First Coffee for June 14, 2005

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
| CRM, ERP, Contact Center, Turkish Coffee and Astroichthiology:

First Coffee for June 14, 2005

By David Sims
[email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is an iTunes mix, current selection 1980’s “Romeo’s Tune” by Steve Forbert:

Thank God Michael Jackson was found innocent of all charges. First CoffeeSM can end his fast and start concentrating on work again.

This came in late yesterday, but First CoffeeSM is sure you were as distracted by waiting for the Michael Jackson verdict as he was so no doubt it slipped by you. Nuasis, which bills itself “the IP contact center company” announced that it has opened an east coast customer support, professional services and software development center in Montreal, which is close to Canada.

Company officials say its “growing east coast customer base” dictated the move. The new location is also an extension of the company’s California-based software development department: “Having a customer support center in the east coast time zone gives us greater availability to our growing east coast customer base,” explained Senya Rahmil, vice president of customer services and quality assurance, Nuasis.

Montreal is recognized as a global center for voice telecommunications expertise as it counts among its largest employers some of the industry’s giants such as Nortel Networks and Excel Communications.

Interesting ongoing thread at Pocket PC Thoughts on the availability of a pocket PC CRM application.

Jason Dunn posted “A friend asked me about a CRM application for the Pocket PC, and I drew a blank because that’s something I don’t know much about. So I’m turning to you, our very smart readers, to help me find a solution for him. The application should be like a contact manager, but also have support for customer records, service requests, history, etc. It should sync to the PC, either with a desktop version of the same app, or perhaps Outlook or another PIM tool. Is there anything on the market like that?

One respondent mentioned something Lilly Software Associates has, with the frank disclaimer “I have not used it, but work for the company, Lilly Software Associates now Infor Global Solutions.” The product’s called Visual Mobile, and its writeup says whether users are on the road, at home, or just away from their desk, they can track critical records and keep in touch with current executive and financial news, including order, product, invoice and payment info.

Somebody else chimed in with “This doesn’t help today, but Microsoft is releasing a version of its Business Contact Manager Software for Windows Mobile sometime soon. It is currently in Beta.

“Microsoft released an upgrade to the desktop version of BCM that is compatible with MS Small Business Server Exchange. A registry tweak on your PC will enable it to work with any version of Exchange. If you own MS Office Professional, you should have received a BCM CD with it and can install this in prep for the upcoming mobile release. However, you cannot sync your Business Contacts from BCM with your WM device until they release the mobile version.

“Alternatively, he could try ACT! or Goldmine on his desktop and sync using CompanionLink with his WM device. He’ll have to make tasks or the like to build the history of service records though, since WM doesn’t really provide this function.”

However, as someone else noted, “The bad news seems to be both of these mobile CRM solution requires a server purchase as well. I would like to see the mobile version of the Business Contact Manager software. Maybe that will be a solution for some of us.”

Someone else wrote to say that Goldmine does not, in fact, work very well. Someone else noted a Microsoft product. And one guy said “Well, I created a contact manager using HanDBase and their Runtime environment. You can download the trial version here.

“With this app you can create company records, then contacts for that company and notes, activities and opportunities for each contact. I’ve been a big CRM fan for a long time and tried to build everything in it I could. Because it is built using HanDBase it can be synced to the desktop and use either the HanDBase desktop or other database programs. DDH Software has a conduit for MS Access and ODBC.”

First CoffeeSM hopes some of that helps someone somewhere.

Nokia has deployed its WCDMA 3G network product for Indonesian operator Telkomsel to assess 3G services such as video sharing. The trial network will operate in the metropolitan Jakarta area over a six-month period.

Under the agreement, Nokia is providing a complete Nokia WCDMA 3G radio and core network, including the 3GPP Release 4 based Nokia MSC Server System and the 3GPP Release 5 based Nokia IP Multimedia System. The Nokia MSC Server System enables operators like Telkomsel to simultaneously deploy 2G and 3G services on the same switching system.

Nokia’s 3G trial deployment also comprises GSM core network elements and the Nokia UltraSite Supreme Node B base stations, as well as the Nokia Preminet Solution for delivering hosted data services over the network.

Deliveries have been completed, and the system is fully operational. Nokia is also providing a comprehensive system integration project as part of the trial network deployment.
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Lucent Technologies has been busy at the CommunicAsia show running today through Friday at the Singapore Expo, among a slew of other deals signing with Telecom New Zealand to expand Telecom’s CDMA2000(R) 1xEV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) network, the fastest mobile data network in New Zealand. The deal will enable Telecom to provide subscribers in every main city and town in Aotearoa with new, high-speed mobile data services such as complete mobile office capabilities, high-quality video-on-demand and other high-bandwidth services at speeds of up to 2.4 mbps.
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Kayote Networks, Inc., a developer of advanced IP communication services, announced today that it has successfully closed a private funding round of $2 million. The funds will be used for continued research and development of Kayote’s VoIP security products to combat Spam over Internet Telephony, appropriately acronymized as SPIT.

Dr. Baruch Sterman, CEO of Kayote Networks said enabling a secure, integrated and fully interconnected VoIP system “is the focus of our efforts and we are continuing to apply our technology expertise to create practical and robust solutions for the emerging mass adoption of VoIP in residential and enterprise markets.”

Security issues grow along with VoIP, especially when you start talking about widespread adoption – particularly in full IP to IP communication. Kayote’s proprietary technology-based solutions are designed to solve some the prevailing problems that exist today, including interoperability, security, Denial of Service prevention, demarcation (IP topology masking and full anonymization of call flow), caller-ID authorization and SPIT detection.

First CoffeeSM wants anybody who thinks there are two standards of justice in America, one for rich celebrities who can hire legal Dream Teams and work the media and another one for the rest of us who can’t, to simply look at O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson to see that under the law, all are equal.

If  read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content placement, but “appreciates” a kilo of Jamaican Blue Mountain Peaberry whole bean coffee.



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