By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter:”

Eye-opening stuff here in the news this morning:

PHILADELPHIA - The Justice Department is demanding internal files from dozens of Internet service providers and other technology firms as it seeks to defend a controversial Internet child protection law.

The subpoenas are similar to one given to Google Inc., which waged a partially successful battle over the government’s request for millions of pieces of information about search engine requests and Web site domains.

InformationWeek magazine unearthed subpoenas that show the government also demanded information from at least 34 other companies, including Internet service providers such as Comcast Corp. and EarthLink Inc., security software firms and other technology companies.

The subpoenas, which the magazine obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, show the Justice Department preparing for an October trial in Philadelphia over the 1996 Child Online Protection Act. It is not clear which companies are complying, and to what extent.

“That money could be spent so much more wisely on giving software away to parents that are having these problems,” Dan Jude, president of Security Software Systems, said of the litigation costs.

The 12-person firm, which makes filtering software, spent more than 40 hours trying to comply with the subpoena, he said. The company refused to provide some information on proprietary grounds, fearing it could make its way into the court file.

“If that information gets out in the public, we’ve just lost our competitive edge,” Jude said Thursday.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Best of MFO, the band MFO being not only the best Turkish rock band ever, but for my money the best non-Anglophone rock band I’ve ever heard. Think The Kinks with stronger vocals for an approximate comparison, a good pop/rock sound with a few elements of traditional Turkish music used as part of the overall sound, not tossed in gratuitously to say “ethnic.” Their haunting ballad “Bodrum” is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard anywhere.

Trillium Software, a division of Harte-Hanks and a vendor of Total Data Quality products, has announced that it is to provide its TS Quality enterprise data quality software to global telecommunications provider BT on an enterprise-wide license basis.

The software is support for BT’s customer relationship management installation by Siebel, one of the most sizeable CRM implementations anywhere in the world.

The agreement extends an existing license based on user numbers, to permit BT unlimited, worldwide use of TS Quality as part of its Total Data Quality drive for continuous improvement in customer service and business performance.

“Customer name and address information is an extremely valuable BT asset,” said James Gault, program director, product and customer data platforms. “We must manage the quality of that data with strategic intent in all corners of the organization.”

According to Gault, TS Quality enables BT to standardize source data formats, to recognize and handle duplicates, and to mold fragmented records into linked information. Across multiple systems, BT officials expect this data quality regimen to benefit “hundreds of vital business processes.”

One such vital business process is regulatory compliance with undertakings agreed with OFCOM’s Telecomms Service Review, to ensure all service providers have transparent and equal access to the nationwide local BT network.

OFCOM is the United Kingdom Office of Communications, the regulating agency of UK telecommunications services.

…

Today In Business History: On this day in 1886, John Pemberton perfected a headache and hangover remedy he had cooked up over a fire in his backyard, according to Writer’s Almanac: It contained coca leaves and extract of kola nut, and he advertised it as an “Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage.”

He had been making something called “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca,” but Atlanta had just passed a prohibition law, and he had to come up with an alcohol-free formula. He sweetened the new elixir with sugar instead of wine, and his bookkeeper suggested he name the beverage “Coca-Cola.”

...

Think of a company whose business it is to help people track down old tableware patterns, complete sets and find particular antique pieces.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Gustav Holst's The Planets:

Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. has announced the delivery of its IP contact center system based on Oki's computer telephony integration server, CTstage 4i for .NET, to Suruga Bank Ltd., a Japanese bank proud of its retail banking division.

Oki's contact center system" improves Suruga Bank's business efficiency and productivity by flexibility responding to changes and expansions, and connecting to the bank's CRM," according to Oki officials.

Operation for the 150 seats, out of 250 seats at Suruga's Direct Banking, starts from April 2006.

"We believe our contact center system can help improve business efficiency and simplify the business flow at Suruga Bank, who is known for their innovative approach towards retail banking," said Katsuyoshi Koide, President of Multimedia Messaging Company at Oki Electric.

Koide said Oki plans offer the system to customers "in the financial institutions in Japan" in need of strengthening their contact centers.

Suruga Bank will use the system to improve its inbound and outbound business efficiency, since the operators in charge can control the order of incoming calls and take calls by implementing the "free group" function. This means calls can be received from any group, having the appropriate operator skill level, which company officials say will also increases Suruga's close rate.

In addition, by seamlessly connecting the activities of receiving loan enquires, screening, and responding, the bank simplifies the enquiry flow and eliminates paper-based methods.

Phone calls received at branch offices will now be forwarded to the contact centers via IP networks, thus centralizing all inquiry handling. Going forward, Suruga Bank plans to increase the number of branch offices forwarding calls to the contact center, and increase the number of seats at the center.

Oki launched the CTstage in 1996 as a Computer Telephony Integration system to converge computer and telephony. CTstage 4i is the model launched in 2002 that provides a contact center product with softswitch and UnPBX architectures.

…

Cellon International, a vendor of end-to-end design and systems integration services for the wireless handset industry, have announced an expansion of its development team through the establishment of Cellon Shanghai.

The expansion, accomplished by acquiring design operations, is a move to strengthen Cellon's China-based operations and broaden the company's capabilities to the full range of technologies in current wireless handset development.

The acquired design operations comprise approximately 160 engineers, and broaden Cellon's technology portfolio to include CDMA, W-CDMA and WiFi. That expansion gives Cellon proven expertise across all current major wireless standards, and company officials reckon it puts them in "an excellent position to remain at the leading edge" of future development.

The strengthening of Cellon's China-based design operations is in line with the industry's increasing concentration in China for handset development and manufacturing operations.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Pogues’ If I Should Fall From Grace With God:

Esmertec, a vendor of software and services for the telecommunication, interactive multimedia, and consumer electronics markets, will announce its client-server M2M product, OSVM Universe.

OSVM Universe contains features for the M2M market and is “suited for use in automation, fleet management, and vending machines,” company officials say, adding that it “can also be integrated to existing enterprise products such as ERP or a CRM system with a server-side plug-in.”

Using two-way wireless communication, OSVM Universe provides companies with a means to service and update devices deployed in the field. It also offers developers a tool for creating M2M applications, which can exchange application data between the device and the server.

OSVM Universe features a user-friendly integrated development environment, as well as what company officials describe as a “virtual machine-based embedded platform and a secure remote device administrator,” which enables remote, scalable and automated on-the-fly software upgrade for large numbers of M2M devices.

Lars Bak, Chief Architect of Esmertec describes OSVM Universe as “an M2M software product for devices with limited resources,” since it can be deployed on existing platforms and “enables cost savings in device management.”

…

Evidently NetSuite wants to follow in the footsteps of Salesforce.com, as the hosted CRM vendor plans to go public and establish operations in China before the end of this year, according to the company’s President and CEO Zach Nelson.

Industry observer China Martens is reporting that Nelson says he thinks he can match the “ten times revenue valuation” rival Salesforce.com got when it filed for an initial public offering in June 2004, Nelson said in an interview Wednesday. “Going IPO is more of a marketing event for us to increase our visibility and credibility,” he told Martens.

Martens says that while NetSuite had considered going public towards the end of 2005, they “decided waiting until later this year would give the company more of a chance of matching Salesforce.com’s IPO performance which valued Salesforce.com at over $1 billion,” citing comments from Nelson.

NetSuite racked up $70 million in revenue in 2005, and expects to do at least $100 million this year.

Nelson also told Martens that having set up a wholly owned subsidiary in Japan earlier this month, NetSuite now wants to tap the lucrative China market by working with local partners.

NetSuite’s hosted enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management products are aimed at the SME market.

…

Contact center equipment and furnishings manufacturer Pro Tech Communications, Inc. has reported net sales for the three months ended December 31, 2005 were $379,504, compared to $315,689 in the same period in 2004, an increase of $63,815, or 20.2 percent.

This increase was primarily due to contact center sales. Net loss for the three months ended December 31, 2005 was $623,648, compared to $511,569 for the same period a year ago, an unfavorable variance of $112,079, or 21.9 percent.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” proudly downloaded from iTunes just this morning:

The only really truly important fact you need to know in this whole iPod-iTunes flap in France is the following, from Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster:

“We estimate that approximately 20 percent of iPod and iTunes sales occur outside of the U.S. The French market alone is likely less than 2 percent of iPod and iTunes business.”

France’s lower house of parliament has passed a law requiring not only Apple, but all those who sell downloadable music in the country, to provide compatibility – all downloadable music must be playable on all devices, be they Apple, Sony, whatever.

On the one hand this looks fair, but seeing as how Apple has over 80 percent of the market it’s obviously targeted to knock down Apple’s market share. It’s an extraordinarily badly-written law, as almost all laws trying to impose wishful thinking on market forces are, so much so that even Apple’s competitors in the market are wary of it.

So is Apple going to trash their exclusivity for the sake of two percent of their market? First CoffeeSM doesn’t think so, friends. Bet on Apple to simply pull out of France and create a thriving black market for iTunes in France, rather than comply with the law and create a thriving black market for French iPods in the rest of the world.

Not to say I’m surprised by what France is doing.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark… nah, save that for the white wine with the wife after the kids are in bed tonight, the working music is Ike and Tina Turner’s 18 Classic Tracks:

Clearing off the news from last week, First CoffeeSM would like to note the release of Bridgedexchange Version 3.6, web-based CRM.

There’s a pretty good, detailed description the company sent along of what the product does, and as it sounds like it serves as a good primer for how these kinds of products tend to work, there are differences, but basically it’s a good example of how on-demand CRM works, so we’ll go over it in a bit more detail in case you’ve never seen one explained and frankly wonder what it’s like, and don’t want to appear more ignorant than you have to at cocktail parties and in front of consultants who might then get dollar signs in their eyes when they realize you don’t know stuff like this:

Users of the system can manage the layout, customize web based forms, search for contacts in the system, manage documents, and tracking e-mails with a customized template. The information’s stored on another server not in your building, you simply access it via browser the way you hit Google and the Victoria’s Secret site.

The system lets users track their own sales progress, and lets managers track it as well. The sale cycle can be customized in the MYpreferences area. The CRM administrators can add or remove sales steps to help manage the sales cycle.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is.. oh, let’s dig out something Oirish in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which is virtually ignored in Ireland as it’s always been much more about the American Irish experience (the name “Erin” originated outside of Ireland, among expats), bunch of Irish getting together in the pub in Boston, New York and Chicago to drink Guinness, sing and reminisce about the stories Gran’ma told about the Auld Sod… what’ve we got here… okay, The Dust Rhinos’ “Wild Mountain Thyme.” Yeah it’s Scottish, but close enough, the Rhinos – great band – are certainly mick through and through, and it’s still the best song ever written about trotting off into the hills for a little afternoon delight. Yee-ha, Erin Go Bragh:

This summary is as good as any:

“St.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first (iced) coffee this morning, and the music is Elvis’s “Kentucky Rain,” just everything a great song should be:

We’ll start off with one for the pocket protector set:

Japan’s Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. is announcing that it has succeeded in transmitting 160Gb/s data, which is equivalent to transmitting four movies of two hours each, in a single second over 396 miles.

This experiment was conducted as part of the “Research and Development on Ultrahigh-speed Backbone Photonic Network Technologies” project, consigned by National Institute of Information and Communications Technology. Oki used an optical testbed provided by Japan Gigabit Network II, and succeeded in transmitting world’s first 160Gb/s data, that included high-vision video.

The optical testbed offered by JGN II is an optical fiber, single mode optical fiber 63.5km x 10 fiber cables, installed between Open Laboratory in Kyoto and Dojima Relay Station in Osaka. At each connection point an optical amplifier similar to a relay station for commercial-use 10Gb/s data transmissions, and a dispersion compensation fiber were installed.

Oki’s saying this is the world’s first transmission of signal evaluation data simultaneous with high-vision video. Harushige Sugimoto, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Oki Electric, says the test proves that “it can be used for backbone lines such as the super high-speed optical communication between Tokyo and Osaka,” 312 miles apart, “which is 16 times higher in speed than the 10Gb/s systems that are commercialized.”

Sugimoto thinks that 160Gb/s optical transmission is “the next generation super high-speed optical transmission technology to be commercialized after 2010.”

…

I get as many fraud e-mails and cheap Viagra ads as the next small business owner, but this one is One Of The Funniest Ones I’ve Gotten Recently:

I Am Prince Nana Opuku Asare Jr. I Am 37 Years And The Eldest Male Child Of Late, Chief Kwesi Opoku Asare the Late Traditional Ruler of the Central Region Ghana.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is John Coltrane’s Love Supreme:

That’s one of the advantages of being self-employed, you do really well in the office March Madness bracket pool every year. This year at First CoffeeSM I have Duke, Connecticut, Villanova, Memphis, Texas, UCLA, Tennessee, Ohio State, Florida, North Carolina, Iowa and Gonzaga, LSU, Kansas, Illinois and Boston College.

…

Cleaning up the leftover news from last week, China looks like they’re betting big on RFID. According to tech research firm In-Stat, the government has bought over 100 million tags, shipped in 2005, and has arranged for more than 2.9 billion tags to be shipped by 2009.

First CoffeeSM imagines there will not be the lively airing of privacy concerns in China that there is in the United States.

From 2005 through 2009, a major RFID application will be for human ID through China’s second-generation Resident ID Card program, the high-tech market research firm says.

Tag prices are still relatively expensive, ranging from a low of around 15 cents to a high of over $200.

With a population of over 1.3 billion, the issuance of RFID-tag-inlaid Resident ID cards by the Ministry of Public Security (read: police force) is one of the biggest RFID projects in the world. More than one billion ID cards will be issued before the end of 2008.

A recent report by In-Stat found that beginning in 2008, RFID tags used for items will exceed those used for resident ID cards, making the retail industry the biggest consumer of tags.

...

Google Inc. has purchased Upstartle LLC in an effort to challenge Microsoft, according to The Wall Street Journal.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion.” Sometimes straight coffee just doesn’t do it in the morning, folks:

All the legal wrangling over and done, Research In Motion is jumping right back in it, announcing the immediate availability of BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server - Small Business Edition v4.1 for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino.

“Incorporating feedback from thousands of enterprise customers across the globe,” RIM officials say, BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 includes new functionality that makes it “easier than ever to expand populations of BlackBerry users and manage larger scale deployments.”

The new release provides tighter integration with leading platforms for enterprise instant messaging, including Microsoft Windows Messenger, Live Communications Server 2005 and IBM Lotus Sametime. BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 also incorporates support for the new BlackBerry Mobile Data System v4.1 application development and deployment environment, which includes BlackBerry MDS Studio, a new visual development tool for creating BlackBerry wireless applications from Web Services.

RIM is also announcing acquisition of Ascendent Systems, a vendor of products that simplify voice mobility implementations in the enterprise.

Ascendent, a member of the BlackBerry ISV Alliance Program, makes the Ascendent Voice Mobility Suite, a standards-based software product that augments existing PBX and IP-PBX systems and supports heterogeneous telephony environments to “push” voice calls and extend corporate desk phone functionality to mobile users on their wireless handset or any wireline phone.

Ascendent will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIM. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

…

Salesboom.com, a vendor of on demand CRM and ERP, has released parts of legal documents exchanged between it and Salesforce.com, according to Salesboom officials.

In the documents – this is all according to Salesboom, mind you – Salesforce.com senior Vice President and former General Counsel David Schellhase “openly accuses Salesboom, on more than one occasion, of attempting to ‘trade off the goodwill created by salesforce.com,’ citing the similarities of the two companies’ names.”

That, and the similarity of Salesboom’s terminology to Salesforce.com’s – “Zero Software Promise,” e.g. Frankly the thought that the smaller Salesboom.com is trying to bask in a little reflected glory has crossed more than one CRM mind.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is “The Woman Downstairs” by The Handsome Family, which someone recommended I listen to but which I’m not sure is a keeper. I mean, I’ve already got Tom Waits and Jim White:

The PSI Call Center has changed its name to PSI Contact Center to reflect “the expansion of new technologies for customer relationships and contacts,” according to company officials.

The new name, PSI Contact Center, “better reflects that more and more of the programs PSI has been doing are based upon managing the total customer contact process in a ‘multi-level access’ communication environment,” company officials said.

In addition to managing inbound/outbound call programs, like a good, self-respecting call center, the “contact center” manages e-mail communications from customers and prospects. PSI is also working on integrating the web and the call center to provide 2-way video interaction with customers and prospects, instant expert assistance, concierge services, and chats.

Larry Evans, President, says that as of March 1, the company had 130 call stations in service: “This expansion reflects the growing need of our clients to track all aspects of the customer relationships. Also, our expansion into help/desk and technical support services in all communication/contact modes warranted creating a new identity.”

PSI offers immediate responses to customers as they browse a website.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Everybody’s Bach, a decent, backgroundy snippet collection:

Business Objects, a vendor of business intelligence products, is announcing the availability of new Integration Kits for connecting the Oracle family of applications with BusinessObjects XI Release 2.

Business Objects provides customers with access to Oracle’s products and applications, including Oracle databases, Oracle OLAP multidimensional cubes, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, and Oracle’s e-Business Suite applications.

BusinessObjects XI Release 2 is described by company officials as providing Oracle customers with “an insulation layer that protects end-users from any changes going on behind the scenes with their IT infrastructure.”

By offering a BI product that is separated from the transactional systems, Business Objects contends, it helps companies avoid disruptions and “will allow Oracle customers to migrate to Fusion without impacting reporting and business intelligence access.”

“With the rapid pace of consolidation happening in the market today, a company’s information infrastructure seems to be in a constant state of flux,” said Rene Bonvanie, chief marketing officer at Business Objects.

The BusinessObjects XI Release 2 integration kits offer pre-built integration for faster time to benefit and feature native drivers and security plug-ins that use the existing security infrastructure. The integration kits employ secured reporting, interactive dashboards and scorecards.

Business Objects officials say the BI platform is embedded across all of Oracle’s PeopleSoft and JD Edwards applications. In addition, Business Objects already supports Oracle Fusion Middleware -- the foundation for future Oracle enterprise applications.

…

Zingo, Inc., an IP communications service provider servicing residential and commercial clients worldwide, is announcing that ZingoTel US and Canada customers can now reach a Public Safety Answering Point if needed for 9-1-1 assistance.

Basic 9-1-1 services provide the caller’s telephone number in most cases, but not the address location information, to PSAP. Basic 9-1-1 callers are required to give address location to dispatch 9-1-1 assistance if needed.

Zingo Telecom is presently testing E911 in United States service markets accessible to VoIP providers through E911 access routers under its current 9-1-1 service provider’s agreements.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Louis Jordan’s “Doug the Jitterbug:”

Green Beacon Solutions, a provider of strategy, consulting and implementation services for Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, and Marketing Automation technologies, has announced that it has developed a streamlined approach for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 upgrade projects that includes new and updated enhancements to help customers achieve more business value from their investments.

An inaugural Dynamics CRM partner, Green Beacon has already developed a set of targeted enhancements for prior releases that company officials describe as streamlining the user experience and enabling customers to maximize the return on their CRM investment.

The new Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 platform provides a more customizable framework for tailoring the user interface, business logic, and reporting to each client’s business needs. This architecture also lets Green Beacon’s consulting organization build targeted, vertical products that integrate with clients’ business processes.

“Unlike most network applications which can be installed and configured once, CRM applications must be customized and modified regularly to ensure that they address current business demands,” said Benjamin Holtz, CEO of Green Beacon Solutions.

Highlights of the Green Beacon’s customizations include:

Website Lead Capture. Green Beacon’s Lead Capture integration allows companies to convert website visitors into Microsoft Dynamics CRM leads. Prospects may enter contact information, request sales literature or complete surveys while online as Microsoft Dynamics CRM captures the prospect as a lead and triggers the beginning of the sales process, notifying the appropriate sales representative of the new lead to be qualified.

Customer Affinities.

By David Sims

david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the Alan Parsons Project’s Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, a great old album I discovered in high school, it was probably the second or third rock album I ever bought, behind The Steve Miller Band’s Fly Like an Eagle or Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits.

But such a good album – an entire song cycle based on Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Nothing the Project ever did after that came close to Tales, obviously – Parsons himself said later that he never intended to form an ongoing band, it was just a bunch of friends on a one-off deal, but the success of the Tales simply created a demand for more work from them – and few other rock albums “based on” great literature ever have either.

Must have been that work Parsons did producing Al Stewart’s Year Of the Cat album that got the literary juices flowing, unless I’ve gotten my chronology off by a year:

Got a copy of “Trends 2006: Customer Relationship Management,” the most recent CRM report from the good folks at Forrester. It’s authored by William Band, no doubt still off celebrating Canada’s Olympic gold medal in curling.

CRM is growing up, Band says. Although he finds growth in CRM spending on applications and related services and technologies “modest” in 2005, “customer-facing initiatives remain important.” We’ll point out a few of the findings, but there’s lots of actionable intelligence you need in the report itself. No Cliff’s Notes here, folks, sorry:

CRM has, Band believes, “moved from an era of overhyped expectations through a period of exaggerated pessimism to become a pillar of enterprise competitive strategy for many industries.