David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
| CRM, ERP, Contact Center, Turkish Coffee and Astroichthiology:

November 2007

You are browsing the archive for November 2007.

CDC’s CRM and Supply Chain for Shanghai General Motors, Kitsite’s PostCMS for Advent, Nuance Acquires Viecore, Cape Clear and Appian Ally, Firepond Growth

November 30, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Slim Dusty’s Aussie country classic, Tonight the Woolshed Swings:   CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and vendor of CRM, has announced recently that its CDC Supply Chain Solutions were selected for a new parts distribution and packaging center of Shanghai General Motors, a 50-50 joint venture partnership between General Motors and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.   Shanghai General Motors recently opened the first of four new model parts distribution and packaging centers in Guangzhou, China. This facility uses the CDC Supply Chain product suite, including Warehouse Management, Labor Management, Slotting Optimization, Yard Management, Event Management, and Enterprise Visibility.   These applications provide Shanghai General Motors with “an advanced supply chain execution software suite,” SGM officials say, adding that Shanghai General Motors “intends to implement CDC Supply Chain at the other three facilities as they are built.”   Formed more than 10 years ago, Shanghai General Motors is one of the largest and fastest growing car manufacturers in China. The joint venture assembles, distributes and services vehicles under the Buick, Saab, Chevrolet, and Cadillac brands through more than 400 dealers in China. …   On December 1st, Kitsite will be launching a new hosted content management service called PostCMS.

CRM Adoption ‘Biggest Problem’ in 83 Percent of Cases, Wigan Gets CRM Treatment, CDC and Savills Asia Pacific, PacificNet Q3 Results, UltraSoft Wins UK CRM Award

November 30, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison’s hugely enjoyable album St. Dominic’s Preview:   Industry observer Niall Byrne has reported on a newly released survey from Really Simple Systems finding that “four fifths of senior executives cite employee resistance to using customer relationship management (CRM) software as the biggest hurdle they face when implementing the technology.”   Really Simple Systems, which sells hosted CRM software, surveyed 500 users of this technology in the United Kingdom, “encompassing SME owners, directors, and sales, marketing and IT managers.” Fully 83 percent said getting the staff to use the software was their biggest challenge, Byrne reports:

“The survey also found that 72 percent of the respondents said they would be prepared to trade functionality in their CRM systems for ease of use.”

“Too often companies make purchasing decisions for applications based on features, not ease of use, and then find that those extra features get in the way of usability,” he quotes John Paterson, CEO, Really Simple Systems as saying. “CRM adoption has always been an issue and the solution is to make the software easy to use, not more complex. Companies need to make sure that simplicity is as important a factor as functionality when choosing CRM systems.”

That nearly three quarters of the people surveyed are prepared to trade functionality in their CRM systems for ease of use is “indicative of an increasing desire for CRM products to provide core functionality in an easy-to-use package rather than products which in their attempts to tick all the boxes become unwieldy,” Paterson said.

The survey, Byrne reports, also found that “43 percent of respondents use less than half of their existing CRM system’s functionality, 51 percent said synchronizing data was a major issue and 67 percent said finding time to evaluate CRM systems was a major problem.” …   CRM vendor CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation, has announced today that Savills Asia Pacific has adopted CDC Software’s Pivotal CRM suite of applications for customer relationship management, property management, valuation, and agency services needs.

Since implementing Pivotal CRM, Savills Asia Pacific has seen “a shortened development cycle, a decrease in development costs, an increase in the size of its client base and a decrease in sales and leasing cycles,” according to CDC officials.

With more than 80 offices in over 20 countries, Savills sells property services industry in the Asia Pacific region, operating in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
Savills’ U.K.












CRM 6.1 from Oncontact, CRBM from CNP, Agresso CRM Available, Pharma CRM Selection Help, SugarCRM in Germany

November 29, 2007

The news as of the third cup of coffee this morning, and since we're all pretty awake by the third cup, the music is Aimee Mann's Live at St. Ann's Warehouse. I know, but I think you can handle it:



Oncontact Software has released Oncontact CRM 6.1 Web, a customer relationship management (CRM) product that allows users to access data via the Web, network and synchronization.

The product gives customers "a consistent user experience feature set no matter how they wish to access their CRM system," Oncontact officials say.

"CRM users are constantly evolving with more people traveling and working remotely," said Jon Zimmerman, president, Oncontact Software. "Users can view their Oncontact CRM system through a Web browser, a traditional Windows network or on the road in a disconnected environment by easily syncing their database anytime, anywhere."

Oncontact CRM 6.1 Web is a Microsoft.NET, Vista-compatible product that only requires a Web browser to access. The Oncontact CRM system is built upon one consistent data model that allows an organization to utilize the system in any combination of environments.



Agresso, heretofore an ERP vendor, has announced the availability of Agresso CRM, a customer relationship management product aimed specifically at the mid-market services sector that Agresso's been working for more than 20 years.

Agresso CRM is being rolled out globally via either a standard, on-site license or software-as-a-service agreement.

The newest Agresso offering for sales and marketing staff is either standalone or integrated into the Agresso Business World enterprise resource planning suite in place at over 2,700 companies globally.













CRM's Clarity and EDGARfilings Announce Partnership, Happy Birthday C.S. Lewis, Bango and Payforit, Opera Mini 4 Hits One Million, Graham Ciboodle for Vodafone

November 29, 2007

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Willie Nelson's great gospel album, The Troublemaker:


Clarity Systems, a vendor of corporate performance management (CPM) products and EDGARfilings, which sells Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) compliance software and services, have announced a partnership to offer an integrated financial reporting product.

This partnership lets public companies "create SEC reports using Clarity Financial Statement Reporting and electronically file these reports with the SEC using EDGARizer software," Clarity officials say.

Clarity FSR, a software product launched by Clarity Systems earlier this year, produces external financial documents, such as the 10K and 10Q, and other regulatory reports. EDGARizer software converts and transmits properly formatted and compliant documents to the SEC within filing deadlines.

Clarity sells a CPM product with the ability to automate the creation of external financial reports with a secure audit trail, automatic rounding, compliance checklists, workflow, and business rules, says Mark Nashman, President, Clarity Systems, who added that this deal "extends our product by providing our customers with the ability to electronically file their financial documents with the SEC, in an EDGAR-ready format."

Clarity FSR is a key component of Clarity 6, a Web-based, unified and open CPM product. Andrew Neblett, CEO, EDGARfilings, said with compliance and financial reporting requirements being top of mind for companies, "adopting software products to streamline the process is a high priority."



Happy birthday today to Christian writer and Oxford don C.S. Lewis, who would have been 109 today.












CRM Vendor Satuit's New 10.6 Release, Etelos's New Execs, Datacorp Certifies Fujitsu Scanner, Gartner on Oracle, Monitise America

November 29, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The New Riders of the Purple Sage's obligatory Bob Dylan cover, "Farewell Angelina:"


Yes, First Coffee's back in the saddle after the yearly ironic practice of leaving Turkey for Thanksgiving to travel to America. But now we're back in Istanbul and… what's that? Oh, okay:

When Spanish explorers found the bird in North America in the 1600s they brought it back to Europe, where the English mistook it for the woodcock, a bird they called a "turkey," since it came to Europe via Turkey. So they called both the woodcock and the new North American bird a "turkey."

Turks themselves call the bird a "hindi," since they got it from India -- "Hindistan" in Turkish.




CRM Q3 Results from Sedona, Salesforce.com, Kana in Amsterdam, Cyber Gear’s CRM for Real Estate, SugarCRM Theme Club

November 17, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is ABC’s “When Smokey Sings,” a tribute song to the great Smokey Robinson, which is a lot better than Brits’ crooning soupy anglicized R&B has any right to be:   Phishing crisis? What phishing crisis? Salesforce.com reported a 74 percent increase in net income for the third quarter, aided by a 48 percent surge in revenues.   For the third quarter, the on-demand CRM vendor reported GAAP net income of $6.52 million or $0.05 per share, compared to net income of $339,000, or $0.00 per share in the same quarter last year.

CRM Integration from ClearSaleing, LongJump’s E-Mail Manager, iEnterprise’s Wireless CRM App, Parature and TMA, Prophet 4.0 and Outlook 2007

November 15, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is just as good as it gets — a nice, 50-song Rolling Stones iTunes mix, heavy on the 1968–1972 supernova albums. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide people in the world into two kinds of people, and those who thrash air guitar to “Sway” while doing so:   LongJump, a vendor of on-demand business apps, introduced a new full-featured application, E-mail Campaign Manager, to its expanding suite. The product includes a visual dashboard and a step-by-step process that salespeople and marketers can use to build and track e-mail campaigns.   Unveiled in September, LongJump provides a catalog of customizable, interconnected applications aimed at small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).   LongJump users pay a monthly fee for access to LongJump E-mail Campaign Manager, and a catalog of other business applications including CRM, sales force automation and deal tracking.

CRM's CGS in Romania, MaxPro ERP in Saudi, Eloqua Integrates Oracle Siebel CRM, Parature SaaS White Paper, CIBER and Oracle

November 14, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Led Zeppelin, in honor of iTunes finally getting the Zep catalogue. Of course it took them so long First Coffee had already purchased the essential Zeppelin on CD or downloaded it for free from Limewire. I did purchase "Gallows Pole" to mark the occasion. Wonder how many millions of dollars they lost, though:


InfoVision Consultants have announced the signing of contract with EniRepSa Gas Limited in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, for implementing MaxPro ERP software for human capital management and payroll management.

In the first phase, EniRepSa will use the standard version and in second phase the advance modules having Recruitment Management System, Training Management System and Key Performance Indicators System to measure performance will be integrated with standard version.


CRM Vendor on Trial in London, InQuira and Sterling, Infusion CRM Hits Targets, OpenTravel CRM

November 13, 2007

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is U2's Achtung Baby:   InQuira, a vendor of software for intelligent search, knowledge management, and analytics, has announced that Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T, has selected the InQuira 8 integrated platform.   Sterling Commerce is using InQuira 8 to "integrate its knowledge base with its search capabilities to improve the problem resolution experience for online customers and call center support representatives," InQuira officials say.   InQuira Information Manager, a knowledge base application, lets Sterling Commerce create new articles for the knowledge base. InQuira's Intelligent Search gives representatives and customers search and retrieval capability to find the information they need to resolve customer problems, and InQuira Analytics provides management with a mechanism to evaluate user experience and implement improvements.   Representatives and customers "found it difficult to find the information they knew existed in the knowledge base, and customers wanted better search capabilities on our support site," said Doug Olson, Vice President of Global Support at Sterling Commerce. "We realized, though, that search on its own will not provide our agents and customers with the fulfilling support experience we want to deliver.

OracleSiebel’s Integration Pack, Titan’s Oracle E-Business Deployment, Oracle and Cisco WebEx Connect Deal, Graham Technology ciboodle-based Platform, Pipeline’s Mercury Upgrade, Dealer Specialties Partners with Carfax

November 13, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is one of the finest listening experiences rock music offers, the 1969 classic album Crosby, Stills & Nash:   At Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, Oracle announced the general availability of OracleSiebel CRM Integration Pack for Oracle Trade Promotion Management.   Delivered “as part of Oracle Application Integration Architecture,” Oracle officials say, the product “reflects the company’s continued commitment to delivering pre-built integrations across Oracle ERP, CRM and industry applications.”   Used for integration between Oracle’s Siebel CRM and the Oracle E-Business Suite, the, uh, SCRMIPOTPM “enables consumer goods companies to create efficiencies across the enterprise and extract more value from promotions by synchronizing customer, product and financial information across Oracle applications,” the Oracle officials say.   This process integration pack uses a common object model and an open, Business Process Execution Language-based integration approach, and SCRMIPOTPM provides process maps for managing the entire promotion through settlement process.   Siebel Trade Promotions offers “robust functionality” which “enables promotion planning and simulation for accounts, including trade funds allocation against promotions, category level planning, flexible promotion setup and commitment, funds checkbook management and promotion plan performance analysis,” Siebel officials say.   . . .

CRM Enhanced for Euroffice, Webcom and Siebel CRM, Welsh Housing Agency Gets CRM, Altico Donates to MS, Salient

November 12, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is one of the better musical parodies to be found outside of Weird Al Yankovic, himself the reincarnation of all-time master Spike Jones -- Cheech and Chong's "Born In East L.A."


Webcom, a vendor of quote-to-order enablement and a Certified Partner in Oracle PartnerNetwork, has announced that Triveni Digital, a subsidiary of LG Electronics is implementing the Webcom WebSource CPQ product to "simplify the quote-to-order process."

Triveni Digital works in the digital TV market. "With nearly every television station in the U.S. using one of our products and now concentrating on the next phase of our company's development, we needed a quote-to-order product flexible in delivering our product offerings to a diverse customer set through both direct and indirect channels," said Ralph Bachofen, Director of Product Management and Marketing at Triveni Digital.

Bachofen said Triveni "found the integrated Siebel CRM On Demand and WebSource CPQ product, and the implementation expertise of Webcom to be a potent combination in addressing those needs."

WebSource CPQ is designed to "help drive increased revenues and margins, increased customer satisfaction, reduced costs and improved productivity," company officials say. "Addressing the complexities raised by multiple product choices, sales hierarchy, discounting rules, pricing rules and multiple channels, companies can automate quoting, revisions and the approval process."

WebSource CPQ not only handles the traditional bill of material, routing and diagram generation tasks frequently associated with product configurators, but also addresses the guided selling, proposal generation and multi-level channel management tasks associated with sales configurators, company officials say.



In yet another sign of the growing popularity of CRM for the public sector, the United Welsh Housing Association has signed a contract for Customer Relationship Management systems in order to, well, improve its customer service.












Interview with Robert Youngjohns, CEO, Callidus Software

November 11, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dwight Yoakam's "This Drinkin' Will Kill Me:"


Today we have an interview with Sales Performance Management vendor Callidus Software's CEO, Robert Youngjohns:

FC: What does Callidus Software do?

RY: We help companies identify and optimize the ROI on their incentive spend, the second biggest line item on a company's P&L sheet. Companies, no matter the industry, spend millions, and in some cases billions of dollars every year paying incentives and compensations to their sales force.

Surprisingly, most companies don't track these vast amounts of dollars and many have absolutely no idea where the money goes and what it actually accomplishes in terms of how sales performance impacts the bottom line of their business.

In the late 90's, Callidus also established the precursor to SPM, the Enterprise Incentive Management market.

FC: Uh, what's Enterprise Incentive Management?

RY: The modeling, administration, and reporting of all forms of non-fixed (e.g., salary) or variable pay.

FC: Okay, so how would you define Sales Performance Management?

RY: Sales performance management is the broader umbrella product set over EIM and can be closely aligned with corporate performance management systems to ensure consistency between corporate financial plans and more detailed sales planning and administration activities. It's an integrated framework that enables organizations to plan and model sales strategies and ensure timely execution of sales initiatives.

It adds science to the sales process, which has traditionally been driven by the art of relationship building.

FC: How do companies currently track and manage compensation spend?

RY: Many companies today are still using cumbersome and disparate spreadsheets. For global enterprises, the amount of money invested in payments to the sales force, as well as to distributors and other third-party resellers is staggering -- as I mentioned earlier, it's the second largest line item on the corporate P&L, often 40 percent.






















CRM's Strategy9 and Teradata and Bally, JasperSoft and Noetix for Oracle, Epicor's Priaino to Present, Xactly and Oracle, Hulse at MDI

November 10, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Todd Rundgren's The Ever-Popular Tortured Artist Effect:


Teradata and gambling products firm Bally Technologies have announced that they will work together to provide products based on the new Bally Business Intelligence product integrated with the Teradata Warehouse.

"The Bally BI strategy is to bring our customers the best technology products, and Teradata brings to our Portfolio a world-class pedigree in data warehousing and CRM applications," said Bruce Rowe, senior vice president of strategy and business development for Bally Technologies.

With Bally's expertise in casino systems and slot networks, along with Teradata's enterprise data warehouse leadership, "mutual customers will benefit from optimized slot operations, better analysis and management of customer relationships and more robust marketing strategies," and "gain new insight into the overall profitability of the business," officials of both firms say.

Some mutual customers include Harrah's Entertainment, Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, Silverton Casino and Spotlight 29 Casino.

Bally Technologies needed a technology partner that could provide deeper customer understanding to use its enterprise data visualization, Bally officials say, adding that the firm wanted to "enhance reporting capabilities and performance analytics on a platform that could support their growing user requirements for more sophisticated analytics."

The Enterprise Data Warehouses produced by Teradata is expected to let Bally "analyze business operations to drive smarter, faster decisions by providing a complete view of the business," Bally officials say.



Bally has been busy, formalizing relationships with a variety of tech companies leading up to next week's Global Gaming Expo trade show in -- where else? -- Las Vegas, to showcase the concept of open architecture while building products into its vision of "The Networked Floor of the Future."

In addition to its deal with Dayton, Ohio-based Teradata, Bally will debut TournaMaker, a concept to turn a casino's regular GameMaker HD slot machines into "roped-off" tournament machines on demand.

Bally has partnered on the project with Toronto-based Strategy9, a vendor of Web-based marketing, e-mail, CRM and database products.

The Bally tournament session server links the gambling machine and the tournament and player-management server technology provided by Strategy9. The two server applications provide all tournament services to the gambling machine during tournament play. These services include machine conversion from conventional to tournament mode, player enrollment and tournament game play and leader board data distribution to the gambling machines and overhead signage.

At G2E, Bally will also be demonstrating its server-based Bally Live Rewards tournament technology on the iVIEW player-communication display embedded in the slot machine.

With a history dating back to 1932, Las Vegas-based Bally designs, manufactures, operates and distributes advanced gambling devices, systems and technology solutions worldwide.
























Mobile CRM from Siebel, Oracle’s Contact Center, Surado’s Audit Module, Infosys CRM in Norway, Autobytel Results, Banking CRM

November 9, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Jimmy Buffett on iTunes:   Oracle announced the latest release of Oracle Contact Center Anywhere, what Oracle officials call the company’s “all-in-one multichannel IP contact center” product. It’s considered by Oracle officials to be “even more accessible and easier to use by providing more options to monitor and manage contact center information and employees.”   Following the release of Oracle Contact Center Anywhere 8.1 in June, version 8.1.1 offers agents a 360-degree customer view across a wide array of communication channels including voice, e-mail, chat, fax, Web and interactive voice response. New features in 8.1.1 include enhanced administration and platform management, architectural and VoIP improvements and enhancements to the client interface.   Using the new creation wizard, Oracle officials say, users can now deploy contact centers, and select capabilities based on the contact center needs. New administration features also enable user management through the automated ability to disable user logins, limit total user logins, and automatically set agent extensions.   There are also VoIP and architectural improvements, as the product optimizes voice network usage and bandwidth by routing voice through the core system as needed, which, according to Oracle officials, “enhances the distributed voice capabilities by routing real-time media to the platform only when needed for services such as recording, conferencing, IVR, or monitoring.”   Oracle Contact Center Anywhere 8.1.1 is built to run on Oracle infrastructure software including Oracle Database 10/g/ and Oracle Fusion Middleware.

Hosted CRM Nixed by NZ Police, Funambol's iPhone Sync, Adenin IntelliEnterprise v 9, eLoyalty Results, Cisco Results, Consona and All Flex

November 8, 2007

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Lou Reed's absolutely terrific set Live in Italy.

Boston-based Adenin Technologies, vendors of enterprise Intranet software suites, have announced version 9 of their IntelliEnterprise, which includes CRM, relational search, social networking, and "MyProfile" for the enterprise. The enhancements are designed to "enable enterprise employees to uncover previously unrecognized relationships between information assets," company officials say.

With the fully reengineered Relational Search module, users have "a 360 degree view of all structured and unstructured information assets, including documents, wikis, blogs, streaming videos, podcasts, database, contact records and more," company officials say.

This capability is engineered to take advantage of user participation through things like tags and social bookmarks, which are supposed to provide more accurate search results, and allows users access to relevant content, as well as subject matter experts.

"Employees searching the Intranet for a travel expense report form, for example, will not only be presented with the desired form, they will also be shown a listing of other related information they may need to access, such as travel advance requests, mileage reimbursement forms, and travel policies; or a listing of company-approved travel agency sites," company officials explain.

IntelliEnterprise is an integrated suite offering traditional Intranet functionality, including dashboards, content and document management, search and workflow, as well as a library of more than 100 ready-to-run applications. Modules include CRM, an employee directory, organizational charts, help desk, Flash video streaming and project management among others.



Cisco has announced its financial results for the period ended October 27, 2007, posting Net Sales of $9.6 billion, an increase of 17 percent year over year. The firm turned in Net Income of $2.2 billion and Q1 Earnings per Share of $0.35.

For its new products, the company noted that WebEx will offer Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand Service, a customer relationship management application service, through the WebEx Connect application ecosystem.















CRM Partnership for Oracle EMEA, Microsoft and Mancon, CDC Buys Aussie CRM, Kintera Results, Allin Results, Amdocs and Vodafone, Salesforce Gets Phished

November 8, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Kinks' Sleepwalker:


Congratulations Salesforce.com, you have won Five Million Dollars in Australian Lotto. To have the funds transferred to your account, please provide a password to…

...

Microsoft has announced that Management Consulting, a service provider for government agencies around the world, has selected Microsoft Dynamics NAV to replace its multiple product and service sales systems and eliminate duplicate data entry.

Mancon sells logistics, professional, technical and administrative support services to the U.S. Department of Defense, other federal and state government agencies, and industry customers. Headquartered in Virginia Beach, Mancon has worked with governments and businesses in the Azores Islands, Bahrain, Guam, Italy, Japan and Spain.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV will supplant Mancon's multiple legacy systems, which have become outdated and obsolete, Mancon officials say.








Mobile CRM Deal for Antenna and Oracle, Castle and SalesLogix, Apatar and Salesforce.com, Cast Iron and RightNow, OpSource and Skycom, Oracle EMEA

November 7, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bob Dylan's first great album, Bringing It All Back Home, in many ways still his most enjoyable:


Antenna Software, a Certified Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork, has issued a joint announcement with Oracle for the availability of AMPower Sales for Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM.

Developed on the Antenna Mobility Platform, it's an out-of-the-box mobile CRM product designed specifically to enhance and extend PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM business processes for mobile sales organizations using BlackBerry, Palm, or Windows Mobile devices.

Antenna officials say the new product is pitched to sales management and sales representatives: "Using AMPower Sales, sales representatives have information at their fingertips, giving them more time to meet with customers and build relationships."

Data is stored on the mobile device, so even if a rep is out of a wireless coverage area, the information they have captured remains active and accessible on their mobile device, and is automatically synched when a wireless connection is available. Ready to deploy functions include account management, opportunity management, contact management, lead management, calendar management, task management and call reporting.

Antenna officials say the product also offers one-click calling and e-mail, search information on the device and server and configurable timed login for easy access: "Collectively, these tools allow users to sort, list and search for contacts to retrieve specific customer information or narrow lists of sales targets, make calls right from the handheld application, and automatically log the activities once the calls are complete."

On-demand or on-premise licensing is available. The first release is available now on PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM 8.9 and 9.0.



Castle CRM, a customer relationship management and professional services company, has announced the offering of a CRM Mobile Solution "Quick Start" program for Sage SalesLogix customers.

"The Castle CRM mobile offering enables users of SalesLogix to take their system on the road for access to customer information anytime and anywhere," Anthony Castle, CEO of Castle CRM says. "Mobile sales and service representatives can now access information through wireless Windows Mobile and Blackberry Mobile devices."

SalesLogix Mobile is used by sales representatives and their managers to access up-to-date CRM information on their mobile devices while on the road.


















CRM for China Telecom, Pegasystems Results, Storis Vision R8 Available, Qurius Buys Cabus, Plus in Sage Circle, Autonomy and Huron

November 6, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Cracker's Kerosene Hat:   AsiaInfo Holdings said it has won a contract with China Telecom to develop a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) for deployment in China's northwest.   Under terms of the agreement, according to reports, AsiaInfo will develop a CRM system to cover 14 cities and regions in Xinjiang.   Beijing-based AsiaInfo, a provider of telecom software products and IT security products and services, did not provide financial details.   .

SaaS Capital and Knowlagent, CRM for Real Estate from Sage, Datacap and A/P, SugarCRM for Social Networking, Salesforce.com Cops Another One

November 5, 2007

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison's greatest album, St. Dominic's Preview, which iTunes finally got, along with the rest of Van's catalogue, so First Coffee's iPod is much richer now with the likes of It's Too Late to Stop Now, Hymns To The Silence and Irish Heartbeat, while First Coffee's a bit poorer:


SaaS Capital, a finance company working the SaaS market, has  announced that it has advanced Knowlagent $830,000 under a committed $3 million facility.

Privately-held Knowlagent, which sells call center software, used their recurring revenue and the future contract value of their SaaS business to secure the facility, company officials said, adding that Knowlagent will use the cash to "drive growth and to continue its transition of the business from a perpetual license model to a SaaS model."

SaaS Capital provided the initial advance based on Knowlagent's contracted but unbilled future SaaS revenues. The facility is designed to automatically increase in availability as Knowlagent grows its SaaS customer base.

Knowlagent officials said they chose this SaaS-specific financing over traditional technology lenders because SaaS Capital was "able to advance 4 times more than their current A/R facility, did not require an equity infusion, and was non-dilutive."

Knowlagent VC investor Mark Koulogeorge of MK Capital said that while the SaaS business model has "many advantages," because the revenues and cash are spread out over time, "they tend to require more capital to grow.”



Sage Software has announced the new ACT! by Sage for Real Estate 2008 (10.0) and ACT! by Sage Premium for Real Estate 2008 (10.0) contact and customer management products during its Sage Summit customer conference in Chicago.

ACT!














PNC Financial Services Upgrades to Oracle; AccessVia Selects Microsoft Dynamics CRM; Avidian Embraces SEO; Amdocs Reports Results; Lexnet Warms Up To Mighty Tea Leaf

November 1, 2007

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Beautiful South’s Blue Is The Colour.   Oracle officials announced that PNC Financial Services Group has upgraded to Oracle’s Siebel CRM to “support new customer service capabilities and increase scalability to manage continued growth.” PNC worked with IBM and Oracle to migrate to the upgraded Siebel CRM application infrastructure.   Siebel CRM apps support PNC’s nearly 1,100 branches across eight states, the Web site, and banking contact centers that provide sales and customer service.   PNC decided to upgrade its Siebel CRM applications concurrently with portions of its underlying IBM infrastructure. The infrastructure upgrade included adding a zIIP engine and 600 mips to System z, DB2 7 to DB2 V8 upgrade, DB2 Connect Upgrade, AIX and pSeries upgrade, and HACMP upgrade.   Kent Arkes, IBM Global Business Services Financial Services Partner, called the project “probably the most complex Siebel implementation in the banking industry.”   PNC’s upgraded Siebel CRM provides “a streamlined user interface that makes it easier for PNC staff with varying computer skill levels to process customer requests quickly and accurately,” according to PNC officials, who add that PNC is “implementing Oracle Business Intelligence to improve service to its corporate customers.”   “Retail banking is more than financial transactions, it is about building relationships with customers and supporting their dynamic requirements,” noted Ashwin Goyal, Vice President, Oracle Financial Services Global Business Unit.   . . .
Featured Events