By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison's St. Dominic's Preview, an Officially Certified First Coffee Top Ten album:
Vigilus, an IBM Lotus Notes/Domino product vendor doing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) work, has announced that ACT! for Notes now integrates with Microsoft Office, powered by Swing Integrator from Swing Software.
ACT! for Notes users can now generate reports and documents, based on predefined templates, on demand.
ACT! for Notes is a Lotus Notes-based CRM systems with "over 500,000 licenses sold since 1995," according to the Vigilians. Vigilus has created an add-on package called Advanced Features for ACT! for Notes to extend the repertoire of ACT! for Notes.
When considering Microsoft Office integration, Vigilus embedded Swing Integrator's features into ACT! for Notes' intuitive interface. Consequently, ACT! for Notes Users can create letters, invoices, mail merge letters and labels, and Excel pivot table reports from predefined templates.
The founders of Vigilus have been involved with Lotus Notes and Domino since 1992.
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Industry observer Brian Tinham, writing for industry journal Manufacturing Computer Solutions, has reported that "tooling resins and materials distributor Denaco has "gone live with Sage 200 and Sage CRM software from ERP implementer CPiO."
The contract, valued at £45,000, Tinham says, included the supporting network infrastructure, and Denaco managing director Darrell Cross told Tinham the firm now has secure access for all staff, wherever they are based.
"We were looking for a fully integrated system from a fully integrated supplier," he's reported as saying. "When choosing the new system, we looked at four different suppliers, CPiO impressed us from the outset."
Sage "were an ideal partner for us, bringing a range of skills and expertise," Tinham reports Cross as saying: "They provided a system that was on time and on budget."
Cross said that this investment in IT was a key part of German parent company Ebalta's strategy, and added that the new systems are expected to have "a direct impact on business performance," in Tinham's words.
"As Denaco will be relocating towards the end of the year, this new system will provide massive benefits, because it will provide mobile access for all of our staff and, through the transition, it will be easy for us to work remotely using PDAs, laptops and other mobile devices. This is a must not only for the management team, but for all of our sales and service engineers," he told Tinham.
The contract, valued at £45,000, Tinham says, included the supporting network infrastructure, and Denaco managing director Darrell Cross told Tinham the firm now has secure access for all staff, wherever they are based.
"We were looking for a fully integrated system from a fully integrated supplier," he's reported as saying. "When choosing the new system, we looked at four different suppliers, CPiO impressed us from the outset."
Sage "were an ideal partner for us, bringing a range of skills and expertise," Tinham reports Cross as saying: "They provided a system that was on time and on budget."
Cross said that this investment in IT was a key part of German parent company Ebalta's strategy, and added that the new systems are expected to have "a direct impact on business performance," in Tinham's words.
"As Denaco will be relocating towards the end of the year, this new system will provide massive benefits, because it will provide mobile access for all of our staff and, through the transition, it will be easy for us to work remotely using PDAs, laptops and other mobile devices. This is a must not only for the management team, but for all of our sales and service engineers," he told Tinham.
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West Monroe Partners, a business and technology consultancy, has announced that it has
expanded its partnership with LexisNexis InterAction to include joint marketing activities to promote West Monroe Partners' CRM ClearSight dashboard.
Under the expanded partnership, LexisNexis will market the CRM ClearSight dashboard in conjunction with its LexisNexis InterAction customer relationship management (CRM) application.
The CRM ClearSight dashboard displays real-time information in the form of easy-to-read graphics. It works with LexisNexis InterAction, drawing information that offers a look at the organization's marketing, business development and customer service metrics.
West Monroe Partners introduced an upgraded version of the product in September 2007. It's been an installation partner for the InterAction product since 2004
"LexisNexis InterAction customers can use the CRM ClearSight dashboard right out of the box," said Corey Coscioni, West Monroe Partners' director of product management.
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Sage Software, a vendor of ERP, CRM, and HRM products to medium and large organizations, has announced the availability of the latest version of its enterprise software suite, Sage ERP X3, formerly known as Adonix X3.
The product is being released by the Sage Group in 35 countries to address companies in the enterprise manufacturing sector, including companies in the Middle East.
Marc Van der Ven, managing director, Sage Software ME, said the new release's international customer base "is the best guarantee for our customers to benefit from more and more R&D investment over the coming years. We are pleased that we can now offer such extensive automation products to our manufacturing clients in the Middle East."
The manufacturing sector is one of several major economic sectors beside construction, trading and services on which the Middle East region is counting for its drive of economic diversification.
Sage ERP X3 v5 is engineered to integrate an enterprise's information and business processes within one single software system and database.
The system manages finance, sales, inventory, CRM, purchasing and manufacturing operations globally and streamlines an enterprise's processes. The information propagates in real time to all parts of a business: an issued order has an impact on stock levels, production, accounting, and so on.
The Sage ERP X3 is designed to handle planning, scheduling and production control activities for either process or discrete manufacturing, and to adapt to different manufacturing modes, including make-to-order, configure-to-order, assemble-to-order, make-to-stock and mixed-mode environments. The manufacturing module is fully integrated with the Sales, CRM, Purchasing, Inventory and Finance components.
Sage ERP X3 v5 is engineered to integrate an enterprise's information and business processes within one single software system and database.
The system manages finance, sales, inventory, CRM, purchasing and manufacturing operations globally and streamlines an enterprise's processes. The information propagates in real time to all parts of a business: an issued order has an impact on stock levels, production, accounting, and so on.
The Sage ERP X3 is designed to handle planning, scheduling and production control activities for either process or discrete manufacturing, and to adapt to different manufacturing modes, including make-to-order, configure-to-order, assemble-to-order, make-to-stock and mixed-mode environments. The manufacturing module is fully integrated with the Sales, CRM, Purchasing, Inventory and Finance components.
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German mobile phone operator Debitel has, according to its officials, "decided to beef up its summer offerings by pre-installing the Opera Mini Web browser on seven new handsets."
Just because you're at the beach "doesn't mean you can't stay connected," the Debitellians say, adding that hey, "no one knows this better than Debitel's 8.3 million German subscribers."
Debitel's new Internet service features the Debitel Dashboard, a way for users to access Web content directly from the homescreen. With the click of a Dashboard button, users can access e-mail, phone features, or get online to check the latest weather forecast.
Debitel phones that now feature Opera Mini include Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung models.
Opera Mini has also been selected by German telecoms O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone to deliver the Internet to their customers. And according to Opera's State of the Web report [http://www.opera.com/mobile_report/], Germans "are spending most of their mobile Web minutes shopping." E-commerce, a study found, accounts for more than seven percent of German Opera Mini traffic.
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Centive, a vendor of sales compensation and sales performance products, has announced that WageWorks, a vendor of tax-advantaged benefits programs, has selected Centive Compel to automate sales compensation.
WageWorks will now use Compel's integrated on-demand Sales Performance Management platform to optimize plan effectiveness and manage sales compensation.
WageWorks helps employers support consumer-directed pre-tax benefit programs, including health care (FSA, HSA, HRA), wellness programs, child and elder care, commuting services, education benefits, and employee-sponsored programs, such as gym reimbursement. Wage Works also offers retiree health care and COBRA Services.
"Sales compensation is our most effective tool for driving the sales performance we need to fuel our growth," said Morgan Norman, vice president of Sales, WageWorks. In addition, security is very important to us and Centive proved to be only vendor to have completed a SAS 70 Type II audit of their security and control protocols."
