CRM’s NetSuite IPO, Jesta, Great Plains CRM, Fifth Favorite Album and Book of the Year, Zack Bullish on Salesforce.com, Nazli Ekim, Teradata in India

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
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CRM’s NetSuite IPO, Jesta, Great Plains CRM, Fifth Favorite Album and Book of the Year, Zack Bullish on Salesforce.com, Nazli Ekim, Teradata in India

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is First Coffee’s Fifth Favorite Album from 2007, not necessarily an album released in 2007, but what First Coffee reckons was his fifth most-played album of the year… envelope please…
 
Aimee Mann’s Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse (2004). Besides the nugget that warehouses evidently have patron saints, and one wonders what Ann did to earn such an honor, this album showed us that Mann can, in fact, perform all those terrific songs she’s been writing with sinewy, passionate abandon. There’s not a track here that’s not an improvement over its studio counterpart, and muscular renditions of “Long Shot,” “The Moth,” “Deathly” and “That’s Just What You Are” stand out. We always knew Mann could write great songs, with this set she shows us she — with a crack backup band — can put her heart into them as well.
 
And First Coffee’s Fifth Favorite Book Read in 2007 is The Mystery of Capital: Why Capital Triumphs In the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto (2000). After discarding cultural, religious or historical red herring arguments for why capitalism succeeds in the West and nowhere else, de Soto, a Peruvian economist who richly deserves the Nobel Prize, studies widely in functioning capitalist societies today and arrives at the empirical conclusion that it’s simply the West’s belief in — and strong legal protection of — titled private property, safe from state confiscation and leverageable in the form of loans and mortgages, that is probably the single most important factor separating successful capitalist societies from failed ones. Clearly written and engaging, it’s cogent, jargon-free and accessible to economics neophytes.
 
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Great Plains service consultants Alba Spectrum Group found that Microsoft Dynamics GP reporting is “an essential part of GP implementation and post production ERP support,” but add that you need to “do your homework” to find the one for you.
 
As for typical mid-size MRP application, the Great Plainers say, “you should expect multiple reporting tools, especially if you think about reports genre,” such as “financial reporting, business processes specific reports.”
 
When Microsoft incorporated MS SQL Server Reporting Services or SRS “and kind of recommended it over former tool of the choice, Crystal Reports,” GP officials say, “you should do your homework on selecting the reporting tool which will do proposed and expected job.”
 
Great Plains says the ReportWriter, or RW, is incorporated into GP Dexterity environment, “meaning that it works from the GP user interface and within Great Plains security realm. RW is the tools you should look at first when you are customizing something which you call from GP interface: Sales Order Processing invoice form, for example.” Do not expect too much from Report Writer, though, as “it has numerous restrictions.”
 
And as far as Crystal Reports and SRS goes, these two report design tools compete on the market and are in some features similar. “The advantage of SRS and CR is that you can create really cross-modules and all-nightly report,” GP officials say. “However, if you are looking in the creation of pure financial reports such as Profit & Loss Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow,” keep moving, pilgrim.
 
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According to the trade journal Economic Times, data warehousing company Teradata will be ramping up its operations in India by increasing headcount and expanding its business footprint.
 
Scott Gnau, chief development officer at Teradata, said the idea “is to create intellectual property. Cost advantage is achieved not only through paying lower salaries or cutting down on infrastructure cost, but through integration with the international team and through best cross-pollination methods. This has helped us develop some unique technologies.”
 
Gnau said 30 percent of Teradata’s employees are based out of its Indian R&D centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad, and have been “the key contributors” to Teradata 12 version. The company also has a consulting center in Mumbai and plans to open another in Pune.
 
In October 2007 Teradata was spun off from NCR Corporation and listed on New York Stock Exchange. The company said that it continues to be a strategic partner of the parent company to provide CRM to customers.
 
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According to news service FinancialWire, the underwriters of an initial public offering for NetSuite were given a $12.3 million bonus by exercising their option to buy extra shares of the Internet provider’s stock.
 
Shares of NetSuite, which is owned in part by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, shot up 36.5 percent after its IPO and it ended Wednesday at $36.20. Underwriters bought an additional 930,000 shares at $26 each.
 
The purchase increased the total public offering size to $185.4 million prior to the deduction of expenses paid by NetSuite. The company plans to us its IPO proceeds to retire a loan from Tako Ventures.
 
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Jesta, a vendor of business products for the consumer products, soft goods, and specialty industries, has announced that it will launch its new point-of-sale product at the upcoming NRF 97th Annual Convention and Expo in New York from January 13–16.
 
“The small to midsize market does not have a complete end-to-end products provider,” the Jestacians say. The company is therefore launching Vision Store. “Small to mid-sized retailers will greatly benefit by now being able to choose from a full suite of retail products from a single source,” company officials say.
 
Vision Store offers retailers visibility into inventory across the chain and captures customer information. With Vision Merchandising, Vision Planning, and Vision Financials, retailers can “gain greater control over cost management, markdowns, shrinkage and allocation of merchandise per store, further supporting the next seasons planning and OTB dollars,” company officials contend.
 
Vision Store’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) functionality allows retailers to capture “not only customer purchase information but also information about the customer’s shopping experience and item level details,” company officials say.
 
“Our suite now spans the supply chain from concept all the way through to checkout,” said Leslie Belcher, President of Jesta I.S.
 
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Salesforce.com gets some love from Zacks Equity Research, which highlights Salesforce.com as the Bull of the Day. “Our Bull of the Day recommendation is for salesforce.com,” the Zackers say. “Salesforce.com is the market leader in the on-demand CRM space and continues to see substantial subscriber and customer growth.”
 
Although the stock has been “volatile,” as the report notes, Zacks officials “believe over the long-term, CRM is the leader in a potentially huge market for on-demand software. Moreover, the company has had excellent traction into larger customers with thousands of subscribers, reflecting greater acceptance, and should continue to displace Siebel/Oracle.”
 
The research firm therefore reiterated their “buy” recommendation on CRM shares with a six-month price target of $83.00.
 
. . . .
 
Congratulations to Nazli Ekim of SS PR, named one of the top technology communicators of the year by the PRSourceCode second annual Top Tech Communicators study. This year’s study surveyed more than 300 IT journalists.
 
Nazli was born and raised here in Istanbul, moving to Chicago at 14. First Coffee enjoyed an afternoon with her and a couple of friends here along Istiklal Caddesi before Christmas. Aferin sana, Nazli.
 
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