Entellium, Mortgage CRM, TechTarget, Brainshark, Smart CRM Results, 4 Real, Clickpoint

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

Entellium, Mortgage CRM, TechTarget, Brainshark, Smart CRM Results, 4 Real, Clickpoint

By David Sims

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Return To Forever's Romantic Warrior:

This will be my last First Coffee column until the 27th as we'll be in Richmond for Thanksgiving. My sister's family from Vermont's coming down, The Whole Fam Damily™ will be together for the first time in a hair past a coon's age, all 23 of us. Other than family my priorities are much time at Barnes & Noble and dinner at the Smoky Pig in Ashland, as good books, beer and barbecue are hard to find here in Istanbul.

Entellium, a vendor of on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, has announced the commercial availability of the Usability Release 2006, a series of upgrades and enhancements to its on-demand CRM product suite.

The announcement is timed to coincide with World Usability Day, described by company officials as "a series of events designed to promote leadership in usability and design-a key distinction of Usability Release 2006."

The enhanced versions of Entellium's flagship eSalesForce and eCustomerCenter products are based on feedback from hundreds of sales and customer service users. The products feature "a sleek new look, greater automation and a more intuitive approach to navigation," company officials say, so "sales and support teams will be able to manage their activities and tasks more efficiently."

"Today's CRM products don't do nearly enough to make the lives of sales, marketing and customer service employees easier," said Paul Johnston, Entellium President and CEO. "Most have been optimized to serve senior management and the IT department. As a result, these tools actually slow the user down, hindering their effectiveness on the job."

One thing I like to do is check out the colleges NFL players went to. I don't know why, perhaps it's just my natural bent towards general knowledge (what the vulgar call "trivia"), but it's a kick to pick up such tidbits as the one that quarterback Dave Krieg, who played well for years and years, went to now-defunct Milton College. As you can imagine I'm in high demand at parties.

The San Francisco 49ers have two graduates of Yale on their roster, running back Chris Hetherington and tight end Eric Johnson, and the St. Louis Rams have two Harvard grads, linebacker Isaiah Kacyvenski and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. There are also graduates of Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn and Princeton in the NFL.

Scantron Service Group, a vendor of computer hardware maintenance and network design and support, has received second place in the BlackBerry 2006 Corporate Application Awards. Scantron Service Group was recognized for its Mobile Service Delivery package, which enables their 170 Field Service Technicians to "respond quickly to hardware service requests made by their customers," according to Scantron officials.

 

Scantron created an application on the BlackBerry platform that quickly gets tickets out to the Field Service Technicians, and then returns ticket processing information, allowing critical information to be exchanged in real time.

Integrating into their back-end AS400 and DB2/400 CRM data and application, the Mobile Service Delivery makes use of the push-based BlackBerry architecture and is optimized to be "light weight" over wireless networks.

Seattle Seahawks center Jean-Philippe Darche went to McGill University in Montreal, Indianapolis Colts tackle Daniel Federkeil went to the University of Calgary, Green Bay Packers punter Jon Ryan went to the University of Regina in Saskatchewan and Chicago Bears defensive end Israel Idonije went to the University of Manitoba.

Former CRM vendor Smart Online has reported results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2006. For the third quarter of 2006, Smart Online's revenue increased 117 percent with total revenue from continuing operations of $749,206 compared to approximately $344,692 for the same period last year.

An additional $462,468 of revenue was generated by Smart CRM which was reclassified as a discontinued operation. Total revenue, including revenue from continuing and discontinued operations, was $1.2 million.

Net income from continuing operations was $429,581 or $0.03 per share. Net loss attributable to common stockholders was (1,899,848) or (0.13) per share.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2006, revenue increased 194 percent with total revenue from continuing operations of approximately $2.9 million compared to approximately $1 million for the same period last year. Total revenue, including revenue from continuing and discontinued operations, was $4.4 million.

The company took a non-cash charge of approximately $2.8 million reflecting the goodwill impairment related to the discontinued operations of Smart CRM.

Neither New York Jets punter Ben Graham, New Orleans wide receiver Michael Lewis, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Marvin Allen nor Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Christian Mohr went to college. In pro baseball and basketball that's common, in the NFL it's highly unusual for someone to not have at least three years somewhere.

4 Real Investment, Inc., a lead management software and services company, has teamed with Clickpoint Software to announce their first end-user mortgage Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application.

Lead-based CRM products have provided tools necessary to manage leads through an often complex and technical interface. In addition, existing systems usually require technical experience in order to import, export and manage third-party relationships.

Clickpoint officials say their product "provides an easy-to-use interface designed after programs you are already familiar with, and has automated most of the technical processes."

Lead-based companies normally rely on several programs or services to purchase leads, import leads into the CRM, integrate with a predictive dialer, determine lead performance and return bad leads. Clickpoint officials say their product has "integrated all of these services into one easy-to-use program," and that the company is "continually working to provide all of the tools necessary to manage a lead business and is partnering or integrating with the industries lead products providers."

4 Real Investment, Inc. currently sells online lead management software for mid-to-large lead providers, and Clickpoint Software is an online CRM product for anyone managing a lead-based business.

There are players from Tusculum, Robert Morris, Itawamba Community College, John Carroll, Trinity (Texas), Lambuth, Saginaw Valley (three, by my count), Trinity (Illinois), Sonoma State, Mesa State, Northwood, Liberty, Stephen F. Austin, Carson-Newman and Walla Walla Community College in the NFL.

Information technology media company TechTarget has announced the addition of Hosted CRM and Healthcare categories to its 2020software.com Web site.

2020software.com is focused on providing small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) approaching a business software purchase decision with detailed feature comparison information and access to trial software through a "best of breed" or "short list" of the Top 7 vendors in the Enterprise Solutions, Manufacturing ERP Solutions, Mid-Market Accounting Software, HR Software, Business Analytics, RM Solutions, and now, Hosted CRM and Healthcare categories.

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