By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first cup of coffee this morning, and the music is an iTunes mix of one of the greatest and most fun country singers ever, Australia's Slim Dusty:

 

Mondo A/S, a Denmark-based provider of Microsoft-based products and services, announced an agreement with Sales Performance International, a sales performance improvement firm, to deliver SPI's Solution Selling Methodology as an integrated plug-in for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

 

The new plug-in will "enable any organization using Microsoft CRM to implement SPI's methodology for boosting sales effectiveness," Mondo officials said. The product will be available in the fourth quarter 2007 for any organization using Microsoft CRM either on-premises or via Mondo's hosted Microsoft CRM offering.

 

The Solution Selling Suite of methodologies is an end-to-end sales training and professional development program for sales professionals, managers, and marketers. The suite is used for management, planning, sales execution, and sales tool tasks.

 

Lars Munch Johansen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Mondo A/S, said Microsoft Dynamics CRM users can use this product with Mondo's Solution Selling Plug-in for Microsoft CRM.

 

Jon-Paul Roy, SPI's Director Global Channels & Operations, noted that many CRM implementations fail to produce measurable improvements in revenue because "the focus is on selling products rather than selling value. We are very pleased to be working with such a well-established and well-respected Microsoft Business Partner to enable our product for Microsoft CRM customers."

 

Mondo A/S was established in 1994 and has offices in Copenhagen, Arhus, Pakistan and The Ukraine. In October 2006, Mondo A/S became a publicly listed company on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, traded under the symbol MONDO.

 

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EnterpriseWizard announced the release of Version 2.0 of its flagship EnterpriseWizard adaptive CRM application, described by company officials as "an out-of-the-box, browser-based, end user-customizable J2EE product for issue tracking, helpdesk, customer support, sales, email and marketing automation."

 

The new edition allows business managers to "automate department workflow without IT assistance, extending the on-the-spot customization capabilities provided by the product's adaptive CRM engine," company officials said.

 

The upgrade lets information from a user's PC be captured automatically when a job ticket is submitted, for insight into the user's computing environment and possible problem areas. It provides an improved full-text search engine that searches both the file database and the text of attached files; and offers a variety of other enhancements designed to strengthen the support operation.

 

Colin Earl, CEO of EnterpriseWizard, said the "improved drag-and-drop workflow editor lets the manager define, automate and enforce workflow processes without the need for IT help."

 

Company officials said clients have adapted the system for Sarbanes-Oxley and government regulation, project and time management and change management.

 

EnterpriseWizard can be deployed as a hosted SaaS application or moved to a shared or dedicated in-house server with just six mouse clicks. The application is available by visiting www.enterprisewizard.com.

 

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Pika Technologies, a vendor of media-processing hardware and software, has announced the release of its Appliance for Linux, the second member of Pika Warp, its new Appliance family. It provides Linux computer telephony application developers with what Pika officials describe as "a smaller-sized and lower-cost alternative to traditional off-the-shelf computers and plug-in board network connectivity."

 

The Appliance for Linux is equipped with the latest version of Pika's host media processing software.

 

With the expansion of Pika Warp, the company continues to sell products for the Linux open-source development space. The inaugural product, the Appliance for Asterisk released last month, is purpose built for the Asterisk open-source communications platform, the Pika Appliance for Linux "extends the benefits of the Appliance to the general Linux developer community," company officials said.

 

The product "allows IP/PBX, Integrated Voice Response, predictive dialing, appointment reminder and other Linux-based CT applications to be deployed on a cost-effective and reliable technology platform," according to Pika officials.

 

Terry Atwood, vice president of sales, marketing and customer care at Pika, said by taking the features of a standard off-the-shelf computer, adding some basic telephony features and packaging them into a "small, low-cost, very reliable embedded appliance with an open-source architecture," application developers can "more effectively deliver their Linux-based products to small- and medium-sized business customers."

 

The appliance is an out-of-the-box embedded computer product that allows developers to deploy Asterisk and other Linux-based application with telephony features, optimized for the small- and medium-sized business environment. The appliance is designed to address businesses with requirements for up to 100 phone lines.

 

Pika Warp is customizable, and is compatible with VoIP and analog trunks and telephones. On the VoIP side, the unit can accommodate up to a combination of 100 IP trunks and telephones. Each unit comes equipped with one analog telephone port for portable phones, fax machines and answering machines, and can be expanded with up to eight additional analog ports to be used for either FXO trunks or FXS stations/telephones.

 

Pika Warp, the appliance for Linux will be generally available in February 2008.

 

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Oncontact Software, a vendor of .NET based customer relationship management (CRM) software systems for the mid-market, and Sales Progress, a vendor of technology-based sales and customer service learning systems, announced a partnership for Oncontact’s .NET CRM products with the on-demand SalesScoreboard.NET assessment system from Sales Progress.

 

Under the terms of the agreement Oncontact Software will recommend Sales Progress’s line of assessment systems, called SalesScoreboard.net, to its prospects, customers, and throughout its distribution channel.

 

SalesScoreboard.net a CRM on-demand self-assessment system where corporate management can gauge the obstacles and objections a company’s sales and service representatives are facing in real time. Users of the SalesScoreboard.net system can answer questions online from management about common objections or obstacles they are facing during their day from customers and prospects, and the system will collect and analyze this data.

 

This data is fed into the analytical tools included with the SalesScoreboard.net system to give management a return on what is happening in the field in real time.

 

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Scribe Software, a vendor of data integration and migration tools, has announced the planned release of its Scribe Adapter for Dynamics NAV. This product "extends the capabilities of Scribe Insight to Dynamics NAV, providing partners and customers with powerful and flexible data integration and migration without having to write a single line of code," company officials said.

 

Microsoft Dynamics customers use Scribe Insight for integrating applications with a variety of systems. "We have been using the Scribe Insight tool to provide our Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Dynamics GP customers with integrations," stated John McKeague, Tectura GP and CRM practice lead, a Scribe Elite Reseller.