By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is a great discovery I made noodling around iTunes last night, Peter Wolf’s Sleepless album. This guy’s post-J. Geils
Band career is surprisingly good, miles better than post-Wolf Geils, which
admittedly isn’t saying much, but for some twisted reason this guy gets about
as much press as good news from Iraq. Friends, it doesn’t get a whole lot
better than “A Lot Of Good Ones Gone,” or the Jagger duet “Nothing But the
Wheel,” this is one of the best rock, R&B, bluesy albums I’ve heard
released in the 2000s:
Sage Accpac has announced the immediate availability of the latest version of its
customer relationship management (CRM) product, Sage Accpac CRM version
5.8.
Offering “feature-rich sales, marketing and customer support
automation for small and mid-sized businesses,” according to Sage Accpac
officials, version 5.8 enhancements “expand on the Sage Accpac CRM traditions
of fast deployment, easy feature configuration and flexible data integration
with the introduction of new end-user dashboard options, improved data
management capabilities and extended system administration features.
Sage Accpac officials claim their CRM product is “the only
mid-market CRM product available today that allows organizations to choose
either an on-demand or on-premises deployment and provides the ability to
migrate between them in order to accommodate an organization’s changing
business needs and IT resource constraints.”
“Our customers can choose the Sage Accpac CRM Product that
is right for their growth model, workflow and budget,” explained Mike Lorge,
general manager (Pacific), Sage Accpac. “The flexibility of having on-demand
and on-premises deployment options provides the ideal level of control for
small or mid-sized businesses.”
All of an organization’s deployment priorities are
addressed, Lorge says, “whether these are centered on 24/7 availability and
administration, end-user adoption, depth of CRM capabilities, ease of
configuration, integration or total cost of ownership.”
Enhanced Sage Accpac CRM is designed with dashboard
capabilities to allow users to create custom dashboards that contain whatever information
they think is relevant to their daily workflow. Dashboards can include a
variety of data components such as favorite reports, embedded charts with
drill-down capabilities, saved data searches, customer snapshots, lists of hot
leads, high priority customer support issues and more.
Sage Accpac, a division of the Sage Group plc, provides
mid-size businesses with a broad range of end-to-end business management
applications. Product lines include Accpac CRM, Accpac ERP, Accpac Pro ERP,
Accpac Business Analysis Suite, Accpac Exchange, Accpac Warehouse Management
System, Accpac ePOS, and Accpac Insight.
…
Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. has
announced the delivery of a mobile
Centrex system based on its IP telephony server, IP Convergence Server
SS9100, to Caritas Educational Institution, a private educational institution
in Japan.
The system was installed at the new building for Caritas
Junior and Senior High School.
Masashi Tsuboi, President of IP Systems Company at Oki
Electric said the SS9100-based mobile Centrex system works for Caritas “as it
is flexible for future expansions and can add voice data onto their existing
LAN cables, which were used for data communication in their older building.”
Using the installation at Caritas as a case study, Oki officials
say they will promote SS9100-based IP telephony products to “various
enterprises that are planning to change their work style and improve
productivity.”
Caritas’ former building used a wireless LAN for data
communication, and to add voice communication onto the existing wireless LAN,
Caritas selected Oki’s MWINS BR2102, the wireless LAN access point. Oki’s
BR2102 units were installed throughout the school, enabling faculty to talk
anywhere within the school premises without worrying about phone charges.
The combination of BR2102 and FOMA enables faculty to
communicate anywhere within the building, eliminating the need to page them
through conventional announcing systems using interphones.
The new system is based on an open network and a closed
network. The open network, which is for students, faculty and administrators,
allows them to communicate via wireless LAN from any location in the
premises. The network includes PC data terminals, 36 sets of
multifunctional IP phones, 199 units of BR2102 throughout the school, and 70
sets of FOMA phones.
The FOMA phones include 66 sets of phones with blank ROM, in
which students and faculty can insert their own FOMA cards to keep the same
phone number as their personal mobile phone.
The closed network, which is physically separated from the
open network, is used only for faculty to manage sensitive content such as
grades and class lists.
…
Oh, hey, Rich, I
believe I called covering this event last month, just go ahead and forward
the travel allowance and I’m on my way:
112 international beer judges from across the globe will
converge to award gold, silver and bronze medals to beers judged in 85 style
categories at The World Beer Cup, a global competition held every two
years.
This year the entries have grown by 45 percent to include
2,257 beers from 541 breweries in 55 countries, according to the Scoop news service
of New Zealand, to become “the largest international professional beer
competition in the world. They will be judged April 10-11.”
…
Wicom Communications, a vendor of all-IP
contact center products and VoIP enterprise telephony software for fixed and
wireless network environments, has announced that Finland’s mutual employment
pension company Pension Fennia (Eläke-Fennia) has deployed
a new all-IP enterprise telephony and contact center product based on Wicom CSS
software to replace its traditional PBX telephone system.
“The Wicom product routes calls automatically to the
available and appropriate person. This improves customer service and reduces
the amount of time spent on redirecting calls,” said Pension Fennia Director,
Mr. Sakari Kalske. “With the system, we are also able to answer calls more
quickly. Our employees can now use all directory and other services
irrespective of time and place on any terminal, including mobile phones.”
Pension Fennia is a mutual employment pension company that
takes care of pension cover of employees and entrepreneurs. The new
communication product provides IP technology based communication tools for all
Pension Fennia employees. Almost half of the users use the product mainly with
a Nokia smartphone.
“The service model frees resources from system
administration and enables us to focus on business related usage. We pay only
for actual expenditures, so use is cost effective. In addition to improving
customer service and other communication, the system provides us with advanced
reporting and other tools, as well as a future proof technology platform. We would not have accomplished this with traditional
telephone technology,” Kalske said.
“The new system improving connectibility, customer service
and cost efficiency frees Pension Fennia from dependency on specific operators,
work locations and terminals. As Pension Fennia has, numerous leading
organizations have seen the benefits that tailored IP products bring to
business. The demand for operator independent IP telephone systems is clearly
on the rise,” says Ilkka Kivimäki, President and CEO, Wicom Communications.
…
Happy birthday to a
true American original, Merle Haggard, 69 today, whose parents were dust bowl
refugees from Oklahoma. Merle grew up in California in a converted railroad boxcar,
became a burglar and thief and was sent to San Quentin Prison, where he heard
Johnny Cash in concert, and decided to be a country musician. He’s released over 600 songs and has had 37
#1 hits after his first single sold all of 200 copies.
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