The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Doris Day's "Secret Love:"

Information Resources, a vendor of information products for the consumer packaged goods, healthcare and retail industries, has announced that John Freeland, President-Worldwide Operations for Salesforce.com, will join IRI as President and Chief Executive Officer effective October 1.

He succeeds Scott W. Klein, who has served as President and CEO since January 2004 and is joining Symphony Technology Group as an operating partner while working with Freeland to ensure a seamless transition.

At Salesforce.com, Freeland was responsible for the company's Successforce portfolio of services and business alliances. Salesforce.com also had one of the most successful IPO’s in recent years during Freeland's tenure.

Prior to joining salesforce.com, Mr. Freeland was Accenture’s Global Managing Partner leading and growing its global CRM practice from $ 1.2 billion to $ 3.7 billion during his tenure.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Buddy Rich Big Band's Mercy, Mercy album:

With U.S. online retail sales for Q1 2007 totaling $31.5 billion, a study has revealed that "U.S. online retailers are failing in key areas of customer service, which has the potential to be devastating to the online retail market which is forecasted to reach $329 billion in 2010," according to Talisma officials.

Mystery shopping from April to June 2007, 34 percent of e-mails went unanswered by what Talisma officials describe as "100 of America's top online retailers," with just over 50 percent of responses providing accurate and complete information. The findings of the audit are highlighted in a downloadable report published by customer service and Customer Interaction Management (CIM) software vendor Talisma.

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning… actually, it being evening here in Istanbul, the news as of the first glass of wine, and the music is Dave Brubeck’s stone-cold classic Time Out, inspired in part by the 9/8 time signature used in Turkish music:   SugarCRM, a provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, has announced Softbank Technology has signed an agreement to distribute Sugar solutions in Japan.   The new partnership will service a broad range of customer needs by offering ASP services that use Sugar.   “We are constantly looking for ways to improve the service we give our customers. We looked at Salesforce, SugarCRM and Siebel, and ultimately decided to go with SugarCRM because of its superior functionality in relation to cost,” said Norikazu Ishikawa, President & CEO, Softbank.   Ishikawa said the company “saw the value of having access to Sugar’s source code, which allows us to make specific customizations to meet our needs and those of our customers.”   Softbank sells a range of products and services, including support for e-business operations and products for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of various types of networks and systems.

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is The Clash's Give 'Em Enough Rope:

Microsoft has released a pair of Windows Vista updates, one of which is "specifically a performance booster for the new operating system," according to company officials. This move shows that, as would be expected, performance remains a top concern for computer sites, and especially for CRM, dependent on high-speed database access.

Issues addressed by the "performance booster" update are speed of wake-up from hibernation and quicker time calculation for the movement of large files.

Performance problems generally can have many sources, Microsoft officials say, including insufficient memory, outdated chipsets, and poorly-written applications. A prime source of poor performance, however, is disk file fragmentation. It can cause such performance issues as slow boot-up, sluggish Web browsing, slow application loading and delayed file access.

Server fragmentation issues can, of course, cause further-reaching issues due to the high-volume constant access of server data.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is George Jones's Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?:

Sage Software has announced the general availability of Sage PFW ERP 5.6, which company officials are describing as "a major new version of this business management system that features key, customer-focused enhancements within its core business management, distribution and manufacturing modules."

Sage PFW 5.6 provides businesses with interface updates, efficiency enhancements, and performance optimizations for "a better, more intuitive user experience," company officials say.

The software is geared towards small and mid-sized companies with up to $150 million in revenue, companies with subsidiaries outside the United States, as well as import/export companies, which can use the product's multi-currency capabilities.

The product features a scalable, three-tier architecture with tight security control, which delivers better productivity for users and improved overall system performance.

Updates include New Vendor Status, Customer Status, Order Hold Features, designed to "help business owners better manage the status of their vendors and customers, and reduce data entry errors. Version 5.6 also provides extensive visibility into customers' credit histories with its new credit tracking fields and calculation capabilities," Sage officials say.

Sage PFW 5.6 will be certified on the new Microsoft operating system, supporting the Vista Business and Ultimate editions.

Market researchers worldwide expect the use of online data providers and online access panels to increase in the next twelve months, according to The Online Research Barometer, a survey conducted by Greenfield Online-Ciao Surveys, a vendor of Internet survey products.

Study results indicate that 82 percent of market researchers surveyed in North America and 87 percent in Europe are predicting their use of online respondent providers will increase in the next twelve months. This compares with 76 percent and 85 percent, respectively, when Greenfield Online-Ciao Surveys completed its last Online Research Barometer in November 2005.

Albert Angrisani, president and CEO of Greenfield, said with B2B research commanding 34 percent and 25 percent of market research efforts in North America and Europe, respectively, "this confirms that our strategy to focus on growing our B2B practice is right on target."

The two most important reasons for conducting market research online remained time, mentioned by 81 percent of North American market researchers and 78 percent of Europeans, and competitive pricing (76 percent and 75 percent, respectively).  North Americans were particularly interested in access to complex target sample groups (62 percent). Europeans are particularly interested in the ability to access respondents internationally (57 percent).

However, across North America and Europe the ability to recruit large sample groups, as well as the ability to use multi-media elements in questionnaires were also cited as important considerations for the use of online research.

This survey was conducted by Greenfield Online-Ciao Surveys among 289 marketer researchers globally during the period July 31-August 24, 2007. The margin of error for a sample this size is approximately +/-5.8 percent.

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Pika Technologies, a developer of media-processing hardware and software, has announced the release of its Pika Appliance for Asterisk, which company officials describe as "a smaller-sized and lower-cost alternative to traditional off-the-shelf computers."

The new appliance is purpose built for the Asterisk open-source communications platform.

Pika’s expertise in telephony voice-processing and a selection of its components come together in the Pika Appliance for Asterisk.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is "Fields of Athenrye" by The Malleys, from the album The Songs of Celtic: Green and White Anthems, Vol. 2:

You know, the worst thing about O.J. getting arrested in Las Vegas is how much time it'll take away from his finding the killer of Nicole and Ron.

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PluraPage, a hosted eMarketing software company based in Herndon, Virginia, has announced the launch of PluraPage Basic, available for free to salesforce.com software users. The product is a scaled-down version of the company's proprietary technology PluraPage Landing Pages, a tool that lets users create personalized landing pages on the fly for lead generation and conversion efforts.

"This is a special offer that solves the internal resource issues for Salesforce users and marketers who want custom, hosted landing pages to enhance their programs," said Joseph Rizzo, CEO of PluraPage, while exhibiting at the salesforce.com Dreamforce meeting in San Francisco.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a "Whiskey In the Jar" collection, with versions of the song by a dozen artists. St. Bushmills' Choir, Salty Frog and The Crofters' versions are particular standouts, The Pogues' is surprisingly lifeless:

Reed Construction Data, a vendor of construction information products, has announced an enhancement of Reed DataLink, its service that gives customers the ability to select and import projects and related information into third-party customer relationship management (CRM) or sales force automation (SFA) applications.

The product allows users to give their sales forces leads and market intelligence. "The amplified Reed DataLink service reduces the traditional time of SFA or CRM information implementation from months to a matter of days, increasing the effectiveness -- and results -- of the users' front-line sales team," according to company officials.

Reed DataLink is an option with the online service, Reed Connect, which was updated with new features in February and has become one of RCD's most successful product launches.

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Frank Sinatra's Come Swing With Me album:

Net Solutions North America, a Web development company in Bellingham, Washington, has released Ultra IS Association Edition Website Development Package, which company officials say "allows multiple administrative rights and application of sites within a Web site." The UIS AE can handle other ProFusion modules like ProFusion Mailer, CRM, E-Learning, Forums, Blogging, and Document management tools.

NSNA said the product is marketed as "Web site applications for associations, chambers of commerce, franchises and other organizations wishing to improve communications." It provides for multiple site administrators to allow various departments to keep their page content current.

When asked for a brief description on ProFusion Association Ultra IS Website Package, Patrice Valentine, President of Net Solutions North America, said the application "allows a person or persons with no Web development background to act as their own Webmasters, thereby decreasing the overall cost of ownership."

The Ultra IS AE comes with the ability to create an unlimited number of main, secondary and tertiary level pages and choose to display or hide those pages at any time. It allows the administrator to provide for mini-sites for its members or internal users or divisions.

An unlimited number of mini-web sites, each with up to 6 main pages, with unique graphics design and unlimited number of sub pages can be created and maintained by the members. The application allows for scheduling of fee based and free events and online registration for those events.

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Cloud9 Analytics has made its debut with a pair of on-demand sales analytic applications that promise to "boost sales team effectiveness and increase sales," including a service that delivers key sales reports directly to sales managers' mobile devices, company officials say.

Already in use by over twenty Salesforce.com customers, Cloud9's analytic applications are billed by company officials as able to "transform Salesforce into a selling machine that accelerates sales cycles, uncovers new revenue opportunities, promotes
team selling and improves revenue predictability."

With "half of all reps missing their sales quotas and a 40 percent annual turnover rate," said Jim Dickie, Managing Partner of CSO Insights, "the sales function in most organizations is clearly broken. Though CRM systems were supposed to help, four out of five sales VPs say CRM alone does nothing to increase sales."

The athletic Dickie characterized Cloud9 as "enabling CRM to finally deliver on
its original promise to increase sales."

The free Cloud9 Messenger application automatically generates weekly "What's Changed?" reports and sends them by e-mail to mobile devices.

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols:

Relationals, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) for the publishing and media industry, announced that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has selected the Relationals on-demand CRM platform to "streamline their sales processes including lead management and targeting, marketing and outreach, opportunity management and advertiser support," according to Relationals officials.

"No other system provides the comprehensive approach to ad sales operations more than Relationals," says Jamie McGinnis, product manager for the newspaper. "Their proven value to the media industry and their pre-sales support efforts have been remarkable."

The challenge faced by the Post-Dispatch was to "centralize sales operations to improve customer retention, identify new and missed opportunities, and streamline reporting," newspaper officials said.

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Sedona Corporation, a vendor of CRM and Member Relationship Management for small and mid-size financial services institutions, announced that Profit Technologies, a Sedona business partner, has entered into an agreement to provide Sedona's Intarsia software to its first bank.

In February of 2007, Sedona announced a partnership with Profit Technologies whereby they would market Intarsia, Sedona's CRM/MRM technology, as part of their Growth and Retention practice. The new Intarsia user, with assets in excess of $800 million, represents the first Profit Technologies customer signed under that partnership.

Profit Technologies is using the comprehensive capabilities of Intarsia, company officials say, along with their Value Creation Strategies which is focused on Growth and Retention.

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Rev. Gary Davis's Say No To The Devil, great country blues:

CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a vendor of CRM and other industry-specific enterprise software applications and business services, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Milwaukee-based Catalyst International, a vendor of supply chain execution products and services.

With approximate annual revenues of $35 million, the acquisition of Catalyst is expected to be immediately accretive to CDC Software upon completion of the acquisition.

Catalyst's software products and services are "highly complementary" to CDC Software's IMI Supply Chain product line, CDC officials said, and the company's CDC Global Services operations. The IMI suite of supply chain products supports fulfillment in multi-company, multi-site and multi-channel environments.

After completion of the acquisition, the Catalyst SAP practice business segment is expected to be merged into CDC Global Services, which provides consulting and outsourcing services across a variety of technologies and industries.

"This acquisition will expand our global supply chain offerings and base of blue-chip customers, and at the same time, strengthen our CDC Global Services offerings by adding significant expertise and resources in large-scale supply chain execution," said Eric Musser, CEO of CDC Software.

Musser added that "the Catalyst International SAP logistics consulting practice will extend our strategy of building services practices across key areas of the ERP application space."

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InfoStreet, a SaaS vendor of StreetSmart, a suite including CRM and other Web-based, IT, Productivity and Groupware oriented software applications, has rolled out its latest enhancements which include an Asynchronous JavaScript and XML interface.

Company officials say the new interface will provide users with "a marked improvement in speed and a more streamlined user experience." Company officials gave such examples as "suggestion boxes will automatically narrow down users' searches as they type, inbound e-mail automatically populates mail Inboxes based on user-specified intervals, navigation and management of e-mail folders have also been enhanced as part of the AJAX upgrade." Visual enhancements have been implemented.

InfoStreet will offer these StreetSmart upgrades at no additional charge to its customers. Siamak Farah, CEO for InfoStreet, called the AJAX addition "just the first of several enhancements that our customers will see for this year, moving us one step closer to our mission of having all software run as a service, delivered via the Internet."

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Capital Card Services Inc., a servicer of more than 500,000 MasterCard and Visa accounts for institutions nationwide, has selected IP-based business communications software from CRM vendor Interactive Intelligence.

The deployment, which is expected to be complete by March 2008, will replace Capital's existing PBX and dialing systems enterprise-wide.

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is — finally, iTunes, about time, and thank you — Stan Rogers’ great live album Between the Breaks:   British firm Emax has announced the formation of a Global Loyalty Division. As its first project, company officials say, EmaxLoyalty will support the pan-global rollout of selektpoints, a new coalition program currently being launched in several Middle Eastern countries prior to a full global rollout in 2008.   The program, which recently won the award for best innovation in a loyalty program at the Cards International Global Conference in Berlin, provides regional and international banks and retailers with a loyalty program which is based on their debit or credit “chip and pin” card.   The scheme is billed as offering “significant benefits for consumers, banks and merchants,” company officials say: “Consumers can earn points automatically without the need for a loyalty card, simply by registering their payment card. Banks offer the scheme to their customers, while merchants award points only where, when and how they choose.”   Emax has developed a CRM platform, based on Microsoft Technology, which will enable selektpoints to manage relationships with both consumers and the multitude of merchant partners that participate in the new program.

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is …   Morello from Mediasurface, a British content management product provider, has been chosen by AstraZeneca as the sole platform of choice for their Global Web Content Management System

The product will integrate into AstraZeneca's larger Global Sales and Marketing Information Systems initiative including integration with AstraZeneca's Siebel CRM.

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca wants Morello to be the sole platform of choice for its new Global Web Content Management System, in what Morello officials are calling "one of the largest content management projects ever undertaken."

Morello will replace AstraZeneca's two existing bespoke WCM systems and a handful of agency based WCM systems as part of their global e-service integration strategy (ESI).

Kay Wesley, Global Director - eMarketing for AstraZeneca, said Morello offered "the best total product by meeting our key business criteria and new business innovation requirements in a way that some more established Enterprise Content Management (ECM) players could not."

AstraZeneca have over 250 content managed sites worldwide, which are a mixture of corporate and country sites, product and therapy sites, community initiatives and charitable causes, with varying numbers of authors and levels of traffic.

The ESI program is a complete integration led by sales and marketing, and wholly supported by IS. An integral part of this project was giving AstraZeneca's e-Marketers and business users control of the Web sites that they managed and were measured on.

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LinkDotNet has announced an average annual growth rate for its GCC business of 70 percent over the past five years, and is celebrating its tenth anniversary in the Gulf at Gitex 2007, a show in which it has participated since its entry to the region.

LinkDotNet sells CRM and other software in the Middle East, as a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom.

The company's software development subsidiary, LINK Development, has a service offering today that spans diverse areas like portal & intranet development, e-commerce, Enterprise Integration, CRM and Helpdesk Solutions.

Sherif Dahan, LinkDotNet GCC Territory Manager says, "Our work in software development for the government and private sector has been instrumental in our growth, while our position as a trusted Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in five competency areas has also helped boost our business."

Connect Ads was set up in the region in 2000 when the concept of a dedicated online media house was rare. By operating the largest portal network in the region, comprising MSN Arabia, Hotmail & Windows Live Messenger, along with its own range of portals, Dahan says that the company is raising the standard of online advertising in the Gulf through greater options and reach.

In the area of e-government, Dahan anticipates higher demand for Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM) products, performance measurement tools for public services known as Dashboards, and products that enable delivery of public services through multiple channels and devices.

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Avaya's contact center products were honored at Middle East Contact Center Awards, where six of the eleven awards for contact center excellence were bagged by companies that have implemented Avaya solutions.

Initiated by Insight and sponsored by Avaya, the Middle East Contact Center Awards is dedicated to the contact center business in the Middle East.

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Black Crowes: Live:   Internet-based call center and CRM vendor Promero has released the latest version of its proprietary software Smart8 v2.1. The product provides intelligent call routing and dealer-franchise locator hosted software.   Company officials say it gives companies the ability to route inbound 800 calls automatically to a proper distributed network of employees, franchises, call center or home based agents. Call routing is based on any criteria: area code, ZIP code, caller ID, skills, language, customer value, status or other business rules.