First Coffee for 20 May 2006: Radio KCRM, Salesforce.com and RightNow CRM Vendors Presentations, ABC Implements SmartCatalog for Sage CRM, Blumberg Joins I-many, Net Neutrality Now!

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
| CRM, ERP, Contact Center, Turkish Coffee and Astroichthiology:

First Coffee for 20 May 2006: Radio KCRM, Salesforce.com and RightNow CRM Vendors Presentations, ABC Implements SmartCatalog for Sage CRM, Blumberg Joins I-many, Net Neutrality Now!

By David Sims

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Public Image Ltd.’s “Rise:”

          
Okay, we can play broadcast announcer:

Good morning Vietnam ladies and germs, and thank the good Lord above that your radio dial knob broke on 98.6 KCRM, the pride of South Central Saskatchewan, comin’ up on the schedule we have Salesforce.com’s chief financial officer, Steve Cakebread, who’ll participate in a fireside chat at the 2006 UBS Enterprise Technology & Services Conference on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 in the Big Apple. Steve Cakebread and Franklin Of The Lane-O Roosevelt, two great names that go great together.
 

Mr. Cakebread, a man who has never heard a single funny Marie Antoinette joke and whose record is safe from First Coffee, will speak at approximately 9:40 a.m. in the land of the Yankees and at 6:40 a.m. in the home of the Dodgers, but hey for all those of you who keep banker’s hours an audio webcast will be available on salesforce.com’s Investor Relations website at http://www.salesforce.com/investor.

And if you’re a lucky holder of a Willie Wonka Gold Foil invitation you’re lunching on Marc Benioff’s ample tab at the rubber chicken lunch today where Salesforce.com executives will be presenting to investors in New York at noon, listen to the lip-smackin’ and gum-flappin’ on the Left Coast at nine in the morning to go with your soy latte and granola. You lucky lunchers be sure to tip the guy in the Hawaiian shirt standing by the door and toss a nickel in Tom Siebel’s tin cup on the sidewalk.

The comin’ atcha the next day, Wednesday, May 24th, will be the Bob Dylan Welcome To Social Security 65th Birthday Bash, as Zimmy celebrates Geezerdom by trying to remember just where the hell he is and if the line about the ragged clown behind comes before or after the line about disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind.

Second billing on KCRM, the pride of Southeastern West Virginia, is RightNow Technologies, hailing up from where hail means you’ve got a few extra golf balls to use during the winter where the wind comes sweepin’ across the plains, presenting at the Pacific Crest On Demand Conference in Shakeytown at 10:00 a.m. local earthquake time, which means you East Coasters have to finish that third martini by two in the afternoon.

And again, for those of you who just can’t make it a Webcast of the presentation will be available on the company’s investor relations website at http://www.shareholder.com/rnow/medialist.cfm. You’ll need a note from your mother or a doctor explaining why you couldn’t be at the Webcast.

Right, now back to spinnin’ the plastic fantastic and looky who’s under the needle, campers, Toots Thielemans’ “One More For the Road” goin’ out as a special dedication from the D.C. traffic police to Patrick Kennedy and his Amazin’ 151-Proof Ethanol-Powered Car… hey folks, at least he didn’t hit the water in Kennedy family style. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming here on KCRM, the pride of West Slingshot, Nebraska:

In what company officials describe as “an effort to increase the speed and accuracy of their quoting system,” ABC Companies, which sells and leases new and used highway coaches in the U.S., has implemented SmartCatalog by Endeavor Commerce.

ABC Companies has finally ended the suspense and chosen the Sales Configuration Edition of SmartCatalog to be integrated with their current Sage CRM SalesLogix system. With the addition of SmartCatalog to Sage CRM SalesLogix, ABC’s account executives will have the ability to “create accurate quotes and proposals with just a few clicks of the mouse,” since according to SmartCatalog officials, “SmartCatalog is a rule-based configurator that will ensure the quote-to-order entry process is flawless.”

Flawless, sports fans, as flawless as Tinker to Evers to Chance, the Great White Shark Choke or Nadia Comaneci.

“ABC Companies has always focused on ways to increase the speed of our quoting process without compromising our quoting accuracy,” said Jim Morrison, VP of Sales and a guy who has never, ever had anybody hum “Riders On The Storm” in an elevator after being introduced to him.

“Not only will SmartCatalog allow us to produce fast and easy quotes, they will also be extremely accurate,” he says, since “the ability to generate quotes offsite is also a major benefit, considering a majority of our account executives are often traveling.”

And considering the style in which account executives usually travel saving a few shekels here and there’s not a bad idea either.

SmartCatalog also generates update opportunities within Sage CRM SalesLogix. This simply allows the account executives to generate fast, accurate forecasts that will prove to be very important when traveling down the chain of command, where hey, the faster and easier the better.

… and thank you London Bach Choir for helping the Lads From Dartford out in the studio there, can’t quite understand why Mick failed the audition. Switching gears let’s have The Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died” next here on KCRM, the pride of Oliver North’s Southern Comfort, remember to patronize our sponsors, folks, generally by speaking slowly and explaining all the polysyllabic words…

I-many, Inc., a vendor of advanced Enterprise Contract Management (ECM) products for managing corporate commitments, today announced David Blumberg has joined I-many as Executive Vice President of Fulfillment Services.

In this new position, Blumberg will be responsible for all professional services, as well as customer support and sustaining engineering functions. He will also be responsible for formulating and directing I-many’s marketing strategies in its Life Sciences and Healthcare business line.

Blumberg comes to I-many from Accenture, the recently rechristened $16 billion global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company which has absolutely nothing to do with those clowns currently sweating out a jury of their peers in Houston – where he was a managing partner.

During his 15 years at Accenture, Blumberg rose from consultant to a number of senior management positions, where he served as the lead partner for the pharmaceutical and medical products practice, global account manager for one of Accenture’s “Diamond” pharmaceutical accounts, and oversaw Accenture’s global pharmaceutical and medical products CRM business.

He was previously with IBM and General Electric, and earned his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Net neutrality’s the big issue on Capitol Hill, and hey, can we all just get along? Then we can be spared the spectacle of techno musician Moby putting in an appearance pleading for something that should be such a no-brainer it’s no wonder Congress is about to screw it up, a free Internet.

It’s rare First Coffee finds himself on the side of California Senator Barbara “If I Get Any More To The Loony Left I’ll Be In The Pacific Ocean” Boxer on any issue, rarer still to find himself on the side of the Dixie “If We Get Any More To The Loony Left We’ll Be In Arizona” Chicks, but he a) understands their antipathy to Arizona, and b) applauds their efforts to defeat legislation threatening to let broadband providers charge content providers based on bandwidth consumption, with which, as industry observer Roy Mark records proponents correctly saying, “the Internet will be dominated by a handful of powerful telephone and cable company gatekeepers who will have the ability to decide which sites work best based on who pays the most.

… and wrapping up the broadcast here on KCRM, the pride of the Upper East Side, let’s have those One-Hit Wonders From The Land Down Under But Above New Zealand, The Church, telling us what it’s like “Under The Milky Way,” and remember, folks, if at first you don’t succeed, look in the trash for the instructions.

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