By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is Jack Johnson’s lovely Hawaiian-tinged, acoustic guitar-driven In Between Dreams:
Customer Relationship Management vendor Talisma is announcing the immediate availability of Talisma CRM 7.0,
what company officials are billing as “the latest version of the industry’s
most powerful multi-channel CRM solution.”
The 7.0 release claims more than 100 new and enhanced features and four new
add-on modules. The upgrades are aimed at bolstering the product’s sales force
automation, customer interaction management and customer service functions.
The new version of CRM suite provides “significant enhancements across all areas
of the customer lifecycle,” with company officials highlighting additions such
as greater access to disparate data sources, improved user experience and
administration capabilities and software diagnostics.
…
It’s a done deal, folks, but today Siebel Systems, Inc. has announced
details for its Special Meeting of Stockholders to be held on January 31, 2006
at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time to vote on
the proposed acquisition of the company by Oracle Corporation.
Siebel’s been after Oracle to acquire it for some time now,
they caught Larry Ellison in a hungry mood a few months ago.
As previously announced, the meeting will take place at the
San Mateo Marriott Hotel, 1770 South Amphlett Boulevard, San Mateo, California,
94402. In addition, the meeting will be accessible via telephone in listen-only
mode by dialing 1-888-754-4179 toll-free within North America or (212) 231-6020
outside of North America. Access is also available online at
www.siebel.com/investor. A replay of the meeting will be available at this same
Web address.
Haven’t heard from Siebel’s acerbic, witty Bruce Cleveland in a while, shame, he
writes some of the most interesting company releases around today.
…
By the way, word has it NetClarity’s going to offer free vulnerability auditing of VoIP equipment soon, helping VoIP
equipment manufacturers take a more proactive approach to security issues. Catch
NetClarity founder Gary Miliefsky’s
talk to the TMC VoIP Conference and Expo in Ft. Lauderdale this Friday.
…
Today’s the birthday of that noted American film auteur, Tobe Hooper, who gave us that 1974 classic,
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
…
Bentley Systems, Inc. today announced that
it has signed a global agreement with
SAP AG. Under the agreement, SAP will resell mySAP PLM Integration for
Bentley, integrated with mySAP Product Lifecycle Management, directly to its
customers.
Bentley’s mySAP PLM Integration for Bentley is being pushed
as “an important connection between the worlds of engineering information and
enterprise information,” through which data flows in both directions, “enabling
the two solutions to operate as one – cutting costs, increasing efficiencies,
and maximizing business competitiveness.”
In a plant environment, naturally integrating engineering with the rest of the
enterprise offers significant benefits for both the engineers and builders of
these assets and the owner-operators maintaining and operating them. It’s
doable – according to conservative estimates from major firms provided by
Bentley, the following reductions are achievable:
15 to 20 percent in hours of project engineering work,
4 to 6 percent in capital expenditure budget, and
1 to 5 percent in overall total cost of ownership.
In the utilities industry, for example, where service to the end customer is
paramount, these reductions quickly translate to a greater competitive edge.
“With the new system,” according to Dr. Andrea Zampollo, SIT project manager for
AEM Torino, a utility customer using products from Bentley and SAP who recently
implemented mySAP PLM Integration for Bentley, “there’s no more need to
re-enter and validate in the design environment all the information that
already resides in SAP’s CRM.”
Most companies that maintain assets in utilities, chemical
companies, petroleum refineries, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, and
other process plants agree that at least one day per week can be saved by not
having to look for, re-enter, and revalidate asset information before
performing a maintenance task.
On the capital projects side, when owner-operators work more
collaboratively with engineering firms on design and delivery, they get a more
efficient plant and project. For example, by sharing maintenance and operations
considerations early in the plant design phase, owner-operators can significantly
cut their total cost of ownership.
At the same time, by integrating engineering functions with procurement,
engineers can reduce the amount of surplus material typically ordered for
projects. This results in significant savings since overages typically reach or
exceed 20 percent.
…
A joint initiative comprised of UPC Netherlands, Casema,
MultiKabel,
Essent and
CaiW,
totaling more than 7 million subscribers with more than 450,000 telephony
subscribers, today awarded the VoIP
Peering contract to a partnership of XConnect, which styles itself “the world’s
largest provider of ‘Plug and Peer’ VoIP interconnection services” and Kayote
Networks, a provider of interconnectivity tools for routing and
peering.
This agreement lets all participating operators share VoIP
traffic directly over their IP networks, completely bypassing traditional phone
networks and thereby eliminating PSTN interconnection fees.
All five Dutch cable operators formed a working group in
late 2005 to try to get full end-to-end IP communications services between
cable operators with no interconnection required through the incumbent
telephone networks. After a search process the group selected XConnect and
Kayote Networks for the VoIP Peering contract, taking into consideration ENUM
management (providing a secure and distributed database system of phone
numbers), full interoperability between disparate cable operators and a wide
range of VoIP security challenges.
The joint project, called the XConnect SIP-Exchange, will allow
multimedia-rich IP communications services, such as video and presence, across
all the interconnected VoIP networks.
XConnect has more than 75 ITSPs in 20 countries within its network. Kayote is XConnect’s
strategic technology partner for VoIP interconnectivity.
The Netherlands is one of the most highly saturated cable marketplaces, with
more than 97% cable penetration in the country. Dutch cable operators,
otherwise known as Multiple Systems Operators, include UPC, MultiKabel, Casema,
Essent and CAIW, totaling more than 450,000 VoIP subscribers, or more than 6
percent penetration of the 7 million homes passed.
…
Fresh off from managing to look both pompous and clueless on the Senate
Judiciary Committee hearings (boy, was Hillary Clinton smart to stay off that
committee or what?), New York Democrat Sen. Chuckles Schumer wants to stop the selling of phone records. He’s
introduced legislation to ban the practice.
The issue hit radar when Chicago
Sun-Times crime reporter Frank Main reported earlier this month that the
FBI bought records from an agent’s cell phone on the open market.If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/
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