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.

 

Browser-based, self-administration tools allow administrators to manage calls in real time, company officials say, adding that “Smart8 can be used with any carrier or telco provider. With version 2.1, intelligent call routing rules and filtering capabilities are greatly enhanced with routing based on NPA/NXX carrier prefixes. Also, intelligent round robin routing within ZIP codes and sales teams are included.”

 

Gregg Troyanowski, president of Promero, noted that since sales cycles “start with an inbound call and end with a sale or lost sale,” he termed the Promero product suite of Smart8, Oracle’s Contact Center Anywhere, and ProStar CRM a “cost-effective hosted call center product that manages the entire life cycle of the sales opportunity.”

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CRM vendor Wanted Technologies Corporation, a vendor of online sales and business intelligence focusing on the media industry, has announced the appointment of Martin Auclair to the position of vice president of finance and chief financial officer.

 

Effective this week, Auclair assumed responsibility in place of outgoing CFO, Philippe Frenière.

 

“We are delighted to welcome Martin to our leadership team,” said Wanted’s president and CEO, Scott Burton. “His diverse financial background, particularly in dealing with the challenges faced by small-cap publicly traded organizations, will be a tremendous asset to Wanted Technologies.”

 

Auclair has served dual roles as both director of finance and administration, and as chief financial analyst for venture capital firm Société Innovatech Québec et Chaudière-Appalaches. He has also held the positions of vice president of finance, controller and financial analyst for such high profile public enterprises such as Nstein Technologies Inc. and Cossette Communication Group.

 

Auclair will direct all aspects of the company’s fiscal management and administration,

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Online CRM and other apps vendor Zoho has announced the launch of Zoho Start, which integrates Zoho’s free online office applications and documents under a single, unified interface.

 

Available online at start.zoho.com, Zoho Start features single sign-on, so users need only sign in once to gain access to Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, and other Zoho applications, including Zoho CRM, company officials say.

 

Folder support lets users create new folders in Zoho Start, making it easier to organize personal and shared documents.

 

“We offer quite a few online office applications,” said Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist. “But our customers want more than breadth. They want convenience, too. Zoho Start offers convenient, single sign-on access to their documents and to the Zoho applications from a unified interface.”

 

When users log on to Start.zoho.com, they’ll find a “Zoho Apps” button in the upper right hand corner of the screen for access to Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, Zoho Notebook, Zoho Wiki, Zoho Planner, Zoho Chat, Zoho Viewer, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects and Zoho CRM. Selecting any application opens that application in a new tab within Zoho Start Interface.

 

Meanwhile, their personal and shared documents will be available from the “My Documents” panel on the left side of the interface. Documents are presented in either list or box views. Rather than launch new browser windows, Zoho opens each new document and application in a separate tab within the Zoho Start.

 

In addition to folder support, Zoho offers mouse-over options. When a user holds the mouse over a specific document, an “Actions” button appears to the right of the document name. Click the button, and users can move the document to a different folder. They can also open, export, delete, tag or share the document.

 

Going forward, Zoho plans to round out Zoho Start by closely integrating other Zoho applications.

 

“As some of you know, Zoho is one of my favorite companies on the Web,” S.M. Schrama has written for Web 2.0. “They have developed into a big player in the Web-based office market, and they have been an inspiration to several others. Zoho has just released a Startpage which combines their applications in one interface…The great look and feel of Zoho is still here, it is fast and it reminds me most of Google Docs&Spreadsheets.”

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CRM and contact management vendor Maximizer Software has announced the appointment of a new channel partner in Middle East Region, Integrated Solutions for Business, an IT and e-business products vendor headquartered in Saudi Arabia.

 

ISB officials say the CRM products of Maximizer will be “a valued addition” to their product range and services.

 

‘The most rewarding approach to grow our business is to help our customers grow theirs. CRM is a growth enabling technology, as evidenced by numerous organizations that have grown their business by 120 percent to 150 percent due to CRM systems and we would like to introduce new organizations to Maximizer Enterprise, a solid CRM product at a competitive price,” says Hanny Alshazly, Vice President of Sales & Business Development at ISB.

 

“We have appointed ISB as our business partner, in order to support our long-term strategy and continuous growth in the Middle East,” says Vivek Thomas, Managing Director, Maximizer Software EMEA, in the polite, formal style used in the Middle East. “The ME region represents significant market opportunities for Maximizer as a global company and the partnership with ISB is an important step forward for our business.”

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JasperSoft, an open source business intelligence vendor, has announced that it has signed a worldwide alliance agreement with Unisys Corporation enabling Unisys to deliver JasperSoft-certified consulting services to organizations looking for professional reporting and data analysis functionality.

 

Unisys intends to focus on providing services to existing clients while targeting select new enterprise opportunities in financial services, commercial and public sector markets.

 

Unisys will add JasperSoft open source BI to a portfolio of open source products including IT infrastructure and enterprise content management. Both JasperSoft and Unisys are founding members of the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), an organization committed to delivering enterprise-ready products optimized for interoperability.

 

Anthony Gold, vice president and general manager, Open Source Business, Unisys, said this agreement with JasperSoft will “help us add a strong business intelligence product to the Unisys portfolio of open source consulting and modernization services.”

 

JasperSoft counts more than two million downloads worldwide and more than 7,000 commercial customers in 96 countries for their open source business intelligence software, comprised of an interactive reporting server, graphical and ad hoc report design interfaces, OLAP analysis, an ETL data integration engine, and a Java reporting library.