January 2008 Archives

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the “Workrock” shuffle playlist on iTunes, currently pumping out the second-best song the Rolling Stones ever recorded, “Sway.”

 

CompanionLink Software, a vendor of mobile sync products, has released a wireless synchronization product for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Palm OS mobile devices.

 

The CompanionLink Professional software package has an option to wirelessly synchronize information with various CRM and contact management products and Web-enabled mobile devices so users can access and update their CRM contacts, schedules, and notes from anywhere.

 

The software synchronizes data with ACT! by Sage, FrontRange GoldMine, IBM Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, Time & Chaos, Google Apps, Microsoft Outlook, and Palm Desktop databases.

 

Information can be synchronized in two ways: wired sync or wireless sync. Wired synchronization requires the mobile device to be docked to the computer, and wireless synchronization allows data to go from the CRM database to the user’s mobile device using CompanionLink Software’s wireless synchronization service.

 

“Wireless synchronization is where the future of mobile devices and data synchronization is headed,” said Rushang Shah, Director of Marketing at CompanionLink Software.

 

CompanionLink Professional retails for a one-time charge of $99.95 per user. The wireless synchronization service is $9.95 per month per mobile device. A 14-day evaluation version of the software can be downloaded at www.companionlink.com/downloads. The wireless synchronization service is free during the evaluation period.

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RightNow Technologies has announced results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2007. Fourth quarter total revenue was a record $30.7 million, compared to $28.8 million in the fourth quarter 2006. Fourth quarter 2007 results reflect 33 percent growth in recurring revenue over the fourth quarter of 2006 and the impact of the Company’s business model shift away from perpetual licenses in 2007.

 

The net loss in the fourth quarter of 2007 was $(3.3) million or $(0.10) per share, compared to net loss of $(2.3) million, or $(0.07) per share, in the fourth quarter of 2006. Fourth quarter 2007 non-GAAP net loss per share was $(0.07) which excludes stock-based compensation charges of $1.0 million.

 

Revenue for the full year 2007 was $112 million, compared to full year 2006 revenue of $110 million. Recurring revenue for the 2007 full year increased 34 percent year over year to $85 million.

 

The net loss for the full year 2007 was $(18.6) million or $(0.56) per share, compared to net loss of $(5.0) million or $(0.16) per share for the full year 2006. Full year 2007 non-GAAP net loss per share was $(0.40) which excludes stock-based compensation of $5.5 million.

 

RightNow added 60 new customers in the fourth quarter and more than 250 new customers for the year. New, renewed and expanded customer relationships during the fourth quarter of 2007 included Activision, Easy Jet Airline Company, Epson America, Kodak Imaging Network, Logitech, Napster, Social Security Administration, and Vodafone Netherlands.

 

In a separate announcement, RightNow announced the promotions of Susan Carstensen to Chief Operating Officer, and Jeff Davison to Chief Financial Officer.

 

For the full year 2008, the company expects revenue in the range of $135 to $140 million, with recurring revenue growth of approximately 25 percent. The net loss per share for the full year 2008 is expected to be in the range of $(0.36) to $(0.27). Non-GAAP net loss per share, which excludes stock-based compensation, is expected to be in the range of $(0.16) to $(0.07).

 

For the first quarter of 2008, revenue is anticipated to be in the range of $31 to $32 million. The first quarter net loss per share is expected to be in the range of $(0.17) to $(0.14).

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New Delhi-based Avaya GlobalConnect, an Indian communication products provider, has won Frost & Sullivan’s Market Leadership Award for Enterprise Telephony and Contact Centers at the India ICT Awards held recently in Mumbai.

 

The sixth consecutive win cites the company’s “efforts to empower organizations in India to use Intelligent Communications products to gain a sustainable competitive advantage,” according to Avaya officials.

 

The Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Awards for the ICT industry were chosen based on research and analysis by the analyst team tracking various ICT markets on a regular basis. The team monitors competitor revenue, market share, growth over the last year, market and technology innovation, go-to-market strategy and other developments.

 

Presenting the award, T.R Madan Mohan, Director of Consulting, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle East, said Avaya Global Connect has “retained its position as the market leader in the Enterprise Telephony market and the Interactive CRM market.”

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CRM vendor Epicor Software has announced that the International Cricket Council has implemented its Epicor enterprise resource planning product.

 

Headquartered in Dubai, the ICC, the global governing body for cricket, picked Epicor iScala for “cost and time savings” across the organization, Epicor officials say, adding that the ICC selected Epicor to streamline the sports body’s budgeting, analysis, tournament accounting and overall financial management functions.

 

“It was important to use the advantages enterprise technology brings at a time of dynamic growth for the ICC,” Faisal Hasnain, chief financial officer of the ICC, said. “Epicor has given us a clear end-to-end control over funds flow and its administration as the ICC’s operational footprint expands rapidly in line with the growth of the game of cricket.”

 

We watched the recent one-day World Cup, and it wasn’t bad. Mrs. First Coffee’s a New Zealander so we were rooting for the Kiwis, but once you get a basic grasp of the game — it’s about as easy to follow as baseball, if a pubful of drunk Aussies can follow what’s going on, there’s no reason you can’t — it’s surprisingly fun to watch. The one-day version. First Coffee isn’t sure he could take a five-day test.

 

The ICC moved its headquarters to Dubai in 2005 at a time of rapid rise in commercial revenues from the game.”As part of the restructuring process we have expanded considerably, with growth in staff and a larger geographical footprint,” said Hasnain.

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Jigsaw, an online directory of business contact and company information, has announced that it has reached the 400 company customer milestone with the Jigsaw enterprise products introduced in fall 2007.

 

Jim Fowler, co-founder and CEO of Jigsaw, said the company’s enterprise products “dovetail with CRM and SFA systems to provide business contact information… thanks to the collective contributions of its many members.” The directory now includes more than 7.4 million contacts at more than 600,000 companies.

 

The launch and adoption of Jigsaw Enterprise Solutions “contributed to the growth of Jigsaw’s membership community,” company officials say, “which saw its number increase by 165 percent over the previous year.”

 

Huh? Oh, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” of course.

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s highly underrated Works, Vol. II:

 

It's amazing that Rudy Giuliani, the guy who led all the national Republican polls for most of 2007, is out of the race. Maybe his not actually running in any of the early primaries led people to figure the man doesn't want to be President all that badly.

 

Hard to fault that logic. Had Rudy at least competed in easy pickoff states, like Wyoming or Nevada, it would have kept his name in circulation. But he confirmed, once again, America's suspicion that creatures of New York City — and Rudy's World is exactly that of Saul Steinberg's famous New Yorker "View of the World From 9th Avenue" cover, where everything beyond the Hudson River is wogs — really don't give a functional damn about much outside Gotham, except maybe Florida.

 

He squandered unbeatable name recognition and top place in all Republican preference polls and is now out on the street. Maybe he really didn't want to be President all that badly. Guess I can peel the "Rudy Giuliani '08" bumper sticker off my laptop now.

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Graham Technology, which sells business software and services, has announced it has delivered the underlying technology platform that drives MoveMachine, the online portal from property firm ESPC, designed to be a one-stop-shop for buying and selling homes.

 

With a membership of around 250 solicitor estate agents, ESPC has helped to sell over £3.5billion of residential property in the UK over the last 12 months.

 

Since 14 December 2007, every home put on the market in England and Wales, no matter what size, must have a Home Information Pack. A similar scheme will be introduced in Scotland in late 2008.

 

MoveMachine is a Web site designed to help guide users through the new property selling process, from information on HIPs and their benefits to ordering a HIP itself. MoveMachine also has a corporate member portal, which is used by member estate agents and solicitors in the production of HIPs.

 

In addition to MoveMachine, Graham Technology has also delivered a contact center platform based on ciboodle, the company's flagship software product. The contact center incorporates a number of case and contact management features, along with workflow and reporting functionality.

 

Headquartered in Scotland, Graham Technology has seven global offices.

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Talisma Corporation, which describes itself as a Customer Interaction Management (CIM) software product vendor, has announced a partnership with ClickFox, which sells Customer Experience Analytics software and services. The firms will sell an integrated product with the Talisma CIM Suite and the ClickFox CBI software.

 

"The partnership of ClickFox and Talisma has the power to provide businesses with a 'Total View' of the customer experience," said Marco Pacelli, CEO of ClickFox. 

 

ClickFox software maps customer interactions to a business-relevant model of the system, offering some insight into how customers are interacting with a business. Using the ClickFox Customer Experience Analytics system, company officials say, firms can reduce operational costs and improve customer satisfaction.

 

The ClickFox – Talisma product will put interactions into an intuitive, visual map, "revealing what customers actually do and why, so that companies can align customer needs with their business objectives," officials from both firms say.  For example, an agent using Talisma Chat can determine the best proactive offer for a customer based on the customer's history and behavioral patterns while on the Web site.

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The Open Solutions Alliance, a nonprofit, vendor-neutral consortium dedicated to driving interoperability and adoption of comprehensive open products, has announced plans to expand the organization's global footprint.

 

The OSA will function under a chapter structure with its first new regional chapter planned to address the European open products market. 

 

The OSA, which celebrates its one-year anniversary in February, expects to announce several new European members in the coming months. Current members headquartered in Europe include Onepoint, Openbravo, Redmayne-Bentley Stockbrokers and Talend. Many other OSA members also run operations in Europe.

 

"More open source projects have originated in Europe than anywhere else in the world, which gives the region a unique foundation for building business value for users," said Bertrand Diard, chief executive officer of Talend, a founding member of the OSA.

 

Pierre Audoin Conseil, a Paris-based analyst firm, announced this month that the French market for open-source software reached 730 million euros in 2007, a leap of 66 percent from the previous year, and Gartner Research is forecasting that open-source software adoption rates will continue to increase across Europe at the expense of proprietary software.

 

Its new chapter structure will "better enable the OSA to address the needs of ISVs, systems integrators and users who are deploying open products all over the world," according to OSA officials, but with "a regional focus that is tailored for regional differences in culture, business practices, regulatory environments and open source adoption patterns."

 

In Europe as in other regions, the OSA will "continue to focus its efforts on defining and promoting tools, frameworks and best practices that facilitate easy deployment and interoperability between applications," OSA officials say.

 

Dominic Sartorio, OSA's president, said by this time next year he expects to have chapters "up and running in other regions enjoying strong open source adoption, including Asia and Latin America."

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EXpresso, the SaaS offering that hosts Excel business communities, has become an AppExchange partner. A fully certified version of eXpresso with full Salesforce integration will officially launch in February.

 

The eXpresso service is designed specifically for the Excel business user who can store, edit, or instantly collaborate on spreadsheets in real time. The Salesforce relationship will "expose eXpresso to thousands of customers," eXpresso officials say.

 

Hey, by the way, the name of the Italian coffee drink is "espresso," okay? I mean, it's fine for this company to call themselves whatever they want, but when writing about what you drink it's "espresso," not "expresso," okay? Thanks.

 

EXpresso will be fully integrated with Salesforce. Users can edit spreadsheets, set and receive alerts, or collaborate on-the-fly with colleagues from within Salesforce.

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And in case you were wondering, SAP had another good year. SAP AG has announced preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2007. For FY 2007 software and software related service revenues for 2007 were €7.43 billion, as opposed to 2006's €6.60 billion.

 

Software revenues for 2007 were €3.41 billion, in 2006 they were €3.00 billion. Total revenues were €10.25 billion for 2007, up from 2006's €9.39 billion. Operating income for 2007 was €2.74 billion (€2.58 billion in 2006), but the operating margin for 2007 was 26.7 percent, compared to 27.4 percent for 2006.

 

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is John Mellencamp’s Dance Naked, a quickie he banged out in the middle of a string of disappointing records and along with uh-huh — another two-week album — my favorite Mellencamp album.

 

His albums disappoint because he tries to think too much, tries to make them “important.” But he’s not Bob Dylan, he’s not Richard Thompson, he’s at his best when he keeps it simple, turns it up and let’s fly and leaves deep lyrics to those who can write them.

 

Sage Software has announced the new ACT! by Sage Online Community available at http://community.act.com for registered ACT! users.

 

The ACT! Online Community is supposed to let ACT! and ACT! by Sage Premium users, product developers, and Sage Software personnel “interact with each other through a variety of themed discussion forums and blogs covering best practices, product usage tips, and feature requests, among other topics,” according to the Sagians.

 

David van Toor, senior vice president and general manager for Sage CRM Solutions North America, said by using the community “we can encourage and more actively participate in ongoing dialogue with our customers.”

 

Denis Pombriant, Beagle Research managing principal, said a community of interest “or, just ‘community,’ is an effective tool that enables marketers and others to gather information about what a large group of people think.”

 

In addition to subject matter blogs, the community includes a discussion board for individual and small business users to post ideas and questions, and share information about their experiences, and other forums. Fora? Forums? Never studied Latin, sorry.

 

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ShoreTel, a vendor of Pure IP Unified Communications products, has announced its Microsoft Dynamics CRM Integration application. The ShoreTellians say it integrates ShoreTel’s call management and control capabilities with access to customer data.

 

The application is intended to help provide increased effectiveness, shorter response times, and improved account management, company officials say.

 

Basically the product integrates the phone communications and customer tracking. It links an incoming call to either an existing customer record or one of several new record creation screens. Users can dial out directly from the Microsoft Dynamic CRM application using the embedded ShoreWare Web Dialer app, or they can dial out using a call manager and have an associated CRM record open.

 

Users can customize search settings to enable lookup of both standard and custom CRM entities and attributes, and each user can control how the integration software responds to calls and lookup results. The application doesn’t require any modifications to any Microsoft components — you don’t need to coordinate product updates.

 

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Bango has announced a new service which the Bangovians say “turns the mobile phone into a personal on the go library.” The billing and digital fingerprint technologies have let Macmillan Publishing Solutions create The Global Reader, a service giving consumers access to books, articles, newspapers and other print content on their mobile phone.

 

The MPS service offers publishers a distribution channel which, because it’s mobile-Web based, lets them interact directly with customers and get information.

 

“We never envisioned people would want to read War and Peace on their phones,” said Bob Kasher, one of the developers of The Global Reader. “What we responded to was the idea that millions of people have mobile phones in their pockets,” folks who might fancy a chapter or two of the latest undemanding Nora Roberts or John Grisham opus while on the subway, instead of going through all the trouble of carrying a paperback novel.

 

The Bango technology is used to let consumers on any mobile network, anywhere in the world, browse content on the Global Reader and make purchases. The ability to authenticate users means consumers can assemble a library of free and paid books.  Additionally, given that some content actually runs over five or six pages, the mobile site has a bookmark feature allowing the reader to save their spot online.

 

. . . .

 

Forrester Research reports that enterprise marketing platform products will grow “in excess of 20 percent over the next five years.” This is considered good news around the Cary, North Carolina campus of business intelligence vendor SAS, whose Customer Intelligence products sales grew fifty percent in 2007. 

 

Jeff Levitan, General Manager, SAS Customer Intelligence, attributes the increase partly to “awareness that an integrated suite of marketing products” is helpful to marketing.

 

Forrester reports that 83 percent of marketers “increasingly believe that a comprehensive marketing suite that supports the entire marketing organization can make the difference.”

 

In its “Forrester Wave: Enterprise Marketing Platforms, Q1 2008 (January 2008)” report, Forrester found that SAS “offers a strong, analytically driven product for relationship marketing.”

 

Additionally, Forrester reported that “direct marketers tell us that contact optimization is near the top of their wish list of technologies,” but that the market is currently underserved. Coincidentally enough, SAS sells comprehensive contact optimization. 

 

Since Forrester completed its vendor evaluation, SAS released a new version of its Customer Intelligence suite in December featuring SAS Real-Time Decision Manager, which uses decision logic on customer interactions.

 

. . . .

 

The Simses are the stupidest family in Istanbul — on two hellish occasions this past year we kept cats for friends on extended leave. Each time I swore, never again. So we’re invited to dinner a month ago for the express purpose of getting our kids emotionally hooked on a Cocker Spaniel puppy of some people from church who are, yep, going on extended leave. I held out as long as I could, but was overwhelmed, and the beast arrived this morning. On their way out the door, the cackling owners said “Oh, by the way, he chews shoes and electrical cords.” I know, I know, it’s my own fault.

 

. . . .

 

RightNow Technologies has been selected by a panel of industry experts from Forrester Research, Yankee Group, and Service and Support Professionals Association, as the SearchCRM.com 2007 Product of the Year award recipient for its enterprise-class on demand customer relationship management (CRM) product.

 

RightNow was labeled a “pioneer in the SaaS CRM space” and was selected in the Enterprise Suite category because of its “strength in multi-channel integration and strong customer knowledge base technologies that support customized customer experiences.”

 

Greg Gianforte, RightNow’s affable founder and CEO, said more than 60 percent of RightNow’s business comes from organizations with more than $1 billion in revenue.

 

. . . .

 

Terex Africa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Imperial Holdings, has implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM to help improve its sales and marketing processes while providing access to customer information for reporting, analysis and forecasting.

 

Terex Africa distributes construction, mining, road building and aerial working machines and equipment across sub-Saharan Africa. The company wanted more visibility into its sales pipeline to improve sales efficiencies and the ability to view, store and segment customer and prospect information.

 

The Microsoft-based CRM product was implemented and customized by Microsoft Gold Certified partner IS Partners. “For a national company, it is particularly significant to have a centralized repository of information for cross and up-selling,” says Heath Turner, CRM director at IS Partners.

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is from the Wayback Machine: Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. Sadly the Jeffs, a clever singles band in their time, have not aged well. There's plenty of music from the 1960s which sounds as fresh as if it was recorded yesterday -- Astral Weeks still sounds like it was recorded tomorrow -- but the Airplane's music, even this their best album, is a time capsule, little more than an enjoyable blast from the past:

Gail Wilson & Associates, a provider of Sage Accpac ERP, Sage CRM and Sage BusinessVision, has announced details of its annual Sage Accpac Business Solutions Seminars, open to both existing and prospective customers.

The events will be held at the Best Western Otonabee Inn in Peterborough, Ontario on February 15 and at the Richmond Hill Country Club in Ontario on Tuesday, February 26.

The seminars will be geared towards current and prospective Sage Accpac customers interested in educational sessions about business software and technology, discussion forums and opportunities to network with peers, keynote speakers discussing such technologies as CRM, Electronic Data Interchange, Business Intelligence and Reporting.

There'll be tips & tricks for Sage Accpac Version 5.4, as well as a preview of what's to come in Version 5.5.

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DataOne Software, a division of Dominion Enterprises, has announced that its iMarketAuto inventory management program has been enhanced to support all major inventory management provider products.

The change lets dealers using any inventory management platform, data collection tool and on-the-lot inventory management service manage their online vehicle listings.

"As more and more dealerships choose to manage their own inventory, the need for a hybrid inventory management product that provides both full and self-service options has emerged," said Jock Pereira, managing director, DataOne Software.

Using an automated process, iMarketAuto captures data from on-the-lot service companies such as Dealer Specialties, Dealerskins or XiGroup. The information is then broken down, scrubbed, cleaned and rebuilt as an iMarketAuto inventory file.

The inventory can then be managed from the iMarketAuto console, where dealers can change prices, add and remove vehicles, add seller notes, upload additional photos and print window stickers. Once updated, the inventory is available for broadcasting to online destinations. The software supports files in any format, including XML, cumulative or single inventory types.

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Plexus Systems, providers of Plexus Online on-demand software, has announced it will demonstrate its product at in the Pacific Design & Manufacturing Show in Booth 1825. The event is held January 29 - 31, 2008 at the Anaheim Convention Center in California.

Medical device production requires high precision, and the product gives manufacturers to have an ability to trace a problem with a finished product back through the complete production process. Once a manufacturing issue is isolated, users can identify and quarantine all other suspect material.

Plexus Online is an on-demand product offering enterprise resource planning (ERP) functions such as accounting and finance modules, customer relationship management (CRM) features such as order entry and tracking and supply chain management (SCM) functions such as supplier quality and traceability.

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DBI Technologies Inc., a vendor of scheduling components, has announced the release of Solutions::Schedule 2.0 for .NET for the healthcare and service sectors, to assist with aligning patient and customer needs with practitioners and technicians.

CRM and ERP product providers use DBI's Scheduling technologies to "help resolve many of the complexities associated with multi-resource scheduling, including dispatch products," DBI officials say. Solutions Schedule 2.0 for .NET lets developers manage multi-dimensional scheduling.

Using the product, developers can Scroll to Date, add User-Drawn time bars, create new time bar linking relationships, color define time bar link lines and add user-drawn headers. New features also include Time Bar Split Editing, multi-level undo/redo and other editing options.

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LoopFuse, a vendor of open source marketing automation, has announced the general availability of LoopFuse OneView 3.0, a major upgrade to their flagship product.

Founded by JBoss alumni in 2007 to "offer a way for marketing and sales organizations to improve efficiency and reduce cost," according to company officials, LoopFuse provides enterprise marketing automation products and services. It's used by businesses to automate the process of analyzing large volumes of marketing information collected on Web sites.

In an industry where "Google Analytics covers part of the market and other proprietary software addresses specific needs," there is a growing desire to consolidate all marketing and sales tools, company officials feel: "We noticed there was no single product on the market that incorporated all these different aspects of marketing automation," says LoopFuse CEO Roy Russo.

The product offers lead management, including capturing, scoring, and routing of leads to CRM. There's also CRM Integration, which exports leads and activities to a CRM and monitor sales opportunities of leads generated by campaigns for determining ROI.

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Commerce Planet has announced that Rory Roybal has joined Iventa, a Commerce Planet Company, as the Vice President of Technology.

Roybal most recently served as the Senior Director, Engineering for Salesforce.com, where he was responsible for Mobile Engineering, including Client-Server Architecture, IT Operations, Software development, QA, Technical Writing, and Program Management.

Roybal will be overseeing the Iventa Dashboard product line development and inter-company integrations related to building business tools, services and enhanced e-commerce solutions.

Commerce Planet is an online media, marketing, and integrated e-commerce provider selling media products, lead generation services, list database management, e-commerce solutions, Web marketing, call center support and CRM tools.

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Hosted CRM vendor ICT Group has announced that it will be holding a VIP event on Tuesday, January 29, marking the official inauguration and name change of its Argentine operating division, formerly Proyectar Connect S.A., to ICT Services of Argentina S.A.

ICT acquired Proyectar Connect in November 2006 to help the company increase growth and market expansion within the Latin American region. Since the acquisition, ICT Services of Argentina has added new clients and continued to sell customer care, telesales and help desk/technical support services for Proyectar Connect clients.

John. J. Brennan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ICT Group, called their Argentine operation "part of ICT Group's fully integrated, common technology and process-oriented global operations infrastructure."

In addition to expanding its Latin America sales presence, ICT Services of Argentina is positioned to support U.S. and European clients in English/Spanish services.


If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a stone cold rock classic, Van Morrison's St. Dominic's Preview album:

Okay, we get to write about Imus this morning. Great guy, First Coffee likes his comedy stuff, his skewering of the pompous Clintons, the fact that he uses Kinky Friedman's "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore" for a theme song, good to have him back… what's that? It's "iMIS?" Oh. What's their theme song?

Advanced Solutions International, a vendor of Web-based software for associations and non-profits, has announced the availability of iMIS TaskCentre, described by company officials as "a business process management module offering advanced business alerts, workflow, document automation and information on demand for iMIS 15."

The new module improves iMIS 15's ability to work with off-the-shelf, packaged software. Monitoring an organization's iMIS database and incoming e-mail, iMIS TaskCentre launches processes based on an organization's business rules.

Basically, this lets users notify staff or constituents when something happens, generate and publish documents, reports, and communications as a result of completed processes or on a schedule, or trigger responses to incoming communications.

The idea here is that more timely communication with constituents improves customer satisfaction, while significantly decreasing the workload of staff responsible for repetitive tasks such as updating basic contact information and taking action on opt-out requests.

Bob Alves, CEO of ASI, sums it up by saying "automating order confirmations, dues billing, event reminder e-mails, and staff notifications can free up hours of staff time.

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Dominion Enterprises has acquired substantially all the assets of AVV, which sells an Internet Lead Management software product, Web Control, for $22.75 million.

Founded in 1995 and headquartered in that silicon nexus of Westerville, Ohio, AVV provides lead management and polling support to over 2,300 automotive dealerships nationwide and employs 42 people.

Need more? Web Control received Auto Dealer Monthly's 2007 Dealers' Choice Diamond Award as the industry's top-rated customer relationship management tool based on productivity, vendor support and dealership value. Autobytel bought AVV in 2003.

Conrad M. Hall, president and chief executive officer of Dominion Enterprises, said acquiring the Web Control tool "brings accountability and tracking to the automotive sales process so that dealers can sell more cars."

"The increasing number of sales leads coming from the Internet requires dealers to have a system in place to manage those leads," said Robert M. Berndt, president of Dominion Enterprises' automotive group, adding that Ed Braunbeck, vice president and general manager of AVV, will continue to lead the business.

Dominion Enterprises' automotive group portfolio includes Autobase, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

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Let's update Chinese CRM vendor PacificNet, which has gotten into gambling technology in a big way here in recent years, as there's been a flurry of activity:

PacificNet's Take1 subsidiary has completed the delivery of 2000 gambling machines to a European gambling operator. "We anticipate continuous strong demand for our gaming machines for the European gaming market and repeat orders," Take1 officials say.

PacificNet reports new multi-player gambling machine sale in Macau, China.

And the most recent news, PacificNet and Octavian have both reported "stronger than expected" customer turnout at their gambling product launches at the International Casino Expo in London this week.

On January 22, PacificNet and Octavian held a joint completion ceremony at the International Casino Expo, wrapping up PacificNet's acquisition of 100 percent ownership of Octavian International Limited, which sells gambling technology.

Following the signing of a definitive agreement with Octavian on December 7, 2007, due diligence was completed within four weeks and all the share exchanges for the acquisition were completed on January 23. As part of the closing, in return for receiving 100 percent share ownership of Octavian International, PacificNet issued 2,330,000 restricted shares of PACT representing approximately 20 percent of PacificNet's outstanding shares, which will be held in an escrow account and will be released in accordance to the payment and earn-out schedule in the Acquisition Agreement.

Octavian will continue operating under its current name as a wholly-owned subsidiary of PacificNet and will continue to pursue its gambling technology business. Harmen Brenninkmeijer will become an Executive Director of PacificNet and a member of the board of directors, and continue to serve as CEO of the Octavian subsidiary.

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Skyytek Worldwide, a vendor for NetSuite specializing in on-demand software distribution and implementation, was recently listed on the Accounting Technology 2007 list of 100 Pacesetters.

Largely known for its NetSuite ERP/CRM business process engineering and implementation, the company operates in the Software-as-a-Service space.

The winners of the Pacesetters 100 were chosen based on a variety of different criteria, award officials said, such as the handling and successful deployment of small and mid-market accounting products. Nearly all 100 companies chosen for the list are privately owned and operated.

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Netrics, a technology firm providing the intriguing service of "making imperfect data perfectly usable," has been embedded in Salesforce.com Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives, so Salesforce.com users can match records to make the most of their data.

Working with vendors like Nimaya and Forefront Technologies, the Netrics technology provides a data matching product for enterprises working in a hosted Salesforce.com environment.

First Coffee doesn't need to tell you that data accuracy is critical in CRM applications like Salesforce.com. The Netrics product is to ensure that the customer data -- sourced from multiple systems -- "doesn't become mired with inconsistencies that result in duplications, repetitions and failed matches," company officials say.

Their business proposition is that while data may be cleaned once, both the "human factor" and the "computer factor" continue to introduce variations within data sources as new records are created, added or existing ones updated.

Their product, the rather quaintly named Real-World Data Matching Platform, pushes data imperfection "from a time- and revenue-draining business impediment to a non-issue," company officials say. Basically the Netrics Matching Engine finds and connects disparate data despite inconsistencies, incompleteness, variations and errors.

The Netrics platform also introduces machine learning technology that learns on-the-fly, eliminating "the need for continuous monitoring of sourced data," according to the firm.

"The problem isn't with the data," Netrics officials are fond of saying, "it's the inability to accurately match data."

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bob Dylan's fun version of "Froggie Went A-Courtin'." Little piece of cornbread layin' on the shelf, if you want any more you can sing it yourself, uh-huh:

Infusion Software, which styles itself a vendor of CRM software "for True Small Businesses," has launched its Infusion Certified Consultant channel program.

The software is designed to "meet the needs of this market with a new channel partner program for Certified Consultants," the Infusionistas say. These outside vendors will sell and implement Infusion CRM to TSBs.

"Alliances play a critical part in Infusion's overall business strategy," said Clate Mask, President and CEO of Infusion. The Infusion Certified Consultant program will be led by Adam Ross, Vice President of Sales and Business Development. Ross is an industry veteran of NetSuite, SalesLogix, Sage Software and others.

"This program will increase Infusion Software's market penetration," said Ross, saying Ross intends to "recruit the right amount of partners, without saturating any markets."

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Michigan IT Services has opened it doors for business. Founded by Amnouy Johnson and Ryan Johnson, Michigan IT Services is a new consulting firm with a focus on marketing-related IT functions including Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Web design, Internet Marketing and other areas.

Michigan IT Services was primarily founded to work with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, consultancy officials say. The practice will be headed by lead consultant Amnouy Johnson, who has more than five years of CRM related consulting experience and three years experience specifically with Microsoft CRM.

Welcome to the monkey house, gentlemen, and best of luck.

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SalesCentric has unveiled the company's technology road map for its Relationship Charts software, aimed at "delivering a comprehensive array of visual CRM tools," according to the SalesCentricians.

The software is compatible with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 in its single unified-code base for both on-premise and on-demand deployments. The new products will provide partners with "even more flexibility when addressing their customers' business and IT requirements," company officials say.

"End user adoption and productivity have been major inhibitors to CRM success," said Matthew Crook, CEO at SalesCentric. "Microsoft put CRM in an environment people already know -- Outlook -- and Relationship Charts makes CRM sexy and easy to use."

With Relationship Charts 4.0 SFA edition, information is saved within the CRM system for other people to see and use. For example marketing personnel, who are dependent on sales people entering data into CRM, can now profile customers and define segmentation.

And for legal customers wanting a tool to show the relationship between its cases, lawyers and plaintiffs, it would be possible to customize Relationship Charts for this purpose in a visual format.

Available in the second half of 2008, SalesCentric will adopt Microsoft's SilverLight technology and provide additional new functionality.

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Call recording and monitoring vendor Duxoft has introduced the new version of MiaRec Business, 24/7 calls recording and monitoring software for VoIP systems, with the "possibility of integration with third party applications, like CRM systems or internal databases," according to the Duxoftians.

Recently calls recording has been used in many organizations in order to increase security, improve customer service and agents productivity, as well as to comply with legal requirements.

MiaRec Business 3.0 has user interface which can be accessed via any standard Web browser. The product uses such Web 2.0 technologies as AJAX to integrate the main advantage of desktop applications with the main benefits of Web applications, such as remote access from any computer with only Web browser installed.

Intuitive calls search, filtering and grouping by date, time, phone number and other parameters let users get up and running on the program without cumbersome user guides, company officials say, promising that "users will find it easy to sort, retrieve and play back call records."

There's a multiple user interface which gives the option of limiting the access of users only to the calls in which they participate, and to permit or deny a delete operation on the calls. Managers can listen to agents' calls in real-time and guide them during the call.

MiaRec Business 3.0 is compatible with all IP-PBX systems that use standard VoIP protocols, such as H.323, SIP, MGCP and Cisco SCCP.

…

Active Modules has released the latest version of its customer relationship management application, Active CRM.

Highlights of the improved features include sales and marketing enhancements, such as now giving invoices custom fields, and the ability to track payment history and status.

The product can automatically capture lead information from a Web site. It comes with what company officials describe as "advanced workspace and calendar features," which lets you maintain a universal event calendar for your whole organization, keep all employees up-to-date on tasks, meetings or holidays and create personal events and keep them private.

The new version of Active CRM does integrate with the company's e-commerce product, Active Purchase, and products, customers and payment details automatically synchronize with Active CRM.

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Epicor|CRS, the Retail Solutions Division of Epicor Software, a vendor of enterprise business software products to the midmarket and Global 1000, has announced new capabilities and expanded support.

CRS RetailStore, Epicor|CRS's point-of-saleproduct, now offers more capabilities to sell to retailers doing business internationally. Additionally, the Epicorians say, the company plans to expand its Bracknell, United Kingdom office, and add a new professional services and support center in Malaysia.

As a result of the company's acquisition by parent company Epicor Software in late 2005, Epicor|CRS has expanded into the international retail markets in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific.

"Our customer base is expanding outside the US, and so must our products and services," said Lynne Davidson, general manager for Epicor|CRS, referencing several new Epicor|CRS international customers such as Claire's in the UK, and Wing Tai and Challenger Technologies Limited in Singapore.

The latest version of RetailStore -- RetailStore 3.1, released in Q3 2007 -- supports French Canadian, Italian, French, and Spanish languages. RetailStore 3.1 handles capturing customer data for multiple country formats and supports multiple currency denominations and rounding.

The product is compliant with the Unicode standard for engineering software that works across multiple regions, countries, languages, alphabets, and scripts. In early 2008, RetailStore is slated to support Unicode for the Japanese and Chinese markets.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First Coffee^SM accepts no sponsored content.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is They Might Be Giants' Flood. First Coffee had never heard this college cult band, much to the chagrin of my hipper friends, not even the Istanbul-Constantinople song (which I now realize was what everyone started singing when we told people we were moving here to Istanbul).

"Birdhouse In Your Soul" is clever, but "Dead" is just plain stupid and the rest of it sloshes around somewhere in between those two. Sure it probably would have been fun to sit by these guys in high school study hall, but this sounds like the perfect album for a math/physics major party:

Customer, heal thyself: BT BizBox has launched what company officials call "new CRM functionality" as part of the product.

BT BizBox's new form of customer reporting "helps customers understand their own customers behavior," company officials say, and the document creation tool "allows customers to automatically generate documents, the alerting systems ensures that meetings and deadlines are never missed," and the important information module provides a place for personal information.

The Web 2.0 concept of "collaborative functionality" was invoked as the driving force for streamlining Tierlinear's Web-based BT BizBox. Its CRM product can be accessed online, and the product covers "a wide area of functionality, which means customers only need one CRM product," company officials contend.

"With the need for CRM products increasing in small businesses, the need to make sure they are suitable for them is critical," company officials say. "With the increasing number of competitor offerings in the marketplace, the easiest and quickest way to engage with your customers is via forums and blogs."

…

Jenzabar, a vendor of CRM-style software and services for higher education, has announced that 2007 was "a successful sales year," with 30 institutions of higher education purchasing new Jenzabar Total Campus Management enterprise-wide products. The vendor said the products are designed to improve enrollment, retention and advancement.

Jenzabar's TCM framework is designed specifically for the higher education market. The institutions selected Jenzabar's flagship enterprise resource planning products, which have a suite of integrated student information and business information management systems.

Jenzabar's ERP products are Jenzabar CX, offered on the UNIX platform with Java-based user interface, and Jenzabar EX, designed for the Microsoft SQL Server platform. Jenzabar sells products for higher education business processes, admissions through advancement, and even alumni tracking.

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SugarCRM, a vendor of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, has announced keynotes and sponsors for SugarCon 2008, its global customer and developer conference, February 6-8, 2008, at the Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose.

Research In Motion, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, MySQL, Talend and Levementum are among the firms sponsoring the conference, which is designed for users, developers and managers of CRM projects. Space is limited, so please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/register.html for more information and registration.

The kickoff keynote, "The End of the Beginning: Open Source Moves into the Mainstream," by SugarCRM Co-Founder and CEO John Roberts, will look at how open source is transforming the software industry and what it means for the future of CRM.

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, will speak about Sun's role as the largest commercial open source contributor and how its recent acquisition of MySQL further positions the company as a platform for the Web economy.

Other keynotes include "The Real Future of Technology" by Forbes Senior Editor Daniel Lyons, a.k.a. "Fake Steve Jobs;" and the effervescently perspicacious Paul Greenberg, author of the best-selling book, "CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century," who will look at Web 2.0, and its ability to accelerate collaboration between companies and customers.

And of course it wouldn't be a SugarCon without funky extracurriculars, and this year's offerings include California cuisine, drinks and music at the Testarossa Winery in the Los Gatos hills, a welcome reception and dinner at the Dolce Hayes Mansion and rooftop party on Santana Row in San Jose.

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Pika Technologies, which sells media-processing hardware and software, has announced that its Pika for Asterisk family of analog and digital boards is now compatible with Fonality's trixbox CE, an Asterisk-based IP-PBX product.

Terry Atwood, vice president of sales, marketing and customer care at Pika, said compatibility with trixbox CE "opens a wider audience to Pika's media processing software and hardware."

The Pika for Asterisk suite comprises hardware and software designed to support applications built on the open-source Asterisk platform. These building blocks are designed to provide network connectivity to bridge between legacy networks and Asterisk-based IP telephony applications.

With the low-density PCI analog board, the analog FXO (trunk) and the FXS (station) boards from Pika's Daytona product family and the PrimeNet digital T1/E1 boards, the portfolio of Pika for Asterisk boards supports the latest trixbox CE version 2.4, as well as the previous 2.2 version.

The full suite of Asterisk-based products has been developed using Pika's media-processing platform, including hardware (DSP) and software-based echo cancellation.

Trixbox is available in multiple configurations, including the Community Edition, which launched in 2004 as Asterisk@Home, and the newest commercial product, trixbox Pro, a hybrid hosted product.

…

ForceLogix, which sells Sales Performance Management products, has been selected to join the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program. Stewarded by the Emerging Business Team at Microsoft, the program is supposed to connect "high-potential startups" committed to the Microsoft platform to a support network with access to Microsoft people and programs.

Patrick Stakenas, President and CEO of ForceLogix, said using the Microsoft technology platform, there isn't "the time, expense and added risks of having to buy hardware, software and implementation services."

Companies are selected to join the Microsoft program based on their "innovation, marketability, growth potential, funding, platform decision and strategic importance to Microsoft," according to Your Friends From Redmond. These companies receive engagement plans designed to support their software development. Interested startups can apply via a profiling process outlined at http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com.

Dave Drach, Managing Director, Emerging Business Team at Microsoft, said ForceLogix's Sales Management Process Optimization solution "will be a valuable add-on to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM offering."

…

Well, it's official: They Might Be Giants are okay to break things up once in a while, and First Coffee can certainly see how they became critical darlings and treasured by the socially inept everywhere, Geeks Made Good, but it just makes me ache for some Stones.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Louvin Brothers' "Do You Live What You Preach?"

At the annual Lotusphere conference this week, IBM and SAP AG have announced plans to deliver their first joint software product, codenamed "Atlantic," to integrate IBM Lotus Notes software with SAP Business Suite. It will be a "new style of applications that present information and data in the context of users familiar with the Lotus Notes desktop," according to SAP officials.

Currently planned for inclusion in the first release of project Atlantic is support for SAP workflows, reporting and analytics, and the use of roles from within the Lotus Notes client. Other planned tools would provide the ability to extend and adapt these roles and capabilities, as well as use additional collaborative and offline capabilities inherent in Lotus Notes and Domino products.

The initial release is planned to ship in the fourth quarter of 2008 and will be sold by both companies.

IBM Lotus and SAP have "thousands of mutual customers," SAP officials say, who have been "asking for the functionality that Atlantic software will provide." IBM officials say the majority of IBM's top 100 customers also use SAP products. Vishal Sikka, CTO, SAP, said the joint project "reaffirms the strong commitment we have to our partnership with IBM.”

…

IEnterprises, which sells desktop and wireless CRM, has launched iLeads, a new online lead generation functionality to help companies "efficiently manage their Web site traffic," and "improve their Web site rankings."

The tool lets companies use enhanced search engine optimization, as well as high-impact workflow. It's part of iExtensions CRM.

John Carini, chief software architect, iEnterprises, said it's the company's belief that many mid-market companies rely on Web site and search engines as the #1 way to attract visitors and produce enquiries. "However," he said, "many companies struggle with not only how to raise their visibility through search engines but also how to convert Web site traffic into registrations and sales." iLeads was developed to automate the entire process.

The product is said to help modify and optimize the content on a Web site so it is "easily indexed and ranked higher on major search engines such as Google and Yahoo! It funnels and stores leads generated through Web site registrations into CRM. "Business logic then sends data captured straight into workflow within a CRM system.

ILeads is also billed as "a cost-effective way" to, over time, "replace or supplement AdWords, which can costs hundreds to thousands of dollars a month."

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Industry observer Peter Kafka passes along an announcement from Salesforce.com and its reclusive, media-shy CEO, Marc Benioff, about the 18th Annual Tibet House Benefit Concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Wednesday, February 13th.

Featured performers to date include Band of Horses, Ray Davies (!), Nawang Khechog, Marisa Monte, Sufjan Stevens and Tom Verlaine, with "more artists to be announced."

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Prior to the show, Salesforce is hosting a cocktail reception at the Rohalyn/Shorin Room at Carnegie Hall beginning at 5:30 p.m. and immediately following the show, there will be "a gala dinner" at the Metropolitan Pavilion (125 W 18th Street at 6th Avenue).

The benefit concert is made possible in part by a major gift from the Salesforce.com Foundation, which describes its mission as to "remain the leaders in pioneering, evangelizing and implementing the 1 Percent Model," and use this model as "a means to improve the lives of people around the world."

It'd be worth it just to see Ray Davies alone. First Coffee is a big Kinks fan. All writers over the age of 40 are. You have to be. It's in the rules somewhere.

…

PacificNet, a vendor of gambling technology, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and e-commerce in China, has announced that its Octavian International subsidiary has launched its gambling platform Rebel.

The Rebel platform is one of a number of new products which Octavian will be presenting at ICE, Earls Court, London, 22-24 January, 2008 booth 3230.

The Rebel gambling platform is a ready-to-connect computing engine for EGMs (Electronic Gambling Machines) which has been designed to meet all known regulatory requirements for use in networked casinos, AWP and other gambling applications.

In addition to being at the heart of Octavian's pre-assembled Maverick, Rebel will also be made available for new EGM manufacturing and as an upgrade to compatible EGMs.

Octavian International was established in 2001 and has operations in the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, India, Australia and USA.

…

CRM vendor StayinFront has announced it has been accepted into the HP Developer & Solution Partner Program. The DSPP is designed to enable independent software vendors, systems integrators, developers and consultants to work collaboratively.

As part of the DSPP, StayinFront can showcase its products and services via an online catalog that reaches customers, interest groups and networks. The company can use HP's configuration assistance, technical seminars and remote and onsite access to customized systems, including help with porting, migration, testing and optimization.

The HP DSPP is aligned with StayinFront's global presence, through offices in the Asia Pacific region, Europe and North America. Tony Bullen, executive vice president and chief technology officer, StayinFront, said acceptance into this program "strengthens our knowledge of HP's information technology products."

StayinFront CRM can be delivered as a hosted application or installed on a corporate network. StayinFront CRM also supports a wide variety of mobile devices, such as tablet PCs, laptops and Pocket PCs.

…

Auto dealer core technology provider DataOne Software, a division of Norfolk, Virginia-based CRM and other products vendor Dominion Enterprises, has announced an increase of 250 auto dealership clients in 2007, along with a 60 percent increase in revenues.

The 47 percent growth in customers is more than the combined total of new business generated by the company since it was founded 8 years ago. The new clients include more than a dozen dealerships at the top of the Wards MegaDealer 100 list.

Jock Pereira, Managing Director, DataOne Software, credits "our partnership with Dealer Specialties and Dealerskins" for the significant impact on expansion. "Dealerships are moving to self-serve inventory management or a hybrid product of full and self-serve."

DataOne Software's core products include self-serve inventory management, lead management, pricing intelligence and SEO-engineered Web sites. The company's "Just Build It" philosophy means selling "the exact technology needed to compliment on-the-lot services and enhance existing Dealership Management Systems," officials say.

DataOne Software, a division of Dominion Enterprises, was founded in 1999 to provide core technology products to auto dealers nationwide.

Dominion Enterprises, headquartered in Norfolk, operates a variety of technology businesses that offer Internet marketing, Web site design and hosting, lead generation, CRM, and data capture and distribution services including Advanced Access, PowerSports Network, and Dealer Specialties.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Reckless Kelly's great live album Reckless Kelly Was Here, featuring standout cuts "Sixgun," Baby's Gone Blues," the Alejandro Escovedo cover "Castanets" and, of course, "Wiggles & Ritalin:"

Happy Wellington Anniversary! I love day timers with New Zealand holidays.

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CRM OnTarget, a supplier of hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has announced the deployment of multi-tenant Dynamics CRM 4.0 to new customers this month, and the process of upgrading existing customers has begun.

Sean Joseph, a Senior Engineer at CRM OnTarget, said the company's "deep experience" let them build out the infrastructure, test it, and put it into production "in less than one month of RTM from Microsoft."

Instead of putting clients in single tenant server environments, "we are able to load balance thousands of users across application servers, reporting servers, dashboard servers, workflow servers, and a clustered SQL farm." The change is "enormous," said Bill McVicker, Director of Engineering at the unit's parent company, TriVenture.

CRM OnTarget has pricing for the Dynamics CRM 4.0 (CRM OnTarget Current Pricing). The company also announced that it has now made available a demo server which features an out-of-the-box installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

The server, which replaces the Dynamics CRM 3.0 demo server, has been available since January 10th and allows visitors to click through all modules of the Dynamics CRM 4.0 application. The general public may access the server free of charge from CRM OnTarget's Website (Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Demo Server).

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So we get a Giants-Patriots Super Bowl. The Us vs. World Patriots, the only team in the four major American sports (football, baseball, basketball, candlepin bowling) in the past 100 years to start a season 18-0, are on a historic quest for unrivalled sporting perfection, but can't quite match the emotion the Giants have now that their 20-year veteran punter, Jeff Feagles, gets to play in his first Super Bowl.

And nothing against the fourth person of the Trinity, but don't Green Bay's playoff runs usually die in a hail of killer interceptions? Brett giveth, Brett taketh away.

…

Redwood City, California-based Clickatell, which sells mobile messaging and Cape Town, South Africa-based-Dontgo, an online consumer advocate service, have announced the launch of a mobile customer service notification system.

Using Clickatell's global mobile messaging services, Dontgo lets users send text messages directly from their cell phones at the time of service. This lets customers report bad service using their cell phone instantly.

Dontgo CEO Moshe Sohaba got the inspiration after a bad holiday experience involving his family, an hour's wait for the wrong breakfast and an unsympathetic salesperson.

Research cited by Clickatell officials says few customers complain to businesses directly about bad service, they just stop buying from the company and grouse about its lousy service to friends, family and coworkers. Along with Dontgo, friends, families and coworkers, Clickatell hopes customers will find satisfaction in witching directly to the company instead, sending them a SMS on the spot.

Using the system today, customers send the keyword, "dont" to a specific SMS short code "34040", followed by the name of the company and their comment. Dontgo then sends the information via e-mail to subscribers. Non-subscribers are called and provided with alerts at no cost on the first occasion.

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Cornerstone Solutions has announced that they will offer business software products, dealing with financial and customer management, specifically to long term care facilities.

"The long term care industry is experiencing a major period of growth," said Anthony Giannino, Healthcare and Life Sciences Lead for Cornerstone. "Many facilities are experiencing growth in revenue, size and regulatory responsibility," and need "industry relevant business software products that will get them over these growth related hurdles."

Cornerstone Solutions is a Microsoft certified partner selling business software products using Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM.

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Auto dealership CRM vendor Auto/Mate Dealership Systems has introduced Just In Time Training to help dealers use the company's Automotive Management Productivity Suite. It's described by company officials as "an interactive, self-study learning method integrated into the AMPS program" for giving users information.

"In the NADA 2007 Dealer Satisfaction Survey, dealers made it very clear that they were not happy with the level of training provided by the DMS vendors," said Mike Esposito, President and CEO of Auto/Mate. "Dealers are typically faced with two key training issues -- high staff turnover that requires constant training of new personnel and staff that don't have the time or motivation to learn all of a DMS' features and benefits. JITT was developed to address this point."

Users can access JITT by clicking a Question Mark icon to get "how to" information for the particular system feature they are using. JITT responds with the data required to complete the task. Training tutorials include short videos, PDFs, text and URL links.

The National Automobile Dealers Association 2007 Bi-Annual 'Survey of Dealership Satisfaction with Dealer System Providers Products and Services,' released in September 2007, showed that dealerships on the average felt that the technical training provided by DMS developers was only 37 percent effective.

Dealers also felt that the type of system training that would be most convenient and cost-effective was in-house training (79 percent), Web-based self-study training (73 percent) and Web-based interactive training (71 percent).

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Real Magnet has announced the integration of Salesforce with MagnetMail, its Web-based e-mail, RSS and fax marketing application.

The integration, listed on Salesforce's AppExchange, allows MagnetMail clients to send e-mails and faxes to clients, prospects and members directly from the Salesforce interface, as well as transfer contact lists and tracking data between the applications.

Users can also view aggregate and recipient-level MagnetMail tracking data within Salesforce. Tom Pines, CEO of Real Magnet, said the deal would make it easier for users to "reach out to their audiences and manage the entire process within Salesforce."

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The Alaska Air Group, the parent company of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, has hired Omniture, which sells online business optimization software, to help improve its site's efficiency and effectiveness.

"Having the suite of Omniture products will give us the ability to see when customers arrive at our site and what they do on our site," said Marston Gould, Director of CRM and online marketing for Alaska Air Group. Through Omniture's suite of Web analytics, the Alaska Air Group hopes to improve its ability to analyze customer online activities.

The Alaska Air Group was previously using the Coremetrics analytics tool, which will be replaced by Omniture's tool next month. The air group also will use Omniture's targeting and testing technology to determine the best offers and Web content for its audience.

"The benefit for us is that Omniture has a very deep knowledge of our industry. Travel is a fairly complicated business," Gould said. Unlike retail, airlines have thousands of prices for essentially the exact same product: "It's a much more complicated process."

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Creedence Clearwater Revival’s album, Cosmo’s Factory, or maybe it’s Green River, or Willy & the Poorboys. Who can tell the difference? And what’s the point? It’s all great.

…

 

Callidus Software, which sells Sales Performance Management, has announced it has entered an exclusive resale agreement with IMS Health, a vendor of market intelligence to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

Callidus On-Demand will be deployed as IMS’s software platform for IMS’s new global sales force incentive compensation offering, IMS Precision Compensation, a product designed to combine market insights with Callidus’ SPM and incentive compensation software offerings. 

 

Sati Sian, global general manager, Sales Force Effectiveness at IMS, said the Callidus software would let IMS deploy a client offering marketed as helping pharmaceutical companies “lower their total costs, implement more effective sales plan design, and cut time to market for incentive compensation payouts.”

…

 

Salesforce.com has announced that Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of the company, has been named one of TechRepublic’s “10 Most Influential Leaders in Business.”

 

Cited for his impact on the evolution of business technology, Benioff was noted both for championing the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) movement and for developing a full SaaS platform, Force.com. Other leaders recognized include John Chambers of Cisco, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs of Apple.

 

Other recent hardware on Benioff’s mantel include Ernst & Young 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year Award, eWeek 2007 Top 100 Most Influential People in IT, Silicon.com Top 50 Agenda Setters for 2000, and CRM Magazine’s 2007 Influential Leader.

 

To view the complete listing of TechRepublic “10 Most Influential Leaders in Business,” visit http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=572.

…

 

Boomi, an on-demand integration vendor, has launched what it calls a “fully on-demand integration service” with the general availability of Boomi On Demand. Bob Moul, president and CEO of Boomi, said the product is “fundamentally redefining the integration market in much the same way that salesforce.com transformed CRM.”

 

Andrew Leigh, director of integration product marketing at Salesforce.com, said, as companies are using Force.com and Salesforce CRM applications, “Boomi has brought the on-demand model to integration.”

 

After a beta customer program that included over 100 organizations, ranging from small businesses to some of the largest companies in the world, Boomi On Demand is now available to the general market.

 

The product makes it possible to link any combination of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and on-premises applications without installing software packages or hardware appliances.

 

Boomi uses what it calls Visual Integration Technology, where users build, deploy, and manage integrations using only a Web browser, working visually with point-and-click, drag-and-drop. No coding is required. Once integration processes are built, they are deployed via a runtime engine called an Atom. Atoms contain components for executing an integration process from end-to-end, including connectors, transformation rules, decision handling, and processing logic.

…

 

CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and vendor of enterprise software applications and business services, has announced preliminary revenue results for the fourth quarter of 2007.

 

Based on preliminary financial data, CDC Software expects total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2007 ended December 31, 2007, to be between $92 million and $95 million, which would be a record for the company and an increase of 35 percent to 39 percent from $68.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.

 

Software license revenues are expected to be between $17.5 million and $18.5 million which would represent an increase of 14 percent to 20 percent from $15.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.

 

In related news Bloomberg has reported that as a result of the news CDC, the operator of the China.com Web site, rose 3.4 percent in U.S. trading.

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Oh no… checking out flights from First Coffee’s home in Istanbul to Dublin… weekend rates… must keep mind on work…

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Infogain Corporation, a vendor of CRM, ERP, integration and business intelligence products and services, has announced its acquisition of Spider Systems, Pune. The acquisition is intended to establish Infogain as a player in the ERP market space with the ability to deliver Oracle ERP services. 

 

With the acquisition, Infogain officials say, the firm can provide services for Oracle Applications, PeopleSoft, Seibel, Oracle Fusion, as well as Oracle Retail. Infogain officials also point to their new ability to offer an Oracle DBA “Think Tank,” a team supporting the company’s 75+ Oracle DBA’s.  

 

The acquisition brings Infogain’s employee count to close to 1,000 and expands Infogain’s PeopleSoft capabilities to include university implementations of PeopleSoft HRMS. 

 

The Pune team will operate as a division of Infogain and will be headed up by Mr. Rajan Bhatnagar, currently Managing Director of Spider Systems. The 20,000 square-foot center in Pune will offer Infogain access to the current team of 150.  Plans for expanding what types of work are done in Pune will unfold with Infogain’s continuing growth and will enable Infogain to capitalize on talent from different regions.

 

The Spider business will function as an Infogain company and will ultimately be fully integrated into Infogain’s operations.

…

 

Wow, $330 round-trip, Istanbul-Dublin. No, mind on work, mind on work… any CRM reporting need doing in Dublin?

…

 

At the National Retail Federation 2008 show, CRM vendor Infor announced the latest version of its outbound marketing product, Infor CRM Epiphany Outbound Marketing 7.1, with retail-specific enhancements.

 

This latest version lets retailers deploy event-based campaigns that “measurably increase sales and customer loyalty,” according to the Inforians.

 

Infor CRM Epiphany Outbound Marketing 7.1 has added features designed to improve its effectiveness for outbound marketing campaigns, including the ability to schedule progressive campaigns.

 

For event-based marketing to be successful, a campaign must generate an offer when the customer is most receptive to receiving it, conventional wisdom holds. An event can be anything from a customer abandoning their online shopping cart to a series of dropped cell phone calls in a short period of time.

 

Many traditional CRM tools, according to Infor officials, are not able to synchronize, in real time, information between the customer database and the event management system to benefit from the marketing opportunities generated by events: “These missed opportunities cost retailers millions in lost sales annually.”

 

Infor CRM Epiphany Outbound Marketing 7.1 migrates e-mail marketing to a Java-based architecture and includes several new features such as SMTP pipelining, SMTP authentication, SPF and Sender-ID support, domain keys, multi-tenancy, incoming e-mail rules, and more.

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is “Honky Tonk Blues” from The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s great outlaw bluegrass album Will The Circle Be Unbroken:

 

CRM vendor Etelos has announced that the Etelos Application Server, Version 6, is now available as an on-demand service platform for Web developers. This version gives Web app developers an “open, agnostic platform with support for the most popular Web languages, tools and databases,” according to the Etelosians.

 

V6 includes support for MySQL, PostgreSQL and legacy LAMP-based apps as well as other frameworks. Features include cross application synching, integrated database management interfaces, sub-version control, and Web-based development environment.

 

Company officials say the new product lets developers sync multiple applications at the database level without coding, and to ensure application updates occur with better version control. There’s support for legacy LAMP Web apps so LAMP/ MySQL developers can bring their current applications to the Etelos platform with “little or no re-coding.”

 

Version 6 includes integrated licensing distribution, which manages provisioning, billing, user licensing, user management and support with the Etelos Marketplace.

 

“Sign up and get a developer account in minutes, copy over your app, push a few buttons and you are virtually done,” said Danny Kolke, Etelos Founder & CTO. “Instead of having to architect and code the framework from scratch, this is a configuration utility that the developer sets.”

 

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Chennai, India-based telecom firm Dhanus Technologies has reached an understanding with Borusan Holding for 100 percent acquisition of Borusan Telekom, the Turkish alternative telecom operator with an A type (broad) licence. Dhanus Technologies sells global call cards and GPS tracking devices.

 

The acquisition is part of Dhanus’s growth strategy for Europe, company officials say: “As we step into European markets, we have decided to start with Turkey. With a total of 34 point of presence stations, 32 within Turkey and two abroad, Borusan Telekom has one of the strongest alternative networks in Turkey.” Company officials said one of the first applications would be to provide products to Turks living in Germany.

 

Established in 1993, Dhanus, with market value of $150 million, sells CRM and other products combining IT and telecommunications technologies. The company, which has operations in California, plans to invest $200 million in Europe, Middle East and Canada.

 

An industrial and service conglomerate in Turkey, Borusan operates in four major business areas including steel, distributorship, logistics, and telecommunication.

 

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Overstock.com, has announced that it placed fourth in the 2007 NRF Foundation/American Express Customer Service Survey. Katherine Mance, vice president of the NRF Foundation, said “According to shoppers, Overstock.com is one of the brightest stars for customer service.”

 

When the NRF Foundation /American Express Customer Service Survey list debuted two years ago, Overstock.com did not appear among the top 50 companies. Last year, Overstock.com shot to number four on the list and repeated the feat again this year.

 

Stormy Simon, Overstock senior vice president, branding and customer care, attributes the rise to a careful restructuring of the company’s customer care department. Ms. Simon’s efforts began in 2005 when she assumed management of the department and set up certification and online education programs for customer care agents as well as installing CRM software by RightNow Technologies.

 

The NRF Foundation is the research and education arm of the National Retail Federation. The NRF Foundation/American Express Customer Service Survey polled 8,877 consumers and was conducted by consumer marketing intelligence firm BIGresearch from September 4-11, 2007. Consumers answered the open ended question, “Which retailer delivers the best customer service?”

 

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Cloud9 Analytics, which sells on-demand sales analytics applications, has added two executives to its management team.

 

Per Brondum Jakobsen, formerly vice president of product strategy at Salesforce.com, is the new senior vice president of product management, and Stephan DeRodeff, previously the CTO at Bridgeway Systems, is the new senior vice president of engineering.

 

Swayne Hill, chief executive officer, announced the hires, citing “enormous demand for our products since launching Cloud9 Analytics last year.”

 

Prior to joining Cloud9, Jakobsen led product management and development teams for enterprise vertical product offerings at Salesforce.com. He’s also worked for Sigaba, Ventaso, Onwire Technologies and Oracle.

 

DeRodeff was chief technology officer at Bridgeway Systems. Prior to Bridgeway, he was vice president of broadband technologies for Covad Communications.

 

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