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 more than 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.

 

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