Gianforte, founder and chief executive of RightNow, whose clients include John Deere and British Airways .
The acquisition of RightNow by Oracle makes sense for both companies CRM solutions strategies.
This is a strength of RightNow- one of the pioneers of the SaaS deployment model.
Rival start-ups with similar business models have emerged, such as RightNow Technologies, NetSuite and SalesNet.
This formula has worked for RightNow.com, which promises to cut your call-center costs with a Web-hosted service.
To see RightNow in action, go to ssa.gov, the homepage for the U.S. Social Security Administration.
Those kinds of companies have thrived on the conventional software approach that RightNow execs tend to criticize.
Companies like RightNow and Taleo are cloud companies with a different DNA than the software companies of old.
Forrester rates the RightNow as a leader in our WAVE for CRM and CRM customer service suites.
If RightNow's traction in the government market is any indicator, investors might want to jump off the sidelines now.
The two companies made other cloud purchases, including RightNow Technologies and Ariba Inc.
"RightNow is on a mission to educate the government market, " says David M.
But RightNow's Sortzi argues big tech services companies also appreciate RightNow's low-maintenance model.
Of course, RightNow relies on more than buzz to crack the federal market.
To carry out that mission, RightNow holds quarterly federal users events in Washington.
The big risk to this deal is that the corporate cultures of Oracle and RightNow could not be more different.
So companies like LivePerson ( LPSN) and RightNow Technologies ( RNOW) just really held in there well through this correction.
RightNow Technologies (nasdaq: RNOW - news - people ) stock is off 30% from its 2004 high.
Indeed, the presence of MSU is the reason Greg Gianforte picked Bozeman as a place to launch RightNow Technologies in 1997.
Many clients that have chosen RightNow may not be happy to hear that Oracle is their new software supplier for customer service.
Further down the food chain, RightNow, a 280-employee firm in Bozeman, Mont.
Like Salesforce.com , RightNow aimed to sell its customer relationship management (CRM) software as a low-maintenance, Web-based service, not a shrink-wrapped product.
Current and prospective customers gather to hear from RightNow users and execs, compare notes, eat lunch and attend workshops on technical topics.
There is a mis-match between Oracle and RightNow cultures which threatens to put RightNow employees and customers at risk unless this culture gap is bridged.
In a 2011 research project conducted by CX application vendor RightNow, 89% of consumers said that yes, a bad experience has spurred them to switch brands.
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RightNow is a Bozeman, Montana company best known for self-service web software, such as the ability to manage your own returns with a web retailer like Overstock.com.
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RightNow goes for 4.3 times sales, below multiples of 5.5 and 7.5 for Oracle and Salesforce.com (nyse: CRM - news - people ), respectively.
Hilal, associate director of research and equity analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey. (FBR makes a market in RightNow shares but does no banking work for the company).
Last December, the company hired Chris Sortzi who, as RightNow's public sector vice president, oversees business with 170 government entities worldwide, including 50 within the U.S. federal government.
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