SugarCRM and Intelestream, Microsoft CRM in School, Cypress Wins TMC Award, Salesforce.com's Ross at Model Metrics, I.B.I.S., LogicBright CRM

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David Sims
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SugarCRM and Intelestream, Microsoft CRM in School, Cypress Wins TMC Award, Salesforce.com's Ross at Model Metrics, I.B.I.S., LogicBright CRM

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and while it's difficult saying what Tom Waits's best song is — "Hold On," "I Don't Want To Grow Up," "Downtown Train," "I Wish I Was In New Orleans" — First Coffee thinks it's awfully hard to top "On the Nickel:"
 
Intelestream has announced the release of StaffingCRM, what company officials describe as a customizable staffing and sourcing vertical product based on the SugarCRM open source platform.
 
The product, designed for agencies, delivers automation for business development, sourcing, and recruiting functions all in a single system. "Customization capabilities
are virtually limitless," company officials say, "as the StaffingCRM product is  based on an open source platform."
 
StaffingCRM provides "automation scenarios" across a staffing agency value chain, company officials say, adding that "the product aids several workflows including sourcing professionals conducting research, recruiters presenting opportunities to prospective candidates, and business development professionals focusing on client acquisition."
 
The product uses what Intelestream officials describe as "proven best-practice sales pipeline concepts," and applies them to the recruiting process. A Customer Relationship Management software core competency is managing human relationships.
 
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Microsoft has announced that Pacific Northwest Publishing and its affiliate company, Safe & Civil Schools, both of Eugene, Oregon, have chosen Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 to integrate their accounting, scheduling, customer service and marketing capabilities.
 
The Microsoft Dynamics products will replace the organizations' Intuit QuickBooks software and a paper-based system augmented by electronic spreadsheets. Safe & Civil Schools provides behavior-management training nationwide, Pacific Northwest Publishing publishes books and other materials used in the program and sold separately.
 
Officials of both companies say they will use Microsoft CRM to expand their marketing efforts and automate their paper-based systems for tracking projects with school districts.
 
The organizations work with school districts throughout the United States, and "much of the scheduling of training and consulting sessions has been handled by one person with her own paper-based file system and intricate electronic spreadsheets," Pacific officials say. Pacific Northwest Publishing and Safe & Civil Schools were looking for a way to automate these processes.
 
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This is the fourth award Cypress' C4 IP product has received this year for innovation in the communications industry.
 
"Cypress Communications has demonstrated a commitment to quality and to the further development of the unified communications industry through its comprehensive hosted VoIP and unified communications product, C4 IP," said Tom Keating, CTO and TMC Labs Editorial Director at TMC.
 
C4 IP is an enterprise-class hosted VoIP and unified communications product that features integrated voice and data access, desktop phones, soft phones, unified messaging and cutting-edge multimedia applications such as Microsoft Outlook integration, collaboration, real-time presence, chat, as well as audio, video and Web conferencing.
 
Frank Grillo, executive vice president of marketing at Cypress Communications, said with C4 IP, "we've bundled the unified communications technology with a hosted delivery model and managed it all 24/7 — the user's phone, the LAN/WAN and the private VoIP network."
 
The TMC Labs Innovation Award recognizes products that demonstrate "raw innovation, unique features, and significant contributions toward improving communications technology," according to TMC officials.
 
2008 TMC Labs Innovation Award winners can be found in the May 2008 issue of Unified Communications magazine.
 
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Andy Ross, a former Salesforce.com senior manager and a founding member of salesforce.com's corporate sales services group, has joined Model Metrics as Director of Corporate Sales. Model Metrics is a Software-as-a-Service technology and services company.
 
Ross is tasked with leading the mid market sales efforts for Model Metrics. He is the latest in a number of Salesforce.com veterans to join Model Metrics. At Salesforce.com, he joined in 2001 and took part in its creation of the Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service industries.
 
Adam Caplan, Chief Executive Officer of Model Metrics, said the company "continues to expand on many fronts, including new regional locations, market segments, and product and service offerings," and that Ross will "help lead these initiatives." 
 
Previous to Salesforce.com, Ross sold advertising for the Industry Standard in San Francisco, and began his career as a high school English teacher in Milwaukee.
 
At the Dreamforce Europe keynote address in London in May, Caplan and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff demonstrated Model Metrics' use of Visualforce technology to create custom user interfaces for the Apple iPhone.
 
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I.B.I.S., a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner based in Norcross, Georgia, has announced a fixed fee, packaged service offering for Microsoft's Customer Relationship Management software product.
 
"The market is looking for implementation options and having a fixed fee package is very compelling for an organization who wants to manage a fixed scope — fixed price engagement," said Lee House, President of I.B.I.S.
 
I.B.I.S. has focused on four specific Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation offerings which are based on a client's business lifecycle -- Better CRM, designed for clients who want to use Dynamics CRM out of the box and only have a desire to be trained; CRM in a Box, created for clients who want to deploy a pre-configured, best of breed CRM product; CRM My Way, a product for businesses that want to deploy custom Sales, Service, Marketing or a combination of the three and XRM, created for businesses that will use Microsoft CRM as a platform. An example might be a company using MSCRM as a tool to manage recruiting.
 
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LogicBright CRM has introduced a monthly payment option in addition to the industry-standard annual payment option. Company officials say customers now have the option to pay month-to-month "with no contract and no hassles."

"We are breaking with the CRM industry practice of holding clients hostage with long-term service agreements. Effective immediately, our clients may invest monthly in their CRM, automatically spreading their investment over time," said Steve Schmidt, President of Tekniq Data Corporation, when asked about the recent change.

The monthly payment option for LogicBright CRM is $25 per month, per user. The annual payment option is $240 per year, per user. LogicBright's 30-day money-back guarantee remains in place.

LogicBright CRM, by Tekniq Data Corporation, is a Web-based contact management system to sell CRM to small and medium businesses. Data management features are wrapped in an interface encouraging use of the system with minimal training.
 
LogicBright is offering a 20 percent discount on the monthly subscription plan for signups through May 31st, 2008. Using the promo code "LB01YR20" during checkout, the monthly subscription rate is $20 per month, per user, for the first year.


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