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February 2008

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CRM’s NetSuite and SPS Commerce, TAS Group’s TSL! AM, CRM Works and Google Maps, Ni at NetSuite, Blink Logic and CRMG, Goodbye Billy Buckley

February 29, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Rod Stewart’s, “Every Picture Tells a Story,” one of the ten best albums in rock history by any reasonable standard.   The TAS Group, the world leader in on-demand sales effectiveness products, has announced TAS Select Live! for Account Management, described by company officials as an “approach to enhancing the sales effectiveness of sales organizations.”   TSL! AM is a Sales 2.0 product for account managers, billed as a product for those in sales to “build account plans, share the information in real time with other team members and sales management, and use the data in corporations’ CRM systems.”   Using the “built-in intelligence” in the software, TSL! AM “shows how to find more opportunities in existing accounts,” company officials say.   The product is designed for account teams to understand customers’ businesses.

An Interview With Treb Ryan, CEO OpSource, And Just What the Heck is The Deal With February 29th?

February 29, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is rockin’ Rod Stewart. When he really wanted to, there wasn’t anyone who did fun, boozy, bluesy, good-time white-knuckle rock ‘n’ roll any better:   Good morning all, and amidst all the news of Obama and Hillary raking in millions upon millions of dollars, shopping malls exploding in Illinois, and Roger Clemens approaching The New Republic’s Scott Beauchampian levels of credibility, I know the Number One burning issue on all your minds is, “Who the heck thought up February 29th anyway?”   Good question. As it turns out, it takes the earth 365.5 days — specifically, 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds — to orbit the sun. So, once every four years, to reboot the calendar, we add one day.   Okay, the calendar’s not exact.

CRM from Microsoft and SalesCentric, Ireland’s Kainos, NetSuite and IntoScape, Salesforce.com Results, E-autobusiness and BMW, Force.com Toolkit

February 28, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. For American classical music (a clunky misnomer, “classical” music, like “West Coast offense” or “tuxedo,” but what else can you call it?) Copland is as good as it gets, and in many ways the last great classical composer anywhere:   Dublin-based Kainos, an IT consulting company, has announced that it has extended its Microsoft Gold Partnership with the addition of the Microsoft competency for Custom Development Solutions.   Kainos achieved Gold Certification in 2005. Solution Competencies are the cornerstone of Microsoft’s Partner Program, as they allow partners to define their areas of expertise in specific products that reflect their business model.

CRM at G&A Contact Center, Microsoft CRM and Scribe, Google and Opera, Plexus in L.A., Datran and Facebook

February 27, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and we’ve had enough of musical experimentation around here for a while, we want something we just know we’re going to like, a good, solid album we can program on the iPod and forget. Ever have one of those mornings? It’s that kind of morning here at the sprawling campus headquarters of First Coffee, with Van Morrison’s It’s Too Late To Stop Now playing:   G&A Partners, a Houston-based Human Resource and administrative services company, has announced that it has launched a new Customer Care Center.   G&A’s “high touch” and “high tech” service center will allow the firm to improve its support to the nearly 250 small to mid-size Texas companies who contract such administrative functions as human resources, employee benefits, workers compensation, payroll, and financial reporting to the firm.   Now when clients call G&A’s Customer Care Center, the service rep will use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology to “document, categorize and track any pending issue,” from the time of the call through resolution, company officials say.

CRM From Pivotal for China, SharperAgent’s E-Mail Certified, Compiere in Noida, AMC on Its 2007, Dovarri’s CEO Letter, CGS in L.A.

February 27, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is an oddly appealing ‘60s psychedelic album, The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle. Kind of a strange record, not First Coffee’s usual thing at all, but it frankly gets better the more it’s played:   SharperAgent’s e-mail engine is now certified as “a reputable sender” by Habeas, an Internet whitelist. Habeas will monitor and manage SharperAgent’s reputation to improve deliverability to the in-boxes of customers and partners.   According to the SharperAgents, inclusion on the Habeas Safelist means better e-mail access to the over five million e-mail receiving systems of partner ISPs and enterprises, as well as faster deliverability and a reduced likelihood that their messages will be treated as spam.   “Using e-mail as a means of communication is one of the most cost-effective ways that real estate professionals can connect with their clients,” explains SharperAgent President and Co-founder, Brian Wildermuth.

CRM's SalesLogix for Fypon, Protech and MadCap, Orga and CeBIT, Graham and Eskom, Pika and Asterisk Fax Support

February 26, 2008

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music, according to the dictates of "Shuffle Songs," is Jimmy Buffett's Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes. First Coffee understands that critics think this is his best work, probably because it's the stiffest and driest album he's done. Critics like that kind of thing:


SyncSite, a Sage SalesLogix National Business Partner, has announced the implementation of CRM product Sage SalesLogix and the companion business intelligence tool QlikView for a Fypon, a home-products manufacturer based in Ohio.

Fypon had been using a popular contact management software package "that lacked integration with the company's ERP software, Friedman Frontier," according to SyncSite officials. As a result, data was held in the contact management system, the ERP software, in spreadsheets, and other applications: "Management did not have confidence in the business intelligence data since it was coming from so many sources."

SyncSite implemented Sage SalesLogix and QlikView to bring together data from different applications into a cohesive set of views and reports, producing views such as sales by customer, by product line, by item, by ship to address, by sales representative, by date, "or any combination of these factors," SyncSite officials said.

SyncSite configured the software so that the sales team's laptop computers synchronize to the main database each day, giving both in-house and traveling employees current data.

Fypon's business is closely tied to the construction and housing markets, currently experiencing a significant slowdown.








CRM from RightNow, IFS for Prism Solar, ERP from SAP, OSA's First Birthday, CRM Get-Together from Oracle

February 26, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is "I Saw Her Standing There," from the last stage performance John Lennon ever gave -- duetting with Elton John at Madison Square Garden in 1974, captured on Elton's Here and There album:


The Open Solutions Alliance, which describes itself as "a nonprofit, vendor-neutral consortium," dedicated to "driving the interoperability and mainstream adoption of comprehensive open products," marked its one-year anniversary with three new members.

"The commercial open-source industry is no longer in an early-adopter phase," said Dominic Sartorio, OSA president and senior director of product management at SpikeSource, an open-source services company. "Now that we've entered the mainstream phase of adoption, it's even more important that open products have the fit, form and function that an enterprise organization expects."

The OSA seeks to promote interoperability among open products by fostering a multilateral approach, as in its Common Customer View, described by alliance officials as "an integrated suite of front-office, back-office, business intelligence and business planning applications." The CCV was the first of several joint projects to be focused on making open source products work together in a cohesive suite of products.

The CCV was built and tested by OSA members including Adaptive Planning, Concursive, Ingres, JasperSoft, Openbravo, SpikeSource, Talend and Unisys, and is currently available for purchase through Unisys.

Going forward, alliance officials say, the CCV will continue to expand.  Future versions will include participation from more members, will introduce loosely coupled integration best practices including SOA and REST, and will serve as a reference implementation of those best practices.

In January, the OSA underlined its global focus by announcing a new chapter structure. The first non-U.S.










Interview with Chris Cabrera, CEO, Xactly

February 22, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is …


Next month Xactly reaches its three-year anniversary, having debuted at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce 2005 event, where they introduced their on-demand Sales Compensation Management (SCM) product.

Xactly Incent brings automation and end-to-end visibility to the incentive sales compensation process, which, Cabrera says, "in nearly 90 percent of companies today is still managed by manual, spreadsheet-driven processes that breed errors and disputes, don't cost-effectively scale, can't easily accommodate plan changes and additions, and ultimately don't align sales behaviors with corporate goals to effectively drive profits."

But hey, other than that, they're great.

Cabrera says Xactly addresses this issue "in much the same manner that on-demand CRM brought automation, real-time visibility and efficiency to pre-sales processes." And Xactly is now heading for what Cabrera sees as a much larger market: on-demand Sales Performance Management. Forecast to reach $13.5 billion by 2010, the SPM market is an exciting opportunity for companies with a comprehensive suite of integrated, on-demand applications for driving overall sales performance.

FC: What is SPM, and how is it related to sales compensation management?

CC: In 2006, Gartner predicted that "a sales performance management market will coalesce around best-of-breed vendors largely originating from the sales incentive compensation management market." This is now happening.

Sales compensation management is the core foundation of any SPM product. Compensation management applications serve to consolidate, scrub and centralize critical post-sales data from systems such as ERP, order-management, pricing, inventory, product, accounts receivable and HR. This data is used to calculate commissions for the sales organization, or anyone with a variable component as part of their compensation.

But just as importantly, this data can then be used to model the impact of compensation-plan changes, and drive analytics that help companies determine their most profitable products, understand their commission’s exposure, determine the most productive territories, optimize the structure of their sales organizations, and much more.

FC: What is the relationship between SPM and CRM?

SPM and CRM are complementary. 


















CRM Features from Go2Group, SugarCRM and SugarBird, Customer Service at Banks, Xactly CEO Speaks, Kana's New CFO

February 22, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind, his answer to Motown finally taking off the leg irons and letting him do what he wanted. Not his best album, but hey, Innervisions and Talking Book were up next:


According to SugarForge contributor Lyle Arnot, SugarBird 0.9.0.3, the former Asertiva Thunderbird Extension for Sugar, has been released.

"Please check the changelog for fixes and new features information," Arnot says, adding that it's "now with SugarCRM 5 support, and a new soap engine that fixes many connection problems."

From now "we will focus on Lightning (Calendar) Support," Arnot explained. "Features like Send and Archive are now not possible without hacking Thunderbird."

He said Sugar would try to contact Mozilla developers to find a solution.



Figures from the American Bankers' Association show that the banking industry holds in excess of $7.17 trillion in loans, including the billions of dollars in mortgage, credit card, auto loans and commercial loans.

So you'd think that in such a large industry where products and services are being rapidly commoditized and the cost of switching is low, customer service would be a primary competitive differentiator banks have over one another.

Think again. A recent audit commissioned by online customer service vendor Talisma Corporation reveals "significant service failures" by the top 50 banks in North America.

A mystery shopper during November 2007 queried the top banks on how to open an account and what kind of products and services are available for individual customers.
















Clarity 6 Legal Edition 2.0, Talisma Results, SAP and Hobby Lobby, CallCopy's cc:Survey, Oracle IBM AIX Support

February 21, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Modern Lovers:


Toronto-based Clarity Systems, self-described as a vendor of corporate performance management products, has announced the launch of Clarity 6 Legal Edition 2.0, a software product for professional services organizations.

The product's capabilities include budgeting as well as financial variance reporting and analysis. Variance analysis of data such as billings, expenses, compensation and hours at the timekeeper level can be compared in real time. It also lets users to drill down from a report to a single transaction, view invoice or expense details or attach user commentary to a specific field.

These enhancements are specifically designed for professional services firms. Since the launch of Clarity 6 Legal Edition in June 2007, approximately two dozen firms have used the product.




CRM from Salesforce.com at Priority, NetSuite and B2BGateway, Ciboodle and Crazy John, Consona Results, Brand2Media and Assured Logistics

February 20, 2008

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald's sublime "Summertime" duet:


B2BGateway, a product of Shannon Systems, and an integration product partner of NetSuite Inc. since 2001, today announced the release of the B2BGateway client portal.

With the B2BGateway client portal, NetSuite users can use the client portal to initiate new trading partner relationships, review data transmitted, schedule transaction imports/exports and to cross reference data, B2B Gateway officials say.

B2BGateway has provided NetSuite users with EDI connectivity in North America to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, General Motors and over 700 other organizations. In the European Union, NetSuite users use B2BGateway to connect to ASDA, Argos, Tesco, Carrefour, and many others.

Any NetSuite user who intends to sell products to these large organizations is required to use EDI.

Before 1999, when B2BGateway started providing fully managed EDI products, the industry process of receiving electronic purchase orders and sending electronic invoices could be difficult, costly and prone to errors. B2BGateway's idea was to connect to trading partners through a central hub. Consequently, all of the data translation required in EDI takes place in a central location.



The music now is Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty."



Salesforce.com has announced that Priority Telecom, a division of UPC Broadband, The Netherlands, has chosen to deploy some of its applications, with Accenture as its business planning and implementation partner.

Using the entire suite of Salesforce Software-as-a-Service CRM applications, Priority Telecom expects to gain a 360-degree view into its customer interactions throughout its marketing, sales and customer service departments.

Hans Luyckx, Vice President of Operations for Priority Telecom and a guy who never has to spell his name over the phone to Americans, said replacing the current legacy systems with Salesforce is "a major shift for our company," but "Salesforce.com will save us money."

"This project will enable Accenture to combine its global Salesforce.com delivery capabilities with its telecommunications, systems integration and data migration expertise to deliver business transformation to Priority Telecom," said Peter van Tilburg, manager CRM service line at Accenture.



The music is now the title track from Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, one of the few Springsteen albums First Coffee finds listenable.


























CRM for Pharma, Oracle Siebel CRM, Moby Grape, AccuPOS, Datacap's Cycle Faster, Boomi and Salesforce.com, Tactile CRM

February 20, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is… Moby Grape. Yep, the great 1967 debut album from the best pure rock band to emerge from the San Francisco scene, a promising act killed off by the double whammy of a dishonest, incompetent manager -- Matthew Katz -- and the stupid record company gimmick of releasing five singles at once, thereby ensuring none would gain any traction. Their debut was better than those of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, It's A Beautiful Day, Love, Flamin' Groovies or Quicksilver Messenger Service -- First Coffee'd put it above The Doors -- one wonders how their already sophisticated blues-rock harmony sound (think The Steve Miller Band's Sailor or the Dead's American Beauty) would have matured if the suits hadn't screwed it all up:


Verticals onDemand, a vendor of of Software-as-a-Service CRM products, has launched VBioPharma Primary Care Edition CRM application for life sciences organizations. Company officials say this is the first CRM application pre-validated for PDMA and the Food and Drug Administration's CFR Part 11 compliance, "saving customers up to 80 percent of their system validation costs."

The vendor sells an out-of-the-box call reporting and sampling system with IQ and OQ documentation for reducing costs and the risk of being issued a damaging consent decree from the federal government.

"The consequences of not properly validating your system can be devastating," said Patrick P. Den Boer, CEO of Q Pharma, a regulatory compliance consulting service.




CRM from Pivotal, Concursive CRM for AlphaGraphics, Forrester on Autonomy Zantaz, Infusion CRM, Apatar and EnterpriseDB, StayinFront Australia

February 15, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Mahalia Jackson’s “What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” one of her rare missteps. Greatest voice in the history of gospel music, oh yes, no doubt about that, but this is a majestic song when done straight as a flowing hymn. As Jackson’s proved elsewhere she owns that style, but here she chooses a 6/8 time and does it almost as a jazz vocal. Doesn’t work.   CDC Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation, has announced the general availability of Pivotal CRM for Home Building and Real Estate 5.9, described by company officials as a new product version for builders to “reduce the cost and effort of integration with common back-end systems.”   Pivotalians describe the product as an “industry-specific customer relationship management system (CRM) designed to help building and real estate firms.” It’s supposed to help manage front office functions, including marketing automation, lead management, sales automation, quoting and contracting, surveying, and customer care.   The product has library enhancements with support for units of measure, option rules and wildcarding, group calendaring including support for delegation, and C# conversation, which “helps with migration to newer Pivotal platforms,” company officials say.   Pivotal CRM is also designed to reduce the cost of integrating with Envision, a widely-used enterprise suite of applications among builders. …   Concursive Corporation, formerly Centric CRM, a vendor of open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM), says that AlphaGraphics has implemented ConcourseSuite 5.0 in the company’s corporate headquarters, and is “recommending it as the preferred CRM program to its network” of franchises.

CRM From RightNow for Cabela’s, Contact Center Market Growth, YMCA of NY and Oracle, QuickArrow and Akamai, Experian Gets Mitchell-Jones

February 13, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is John Coltrane’s Giant Steps album:   The North American contact center applications markets are poised for “significant growth” in the next few years, and growth rates are “expected to peak between 2008 and 2010,” notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Kunal Kakodkar in a recent report.   “Growth in contact center applications will primarily be driven by two factors: an increasing trend amongst customers to move to IP-based technology and the replacement sales of systems sold around Y2K,” the report notes.   As expected, the tier one contact center products vendors lead the aggregated market share. Frost & Sullivan found that Avaya’s “dominant presence” in the ICR market carries forward to the overall numbers and combined with the company’s play in outbound dialing and IVR markets, its revenues exceed the total of its next four closest competitors.   At the same time, “significant merger activity has resulted in relatively niche participants grabbing significant shares of the market,” the report says. NICE Systems ’ mid-2006 acquisition of IEX gave it a healthy 4.2 percent overall share — all of it in the agent performance optimization space.

CRM for Jamestown, Peer-to-Peer Best Practices, Maximizer Software CRM, Advent Software, Oracle and Accenture, WatchGuard and eXeed in New Zealand

February 13, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a song I haven't been able to get out of my head for a week or so, the Grateful Dead's "Brown-Eyed Women" from their Europe '72 album:   Advanced Solutions International, a vendor of Web-based software for associations and non-profits, has released a set of best practices for using online tools — particularly peer-to-peer fundraising applications — to "increase donor participation, reach new donors, and reduce campaign launch time overhead," according to company officials.   Peer-to-peer fundraising technology lets an organization create and launch event Web sites for participants to register, donate and build their own networks. Donors can create personalized campaign Web pages in minutes, with no technical skill required, while the overall campaign look and feel is maintained. Integrated e-mail, donation capture, tax receipt generation and real-time leader board technology lets donors communicate to measure their efforts, and expand their own networks in support of a nonprofit's cause.   First among these best practices is to "integrate peer-to-peer fundraising into your current fundraising strategies." Inventory your current communications tactics such as e-mail, physical mailers and Web sites, and examine the messaging.

CRM from Winn Tech, Orga Systems, Pika Cops TMC Award, Pivotal CRM for CAASCO, Loomer at CMC, RightNow CRM, The Other TMC, Talisma

February 12, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Let It Bleed, either the first or second great album the Stones did, depending on what you think of Beggar's Banquet:


Orga Systems, a vendor of convergent real-time billing products, has announced the launch of the Orga Systems Convergence Program, described by company officials as a "one-stop shop" for telecom billing and CRM processes.

It comprises a product portfolio by Orga Systems and selected partners, offering what the Organians call "an end-to-end product," with "professional services for consulting, product design and software integration" included in the package.

"With our one-stop-shop product we offer telecommunication providers the possibility of covering all areas of the billing chain with us as a central partner," said Rainer Neumann, CEO, Orga Systems GmbH.

"Pre-integrated for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is Selligent's product," Orga officials say, adding that "all requirements of bill handling are covered by Group 1 Software. Business Objects takes care of the reporting requirements. WeDo technologies complements the concept in regards to TAP roaming, and Basset Labs completes the product package with interconnect billing. Additional partners will follow soon."



Ottawa-based Pika Technologies, a vendor of media-processing hardware and software, has announced that Pika Warp, the Appliance for Asterisk, has been named a winner of a "Best of Show" Award at Technology Marketing Corporation's Internet Telephony Conference and EXPO East 2008 a couple weeks ago.

Pika Warp, the Appliance for Asterisk, is an out-of-the-box embedded computer product letting users deploy Asterisk, trixbox and other Linux-based applications with telephony features for the SMB environment.












CRM from Siebel for KPN, OpSource Buys LeCayla, DynLink and SalesCentric, OpenTravel CRM, Opera Mini, Autobase CRM, Polkomtel and CRM, Redknee

February 11, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Albert Ammons's Boogie Woogie Stomp album. I always feel I should like boogie woogie more than I actually do. It's fun, fast-paced piano music from the '30s and '40s, similar to earlier ragtime music but without ragtime's melodic complexity. I do like it, this is certainly a great album from the genre, but it all sounds samish after a while.

CRM and CMS Sitecore Study, RWE and Callidus, VoiceObjects at GSMA, CoreTrac CRM and SFA, SugarCRM's KlipFolio, Altico's Microsoft GP Trial

February 7, 2008

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is an album First Coffee likes more than most anyone he's met, The Rolling Stones' Black and Blue. It's an atypical Stones record as it's mostly groove jams, not many actual songs, and sounds more like a second draft than a finished product.


Compare that with most bands today, who would be at a complete loss as to what to do once they're finished with their set of prepared material:

Sitecore, a vendor of a .NET Web Content Management System and portal software, has released a study finding that, based on its research "and customers' experience," three major trends are driving how enterprises use Web content management to create Web sites and improve customer interaction.

Sitecorians identify these trends as the "integration of Web CMS into the enterprise," "the growth of .NET Framework" and "adoption of mobile computing."

Enterprises are, in fact, incorporating Web content management into their business processes. A recent survey of 44 Sitecore customers in the United States found that each one has integrated search, and nearly 50 percent have integrated CRM with their Web CMS. "Additionally," the report says, "a significant number of companies have incorporated video management, e-commerce and ad-serving.”

A recent analyst report notes that the .NET Framework is now one of the two most commonly used development platforms. The greater adoption of .NET helped Sitecore recently win customers such as the New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, and Microsoft.

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CRM Analyst Joins Kana, Idea Picks Oracle Siebel, SaaS CRM Study, SAS Results, Muni CRM

February 7, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Frank Sinatra's Come Swing With Me! Oh, and happy Chinese New Year, welcome to the Year of the Rat, seen as a very good electoral omen in at least one Presidential campaign:   Idea Cellular Limited, an Indian cellular operator with the $24 billion Aditya Birla Group, will implement the Siebel CRM application across the country to improve customer service to prepaid and postpaid mobile phone subscribers.   IBM, Idea's strategic outsourcing partner, is expected to undertake the implementation across Idea's channel and dealer network.   Prakash Paranjape, CIO of IDEA, said in India, "there are more than 85 per cent pre-paid connection users and they should also be provided with end-to-end products. The applications would enable us to treat the customer base as one single continuum."   Idea has around 22 million subscribers from 11 existing circles of operation and plans to launch its mobile service in Mumbai and Bihar.   .

CRM Success from Satuit, Help for Caiman.com Customers, TestDrive from Runaway, ASI's iMIS, Bango Analytics, PureShare

February 6, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the greatest non-American country singer who's ever lived, Australia's Slim Dusty -- and there aren't that many American country singers who'd earn top billing over Dusty, offhand I'd say Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash and George Jones, maybe Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson, maybe -- singing "I'm Goin' Back Again to Yarrawonga," and everyone sing along:

You can have all your Tennessee and Caroline
I'm gonna get some lovin' from that mammy of mine
I'm goin' back again to Yarrawonga
To the land of the kangaroo.







Satuit Technologies has announced it finished the 2007 calendar year "with a flourish," company officials said, signing six new corporate licensees in December for its flagship Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product, SatuitCRM. That brought the total number of new SatuitCRM accounts for 2007 to twenty-six.

SatuitCRM sells CRM products designed for targeted marketing. The application has been adopted by over 150 investment firms including hedge fund managers, institutional and private wealth managers, as well as investment consultant firms.

"We have offices in New York, London, and Cologne and needed an application that would be easy to deploy in all three offices. We attempted to use another application that required us to synchronize databases.




CRM Vet O'Rourke at Bluewolf, EBS-RAD and NetSuite, Sage in Canada, CRM Trainer Xpertise and Siebel, Opera 9.5, Oracle and Wind River

February 5, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison's Irish Heartbeat:   EBS-RAD has announced that it has extended NetSuite's One System Architecture with new capabilities for the maritime industry market. The company develops products such as Harbour Mastery, which provides services to the Tampa Port Authority. It has received greater interest from potential customers since becoming a partner of NetSuite's SuiteFlex Developer Program.   NetSuite's SuiteFlex development platform allows third-party applications to integrate transaction data—orders, invoices, Web site transactions, shipping records, time tracking, and payroll data—with their applications.   At the opening session of the annual NetSuite Partner Conference in San Francisco last October, NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson presented i- Seaports Management as an example of a vertical for the maritime seaports and port authorities management with a virtually integrated command and control center for traffic management, security monitoring and communications coordination.   "Seaports and Port Authorities today are under incredible pressure to meet security requirements, improve their communications and information sharing and also protect the environment," said George Walters, President of EBS- RAD, adding that he expects i-Seaports Management would "be attractive to over 8,500 deep-water seaports and 50,000 marinas around the world."   SuiteFlex is a development platform that enables the creation of third-party vertical applications within NetSuite, as well as business process customization for end users.   .

CRM for Vehicle Transport, BScaler Improves Security, SugarCRM in Chicago, Oracle CRM in Egypt, SAP CRM FOR TNT FRM AMC, Monitise America

February 4, 2008

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, having stayed up until five in the morning to watch the Super Bowl here in Istanbul there are a few more cups of coffee in the offing here too, sports fans, and the music is Ramsay Midwood's Shoot Out At the O.K. Chinese Restaurant:

CentralDispatch.com, an automobile industry software vendor, has announced a new online vehicle management tool for automating vehicle transportation, both for auto dealers and car carriers. It's built right into the CentralDispatch Web-based system and is described by company officials as "essentially a CRM system for vehicle transportation."

The tool is designed to save auto dealers, transport brokers, manufacturers and other shippers time and money by transforming a paper, fax and phone-based procedure into an automated process that connects shippers to car carriers on the Internet.

From a dealer beginning to move a vehicle, until delivery, the tool provides visibility online with e-mail alerts whenever the vehicle status changes. The dealer and the carrier can both track progress and interact in a structured way through the Web site.





Microsoft CRM Training from Unitek, ProTrak 2007 Results, AMC to Offer Oracle CRM Help, Agresso in Oregon, DataOne Auto CRM

February 4, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Appalachian Spring:


Great Super Bowl, First Coffee's still kind of stunned -- as well as kind of sleep deprived, it ended around five in the morning here in Istanbul. That pass from an Eli Manning with Patriots hanging on his jersey, caught by David Tyree against his helmet as he fell, was the greatest pitch and catch I've ever seen in a Super Bowl. Tremendously gutsy play.

Sure the Giants deserved to win, as one announcer said, they just wanted it more than the Patriots did. But the downside now is enduring those screechy, bitter 1972 Miami Dolphins cranks and the classless Don Shula waving their canes in the air over going undefeated through statistically the easiest NFL schedule in memory.

The '72 Dolphins played terrible teams that year and avoided all the good ones. It was the equivalent of beating up on the JV and about as impressive.

So now they hobble back to their cackle parties and their charming-as-an-oil-spill coach to gloat over another team's failure, eternally fixated on something that happened 36 years ago that nobody else really cares about.






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