A second cup of coffee this morning, but the music's still ol' Blue Eyes:

A research organization dealing with customer issues recently interviewed First Coffee, and the questions they asked got me thinking about how we can learn about CRM from nearly any field of human endeavor, but we learn the most through the most exciting, spectacular, idiotic ideas crashing and burning, like socialism.

One question they asked me was "What are the most important obstacles and pitfalls to be aware of in trying to integrate customer data in large bureaucratic companies and organizations? Imagine a large, older incumbent organization with entrenched fiefdoms, or a traditional regulated monopoly, or a large company that has grown through numerous acquisitions."

Good question. Of course the main obstacle is that people regard data as power -- and frequently they're right. If they control the data they have their little fiefdoms and they're players. The pitfall companies usually fall into when integrating data is the one countries usually make when they try to adopt socialism -- they assume people see some abstract concept called "our common good" as in their own personal interest. 

Wrong.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Louis Jordan's great Anthology:

Scribe Software Corporation, a vendor of data migration and integration software technology for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, has announced that the company has been acquired by The Mustang Group and key members of the Scribe management team.
Mark Prestipino, President and CEO of Scribe said the principals at The Mustang Group "have the deep background, expertise, and operating experience in the markets we serve."

Previous investment firms Edison Venture Fund and Borealis Ventures sold their interests in the company as part of this transaction. Existing senior management will remain in their current positions.

Bob Crowley, a Managing Partner at The Mustang Group said the group sees "great potential as Scribe fills the growing unmet need for affordable, easy to deploy, packaged integration tools for both the on-premise and the on-demand application spaces."

CRM vendor Sage Software has announced the establishment of its Saudi operation, based in Riyadh.

"We have been running our regional business out of the head office in Dubai, but business growth creates the demand for physical presence and greater commitment," said Marc Van der Ven, managing director, Sage Software Middle East.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is "Rock 'n' Roll Records (Ain't Selling This Year)" by The Supersuckers:

Remember Daylight Savings tomorrow, spring forwards fall back. Don't show up to church early, enjoy that extra hour of sleep.

OnSite has announced the release of its "POS for NetSuite" product along with its acceptance into NetSuite's SuiteFlex Developer Program.

OnSite has used NetSuite's SuiteFlex platform to extend and enhance NetSuite to meet the point-of-sale needs of retailers. NetSuite holds such company data as customer information, orders, invoices, website transactions, shipping records, time tracking, and payroll data -- applications that are built on it using SuiteFlex.

Retailers using POS for NetSuite achieve visibility on up-to-the-minute point-of-sale data and can also access this same information via the Internet. Additionally, NetSuite likes to bill itself as a full-fledged ERP + CRM suite, hence "all non POS business activities are managed through the single NetSuite Web-based application," OnSite officials say:

"With support of the latest USB POS peripherals from HandHeld Products, Star Micronics and APG, POS for NetSuite provides state-of-the-art customer interaction and transaction processing.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Ultimate Collection by The Supremes, the great '60s band -- more #1 hits than The Beatles or anyone in the '60s -- unfortunately hijacked into a vehicle for Diana Ross's ravenous ego:

The Chinese CRM vendor CDC Corporation has announced today that its portal business unit has launched Google's click-to-play video in the China market via the China.com's English Channel.

Google's click-to-play video ads were launched this July as a new way to help Google's advertisers reach their target customers. On the English Channel of China.com, Google's click-to-play video ads will be accessible to both large and small advertisers and will provide brand advertisers with a richer and more engaging format to communicate their messages.

"Google's click-to-play video ads are user-initiated, so that the quality of the user experience is preserved. As a result, advertisers get more engaged users and qualified leads," said Johnny Chou, President of Sales and Business Development, Greater China for Google.

Callidus Software Inc., a vendor which specializes in the CRM sub-field of Enterprise Incentive Management software, has announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2006.

Total third quarter revenues were $17.4 million, essentially flat compared to the third quarter 2005 and to the prior quarter. Third quarter license revenues were $5.8 million, equal to the third quarter 2005 and down slightly from the prior quarter.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime," you know, "This ain't no party/ This ain't no disco:"

Happy Sugar Holiday from here in Istanbul, the three-day holiday ending Ramadan, where Muslims aren't allowed to eat, drink anything or smoke from sunup to sundown. Couldn't have come at a better time for the cab driver we had yesterday, I haven't seen a nicotine fit that bad in a long time.

Oh, and happy Labor Day weekend to all New Zealanders. Um, any holidays I've missed, please let me know and we'll get the problem corrected.

WhatCounts, Inc., a leader in comprehensive e-communication programs, today unveiled version 6.0 of its robust e-Communications Suite.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Jimmy Cliff's The Harder They Come movie soundtrack, which somebody remarked is really the only essential movie soundtrack out there:

Hi David- I see you’re the CRM guy over at TMCNet and thought you might be interested in some news from one of my clients…

eGain, the Silicon Valley based pioneer of online customer support software (www.egain.com), is announcing its newest product suite on October 30th.

As you know, the mindset of today’s consumers is changing – they are embracing the speed and collaboration elements of the Web 2.0 world and demanding much more from their interactions with their favorite brands. eGain, the Silicon Valley based pioneer of online customer support software (www.egain.com) has developed a new software suite directly aimed at helping companies successfully service their evolving customer, which will be announced on October 30th.

The reality is that brand loyalty is shaped more by superior customer service than by product differentiation or price.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Faces' "Silicone Grown." Say what you will about the joke Rod Stewart's become, his disco, his atrocious pop fluff, his poor man's Frank Sinatra albums of standards, but every dog has his day and between 1969 and 1974 absolutely nobody did bluesy, boozy barroom rock'n'roll or heartfelt ballads guys aren't embarrassed to sing along with any better than Rod and his merry men in and out of the Faces -- Martin Quittenton, Ronnie Wood, Mickey Waller, Pete Sears, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, et al. The loose, inspired, ragged glory of Every Picture Tells A Story, A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse, Gasoline Alley, Never A Dull Moment, even Smiler had its indispensable moments... those shambolic concerts where you got either twice or half your money's worth...

Come to think of it, nobody's done it as well since then either. Just get Stewart's complete Mercury recordings and you're set for your all your beery, good-time rock'n'roll needs:

VoiceObjects, a phone application server vendor, has announced that it has made the application programming interface (API) for VoiceObjects Server available to the public.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius' 1976 debut album, cleverly named Jaco Pastorius:

Checking in with Companies Recently Taken Over this morning, we find c360 Solutions, a Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management Independent Software Vendor and a division of Chinese-owned CDC Software, has announced that it has exceeded key business objectives during the five months since it was acquired by CDC Software.

Since the completion of the acquisition of c360 by CDC Software in April 2006, c360 has added 95 new channel partners, bringing the total to over 600 worldwide; reached total cumulative c360 licenses of over 190,000, achieved maintenance renewal rates above 90 percent (one wonders what the target objective here was), and added five new products through licensing and acquisition (again, the targeted objective number isn't given here).

Estimated revenues for third quarter ended September 30, 2006 at 30 percent above budgeted revenues

The company was "consistently reporting growth in many key business metrics when they joined us in April," said Eric Musser, president of CDC Software, who said "we're taking c360 into new markets."

Musser credited the release of Microsoft's Dynamics CRM 3.0 last December with "a noticeable uptake in the CRM industry in general, and in the c360 applications in particular," and uptake Musser sees continuing.

Maybe you saw this last week, First Coffee doesn't remember seeing it: An IDC report titled "Worldwide CRM Analytic Applications 2005 Vendor Shares: Consolidation Continues in an Expanding Market" found that customer relationship management (CRM) analytic applications revenue grew 11.3 percent in 2005, reaching $1.14 billion.

The report found that SAS was the largest predictive analytics vendor in the worldwide market for CRM analytic applications, while another IDC report named SAS the biggest CRM analytic applications vendor in Western Europe. The company's revenue grew by 22.0 percent in 2005.

According to the IDC report "Western European CRM Analytic Applications, 2005 Vendor Shares," SAS revenues reached €59.5 million ($74.4 million), representing a market share of 21.4 percent.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits (And Some That Will Be):

First Coffee remembers when he was trying to get up-to-date information on Latin American call centers a few months ago, and got pretty much absolutely nothing. So it's good to see Zagada Markets, Inc. announcing the publication of its "Argentina Executive Call Center Report 2007: Heart of Innovation and Care."

This short executive report format is characterized as "the first of four concise reports in its South American series," which will also cover Brazil, Mexico and Chile in short order.

The report claims to offer "strategic guidance and detailed decision-making cost estimates and economic handlers to corporate buyers, vendors, investors and executives about how to compare and evaluate Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Rosario for site selection and investment."

The report focuses on comparing these three cities for contact center activity.

While Argentina offers a full range of IT and back office delivery, the activity in its call center voice-based Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service is "a growth opportunity," the report authors think.

The study indicates that "the land of the tango is dancing to the tune of impressive agent growth and increased foreign direct investment flows in the sector." The country is on track to have 33,000 agents by the end of 2006, reaching a projected 41,920 by the end of 2007, reflecting a 31 percent annual growth rate.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison's Common One album, followed by the somewhat overrated but still good Astral Weeks:

A previous First Coffee entry questioning the validity of tying Rep. Mark Foley's name to a product prompted a reply from the product creators.

The product itself, BeNetSafe, is an online "chaperone" for MySpace, Xanga and Friendster. It monitors communications and provides parents with a report basically highlighting flagged words and phrases so they can have an idea if their kids are doing anything online that the parents should know about.

It sounds like a good product made from a good idea, First Coffee has no problem with that. The bee in my bonnet here is how companies, grasping for any quick publicity, publicly identify their products with problems the product has nothing whatsoever to do with, implicitly raising false connections and possibly false expectations among those purchasing the product.

Just wanted to let you know that BeNetSafe, a service that acts as a chaperone for MySpace and Xanga, will be adding Friendster next week. Parents need tools to help kids stay safe while online -- with news of Rep.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um:

Hey, I know I feel better after a successful North Korean nuclear test. Thanks to years of China's enabling and protection one of the craziest and cruelest dictators in the world now probably has nukes.

Don't you just love how well the U.N. works to protect us from this sort of thing? As well as it works to protect citizens in Darfur.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is just about the only Bruce Springsteen song First Coffee has much time for, "Light Of Day" from his MTV concert. It's one of the refreshing times he remembers he's one of the greatest hard-driving rock'n'roll musicians alive and not thinking he's the only person alive who knows what's good and what's not:

Ah, Friday. Time to clear out the ol' inbox. Starting off on a decidedly low note:

Just wanted to let you know that BeNetSafe, a service that acts as a chaperone for MySpace and Xanga, will be adding Friendster next week. Parents need tools to help kids stay safe while online -- with news of Rep.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Horace Silver Quintet's Song For My Father:

This morning SugarCRM's going to announce the availability of SugarExchange, a marketplace of Sugar community-built applications and extensions for SugarCRM end-users and administrators. 

Taking a page from salesforce.com's playbook, SugarExchange will offer production-ready community extensions as well as Sugar packages (please call them "cubes," please please please) and components to meet all the needs of a Sugar implementation. 

The applications available on SugarExchange "benefit from the active community of open source developers on SugarForge.org," according to SugarCRM officials.  These applications are also approved for deployment by SugarCRM, Inc.

SugarExchange showcases community-built products pre-approved by SugarCRM for production deployments. When it's officially announced, customers will be able to download and install more than 60 applications from SugarExchange at no charge. 

More than 40 products are available for sale. Customers can choose the product they want by using the SugarExchange ratings and popularity indicators that provide direct feedback from the Sugar community.

• Lead and contact management extensions from Asertiva, ContactGrabber and CarouselCRM

• eCommerce and Web self-service integrations with OsCommerce and Mambo

• Email response and email management from ZuckerMail and JRabbit

• Integration and migration from Jitterbit and Contact Capture

• Forecasting and reporting extensions from JUMP Technologies and JasperReports

Verizon Business has announced that it will provide Swedish CRM vendor IFS with a standardized Wide Area Network (WAN) infrastructure, consolidating the management of 60 global sites.

IFS Applications provides extended ERP functionality, including supply chain management (SCM); enterprise asset management (EAM); maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO); product lifecycle management (PLM); customer relationship management (CRM); and corporate performance management (CPM) capabilities.

IFS has more than 500,000 users across seven key vertical sectors: aerospace & defense, automotive, high-tech, industrial manufacturing, process industries, construction & facilities management, and utilities & telecom.

The new agreement extends the companies' existing relationship and calls for Verizon Business to implement an MPLS-based Managed Private IP network that will centralize all of IFS' network management at its headquarters, while also providing a connection between key IFS hub sites in Sri Lanka, Sweden and the United States.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Bill Evans Trio's performance at the Village Vanguard, released on albums like Waltz For Debby:

Boy, an article about Caiman.com's terrible CRM is the gift that keeps on giving. After publishing a column on it last year I still get e-mails from people saying they've been ripped off, ignored and otherwise reamed over by the online company.

I too was a victim of Caiman.com just recently. I purchased a book, in new condition, and when it came it was curled badly because they had failed to wrap it with some cardboard support. The book is a small paperback children's book which is inherently pliable and requires additional care in packing, not just throwing it in a bubble wrap envelope. 

Unfortunately, the book was to be a gift, amongst others, for my granddaughter for her birthday. Caiman has, thus far, ignored my request for redress on the subject. 

I am afraid that they will not do anything. Please advise others, once again, of this terrible customer service. 

And you know what they say: When you hack off the grandmother shoppers, you're in trouble. Why Amazon.com continues to allow this outfit to run its operation on its site First Coffee has no idea, it certainly doesn't raise anybody's opinion of Amazon.com.

Canada-based Quorum Information Technologies Inc. has announced today the signing of five more dealership customers to XSELLERATOR.

Awright, now that's the kind of product name we need more of in this business. Forget these boring anodyne names, we want names that sound like superhero weapons from 1950s comic books and TV cartoons. The X-Sellerator! The Custo-Phaser! The Electro-Profitometer! The Rival-Crushator!

One of the five is Quorum's second DaimlerChrysler branded pilot in the United States to sign-up, and the other four dealerships are signing up to General Motors' Integrated Dealer Management System -- two of these dealerships are in Canada and two are in the United States.