SPY WARE is one of the most important issues threatening the CRM community today. There are few things more likely to evoke a visceral response from a soccer mom than spyware, those invisible programs that can cripple a computer. Enterprises of any size that depend on fast, cheap, Internet transport to communicate with customers should also be concerned.

Often a spyware problem manifests as slow performance-users first suspect a hardware problem, so they call their PC vendor's support line. "It is a big problem for us," says Jennifer Davis, a spokeswoman for Dell Computer, "because customers are not getting as much out of their technology investments."

It's also a growing drain on resources. According to Davis, Dell first noticed an uptick in customer service calls related to spyware in August 2003. That problem mushroomed into a service nightmare that last year was responsible for 12 percent of calls into Dell's service center, and as much as 20 percent of calls into the company's help desk.