EmailLabs 4.8, Kintera, Other CRM Vendors Report Losses, Telstra and IBM, Knee-Slappin' Reuters, NYT Fauxtography

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
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EmailLabs 4.8, Kintera, Other CRM Vendors Report Losses, Telstra and IBM, Knee-Slappin' Reuters, NYT Fauxtography

By David Sims

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Kinks' Misfits:

EmailLabs, a vendor of e-mail marketing solutions and a subsidiary of J.L. Halsey Corporation, has introduced EmailLabs 4.8.

The new features help marketers "minimize undeliverable or improperly formatted e-mails, create more effective messages based on contextually relevant best practices, offer RSS delivery to their subscribers, and uncover statistically significant variations in campaign performance based on subscriber demographics and attributes," according to company officials.

Jim Herbold, general manager at EmailLabs said his company offers "best practices that… minimize the risk of having e-mail messages render poorly or get improperly filtered. We enable marketers to offer RSS to their most discerning subscribers, and we help demonstrate ROI to C-level executives by indicating how messages resonated with specific segments."

Officials say the product is provided as an ASP service, and is integrated with a company's Web site, sales force automation and CRM technologies through EmailLabs' application programming interface.

What company officials call "significant" features include EmailAdvisor, an e-mail auditing tool from sister company Lyris Technologies, whose five interrelated auditing components let marketers preview how messages will appear in the 35 most popular e-mail clients,

Betcha didn't know there were 35 e-mail clients, did you? "Lessee, Outlook, Eudora, MacMail… um…"

The product also checks messages against common spam filters and blacklists, determines the best time to send based on which ISP providers are experiencing delays, and get real-time, post-launch analysis of how 40 major ISPs are delivering, blocking or filtering messages.

Oh hey, and it helps you "comply" with CAN-SPAM and enhance deliverability, wink wink.

Australian IT is reporting that "Telstra says its billion-dollar data centre and IT management contract with IBM will save $250 million over six years."

The services deal includes the day-to-day management of Telstra systems. It's put IBM in charge of an extra 1,500 servers.

Telstra told Australian IT it had saved $500 million in capital expenses "through tough negotiation with vendors and discontinuing projects that did not advance the transformation strategy"."

Other measures announced in November included a $100 million core network upgrade contracted to Cisco, the new 850Mhz 3G mobile network being constructed by Ericsson, and upgrades to billing and CRM systems and operational support systems, the paper said.

Autobytel Inc., an Internet automotive marketing services company, has announced it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission its Form 10-Q Quarterly Report for the second quarter ended June 30, 2006.

Revenue for the second quarter of 2006 was $29.4 million, of which $17.8 million was related to Lead Fees, $4.3 million was related to Advertising, $6.3 million was related to CRM services, and $1.0 million was related to Data, Applications and Other.

Total revenue declined $2.0 million, or 6% from revenue of $31.4 million in the second quarter of 2005.

Operating expenses were $37.7 million in the second quarter of 2006, an increase of $2.9 million from operating expenses of $34.9 million in the second quarter of 2005.

Net loss for the second quarter of 2006 was $7.9 million, or a loss of $0.19 per fully diluted share.

CRM vendor Kintera Inc., which sells software as a service to the nonprofit and government sectors, has also declared a quarterly loss, announcing financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2006.

Total net revenue for the second quarter 2006 was $12.8 million, an increase of 20 percent compared to $10.7 million in the first quarter 2006, and an increase of 23 percent compared to $10.4 million in the second quarter 2005.

Net revenue for the second quarter 2006 exceeded the guidance of $11-$12 million provided by Kintera management.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and stock-based compensation was a loss of $4.5 million, or $0.13 per share, in the second quarter of 2006, which was within the company's guidance range.

This is a decrease of 34 percent compared to a loss of $6.9 million, or $0.19 per share, in the first quarter 2006, and a decrease of 43 percent compared to a loss of $8.0 million, or $0.26 per share, in the second quarter 2005.

Kintera's net loss for the second quarter of 2006 was $7.0 million, or $0.20 per share, which was at the favorable end of the company's guidance range. This is a decrease of 25 percent compared to a net loss of $9.3 million, or $0.26 per share, in the first quarter of 2006, and a decrease of 31 percent compared to a net loss of $10.1 million, or $0.33 per share, in the second quarter 2005.

Operating expenses for the second quarter 2006 totaled $16.5 million, a decrease of $0.7 million from the first quarter 2006 and a decrease of $1.9 million from the second quarter 2005.

Another net loss, dang it all anyway: Selectica, Inc., a vendor of sales execution and contract management products, has announced financial results for the first fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2006.

Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2007 was $5.2 million, which compares to revenue of $7.1 million for the same period in the previous year. Net loss for the quarter was $2.6 million, or ($0.08) per share, which compares with a net loss of $2.7 million, or ($0.08) per share, in the first quarter of fiscal 2006. Bookings in the first quarter of fiscal 2007 increased over the prior quarter.

Selectica has also just announced that the board of directors has named Stephen Bennion as the company's new Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Bennion has served as Chief Financial Officer of Selectica since September 1999. He replaces Vince Ostrosky, who has stepped down from the CEO position following "a mutual decision reached with the board of directors that the company would be better served by a more streamlined management structure," according to company officials.

Let's see if you can translate that quote accurately. Here, we'll spot you the "Ostrosky got ____ in the ____ and ____ out the ____." There you go, MadLibs for Businessmen™.

Ostrosky will continue to serve on Selectica's board of directors, and Jamie Arnold, chairman of the nominating and audit committees of Selectica's board of directors said all the usual nice things about him.

For some knee-slapping fauxtography see the invaluable LGF exposé. Amazing that there are people out there who, First Coffee's told, actually trust Reuters, The New York Times and the rest of the MSM. For a good look at the whole fauxtography issue from a liberal publication here's an LA Weekly article.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.



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