By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is The Rolling Stones’ “Stray Cat Blues:”
Technology Evaluation Centers, a global
company specializing in on-line services for software evaluation, has launched a Spanish-language Customer
Relationship Management Evaluation Center as part of what company officials
describe as a strategy to “provide comprehensive software selection services to
the Latin-American market.”
TEC
added CRM to its Spanish offerings because of the notable growth in this area.
According to IDC, the Latin-American market is valued at an estimated $166
million, with an expected growth rate of 13 percent in the next two years.
Overall, TEC says, it has seen continuous demand for CRM evaluations during
2005, experiencing over 200 requests a month.
TEC has made information on approximately thirty CRM products
and its decision-making tool, eBestMatchTM, available in Spanish. More products
will be available in the future.
Latin-American companies can evaluate and compare CRM
applications for different industries and company sizes to determine which products
fit their particular business requirements. TEC says users of its CRM Evaluation
Center can reduce the risk and resources associated with the application
selection process, perform a more objective and impartial selection and use detailed
information to lead negotiations with vendors.
All vendors have completed TEC’s detailed request for
information, containing over 1,100 criteria on features and functions. With
eBestMatch, a product’s capabilities are weighed against the company’s needs
enabling decision makers to make informed choices.
The CRM evaluation tool is available for a two hour free
trial, and can be licensed and customized for enterprise software selection
projects. The evaluation center also offers request for proposal templates,
vendor capability reports, articles, and white papers in Spanish.
…
InvisibleCRM plans to release the beta version of its flagship products SalesDesktop,
Outlook integration application for Salesforce.com soon.
InvisibleCRM says SalesDesktop was popular at its first
successful demonstration at DreamForce in September. “Particularly, it has
attracted a lot of attention from sales users, as it provides a single unified
online/offline workplace that acts exactly like Outlook, giving people the
native 'look and feel' Outlook environment they are used to when working with
Salesforce.com,” company officials say.
SalesFolder, another successful product from the
InvisibleCRM product line, will be released after the launch of SalesDesktop by
InvisibleCRM. Realizing that uploading documents via the HTML online interface
is traditionally a “tedious and unreliable process,” company officials say, SalesFolder
allows users to organize, manage and work with files locally, while keeping
both online and desktop file repositories up-to-date.
Basically it recreates the file structure of an online
system by using standard Windows folders on the desktop. The smart filtering
engine is customizable and this ensures that files are transferred by rules
defined by user, thus solving the problem of huge data accounts.
…
We’re all relieved that RIM
finally “took one for the team” and found a settlement to the BlackBerry
dispute, aren’t we? I know I am. Frankly $612 million with no future
royalties and no stake in the company is a pretty good deal for RIM, some
analysts were expecting numbers in ten digits with royalties.
The Associated Press reports that Judge James R. Spencer
“expressed impatience with RIM and urged a settlement,” and I love this quote
from Rod Thompson, patent attorney at Farella, Braun and Martel in San
Francisco: “He basically questioned the sanity of RIM, and said it wasn't
acting very rationally. His prodding of the parties worked.”
…
CRM vendor Open Solutions Inc., which also sells enterprise-wide
data processing technologies for banks and credit unions, has announced that it
has completed its acquisition of the
Information Services group of New Jersey-based The BISYS Group, Inc., a
vendor of outsourced products to investment firms, insurance companies and
banks.
As previously stated, Open Solutions believes that this
transaction will enable it to expand its product offerings, further increase
its presence in the financial services marketplace and extend its client base
to include the healthcare, insurance and corporate finance industries.
Under terms of the completed agreement, Open Solutions
purchased the Information Services group for a total cash consideration of
approximately $470 million, subject to adjustment. The transaction was
structured as a stock purchase with a section 338(h)(10) tax election.
…
Huh? Origami? Japanese paper-folding, right? Here, I’ve made
some pretty impressive boulders, see? What’s that? Microsoft? No, no idea,
sorry. Really, I know nothing. Honestly, I’m waiting for March 9 like everybody
else. Move along, nothing to see here.
…
CRM vendor Hansen Information Technologies has
announced that a team consisting of Hansen and partner Rock Solid Technologies was selected
by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Municipal Collection Center to provide a
comprehensive billing and tax management product for the entire Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico.
The team of Hansen, a software vendor which sells to the government,
and Rock Solid, based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was selected to provide
application software and professional services to CRIM to streamline all
aspects of their billing and tax management processes.
"The Hansen software will be used by all 78
municipalities on the island, including nine regional offices and the main
central office in San Juan, which will make this Hansen's largest billing and
tax customer with 1.2 million accounts billed per cycle," said Carlos
Thomas, Director of Billing & Tax with Hansen. "Our project team,
together with Rock Solid Technologies, will provide the Hansen system to about 1,200
users."
The Hansen team will be replacing CRIM's legacy system,
which generates over $800 million in revenue annually, and convert five years
worth of CRIM account data.
The product will be integrated into their current financials
system (Oracle), which will allow for accurate reporting and disbursement of funds
to the 78 municipalities.
…
You know, if somebody dropped down from Mars and wanted to
know what this whole “rock ‘n’ roll deal” was, you could do a lot worse than to
play The Rolling Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Yas
Out. A lot worse.
…
Since one of its unidentified subsidiaries outside of the
United States failed to pay some municipal taxes, made accounting mistakes and
may have done more, Sitel Corporation, which sells customer
support services, will restate earnings “for the fiscal years 2000 through 2004
and potentially for each of the three-month periods covered by the interim
quarterly reports for the fiscal year 2005.”
“The irregularities include certain accounting errors and
the failure to remit certain municipal taxes, notwithstanding receipt of
official certificates indicating otherwise. Management identified the
irregularities during its periodic audit and procedural review of the business
unit,” Sitel said in a prepared statement.
The company notified the SEC of the problems, and is continuing
to investigate.
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