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July 2008

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CRM's Latin American Increase, Epicor and Tieman, Not So Cuil, Flypaper Pro, Open Solutions and Clinton, Inovis and Pervasive

July 31, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a couple Dexter Gordon '60s albums First Coffee downloaded from iTunes, Dexter Calling and A Swingin' Affair - the latter not to be confused with Sinatra's, of course:   Wow, was Cuil ever the technoflop. I mean, that's down there with Microsoft 's Bob and www.ryanleaf.com. What, they just want to be taken over by Microsoft? Showing off their pretty interface?

CRM in Germany, Vettro and HP, Apisphere and ICOMMM, InsideView's SalesView, BakBone

July 29, 2008

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Hootie and the Blowfish's Cracked Rear View. I'm not ashamed to admit it:   A study by the Association of German Engineers (VDI) showed that "half of all German companies do not make use of customer relationship management systems (CRM-systems)," according to the study's sponsors.   In most companies, the study found, there is not a systematic controlling of the bidding process -- "75 percent of companies said that bid proposal management is a usual everyday process which is not systematically planned," VDI officials said, adding that "this fact shows that there is still a lot of potential for improvement in this process."   Many companies consider customer relation management to be "quite unimportant" -- study officials said that about 20 percent of respondents said that they do not have any particular measures strengthening their relations with customers.   In a fairly surprising finding, and maybe something got lost in translation here, the study's sponsors said "one quarter of businesses do not measure their business success regularly." Just reading off the cue cards here, folks, but First Coffee would be open to correction on that stat.   80 percent of those companies interviewed are faced with the requirement of more individual and more rapid products which in general increase the cost of bid proposal management, the study found, adding that "to customers, quality and value for money are more important than a price." ...   Vettro, a vendor of mobile on-demand business applications, has announced it has joined the HP Software ISV Marketplace Referral Program to accelerate the adoption of its mobile products for HP Service Manager 7.0. Vettro now has access to HP's portfolio of services and content.      As a mobile applications provider, Vettro can "address all phases of the service deployment cycle," said Matt Finkelstein, Vettro's vice president of product management.

Microsoft in Africa with XON, Anite in Scotland, ForRent Videos, Apatar and KID, QuickArrow and RTM, EssentiaESP

July 23, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is underrated jazz pianist Bill Evans's "NYC's No Lark:"   XON officials say the firm has become the first user in Africa of Microsoft's new Dynamics AX 2009 business management product and enterprise suite.

Microsoft released the suite, which offers capabilities for multisite organizations to streamline processes, reduce operational costs and other functions, in June.

"We have 40 people across eight companies and three national offices using Microsoft's ERP system," says Bart van Buynder, CFO of the XON Group of companies. "We are using a total of six modules that our business partner, XON, deployed first in a test environment before going live."

XON sells information and communication technology products, and operates networking and security, ERP and CRM business products, infrastructure, maintenance and other services throughout South Africa.

"We have used Microsoft Dynamics AX since version 1.5 was released in 1999," says van Buynder, adding "which is when we became a value-added reseller of the product through what was then Damgaard, which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft."

Jumana Helal, Microsoft Dynamics group lead at Microsoft SA, said employees using traditional ERP systems "have had to wade through inefficient, time-intensive steps -- enter transactional data, run reports, analyse reports -- before they can do their jobs."   . . .









CRM+ Consulting Optimizes, Epicor Results, Egenera and NYFIX, RightNow's Board, Akken, Open and Andera, CRM to Newcastle

July 22, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Ramones' End Of The Century:   CRM and other software vendor Epicor Software has reported preliminary financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2008.   Epicor President and CEO Thomas Kelly said total non-GAAP revenue was "in line with our guidance," with cash flow from operations in excess of $35 million and free cash flow of approximately $13 million.   Kelly said Epicor "addressed the three issues that negatively impacted our 2008 first quarter, correcting the events that led to shortfalls in our consulting and international business and making some progress on improving our retail performance," noting that the vendor "fell short due to lower than expected retail license revenues."   The vendor is adjusting their second half outlook "to reflect a more cautious approach to our retail business," Kelly said, "as well as to reflect additional investment ahead of the launch of Epicor 9."   GAAP revenue for the 2008 second quarter was $127.9 million, with net income of $1.3 million, or $0.02 per diluted share. This compares to 2007 second quarter GAAP revenue of $105.7 million, and GAAP net income of $6.3 million, or $0.11 per diluted share.   Non-GAAP  revenue for the 2008 second quarter was $130.6 million, with non-GAAP net income of $9.9 million, or $0.17 per diluted share. 2008 second quarter non-GAAP net income excludes approximately $8.9 million of expenses related to amortization of intangibles and $1.9 million in stock-based compensation, and includes the benefit of $2.6 million of revenue that would have been recorded if NSB's deferred revenue would not have been adjusted to fair value as a result of purchase accounting. ...   Egenera has announced that electronic trading systems vendor NYFIX has standardized on infrastructure virtualization products from Egenera.   "We needed a platform with high availability and management capabilities to optimize our operations," said Don Henderson, CTO at NYFIX. "With Egenera systems, we're able to provision servers and bring applications to market faster, and with less infrastructure."   Egenera systems are platforms that "eliminate the need to rigidly dedicate servers to applications," according to the Egenerians: "Instead, Egenera's Processing Area Network replaces server infrastructure with software, and repurposes and reallocates virtual and physical servers on demand."   NYFIX currently uses Egenera BladeFrame EX systems, which include 168 Processing Blade modules based on both Intel and AMD processors. ...   RightNow Technologies has announced that Allen E. Snyder joined its board of directors this week.

CRM from ProTrak, Amdocs Results, Open Source Survey, Sage Accpac in India, Bestoutcome Gets ISA, TopSchool and Regent

July 22, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is David Bowie's Young Americans album. Emotionless emotion -- how Bowie, but weirdly it works. When it's over we'll cue up Dolly Parton's The Grass Is Blue for some down-home goodness:   ProTrak International has announced an upgrade to their CRM platform, ProTrak Advantage CRM Enterprise 5.0, available now.   With the new version, clients may customize the look and feel of their ProTrak screens. The ProTrak client Administrator can add new user defined data fields, including look-up lists, numeric, text and memo fields.

Infor in Rockford, Coghead's Flat Pricing, Rostrvm, LoopFuse and Acquia, NewMarket and Oracle

July 22, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee today, and the music is The David Crowder Band's "Turkish Delight." FYI, today's First Coffee Fun Fact for those of you who saw the Narnia movie or read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe -- "aslan" is the Turkish word for "lion," and "jadde" is the Turkish word for "witch." C.S. Lewis had traveled in Turkey before writing the book and was impressed with it:   Infor Public Sector has announced that the city of Rockford, Illinois, heretofore known to the world as the place in the 1980s which launched a successful petition drive to get The Rolling Stones to play a concert there, to First Coffee's knowledge the only city to ever succeed in that, has selected its community development and regulation software.   Infor Hansen CDR, for Building Permits, Code Enforcement, and Neighborhood Development and Planning will be implemented by the city. Used by more than 100 municipalities nationwide, Infor Hansen CDR is designed to help "increase operational efficiency, cross-departmental communication and transparency, and citizen satisfaction."   The new software will be integrated with Infor Public Sector's CRM software, used by Rockford since early 2007 to address citizen issues.   Rockford officials said the selection of Infor Hansen CDR was due in part to Infor Public Sector's online access tool, Infor DynamicPortal, which integrates with the call-in and citizen service functionality of the CRM product.   DynamicPortal provides contractors, developers, and citizens Internet access to the licensing and permitting process. With this system, builders are able to apply for permits, make payments, track progress and status of permits and inspections, and reschedule inspections online, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.   Rockford citizens can use the online portal to input service requests and check the status of previously submitted items.   "We received support from local developers, contractors and builders in favor of implementing the system, to increase the efficiency of conducting business with City Hall," said Glenn Trommels, director of IT for the City of Rockford.   Building "on the foundation of our successful CRM implementation," Trommels said, the city "chose to again partner with Infor Public Sector."   Previously, Rockford relied on a system using multiple spreadsheets to enter and record data for permits, planning and code enforcement.

CRM from Salesforce for Thrivent, Bango's Mobile Tech, Opera Report, Selland at EasyLobby, The Next Up

July 22, 2008

Tue 7/22/2008 10:34 AM By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is something different -- Poison's "Something to Believe In." Went to an 80's theme going-away party here in Istanbul last week for a friend moving back to Finland. First Coffee dressed in argyle and khaki with an alligator shirt and Topsiders -- luckily I haven't changed my wardrobe appreciably since 1985, I was all set -- and hair bands a la Poison were well-represented.   CRM vendor Salesforce.com has announced that Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a Fortune 500 financial services membership organization, is standardizing on Salesforce for Wealth Management.   The company is deploying Salesforce for Wealth Management and will use the Force.com Platform and the Force.com AppExchange to build custom applications designed to "improve client engagement as well as the productivity of financial representatives," according to Thrivent officials.   Thrivent Financial is one of the 43,600 companies comprising the Salesforce.com customer base as of April 30.   Betsy Ordal, vice president of Field Development at Thrivent, said Salesforce was chosen for its "rich functionality, delivery model and for the positive reviews we heard from other firms."   The organization is using the Force.com Platform to customize the product and integrate it with existing applications, including its corporate e-mail system. Thrivent Financial is also using Force.com AppExchange applications.   . .

CRM 6.0 from Pivotal, Sales Simplicity in Canada, Cincom Acquire, Sales-i in U.S., Infogain and Red Hat, Brett Favre

July 21, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bob Dylan's underrated album of folk and traditional songs, World Gone Wrong. Superior versions of "Jack-A-Roe," "The Lone Pilgrim" and others show that Bob never lost his mastery of folk music:   CDC Software has announced the general availability of Pivotal CRM 6.0, described by company officials as "a newly-designed customer relationship management platform based on Microsoft.NET technology."   Pivotal CRM 6.0 has a redesigned platform giving users out-of-the box, task-based navigation, forms and portals with "the look and feel of Microsoft applications," and "which have the ability to model complex workflow."   Pivotal 6.0 is integrated with Microsoft Outlook (including calendaring, task and e-mail capabilities) within the platform.   Mark Williams, CRM architect and team leader at CareerBuilder.com, noted that using the system he was able to "configure the new 'Links' feature to see my Pivotal contacts in Outlook, and I got 'Activities' to show up in both places with bi-directional synching."   Pivotal 6.0 also embeds SharePoint, which lets users deploy SharePoint Server 2007 with SharePoint Designer 2007, and lets them implement a new feature in Pivotal 6.0 called SmartPortal, a Pivotal portal which allows IT professionals to set-up pre-defined portals by functional area.   For example, a portal can be designed for sales people, customer support representative and others specific to groups within an organization. End users, including mobile users, can then personalize their own home page by adding new Web parts and modifying existing Web parts. ...   Sales Simplicity Software, a vendor of sales automation, CRM, marketing and reporting tools for home builders, has announced what company officials call "widening acceptance" of its products among Canadian homebuilders.   Since the beginning of the year, SSS officials say, "a growing number of Canadian homebuilders have selected Sales Simplicity Software's applications," joining over 200 Canadian and U.S. builders who use Sales Simplicity Software products.   "We are pleased with our success in Canada," says Barry Forbes, president of Sales Simplicity Software.

EtherSpeak and ShoreTel, SpeechTrack, Slydial, StrongMail and Lasso, Appirio and Sequoia

July 21, 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 The Kinks' Sleepwalker. I can't decide if this 1977 effort is an uninspired record or simply The Kinks refocusing their career as an arena rock band. Certainly Ray Davies has written better -- far better -- songs than most of those here, but three or four are gems:   EtherSpeak Communications has announced the development of a product for ShoreTel's UC system to connect to SIP trunking services "natively," EtherSpeak officials say, meaning ShoreTel customers can now get IP-enabled communications "without any additional investments, hardware or even new firewall or gateway requirements."   EtherSpeak's new product, dubbed "SureTrunk," lets ShoreTel customers connect SIP networks with traditional fixed-line PSTN directly. EtherSpeak's product has been certified through ShoreTel's Technology Partner Program and is available to ShoreTel resellers.   "We recognized the need in the market for a product that offers added flexibility through integration, yet hedges the risk of additional hardware investments," explains Neil Darling, managing partner at EtherSpeak Communications.   As a certified TPP product for ShoreTel's UC products, SureTrunking means customers can mitigate the risk associated with SIP trunking by migrating with or without an enterprise edge device such as local PSTN gateways, ISDN Basic Rate Interfaces or Primary Rate Interfaces.   EtherSpeak's SureTrunk is certified for ShoreTel's UC system, version 8.0 and is expected to fully support future software builds.   Sandra Gustavsen, senior analyst at TelecomTactics, the Telecom Intelligence Group, noted that "U.S.

CRM AddOn U.S., Datacap's Contribution, CDC and Red Gold, SmartFocus and Chelsea, Marketo's Trailer

July 21, 2008

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Ben Harper's There Will Be A Light album:
  CRM AddOn U.S. and The AddOn Store have announced that the two companies have formed a partnership, which officials from both firms characterize as "beyond a standard corporate relationship." The deal combines the software Add Ons from The AddOn Store with the distribution network of CRM AddOn U.S. "In addition," company officials say, there's "the creation private custom Web stores for other Independent Software Vendors and an increase in marketing and distribution for all products."

The combination of CRM AddOn U.S. and The AddOn Store is intended to give customers a way to use software products.





July 17, 2008

7/17/2008 2:13 AM   CRM from Satuit, Genius Inside PPM, Infopia Web Services, Microsoft and Tribridge, Marketing to Generation V from Gartner   By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is... 5,415 songs on the iPod, of all -- all -- genres, turn it on... hit shuffle... first song...

Zilliant Results, CMP and Savvis, SalesLogix and PPS, ADL and Affinitiv, ETalk Qfiniti

July 16, 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 Johnny Cash's Love, God, Murder anthology:   Zilliant, a price optimization and management software for B2B vendor, has announced what company officials call "record results" for the first half of 2008.   Annualized sales for the period increased by more than 70 percent for the third year in a row, which the Zilliantines attribute to "overall market momentum" as well as Zilliant's products and services.   "Price optimization is becoming the go-to product for profitable growth, particularly in discrete manufacturing and industrial distribution," said Greg Peters, Zilliant CEO. "Many of our customers in these industries are reporting double-digit margin growth despite rising material costs and a slowing economy."   Zilliant customers' performance is consistent with industry analysts' predictions that price optimization technology will increasingly become an investment priority. In their recently released Hype Cycle for CRM Sales, 2008, Gartner designated price optimization and management software for B2B as "the only CRM application that provides 'transformational' benefits," Zilliant officials say.   "The potential for this market is significant, because defining and defending optimal prices is a fundamental imperative for enterprises responsible for producing returns for stakeholders," states Michael Dunne, Research VP for Gartner in the report. Moreover, "The price optimization and management market differs from most other applications because it offers strategic benefits and operational efficiencies."   In addition to its financial performance, Zilliant first half highlights include the hiring of Rafe VanDenBerg as Director of Pricing Excellence, and Anand Medepalli as Director of Professional Services for EMEA.       Also the first half saw Zilliant launch ProfitShare, a user conference.   .

July 16, 2008

CRM Co. Customer Effective and Microsoft, Taylor Buys Interprise, EDLink, AT&T and Microsoft, Nexient and Varicent, CDC Results   By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is "Power in the Blood" by AndraĆ© Crouch & The Disciples, great live gospel music:   Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and implementer of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has announced that it has earned the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle distinction, placing it in "the upper echelon of Microsoft Dynamic's value added resellers and independent software vendors," company officials say.    According to Microsoft officials, member companies of the Inner Circle consist of the top one percent of all Microsoft Dynamics Partners worldwide, based on sales and new customer adds. Circle members are given opportunities to attend executive retreats and increased interaction with Microsoft executives.   Inclusion in Microsoft's Inner Circle also automatically confirms Customer Effective's membership status in the Microsoft President's Club, which recognizes the top five percent of Microsoft Dynamics partners worldwide for fiscal year 2008.   Scott Millwood, CEO of Customer Effective, said since 2002, Customer Effective has done projects for the Microsoft CRM Platform. The company sells business process automation, collaboration products and has engaged in "hundreds" of Microsoft CRM implementation projects.   . .

CRM's Auto/Mate, Cross Country and Ford, Convio and Komen, Workamajig and Leopard, Sales-i

July 15, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music in an iPod mix of the late, great Warren Zevon:   Auto/Mate Dealership Systems has announced its Automotive Management Productivity Suite has been integrated with Hyundai's Web-based Dealer Communications System.   The new interface allows Auto/Mate's dealer clients to send financial statements, new vehicle delivery information, parts orders/parts returns and claims data directly from AMPS to Hyundai via the Internet.   "This new module streamlines several Hyundai data submission processes for dealers," said Mike Esposito, president of Auto/Mate. "We know that by increasing administrative efficiencies, we're saving dealers time and money."   AMPS Hyundai DCS interface features let users transmit end-of-month P&L statements and financial reports created in AMPS directly to Hyundai. AMPS transfers vehicle delivery data directly to Hyundai from the system's F&I Billing menu. Once a deal is sold or closed in the system, users can indicate one or multiple vehicles as delivered to the customer. A message displays for each transaction completed.   The system lets parts orders and return data be submitted from AMPS to Hyundai.

CRM from RightNow for SmartSpeak, SalesLogix, Kineo Open Source, Homeserve Results, The Travel Zone, Whither The SBMs?

July 15, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is one of the greatest female vocalists of the rock era, Brit folk singer Sandy Denny. You've heard her duet with Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore," and she remains the only guest vocalist ever on a Led Zeppelin recording, but her 1967 recordings -- "3:10 To Yuma," "You Never Wanted Me," "Pretty Polly," "Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor," et al, released in 1970 as It's Sandy Denny and subsequently under various names, are some of the most powerfully haunting female singing recorded:   Customer FX Corporation has announced the release of Power2Survey for Sage SalesLogix. The product enables codeless creation of surveys for use in CRM suite Sage SalesLogix.   Features and benefits include the fact that account representatives can have a scripted set of questions. The product can be used to collect detailed and planned information about campaigns, account needs & assessment, and customer satisfaction surveys.

iPhone and Oracle, Apatar for Salesforce, InsideSales.com, Jenzabar EX Direction, ICIMS Stable Increases, CDC Acquires DBC

July 11, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Antonin Dvorak's Symphony #9 in E Minor:   Apatar, a vendor of open source software tools for the data integration market, has launched Apatar On-Demand for Salesforce.com CRM and QuickBooks accounting software.   Apatar On-Demand Edition is a hosted service that synchronizes order data between Salesforce.com CRM and desktop QuickBooks accounting software. "Designed for business users," Apatar officials say, the product's process of setting up the integration link "does not require technical skills."   Apatar On-Demand Edition for Salesforce.com and QuickBooks allows running one- or two-way, recurring or one-time synchronization of account, contact, order, and opportunity data, while preserving links between tables in both Salesforce.com and QuickBooks, company officials say:   "Designed specifically to avoid double entry, subscription to Apatar software also includes embedded data quality service. Apatar software searches and removes duplicate accounts every time it synchronizes order data."   According to Forrester Research, 66 percent of North American and European enterprises are afraid to adopt SaaS applications due to integration issues. A recent survey by Kelton Research cited by Apatar officials "confirms the enterprise's increasing interest in on-demand services, with nearly 73 percent of large companies saying they had adopted or plan to adopt SaaS in the next 18 months."   "The days when Salesforce.com users had to wait for weeks before they could see customer order histories are gone," said Renat Khasanshyn, the founder and CEO of Apatar.

CRM Market in 2007, Orga Systems and Avea, Chordiant's Recommendation Product, Nexedi ERP5, Azorus and StFX U.

July 10, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Tom Waits's Heartattack and Vine. A bit too slick and commercial to be a great Waits album, doesn't really belong in the company of, say, Small Change, Rain Dogs or Mule Variations, but a good listen every now and then, with one stone classic Waits song, "On the Nickel:"   Orga Systems, a billing vendor, has delivered its real-time Bonus and Loyalty Management System, Orga Service Manager and Media Control Point to Turkish mobile telecommunciations firm Avea.   With these products, Avea will get marketing and promotion capabilities for bonus and bundle offerings, loyalty programs, community functionalities and notifications. With Orga Systems' active mediation products MCP and IN mediation, Avea can charge voice, data and content in real time.    By upgrading the OPSC billing system, Avea officials say they want a future proof billing product, especially in a market where Mobile Number Portability will soon be introduced.   "Real-time charging for data services, bonuses based on data usage and the ability to offer service bundles" will "underline Avea's position," company officials say, adding that their plan is that "consumption based campaigns such as 'consume thirty minutes out of which ten are for free,' as well as churn prevention campaigns, will tie Avea's customers to their provider."   . .

CRM from LexisNexis, ACT! for Notes and Microsoft Office, Sage and Denaco, Sage ERP X3, Opera Mini, Centive

July 10, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison's St. Dominic's Preview, an Officially Certified First Coffee Top Ten album:   Vigilus, an IBM Lotus Notes/Domino product vendor doing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) work, has announced that ACT! for Notes now integrates with Microsoft Office, powered by Swing Integrator from Swing Software.   ACT! for Notes users can now generate reports and documents, based on predefined templates, on demand.   ACT! for Notes is a Lotus Notes-based CRM systems with "over 500,000 licenses sold since 1995," according to the Vigilians.

CRM Market in 2007, Orga Systems and Avea, Chordiant's Recommendation Product, Nexedi ERP5, Azorus and StFX U.

July 10, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Tom Waits's Heartattack and Vine. A bit too slick and commercial to be a great Waits album, doesn't really belong in the company of, say, Small Change, Rain Dogs or Mule Variations, but a good listen every now and then, with one stone classic Waits song, "On the Nickel:"   Orga Systems, a billing vendor, has delivered its real-time Bonus and Loyalty Management System, Orga Service Manager and Media Control Point to Turkish mobile telecommunciations firm Avea.   With these products, Avea will get marketing and promotion capabilities for bonus and bundle offerings, loyalty programs, community functionalities and notifications. With Orga Systems' active mediation products MCP and IN mediation, Avea can charge voice, data and content in real time.    By upgrading the OPSC billing system, Avea officials say they want a future proof billing product, especially in a market where Mobile Number Portability will soon be introduced.   "Real-time charging for data services, bonuses based on data usage and the ability to offer service bundles" will "underline Avea's position," company officials say, adding that their plan is that "consumption based campaigns such as 'consume thirty minutes out of which ten are for free,' as well as churn prevention campaigns, will tie Avea's customers to their provider."   . .

Exact Software's MAX, Blackbaud and Kintera, Expert System in Italy, SaaS Apps Report, E-Zest Clients

July 8, 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 The Beautiful South's Blue Is The Colour:   Exact Software, a vendor of products that "connect the people, processes and knowledge essential to an organization," has announced the release of Exact MAX Version 5.0.   MAX 5.0 features the same manufacturing functionality of MAX 4.0, redesigned for the popular Microsoft SQL Server database platform. MAX 5.0 is certified to work with Windows Vista, and supports both Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005.   "To meet modern economic demands, most companies need a business product that is reliable enough to operate without constant maintenance, secure enough to protect valuable business information, and flexible enough to meet unique business requirements," said Ken Lam, Exact MAX General Manager.   MAX 5.0 features what company officials describe as "flexible reporting and query options," that "help users get more from their ERP system," along with features like enhanced customization and/or integration capability with other SQL applications, including Web-based products like Exact Synergy and EDI, enhanced data security with data management access restricted to database administrators, and streamlined installation.   Exact MAX is being pitched to mid-sized manufacturers who want ERP functionality -- "MAX is affordably priced, can be rapidly implemented, and is well-suited for independent companies as well as multi-site corporations," company officials say.   Established in 1984, Exact Software is headquartered in Delft, the Netherlands.   . . .

Microsoft CRM and Mondo, Atos and Feu Vert, Apisphere and BuzzHub, Boomi and Innotas, SpeechCycle and Tellme

July 8, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is an R.E.M. iPod shuffle. I must say the new album, Accelerate, is growing on me:   Atos Worldline, an Atos Origin Company working with the processing of high-volume electronic transactions, has been selected by Feu Vert, a French car centers' network, to support the implementation of its new Customer Relation Management (CRM) strategy.   Atos Worldline provided services "including consulting services and the development and operation of the recommended CRM products: loyalty card, marketing databases and data mining, e-mail and SMS campaigns management," Atos officials said.
Feu Vert Group is a car maintenance and equipment firm, with around 380 centers in Europe, claiming about seven million customers. This strategy is supported by a Quality Plan, through a program called 4P, which stands for Pristine conditions, efficient Performance, Pain-free service, and clear Prices.

Storis in Honolulu, Stanek at Bango, Oracle for Smucker, Sand and FreeSat, Consona ERP, Alterian's Acquisition

July 7, 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 Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver's Gospel Parade:   C.S. Wo & Sons, Honolulu, has selected Storis Management Systems Vision R8 package for its retail operating system.

The firm operates 17 furniture stores in Hawaii and California.

In addition to Vision R8's core products, C.S. Wo also use several companion services, including Executive Information System, InTouch CRM and Mobile Vision WiFi Technology.

"We are proud to be selected as a business partner with this prestigious retailer," said Doug Culmone, chief operating officer for Mt. Arlington, N.J.-based Storis.   . .





CRM from SmartFocus, Pharma Sales, CDC-CRM, European RFID, New Avaya Entity, Oracle, Neocase and Microsoft

July 7, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Hayes Carll's Trouble In Mind album:   Sales force effectiveness in the global pharmaceutical industry is the subject of Eularis's new report "Pharmaceutical Sales Force Effectiveness Metrics: Are You Measuring the Wrong Things?"   The report finds that while sales forces represent the largest spend in pharma sales and marketing, "return on this investment has declined sharply in recent years."   Written for CEOs, marketing executives and sales executives, this research project examines market data and case studies and reports that "the very metrics currently being used to assess sales force effectiveness are in fact the ones causing its decline."   Focusing on the pharmaceutical industries in the United States, Europe and Japan, the report dissects these current metrics and their limitations, and then offers updated metrics which, according to the report's authors, "can help solve the declining effectiveness crisis."   A pharmaceutical organization's spending on sales force is second only to research and development, said the author of the report, Andree Bates, president of Eularis: "Better metrics must be used to measure both the effectiveness and financial impact of this very significant budget element because the current measurements used by most top pharma today actually contribute to the decline in effectiveness of the field force,"   Data emerging from the research concludes that current metrics are more focused on efficiencies rather than effectiveness, "and do so to their own detriment." The report also addresses such topics as why sales call frequency metrics are deeply flawed, what impact the marketing message has on the customer during the detail, which SFE issues vary by region, how to target the right audiences and how to incorporate appropriate influencing behaviors into SFE programs.   "Implementing new sales force effectiveness metrics that actually improve effectiveness, and navigating the tricky paths of assessment, changing behaviors, and incorporating eDetailing and CRM systems can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be if you're measuring the right things," Bates said.   . . . . Bristol, England-based SmartFocus, a vendor of enterprise marketing software, has been selected by Internet fashion retailer Asos to provide customer relationship management tools, SmartFocus officials say.

CRM's W-Systems Milestone, Cerillion, Oracle in Mumbai, Opera and Swisstime, Avaya and Oracle in UAE, Swann at Manpower

July 4, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Patsy Cline. Happy Fourth of July, and music is just one more reason to be proud of America -- any country that's given the world Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Muddy Waters, Woody Guthrie, Michael Jackson, John Cage, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Prince, Hank Williams, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Cole Porter, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Cash, Duke Ellington, B.B. King, Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, The Velvet Underground, the entire genres of blues, rock'n'roll, jazz, bluegrass, Broadway, gospel and country -- not to mention Tom Waits and Spike Jones -- deserves a tip of the hat on July 4th:   Guinean telecoms operator Sotelgui is set to implement Interconnect Manager from convergent billing specialist, Cerillion Technologies.   The new contract represents "an expansion of the relationship between the two companies," according to Sotelgui officials, who say Sotelgui has been a customer of Cerillion's CRM and Billing product for five years.   Cerillion Interconnect Manager will provide Sotelgui with revenue assurance by letting it bill interconnect partners and reconcile invoices received. The product will also allow Sotelgui to re-rate actual traffic data against individual offers from partners, so it can choose the most cost-effective route in each case.   Cerillion Interconnect Manager also provides a universal formatter for partners' tariff tables, so Sotelgui can accept tariff tables in multiple formats, reducing the time needed to load data and letting Sotelgui manage more partners than would otherwise have been possible.   Louis Hall, Cerillion's chief executive, said with growth in the African telecoms market continuing to escalate, "the need to have an efficient interconnect system in place is becoming an increasingly urgent issue for African operators." ...   Mumbai-based Superfil Products has decided to adopt Oracle E-Business Suite, a suite of business applications to meet their growing business demands.

CRM's W-Systems Milestone, Cerillion, Oracle in Mumbai, Opera and Swisstime, Avaya and Oracle in UAE, Swann at Manpower

July 4, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Patsy Cline. Happy Fourth of July, and music is just one more reason to be proud of America -- any country that's given the world Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Muddy Waters, Woody Guthrie, Michael Jackson, John Cage, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Prince, Hank Williams, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Cole Porter, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Cash, Duke Ellington, B.B. King, Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, The Velvet Underground, the entire genres of blues, rock'n'roll, jazz, bluegrass, Broadway, gospel and country -- not to mention Tom Waits and Spike Jones -- deserves a tip of the hat on July 4th:   Guinean telecoms operator Sotelgui is set to implement Interconnect Manager from convergent billing specialist, Cerillion Technologies.   The new contract represents "an expansion of the relationship between the two companies," according to Sotelgui officials, who say Sotelgui has been a customer of Cerillion's CRM and Billing product for five years.   Cerillion Interconnect Manager will provide Sotelgui with revenue assurance by letting it bill interconnect partners and reconcile invoices received. The product will also allow Sotelgui to re-rate actual traffic data against individual offers from partners, so it can choose the most cost-effective route in each case.   Cerillion Interconnect Manager also provides a universal formatter for partners' tariff tables, so Sotelgui can accept tariff tables in multiple formats, reducing the time needed to load data and letting Sotelgui manage more partners than would otherwise have been possible.   Louis Hall, Cerillion's chief executive, said with growth in the African telecoms market continuing to escalate, "the need to have an efficient interconnect system in place is becoming an increasingly urgent issue for African operators."   .

CRM and CEM, Legends Business Group, Technology Alignment, Proteans Software, Niyuj and Sage, QuickArrow

July 3, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Jim White's (The Story of How I Shouted) Wrong-Eyed Jesus:   If you're interested in an article explaing CRM's "evolution" to CEM, Customer Experience Management, well, then I guess this is your lucky day.   CEM is "the process by which a company strategically manages a customer's entire experience with its product, service or company," the article says, adding that "through CEM initiatives, a company actively listens to its customers through a variety of listening posts, analyzes what they are saying to make more savvy business decisions and monitors the impact of those decisions to improve operational performance and customer loyalty."   How exactly is that different from the garden-variety CRM you've been practicing and we've been writing about for years? Read it and see, I guess.   "Where CRM focuses on structured data that assesses past transactions, CEM goes further to also use unstructured, textual information," the article argues, adding that "with CRM systems for sales automation, telephone and e-mail support and campaign management already in place across the enterprise, companies already capture raw, soft data about customer experiences. CEM enables a company to efficiently use this information, plus new Web 2.0 and other non-CRM sources of insight."   Again, exactly why you can't do this with CRM remains to be seen.   "The secret sauce behind effective CEM is text analytics," the article states. In CRM, of course, it's called simply "analytics."   Many companies have some manual capability for broadly categorizing the products, sales, and support issues that CRM systems capture, the article concedes, saying, "however, they have no real means by which to effectively quantify and analyze this textual information in real time to generate actionable insight."   Well, good CRM does, my friend. ...   Legends Business Group has announced the completion of its fully integrated marketing services platform.   The core development work and beta testing was completed in conjunction with three billing clearing houses in the country, under the direction of Legends.   The platform was designed to be a multi-service platform that can be modified to suit the specific needs of a customer and their products.

CRM from Microsoft and SHO Guide, Bluenog and Oracle, Talisma's Milestone, Ravielli to Infusionsoft, FreeCRM and TRUSTe

July 2, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The David Holland Quartet's Conference Of The Birds:   Bluenog, an application infrastructure software company, has announced that it has become a Certified Advantage Partner in the Oracle Partner Network. Under the program, Bluenog will resell Oracle software, including Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion middleware, and will provide associated services and integrated products.    Bluenog's areas of concentration include enterprise portal, enterprise content management, and business intelligence products. The company "blends open source and commercial technologies," the Bluenoggers say, and will "complement Oracle's plan to blend BEA with Oracle into enterprise middleware.   Oracle announced the acquisition of BEA on January 16, 2008.    "Many of our customers are seeking to manage IT environments that combine BEA and Oracle software," said Sastry Taruvai, CIO, Bluenog, adding that becoming a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork "builds on our J2EE expertise, adds to our BEA and Oracle technical certifications, and helps our customers manage their commercial and open source infrastructure."   "Bluenog has developed a products methodology called Project Blueprint," said Taruvai, explaining that it lets the company "lead a customer's entire project from architecture and design, all the way through development, to testing, staging and ongoing support. Or, we can complement a customer's existing project team at any stage of the development lifecycle." ...   Talisma Corporation, an nGenera company and Customer Interaction Management vendor, says their Talisma Chat product has hit the 10 million chats per month milestone.   "Talisma Chat now powers four of the largest commercial chat implementations in the world," said Dan Vetras, President and CEO, Talisma Corporation.   He says one of their clients found that prior to their chat implementation, more than 75 percent of respondents listed the phone as their preferred contact method.

BigMachines and Carestream, DataDirect and StreamServe, XAware and Hire A Hero, BrightDoor Systems

July 1, 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 one of the prettiest, most finely-wrought and most subtly sung songs from '60s folk, Simon & Garfunkel's Bleecker Street:   BigMachines has announced that Carestream Health has deployed BigMachines' Configuration, Pricing, Proposal product.   The CPP implementation, led by eLogic Group, has streamlined the front-end selling process and is integrated with Carestream Health's sales management platform, according to the BigMachinists.   The CPP application, coupled with eLogic Group's process expertise, lets Carestream consolidate its medical products product lines in a single tool used to configure product, price and generate proposals for sales opportunity management.   Carestream Health sells medical and dental imaging and information technology products, molecular imaging systems, and non-destructive testing products.   "BigMachines' sales automation product, coupled with eLogic's implementation expertise, enables us to go from inquiry to order," said Rick Gary, Director of Worldwide Operations and Business Systems, Carestream Health. "We have a product that generates quotes and proposals, offering us much more capability than we had before."   BigMachines sells on-demand configuration and proposal software. Its CPP software is integrated with customer information systems to provide a single view of customer data, in addition to automatically updating sales forecasts as quotes and orders are created and changed. BigMachines can also integrate with SAP systems.   "Carestream Health provided challenges with their aggressive schedule, requirement to combine two businesses in a single product, and the worldwide representation during the requirements definition phase," said Tom Erdle, principal and co-founder of eLogic. ...   DataDirect Technologies, a vendor of data connectivity and mainframe integration and an operating company of Progress Software, has announced that StreamServe, an enterprise provider of document composition, management and delivery products, has embedded the DataDirect Connect for ODBC and DataDirect Connect for JDBC database drivers into the latest version of StreamServe Persuasion.   The agreement provides StreamServe Persuasion users with "database connectivity to relational databases including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and IBM DB2 running on any platform," according to the DataDirecticians.   StreamServe Persuasion lets companies get information from enterprise applications such as ERP, CRM, SCM and legacy systems and use it customer correspondence and cross-sell, upsell campaigns.   With "an emphasis on enterprise customers and an open architecture," company officials say, StreamServe Persuasion is "designed to run on all established operating systems including UNIX platforms, Windows, and Linux." StreamServe officials say they realized its proprietary database architecture could not properly scale or meet the data connectivity and performance requirements of a heterogeneous environment.   Moreover, company officials say, they "didn't want the performance of StreamServe Persuasion to be dependent on the vagaries of whatever ODBC and JDBC drivers may be available in its customers' environments."   By embedding the DataDirect Connect for ODBC and DataDirect Connect for JDBC product suites into the latest version of StreamServe Persuasion software, the product can support Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases.

CRM's Redtail, Lithium's Funding, Convergys and Tennant, and Sand Results

July 1, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is my Top One Percent playlist. There are 5,700 songs on my iPod, so my ten-year old son and I spent an evening -- quality time, I believe they call it -- putting together a playlist of the 57 best songs. There were some heated debates, but we settled on a pretty good lineup: Lou Reed's Rock 'n' Roll, Veggie Tales' The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, Elvis Presley's Long Black Limousines, Reckless Kelly's Wiggles & Ritalin, Tom Lehrer's Vatican Rag,and more. It's designed to be "The Playlist Where You Never Have To Skip A Song":   Lithium Technologies, a vendor of on-demand products for enterprise communities, has announced that it has raised $12 million in a Series B equity funding round led by Benchmark Capital.    The funds will be used to "drive business expansion and accelerate development of Lithium's social media offerings for the enterprise," Lithium officials say.   Benchmark joins Emergence Capital and Shasta Ventures, which co-led a $9 million Series A financing round in April 2007.   Peter Fenton, partner, Benchmark Capital, said "we are seeing a radical transformation in the ways organizations interact with customers.
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