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.

 

On average, thirty-one analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial expected earnings of $0.02 per share for the quarter.

 

Earnings per share for the recent quarter benefited by a gain of approximately $0.01 per share associated with the sale of a minority investment. In addition, results for the latest quarter include approximately $14.2 million in stock-based compensation and approximately $1.4 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions, as well as a 46 percent tax rate.

 

Total revenues for the quarter rose 48 percent to $192.8 million from $130.1 million in the comparable quarter a year ago. Wall Street analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $190.6 million for the quarter.

 

CEO Marc Benioff said at this rate, “we expect to push well past the $800 million revenue run rate in Q4, and we are now on track to become the first ever on-demand company to exceed $1 billion in annual revenue in our fiscal ‘09.”

 

On a geographical basis, revenues in the Americas surged 40 percent from the previous-year quarter, while revenues in Europe grew 71 percent. Revenues in Asia rose 92 percent from a year ago.

 

For the first nine months of the fiscal year 2008, the company posted net income of $11 million or $0.09 per share, compared to net loss of $35,000 or $0.00 per share a year ago. Year-to-date revenues climbed to $531.8 million from $352.9 million in the previous-year period.

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Kana officials say they’ve helped the City of Amsterdam improve the quality and efficiency of customer service it offers to citizens. The city was honored with the Dutch KING award 2007 for innovation and quality in public service, and was recently recognized by the European eGovernment award 2007 for its achievements in this area.

 

The City of Amsterdam selected Kana as the basis of its new multi-channel customer service product, designed to make it easier for citizens to access the full range of government services. A combined implementation of Kana’s integrated e-mail, Web self-service, and contact center applications has enabled the City of Amsterdam to “consolidate on a single point of contact for telephone and e-mail enquiries,” according to the Kanalians.

 

Amsterdam has also improved Web self-service, making it easier for citizens to find the information they need online about all of the services managed by local government, including taxation, social services, passports, and driving licenses.

 

City officials say they’ve “dramatically increased” the number of inquiries handled with the same staff, from 100,000 per month to over 400,000 per month.

 

Prior to launching the Kana product, a complex network of hotlines and switchboards was used to route inquiries through Amsterdam’s 15 autonomous districts and 41 administrative departments. The system was so inefficient that when the local authority carried out a survey to find out what inhabitants thought of its customer service, half of them said that they couldn’t figure out where to go. So it was inefficient, but hey, it was expensive as all get-out too.

 

The majority of inquiries are now handled through a new 90-employee contact center which handles approximately 120,000 calls per month. Since the project was completed at the beginning of 2007, the number of inquiries has risen 400 percent. Over the same period the number of direct contact center interactions has fallen slightly, and the number of inquiries handled by the Web self-service system has risen fourfold.

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Cyber Gear has announced the launch of a Web-based CRM application for the real estate industry. According to Sharad Agarwal, CEO of Cyber Gear, “Our application is a result of having worked closely with leading real estate developers and property brokers in UAE over the last two years. Our application allows real estate companies to provide their clients up-to-date information on their investments.”

 

Some of the salient features of the application, according to the Cyber Gearheads, include secure authorized log-in for investors, a database of clients and a centralized information warehouse with image gallery.

 

It has payment record and payment history in multiple currencies, mortgage calculators and XML newsfeeds, as well as SMS/E-mail News Alerts on status of development, set-up reminders & preferences and an MIS reporting dashboard.

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Sedona, which sells Customer and Member Relationship Management products for small and mid-size financial services organizations, has announced its operating results for the third quarter and nine-month periods ended September 30, 2007.

 

Total revenues reported for the third quarter 2007 were $354,000 compared to $389,000 a year ago. Product license revenue totaled $167,000 and $248,000 in the three months ended September 30, 2007 and 2006 respectively.

 

Product license revenue decreased in the third quarter of 2007 because “the company sold a number of license agreements to smaller financial services institutions, compared to the same period in 2006, when the company completed a sale to a large financial institution with a significantly higher asset value,” according to the Sedonians.

 

For the nine-month period ended September 30, 2007, revenues were $984,000 compared to $1,167,000 a year ago. Revenue from license fees was $390,000 and $486,000 for the nine months ended September 30, 2007 and 2006.

 

Gross profit reported for the three months ended September 30, 2007 and 2006, remained constant at $272,000, or 77 percent of revenue and $298,000, or 77 percent of revenue, for 2006. For the nine-month period ended September 30, 2007, gross profit reported was $712,000, or 72 percent of revenue, compared to $928,000, or 80 percent of revenue in the same period a year ago.

 

Net loss applicable to shareholders decreased in the third quarter 2007 to $538,000, or ($.01) per share, compared to $566,000, or ($.01) per share reported in the third quarter 2006. For the nine-month period ended September 30, 2007, net loss applicable to shareholders increased to $1,800,000, or ($.02) per share, versus $1,521,000, or ($0.02) per share, a year ago.

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Intelestream, which sells consulting services for SugarCRM applications, has announced today the release of the Sugar Theme Club, a nonprofit online portal where users of the Sugar Suite line of products can “download and share custom background themes to compliment their CRM experience at no cost.”

 

The concept for a theme club was developed by the Intelestreamers, who thought the growing demand for new Sugar background themes could be fueled by graphic designers seeking a forum to showcase their talents to potential clients.

 

“We believe the Sugar Theme Club will make CRM fun to use while putting graphic designers in touch with CRM users interested in services such as logo and Web site design,” states Jason Green, founder and CEO of Intelestream.

 

Introductory themes now available for download include designs inspired by automobiles, baseball, scuba diving, night clubbing, and the mountains of New Zealand. Users can download themes for immediate use by registering for a free membership at www.sugarthemeclub.org.