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."