAP’s pitch is that most enterprise partners are already using SAP, so it's in an ideal position to collect

Gartner: Top 10 strategic technology trends for 2025

Agentic AI, post-quantum cryptography, AI governance, and hybrid computing are among the most pressing and potentially disruptive trends that enterprises are facing, Gartner reports.

Acumatica tweaks its cloud ERP for professional services firms

With “editions” of its ERP already available for several industries, Acumatica has released a new edition offering mid-sized professional services firms key functions such as time management.

Data center provider fakes Tier 4 data center certificate to bag $11M SEC deal

Deepak Jain used a fictitious company named Uptime Council to issue his data center a Tier 4 certification.

Anthropic updates its risk governance framework

Revised doc defines two key ‘Capability Thresholds,’ one of which revolves around CBRN weapons.

LatticeFlow launches first comprehensive evaluation framework for compliance with the EU AI Act

The platform has so far ranked models from OpenAI, Meta, Mistral, Anthropic, and Google on more than two dozen technical specifications.

AT&T and VMware near settlement in support services dispute

The settlement could have potential implications for enterprise customers navigating Broadcom's new subscription pricing models.

Salesforce’s Financial Services Cloud targets ops automation for insurance brokerages

With the new capabilities coming in Financial Services Cloud for Insurance Brokerages, Salesforce aims to streamline time-consuming policy servicing and commission processing tasks.

UL’s leap into the genAI evaluation business raises key questions

UL Solutions will not evaluate the foundation models, but will instead look at the value-add that an enterprise layers on top. But that forces even more questions about the reliability of such third-party evaluations.

BMC to split into two independent organizations

Gartner analyst wonders if the eventual plan is to sell each off to different buyers.

Oracle adds agentic AI to Fusion Cloud CX

New AI-powered capabilities in Oracle Fusion Cloud Service and Oracle Fusion Cloud Field Service promise to automate around-the-clock customer care.

SAP joins the AI agent era — but not all customers may benefit

SAP is expanding its generative AI copilot Joule to include AI agents. Deeply embedded in SAP systems, the company’s agents aim to solve increasingly complex tasks.

SAP Build gains AI capabilities to help build autonomous agents

By year-end, Joule Studio in SAP Build will offer a dedicated environment for developers to create and manage custom skills for the AI copilot.

Headhunted? That dream job could be a trap

Sophisticated phishing by fake recruiters is on the rise targeting individuals via private accounts in their pursuit of new job opportunities.

SAP launches collaborative AI agents, adds Knowledge Graph

The company promises that its AI copilot, Joule, will support 80% of its most-used business tasks by year end.

One-twelfth of Automattic staff leave over WordPress-WP Engine spat

CEO Matt Mullenweg offered staff six months’ salary to leave if they didn’t like his attitude: 159 took the money and ran.

French government leaves $1.1 billion hole in Atos refinancing plan, Atos says don’t worry

A non-binding offer by the French government to buy a key part of Atos’s big data and security business has expired without a definitive agreement being reached.

80% of developers need to upgrade their skills by 2027

Generative AI is reshaping the developer role, notes Gartner in a new report.

Things get nasty in lawsuit between WordPress.org and WP Engine

A legal squabble between the two companies threatens to make that market segment too toxic for the enterprise.

Acumatica goes all-in on AI with hundreds of enhancements to its ERP platform

The ERP company is releasing its new UI and rolling out more than 350 enhancements based on input from its community of 26,000 developers.

Accenture-Nvidia deal: A first peek into the new world of gen AI-centric strategies

Wednesday’s Accenture announcement only makes sense in the context of how enterprise IT can function in a universe that is being wholly rewritten by generative AI business rules.

Accenture forms new Nvidia business group focused on agentic AI adoption

Partnering with Nvidia, Accenture’s new business group, built on the Accenture AI Refinery platform, aims to help clients jump-start their agentic AI journeys while a network of engineering hubs in Europe, Asia, and North America will support t

US port strike has CIOs prepping for supply chain implications

Seasoned by recent supply chain challenges, IT leaders are better positioned to help their organizations navigate the potential protracted work stoppage by dock workers across the Eastern US seaboard.

EU taps AI experts to develop compliance framework for AI regulations

Four working groups, each focusing on different aspects of AI governance, will draft the EU AI Act’s “code of practice.”

74% of workers suggest employers to blame for their AI skills gap

Employees who see AI as their greatest skill deficiency are confident they can learn the technology if only their organizations gave them adequate upskilling support.

The CIO100 Awards offer more than just a trophy—they reflect your organization’s drive for excellence. Nominations open October 1, 2024

Microsoft joins SAP, Oracle in setting sunset date for legacy ERP support

The end of the road approaches for Dynamics GP as Microsoft pushes users towards its cloud offerings and the lure of AI. Analysts agree it’s time to make the switch.

Cloudflare wants to help you to get paid for the use of your data in AI training

Even as some prominent AI company leaders say publishers “overestimate” the value of their data, Cloudflare is creating a new marketplace where AI companies pay up to train with copyrighted data.

DoJ gets tough on evaluation of corporate compliance

CIOs now must ensure their AI complies with the law and received adequate human supervision … or else.

Google EU complaint: Microsoft is punishing enterprises that use rivals to Azure

‘Even for customers who opt to pay the 400% markup, Microsoft refuses to provide critical upgrades and security updates,' said the complaint.

Bain warns: Prepare for AI chip shortage

Despite this ominous prediction, analysts say there are steps CIOs can take to prevent AI plans from being derailed.

US Labor Department suggests new guidelines to ensure inclusiveness in AI-supported hiring process

The framework may cause short-term stress, but ultimately long-term benefits for IT decision-makers as they ensure their use of the technology does not introduce bias against people with disabilities.

SAP faces probe in the US over alleged price fixing in government contracts

DOJ lawyers have been investigating SAP since 2022 to determine if the company illegally colluded with Carahsoft to set prices for SAP technology used by the US government.

German firms shed light on CrowdStrike disaster’s fallout

One in 10 German companies surveyed are looking to switch IT security vendors, having endured on average 10 hours of business disruption, and two to three days until full recovery.

ServiceNow certificate error disrupts operations for hundreds of organizations

The expired MID Server Root G2 SSL certificate caused connectivity failures across multiple services, including Orchestration, Discovery, and AI-powered functions such as Virtual Agent.

Dreamforce 2024: Latest news and insights

Dreamforce 2024, which debuted in 2003, kicks off on Tuesday in San Francisco. Among many other topics. the CRM SaaS vendor will showcase Agentforce.

5 key takeaways from Dreamforce 2024

Salesforce’s flagship event included the debut of Agentforce, as well as additions to Data Cloud and AI everywhere.