July 2008 Archives

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? Hard to imagine they want to be taken seriously after putting out a product that brings back search results like that. It's good for more magazine-style searches, like "New Zealand" or "Bob Dylan," but don't try asking who was the tsar of Russia in 1837 or anything like that.

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Sydney-based Tieman Industries has announced a deal with CRM vendor Epicor, choosing Epicor's end-to-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) product to "support the company's needs."

 

The product will be implemented with the assistance of Epicor partner COGITA.

 

Tieman sells transport and material handling equipment from liquid road tankers, warehouse dock products through to their truck tail lifts and vehicle disability access equipment. But hey, you already knew that.

 

The Epicor product is expected to provide "increased visibility to Tieman across the entire supply chain," company officials say, from marketing and sales, production and planning, sourcing and procurement and management.

 

Epicor offered Tieman "a partnership into the future," said Dale Tieman, joint Managing Director for Tieman Industries. "Epicor had the best product to fit our business needs."

 

Epicor is designed to work with make-to-order and mixed-mode manufacturing and distribution companies. Built on a service-oriented architecture, Epicor "enables continuous performance and lean initiatives" and "real-time connectivity between supply-chain applications and partners," company officials say.

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According to industry journal BNamericas, Alejandro Valdés, the telecommunications research manager for IDC Mexico, said that roughly 30 percent of Latin American companies will increase investments in CRM and ERP software technologies this year "to improve their mobility."

 

Valdés based his comments on the results of a recent IDC study, "Latin America Wireless & Mobile Solutions 2008." The study surveyed 460 business executives in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico "regarding their use of IT devices, applications, services, operators, mobile technologies, platforms, operating systems, and purchase processes."

 

95 percent of the executives said mobility was "important in their day-to-day operations," BNamericas reported, as "more than half said they spend at least 10 percent of their workweek outside the office, while 34 percent said they spent between 11-49 percent of their time outside the office."

 

Valdés told the journal that companies are particularly turning to mobile CRM and ERP technologies as a means to improve customer satisfaction. "Mobility means having access to information regardless of the place, time, user, or device," he told BNamericas. "The concept of mobility is not only limited to the use of a wireless network. A person can be mobile by having access to company information or databases through devices such as PCs."

 

About 25 percent of companies surveyed in 2007 had adopted CRM and ERP software, percentages which increased to 38 percent for CRM and 54 for ERP in 2008.

 

The study found that 31 percent of companies said they will increase their CRM investments during the next year, and roughly 26 percent will increase ERP expenditures.

 

"Companies are realizing that, by incorporating mobile technology, they will be able to attract more business," Valdés remarked, adding that "It is not used as it was before. It is a tool, a way to keep clients."

 

IDC recently estimated that the overall Latin American CRM market will grow 15 percent this year, with an annual compound growth rate of 12.4 percent between 2007 and 2012. Brazil is a key market, with strong growth expected in Mexico and Chile.

IDC expects that sales of ERP products in Latin America are expected to grow 18.2 percent this year and surpass $1 billion.

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According to Phoenix Business Journal, Flypaper Studio has rolled out its Flypaper Pro subscription, with more advanced services available for businesses than its free download.

 

The subscription, priced annually at $195, allows for what company officials call "a more interactive version of the program that develops Web sites and training systems that require advanced Flash computer programming."

 

Flypaper Pro lets users track viewer statistics and capture data and includes features to improve the presentation. The company is run by the team that developed ACT! and SalesLogix CRM software.

 

"When we were developing CRM applications, the focus was using software to sell more efficiently. Now, the name of the game is using the Web to sell more effectively," said Pat Sullivan, CEO of Flypaper.

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Clinton, Massachusetts-based Clinton Savings Bank has announced the selection of CRM vendor Open Solutions's imaged-based item processing product, ISCheck, to streamline its check processing operations.

 

Established in 1851, Clinton Savings Bank was, bank officials say, "the first bank to open in the Clinton community," adding that "since its inception, the bank has grown to more than $463 million in assets with more than 34,000 client accounts."

 

Clinton Savings already uses The Complete Banking Solution, cView, interactive voice response, loan origination and the financial accounting suite from Open Solutions. "We were in need of a system that would compliment our existing Open Solutions data processing platform," said Michael Tenaglia, CIO of Clinton Savings Bank.

 

Open Solutions' image-enabled item processing system "drives a wide range of check-processing transports and streamlines a financial institution's operations," Open officials say.

 

Tim Clewley, senior vice president and general manager, Imaged Payment Technologies Group, said with imaging technology banks can "implement products to provide the most cost efficient clearing path, provide unlimited access to image archives, combat fraud or increase fee income."

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Management products vendor Inovis has partnered with Pervasive, which sells data management and integration software, to "expand the number of adaptors Inovis offers for integration with packaged and on-demand enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications," according to Inovis officials.

 

In partnership with Pervasive, Inovis will enhance integration with applications such as Salesforce.com, Oracle Siebel OnDemand, Sybase v15, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, Pivotal CRM, Sage, AP NetWeaver XI, RightNow, NetSuite and others.

 

Mike Hoskins, general manager of integration products at Pervasive, said the "vision" of simplifying complex business community interactions and collaboration from Inovis is "a natural fit" for Pervasive's technology.

 

"Together," he said, "Inovis and Pervasive can deliver the power of agile integration to customers in multiple markets worldwide."

 

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."

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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. "We are pleased to work with HP in this initiative."

 

"Customers can reduce costs by decreasing the time it takes to resolve and prevent service issues," said Brad Kern, vice president of worldwide alliances, software, HP. "HP's collaboration with Vettro allows our customers to access HP Service Manager on a mobile product platform."

 

Earlier this year Vettro announced mobile support for HP Service Manager 7.0 enabling IT organization to increase productivity, improve service level agreements, and better measure IT contribution to the bottom line.

 

Vettro's mobile application for HP Service Manager is packaged with a graphical configuration utility that provides an install directly into the HP Service Manager environment. Data is connected to and from the Vettro mobile IT Service Management application without any custom coding.

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Apisphere, a vendor of location-awareness services for mobile business applications, has announced it will be integrating location-aware field force automation capabilities with ICOMMM's infrastructure asset management software, which provides monitoring and support capabilities for water distribution and sanitary system infrastructures.

 

Customers will see ROI "in the form of faster response times and lower fuel expenditures thanks to the more efficient deployment of service vehicles and crews," Apisphere officials say.

 

ICOMMM's technology is used to assess maintenance and capital improvements requirements and helps to protect water and sanitary system infrastructure. It is integrated with geographical information systems and ties in mapping with work management tools. 

 

Apisphere's Geo-Enabled Mobility platform will be integrated with ICOMMM's infrastructure asset management software to enhance its location-awareness capabilities. The product will target geographical information in real-time, helping maintenance crews access specific relevant information when assessing infrastructure requirements. 

 

"Our utility customers require accurate, immediate data to maintain water and sanitary systems, and to quickly respond to service calls and emergency situations," said Steven Line, CEO of ICOMMM.

 

Apisphere's GEM platform will give ICOMMM's customers navigation capabilities including directions to service stops, route optimization, mobile resource location and tracking, and will automate work assignments based on where available resources are located.

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InsideView has released SalesView for Landslide, a bundled business search and intelligence application available to all Landslide Technologies customers. 

 

SalesView calls itself a ''socialprise application." Company officials explain that it's "designed to use social data in the enterprise by bringing the insights gained from both subscription-based and user-generated sources." 

 

Landslide used InsideView's iView platform APIs and mash-ups to integrate SalesView into their Sales Workstyle Solution in a matter of weeks. SalesView business search and intelligence is now available to all Landslide customers as an embedded, "always-on" application, company officials say.

 

"With InsideView's socialprise application, Landslide's customers can now use data on the social Web to identify opportunities... and speed up their sales cycle," said Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies.

 

SalesView, InsideView's flagship application, brings together social data with enterprise-grade search and intelligence capabilities. Landslide Technologies, Inc. is privately held with headquarters in Pittsburgh. InsideView is privately held and venture-backed by Emergence Capital Partners, Greenhouse Capital Partners and Rembrandt Venture Partners. InsideView sales force automation partners include Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Microsoft and Landslide Technologies.

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BakBone Software, a vendor of heterogeneous integrated data protection products, has announced that its Channel Advantage Partner Program has new elements to help Channel Partners use BakBone.

 

The BakBone Channel Advantage Program's initiatives "reflect BakBone's ongoing commitment to be responsive and easy to engage," according to BakBone officials.

 

Channel Partners now get what BakBone officials say are "greater financial rewards, more streamlined communication, a redesigned partner portal, online certification classes, and a zero-risk proof-of-concept campaign that enables potential customers to test drive a full version of NetVault: Backup before they buy it."

 

BakBone has also recently introduced full adoption of VMware technology and techniques, support for SharePoint, enhanced Oracle database protection and real-time data protection for Exchange, SQL and Windows file system data.

 

Mark Williams, vice president of North America Sales, BakBone, said they offer Channel Partners the opportunity to "work with a company that doesn't compete with them in the sales cycle."

 

Built on the existing BakBone channel program, the new initiatives include new program requirements, new program benefits as well as "a redesigned training and certification curriculum, including online certification," company officials say.

 

There's also a zero-risk proof-of-concept program that allows users to try NetVault: Backup for 30 days with a technical expert onsite to perform installation at no cost to the potential customer.

 

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."

 

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Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council officials say they have chosen Anite to help the Council's Housing Department deliver services to its customers.

 

The Council is implementing an integrated suite of social housing products from Anite as part of a £250,000 system overhaul scheduled to be complete by December.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown has updated the way it retains information about its 4,200 social housing properties. Traditionally records and information such as stock control, rents, repairs or housing allocations were kept in numerous disparate local databases many unconnected, could not be cross-referenced and were difficult to maintain.

The new system from Anite will capture and store property information in one central place that can be accessed by all housing employees, providing them with a better overview of any individual case.

The Anite system works by storing all information centrally, allowing employees to reconcile and access up to date information about cases, and cross reference information that has an impact on the decision making process. For example, information about maintenance requests can be monitored against rent arrears, or information about anti-social cases against housing allocation lists.

Anite's open Adaptors will allow interoperability with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown's chosen CRM product.

 

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Okay, just because First Coffee is your friend, I'm telling you to check out ForRent.com, an apartment resource for searching apartments nationwide and division of Dominion Enterprises. Seems they were running an "If Only Your Apartment Furniture Could Talk" video contest.

 

The winning videos on WinApartmentFuriture.com were selected from more than 50 submissions created by ForRent.com enthusiasts from around the country. Each made a short video creatively telling ForRent.com, through the eyes and voice of their apartment furniture, why they should win $10,000.

The grand prize winner, Brendan Walsh, a 20 year-old student from Steubenville, Ohio, majoring in digital media production at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, contributed the winning video, "Furniture Talk." I know most of this kind of thing is pretty stupid, but you'd be amazed how good some of them are -- First Coffee's favorite is "Sectional Healing," but then again my favorite movies are Airplane! and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. See them at http://www.winapartmentfurniture.com/video/view/26.

"Social media is my life," says Walsh. The consumer video contest was intended to "use the power of social media, extend the reach of the ForRent.com brand and to establish a long-term relationship with brand advocates," ForRent officials say.

 

Social media is leading the shift in the way consumers experience brands. According to a 2008 Nielsen study, 78 percent of consumers trust the opinion of peers over all other information sources and advertising.

 

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Knowledge Integration Dynamics, a Johannesburg-based company selling business intelligence, data warehousing and products, has concluded a partnership agreement with Apatar to distribute its open source data integration suite in South Africa.

 

KID will train and offer support services for the Apatar integration package for integration projects across Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.

 

"South Africa is a developing region, and it is important for us to fill the open source data integration niche," says Sergei Lobanov, Alliance Enabler at Apatar.

 

Apatar already has in excess of 100 users in South Africa and expects KID to rapidly expand its penetration of the local market. KID is Apatar's first South African partner.

 

The companies say they'll be targeting small and mid-sized companies in South Africa with a need for a free, easy-to-use extract, transform, and load tool. They'll be pushing Apatar's visual job designer and visual transformation mapper, which are 100 percent Java-based and "obviate the need for coding of any kind," Apatar officials say, reducing the need for technical skills.

 

Apatar enables connectivity with Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, GoldMine and any JDBC data sources, Amazon S3, Flickr, StrikeIron and CDYNE Web services, and more.

 

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QuickArrow, a vendor of SaaS Services Automation, has announced that they will be partnering with RTM Consulting on a new Webinar designed to provide SMB technology services providers with methods and techniques for competition.

 

The free, one-hour Webinar will take place on Wednesday, July 30, at 12:00 p.m. CDT.

 

During the Webinar, Resource Management expert and RTM Consulting President Randy Mysliviec will discuss how the small and medium sized technology consulting and professional services provider can turn perceived competitive weaknesses, relative to much larger companies, into competitive strengths.

 

"SMBs have considerable competitive advantages due to their speed of execution, specialization of resources, and simplicity of their business models but yet do not always take advantage of these and other significant strengths," said Mysliviec.

 

This Webinar builds on QuickArrow's continued focus on the growing SMB market segment. In March of this year, QuickArrow launched a new Small Business offering.

 

"SMB leaders in the Professional Services space face a unique set of challenges in competing with large, multi-national services providers," said QuickArrow COO, Kevin Bury, adding "traditionally, however, this group has received relatively little attention from P.S. thought leaders and strategists."

 

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Essentia, a developer of software platforms and products for online communities and commerce, has unveiled a new flagship product, EssentiaESP, described by company officials as a community-engagement platform designed for commercial open source.

 

The product is billed by company officials as unifying "social networking, community management, and commerce with content management, software development and collaboration in a platform that supports multiple CRM integrations with administrator defined code for analytics and tracking."

The company also announced the initial deployment of EssentiaESP for the 85,000-member JasperForge community, the open source development portal for the Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite.

 

Currently, company officials say, the options that are available for open source communities are to either roll their own custom environments using point tools or rely on collaborative software development environments "that have community and commerce added as an afterthought."

 

 

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.

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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.

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RightNow Technologies has announced that Allen E. Snyder joined its board of directors this week. Snyder was appointed to fill a Class II vacancy on the Board of Directors, to serve until RightNow's 2011 annual meeting of stockholders.

 

He also has been appointed to serve on the compensation committee of RightNow's board of directors. Snyder is currently the CEO of Aepona, a leading supplier of telecom service layer products and products to telcos globally.

 

Prior to joining Aepona, Snyder served as CEO of Carrier Access and COO of Openwave Systems. He also held senior executive positions at Oracle Corporation and Digital Equipment Corporation, with responsibilities for product development, sales, customer service, software support, and professional services.

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CRM+ Consulting, a Tampa -based CRM software consulting company and authorized reseller of Sage CRM, has announced the launch of an optimized Web site developed by Hall Web Services of Scarborough, Maine.

The site "keeps the look and feel of the previous design," consultancy officials say, while "implementing Hall's guidelines for organic search engine friendliness and local search optimization."

 

The new site offers resources on Sage CRM Solutions, including Sage Software-produced white papers, demos, and articles geared towards current and prospective customers alike.

CRM+ Consulting officials say they hope the new site "will serve as a resource for prospective customers of their customer relationship management products.

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Open Solutions, a vendor of data processing technologies for banks and credit unions, has partnered with Andera to offer online account opening and funding technologies to Open Solutions' client base. Andera sells such products to the financial services industry.

 

As consumer behavior trends move toward the online channel, Open Solutions officials believe, "the ability to instantly open and fund new accounts electronically is increasingly becoming a top priority for U.S. financial institutions, and Celent analysts forecast a dramatic acceleration in the pace of industry adoption over the next three years."

 

Online account opening is "of great interest to many of our clients," said Mike Nicastro, SVP and CMO from Open Solutions.

 

Andera's product features an 8-10 minute process in which consumers can apply for, be approved for, open and fund multiple banking products in a single session. The product includes such features as electronic signatures, real-time core integration, integration with a variety of third-party risk and data providers, intelligent cross-selling and funding via ACH, credit card or debit card.

 

More than 200 financial institutions have selected the Andera platform, including eight mutual clients with Open Solutions.

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Akken, which describes itself as an "All-in-One on-demand staffing software and recruiting software provider," has released an upgraded invoice design editor.

 

Billing it as "one of the most automated, flexible invoicing tools available on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform," the upgrade is included for all Akken Staffing users at no additional charge.

With the upgraded version "staffing and recruiting companies can accommodate a client's specific billing requirements and create customized, professional invoices with just a few clicks of the mouse," the Akkenites say.

"This upgrade makes it simple for Akken Staffing users to create invoice templates to exact requirements," says Akken's vice president of engineering, Prakash Akkineni. "The biggest impact is the time our users save in the invoicing process, reducing the amount of time to generate invoices from hours to seconds."

Akken's invoice design editor lets Akken Staffing users design a template once, as it "pulls the information from the system to create hundreds of invoices simultaneously with one click," company officials say. Users are able to make changes to these invoice templates in real time. For companies using multi-million dollar systems, a change of this type would take days, if not weeks, to implement.

Akken's flagship offering, Akken Staffing, combines e-mail, applicant tracking, CRM, job management, accounting, human resource management, and reporting.

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After implementing a CRM system and other IT products, officials of the city of Newcastle in England says it has been named "among the top three cities in Europe in terms of resident satisfaction on a range of issues, including employment, schools, housing and health services as compared with other major European cities."

 

Continual improvement of service levels from the City Council has a role to play in maintaining the quality of life, council officials say, "as does its IT systems.

 

In 2000 Newcastle City Council pledged to deliver services in a new, customer-oriented way, giving citizens a one-stop access to key council services, regardless of what systems were involved.

 

To address its commitment, the Council planned to establish six walk-in customer service centers able to provide information and deal with requests across all council services. Five centers have now been delivered and the sixth will follow this fall. At the heart of these centers is a CRM application provided by Lagan.

Following a review of IT and related services, the Council put in place a major transformation program to replace the in-house built mainframe applications for Council Tax, housing and benefits with off-the-shelf, best of breed packages.

As Ron Hillaby, application services manager at Newcastle City Council, says "we got to know more about integration, and realized that as we changed to the new packaged systems, substantial work would be required to get the integration in place."

 

Hillaby said the point-to-point products they had previously employed with the CRM system "were not the best way forward. We also became aware that the IT industry was starting to move to SOA and we were made aware of products like Sonic by the Integration Workstream leader on the National CRM project."

They laid its SOA foundation with Progress Sonic ESB (enterprise service bus), providing loosely-coupled integration between Council Tax and CRM services.

 

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. In addition, fields may be removed and the entire screen layout re-arranged, company officials say.

 

The Fund Detail option lets users capture data on the funds they are tracking, including fund structure, fees, redemption parameters and risk measures. It also includes the Mail Distribution, Relationship Associations and Activity / Follow-up tracking features.

 

The Sales Opportunity Pipeline has been extended to allow automatic creation or updating of multiple opportunities from a single Activity Note.

 

A number of new formatted reports and graphs have been added in ProTrak Advantage 5.0. Examples include asset-related reports (assets by product, region and investor type), account holdings (ERISA holdings and account / share class holdings by fund) and pipeline opportunity reports (opportunities by product / fund, region and salesrep).

 

Calling Advantage 5.0 a "major release," Simon Koziel, ProTrak's President, said a major emphasis of the company's effort for this release "has been the addition of new tools that give end users more control over their ProTrak desktop without requiring IT support."

 

The product is marketed as CRM for investment managers, hedge funds, fund-of-hedge funds and private equity firms.

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Amdocs Limited has reported that for its fiscal third quarter ended June 30, 2008, revenue was $820.3 million, an increase of 15.2 percent from last year's third quarter.

 

Net income on a non-GAAP basis was $132.5 million, or $0.61 per diluted share, excluding acquisition-related costs, equity-based compensation expense and net of related tax effects of $31.8 million. This compares to non-GAAP net income of $120.6 million, or $0.54 per diluted share, in the third quarter of fiscal 2007 -- excluding costs and taxes of $32.4 million.

 

The company's GAAP net income was $100.7 million, or $0.46 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $88.2 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, in the third quarter of fiscal 2007. Free cash flow for the quarter was $83.2 million, comprised of cash flow from operations of $115.1 million less $31.9 million in net capital expenditures and other.

 

Dov Baharav, CEO of Amdocs Management Limited, said he continues to see "strong demand" at this time, citing "macro-economic uncertainties which may have an impact on our results in the future."

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Sage Software India has announced its new Sage Accpac Integrated Suite with the availability of version 5.5 of its Sage Accpac ERP  business management system.

 

The new suite configuration integrates out-of-box ERP with Sage CRM, company officials say, adding that the new Sage Accpac Integrated Suite "also provides analytical dashboards in Sage Accpac ERP 5.5 and offers a free bundled pack of Insight Business Intelligence tool."

 

"Sage Accpac will enhance the end user experience by introducing 'easy to use' business analytics which can transform business efficiencies," said Thomas Abraham, Managing  Director, Sage Software India.

 

Sage officials say the suite "combines the benefits of ERP and CRM" for integrated front and back office business processes, giving users "insight into what is happening within the business and enhancing collaboration between customer-facing and back office workers."

 

Version 5.5's new dashboard feature provides snapshots of the business designed to help managers "analyze, predict, and manage business performance," company officials say.

 

In addition to dashboards, version 5.5 provides such enhancements as a new Account Rollup feature that supports account consolidation in the general ledger, multicurrency revaluation options, and streamlined processes for managing job tracking.

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In what's described as "the first annual survey of its membership and other open source software and services companies," Open Solutions Alliance officials say they found "much optimism despite a murky economy," with 83 percent of participants saying they would see "a year-over-year increase in revenue in 2008 of open source related software and services."

 

78 percent of survey participants said "the affordable price of open source software" is motivating their customers.

 

The survey also revealed that open source companies are serious about collaboration. Nearly all of the survey respondents -- 97 percent -- reported that they have "active partnerships" with other open source software and services companies.

 

The average survey participant had 10 such partnerships.

 

"We knew that collaboration was important to open source companies, but this statistic was surprising," said Dominic Sartorio, senior director of product management for SpikeSource and president of the Open Solutions Alliance.

 

The survey also shows that 85 percent of participants sell open source products or services that run on Microsoft Windows or otherwise interoperate with Microsoft products.

 

In all 46 companies responded to the survey, both OSA members and non-members.

 

The Open Solutions Alliance is a nonprofit, vendor neutral consortium dedicated to driving the interoperability and adoption of comprehensive open products.

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Bestoutcome Limited, a UK-based consultancy specializing in IT project and program management, has acquired the whole of the issued share capital of ISA Limited, a supplier of business applications built on Microsoft technology platforms.

 

ISA's customer relationship management products are based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and its software development capability is to Microsoft Gold Certified Partner standards, ISA officials say.

With a forecast this year of annual revenue in excess of £5 million, "a combined IT services enterprise has been created" from the agreement signed on July 18th, according to Bestoutcome officials.

 

Barry Jackson and David Walton, respectively chairman and managing director of Bestoutcome, will join the ISA board, and Thomas Payne, managing director of ISA, will join the consultancy's board.

The acquisition will pool both companies' resources, including "strategic consultancy, execution, and ongoing support," officials of both firms say: "Marketing and sales will be aimed at the retail, finance, media, healthcare, distribution, and construction industries, and other vertical markets."

...

 

Regent Education, a vendor of financial aid management SaaS products for higher education, has announced that it has formed a partnership with TopSchool, a vendor of administrative products for small to mid-size higher education institutions.

TopSchool sells a student lifecycle management product consisting of a student information system at its core, integrated with a customer relationship management system (CRM), student and faculty portal, reporting suite, and support services.

 

Through the partnership, Regent Enterprise will be integrated into TopSchool's SLM as the financial aid module.

 

Matthew Schnittman, TopSchool's President & CEO, said with complementary delivery models, "our partnership with Regent supports our goal to provide institutions with products to serve their students and manage their operations."

 

TopSchool's SLM system provides an information management product, described by company officials as "a CRM to aggregate and manage leads, a customizable student and faculty portal, a student information system, an ad-hoc reporting suite and a customer service model."

 

 

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. Rockford processed over 7300 permits in 2007.

 

. . . .

 

Coghead, a platform-as-a-service provider, has introduced a new flat-rate pricing option, as well as Coglet Builder and open API tools which company officials say "together provide a way to give a broad number of users access to a slice of application functionality."

The Limited User pricing model is a flat-rate price of $50 per month letting an unlimited number of users -- customers, prospects, partners, suppliers, Web visitors -- interact with relevant slices of Coghead applications.

 

It's being billed by the Cogheads as "an economical and easy way for businesses to make a piece of their Coghead applications -- such as forms and list data -- widely available to an unlimited audience without logging into Coghead."

 

It's generally designed for users who occasionally access applications, or for applications that have small numbers of active users and a large number of less active users.

 

. . . .

 

Ever Ready Mortar, which sells ready to use mortar to the building trade, has installed the Rostrvm blended call center product to "support its outbound sales and inbound customer service operation," Rostrvm officials say.

 

Several call center technology providers were invited to submit a tender, but Rostrvm Solutions was selected, as Stacey Baillie, Call Centre Manager at Ever Ready Mortar, said: "Rostrvm demonstrated a willingness to meet the requirements on our wish list."  

 

The Rostrvm software suite integrates with Ever Ready Mortar's existing Sage CRM system, allowing the call center to manage both sales campaigns and inbound customer service calls in the form of a blended product from a single easy-to-use database.

 

The system also allows for multiple outbound campaigns to run alongside each other, and can prioritize campaigns and schedule call backs.

 

Rostrvm software has tweaked Ever Ready Mortar to include features for its inbound customer service operation, an identifier allowing agents to provide a personal service, a distance calculator to establish delivery costs and a routing product enabling calls outside of office hours to be routed to the nearest depot.

 

. . . .

 

LoopFuse and Acquia have announced the availability of the LoopFuse OneView integration module for Drupal, designed to let marketing organizations "extend their LoopFuse marketing automation processes across their Drupal Web sites."

 

Using LoopFuse's Web analytics and campaign management capabilities, Drupal site owners can track activities and connect with customers who participate in their community-based Web sites.

 

LoopFuse is the marketing and sales automation suite offering organizations the ability to generate leads from their Web site, score and route leads, marketing campaign capabilities, full Web analytics support, and full CRM integration with most major vendors.

 

Roy Russo, LoopFuse's CEO, noted that "more and more CMOs are seeking to build interactive, community-oriented Web sites to deepen their engagement with customers."

 

The integration between Drupal and LoopFuse OneView will allow LoopFuse customers using Drupal for their content management system to have their Web sites instrumented with LoopFuse tracking, "providing analytics on Web site visitors without the need to modify any Web site code," LoopFuse officials say.

 

It will also allow for the automated capture of Web site registrations within LoopFuse, so marketers can assemble their Web sites and integrate their marketing automation product without relying on their IT department to develop custom applications and integrations from scratch.

 

"As a commercial open source vendor, it's critical for us to automate our marketing processes from initial contact on Acquia.com through to qualified opportunity in our CRM system," said Jeff Whatcott, Acquia's Vice President of Marketing.

 

. . . .

 

NewMarket Latin America has announced UniOne Consulting has signed a contract to implement Oracle's Business Intelligence Suite - Enterprise Edition for Distribuidora de Medicamentos Santa Cruz, a wholesale distributor of pharmaceuticals, medical and surgical supplies throughout Brazil.

 

The project is expected to be multi-phased, and Unione has started on the first phase of the project, scheduled to be complete in January 2009, for the customer's Department of Sales.

 

While UniOne pronounce themselves "excited" about this opportunity, the terms of the contract are being kept confidential at the request of the customer.

 

UniOne, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, also has an office in Santiago, Chile, and focuses on providing Business Intelligence, as well as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Business Performance Management (BPM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) consulting services throughout Latin America.

 

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.

 

. . . .

 

Bango has unveiled technology designed to help Web site owners "measure the value of mobile sites," by counting unique visitors browsing their site, company officials say.

 

This new site analysis capability in the latest release of Bango Analytics, v3.0 "complements existing campaign analysis functionality and features enhanced image tag technology to identify unique users," the Bangovians explain.

 

Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango, said with this new version, "mobile Web site owners can now get a real picture of the value of their mobile Web site."

 

With site analysis added to its mobile analytics service, Bango now provides two metrics sought after by site owners -- unique visitors and conversion rates from mobile marketing campaigns.

 

Results of a recent survey of more than 550 mobile Web site owners, commissioned by Bango, found that 80 percent of respondents said "the daily, weekly or monthly number of unique visitors" was the "most important" data point for them.

 

Other important data were "conversion rates and effectiveness of mobile marketing," which polled 71 percent, "new or repeat visitors" 58 percent and "information about the handsets your visitors use" was cited by 54 percent.

 

Bango provides two techniques for capturing mobile metrics: link tracking for campaign analysis and page tracking for site analysis. 

 

Bango officials describe the new site analysis feature as "easy to implement -- one line of html code is placed in each page to be tracked without the need to install anything on the server. A site summary report provides a high level view on the key metrics for a mobile Web site, including unique visitor numbers."

 

Capturing an accurate picture of the number of unique visitors is more complex on mobile than on the PC Web, since "cookies aren't reliable on mobile phones and IP addresses belong to the network operator rather than the end user," Bango officials say. They explain that for each individual that clicks on an ad or browses a site, a privacy protected Bango User ID is created, compiled through WAP gateway profiling, data from browser analysis, session information and network interactions. 

 

This unique user ID lets Bango distinguish between new and repeat users.

 

. . . .

 

Opera Software's State of the Mobile Web report, just released, finds that six out of the most popular phones models for Web browsing with Opera Mini are from Nokia, two are from Sony Ericsson, one is from BlackBerry, and one is from Samsung.

 

In the United States, nine of the top 10 phones for Opera Mini are BlackBerries. The report can be viewed in its entirety from http://www.opera.com/mobile_report/.

 

"People want the Web on their phone regardless of the type of phone they have," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "Our list of top phones shows both smartphones and feature phones. It proves that given the right experience, many more people will use the Web on their phone. Accessing the Web on your phone is not a luxury limited to who has the most expensive phone model."

 

The State of the Mobile Web, June 2008 report also finds that usage continues to grow as more consumers find value in accessing full Web content on their mobile phones. People using Opera Mini viewed more than 3.2 billion pages in June, up 9.4 percent over May.

 

Completely free for anyone to download and use, Opera Mini is available from http://www.operamini.com.

 

. . . .

 

EasyLobby, a vendor of Secure Visitor Management and photo ID badge printing products, has announced the appointment of Chris Selland as Vice President, Marketing and Business Development.

 

Selland, the man with the greatest radio voice alive, will lead EasyLobby's corporate identity and product positioning, demand generation, corporate communications, and strategic alliance initiatives.

 

"Chris will be a major catalyst to help expand EasyLobby's brand awareness worldwide, and grow our global network of customers and partners," said Howard Marson, CEO of EasyLobby. "He brings a deep understanding of branding and marketing, is a well-known evangelist for customer success."

 

Chris joins EasyLobby with experience in Marketing, Business Development, and Corporate Development strategies for a number of technology and research companies, including SoundBite Communications, Yankee Group, Aberdeen Group (now Harte-Hanks) and others.

 

EasyLobby was founded in 1997 to sell software products for electronic, secure visitor management.

 

. . . .

 

"For many prospective car buyers, walking into a showroom is considered about as pleasant as having a tooth extracted," auto industry veterans Clint Burns and Kirk Sladen correctly observe, adding that "they anticipate being ambushed at the front door by an overeager sales staff."

 

Burns and Sladen say they have developed a software product designed to make the sales staff more efficient, "eliminating the need for salespeople to hover at the front door."

 

Burns' development of a customer-satisfaction index for veterinarians led to the development of a CRM tool for the auto industry, and then to The Next Up. This Web-based product manages the showroom floor by delivering real-time traffic information and productivity reports. The product also provides a customer count.

 

"Dealerships are seeing increases in sales, even with a down market," said Sladen.

With The Next Up's Web-based and text messaging features, the sales staff is aware of the dealership surroundings at all times. This allows the front of the dealership to have only the necessary sales staff needed and the others to be doing something elsewhere.

 

Sales staff "will now have the time to contact previous customers to follow up, set appointments, act on referrals, and never miss the opportunity to meet new customers," Burns says.

 

"The Next Up is designed for any size dealership," said Burns, "from dealers who sell 40 cars a month to those that sell 1,000."

 

No contract is required for a dealership to use The Next Up; agreements are on a month-to-month basis. The Next Up provides all equipment at no cost.

 

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. "There are similarities among homebuilders in Canada, Australia and the U.K., and we were able to provide functionality that works in all three of those target markets."

 

Many North American builders are taking the time now to retool and position for what company officials see as "the coming upturn in the housing market." Most of the company's recent clients on both sides of the border are replacing older sales and CRM systems that either haven't met expectations, or aren't prepared for software-based process management.

 

The company also recently announced its Property Management Software, which includes a single-family residential home sales-and-CRM system, and a suite of software products for multi-family and condominium sales.

 

Sales Simplicity Software is based in Chandler, Arizona.

...

 

Software vendor Cincom has announced the availability of its Quotation and Proposal Management product, described by company officials as "the latest component in Cincom's new enterprise sales portal software, called Cincom Acquire." 

The product is designed for companies that sell complex products and services, and "seeks to fill the gaps in traditional CRM- and ERP-based systems such as guided selling, channel and distributor collaboration, sales and product configuration" and other functions, Cincom officials say.
 
The component can be integrated with a product configurator, business rules engine, workflow management, or other components. 

Specifically, the Cincom Acquire Quotation and Proposal Management product provides a centralized quotation database, customer and contact information, knowledge-based document configuration and automated generation of complex proposals based on document templates, among other functions.

 

Cincom Acquire is being marketed to manufacturers selling industrial engineer-to-order or configure-to-order products as a way of streamlining their sales, design, and proposal processes by "delivering product and sales knowledge to the point of sale."

 

It's built on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server architecture, and uses Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, and Project. It claims "out-of-the-box" integration with SAP, salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and other systems.

...

 

Britain-based sales-i, which describes itself as a "real-time sales acceleration service for front line sales people," has launched its sales intelligence service into the US market.

Since January this year, sales-i has acquired 70 new customers and has signed a deal with Integra, an office supplies and IT dealer group in the UK and Ireland, company officials say. Integra has white labeled the sales-i service, rebranded it as Sales Alert and offers it to Integra members. "Close to 25 Integra dealers have signed up to the service since its launch three months ago," sales-i officials say.

Sales-i officials say they're confident they can mirror their British success in the USA, "and if early signs are anything to go by, it looks like USA business supplies companies will be as enthusiastic about the service as their UK counterparts," company officials say.

 
Kevin McGirl, co-founder of sales-i, said the US office supplies market is "six times larger than the UK, a huge market for sales-i to tap into. We expect sales-i mobile to be a big winner in the US, making information available to front-line sales people on their cell phones and Blackberries."

Sales-i launched sales-i mobile in February this year. The product gives sales professionals visibility of sales information and customer buying alerts delivered to their cell phones.

Sales-i already integrates into CRM systems including Salesforce, Netsuite, Microsoft, ACT and Goldmine.

...

 

Infogain, a vendor of open source products and services, and commercial Linux and middleware provider Red Hat have announced an enterprise reseller agreement.

 

The agreement is described by Infogain officials as "a strategic step to accelerate adoption of Linux and JBoss into the enterprise market." As a certified Red Hat Advanced Partner, Infogain will offer the Red Hat Applications Stack, including enterprise versions of Linux, JBOSS, and Hibernate as well as customized services.

 

Infogain will use this partnership to "help its customers build products with reduction in total cost of ownership," the Infoganians say. Infogain's clients will be able to integrate JBoss Enterprise Middleware into their software product.

 

"The open source initiative is gaining tremendous momentum in the market enterprise, this alliance is a logical step," said Glenn Gramling, Infogain's Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, adding that "Red Hat will integrate with Infogain's open source best practices and methodologies."

...

 

As it appears First Coffee is the only publication online not to offer an opinion on the Brett Favre situation, let's rectify that -- as soon as he asked to come back the Packers should have welcomed him with open arms, of course, and said sorry Aaron, but that's life in the NFL, we'd rather have a Hall of Fame-bound, Super Bowl-winning MVP quarterback under center. He gives them the best chance to win in 2008, and they came pretty close last year. Granted, their season ended on yet another boneheaded Brett Favre play, but without him they're a 7-9 team at best. Now of course, with all the bad blood, they should just trade him and if he doesn't like it, tough beans, he can "retire" again.

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. businesses considering a managed SIP trunking option are motivated primarily by the financial benefits of the product, so a managed product with a predictable monthly cost is appealing."

 

Small businesses, in particular, will appreciate "the ease of adoption -- no start up costs with the EtherSpeak product -- and the benefits that SIP trunking can bring," Gustavsen said, adding that a hosted option may prompt a smaller business to take advantage of SIP trunking since "they can do so without costly risks."

...

 

SpeechTrack.com, an online hosted call recording system, has announced improvements to its Web service during SpeechTrack's beta program.

 

The SpeechTrack service allows users to record, track and access telephone conversations anytime and anywhere using any phone. "If you can get a dial tone, you can use SpeechTrack," states Jim Stockert, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

 

The product lets the user sort through recorded files online so they can find a file easier. Users can delete files that they no longer need and keep their files better organized and up to date.

 

The search functionality also was built out of feedback from the SpeechTrack beta users. It allows SpeechTrack users to search on five different call information tags associated with the recordings -- Call ID, User ID, Phone Number, Date of the Statement, and the Name that the SpeechTrack user assigned to the recording.

 

This lets users who record several calls access and find their calls quickly and easily.

 

The SpeechTrack service offers hosted call recording self service. Monthly membership is $2.99 and recording is $0.10 a minute.

 

SpeechTrack is owned and operated by Calibrus, a vendor of customized hosted business products.

 

. . . .

 

MobileSphere has introduced slydial, described by company officials as a free voice messaging service that connects you directly to someone's mobile phone voicemail. MobileSphere officials say "it's the best way to save time, avoid an awkward conversation or relay information without interrupting your friends, family or business contacts."

 

Checking in with a boss, friend, "significant other" or parent has never been easier as slydial, in one of the finest statements in support of any product released this year,  "provides the illusion of communication without the hassle of engaging in a time-consuming conversation."

 

To slydial someone, simply dial 267-SLYDIAL (267-759-3425) and follow the voice prompts.

 

Users can join MYslydial for free, company officials say, and become a registered user to use offered features, including "Dial By Name." Once you add someone as a slydial contact, you don't have to remember or enter their full phone number anymore -- "just dial 267-SLYDIAL and enter the first four digits of their slydial nickname to connect to their mobile voicemail."

 

There's also "Click 2 slydial." From your computer click on the "Click 2 slydial" icon next to your slydial contact and slydial will call your phone. Once you answer, you will be connected directly to that contact's voicemail.

Slydial is "easy to use, connects to all major U.S. wireless carriers and calls can be placed from any mobile or landline phone," the Slydialers say.

 

"Unlike standard text messages, which limit users to only 160 characters and do not convey emotion, leaving a slydial message allows users to control their message length and context with a personalized voice message," company officials say, pointing out that "while not everybody uses text messaging, voicemail is universal."

 

There are rewards to this job, and discovering products like slydial is one of them.

 

"Over the past few months as part of a successful test program, thousands of people have slydialed and discovered various uses for the service, such as canceling a date they never wanted to go on in the first place, confirming appointments with business contacts and avoiding a lengthy conversation with a chatty relative," the company said.

 

Slydial is the first application launched using MobileSphere's new patent-pending VMS 2.0 mobile voice messaging technology.

 

First Coffee's Product Of the Year so far. Hard to imagine anything topping this one.

 

. . . .

 

StrongMail Systems, a vendor of products for marketing and transactional e-mail, has announced that Lasso Data Systems, which sells on-demand CRM software for the real estate industry, has implemented StrongMail.

 

The "number one feature" of Web-based real estate software is "its ability to handle large volumes of e-mail," said Rick Talbot, vice president of client services for Lasso. "With StrongMail, we have complete control of our on-premise product, allowing us to achieve full integration with Lasso software."

 

Prior to StrongMail, Lasso relied on an in-house developed mass mail product that had limited reporting capabilities. Lasso's R&D team knew how many e-mails were sent, opened, and invalid, but they could not see why or how many e-mails were blocked or bounced.

 

With StrongMail, said Talbot, "from domain throttling to detailed reporting, we get everything we need, plus the ability to control the server in our data center, integrate with our software, and scale to meet our future needs."

...

 

Appirio, a vendor of products for the adoption of on-demand products, has announced it has secured Series B financing of $5.6 million. The funding was led by Sequoia Capital, the investment firm behind Google, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, and PayPal.

 

This round of financing follows a Series A investment earlier this year, which brought in $1.1 million from Salesforce.com and angel investors.

 

Appirio, founded in 2006, sells both products and professional services using Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service technologies from such as Google and Salesforce.com.

 

The company's service offerings are billed as helping users lower operational costs and improve business agility through on-demand systems. It also offers a product portfolio that "connects the clouds" between Google, Salesforce and Amazon, company officials say, letting customers "adopt and extend these on-demand products within their organization."

 

 

 

 

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. The Act! Certified Consultants represent a large group of customers shared between the two groups, officials of both firms say.

This merger will become an asset to ACC's in connecting businesses with Add Ons and consultation opportunities: "The AddOn Store's product list and industry knowledge of business technology software (including ACT!, Goldmine, Microsoft Outlook and QuickBooks), along with CRM AddOn U.S.'s distribution network and sales & marketing services, makes the partnership a resource for all customers," partnership officials say.

Both companies will continue to operate their Web sites independently and CRM AddOn U.S. will offer its products on The AddOn Store's site as well

CRM AddOn U.S. is the authorized fulfillment partner for CRM AddOn Factory, a Germany-based company specializing in the creation and support of add on applications for ACT!.

. . . .

Tarrytown, New York-based Datacap, a vendor of document capture and forms processing software products, has announced that it has contributed $5,000 to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing on behalf of Cycle Faster 2008.

The Horace Mann School in Boston trains deaf and hard of hearing high school students for careers in imaging and ECM.

Datacap's Cycle Faster program, which kicked off its fourth year at the AIIM Expo on March 3, brings together the primary companies of the scanning and enterprise content management industry to raise money for worthy causes, including the Lance Armstrong Foundation. So far, more than $21,000 in donations has been raised.

The 2008 gift was presented to the Horace Mann School on July 14 at the annual golf benefit AIIM New England holds for the school in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Scott Blau, Datacap CEO, said their goal to raise $100,000 is "ambitious, but within our reach, and the money will be well spent helping cancer survivors and students at Horace Mann lead happier, more fulfilling lives."

. . . .

CDC Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a provider of CRM and other applications and services, has announced that Red Gold, a tomato products manufacturer since 1942, will implement the CDC Factory global manufacturing operations management (MOM) product for "increasing capacity and reducing costs throughout its entire plant network," company officials say.

That would be production plant network, not tomato plant network. Presumably.


With the rising costs for materials, packaging and fuel, Red Gold wanted to identify and implement new cost reductions. This led Red Gold to select CDC Factory, which is expected to help "increase line efficiencies, improve labor use, reduce changeover times, address variability and minor stops" and other functions.

CDC Factory will help with workforce decisions to drive improvement from the shop floor, Red Gold officials say, adding that the product provides "real-time visibility into detailed operating metrics including production rates, yields, usage and per-unit cost."

Red Gold had previously attempted to implement a Performance Management system on an initial pilot line, but it didn't meet their expectations.

"Food commodity prices have risen to record levels and are wreaking havoc on profit margins for virtually every food manufacturer," said Mark Sutcliffe, general manager of CDC Factory.

Red Gold, America's largest privately held tomato manufacturer, operates three processing facilities in Elwood, Orestes, and Geneva, Indiana.

. . . .

SmartFocus, the marketing software company, has begun implementing its Intelligent Marketing Software and services for Chelsea Football Club.

Chelsea FC wants SmartFocus to build "a single customer view, consolidate all data sources to gain a consistent view of its supporters." It will also integrate the SmartFocus software needed to conduct marketing campaigns and track and analyse responses.|

Chelsea FC, one of the most high profile and successful soccer teams in the world, hopes to be able to access data to "create customer insight and gain a deeper understanding of supporter, market and product relationships to plan and deploy high performance marketing campaigns," club officials said.

The product will be built by SmartFocus, hosted on Chelsea FC infrastructure but managed by the SmartFocus Managed Services team

Natalie Waddell, head of CRM at Chelsea Football Club, said with the right tools "we will be able to understand our consumers better, communicate and tailor our campaigns more effectively.

Chris Underhill, CEO of SmartFocus, said today's most successful soccer clubs "are also major international brands, and what happens off the field is becoming increasingly important alongside the success on the field."

. . . .

Lead management firm Marketo, focused on "accelerating the Revenue Revolution it declared last week," according to company officials, has announced the addition of sales authority and industry luminary Barry Trailer to its Board of Advisors.

Co-founder of analyst firm CSO Insights and described by Marketo officials as "an expert on sales processes and methodologies," Trailer is expected to provide guidance as Marketo tries to develop products to "align sales and marketing to drive bottom-line impact," company officials say.

After last week's unveiling of Marketo Lead Insight for Sales, a product designed to coordinate the actions of sales and marketing throughout the lead lifecycle, the addition of sales strategist Trailer to Marketo's Board of Advisors is intended to improve the company's commitment to marketing and sales.

Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez said Trailer "knows better than almost anyone just how critical it is to coordinate sales and marketing around a unified revenue process."


As an analyst "focused on how B2B companies can improve their selling processes," Trailer said, "I've seen companies suffer from misalignment between sales and marketing. Without close collaboration, near-term revenue falls short and long-term results are sub-optimized."

Trailer has over 25 years of experience in sales, and prior to co-founding CSO Insights, he held positions at FrontRange Solutions, including president of the GoldMine Division, vice president of strategic initiatives, and vice president of North American Sales for GoldMine Software Corporation.

Previously, Trailer was a principal in the consulting firm Trailer Vavricka, Inc, which developed software to provide operational performance metrics to sales reps and their managers. He's also a published author.

Marketo also announced it has signed its fiftieth customer since launching in March. 

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... ABC's "The Look Of Love (Part Four)" from The Lexicon Of Love. Um... second song... ah, there we go, The Raveonettes' "Veronica Fever" from Whip It On, that's more like it:

 

CRM vendor Satuit Technologies, which sells to the professional investment market, has announced that Capital Dynamics has selected SatuitCRM software to "facilitate the progress and organization of its sales, marketing and client services teams." 

 

"Satuit fulfilled all the requirements that we were looking for in a CRM product," said Chris Bourdeu, project manager for Capital Dynamics, adding that concerns about Satuit being a relatively young firm were offset by "SatuitCRM's exclusive focus on asset management, and growth within our industry."

 

Capital Dynamics officials say the product will be used to increase the ability of its sales people and management to allocate resources and compensation, facilitate management reporting by eliminating the need for customization of the contact management databases, and allow access to historical information and activities.

 

"Our biggest challenge with finding a CRM product was the fact there are so many providers on the market, from very basic Web-based interfaces to full scale consulting services re-defining entire workflows," Bourdeu said.

 

Satuit officials say updates to their software "regularly incorporate the suggestions and requirements of asset managers."

 

. . . .

 

Oh here we go, even better: Third song is Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros' "Coma Girl." We have a few songs from Streetcore on the ol' iPod, let's hear those. Okay, it's not The Clash, but what is?

 

. . . .

 

Genius Inside, creators of the Portfolio and Project Management (PPM) suite Project4Domino, have announced the creation and launch of Genius Project, an on-demand, collaborative PPM product.

 

"Because of Genius Inside's expertise in PPM, clients and project portfolios, we have been able to create Genius Project," said Chrisopher Borlat, CEO of Genius Inside, adding that because Genius Project is SaaS, it requires "little, if any, upfront costs."

 

The Genius Project on-demand product is pitched to organizations with external suppliers or partners in their production process, since it allows access to aspects of project status and data to all parties involved.

 

One feature company officials point out is its "Matrix Planning," which allows project and department managers to distribute work assignments "with respect to the hierarchical organization."

 

In other words, organizations operating "in a matrixed fashion," with virtual project teams across functional departments, can use Genius Project to let project managers "borrow" resources from another functional group, account for their availability for the project, and allocate tasks to employees.

 

Genius Project can integrate bi-directionally with Microsoft Project as well, allowing for both the import and export of data in combination with MS Project.

 

It also has a visual Gantt Chart, providing a tool for planning, scheduling and modifying projects, assigning and linking tasks, determining timelines and estimating costs. The "Standard PM Methods Templates" let organizations implement processes based on standard project management methodologies like Prince2, PMI and Six Sigma across industries, "insuring uniform project structure," company officials say.

 

. . . .

 

Infopia, an SaaS eCommerce platform vendor, has announced what company officials characterize as "the expansion of its Web Services," a component of the new Infopia Transact eCommerce platform.

 

The expansion provides capabilities that allow Infopia customers to "customize and streamline their business processes," company officials say, while using the Infopia Transact eCommerce platform.

 

"Web Services" is an Internet-enabled technology connecting software systems using XML. Infopia customers can use it to automate data flow between their existing in-house business systems and the Infopia Transact platform.

 

With the expansion of Infopia's Web Services, Infopia customers can now access order management functionality letting their customers handle transactions such as phone orders or non-inventory item sales in the Transact platform, thereby centralizing more of their business.

 

Web Services beta tester Lars Noreng from NextWorth duly reported that, using the product, "we no longer need to manually update multiple spreadsheets across our business." He estimates this reduces costs for order and inventory management "by 40 percent."

 

. . . .

 

Normally First Coffee doesn't pay much attention to this or that partner firm being named to a President's Circle or Top Dog Kennel or whatever tech vendors call it, but this rates a mention: Tribridge, a national Microsoft consulting firm with offices across the United States, has been named the 2008 Worldwide Microsoft Dynamics Outstanding Partner of the Year.

 

I mean, we're not talking one of twenty Top Partners, we're talking THE Microsoft Partner. That elicits a tip of the coffee pot. Good job, guys. The award was announced at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, held this year in Houston.

 

From more than 10,000 Microsoft Dynamics partners around the world, Tribridge was selected, the Microsofties say, based on "growth and delivering products built on Microsoft technologies."

 

The Worldwide Microsoft Partner of the Year award recognizes a partner for ERP (Dynamics AX, NAV, GP and SL) and CRM products and services. Tony DiBenedetto, Tribridge chairman and CEO, said Tribridge has a "100 percent go live" track record.

 

Rather than focusing on a single product, DiBenedetto says, Tribridge helps customers select products for their particular issues. The award follows Tribridge's designation last year as the 2007 Microsoft Dynamics Partner of the Year for the United States.

 

. . . .

 

As community marketing continues to evolve, research firm Gartner has concluded, organizations can target Generation Virtual by "providing socialization tools to customers and prospects depending on their purpose and the level of customer engagement."

Unlike previous generations, Generation V is not defined by age -- certainly not, seen Paul Greenberg's birth certificate recently? -- or gender, social demographic or geography, but on "demonstrated achievement, accomplishments and an increasing preference for the use of digital media channels" to find and share knowledge.

 

In techspeak, Gartner officials say, Generation V is "the recognition that general behavior, attitudes and interests are starting to blend together in an online environment."

Gartner has identified four levels of engagement within Generation V, taking into account the extent to which customers will engage with other customers and the level of engagement needed from businesses to enable the community -- creators, contributors, opportunists, and lurkers.

"Companies should plan to segment all four levels in the community -- each has significant business value," said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Differentiation exists between sectors and industries. Marketers with strong brands attract more creators. Certain industries, such as insurance, draw more lurkers."

Up to 3 percent of individuals will be creators, providing original content and can be advocates that promote your product and services. Between 3 percent and 10 percent of individuals will be contributors, described by Gartner as "essentially followers, who add to the conversation, but don't initiate it." They recommend products and services as customers move through a buying process, looking for purchasing advice.

 

Between 10 percent and 20 percent of individuals will be opportunists, and they can "further contributions regarding purchasing decisions," Gartner thinks. They can add value to a conversation that's taking place.

 

And then about 80 percent of individuals will be lurkers, "and all users start as such," Gartner says, so it pays to be nice to them. Such customers are essentially spectators, who reap the rewards of online community input, but only absorb what is being communicated. There's a chance they can implicitly contribute and validate indirectly reporting the value from the rest of the community.

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

 

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.

 

. . . .

 

CMP Information, a publisher owned by United Business Media, has signed a £1.5 million, five-year deal with Savvis to outsource IT resources and "support international business growth."

 

CMPi publishes more than 40 magazines including Music Week and Property Week and provides targeted media such as exhibitions, conferences and Web sites. The company has customers in over 120 countries across 20 vertical markets.

 

The deal with Savvis, a vendor of IT infrastructure services for business and government applications, is intended to improve the "reliability, scalability and redundancy of CMPi's infrastructure and enable CMPi to channel its IT resources into more strategic IT projects to support business growth," CMP officials say.

 

Projects include expanding its virtual conference and exhibition offering, CMP officials say, as well as "developing a digital strategy."

 

Savvis will host CMPi's "critical" IT infrastructure, including its e-mail, financial services, business intelligence and CRM systems and will provide managed hosting for several of CMPi's websites on Savvis' managed utility blade platform.

 

Savvis will also manage network connections between a number of CMPi's global offices.

 

"For CMPi, IT is critical in supporting business growth, particularly as more of our business activity is focused online," said Paul Way, Digital Development Director at CMPi. "Effectively, the deal will enable our IT department to be more dedicated to mission critical projects."

 

. . . .

 

Professional Provident Society Investments has implemented Softline Enterprise's CRM product SalesLogix, using iSquared to implement the product.

Ashley Ellington, Managing Director, Softline Enterprise, says SalesLogix's customization and configuration capability allow it to be "easily tailored to meet the needs of a business more rapidly than any other CRM product."

 

James Beaumont, CEO, iSquared, characterized PPSI as "clear and focused in its business objectives, from the start."

PPSI caters for the investment requirements of 185,000 members of the Professional Provident Society of South Africa by providing investment, savings and retirement products.

CEO of PPSI Nick Battersby says that what prompted the implementation of SalesLogix was his previous experience with this product. "I was tasked with implementing SalesLogix at the organization I worked at previously," he explained.

As PPSI's products are largely intermediated, they needed to implement CRM that could cater for the supply chain, starting with the investor and ending with the PPSI servicing point, Battersby said.

 

. . . .

 

Global management consultancy Arthur D. Little has announced that its Middle East office is integrating with the staff of Affinitiv, a telecommunications and CRM consultancy currently in the region.

 

Affinitiv's founder and CEO, Zoran Vasiljev, his leadership team and employees will join Arthur D. Little's Middle East practice, with Vasiljev serving as a company Director.

 

Affinitiv has operated since 2004, with concentration in telecommunications and technology consultancy in emerging markets. ADL officials anticipate that all Affinitiv staff will have joined Arthur D. Little Middle East by September 1.

 

Michael Tram, Global CEO of Arthur D. Little, said Affinitiv's consultants "share with ADL the capabilities, expertise and drive" for the Middle East marketplace.

 

Thomas Kuruvilla, Managing Director of Arthur D. Little Middle East, said "access to a global network, combined with local expertise, is what has made ADL Middle East the company's fastest-growing business unit."

 

Speaking in Dubai, Vasiljev said joining forces with ADL Middle East will provide "a whole host of new opportunities for our clients and consultants."

 

Arthur D. Little, founded in 1886, works with many Fortune 100 companies.

 

. . . .

 

Autonomy Corporation's eTalk Qfiniti interaction recording is "compliant with key contact center products from Avaya," Autonomy officials have announced.

 

Qfiniti is a platform for customer interaction recording for compliance, risk management, or quality monitoring. The application is now compliance-tested by Avaya for compatibility with Avaya Communication Manager 5.0 with Avaya Application Enablement Services 4.1.

 

The Avaya certification program "delivers a level of confidence to our clients in the compatibility of our products," said Scot Shute, Autonomy etalk's CEO, referring to the certification of Qfiniti with Device and Media Call Control Streaming in AES 4.1.

 

Autonomy eTalk is a member of the Avaya DevConnect program, which seeks to develop, market and sell third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company's investment in its network.

 

As a Platinum member of the program, Autonomy eTalk is eligible to submit products for compatibility testing by the Avaya Solution Interoperability and Test Lab.

 

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 Andraé 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.

 

. . . .

 

Interprise Software Systems International, a vendor of software products for businesses, has been acquired by the Services and Technology Division of Taylor Corporation, a privately-held company selling business and personal communications products, technologies and services.

 

As part of the acquisition, Interprise was renamed Interprise Software Solutions, Inc. Additionally, Interprise Solutions, LLP entered into a long-term agreement to be the exclusive distributor of Interprise Solutions in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland regions.

 

Gary Harrison, president of Interprise Software, said as part of Taylor, Interprise "has access to significantly more resources and expertise than before."

 

The company's flagship product, Interprise Suite, is a customizable Smart Client-based application providing a view of a firm's customers through enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, accounting, e-commerce and point-of-sale tools.

 

Interprise Software Solutions is headquartered in North Mankato, Minnesota, with offices in Los Angeles, and development centers in Cebu, Philippines and Makati City, Philippines.

 

. . . .

 

After running Electronic Direct Mailer service for more than a year, eDLink has moved to develop an e-mail marketing software platform with CMS capability.

     

"Today customers are more IT savvy than in the past. With the newly introduced CMS enabled EDM application, customers may now create their own list of subscribers, design newsletters and send out the html newsletters any time they like", said Byon Ong, IT Manager of eDLink.

As unsolicited bulk e-mail sending is not legal in Singapore, many local companies are not able to reach potential customers as most do not have a large list of subscribers. eDLink customers may tap on a large database of voluntary subscribers provided by eDLink.

"Customers are often unaware of how EDM actually works, and most think that they can send out HTML newsletters from their Outlook Express or Microsoft Outlook. Yet a professional EDM campaign is much more elaborate," Ong said, adding that often "a back-end CMS platform has to be included, with subscriber management function and report generation capability."

In Singapore, Ong said, "not many SMEs are using EDM as a marketing tool. Some companies using EDM haven't heard how EDM actually can contribute in CRM."

 

. . . .

 

AT&T has joined the Microsoft Partner Solutions Center as a vehicle to demonstrate its mobility expertise and technologies to Microsoft and other enterprise customers.

 

AT&T officials say that by joining the MPSC, AT&T will be "able to develop and demonstrate its products in the MPSC briefing centers," and will have "the ability to provide on-site customer briefings, design sessions, proof of concept engagements and training," customized for specific customer needs.

 

Involvement with the MPSC enables Microsoft's multiple lines of businesses and customers to test out applications wirelessly enabled over the entire suite of Windows Mobile 6.0 and Windows Mobile 6.1 devices, such as Mobile Device Manager, TeleNav Track, WiFi and simultaneous voice and data using Windows Mobile 6 with tethering.

 

The venerable telephony firm maintains a full-service retail store in the MPSC that allows Microsoft campus employees access to Windows Mobile-based phones, accessories and services.

 

The MPSC is a 21,000-square-foot facility located in building 25 on the Redmond campus of Microsoft and features Hyper-V technology laboratories, partner showcase labs, an executive technology briefing room and partner offices for building, testing and designing network products.

 

. . . .

 

Varicent Software, a vendor of sales performance apps, has been selected as the SPM product for Nexient Learning, a Canadian corporate training and consulting company.

 

Nexient is implementing SPM "as part of a larger customer sector strategy aimed at improving sales and service effectiveness," company officials say. The company has grown through acquisition, and has disparate sales systems and compensation strategies.

 

The company's management and sales reps are "challenged" by the lack of visibility and transparency into sales activity across the entire organization, company officials admit.

 

Nexient has implemented a standardized approach to the sales roles, customer coverage, and sales reporting across its business, and needs technology to support process improvements. Varicent SPM is expected to help "unburden sales management and sales representatives from manually tracking and calculating activities," company officials say, adding that "ultimately, consolidated and segmented performance reports will improve sales effectiveness."

 

The Varicent SPM product pulls source data on sales from Salesforce.com and Training Partner, calculates the incentive earnings, and displays it in personalized dashboards.

 

"Our evaluation of sales performance management consisted of two parts," said Donna de Winter, CEO, Nexient Learning. "First, we examined building our own incentive compensation management product. Second, we looked at currently available software."

 

Varicent SPM is an open-architected product that can link into numerous source systems such as CRM, general ledger, payroll, ERP and more. Fully deployed, it will integrate with different source systems and BI products, including Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007.

 

. . . .

 

CDC Corporation, a global CRM and enterprise software and new media company, has announced preliminary revenues for Q2 2008. Based upon preliminary financial information, CDC anticipates total revenue for Q2 2008 to be between approximately $107.3 -108.5 million, which would represent an increase of 9-10 percent from $98.3 million in Q1 2008 and would be a record second quarter for the company.

 

This anticipated revenue range for Q2 2008 exceeds the Wall Street consensus estimate of $102.9 million. This includes license revenues of approximately $14.2 - $14.7 million, up from $12.3 million in Q1 2008, and higher than the consensus estimate of approximately $13.0 million.

 

CDC Corporation also anticipates an improvement in its adjusted net income and in its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, including stock based compensation, for Q2 2008 compared to Q1 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

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. When parts order data is entered, the interface displays the total parts requested, allowing users to choose which part orders to process.

 

Service system claims such as recall campaign, pre-delivery inspection, warranty, Hyundai protection plan, replacement part and transportation can be processed right from AMPS' Service System Main Menu.

 

The product is available as both a cost-effective in-house and ASP product.

...

 

Staying with the automotive theme, Cross Country Automotive Services, a vendor of vehicle and driver programs, has been selected by Ford Motor Company to provide emergency roadside assistance to their customers, beginning with model year 2007 Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles.

 

Cross Country will also be servicing Ford's Extended Service Plan, an extended warranty program for select Ford customers who purchased vehicles after October 1, 2006.

 

The vendor will provide its emergency roadside assistance to all Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands. Ford has also selected Cross Country to provide roadside assistance service to Volvo and Mazda vehicles.

 

Did you know Ford owns Volvo? First Coffee sure didn't. A little quick fact checking turns out that it happened in... 1999? Talk about being out of it. Ford-Jaguar, yeah, I'd heard of that, but Volvo? That one flew under our radar.

 

Cross Country's services will be available to customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, Ford officials say. Product benefits include battery jump-start services, flat tire change, emergency fuel delivery, lockout service, and emergency towing services to the closest dealership.

 

Amy Villeneuve, Senior Vice President Sales, Marketing, and Product Innovation at Cross Country, said her firm services "some of the most customer service-focused brands in the automotive market."

 

Cross Country recently implemented a proprietary universal contact center application throughout its four contact centers. The CRM platform has "enhanced customer service efficiencies, and increased customer satisfaction," company officials say, adding that it features technologies such as GIS, POI, and mobile technologies.

...

 

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, described by its officials as a breast cancer "movement," and CRM vendor Convio have announced that Komen for the Cure is deploying Convio's integrated suite of on-demand software and services.

 

The move will help Komen use and integrate offline and online campaigns and programs to build relationships and interactions with constituents, movement officials say. The contract includes Komen's global headquarters and all 125 of the organization's affiliates.

 

"By standardizing on Convio and the Software-as-a-Service model, we can integrate our online and offline marketing campaigns and programs, fundraising and advocacy efforts, as well as our multiple Web sites and constituent data," said Justin Ricketts, vice president of information technology for Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

 

Komen is standardizing on Convio's integrated suite of online software products for fundraising, advocacy, event fundraising, e-commerce, Web content management and e-mail communication. In addition, Komen will replace all existing donor databases with Convio's new open, Web-based constituent relationship management (CRM) system.

 

The product, code-named Aikido, is built on Salesforce.com's Force.com platform for tracking all constituent interactions across all channels, online and offline.

...

 

Workamajig, a software program for ad agencies and others in the creative and design industries, has released version 10.0.0.5 of its project management software, supporting custom Flash widgets, along with updates for Apple's latest Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4.

 

The upgrade follows the May update of the integrated Ad Agency system, which converted from Creative Manager Pro to Workamajig, and included an upgrade to its Ad Agency management software. While most of the improvements are in Flash, "all of the improvements are a direct result from research and direct client feedback from actual users of the Creative Management Software," company officials say.

 

"Today's upgrade takes advantage of the May foundation upgrade, which was the most important step in the development of our ad agency software," says Ron Ause, Workamajig's director of marketing.

 

Adding custom flash widgets to Workamajig will let users build their own add-ons to personalize and extend the capabilities of the system. Users can create any flash program that is compiled to .swf that can run in a flash player, and add it to the Workamajig desktop. Installed and Local Hosted users can connect to the database and produce their own metric analysis.

...

 

Sales-i, a sales acceleration service for front line sales people, has announced that it has "boosted its sales intelligence service" by adding some CRM functionality to "reduce the burden on SMEs to acquire a full customer relationship management system."

Sales-i's customers include small and medium business, industrial and office supply companies. While some have already invested in CRM systems, others prefer to "bolster their sales intelligence system with some key CRM functions," the company says.

The vendor already integrates into CRM systems including Salesforce, NetSuite, Microsoft, ACT,and Goldmine. The decision to add CRM functionality to its own sales intelligence service, company officials say, was "to supply those SMEs who don't yet need a full CRM product, a lighter alternative."

 

Sales-i CRM will now enable field-based sales people to record facts about customers and contacts, log call outcomes or next actions during or after sales meeting and manage their sales pipelines.

"We are delighted to be able to bridge that gap for some of our customers with our embedded CRM-light or by integrating into their chosen CRM system if preferred," company officials said.

 

 

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. The product allows for market research and capturing demographic data.

 

It lets an administrator create surveys without programming, and has a survey screen built at runtime based on data provided by administrator. Users can be "up and running with a new survey in less than an hour," says Brianna Tinjum, Channel Partner Manager for Customer FX.

...

 

Back in 2005, an ATOS survey found that 60 percent of businesses were planning to use some form of open source software in their business. Since that survey, open source software products have been widely adopted. Open source Web site development tools such as Joomla are common, and BT recently announced that it will be offering all of its clients the open source CRM system SugarCRM rather than Siebel.

Kineo Open Source will offer open source products for Web site development, customer relationship management, and learning, including SugarCRM, Moodle, and Joomla. Kineo partner Steve Rayson said they have appointed Mark Aberdour as Chief Executive of Kineo Open Source, citing Aberdour's "experience in open source software."

Aberdour said Kineo Open Source will offer "a range of services that allow organizations to adopt products such as SugarCRM at low cost and low risk," with professional support from Kineo, adding that "organizations can try all of our products at no cost for a trial period by going to our Web site."

In the coming months Kineo Open Source will issue "a wide range of free resources and guides for those considering open source products," company officials say.

...

 

When oh when is iTunes ever going to get the Screaming Blue Messiahs?

...

 

SmartSpeak Solutions, a vendor of interactive speech managed services, which operates the Network Speech Operation Center hosting speech applications for Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore organizations, has selected CRM products from RightNow Technologies, citing "pressure from SmartSpeak's customer base" on the help desk.

 

SmartSpeak General Manager Michael Bishop said the firm resisted the move, but "we were getting calls from customers and weren't able to follow the incidents from open to closed. We needed a CRM system that would allow us to track support requests and enquiries through to conclusion."
 
RightNow's rules-based management routes the call to an available agent operating in the appropriate time zone. Customer data and detailed contact history remain accessible to the agent no matter where they are located.  
 
"Team leaders have a variety of reports at their fingertips to help them operate more effectively.  They can tell if someone is putting in more requests this week compared to last week and they can then investigate why the customer may be having problems.  They can take proactive measures to keep them happy," Bishop notes.
 
In addition to the core incident management software, SmartSpeak implemented RightNow's Web self-service technology to create a knowledge foundation of frequently asked questions and their answers.  

 
The multi-channel nature of the incident management software has allowed SmartSpeak to manage requests no matter how they are received -- e-mail, Internet, phone, or chat.

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Toronto-based Homeserve Technologies has reported net income of $2.9 million ($0.27 per common share) on revenues of $5.8 million for the first quarter ended May 31, 2008, as compared to net income of $2.7 million ($0.24 per common share) on revenues of $5.6 million for the same period of the last fiscal year.

 

Homeserve is a technology and marketing services company in the home and move sector. In addition to Aeromove, company officials say, "we will look at using the move services platform by developing partnerships with other loyalty programs which seek to reach the Canadian moving population with a one-stop move services program."

 

While markets for software remain "uncertain," company officials say, "we are optimistic that the sustainable stable cash flows from the ICON acquisition combined with licensing opportunities from the company's CRM software and move services program model, will position the company well for the future growth."

 

Last month, Homeserve's Secretary, Plinio Cardoni, resigned to pursue other opportunities with a related party. Effective immediately, Joseph Freedman, the Chair of Homeserve, assumed additional responsibilities as Secretary for Homeserve.

 

Homeserve is a Canada-based software development and services company selling home-related services for the real estate, relocation, and banking industries. It sells real estate related products and services throughout the customer's purchasing and selling cycle, coordinated by a proprietary CRM software system and contact center.

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The Travel Zone, which sells agency technology products, has announced the integration of a Web-based office suite into its technology platform.

The new offerings, created via a partnership with application vendor www.Zoho.com, include online creation and editing of Microsoft Word and Excel documents, to be followed shortly by PowerPoint, company officials say.

 

"Our goal in the coming months is to enhance the value and functionality our technology platform offers travel agencies," said William Almonte, The Travel Zone president and CEO, adding that Zoho lets his company sell "a mix of productivity tools."

 

The Travel Zone designed its package to help agencies and staff create, edit, and manage their business documents online. Upcoming enhancements will provide more collaboration and integration with the CRM.

 

The package is included free of charge to Agent RC subscribers, which company officials say represents a "potential savings" of several hundred dollars.

 

Almonte says Travel Zone and Zoho are working together to integrate additional Zoho apps in the coming months, including Zoho Invoice, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Show, Zoho Chat and Zoho Creator.

 

This Web-based, hosted product offers travel agencies a turnkey system to manage host/fulfillment operations which the agency can then resell. Company officials say the platform is "specifically designed to work with agencies that already have their own ARC, IATA or CLIA number."