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July 2007

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Technalign's 3.1 CRM/SCM, Graham Tech, Neocase 10.5 Released, Interactive Intelligence Results, Syntellect in Malaysia

July 31, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Elvis Costello's This Year's Model:



Technalign has announced the launch of Version 3.1 of its CRM/Supply Chain Management application, which is now available for download on a 30-day trial. The CRM provides on demand, real time statistics for the sales force, credit, and support teams, according to company officials.

The new release includes many new functions, including consignment orders, credit processing, and invoicing capabilities. Hiatlantis provides enterprise-wide resource planning using the Funnel/Pipeline reporting functionality, and a new support routing function has been added to allow support managers to better route support incidents to appropriate support personnel.

Hiatlantis, Technalign officials say, provides customers with "an inexpensive scalable product allowing a company to grow and not be held back." It uses a Web browser on the client side for interaction with the system regardless of platform, and is accessible anywhere an Internet connection is available.

Dianne Ursini, CEO of Technalign, said the company "needed to improve on the functionality of the system for management to get a clearer picture into future sales and provide the necessary tools to inform sales of any issues." The support incident system "provides companies supporting a product the ability to provide service based on service level agreements," she said.



Hiatlantis has the ability to import Zapdata for sales force leads. Sales teams may track sales calls and advancements, while management teams may drill down within the prospect lists, making certain the information is at their fingertips to make informed growth decisions.

The sales force effectively manages and shares leads while tracking opportunities through the complete sales cycle effectively.





UK energy provider ScottishPower has been recognized for the excellence of its online service, and ScottishPower's IT Director Andrew Neilson, credits CRM vendor Graham Technology's Online Energy system for the success.



"We are delighted to have been recognized by USWITCH for the quality of our online service," Neilson said.









ProTrak, SyncSite, Zilliant, SAP America, Business & Decision Group, Oracle News

July 30, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is an old friend, Aimee Mann’s Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse:

ProTrak International has announced today that Hamilton Lane recently completed the installation of the ProTrak Advantage Enterprise CRM system to “help manage their new and existing prospect, client and consultant relationships,” according to ProTrak officials.

Hamilton Lane, with over 80 employees, provides discretionary and non-discretionary private equity asset management services to investors from offices in cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco, London, Tel Aviv, and Singapore.

ProTrak Advantage will help Hamilton Lane with third-party marketing, mass mail and e-mail communications, managing complex people and business-to-business relationships, integration with incoming and outgoing Outlook e-mail, sales analysis and management reporting requirements, and Pipeline and Opportunity management, which was configured to Hamilton Lane’s specific needs.

Olin Honore, vice president of Information Technology at Hamilton Lane, said ProTrak was the one vendor he found with the “feature-rich product, proven scalability, and professional service organization that was necessary to support our enterprise-wide deployment.”

“For over 19 years now, we have maintained our focus solely on investment management firms,” said Simon Koziel, President of ProTrak.

With over $9.5 billion in private equity assets under management and the oversight of an additional $70 billion in advisory assets, Hamilton Lane is also responsible for over $16 billion in commitments to non-U.S.














CRM Love from Gila, Motorola in Bahrain, Oracle ERP, CRM in Dubai, Tectura and Microsoft, StayinFront CRM

July 28, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, possibly the greatest rock album any American's ever recorded:


Austin, Texas-based Gila Corporation, through its two business units, MSB and Gila Group, recently converted its in-house customer relationship management product to a Web-based application provided by salesforce.com.

"We looked at a number of products and salesforce.com proved to be the most robust and scalable," commented Bruce Cummings, Gila Corporation's Chief Marketing Officer.

  

Gila has experienced rapid expansion since it restructured its internal operations, with "a total focus on the customer," Cummings said: "As part of the process redesign, we needed a better way to manage our relationships with all clients, large and small."

Cumming maintains "It really is about showing our customers the love and what I mean by that is effectively managing data to best serve their needs as they define them, which requires flexibility for each client."
  

Gila Corporation sells outsourced revenue recovery products and services in the country. The company provides specialized collections services for governmental entities and financial institutions nationwide.



Mena Telecom has signed a contract with Motorola to plan, deploy and manage a nationwide 802.16e-based mobile WiMAX and IP Multimedia Subsystem network in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Under the terms of the contract, Motorola will also take responsibility for the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, as well as the technical operations of the project and management of the entire WiMAX/IMS network.

The 802.16e WiMAX standard delivers "significant advantages" over the fixed 802.16d standard that is being used by some operators, including advanced antenna technology to improve capacity and range performance, Motorola officials say.

This agreement will enable Mena Telecom to use Motorola's abilities in mobile WiMAX and deliver wireless broadband connectivity as well as advanced voice and nomadic broadband data services to both business and residential customers across the Kingdom of Bahrain.

With Motorola's WiMAX product, Mena Telecom's infrastructure will be compatible with technology to be embedded in numerous future devices, including laptops.





















CRM's Salesforce.com and Theikos, Hartman at MEA Digital, Open Source CRM, NetSuite Poaching Microsoft, Livelink ECM

July 27, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is an iTunes playlist of obscure but good Rolling Stones songs -- just finished "100 Years Ago," the current track is "Crackin' Up," next up's "Child Of The Moon."

Theikos, a consulting firm focused on the SaaS marketplace, is now offering On-Demand Professional Services for organizations using salesforce.com's on-demand CRM applications and platform.

Theikos is announcing the availability of on-demand consulting services which include business process consulting, set-up and configuration of Salesforce applications, reporting, Apex development, and more. Service selection, purchase, and work order requests can be completed online.

"Theikos On-Demand Professional Services gives salesforce.com customers a quick and easy way to engage expert resources for their on-demand projects and ad-hoc requests," said Bobby Napiltonia, senior vice president, Worldwide Alliances, Salesforce.com.

With the salesforce.com community exceeding 32,000 customers, the market for on-demand applications has grown to the point where some clients need On-Demand Professional Services -- purchasing expert consulting services via the Web to execute on tasks and projects that need to be done for the client's Salesforce application.

This generally replaces the traditional consulting services contracting process with an online purchase and work order submission path. Introductory pricing is available through the end of August, and is posted at http://www.theikos.com/odps.



Interactive marketing strategy and services firm MEA Digital has announced that John Hartman has been named Vice President of Strategy. In this role, Hartman will lead the agency's strategic planning and measurement and analytics disciplines.

Most recently, John was the Vice President of Professional Services at Kintera, a CRM provider to the non-profit sector.















Oracle Siebel’s CRM Release, SugarCRM and GPL, Xactly and RightNow, AIRS CRM, Altitude and Unity, UDS Goes In-House

July 26, 2007

The news, as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Robert Earl Keen, Jr.’s brilliant album, What I Really Mean:

Oracle today announced the availability of the latest version of Oracle’s Siebel CRM On Demand Release 14, which would be the 14th release in the past three or four years. Siebel CRM On Demand Release 14 combines CRM functionality with customization capabilities and comprehensive integration, Oracle officials say.

Oracle officials note that by “bringing Web 2.0 technologies to hosted CRM, Siebel CRM On Demand simplifies user tasks, minimizing navigation steps, mouse clicks and page refreshes.”

Siebel CRM On Demand adds homepage customization so users can arrange elements on the page, including lists, history and favorites, to suit the way they like to work.

This latest release is also being billed as making it easier to tailor the application to support business process, by using comprehensive process, data and UI customization features. Users can embed best practices, streamline data entry, and configure different layouts for different types of records.

Additionally, support for complex, cross-matrixed organizations “makes it easier to set up the system to model their business structure and provide access to the appropriate information,” officials say.

Siebel CRM On Demand Release 14 is now available to new customers, starting at $70 per user per month.











A Discussion on Choosing CRM for Small Businesses

July 25, 2007

A second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is, well, it has to be U2. Read on:



Today we'd like to thank Infusion CRM's President Clate Mask for taking the time for an interview with First Coffee:

FC: You bump into a woman at a cocktail party who says "Oh, you're the president of a CRM company. We'd like to get rolling with that, we're a high-tech services and consulting vendor operating internationally, with about 200 employees, where do we start?"

CM: Get very, very clear about why you're looking for a CRM software product in the first place -- before you start shopping. The truth is, CRM products are designed for different purposes, but ironically, they're all called CRM software.

Some products work well for customer support, others are great for the sales department, while others are a better fit for the marketing folks or the accounting group.





Long Reach Corporation Announces info@hand, Callidus Software and Salesforce.com Team, Cloud9 Gets Venture Capital, and Zultys’ New Pricing

July 25, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Creedence Clearwater Revival's last great album, Cosmo's Factory -- and what a great one it was:

The Long Reach Corporation has announced the next generation of its flagship product, info@hand, a Customer Relationship and Business Management (CRBM) System for small and medium-sized businesses.

The application blends Customer Relationship Management (CRM) features with extended business management capabilities for Order Management, Project & Resource tracking, Customer Service, and Human Resources, company officials claim.

Info@hand differs from conventional CRM products in that it offers key features that enable small and medium businesses to "capitalize on their ability to be nimble -- and outmaneuver larger companies," company officials say, adding that info@hand does this by "eliminating common small-business bottlenecks in finance and administrative areas."

It allows users to create quotes or invoices quickly for clients, and then synchronize them later into a familiar accounting system for tracking by administrative staff.

The product also offers comprehensive project management capabilities such as timesheets, project costing and invoicing; fully integrated customer service management with an automatic assignment mode that pairs cases with the most qualified technicians; and strong international support.

Info@hand is sold for a one-time customer fee of $250 per user, which includes specific software for mobile access (info@hand Mobile) and the Joomla-based info@hand Customer Portal (which allows clients to interact with a controlled subset of their account data within the CRM). Many other CRM products charge additional fees per customer linked via the portal.



Callidus Software and Salesforce.com have announced the availability of the Callidus TrueComp Suite for AppExchange.

The Callidus TrueComp Suite for AppExchange is designed to "help companies of all sizes to align their sales objectives with business strategy," company officials say. Integrated into salesforce.com's on-demand platform, the TrueComp Suite for AppExchange is available for deployment on the AppExchange.

"The AppExchange is becoming an increasingly important platform for on-demand application integration," said Denis Pombriant, managing principal of the Beagle Research Group, LLC a CRM market research firm and consultancy.

The Callidus SPM product uses hard business data instead of sales forecasts. The TrueComp Suite for AppExchange puts aspects of the SPM process -- real-time sales performance management, analytics, quota and territory planning, incentive management and execution -- together in a single product.

The product's claimed benefits include planning of sales and incentive strategies, execution of sales incentive plans to ensure sales incentives are in line with latest corporate objectives, that they are spent accurately and wisely, and that less time is spent on administration and more on driving business performance.



Sage Software has announced that Coverall Cleaning Concepts, a commercial cleaning franchise company, has selected the Sage SalesLogix CRM product to manage its sales processes.

SyncSite, a Sage CRM Solutions Business partner, was selected by Coverall to implement Sage SalesLogix at its 23 regional support centers, including wireless laptop synchronization support for 110 field sales representatives.





























CRM for South Carolina, Intelliworks CRM, Autonomy and Zantaz, SaaS in Asia

July 24, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Beach Boys’ Surf’s Up:



Intelliworks, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) products for higher education, has announces that New England College, an independent liberal arts college located in Henniker, New Hampshire, has selected Orion to manage and streamline the marketing and communications functions of its undergraduate admissions department.

"We see the Orion product as a vehicle to accomplish more with less," said Diane Raymond, director of admission for New England College.

New England College's undergraduate admissions office is responsible for managing relationships with a variety of constituents including prospective students both in the United States and around the world, guidance counselors, independent college admissions consultants, and officials at a number of two-year schools.

Orion's centralized contact database enables constituent interactions and follow-up for all members of the department, as well as a single historical record of all communication.

Dev Ganesan, chairman and co-founder of Intelliworks, said Intelliworks provides "a CRM product for NEC's undergraduate admissions team that is easy to use and requires no time investment from the college's information technology team."







Autonomy Corporation, a vendor of CRM and other infrastructure software, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Zantaz, a vendor of content archiving and electronic discovery products.



Michael Lynch, group CEO of Autonomy, said: with the acquisition "we'll expand the addressable market, distribution and reach for Autonomy's Aungate IDOL-based products further into markets driven by recent regulatory changes."



On 3 July 2007, Autonomy and Zantaz announced that they had entered into a definitive merger agreement for Autonomy to acquire Zantaz for a purchase price of approximately $375 million in cash after certain deductions.







According to a recent report issued by Springboard Research, "The SaaS Market in Asia Pacific, 2006 to 2009: Expanding the Reach & Appeal of Software," the regional market is still dominated by five vendors -- Salesforce.com, WebEx, RightNow Technologies, Oracle and NetSuite.



The report found awareness and adoption of SaaS across the region (excepting Japan), with the market increasing 92.5 percent in 2006 to a the market size at $154 million. The SaaS market in Asia will reach $1.16 billion by 2010, the report found, with a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent, to comprise 15 percent of the enterprise software application market.



"Although customer relationship management accounts for the largest chunk of the market in Asia, representing 45 percent of revenue in 2006, organizations are aware of and use many different types of SaaS applications," the report's author found.

After small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for vendors, now large enterprises are also looking at SaaS for non-critical applications, said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, Research Manager for Springboard Research.



"SaaS is definitely going beyond CRM, which is the area it has been associated with in the past," said Pandey. "With all segments of SaaS growing, we are seeing applications across the board being adopted by enterprises in the region and more importantly, we are seeing enterprises being very happy with the SaaS applications they are using. This bodes well for the market, not only the small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for SaaS vendors, but also those large enterprises looking at SaaS for non-critical application."







Maximizer Software has announced that the South Carolina Department of Commerce has used Maximizer CRM to "blow out its annual job creation targets by more than 40 percent," in less than 6 months using the system, according to Maximizer officials.

Representatives of the agency believe the new, customized system gives the state agency a major competitive advantage over neighboring regions.

After six complete months using Maximizer CRM software, SCDOC officials say the department benefits from complete investment project management in a single system, 100 percent integration of Microsoft Outlook e-mail, 100 percent project manager adoption of the new system and standardized process for attracting and closing new investment to the region -- "very rare in state governments," officials note.



SCDOC's Director of Administration Mandy Kibler said "we feel we've increased our competitiveness by focusing on delivering customer experience to the companies investing in our region.













Harry Potter, AK 47, Invisible CRM, Customer Effective, Aprimo, Group 1 Software

July 23, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Hank Mobley’s underrated Soul Station album: Well, all I have to say is that while J.K. Rowling did a pretty good job at the end of Deathly Hallows — don’t worry, no spoilers here — much of the earlier part of the book was slow reading. And while she claims this is the last one, she certainly left herself ample dangling plotlines for a sequel. But overall well done, thanks for the terrific novels, and First Coffee’s amazed to pause to consider, again, the entire Harry Potter phenomenon, what a wonderful surprise Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was and how admirable a job Rowling did with the series. A tip of the coffee pot is in order. … The Turkish elections are over, and here’s wondering if anybody else sees it as an ominous sign that the AK Party got 47 percent of the vote? The party, more Islamist in public image than actual practice, actually returns to Parliament with ten fewer seats than they had before.

Infusion Software, Verticals onDemand, ETelecare Global Solutions, Cambridge Technology Enterprises, Principal Financial Group, Canadian Tourism Commission

July 20, 2007

  By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz     The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Lou Reed’s Live In Italy:   Infusion Software, a CRM vendor focusing on sales and marketing automation software for small businesses, has announced that Pat Sullivan, founder and former CEO of ACT! CRM software and SalesLogix has joined the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately.   “Infusion Software’s CRM program is built specifically for small businesses — which is really the last great opportunity in the CRM software market,” said Sullivan.   Sullivan is considered a pioneer and visionary in the sales automation industry and is attributed with creating the contact management software category.

Talisma Results, cView CRM for Redstone, Clear Choice Gets BrokerLogix, John Deere Gets Targetbase, Cerillion and Mattel

July 19, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Eels' “Daisies of the Galaxy:”

Talisma Corporation, a vendor of what the company likes to call "Customer Interaction Management" products, has announced "record revenue in the first two quarters of 2007," while recording "greater than 25 percent global bookings growth."

Q2 saw Talisma release CIM 8.0, the latest version of their customer service, sales, and support suite.  The product incorporates "numerous enhancements," company officials said upon release, including "expanded proactive capabilities in Talisma Chat and in two newly released products, Talisma Campaign and Talisma VoIP."

Also Talisma won the Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine 2006 Product of the Year, CRM Magazine Service Leader Award and was an American Business Award (Stevie) finalist. The vendor also opened offices in Germany and Hong Kong. Dan Vetras, President & CEO of Talisma, pronounced himself "satisfied with our results."

Redstone Federal Credit Union has announced it has selected Open Solutions's The Complete Credit Union Solution, a relational core data processing platform for credit unions, to address its enterprise-wide data processing needs.

In addition to The Complete Credit Union Solution data processing platform, Redstone Federal Credit Union is implementing other Open Solutions products, including cView for CRM and business intelligence, a safe deposit box module, channel management center, interaction management center, speech telephony services, premium overdraft protection, positive pay and collections applications.

Based in Huntsville, Alabama, Redstone has assets of more than $2 billion, 18 branches and serves more than 280,000 members. "We are a large credit union in a relatively small market," said Stephen White, vice president of technology for Redstone Federal Credit Union.











Consona CRM and Onyx, Xactly and WageWorks, BlackBerry and CRM, New WorkSmart.net and SmartBPM Suite, SalesLogistix and Salesforce.com

July 18, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Rod Stewart's stone cold classic album, Every Picture Tells A Story. Just never gets old.


Leicester, U.K.-based WorkSmart.net has released ready-to-use products templates for its subscription-based hosted digital workplace. The business functions include project and customer management, HR management, marketing management and support services.

The service also features what company officials call "substantially enhanced" WorkSmart Web Databases, providing an way to design, build and deploy further custom products for their business processes and information sharing.

WorkSmart.net was designed to minimize costs and deployment issues with a functional, ready-to-use digital workplace aimed at distributed teams.

With this release, WorkSmart.net provides a tool delivering "unlimited sites with user defined structures, complex user access permissions, and multiple Web databases," company officials say. Each database and its multiple views can be populated and modified on the fly through the front end using a spreadsheet-like interface.

The data can be imported and exported from and to standard formats.








Mail2World, Oracle in Dubai, DataForce CRM, Intelliworks, PMP Research

July 17, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Marshall Tucker Band’s eponymous debut album:   Mail2World, a vendor of hosted e-mail and collaboration products, has announced the launch of 28 new contacts management features in the company’s enterprise-class hosting platform.   The updated, on-demand contacts application joins Mail2World’s lineup of hosted products, including e-mail, calendar, file cabinet, notes, tasks, RSS reader, favorites, SMS and more. Company officials say the new feature release “completes Mail2World’s design objectives for contacts and tightens integration of contacts with the company’s e-mail, calendar, notes and tasks applications.”   With integration of new contacts features with other applications within its e-mail service, Mail2World has created a system which, company officials say, lets users organize and access their company and personal contacts online and wirelessly, share them with colleagues or publish them for global sharing -- all from a single place.   To help keep contacts current, users can request contact information updates directly from their contacts via e-mail, and the new information is automatically inserted into the users’ contacts list for future reference.

Concentrix CRM Audit, IFS Buys ISC, Zoho’s Ambitions, CRM in Pharmaceuticals, CRM on Third-Generation Sites

July 16, 2007

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 album In The Wee Small Hours:   For anyone in Britain who’s interested: The good folks at Concentrix are offering assessments to identify how individual businesses could be improved using modern CRM technologies.   Company officials say they will “outline the key stages in CRM system implementation and, if appropriate, recommend suitable products from the CRM products currently on the market.”   “The CRM market has seen some considerable changes in the past few years,” company officials say, adding “each CRM package has its own features and characteristics, making a business assessment an essential starting point for any CRM project.   They say a good CRM system effectively integrates marketing, sales and customer service functions, streamlines internal business processes and makes it easier for everyone inside a company to work together and share critical information: “It doesn’t matter if a business has two, ten, or five-hundred marketing or customer facing staff, a modern, professionally implemented CRM system can bring benefits throughout a company, whatever its size.”   For more information, or to apply for the free strategic-level assessment of your business and IT infrastructure, visit www.concentrix.co.uk. Available to UK-based companies only. …   CRM vendor IFS Defence, a joint venture between BAE Systems and IFS AB, has acquired the British software company Information Science Consultants Ltd, headquartered in Cirencester, UK.   The acquisition strengthens IFS Defence’s position in the Aerospace & Defense sector, according to IFS officials, and enhances its capability to sell naval enterprise products and adds leading expertise in Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) processes and toolsets to the IFS Application suite.

Infusion DM CRM, Bahman and Microsoft Dynamics, CRM Lesson, Autonomy and Aktive, Tower of Oz, Altitude IP Contact Center

July 16, 2007

  By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, a crazy, loopy mess of an album that rather grows on one:   Hydro Tech Environmental Corp., a full service, integrated environmental consulting firm, has selected Infusion Direct Marketing, a direct marketing consultancy, as its marketing agency of record to coordinate all direct marketing, advertising, public relations, and customer relationship management (CRM) programs for the firm.   Infusion will manage all trade shows, events and sponsorships for the company. Mostafa El Sehamy, Hydro Tech’s President, said the firm is “confident that Infusion Direct Marketing will help us inform customers and prospects about our wide scope of services we provide, including GeoProbe Services, Site Assessments, and Tank Removals.”   Infusion Direct Marketing is a boutique direct marketing consultancy offering comprehensive consulting services including lead generation, direct mail, e-mail, public relations and others. …   Dubai-based Bahman group of companies, an established Middle East presence, has announced that it has selected CRM implementation firm Columbus IT, a Microsoft Dynamics Partner, to implement the ERP suite Microsoft Dynamics NAV, as well as “enhance operational efficiency and productivity at all user levels across the organization,” according to Bahman officials.   The Bahman group of companies represents various international brands for small electrical domestic appliances for its wholesale and distribution division and high end tableware and decorative items sold through its retail outlets in the U.A.E.

CRM and Paraskevidekatriaphobia, iPhone and Etelos, PacificNet, Microsoft Financing, Verticals onDemand

July 13, 2007

  By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Elvis Costello's This Year's Model, one of the very few albums in rock to use a hockey-rink organ correctly:   Etelos has announced the first of what will no doubt be many CRM apps for the iPhone.   “Etelos CRM works great on the iPhone” Etelos CEO Danny Kolke reassures consumers. “It allows you to get access to your tasks, projects, appointments or any of your other business processes while you're away from the office. It's almost as good as carrying a laptop.” Yeah, and a whole lot cooler.   The Etelos CRM suite gives users contact, task, group, sales and project management, as well as group messaging and reporting functionality in one interface that is now compatible with the iPhone's Safari Web browser.

Sage CRM Gets Creative, Cognizant Sponsors BPT, Lagan and Macfarlane in Scotland, Alfahim and AutoLine CRM, Business Decisions, Sun and Sand

July 12, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Lou Reed’s Live In Italy:   The Sage Group plc has announced an agreement to acquire from its owners Singapore-based Creative Software Pte Ltd, a vendor of payroll and human resource management software products, for an enterprise value of about $6.5 million.   CSPL has 4,000 customers spread across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Hong Kong. With branch offices in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, CSPL employs around 70 people and is based in Singapore. Last year it reported an annual turnover of approximately $3.2 million.   Paul Walker, Sage Chief Executive, said the acquisition allows Sage to offer a comprehensive product “comprising ERP, CRM, payroll and HRM… localized to meet the needs of our Asian customers and broadens our geographic and product reach in the important Asian markets.”   The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to complete within the next few months. Following completion the business will report to Gee Sing Low, Managing Director, for Sage Asia. …   Cognizant, a vendor of IT and business process outsourcing services, joins the list of premier sponsors of BPT Partners’ CRM Certified Seminars in Applied CRM Strategy and Social Media and CRM 2.0.   BPT Partners, founded by Bruce Culbert and CRM legend Paul Greenberg, delivers best-of-breed CRM certification training, consulting, research and resources to the Global 2000.

Microsoft Hosted CRM, Salentica Hosted CRM, ExactTarget, Open Solutions, Analyzer CRM, Salesforce.com

July 11, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ Moanin’:   It looks like Microsoft is finally serious about offering its CRM as a hosted product, as they’ve announced the launch is set for later this quarter — for North America at least. The rest of the world can wait.   It’ll be called Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM, and the professional version is slated to start at $44 per user per month, and close to $60 for the enterprise version, available next April.   Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, said the Professional Edition, which will basically be the Titan software, is free through the end of this year; it will cost $39 per user per month during 2008 and settle in at $44, with an early access release shipping by October.   At the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 in Denver, however, company officials threw Europe a sop, saying its ERP software aimed at smaller businesses, Dynamics Entrepreneur Solution, will be rolled out in Europe first before its global availability, according to industry observer China Martens.   “The software will provide smaller organizations with finance, purchasing and sales and marketing software. It’s aimed at companies employing up to 49 staff and tops out at five concurrent users,” Barb Edson, director, Microsoft Dynamics said, in Martens’ words.   The CRM product, coming from Microsoft’s Business Solutions unit, is actually based on the next version of its packaged CRM application, code-named Titan, which is due to ship in the fourth quarter, according to industry observer Marc Songini.   Songini cited Michael Maoz, an analyst at Gartner, who opined that Microsoft’s late entry into the hosted CRM business and “lack of add-on products from third-party vendors” could “prove fatal to its effort to enter the market,” in Songini’s words.   Maoz is quoted as saying the service “has only a slight chance of succeeding,” with Songini noting that Microsoft will initially be fully dependent on its partners to sell the service, while direct rival and field leader Salesforce.com has strong direct sales.   .

CRM OnTarget, ReachForce, Kintera Connect, Nodus, Sage and MAS, GroupSpark, InsideSales CRM

July 10, 2007

  By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Reckless Kelly’s Reckless Kelly Was Here:   CRM OnTarget, a vendor of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has launched a new affiliate program at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. The “Power to Compete” program is designed to help the Microsoft Partner Community adopt the Software as a Service (SaaS) business model.   Affiliates will be listed on the CRM OnTarget Web site this summer, and global marketing will begin in September with support from Microsoft. In this arrangement CRM OnTarget affiliates own the customer relationship and provide services while CRM OnTarget provides the infrastructure necessary to offer Dynamics CRM, Exchange, and SharePoint in an SaaS environment.   Speaking to the Partner audience and key Microsoft relationships, CRM OnTarget manager Mike Berger said the program is designed to let Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partners “remain competitive in CRM opportunities when prospects start talking about hosting as a serious option.”   CRM OnTarget officials compared the setup to an arrangement in the financial services markets, saying national brands in the brokerage market, market well for lead generation, build brand, and offer tools that set local offices apart from the pack, but “the fact remains that the vast majority of these offices are independent brokers who are simply benefiting from the lead generation, brand, references, and methodology.

SmartCatalog, Bscaler ERM, Soffront CRM, FTS and RT2i, Surf Life Saving, Douglas Shaw & Associates

July 9, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Kinks’ live album One For The Road:   Endeavor Commerce, publishers of SmartCatalog, a selling and configuration product VeriTest has certified for both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Commerce Server, has announced today it will unveil version 6.1 of its SmartCatalog for CRM application.   SmartCatalog has seen “significant market growth” in 2007, company officials say, having recently won five new global enterprise customers. For the first half of 2007 overall revenue grew more than 90 percent, with software sales revenue growth at 155 percent.   SmartCatalog 6.1 offers a new end-user application containing features making the product more flexible, scalable and easier to use for both on-line and off-line users. SmartCatalog’s new end-user application is architected using the ASP .Net 2.0 Framework.

Salesforce CRM for AFL, Wellstream and IFS, Syntellect, Rescompany and Microsoft, Right90 Funding, Callidus in Latin America

July 6, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Charlie Parker’s The Gold Collection:   CRM and other applications vendor IFS has announced what company officials are calling a “significant deal” with Wellstream International Limited, a supplier of flexible pipelines to the oil and gas industry.   Wellstream has chosen IFS Applications to help manage its entire project lifecycle. IFS Applications will enable Wellstream to ensure that products are manufactured to the company’s standards of quality, health and safety.   Because of its engineer-to-order business model, Wellstream officials said they needed a software system that could manage the critical path of all project activities in order to deliver products to its customers within a specified critical timeline and support oil field operations, often offshore.

Tigerpaw CRM and Kaseya, Zoho and Facebook, Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniTouch, TUANZ Call Center Awards, Impact 360

July 5, 2007

  By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Adam Carroll’s Far Away Blues:   Tigerpaw Software, a vendor of IT business management software, has announced it has entered into a technology alliance with Kaseya, a vendor of Managed Service Automation software for IT providers.   Officials of both firms say the move is to “enrich the platform for the delivery of IT managed services through the integration of functionality between Kaseya and Tigerpaw CRM+.”   Tigerpaw CRM+, integrated with Kaseya’s MSA software, enables end-to-end CRM, service automation and inventory tracking while delivering a complete view into clients’ IT environments, according to Tigerpaw CEO Dave Foxall.   Foxall said the integration of the two applications creates a product for MSPs, pairing Kaseya’s network monitoring capabilities with Tigerpaw’s professional service automation tools. E-mail alerts generated through the Kaseya product are monitored, interpreted, and routed to appropriate technicians, and ultimately converted into service orders, through the Tigerpaw CRM+ Managed Services Integrator. …   Always like to recognize quality whenever and wherever it’s honored:, so congrats to CIGNA Life Insurance, winner of the 2007 Call Center of the Year Award, 26 to 75 seat category, at the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand Awards.   Mark Kenning, CIGNA contact center manager, said his company has “invested heavily in recent years in our people, training and systems.”   Also a finalist in 2006, the win is especially significant as the CIGNA Contact Center makes predominately outbound calls.

CompanionLink Software, SugarCRM Inc., Diversified Advertising Services, Trial Solutions, HCL Infosystems Limited, CIES World Food Business Summit

July 4, 2007

  By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is, in honor of the Fourth of July, the great American music, a four-CD burned set selected by yours truly, ranging from Louis Armstrong’s 1927 recording of “Mack the Knife” to last year’s New York Dolls comeback album. No other country or culture in the world can match America’s music, further proof that art flourishes best in a tolerant, diverse free market culture.   I’d put our top ten of just the 20th century up against anyone else’s of all time if I could just narrow it down to ten — when you have to leave Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Muddy Waters, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Parker, Woody Guthrie, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground or, God forbid, The Supremes off a list of your country’s best music then you, my friend, have an embarrasment of riches.

CRM for Auto Vendor Sells RPM, NetSuite's IPO, Casio, Cognos, Savi, Autonomy, TEC

July 3, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys' album From One Good American to Another.   Online CRM NetSuite Inc. has filed a Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its plan for an initial public offering of common stock, according to investment industry journal RTT.   Larry Ellison, the co-founder and CEO of Oracle, is a director of the company and owns a 74 percent stake. Evan Goldberg, also a former Oracle employee, started the company in 1998 with the help of Ellison. Goldberg is the presently the company's chairman and chief technology officer and owns an 8.1 percent stake in the company.   The company's CEO, Zachary Nelson, also a former employee of Oracle, owns a 3.6 percent stake in the company.

CRM and the Contact Center, One Software Acquired, VinSolutions Auto CRM, Centric Team Elements, Easy Software, Glamajama

July 2, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is X’s More Fun In The New World, as good as post-Ramones American punk ever got:   A recent study presented by NewVoiceMedia, a European hosted telephony service provider, says contact centers are failing to use CRM data for business initiatives.   The findings were presented at an event showcasing Individual Caller Treatment, a concept being pushed by NewVoiceMedia, and basically elaborations of the principle that the “missing link” between contact centers and CRM is costing millions in lost revenues.   David Beard, Partner Development at Sage CRM and a participant at the showcase event, noted that while companies collected customer data and invested heavily on marketing campaigns to entice customers to make contact, “many businesses fail to use the data they already have to use the contact center to provide individualized customer care.”   Customers, Beard believes, are at their most receptive when they call into a business, and urged businesses and contact centers provide the same level of highly personalized and interactive customer service that consumers get online over the telephone.   “Getting callers to hold for long periods of time or asking them to go through endless menus is not the best way to make a customer feel valued” agreed NewVoiceMedia’s CEO Jonathan Grant. He advocated combining CRM with telephony to offer businesses “an intelligent marketing tool that can cross and up sell services to clients,” increase revenues and boost caller satisfaction.   ICT, Grant explained, allows customers to be fast-tracked to their dedicated agent, based on their previous call or based on the information a business might already have about the caller. The customer can also be played relevant, targeted messages (translation: phone ads) while they’re on hold.

Bartender, Creative and Original CRM Please, And Hold the Original.

July 1, 2007

  What's the one thing all editors want? Besides pictures of Paris Hilton? Easy — something creativeandoriginal.   To an editor that's one thing: "Dave, do something creativeandoriginal on how to be creativeandoriginal with CRM.

LogiXML Picks Salesforce.com, Microsoft Picks Tatarinov, Omniture and Interwoven, SAP and Dow, PacificNet, Prism, Sand Results

July 1, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Veggie Tales’ Silly Songs With Larry, specifically “I Love My Lips:”   LogiXML has announced the availability of the Logi Connector Pack, a software package that integrates data generated from Web-based applications and sources. The initial release of the Logi Connector Pack supports integration of data from Salesforce.com applications with the Logi 8 Business Intelligence platform.   The Logi Connector Pack uses advanced Service Oriented Architecture techniques and standards-based Application Programming Interfaces to create connections to Web-based data sources.   Salesforce.com was chosen as the first “connector,” LogiXML officials say, because it is “one of the most popular data sources among Logi users.” Salesforce.com Web deployment offers a robust API that supports a service-oriented approach to connectivity.
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