By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is Jim White’s 1997 CD Wrong-Eyed Jesus:
Always nice to run into a new product or company in the
course of work, that’s one thing that keeps this job more interesting than
washing windows or some other jobs First CoffeeSM’s had, and today
there’s Creative
Manager, Inc., which makes Creative
Project Manager and Creative Manager Pro, and has evidently released version
7.95 of its flagship product, “with improvements to the integrated calendar
for both Mac OS and Windows users,” company officials promise.
So what is this product? According to company officials, it’s
“the only ad agency software and project management software for the creative
design industry, created exclusively for design firms, ad agencies, in-house
creative/mar-com departments, and creative service firms.”
It’s web-based integrated project management and job
tracking solution which “streamlines the entire firm, from developing new
business, to staffing, managing, and executing projects through to accounting
and financial reporting.”
Works for business journalists too, at least for those who
can’t tackle the above chores with a cheap notebook, whiteboard and paper bag
for receipts. Those of us who run high-tech operations have a different manila
folder for each month’s receipts.
Creative Manager Pro supports CRM, document management, shared calendaring, accounting
and other functionalities. It’s web-based so there’s nothing to install – ad
agencies are notoriously skimpy on in-house IT. It works with both PC and
Macintosh from any location over any connection, and can be installed on the
client’s own servers.
It graphically shows your firm’s metrics – “manage your firm
by the numbers.” Helps with managing contact and leads, creating project
schedules, calendars and task management, timesheets, billing, budgets and “reviewing
and approving artwork online” as well as “full-featured CRM” – Client Relationship
Management.
With its version 7.95, company officials say, Creative Manager Pro has made “significant
improvements” to the calendar to bring it more on-par with Microsoft Outlook. Additional
improvements were made for Mac OS X 10.4.2 to improve reliability and
compatibility for iCal.
Yet as a “mature product with over eleven years in development, all new
features added can not be sexy headline grabbers. In fact, the majority of the
thirty-plus enhancements added to this release can only be appreciated by their
existing clients.”
…
Late yesterday afternoon David Utter at WebProNews
reported Sugar’s
released a beta version, online now of
their CRM product. Professional and a new Enterprise Edition will be
available for annual per-user prices of $239 and $449 respectively, he says.
Reportedly “a new Sugar Module Loader feature builds on Sugar’s open source
heritage, allowing for the easy addition or removal of third-party modules
without affecting the base application.”
Utter quotes John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM who says “The
Module Loader offers new revenue potential as well as an upgrade-safe path for
open source and commercial developers who write add-on modules for our Sugar
Suite.”
It has better support for Outlook and support for HTML
e-mails, which “lends itself to creating better-looking documents for
communications and marketing campaigns,” as Utter says.
…
Today at the SpeechTEK 2005 conference in New York, Third Party
Verification, Inc. (3PV) is announcing that it has selected Paraxip Technologies as its supplier of media gateway and
IP call recording software for their hosted service infrastructure.
The Paraxip Gateway product was picked to provide 3PV with an
upgrade to an IP telephony architecture using their existing computer telephony
cards, while the Paraxip IP Record product allows 3PV to control the call
recording process, whether the calls are automated through a voice platform, or
are transferred to an agent using an IP phone or even if the calls are
transferred to an agent in an internal or external call center connected
through the traditional telephony network.
Dale Combs, President of 3PV said Paraxip was chosen was because their products
“not only allow us to re-use our existing infrastructure of computer telephony
cards, they also bring us standard SIP connectivity through a flexible,
software-based” product.
Paraxip IP Record does not require data switch monitoring
like many other IP call recording solutions in the market. Instead it uses the
Call Forking feature of the Paraxip Gateway to record a call according to the
routing configuration on the gateway, regardless of its location, whether it is
connected to an automated application, an IP-based agent or redirected to
another endpoint on the PSTN.
…
This came out yesterday on Networking
Pipeline, but First CoffeeSM missed it and you might have too. Pandora
Networks is introducing Worksmart, an IP communications product designed
for small and medium-sized businesses. It’s to help SMB IT Managers “provision
departments and workgroups with the widest variety of integrated IP telephony,
video, collaboration and instant messaging communications services available,”
according to the write-up.
Pandora was the Greek goddess of hysterically overwrought pessimistic
predictions.
…
Your normal cuppa joe not really getting you out of the
blocks in the morning anymore? Asking for that extra shot of espresso? Catapult
Coffee wants to meet you.
It has “added herbs for greater vitality and clarity,”
according to Catapult president David Sollars, who notes that the fact that the
coffee is being sold in drugstores as well as normal Stop and Shop grocery
stores in the Northeast is “tremendous. Our coffee feels like the perfect fit
for a drugstore customer. The drug channel also seems to be an early adopter of
this new coffee concept since their consumers already buy herbs and vitamins at
their locations.”
They sell four different flavors and “all four coffees
contain extracts from the following three herbs, and are listed in FDA
regulations for use in food and beverages:
“Yerba Mate – Used throughout South America to make a
popular drink known for relieving both mental and physical fatigue. Angelica
Sinensis (Dong Quai) – One of the most highly respected herbs used in
traditional Chinese medicine. This high-energy herb helps maintain healthy
circulation and blood flow. Guarana Seed Powder – The people of the Amazon rain forest use crushed guarana seeds as a beverage
to decrease fatigue and increase energy.”
In other words, this wants to be the coffee version of Jolt Cola. “Coffee is more than a
drink. It’s become an integral part of how we jump-start our day,” says Sollars. “Power up and go!”
Reviewers aren’t impressed with the energetic claims. “I
didn’t notice any increase in energy, and I really can’t make any comments on
whether or not my circulation has improved. But it was a good cup of coffee,
nonetheless,” says reviewer Sean
Paajanen.
Want that extra zip in the morning? When First CoffeeSM
worked the midnight wait shift we used to take a lime wheel from the bar,
sprinkle sugar on one half and coffee grounds on the other and eat it, rind and
all. Talk about zip, friends.
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/
for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored
content.
