Intelliworks, Total IT Care's Hosted Microsoft CRM, Syclo, Salesforce.com Results

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
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Intelliworks, Total IT Care's Hosted Microsoft CRM, Syclo, Salesforce.com Results

By David Sims

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is just about the best music for doing this kind of work, those great albums from Frank Sinatra's Capitol years, currently A Swingin' Affair:

Got an interesting e-mail the other day from a gentleman named Siddhart Swaroop, correcting my Indian nomenclature in an article I wrote recently:

How are you doing?

In the Tectura missive, New Delhi is called "Noida." Two different cities, though bordering each other.

No puns intended,

Sid

Many thanks, Sid, appreciate the e-mail.

Boy, go from not ever having heard of a particular company to seeing their name pop up all over the place, today we hear that ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd. and Syclo, a developer of mobile software products and a company unknown to First Coffee three days ago, have announced the deployment of their joint workforce management at a "major water district in the United States."

It's coyly unnamed, but what might qualify as a "major water district…" New Orleans? Lake Michigan? 

The ClickSoftware and Syclo joint product, marketed as Smart Schedule, clients can "optimize all types of field work, via a pre-integrated/pre-configured" product, according to Syclo officials.

Smart Schedule is a tool for scheduling and dispatching service or work orders and can be integrated into multiple enterprise applications, including CRM, asset management, billing and HR.

Smart Schedule is marketed as something to help eliminate reliance on paperwork, providing for what Syclo and ClickSoftware officials claim are "greater labor efficiencies by enabling the field force to complete more work on each shift."

The way it's supposed to work, evidently, is "the combination of products allows clients to work smarter with more data in the hands of workers at the point of performance: in effect, improving services by mobile workers being able to feed their CIS, asset management and financial applications with the data needed to better track, plan and schedule work."

First Coffee doesn't know about you, but whenever I hear "work smarter," I get this mental image of Dilbert's pointy-haired boss.

The large metro water district (Salt Lake City? The Okeefenokee Swamp? Venice?) was looking for "a proven product mix from established vendors that could be deployed with out-of-the box capability," both work management and schedule modules working together, that was "user friendly, and that could be upgraded (and future proofed) to take advantage of emerging technologies (such as RFID, GIS, GPS)."

Salesforce.com, a vendor of on-demand business services, has announced that its third quarter fiscal year 2007 results will be released on Wednesday, November 15, 2006, after the close of the market.

The company will host a conference call at 2:00 p.m. PST (5:00 p.m. EST) to discuss the financial results with the investment community. A live web broadcast of the event will be available on the salesforce.com Investor Relations website at http://www.salesforce.com/investor .

A live dial-in is available domestically at 866-901-SFDC or 866-901-7332 and internationally at 706-758-3772. A replay will be available at 800-642-1687 or 706-645-9291, passcode 1115764, until midnight (EST) December 1, 2006.

Salesforce.com will report GAAP earnings, which include recurring stock based compensation expense, and recurring amortization expense associated with the amortization of purchased intangibles. Guidance for third quarter fiscal year 2007 results, delivered on August 17, 2006, was given on both a GAAP and a non-GAAP basis, which excluded those items.

Current First Call consensus also excludes those items. Beginning with the third quarter fiscal year 2007, the company plans to report earnings and provide outlook on a GAAP basis only.

GroupSpark, a provider Private Label Exchange Hosting, has announced hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, "completely Private Labeled."

Some features of the offering include an easy to use Web-based interface and full Outlook integration. The cost and complexity of building and maintaining a hosted Microsoft CRM product has prevented deployment by service providers across the world, GroupSpark officials say, and they're out to rectify that.

"As the first Private Label Hosted Microsoft CRM product in the marketplace, groupSpark lets partners to instantly add Hosted Microsoft CRM to their suite of services to increase revenue and decrease churn.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows companies to create a centralized repository of customer data that resides alongside Microsoft Office and Outlook -- the applications most employees use every day. From Outlook or a browser (guess which one, Firefox fans), employees can "access Microsoft CRM sales, marketing, and customer service modules to make sales decisions, market products, solve problems, and get strategic views of their business," groupSpark officials say.

TotalCare IT Solutions, the Research Triangle, North Carolina-based vendor of IT products to small and medium-sized businesses, has announced the addition of a customer relationship management platform to their existing service portfolio for small and medium sized businesses.

The CRM platform will be offered through a relationship with Morrisville-based Visitar.

TotalCare, a service division of Alphanumeric Systems, Inc., serves as an outsourced IT department for Triangle SMBs. “A modern theory in business is that technology has created a level playing field for organizations of all sizes. If SMBs are smart in how they use technology to their advantage, they can quickly become a threat to corporate power-houses,” says Tim Finnegan, Program Director.

“We believe that 360° Care via Visitar is one of those technologies that gives smaller businesses a significant competitive advantage," Finnegan said.

Intelliworks Inc., a vendor of CRM for higher education, has announced that the College of Business at Iowa State University has selected Intelliworks CRM software for their MBA program. The College of Business has a fall 2006 enrollment of 3,399 students.

In the first phase of the CRM implementation, ISU will roll out the iRM Essentials product to their MBA program. The core objective of implementing CRM for the MBA program is to provide prospective students with personalized and relevant communications.

Using the iRM Essentials system, recruiters and marketers at ISU will be able to segment and automate the dialogue with prospects while ensuring that every touch is treated in a 1-to-1 manner. It also has an advanced response measurement model.

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