By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Frank Sinatra's A Swingin' Affair! album:
Access Business Technologies, has announced the launch of its PowerSite product, which provides mortgage Web sites for mortgage companies. Company officials say it includes borrower loan applications designed to "integrate directly with ABT-hosted LOS and CRM systems."
It's being marketed as having tools and content to "launch a Web presence" for mortgage companies, including mortgage calculators, customer advice and mortgage terminology glossaries.
"Adding, editing and changing content on PowerSite can be performed with no knowledge of HTML code," company officials promise. Still, "a complete training course for PowerSite is provided by ABT upon subscription."
There's also the Loan Officer Portal, which "provides access to the loan officer’s business tools directly from their site," company officials say.
Access Business Technologies sells managed hosting services, integration, reporting and professional services solutions for the mortgage industry.
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Chennai, India-based mobile-worx has announced the release of ZestADZ, a comprehensive mobile advertising platform billed by company officials as combining "the best aspects of enterprise software, Web, CRM and mobile technology."
ZestADZ is designed to "complement conventional (print, TV, billboard, e-mail) media" for advertisers to "launch highly targeted keyword based marketing campaigns, that can deliver mobile advertisements across any mobile platform or network," company officials say.
The product enables mobile advertisements within WAP pages, mobile applications, mobile games, mobile content decks and SMS messages.
"We are keen to partner with them to deliver these products to carriers and publishers in the Asia Pac marketplace,” said Sanjoy Bose, CEO, Buzznet, a vendor based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
ZestADZ promises to follow the core principles of permission-based marketing, where advertising messages are sent only to subscribers who have opted to receive relevant and pertinent messages or content.
"Mobile marketing has tremendous potential. For a Direct Marketer it is indeed a dream come true and a great challenge. Till date the tools necessary for carriers, advertisers and publishers has not been not available, said R. Sridhar, described by ZestADZ officials as "a pioneer in Direct Marketing and Partner, IDEAS-RS."
ZestADZ it built on Open Source components is available on a fully hosted basis. Company officials say it will be available to early adopters on a limited distribution (Alpha Release) basis in May, with general availability in June.
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So, First Coffee thinks this Cricket World Series is pretty much Australia's to lose. Although it'd be nice to see New Zealand win this and the rugby World Cup in the same year, wouldn't it?
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Vendavo, a vendor of price management software, has announced the appointment of for Siebel executive Skip Bacon as senior vice president of Pricing Solutions.
Bacon will lead the company's global pricing science, business consulting and product management teams. He reports directly to Alan Crites, Vendavo's president and chief executive officer.
Prior to joining Vendavo, Bacon served as group vice president of Application Technology at Siebel Systems (now Oracle). In that role, he was responsible for Siebel's Enterprise CRM application platforms, which were deployed to more than 4,000 customers worldwide.
Bacon holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University.
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Applix, Inc. has announced a partnership with CRM vendor UFIDA, China's largest software company, to "enhance strategic business analytics functionality in UFIDA's U8 Management Solution," according to Applix officials.
They're serious about this: Applix has opened a new business office in Hong Kong.
Under the agreement, UFIDA will integrate the Applix business analysis and reporting application -- powered by the core TM1 analytics engine -- as the Business Performance Management engine of UFIDA ERP U8.
UFIDA ERP U8 is an ERP product for small and medium-sized enterprises. As part of the agreement they will incorporate new BPM features and functionality, including reporting and analytics. The combined product will be marketed as an "easy-to-use, fully-featured, highly scaleable BPM/ERP platform for synchronizing front and back office business management functions."
There is a growing market for fully integrated BI/BPM products in China and throughout Asia, said Michael Morrison, chief operating officer of Applix.
China's management market has exploded here in recent years. U.S. analyst firm IDC forecasts this growth to continue, with total sales in the country almost doubling within three years to nearly US $2 billion by 2009.
According to CCID, a Chinese IT market research and consulting company, UFIDA is the largest ERP vendor in China with 24.6 percent of market share.
"Through our partnership with Applix, we're making significant improvements by adding world class reporting and analytics to our U8 management platform," said Wu Qiang, vice president of UFIDA.
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RainMaker, which sells management software for law firms, has developed a library of Web Parts to provide end-user access to information residing in its core enterprise system.
RainMaker's initial SharePoint content includes financial data from its financial management suite, with Web Parts such as financial and business intelligence reports. Firm management and other authorized users can use a new Message Center on the SharePoint portal to access financial reports from RainMaker, including standard (e.g. Realization), scheduled and bursted reports based on individual preference.
Further, specific Business Intelligence reports, with associated drill-down and charting capabilities, can be easily developed and distributed on-the-fly.
The product also features digital scorecards, which provide e-views of different dimensions of the law firm's business with user selection criteria, drill-down and trend graphs that satiate some of the more commonly asked performance requests within a firm, such as top 'X' rankings in your firm, daily or weekly cash reports, billing and collection statistics, and working attorney analysis and performance information.
RainMaker is currently developing Practice Management, Business Intelligence and some futuristic Financial Management-related Web Parts that will include CRM and calendaring components.
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Word of advice: Never hire an overseas tutor without meeting aforesaid tutor personally first. Take it from me. Unless you enjoy playing darts in the dark.
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