June 2008 Archives

InQuira and MSC.Software, Bango in South Africa, Boomi and Taleo, Protecode's IP Product, Saba and Broadridge

June 24, 2008 2:02 PM | 0 Comments
By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the caffeinizing third cup of coffee this morning, and the music is The Feelies' great album Only Life. First Coffee saw these guys open for Lou Reed in Washington D.C. in the '90s, saw them in a D.C. club a bit later, and wonders whatever happened to them. Doesn't the world need another Velvet Underground imitator?
 
InQuira, a vendor of software applications for Web self-help, agent-assisted support and enterprise knowledge management, has announced that MSC.Software, a vendor of enterprise simulation products to help reduce costs associated with designing and testing manufactured products, has selected InQuira.
 
MSC.Software will use InQuira's knowledge management platform, InQuira Information Manager, to power Web technical support interactions. MSC.Software chose InQuira for "its ability to harvest simulation knowledge from employees, customers and partners to make it accessible to consumers," among other factors, InQuira officials say.
 
A 40-year veteran in offering simulation tools, MSC.Software uses simulation knowledge and process management as components of its Enterprise Strategy products. The company will integrate InQuira with its single sign-on platform and Oracle's service request management applications.
 
The initial deployment will power MSC.Software's Japanese support Web site. Deployment of an InQuira-powered English support Web site will follow the Japanese implementation.
 
" InQuira is capable of capturing and distributing all of our simulation products knowledge with the integrated end-user collaboration required to satisfy the needs of our customers," said Jeffrey Graff, Director of Global Technical Support, MSC.Software. 
 
"Online and call center customer service is a priority for companies with a technically complex product offering, as the user base has more complicated support needs and higher expectations for online self-service," noted Mike Murphy, CEO of InQuira.
...
 
Bango has announced it is processing on-bill payments in South Africa, one of the most active mobile Web markets.
 
South Africa, which is in the top five countries in Bango's mobile Web surfing chart, has over 42 million mobile subscribers and a mobile penetration rate of between 85-90 percent of the population.
 
In South Africa, Bango officials say, mobiles are "the only way for much of the population to access the Internet. This factor, combined with an appetite for Western content and mobile savvy users, are reasons for the country's high traffic growth."
 
"Just as the UK has done, South Africa is embracing off-portal and understands the importance of having an open model," said Anil Malhotra, SVP Alliances and Marketing. "We have direct WAP billing with South African operators, MTN and Vodafone ZA to help grow their off-portal services and make it easier for consumers in this top mobile market to pay for mobile content."
 
The new on-bill payment available in South Africa gives consumers payment through a single click to their phone bill.
 
Included in the Bango payment service is the Bango Analytics tool which collects data about mobile Web visitors -- where traffic is coming from, the network and handset. Using its Bango user ID technology it can also identify unique visitors and distinguish between new and repeat visitors.
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Boomi, a vendor of on-demand integration, has announced that it has teamed with Taleo, a vendor of on-demand talent management products, "increase the software-as-a-service integration options" for customers of Taleo Business Edition, an on-demand recruiting product for small to medium-sized businesses.
 
Through the partnership customers can integrate Taleo Business Edition with any SaaS or on-premise applications including financial management, ERP and human resource applications. They can deploy and manage integrations directly from the Web using only a browser.
 
With the product, integrations are built visually with familiar point-and-click, drag-and-drop ease. No coding is required.
 
Jason Blessing, group vice president for Taleo's SMB business unit, said customers will "have access to integration capabilities without the headache and expense associated with implementing complex integration products."  
 
With Boomi, companies can pay by connection, and not for an entire integration software suite, and can usually employ the capabilities and functionality of enterprise application integration at less cost of conventional integration offerings.
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Ottawa-based Protecode has announced the general availability of its software development tool for governance and Intellectual Property management.
 
The latest release enables commercial software developers and open source creators to "accelerate managed adoption of open source code in a simple, painless process," company officials say.
 
Additionally, the software is available to the Eclipse community for anyone working on an active Eclipse project. Protecode generates records of software content, identifies and reports associated pedigree and licensing information by checking its properties and compliance against an organization's policies, establishing IP ownership and creating a software Bill of Materials.
 
"What we like about the tool is the way it brings forward the detection of license policy violations to the developer's desktop, where they can be quickly addressed, before they get deeply embedded in the product," said Simon Redding, Vice President, R&D of Zeligsoft, a vendor of software development tools.
...
 
Saba, a people management software and services provider, has announced that Broadridge Financial Solutions, a vendor of technology-based outsourcing products to the financial services industry, and Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union have implemented Saba OnDemand.
 
With Saba OnDemand, organizations get best practices in people management.
 
Bobby Yazdani, chairman and CEO for Saba, said the company's OnDemand business "provides customers of all sizes with the ability to centralize and streamline people processes like certifications and performance reviews."
 
Broadridge Financial Solutions sells outsourcing products to the financial services industry. It markets Web-based and instructor-led training requirements and is currently "implementing competencies and job roles to align learning and performance," company officials say.
 
"Our LearningEdge system is an environment that assists people in achieving high performance," said Lily Benjamin, Vice President, Chief Learning Officer at Broadridge. "By outsourcing hardware and software maintenance to Saba, we can remain focused on our people."
 
Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union is based in Palo Alto, California, and has a national footprint with locations in nine states and Puerto Rico.
 
The firm was "looking for a unified learning, performance and talent management product," company officials said. The organization also wanted a system to automate and centralize its performance review process and manage succession planning.
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

CRM's Redtail and Silver Bullet, Autonomy and Extract, BT and RightNow Chat, Selectica 9.2, EGain's Tenth

June 24, 2008 11:25 AM | 0 Comments
By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is the Horace Silver Quintet's Song For My Father over the screechings of the minaret's loudspeaker pointed at First Coffee's office window being fixed -- while turned on, of course:
 
Redtail Technology, a vendor of Web-based CRM, imaging and e-mail archiving products, has joined Your Silver Bullet.
 
Redtail currently offers 28 different integration points with applications used in the financial services industry, while adding more.
 
Brian McLaughlin, Redtail's CEO/CTO, said from "day one of Redtail, we have looked for partnerships. The idea behind Redtail CRM was to give our users the greatest possible benefits by providing them a CRM with as many integration partners as possible."
 
Joel Bruckenstein, CFP, said he was "thrilled" to hear that Redtail "will be in collaboration with other YSB members to further the goal of integration. Improved integration among YSB members results in greater efficiencies thereby allowing advisors to deliver excellent service to their clients."
...
 
Autonomy Corporation, a vendor of infrastructure software, has announced that Extract Technology, which sells containment systems for the pharmaceutical, chemical and biotech markets, has implemented its Meridio records management product to help "improve compliance with current regulations," among other tasks.
 
The Extract Technology system can now be integrated with third-party collaborative software and business applications, such as ERP and CAD systems. Meridio partner, Kainos, was the systems integrator for the project.
 
Extract Technology has customers in more than 50 countries, including AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, as well as a host of generic manufacturers. Based in the United Kingdom, Extract works in a number of highly regulated industries, and is required to store and manage approximately 200 to 2,000 records for each project that they handle.
 
Autonomy Meridio's records management product, Autonomy officials say, lets Extract store a variety of documents that range from contract details to design, testing and maintenance records, and "a wide range of file formats from e-mails and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to project plans, CAD drawings, and other graphical presentations."
 
"Dealing with the ever-growing volume of electronic documents within enterprises has become one of the major challenges for worldwide IT and Legal departments," said Nigel Hutchinson, CEO of Autonomy Meridio.
...
 
RightNow Technologies officials have announced that BT Business is rolling out RightNow Chat to let contact center agents "respond to customer queries via its BT Business' help and support Web site."
 
RightNow Chat will be expected to allow BT Business agents to serve several customers at a time through simultaneous chat sessions. Agents will also be able to respond to commonly asked questions by using hot keys, which provide standard answers, freeing them from repeatedly typing similar responses.
 
If needed, they can escalate queries to a team of specialist support agents. If a customer has a complex issue, he can grant permission to an agent to remotely assist and share the customer's computer screen for instant incident resolution.
 
An alternative to self-serving via the Web, e-mailing or calling into the contact center, the chat facility is intended to be an additional interaction channel for customers through which they can receive a response. Also during online interactions customers can continue with other tasks. Once a chat session is completed, customers can print the conversation for future reference or ask for an e-mail summary.
 
In addition, the RightNow Chat feature will help BT Business to "capture the voice of the customer" by offering a short survey to customers on completion of a chat session, RightNow officials say. Survey results can be used to help BT Business improve the overall customer experience.
 
Nick Witte-Vermeulen, Online Support Manager, BT Business, said initial feedback is "positive, and customers comment they prefer it to the phone for certain types of enquiry, because they can multitask better. We also gather feedback on our service via chat, so we can strive to provide a better customer experience offering."
 
BT Business will also use RightNow to track the types of questions asked via chat and ensure that popular questions are always included in the self-service area of the BT.com site, which should reduce the number of repetitive questions coming into the contact center, freeing agents to assist with more complex issues.
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EGain Communications, a vendor of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software, has marked the 10-year anniversary of eGain OnDemand, the hosted version of its eGain Service software suite.
 
EGain has been selling its set of deployment options for customer service software, including on-premise, on-demand, and managed service, since 1998.
 
EGain OnDemand, which company officials refer to as "the industry's first-ever hosted enterprise applications software," is based on "the Power of One," they say, "the concept of one unified platform for multichannel customer interaction and knowledge management."
 
EGain OnDemand customers over the last decade include financial services, retail, communications, consumer goods, technology, healthcare, media and consumer services.
 
Many of these are clients took a hybrid approach to deployment, starting with one approach and seamlessly migrating to the other.
 
"As CRM SaaS products have gained more acceptance and usage, buyers are starting to consider using SaaS in more creative ways," writes William Band, VP and Principal Analyst and Pete Marston, Analyst for Forrester Research in the report "Best Practices: The Smart Way To Implement CRM SaaS Solutions," dated May 7, 2008.
 
Rather than thinking about SaaS products and on-premise CRM products as "mutually exclusive," Band and Marston say, users are "starting to implement hybrid deployments: implementing an on-premise product for large user populations with complex business processes and supplementing with a SaaS product to fill the needs of remote or specialised business units."
 
"On-demand customer service products can accelerate the time to customer service and business benefits, while reducing the need for specialised help," said Johan Jacobs, Research Director at Gartner.
 
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, eGain has an operating presence in 18 countries and serves more than 800 enterprise customers
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Selectica, which sells sales and product configuration and enterprise contract lifecycle management products, has announced the availability of the Selectica Simplexity Configurator 9.2 with new features designed "to boost the performance of complex configuration and support pricing in the field."
 
The product allows field sales personnel to load models they require for customer meetings right from their hard drive rather than having to access the corporate server.
 
The Selectica Simplexity Configurator 9.2 can load sales and product models "five times faster and only requires users to load 28 percent of the product model knowledge base to operate," company officials say, adding that "if information is missing on the local hard drive, the configurator engine stores the information for synchronization later."
 
The new version now supports Microsoft's Vista, making it easier for Selectica's reseller partners to support their field sales staff using the latest Vista-enabled laptops.
 
The new release supports both dynamic and parallel loading of product model knowledge bases so field sales can import model information as needed, and request loading a knowledge base using multiple threads asynchronously.
 
"Product options continue to become more complex and field sales reps are under increasing competitive pressures to satisfy the needs of their customers immediately," said Stephan Sorger, Vice President, Product Marketing, Selectica Sales Configuration.
 
The Selectica Simplexity Configurator uses a declarative constraint engine, which provides a method of describing complex business processes. Where rules-based sales configuration engines must apply a linear process, a declarative constraint engine allows users to model business logic directly. Users can set parameters once and be assured that the business rules remain in force.
 
For example, Selectica officials say, when modeling a complex blade server system with preset power requirements, "any change to the parts list or bill of materials automatically validates the new part against the existing power specification. This eliminates problems in complex product orders."
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

CRM's Salesforce and Google, Oracle Acquires Skywire, Centive for ZipRealty, AsiaInfo in China, SAP in South Africa, Workamajig Updates

June 24, 2008 8:32 AM | 0 Comments
By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is... none. Imagine that:
 
Oracle has announced that it has agreed to acquire Skywire Software's application software business. Skywire sells insurance software and document management business applications.
 
Skywire's insurance software "assists insurers in managing the life cycle of an insurance policy, including insurance policy creation, rating, insurance agent/broker management and information exchange products," according to company officials.
 
With Skywire Software and the pending acquisition of AdminServer, Oracle officials say they want to form a software suite for the insurance enterprise to include Oracle's database and middleware for technical infrastructure, Oracle applications to support general business and others for insurance-specific functionality.
 
Skywire Software employees and management are expected to join the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit together with the pending acquisition of AdminServer.
 
"Insurance is a strategic industry for Oracle with growth focused on integrated packaged applications," said Oracle President Charles Phillips.
...
 
Centive, a vendor of products for sales compensation and sales performance management, has announced that ZipRealty, a national real estate brokerage operating in 34 major markets in 19 states, has selected Centive Compel to automate sales compensation management.
 
ZipRealty provides its clients a online product for buying and selling homes, researching local markets and finding local agents.
 
"We want to be sure our agents are highly motivated to provide the best possible service," said David Rector, chief financial officer, ZipRealty. "A competitive and well-managed sales compensation program provides that motivation."
 
Centive Compel is an on-demand product that automates the sales compensation process in one system. It provides tools like plan modeling, commission expense forecasting, custom reporting and performance analytics.
 
The product also supports compliance initiatives such as Sarbanes Oxley by providing automated process controls and an audit trail. Centive officials say it's "the only on-demand sales compensation management vendor to earn a SAS 70 Type II control review certification."
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Salesforce.com has "expanded its global strategic alliance with Google," according to Salesforce officials, to "make it easier for developers to harness the power of cloud computing for Web and business application development and deployment."
 
The new Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs provides a set of tools and services to let developers use Google Data APIs, described by Google officials as "a common set of standard APIs for interacting with data in Google services, within their applications and projects on Force.com."
 
The toolkit will help developers bring together data and content in Google Apps with the database, logic and workflow capabilities in Force.com. The Force.com Platform-as-a-Service and Google's open APIs are used to build business applications delivered completely via the cloud.
 
As of April 30, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 43,600 customers.
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AsiaInfo Holdings, a vendor of telecom software products and IT security products and services in China, has announced that it has signed a contract with China Unicom to upgrade its rechargeable mobile phone card system in China Unicom's headquarters and
subsidiaries in Hunan and Fujian provinces.
 
The new system will allow China Unicom to "centralize management of its rechargeable card systems in various provinces," officials say.
 
Steve Zhang, AsiaInfo's president and chief executive officer, noted that "as a long-term strategic partner of China Unicom," AsiaInfo will "continue to develop operational support systems and understanding of China's telecommunications industry to help China Unicom increase its competitiveness after China's telecom industry restructuring."
 
The upgrade of the rechargeable card system will involve the modification of multiple China Unicom systems, including its existing customer relationship management (CRM) and billing systems. The upgrade will let China Unicom consolidate its independent
rechargeable card systems in each province for centralized management.
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SAP AG has announced that South Africa's Office of the Public Protector has selected an SAP product to transform its case management operations, automating its manually driven investigations, reviews, analysis and reporting processes.
 
The office, an independent and impartial constitutional institution, conducts investigations into alleged improper conduct by state organizations.
 
With the new SAP Investigative Case Management for Public Sector package, based on the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application and the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, SAP officials say, the OPP will automate its core processes in facilitating resolution of disputes, reporting and "recommending remedial action, and enhancing awareness of the office's role and responsibilities."
 
"The Public Protector has the power to investigate any conduct in state affairs, or in the public administration in any sphere of government that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to result in any impropriety or prejudice," said Charles Motau, head of Information Technology, Office of the Public Protector, clearing that up.
 
"SAP software will help us to prepare our reports to the National Assembly with more relevant analytical data and in a more timely manner," he added.
 
The OPP will use the SAP tools to automate case management processes and gain a central repository from which staff can access information related to any case. Due to the sensitive nature of the OPP's work, security and access rights are needed.
 
The case management software combines CRM functionality with the business process of an open and integrative technology platform. The software is designed to support large-scale, time-consuming investigations, involving both complexity and large numbers of witnesses, documents, exhibits, lines of inquiry and investigative teams.
 
The implementation of the software package at South Africa's OPP began June 1, 2008, with support from two SAP partners: Nambiti Technology and MIIB Consulting. The go-live is planned for the end of 2008.
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Workamajig, formerly Creative Manager Pro, which sells ad agency software and project management groupware for creative and design firms, has announced new drag and drop capabilities in the online timeline and and online Gantt chart, along with updates for Apple's latest Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3.
 
The upcoming upgrade, due at the end of the summer, will feature new drag and drop capabilities in the online timeline and online Gantt chart. The new timeline features, integrated into the schedule screen, will allow users to drag and drop the timeline bars to easily reschedule projects.
 
The May update of the integrated Ad Agency system converted the system from Creative Manager Pro to Workamajig, and included a foundation upgrade to its Ad Agency management software, addressing interface improvements based on months of research, client interviews and user feedback.
 
While most of the improvements are in Flash, "all of the improvements are a direct result from many man-years of research and direct client feedback from actual users of the Creative Management Software," Workamajig officials say.
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.
 

CRM Deal for Jingwei and CCC, Maximizer CRM, Qscend CRM/311 Conference, Stoneware 5.3, R.I.P. George Carlin, Smart's SMS

June 23, 2008 9:15 AM | 0 Comments
By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Glenn Miller Orchestra's St. Louis Blues March:
 
Jingwei International, a technology services provider in China specializing in data mining and software, has announced that it has been selected by the China Circuit Championship, a motorsports racing company in China, to manage, create, and execute a wireless marketing campaign.
 
The company said it expects that the contract will generate approximately $1.5 million in revenues over the next five years, beginning in the current fiscal year.
 
Jingwei officials said the company has created an interactive campaign through its wireless interactive Customer Relationship Management system that enables a sponsor's products promotion through attracting customers to join their campaigns.
 
According to Regis Kwong, CEO, a result of this campaign, "CCC has been able to reach over 5.5 million consumers that were exposed to the CCC racing event while at the same time increasing brand recognition through Jingwei's CRM system."
 
Through this system and its access to the over 300 million data records of consumers in China, CCC officials say, they have been able to develop over 1 million members in a CCC Club which provides consumers access to various mobile interactive programs, scavenger hunt promotions and other activities.
 
CCC officials say the program will provide "a valuable source of information for the continued rollout of the interactive campaign over the next few years."
...
 
Barloworld Equipment has implemented the Maximizer CRM product to manage its clients and increase the efficiency of its marketing campaigns.

"Barloworld has been a client of ours for some time, but operated in a segregated technology environment," says Mark Annett, national sales manager at Maximizer business partner and CRM specialist Camsoft Solutions.
 
He says the company, which recently celebrated an 80-year partnership with Caterpillar, had branches all over the country using the Maximizer product "but it did not have any inter-office connections. They approached us to connect these branches in order for the company to have a unified vision of its clients."

The implementation at Barloworld Equipment, which supplies Caterpillar equipment and support to customers in 11 countries in southern Africa that includes South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Angola and Zambia, as you might imagine did present a few challenges to Camsoft, Maximizer's certified business partner in South Africa.

Connecting the branches was important "to ensure that the data that resided at those offices were kept as up to date as possible," says Annett.

Maximizer CRM is also expected to provide an improved opportunity manager, which will allow for "the implementation of sophisticated sales methodologies through a streamlined interface that lets users change sales strategies at any point in the cycle," Maximizer officials say.

With the company providing customers in mining, construction, marine, electrical power generation, and other industries with integrated products that include new, used, and rental equipment options, running marketing campaigns and managing clients are priorities for Barloworld.
 
Barloworld officials say that when Barloworld Equipment started using Maximizer, it only had one person using it. "As our requirements from the CRM system increased,:" Barloworld officials said, the company rolled Maximizer to all its current users.
...
 
It's rare that an artist or celebrity's death is a "tragedy," in the sense of them being cut down in their artistic prime, where you get the sense they still had a lot of good work ahead of them. Robert Johnson's death qualifies as tragic, as do those of Christopher Marlowe, Duane Allman, Charlie Christian, Evariste Galois, Len Bias, Charlotte Corday... so much unfulfilled promise, so much work left to do.
 
George Carlin's best work wasn't ahead of him, but he wasn't performing in name only, playing third-rate clubs with bad material à la Red Skelton. His Braindroppings books were bestsellers and as funny as he ever was. His death isn't quietly closing a "Where Are They Now?" file cold for 30 years, it's the death of a guy who probably would have done something next month to make you laugh. And that's a tragedy.
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Here's an example of one of the positive forces behind First Coffee's favorite avenues of CRM development, municipal CRM/311 systems:
 
Providence Mayor David Cicilline and e-government expert Darrell West are the featured presenters at the QScend Technologies annual user group conference in Providence, Rhode Island, this September.
 
The conference, titled "Advancing Citizen Service," will focus on ways municipalities can enhance e-government initiatives and service delivery to their citizens.
 
And frankly, you have to be somewhat impressed with Cicilline. As the mayor of a city rarely listed in the Top Ten American Cities To Live In, he's brought new investment into the city and overseen technology improvements to monitor key services delivery. More importantly for the long-term health of the city he's advanced government downsizing, decreased property tax levels and presided over decreases in violent crime rates.
 
And hey, there's now an Arts in the Park neighborhood program. Progress, folks.

West is the author of Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance and the author of numerous reports on the performance of national and international government Web sites. He'll speak about "Trends in Electronic Government." Beginning July 1, West will be vice president of the Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization in Washington, D.C.
 
In addition to the keynote addresses, users of QScend's Municipal CRM/311 system and other Web-based e-government tools will have the opportunity for hands-on product training, peer-to-peer best practice sessions, and information on upcoming software features.
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Stoneware has announced the release and immediate availability of WebOS version 5.3. Stoneware officials call it "the next evolution of desktop virtualization."
 
The product provides "secure access to Web, Windows, and hosted applications all through a virtual Web desktop interface that runs inside any standard Web browser," company officials say.
 
The latest release of WebOS delivers services and features geared towards organizations beginning their shift towards "cloud" computing, company officials say. The integration of hosted applications such as Google Apps, Salesforce.com, and iTunes University "has been added to the list of features and services centering around the delivery of Web and Windows applications in a virtual desktop environment."
 
Stoneware's WebOS "is a desktop virtualization product that meets the needs of many organizations finding themselves in High User, Limited Capital environments," states Rick German, CEO of Stoneware, adding that "enterprises that are struggling to scale traditional desktop virtualization products will find Stoneware WebOS as an effective means of delivering virtual desktops to large numbers of remote and mobile users."
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Smart Transaction Systems, a provider of gift card and customer loyalty programs for merchants, has introduced an SMS text messaging services to its retail, restaurant and lodging customers.
 
The new service, Smart officials say, "allows merchants to create and manage text-enabled gift card and loyalty programs. The added dimension of text messaging keeps customers in the loop with real-time balances and special, members-only offers."

"The addition of text messaging capabilities to our gift and loyalty programs opens up a world of possibilities, particularly where customer loyalty programs are concerned," says Ray Clopton, President of Smart Transaction Systems. "Merchants can enable anything from simple, check-your-balance capabilities to special promotions that are tailored to the customer."
 
Clopton said the product can be used for spontaneous promotions to bring people in the door if they happen to be slow that day: "It's a powerful promotional tool, but it's surprisingly easy for a business of any size to manage."

STS officials say merchants are finding it much more difficult to get consumers to put another card in their wallets, so "to address this challenge, STS offers the option of cardless gift or loyalty programs. Merchants can allow their customers to register their mobile phone numbers instead of carrying traditional plastic cards."
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.
 
 

CRM Conference from MPower for Nonprofits, GFG and Open Solutions, Storis Gets Deal, Plexus and ATI

June 20, 2008 8:51 AM | 0 Comments
By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the first cup of coffee this morning, and the music is an old album I really liked in high school, Schoolboys In Disgrace by The Kinks. We're seeing if it holds up twenty-plus years on. Letcha know at the end of the column.
 
MPower, which sells software for nonprofit constituent relationship management (CRM) and fundraising, has announced that it will host "The Orange Conference" for clients, partners and other members of the philanthropic community on September 24-26 at the Embassy Suites and Frisco Convention Center, in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas.
 
Repeat: That's Frisco, Texas, not San Francisco.
 
Although MPower has hosted previous conferences for its community, this is the company's first conference since it moved to an open source model in March, so the name and theme "reflect the new corporate direction," company officials say.
 
MPower now is available (through downloading with registration at www.mpoweropen.com) without licensing fees and with access to the source code, so a user can modify the software as needed. Users can also integrate MPower with other applications that the nonprofit chooses for its CRM and fundraising system.
 
Alternative products are "closed," MPower officials maintain: "They do not allow for easy integration and modification, if any at all, so nonprofits are in effect held hostage by technology that may not meet their needs."
 
The three-day Orange Conference will feature presentations and sessions by MPower experts, nonprofits and industry consultants, covering "strategies, ideas and tips for donor management and fundraising, especially through use of open source CRM software," company officials say.
 
Attendees will learn how to cultivate relationships with donors through an increasing array of channels, including direct mail, television and radio, online, telemarketing, mobile technologies, events, personal contact, newsletters, and subscriptions.
 
Breakout session topics will include Fundraising, which will focus on trends and the application of new technologies, including open source CRM software.
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GFG Group and Open Solutions have announced a new partnership between GFG Group and Open Solutions Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of Open Solutions, where Open Solutions Canada will refer GFG Group's Simfonie (Mobile payments), Cadencie (card management) and Finsim (certification engine) products and services to its North American and international clients.
 
Open Solutions Canada operates off-premise ATM and point-of-sale networks. It sells integrated enabling technologies for financial service providers across the United States, Canada and internationally.
 
"This strategic partnership with GFG will give both organizations a competitive edge in the marketplace and provide us the ability to offer additional services," says Rob Palin, general manager of the Payment Solutions Group at Open Solutions Canada.
 
GFG Group sells mobile, card management and testing products. "This relationship will support our growth in important markets. Our products are complementary to those of Open Solutions," says Grant Halverson, the Group Chief Executive Officer for GFG Group.
 
Both GFG and Open Solutions will initially focus on the Canadian and North and South American markets where Open Solutions has a strong presence. Focus will also be given to supporting opportunities in Asian and other emerging markets where GFG's strengths lie. GFG and Open Solutions are already cooperating on new initiatives in the Asian, North American and South American markets.
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Storis Management Systems, a supplier of Retail Products and Services for Big Ticket retailers, has announced that retailer Highland Park Furniture, LLC d/b/a Furniture and Mattress Clearance Center, has selected Storis' Vision R8 Retail Solution as their platform.
 
Highland Park Furniture has store locations in west-central Florida and specializes in furniture and mattress sales.

"Our decision to go with Storis was easy for us. We found their Vision R8 fully integrated Server Business Solution the best fit for our business model," said Brent Agar, Director of Operations. Specifically, "we were impressed with their Inventory Control functionality, which will provide real-time processing of all activity within our warehouse."

Highland Park will use the Vision R8 Core Products, including Business Intelligence tools, InTouch CRM, Relationship Marketing, Logistics, Customer Service, and others.

Vision R8 sells business applications for Big Ticket retailers, based on a real-time system that integrates aspects of retail operations, from Point of Sale, Supply Chain Management, Business Intelligence Analytics, InTouch CRM, Financial Management and eCommerce.
...
 
Plexus Systems, providers of Plexus Online on-demand software for the manufacturing enterprise, has announced the Advanced Technology Institute of North Charleston, South Carolina is using Plexus Online to facilitate collaboration, coordination and information-sharing among its partners -- governmental, industrial and academic.
 
Plexus Online is the official Tool Uploading System for forging companies, OEMs and government agencies that participate in the National Forging Tooling Database.
 
The NFTD is a Web-based tool that was developed in association with the Defense Logistics Agency, which handles purchasing for the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Forging Defense Manufacturing Consortium. The University of Toledo led the development of the NFTD, which was developed under a cost shared, Manufacturing Technology Program known as PRO-FAST.
 
As weapons systems in the U.S. arsenal go out of production, the acquisition of forged repair parts becomes more difficult because supply chain information disintegrates over time, especially in respect to tooling. In addition, some weapons systems are being kept in service much longer than originally intended.
 
As this happens forged parts that were designed to last the life of the weapon have to be replaced and the location of tools to make the forged parts becomes lost. Bet you didn't know that. I sure didn't.
 
The DOD commissioned the creation of the NFTD to let forging supply chains locate forgers with tooling for legacy aircraft, vehicles and weaponry. The NFTD was developed to give defense customers, especially the Defense Logistics Agency, a centralized database of the tooling available.
 
The data uploaded into the database are warehoused in another tool called Haystack Gold which is provided by IHS of Denver. Haystack Gold links tooling to a repository of procurement data related to these critical parts. The cost to duplicate this tooling is estimated at approximately -- get this -- $5 billion. Even if only one percent of the tooling in the NFTD is used to make forger parts, the savings would be about 50 times DOD's project cost.
 
In most cases, the more important benefit is that replacement parts can be made quickly so weapon availability is increased and warfighter safety is enhanced. In one case, early in the development of the NFTD, DOD had been searching for a qualified supplier for an aircraft part for two years. After one contractor failed to deliver the part because the forged part could not be located, the NFTD was invoked. Within a few minutes the tooling was located and the finished part was delivered in thirty days.
...
 
And the verdict is... well, Schoolboys isn't a deathless album, but "No More Looking Back" still packs quite the emotional punch for me. Long story.
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

CRM and Pervasive, Ribbit for Salesforce, CDC and Schneider Electric, Unica's Demand, Satuit CRM

June 18, 2008 3:37 PM | 0 Comments

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is a good album that jazzheads get their undies in a serious bunch about -- John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. It's a good album, sure, you can plausibly argue that it's his best, but come on, guys, it's not even the best jazz album, much less the Second Coming.

 

Ribbit, which bills itself "Silicon Valley's first phone company," has announced that Ribbit for Salesforce, an enterprise application to link mobile voice communications and Software as a Service (SaaS) business workflow, has registered more than 250 trial customers since the service became generally available last month.

 

This milestone comes "months ahead of schedule," Ribbit officials say, following a private beta program involving nearly 100 businesses of different sizes and industries.

 

Ribbit has garnered third party recognition from a variety of sources. IDG's InfoWorld, an integrated media brand for IT decision makers, has selected Ribbit as one of their Top 10 Tech Startups for 2008.

 

In addition, the company has also experienced a surge in new enterprise applications being deployed or in development. These new applications, such as a medical application for hospital and triage services, are expanding into a number of mission-critical industries.

 

Real estate is one market Ribbit for Salesforce has tackled. "We build Salesforce.com-powered tools for the real estate market," said Steve Kompolt, CEO, Real Intelligence, Inc. "Residential agents in particular are very mobile, and timely responses can make or break a deal."

 

"Customers with increasingly mobile sales forces, and influencers in the SaaS industry, see the immense value of accelerating information flow from the field into their CRM systems," said Greg Goldfarb, GM of Enterprise Applications, Ribbit, adding that the "emerging hot spots are real estate, high tech, and financial services."

 

Ribbit for Salesforce is an AppExchange Certified Application, and is available to all U.S. based Salesforce.com customers using Professional Edition and above.

...

 

Pervasive Software has announced that National Retirement Partners, a network of independent retirement plan focused advisors, has implemented Pervasive Data Integrator to "move data seamlessly between its partner, client and retirement account database and its CRM tool, Salesforce," Pervasive officials say.

 

NRP's systems integrator, Echo Lane, used Pervasive integration to develop a data integration product to "support NRP's business growth and provide its network of advisors a competitive advantage," NRP officials say.

 

With more than 115 member firm locations comprised of independent advisors that provide advisory services for more than 5,500 retirement plans and assets in excess of $55 billion, NRP is a large network of independent financial advisors. Because of the new integration with Salesforce, advisors are able to view current data in a customizable and holistic method found through a proprietary CRM on top of Salesforce.

 

Pervasive officials say their Data Integrator "helps make large volumes of NRP data available and useful across the organization. NRP's customer data, fed into Salesforce through Pervasive, is used for fund analysis and to pull quarterly analytics. 

 

This process enables the creation of one-page scorecards and other compiled documents that contain needed information to present to clients, Pervasive officials say, adding that "advisors also use Pervasive in the broker/dealer processes for the trade and movement of money, especially when dealing with the exchange of commissions."

...

 

CRM vendor CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of China's CDC Corporation, has announced that Schneider Electric has gone live with its upgrade to cWMS Release 10, a warehouse management system part of the CDC Supply Chain suite.

 

With more than 2,000 employees and revenue in excess of £500 million in the U.K., Schneider sells electrical distribution and automation control products and services in the country and has rapidly expanded its logistics operations over the past 10 years.

 

Since first implementing an earlier version of CDC Software's cWMS 10 years ago, Schneider Electric consolidated two of its warehouse sites, while at the same time expanding capacity to 50 tons of throughput per day, covering 14,000 product lines, resulting in cost savings and higher productivity.

 

Andrew Holdroyd, logistics projects manager, said the company "needed to upgrade our warehouse functionality and systems to support our growing business volume and new distribution service in a multi-brand environment."

 

Michael Shrimplin, logistics development analyst for Schneider Electric, said while the initial go-live "covered an 'as-is' upgrade, the latest version of cWMS will allow us to implement additional functionality... these include capabilities such as cartonisation, which will help improve item scanning, picking accuracy and overall quality control."

...

 

Unica Corporation, a vendor of enterprise marketing management products, reports that it has seen "dramatic growth" in demand for marketing automation products in Europe as well as Asia Pacific, resulting in an increase in revenue of more than 100 percent in those regions for the first six months of fiscal year 2008 compared to the same period one year before.

 

Unica's customers include 20 telecom companies as well as more than 40 of Europe's financial services organizations, including what company officials characterize as "half of the Forbes 30 top-ranking businesses in the financial services category."

Unica officials attribute their success in Europe to "both new and continued user adoption by Bank of Ireland, BBVA, Commerzbank, Fortis, ING, Nationwide Building Society, O2 Germany, Unilever and Bel Group," among others.

 

These organizations use Unica's software as their main marketing automation platform.

 

"Unica's focus on multi-channel marketing is key to the success reflected in these figures," said Marcel Holsheimer, Unica's vice president of marketing for EMEA. "The convergence between on and offline marketing is something that marketers can no longer afford to ignore."

In the January 2008 Forrester Wave: Enterprise Marketing Platforms, Q1 2008, Forrester forecasts annual growth in excess of 20 percent over the next five years for the enterprise marketing platforms market.


Unica officials say they are responding to this market demand by expanding the company's presence throughout Europe. In addition to its EMEA headquarters in the UK, the company also has offices in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.

...

 

Adweek is reporting that Satuit Technologies, a provider of CRM software, has hired Strategis, an independent shop in Stoughton, Massachusetts as its first lead agency.

The agency will work with the fellow Massachusetts-based Satuit to "develop a brand image that will "reflect not only who the company is today, but also what the company aspires to be in the future," said Strategis founder and President George Irish.

According to Adweek, the scope of the work "includes presentations, corporate identity materials, trade show booths, marketing support materials, white papers and case studies as well as a print advertising and direct response campaigns."

Strategis was selected, Adweek says, based on its overall reputation and past work for various clients, there was no review for the business:

"Billings were not disclosed. Given the nature of the work, a media budget in the $500,000-1 million range is likely."

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

CRM From SharperAgent, Epicor and TECMET, Infopia's SaaS, Noetix for Activant, The Jenzabar 11, Neudesic's NeuGuest

June 18, 2008 3:18 PM | 0 Comments
The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is an iPod shuffle of R.E.M., as we need to see how their supposed comeback album, Accelerate, stacks up against their past work when its tracks are interspersed randomly on a playlist. So far -- pretty well, although there's nothing on Accelerate to challenge for the R.E.M. Pantheon, nothing to stand with "Man On The Moon," "I Believe" or "Radio Free Europe." The album itself comes to rest somewhere above the dreck of the past several years and below the likes of Lifes Rich Pageant, Murmur or Document: Epicor Software has announced that Tecnología Metálica en Maquila Industrial (TECMET for the sake of this reporter), a Mexican company dedicated to the industrial production of stainless steel, has selected Epicor's manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) product to automate its business processes. "Striving to improve order and project control inside the company, it was important that we select a product that would comply with all our requirements," said Humberto Quintanilla, CEO of TECMET, located in Monterrey. Previously, TECMET did not use a processes automation system. "Since last year we knew that we needed a software tool that would let us take absolute control of all our projects, and enable us to improve our efficiency in costs, and time to fulfill delivery deadlines," Quintanilla added. "We were looking for a robust product with proven experience in the make-to-order manufacturing industry, and in January 2008 we selected the Epicor product," he said. The Epicor product, built on a true service-oriented architecture (SOA) using Microsoft .NET and Web services, is used for collaboration throughout the supply chain. ... Infopia, a SaaS eCommerce platform provider, has launched its new Infopia Transact eCommerce product. The platform includes "both software and service components for small- to mid-sized merchants," the Infopians say. As part of the Infopia Transact launch, Infopia has also announced a new Web site platform, in addition to search marketing and broader professional services initiatives that are all part of the product. The launch also includes new Web Services functionality, which makes the Infopia Transact platform open and flexible for merchants to integrate other business applications. Further information on Infopia Web Services is expected within weeks. "Infopia Transact is built upon the technology of our Marketplace Manager platform," said Bjorn Espenes, CEO at Infopia. "It is an evolution of that effort, expanding with technology and services that give online merchants the ability to both centralize and ramp up their online selling efforts across multiple channels." "As a beta customer for Infopia Transact, I can say that it's truly enabled us to do business the way we want to," said Lars Noreng of NextWorth, adding that the Web Services component alone has helped us reduce overhead by connecting our custom Web application, CRM software, and existing supply chain together with the online channels we sell in." ... Noetix, a software provider selling business intelligence (BI) content from enterprise applications, has announced that Activant Solutions, Inc. has adopted NoetixViews to deliver a reporting product to its users. Activant wanted "a product for our specific reporting requirements that included the need for a large variety of business views and pre-built reports," said Craig Davenport, Activant's senior director of information technology. "We wanted a robust operational reporting tool, yet one that was easy enough to understand for our business users and could be implemented in a very short time-frame." Apostrophically, in philosophy "noetics" refers to the science of the intellect and reasoning, the study of pure thought. Activant selected Noetix for what company officials say were "several business and usability reasons," including their ability to provide a secure metadata layer with hundreds of customizable reports that Activant could then share, transfer, and manipulate as required in Excel. Also "the breadth and depth of business views available from Noetix, with more than 800 out-of-the-box reports that users can easily modify to meet their needs," was a deciding factor, Noetix officials said. Activant's IT department was able to use nearly 70 percent of Noetix's pre-built reports with zero customization required, company officials say. ... Jenzabar, which sells software to higher education, has announced that 11 institutions of higher education selected Jenzabar's Internet portal, Jenzabar's Internet Campus Solution, during Q1 and Q2 2008. Among the higher education institutions that have chosen JICS are Avila Institute, Campbellsville University, Elizabethtown College, Green Mountain College, Goshen College, Molloy College, Naropa University, Northwestern College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Peace College, and Penn Highlands. The JICS campus portal connects candidates, students, alumni, faculty, and staff to an institution's database at any time and from any Internet browser. It offers a single point of access to Web-based self-service, e-learning, communications, and community-building applications. Constituents have secure 24x7 access to role-specific content, from administrative records and reports to personal e-mail and calendars, from chat rooms to online exams. ... SharperAgent has released a new eCRM marketing suite for CBSHOME Real Estate, a HomeServices of America affiliate. Providing agents with a marketing resource center, the platform was designed to "help agents stay connected with their clients and prospects," SharperAgent officials say. Developed specifically for their 600 sales associates located throughout Nebraska, the new EZ Marketing Suite includes eCRM features including a comprehensive contact manager designed to store information and build marketing communication plans. There's also a library of marketing materials including newsletters, greeting cards, flyers, postcards, guides, and brochures intended to help deliver messages to clients and prospects. A digital print and mailing fulfillment service feature gives agents direct mail marketing options. A marketing dashboard has daily tasks, new lead updates, best practice marketing tips, newsfeeds, reminders, and more. ... Neudesic, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, has announced the release of its NeuGuest product. As you might guess from the name, it's for the hospitality industry: NeuGuest provides users with "the ability to gather, analyze, and act upon information in real time, allowing organizations to quickly anticipate and respond to their guests' requests and needs," company officials say. Built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 solution, NeuGuest provides "a comprehensive view of guest behavior and integration between disparate systems via Neudesic's Neuron-ESB," described by company officials as an "Enterprise Service Bus built on the Microsoft software platform." NeuGuest provides a dashboard view of the performance of all major hospitality and gaming lines of business. Darren Gooding, Neudesic's Director of Dynamics, CRM said bringing together disparate systems and displaying the compiled data "allows our customers to use that information to anticipate and exceed guest needs and requests." NeuGuest is available in both a full enterprise version, or in a series of smaller modules that can be implemented over time. The NeuGuest Platform is also an application for conducting specific, targeted marketing campaigns to both current and potential customers. If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

CRM Vendor CDC's Trifecta, Uniqall and Gridborg, Unica and Sogec, Agresso and Coda, Telcordia in Turkey, Soccer... Exciting For Once

June 16, 2008 11:09 AM | 0 Comments
By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
 
The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water:
 
By the way, that random gunfire you may have heard last night came from here in Istanbul as the Turkish national soccer team pulled of a fairly unbelievable win over the Czech Republic to stay alive in Euro 2008.
 
Down 0-2 after 75 minutes of play, Turkey scored three times in the last 15 minutes, with the last two goals coming from Turkish captain Nihat Kahveci in the last three minutes -- let me repeat that: two goals in the last three minutes -- for a 3-2 win and that rarest of all soccer experiences: A genuinely exciting finish to a match.
...
 
Unica Corporation, which sells enterprise marketing management (EMM) products, and the Sogec Marketing group, a Client Relationship Management specialist, have been selected by Unilever France, which sells home, personal care and food products, to manage its marketing campaigns.
 
Unilever France wants Sogec and Unica to optimize its strategic planning and multi-channel CRM program to, in their words, "Pour tout vous dire," or "To tell you everything."
 
According to Unilever officials, Sogec was chosen for its data management expertise. The firm hosts Unilever France's consumer databases, where the data is cleansed and segmented, and is available for use for the Unica Affinium Campaign.
 
Affinium Campaign, combined with Affinium Campaign eMessage, Unica's application for personalized e-mail and SMS campaigns, allows the creation, testing, optimization, deployment and analysis of Unilever's personalized marketing communications.
 
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
...
 
Uniqall has announced that it has signed an exclusive distribution and support agreement covering all of North America with GridborgAmerica.
 
GridborgAmerica will offer the Gridborg HMP Server product as well as support to all North American customers.
 
"I have found Gridborg HMP Server the most reliable product. It has saved our parent company countless hours of programming time and money," said Brian Anderson, VP Marketing, GridborgAmerica.
 
Product marketing in North America as well as support and consulting will now be directed through GridborgAmerica. All current customers in North America have already been notified and "have expressed their support of this agreement," say Uniqall officials.
 
Drazen Dimoti, CTO of Uniqall, said the agreement will ensure "timely support for our product as well as more focused marketing efforts in the North American market."
 
Uniqall continues the work on software-only Host Media Processing technology and is increasingly focused on interoperability issues with different VoIP carriers as well as specifics of data-center deployments of Gridborg based applications and services.
 
Uniqall's headquarters and development are based in Zagreb, Croatia. "Without a legacy telephony board business and associated hardware-based revenues to protect," company officials say, "Uniqall is dedicated to providing the best HMP software products on the market."
...
 
Telcordia, a vendor in the development of IP, wireline and mobile telecommunication software and services, and Gantek Technologies, a vendor of information and communication technologies in Turkey and the surrounding region, have announced that the Telcordia Number Portability Clearinghouse and Telcordia Number Management System were selected by Avea and Vodafone to facilitate number porting in Turkey.
 
In early 2007 Turkey announced plans to implement number portability for the country's service providers. Avea and Vodafone issued a request for proposal and selected Gantek, which uses the Telcordia Number Portability Clearinghouse and Telcordia Number Management System as the main application software.
 
Avea and Vodafone then donated the product to Turkey's telecommunications regulator to expedite the rollout of number portability in the region.
 
The Gantek-Telcordia team was selected based on Gantek's experience in the telecommunications sector and Telcordia's "number portability implementations expertise, customer base and readiness," Telcordia officials say.
 
System implementation and testing needed to be completed in120 days, which has already been accomplished.
 
"We understand the local culture and unique operating environment in Turkey," said Selda Bagdat Bahadir, General Manager, Gantek.
 
The Telcordia and Gantek relationship was created to provide local access to Telcordia's number portability products.
...
 
Agresso, an ERP vendor, has expanded its presence in North America and increased its product offering with its recent acquisition of Coda, a European-based, UK-headquartered developer of international financial accounting software.
 
Agresso officials say the move gives Agresso "new customers, offices and products that will greatly enhance its global footprint to over 5,500 customers worldwide, specifically increasing its presence in the North American market to 400 customer organizations."

Newly acquired Coda offices on the East Coast and in the Midwest of the U.S. are intended to allow Agresso North America to improve its service to customers and prospects. The newly combined company is ranked as the sixth largest mid-market ERP vendor globally, with over 3,500 employees across 19 countries.

The firm will continue to pitch its ERP product at the segment of the public and private services sector that it terms BLINC -- Businesses Living IN Change. However, the addition of Coda extends the group's strengths into the SMB and enterprise markets.
 
Coda's clients include IKEA, Texas Pacific Group and UPS Logistics.

"With Coda, we can now address new markets in North America as well as offer additional products and increased service capabilities to existing customers," said Shelley Zapp, President, Agresso North America.
 
A product Agresso officials believe will benefit users is Coda 2Control Consolidation, a financial consolidation tool that streamlines group financial reporting. This will allow Agresso Business World users to "handle the process of reconciling and combining financial accounts into a single consolidated view for statutory and management reporting," company officials say.
...
 
CRM vendor CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of IT company CDC Corporation, has announced three multi-million dollar contracts recently.
 
First was the contract with a global manufacturer to provide its CDC Factory manufacturing operations management products to "help its client to cut costs, improve operational efficiency," according to CDC officials.
 
Then CDC Software entered into a long-term contract with an Australia-based sports entity for "information technology services, products and support," CDC officials said, adding that the firm also reached an agreement with an Estonian consumer-based organization for the CDC Supply Chain hardware and services.
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

CRM Vendor CDC's Trifecta, Uniqall and Gridborg, Unica and Sogec, Agresso and Coda, Telcordia in Turkey, Soccer... Exciting For Once

June 16, 2008 7:36 AM | 0 Comments

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water:

 

By the way, that random gunfire you may have heard last night came from here in Istanbul as the Turkish national soccer team pulled of a fairly unbelievable win over the Czech Republic to stay alive in Euro 2008.

 

Down 0-2 after 75 minutes of play, Turkey scored three times in the last 15 minutes, with the last two goals coming from Turkish captain Nihat Kahveci in the last three minutes --  let me repeat that: two goals in the last three minutes -- for a 3-2 win and that rarest of all soccer experiences: A genuinely exciting finish to a match.

 

. . . .

 

Unica Corporation, which sells enterprise marketing management (EMM) products, and the Sogec Marketing group, a Client Relationship Management specialist, have been selected by Unilever France, which sells home, personal care and food products, to manage its marketing campaigns.

 

Unilever France wants Sogec and Unica to optimize its strategic planning and multi-channel CRM program to, in their words, "Pour tout vous dire," or "To tell you everything."

 

According to Unilever officials, Sogec was chosen for its data management expertise. The firm hosts Unilever France's consumer databases, where the data is cleansed and segmented, and is available for use for the Unica Affinium Campaign.

 

Affinium Campaign, combined with Affinium Campaign eMessage, Unica's application for personalized e-mail and SMS campaigns, allows the creation, testing, optimization, deployment and analysis of Unilever's personalized marketing communications.

 

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

 

. . . .

 

Uniqall has announced that it has signed an exclusive distribution and support agreement covering all of North America with GridborgAmerica.

 

GridborgAmerica will offer the Gridborg HMP Server product as well as support to all North American customers.

 

"I have found Gridborg HMP Server the most reliable product. It has saved our parent company countless hours of programming time and money," said Brian Anderson, VP Marketing, GridborgAmerica.

 

Product marketing in North America as well as support and consulting will now be directed through GridborgAmerica. All current customers in North America have already been notified and "have expressed their support of this agreement," say Uniqall officials.

 

Drazen Dimoti, CTO of Uniqall, said the agreement will ensure "timely support for our product as well as more focused marketing efforts in the North American market."

 

Uniqall continues the work on software-only Host Media Processing technology and is increasingly focused on interoperability issues with different VoIP carriers as well as specifics of data-center deployments of Gridborg based applications and services.

 

Uniqall's headquarters and development are based in Zagreb, Croatia. "Without a legacy telephony board business and associated hardware-based revenues to protect," company officials say, "Uniqall is dedicated to providing the best HMP software products on the market."

 

. . . .

 

Telcordia, a vendor in the development of IP, wireline and mobile telecommunication software and services, and Gantek Technologies, a vendor of information and communication technologies in Turkey and the surrounding region, have announced that the Telcordia Number Portability Clearinghouse and Telcordia Number Management System were selected by Avea and Vodafone to facilitate number porting in Turkey.

 

In early 2007 Turkey announced plans to implement number portability for the country's service providers. Avea and Vodafone issued a request for proposal and selected Gantek, which uses the Telcordia Number Portability Clearinghouse and Telcordia Number Management System as the main application software.

 

Avea and Vodafone then donated the product to Turkey's telecommunications regulator to expedite the rollout of number portability in the region.

 

The Gantek-Telcordia team was selected based on Gantek's experience in the telecommunications sector and Telcordia's "number portability implementations expertise, customer base and readiness," Telcordia officials say.

 

System implementation and testing needed to be completed in120 days, which has already been accomplished.

 

"We understand the local culture and unique operating environment in Turkey," said Selda Bagdat Bahadir, General Manager, Gantek.

 

The Telcordia and Gantek relationship was created to provide local access to Telcordia's number portability products.

 

. . . .

 

Agresso, an ERP vendor, has expanded its presence in North America and increased its product offering with its recent acquisition of Coda, a European-based, UK-headquartered developer of international financial accounting software.