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June 2006

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Net Neutrality Stirs Debate, Coffee

June 30, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Joe Jackson's Night and Day album:

First Coffee's 30 June piece on net neutrality generated a bit of reaction, we'll take the good, the bad and the ugly here. It really needs all the italics and bold text, so hit the link at the bottom if you're reading this off the First Coffee blog page.

From Ron:

I really enjoyed your TMCnet article on Net Neutrality. Two observations:

Net Neutrality: It's Pretty Simple, Really.

June 30, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]  

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Creedence Clearwater Revival's Chronicle, probably the best greatest hits package ever assembled:

It's time to delve into net neutrality, see what yesterday's Senate committee vote meant, what portents of doom are portending and if Google of Yahoo! is going to win the bidding war for premium service the telecoms are slavering for.

The basics: Don't confuse the apples with the apple cart.

CRM "Success" Up, CRM For the Kids, Net Neutrality Toasted and Tim Henman: Roadkill.

June 29, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Jim White's (The Mysterious Tale Of How I Shouted) Wrong-Eyed Jesus, First Coffee's favorite American album made since Tom Waits' Rain Dogs:

Is First Coffee shocked that Net neutrality failed in Congress? Not really. It's not the absolute stupidest thing Congress has ever done -- there's way too much competition for that title -- but since ensuring it would have required adherence to principles other than kowtowing to contributors it's not particularly surprising that it got toasted.

PRM: Not A Billion-Dollar Baby, But A Damn Good Idea Anyway

June 28, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen's "Truck Stop At The End Of The World:"

Way back in the late '90s -- 1990s -- when First Coffee started working in the CRM field (eye roll, "Here goes Gramps again, fetch his ear trumpet,") I worked with Bob Thompson of CRMGuru.com fame. At the time Bob was trying to get something called "Partner Relationship Management" off the ground, the idea of treating channel partners as customers. "He wants to own the buzzword," a mutual associate said to me at the time.

CRM Vendor Onyx Clarifies Nuptials to M2M, NetSuite Snags Plum CompUSA Deal, Socceroos Hosed By Ref

June 27, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Elvis's "Kentucky Rain:"

That does it. First Coffee is officially Disgusted And Finished with taking World Cup soccer seriously. If I want pre-fixed matches I'll watch Italian league soccer.

Oracle's Yearly Results Good, Wasting Money on CRM Channel Partners Bad, World Cup Bery, Bery Ugly

June 26, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Steve Martin's "King Tut:"

Gotta hand it to Portugal, winning -- surviving -- one of the absolute ugliest sports events First Coffee's ever seen. I've seen pro wrestling matches and Australian Rules Football (a.k.a. No Rules Football) games conducted with more class than last night's Netherlands-Portugal World Cup match.

CRM On Saturday: Talisma, X10DATA, Oracle EMEA Results, Open Solutions

June 24, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is "One Bud Wiser" by John Rich:

It's Saturday, but that doesn't mean there's nothing happening, or that there's nothing you might have missed, CRM-wise, this past week, but it does mean you might get the news confused with those game shows on TV:

Talisma Corporation, which styles itself a vendor in the "enterprise Customer Interaction Management" space, has announced a joint partnership with Japanese reseller Vital to sell Talisma's newly released Japanese products, Talisma CIM 7.0j, and CRM 7.0j.

Radio KCRM 98.6 - CRM, Sidekick 3, Brittany Brower, SAS, Irish Broadband

June 23, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first of many coffees and Diet Cokes and first French toast -- Freedom Toast, excuse me -- this morning, and of course the theme song of Radio KCRM 98.6 is Adam Carroll's "Ol' Milwaukee's Best:"

So there I am with my invitation to the T-Mobile Sidekick Party in L.A., adjusting my cummerbund and wondering if I can swing up to Carmel to drop in on James Ellroy after Ellay (some excuse about a gardener last time I was out there, fine, keep the Coronas on ice, I'll take a rain check even though it never rains in LoCal SoCal) when I get a call from someone named Brittany Brower wondering if she can jump a ride to the airport in my stretch.

Sure sure, I say, distracted, wondering if Koz is firm on that $23 mil for the Nantucket place or if I can knock him down to $22.5 and a file in a cake, what with the Turkish lira tanking ahead of the regularly-scheduled army coup we're struggling for liquidity in the face of irrational exuberance here at… Radio KCRM 98.6, "All Louis Jordan, All The Time," your one-stop shop for disjointed stream-of-semi-consciousnesses having sometimes a tangential yet meaningful and caring relationship with Customer Relationship Management.

IPods, Cell Phones, IM Help World Recover From Baby Boom Generation

June 22, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the most casual, breezy, fun album Frank Sinatra recorded, Come Fly With Me:

A recent survey by Reader’s Digest finds New York to be “the world’s most polite major city,” beating out large cities in 35 countries. “Coming in a close second was Zurich at 77 percent, Toronto at 70 percent, and Berlin, Sao Paulo and Zagreb, Croatia, all with 68 percent,” according to a Reuters report on the findings.

CRM Darling Southwest Airlines To... Sigh... Assign Seats.

June 21, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dizzy Gillespie’s “Ow:”

No, say it ain’t so! We CRM guys love Southwest Airlines. Love, love, love ‘em.

Mobile TV and Music On Cell Phones: Can Openers On Screwdrivers?

June 20, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Randy Crawford’s great cover of “Rainy Night In Georgia:”

You know, folks, not every idea is a good one, and not every product dreamed up in big-money conference rooms and backed by smart Silicon Valley venture capital is going to be wildly snapped up by millions. Gruesome horror stories abound, but First Coffee is thinking specifically of TV and other “premium” services on cell phones.

It’s one of those “why not?” ideas, instead of a “here’s how” idea, a shaky foundation right there.

First Coffee for 19 June 2006: Nokia, Siemens To Merge Telephone Equipment Units

June 19, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Allman Brothers’ Hittin’ the Note:

Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG have “agreed to combine their telephone equipment units in a deal valued at roughly $31.6 billion,” according to somebody at the Associated Press retyping a The Wall Street Journal article…

Well, heck, First Coffee subscribes to The Wall Street Journal, we can sit and read the article together here over our morning espresso as well as any AP reporter:

First Coffee for 17 June 2006: Wicom, Avaya, Stravinsky, Agileview, IGSW, Witness Systems

June 17, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]  

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Rolling Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Yas Out, a recording from a concert in Madison Square Garden on a night when, as one critic wrote, they just might have been The Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band in the world:

CRM: It’s not just for business anymore.

Scott Miyake Geron, MSW, Ph.D., the director of the Institute for Geriatric Social Work, recognized a need for work-based training products that meet a wide variety of demands in the field of aging and social work, so he turned to CRM vendor Agileview for help.

IGSW has created an innovative series of online training courses that offer social workers and other social service professional’s vital training in aging and also provide Continuing Education Credits (CEUs) and an optional Certificate in Aging from Boston University.

First Coffee for 16 June 2006: Radio KCRM, First Internet Bank, Open Solutions, Age of Infomayshun, Networking for Customers

June 17, 2006

By David Sims

[email protected]

 

The news as of the dawning of the Infomayshun Age here at Radio KCRM 98.6 on your dial and in your heart. Coffee’s the usual iced caffeine IV drip, and the theme song is Adam Carroll’s “Ol’ Milwaukee’s Best:”

If you have embarrassing snapshots of your days in the vanguard of the Age of Aquarius you can safely and quietly donate them to the Smithsonian as we are smack squarely in the Age of Infomayshun campers, which leads to all sorts of wonderful things like BlackBerries, CRM, wireless connections in the men’s room and that little treasure trove of Infomayshun we got after exterminating the rats in the Zarkman’s not-so-safe house last week, Infomayshun which has led to the wiping out of 104 more terrorist rats in 452 raids nationwide, capturing at least 28 large arms caches and over 750 prisoners.

First Coffee for 15 June 2006: SSA Global, West Monroe Partners, salesforce.com, Jagged Peak, RightNow, Hitachi, PacificNet

June 17, 2006

By David Sims

[email protected]

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the musical theme for today is Good Stuff I Don’t Listen To Nearly As Much As I Should, so we have Donovan’s Troubadour, kicking off with “London Town:”

SSA Global, a vendor of enterprise business software and services, has announced the general availability of SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0, what company officials call “a major enhancement to the company’s suite of customer relationship management products, SSA CRM, powered by E.piphany.”

The enhanced product provides companies with a tactical and strategic solution to improve current and future sales, service and marketing technology deployments, according to company officials, providing “a comprehensive 360 degree view of each customer by providing a shared customer and product list that streamlines the sales quotation, order creation and service processes.”

“SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0 were developed in direct response to our customers’ demands for enhanced technology that helps improve their ability to measure, predict and increase sales and service performance,” according to Cory A. Eaves, chief technology officer, SSA Global.

First Coffee for 16 June 2006: Radio KCRM, First Internet Bank's CRM, Execs Like Network Convergence

June 16, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]  

The news as of the dawning of the Infomayshun Age here at Radio KCRM 98.6 on your dial and in your heart. Coffee’s the usual iced caffeine IV drip, and the theme song is Adam Carroll’s “Ol’ Milwaukee’s Best:”

 

If you have embarrassing snapshots of your days in the vanguard of the Age of Aquarius you can safely and quietly donate them to the Smithsonian as we are smack squarely in the Age of Infomayshun campers, which leads to all sorts of wonderful things like BlackBerries, CRM, wireless connections in the men’s room and that little treasure trove of Infomayshun we got after exterminating the rats in the Zarkman’s not-so-safe house last week, Infomayshun which has led to the wiping out of 104 more terrorist rats in 452 raids nationwide, capturing at least 28 large arms caches and over 750 prisoners.

 

If you blinked you missed that news, they tried to rush it past the blizzard of headlines about how Zarqawi’s death doesn’t change anything, same ol’ bleak outlook, nothing to see here folks, unwinnable quagmire, move along, please.

 

So while Zark’s off with his 72 past Second Runner-Ups of the Miss Virginia pageant we’re using the captured Infomayshun to roll up some more rats. Radio KCRM looks forward to the Infomayshun from Iraq being a bit duller in the upcoming days and all bad news being even more hysterically hyped.

 

Of course not everybody appreciates the Age of Infomayshun.

First Coffee for 15 June 2006: RightNow Hires Creighton, Hitachi Supports Microsoft CRM, PacificNet Sells CRM To China Telecom, Jagged Peak On ReacTV, Think Mortgage Gets Salesforce.com, West Monroe Partners, SSA Global Releases 7.0

June 16, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the musical theme for today is Good Stuff I Don’t Listen To Nearly As Much As I Should, so we have Donovan’s Troubadour, kicking off with “London Town:”

SSA Global, a vendor of enterprise business software and services, has announced the general availability of SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0, what company officials call “a major enhancement to the company’s suite of customer relationship management products, SSA CRM, powered by E.piphany.”

The enhanced product provides companies with a tactical and strategic solution to improve current and future sales, service and marketing technology deployments, according to company officials, providing “a comprehensive 360 degree view of each customer by providing a shared customer and product list that streamlines the sales quotation, order creation and service processes.”

“SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0 were developed in direct response to our customers’ demands for enhanced technology that helps improve their ability to measure, predict and increase sales and service performance,” according to Cory A. Eaves, chief technology officer, SSA Global.

First Coffee for 14 June 2006: Microsoft's Interoperability Council, Art and Materna To Work Together, ISeries Sells Magic CRM to eContact, Altiris Updates IT Management Products, TEC Advises SMBs on CRM

June 14, 2006

By David Sims
[email protected]
 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Handel’s Water Music:

According to TEC, selections for enterprise software such as ERP, ECM, CRM, or SCM products may fail to meet requirements “if an organization undertakes a selection process without a comprehensive understanding of its unique business needs.”  

TEC believes that problems arise when companies do not prepare a proper request for information to evaluate the pertinent responses from their short-listed vendors. Not surprisingly, TEC sells “sophisticated means for performing requirements analysis will ease the selection burden.”

It’s not a small problem: Gartner research has found that 70 percent of IT projects fail or fall short of expectations. With the growing SMB market spending over $400 billion worldwide annually, that’s a lot of wasted money, time and effort.

EC senior research analyst Hans Mercx has recently stated that “SMBs have tried and failed in the past to perform successful software selections and implementations.

First Coffee for 13 June 2006: Weekly Sports Roundup, Teleperformance Contact Centers Likes the Philippines, TARGUSinfo Likes AppExchange, CRM Worth $5.7 Billion In 2005, Jabara Hotels Picks Cendyn CRM,

June 13, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]  

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction:

Let’s see, important sports news wrap-up from around the world… Rafael Nadal proves that not only is Roger Federer not really the greatest tennis player of all time, as the insane are hyping him, he’s not even the best player of his generation… Ben Roethlisberger wins the highly coveted First Coffee Idiot Of The Week award, he said he’s on his way to the awards banquet … the NBA season mercifully draws to a close as Pat Riley proves what a great coach people will think any schlump off the street is if aforesaid schlump has Magic Johnson, Kareem and such talent on his roster… sources indicate that two NHL teams, one from the traditional hockey hotbed of North Carolina, are playing for something called a Stanley Cup… anything else? Vijay Singh’s got his mojo working again, another Korean wins another LPGA event… bikini-clad girls running onto New Zealand rugby games… Nothing else going on? Some tournament of some sort in Germany… nah, okay, on to the CRM.

Driven by “significant gains in license and maintenance revenue,” worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) total software revenue totaled $5.7 billion in 2005, a 13.7 percent increase from 2004, according to recently-released figures from Gartner, Inc.

First Coffee for 12 June 2006: Salesforce.com in New Zealand, Telsim vs. Turkcell, Zilliant's ZPPS and SAP NetWeaver Now Friends

June 12, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]  

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut album Crosby, Stills & Nash, one of the greatest debut albums followed by one of the most underachieving careers in rock history. People forget that when Neil Young joined this band they were the first rock act swinging enough steak to do full-scale stadium tours and were expected to be, in the post-Beatle breakup early ‘70s, the only group to rival the Rolling Stones. But then it all went pffft in a haze of backstabbing, drugs and general unbelievably selfish, self-destructive stupidity.

First Coffee for 9 June 2006: Radio KCRM, EDS and MphasiS Get Married, South Africa Tourism Gets Oracle For CRM, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Rethink Real Net Neutrality

June 9, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]  
The news as of the first coffee – but friends, a tall iced coffee, one of the greatest inventions of modern man as it double-times the inflow of caffeine – drink it like water! Ice cubes? Smoke ‘em, dude, we use coffee cubes here and the music is the Official Theme Song of Radio KCRM, Adam Carroll’s “Ol’ Milwaukee’s Best:”

That’s right, it’s Fry In Wendy’s Healthier Oil Day, welcome to Radio KCRM, 98.6 on your digital dial, brought to you by the Democratic Party – a chicken in every pot and $90,000 in every freezer. Door-to-door delivery courtesy of the Louisiana National Guard rain or shine – nah, they don’t have anything better to do during Hurricane Katrina.


First Coffee for 8 June 2006: NetSuite's Canadian Products, eOn Reports Record Net Income, Pitney Bowes Uses Antenna In Europe, Vermin Control in Baghdad

June 8, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Stephen Stills’ Manassas:

NetSuite, Inc., a vendor of on-demand CRM and business software suites, has announced a set of new tax engine features and additions, pitched towards Canadian multi-province mid-market companies for more efficient tax management and faster tax filing.

The newly-released functionality adds enhancements to the existing tax engine already built in NetSuite for Canada, which has been on the market in Canada for more than five years.

First Coffee for 7 June 2006: Onyx Finally Acquired -- By M2M, Sage CRM and the Sabres, Free Broadband Proves Surprisingly Popular

June 7, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is nice, light, unobtrusive, totally backgroundy, inoffensive, anonymous wallpaper cocktail jazz, and some mornings that is just what you need:

CRM vendor Onyx Software Corporation has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by privately-held M2M Holdings Inc., the holding company that is jointly owned by Battery Ventures VI, L.P. and Thoma Cressey Equity Partners and whose primary asset is Made2Manage Systems Inc., an enterprise software and services company.

It’s an all-cash transaction valued at $4.80 per share, or approximately $92 million.

First Coffee for 6 June 2006: Vaestro's Beta Now Available, CRM Vendor RightNow's Milestone, Sage Software's CRM Milestone, Single Source's SM-Plus 4.0 Here, STMicroelectronics' RFID Products.

June 6, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the Aradia Ensemble’s recording of Handel’s Water Music:

Vaestro has announced the open beta of its voice community web site which allows people from around the world to talk to each other using voice powered message boards.

“Hearing the voice of a person in Taiwan or Scotland is simply more powerful than reading a text message from those same people,” Vaestro founder Matt Ready explains. “Voice conveys personality and emotion that is often lost when reduced to text.

First Coffee for 5 June: Kazakhstan To Liberalize Telecom, CRM Vendor Satuit Doing Just Peachy, Do CRM and Other Acronyms Spell Value?

June 5, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is “Au Fond Du Temple Saint Redux,” by the East Village Opera Company:

The Times of Central Asia has a worthwhile article on the deregulation of the Kazakh telecommunications market, well worth a read. We’ll summarize it and hit the highlights here:

The government of Kazakhstan met on May 18 to discuss liberalizing the telecommunications market.

First Coffee for 3 June 2006: Lingo Mexico Pulls The Rug Out From Under "Unlimited" Customers, Talisma Checking In, Fame Lost Forever

June 3, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Adam Carroll’s “Ol’ Milwaukee’s Best:”

First Coffee always likes getting genuine human user feedback on the products and services mentioned in the column, here’s one from a user of the so-called “Lingo Unlimited plan to Mexico” First Coffee wrote about a while back:

Hi David:
 
I recently read your article about Lingo Unlimited plan to Mexico but please check the e-mails below to know the rest of the history, first hand. In summary, I used to be a happy customer of such plan, plus I had a number in Monterrey for a total of $42 a month.

First Coffee for 2 June 2006: Radio KCRM, Capitol College Goes To Parature, CRM Agreement Between SugarCRM and SimpliCTI, LexisNexis InterAction 5.5, Motorola and PacificNet, Shiloh Pitt?

June 2, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning here on Radio KCRM, where we’re groovin’ to one of the greatest albums in living memory, no not Oasis’s Definitely Maybe, more like Cornel West’s Sketches Of My Culture… uh, sorry, seems we’re getting a bleed through the studio walls here, hey you wanna hold it down over there, at least put the Bob Marley back on… hey, HEY! We’re tryin’ to do a SHOW here! Load the ol’ peace pipe back up whyncha, some animals are better tranquilized.

As we said before we so rudely interrupted ourselves, we got the Stones on to Sway, Sway, Sway, slamming heavy blues how else are you gonna get going on a Friday without overloading the triple espressos?

First Coffee for 1June 2006: GlobeTel's Russian Partner Speaks, NetSuite At Purdue, IKEA Wants CRM Help in Britain

June 1, 2006

By David Sims [email protected]  

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Social Distortion’s “Ball And Chain:”

The Russian business journal Vedomosti has recently reported that shareholders of Russia’s Internafta said U.S. telecommunications equipment producer GlobeTel “was responsible for the failure” to implement a $600 million project to build a WiMAX network in Russia.

The agreement between the two companies to build the network was signed on December 29, 2005, and cancelled by GlobeTel on May 1.

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