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August 2008

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CRM, Other Microsoft Licensing Updates, Bosque for Open, CDC's New ERP, Eskadenia CRM in Sudan

August 28, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison's live album It's Too Late To Stop Now being piped out to all office buildings, the equestrian annex, branch offices in Dublin, Auckland and Cape Town and to all First Coffee corporate aircraft and yachts:   According to Microsoft officials, beginning September 1 customers will be able to move any of 41 Microsoft server applications between servers within a server farm as often as necessary without paying additional licensing fees, and can get expanded specialized technical support as well.   "Businesses are taking steps to make their IT operations more dynamic and are delving into virtualization as a cornerstone strategy," said Zane Adam, senior director of integrated virtualization in the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft.   Microsoft also will begin a worldwide series of "Get Virtual Now" events this month that will showcase Microsoft virtualization products and partner products, reaching more than 250,000 IT workers, the company said.   Microsoft said it is updating its software licensing terms for 41 server applications, including Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise edition, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Standard and Enterprise editions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Enterprise and Professional editions, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft System Center products.   With the new terms, the company is waiving its previous 90-day reassignment rule, allowing customers to reassign licenses from one server to another within a server farm as frequently as needed. For many customers, the change will reduce the number of licenses they need to support their IT systems and simplify the tracking of application instances or processors because customers now can count licenses by server farm instead of by server.   "IDC research is finding that the use of server virtualization is moving past the early adopter stage and is quickly becoming a mainstream product," said Al Gillen, research vice president for system software at IDC.   Microsoft has updated its technical support policy for 31 server applications so that customers can receive technical support when deploying those applications on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server or any other third-party validated virtualization platform.   This month, according to the company, Microsoft begins a worldwide series of events designed to educate people on Microsoft virtualization products, deployment tools and partner products. The series of more than 100 events started Aug. 3 in South Africa, continues Sept. 8 with a U.S. kickoff event and eventually will cover more than 50 other countries. ...   CDC Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and vendor of enterprise software and services, has announced the introduction of Ross Enterprise v6.3, which company officials describe as a new version release of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) product.   Ross ERP now offers CDC Software's Smart Client technology with a thin client graphical user interface.   The product, according to company officials, offers "improved access and integration to the Microsoft desktop," so users can extract data from Ross ERP with familiar Microsoft Office products.

CRM for Rand from Datacentrix, Infusionsoft Inc.'s #226, Chordiant and IBM Renew Vows, Oki Spinoff, Infra-Strategy

August 28, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, one of the very, very few jazz albums to be every bit as good as the hype:   Infusionsoft, a vendor of marketing automation software for small businesses, has been ranked 226th on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. The vendor debuted last year at 258th.   Infusionsoft was ranked the 10th fastest growing among software companies on the Inc 500, as well the only marketing automation software provider to make the list. For companies hailing from Arizona, Infusionsoft ranked third highest in growth.   "Making the list the first time was a thrill, but getting on the Inc 500 again and beating our debut ranking is even sweeter and cause for some celebration," said Clate Mask, president and CEO of Infusionsoft.   Two of the vendor's customers appearing on this year's Inc. 500 are ForeclosuresDaily.com based in Largo, Florida ranking 35th, and Options University based in Boca Raton, Florida, at no. 276.   The 2008 Inc. 500 list measures revenue growth from 2004 through 2007.

CRM from Oracle-Siebel, 5.1 from SugarCRM, Salesforce and CapitalRock, Genesis and Microsoft 4.0, Autobytel, Eloqua API

August 27, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Zero Playlist. You ever do this? Realize that even though you hit "Shuffle Songs" on the iPod there are some songs you keep hearing over and over and others you never hear? So you make The Zero Playlist -- songs you haven't heard on the iPod, and play that?

CRM's Satuit on Inc. 5000, Bango Mobile Web Stats, ReachForce and Eloqua, Acumen and Mimosa, GyPSii in China

August 26, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is dumb rock 'n' roll fun well done -- John Mellencamp's uh-huh. Mellencamp was so good when he didn't take himself seriously and just enjoyed bashing out good-time music. Lately he seems to think he's the reincarnation of Woody Guthrie -- he's not -- issuing tedious jeremiads:   Mobile Web data released by Bango today confirms, officials say, that mobile Web usage not only is gaining traction in the United States but soon will surpass the United Kingdom, "where consumers have accessed the Internet from phones for years."   According to data supplied by Bango officials, the top five countries accessing the mobile Web via Bango in July 2008 are the UK at 19.35 percent, the US at 18.88 percent, India at 10.82 percent, South Africa at 8.82 percent and -- here's the one you didn't expect -- Indonesia at 4.08 percent.    Bango identifies users by country and network of origin. The ranking is produced by measuring the number of user visits to mobile Web sites from each country.   "The USA share of the browsing market has grown as an increasing number of phones come with bigger screens and service contracts that include unlimited internet access," said Adam Kerr, VP of Bango North America at Bango, adding that. "We fully expect the US will overtake the UK in this ranking as early as this month."   Forrester Research told The Wall Street Journal last month that the number of inquiries it received from businesses and service providers wanting to talk about the mobile Web jumped 40 percent last year. ...   Satuit Technologies, a vendor of sales force automation (SFA) and client relationship management (CRM) products for the professional investment markets, has announced that for the second year in a row it has been named to the annual Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States.   In 2007, Satuit ranked 1,619th.

CRM's Sword Ciboodle, Apisphere's Fieldpoint, AkoTel's IVAN, Telework Study, Neil Young at Dreamforce '08

August 26, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Jim Wallace and Sons doing that great traditional Scots standard "Wild Mountain Thyme:"   Sword ciboodle, a vendor of customer-oriented business software and services, has announced it has established its North American headquarters in Chicago.   The office will initially be staffed by key U.S. sales and operations personnel, with further expansion via a major recruitment drive over the next 12 months as the company seeks, in its officials' words, to become "the fastest-growing CRM provider in North America."   Additional Sword ciboodle consultants will be based in Sword Group locations in North America, including New York and San Francisco.   Sword has appointed Howard Koenig to head up North American operations for the group, while Rick Rowley has been appointed as Sword ciboodle's U.S operations director. Rowley will be based out of Chicago, while Koenig will operate out of Sword's New York office.   Koenig will "drive Sword Group's North American strategy," company officials say, with responsibility for business development and operations across all the group's U.S. business units.

CRM's August '08 from RightNow, Intridea and VisualCV, Demandbase, Salesforce.com and McWhirter, MuseWorx

August 25, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bix Beiderbecke's "Ostrich Walk:"   Intridea has announced that VisualCV has integrated Intridea's MediaPlug media appliance server with its software for building, sharing and managing Internet resumes.   As a result, company officials say, VisualCV customers can create "media-rich resumes," called "VisualCVs," that include photos, audio, video and more. Because MediaPlug uses cloud computing via Amazon Web Services, VisualCV doesn't have hardware requirements to manage and store data-intensive media files.   "VisualCV is committed to changing the way recruiting and career management are conducted online, and Intridea is a strategic partner in that effort," said Scott Herman, vice president of product development at VisualCV. You can view an example of a visual CV, Herman's own, at www.VisualCV.com/scottherman.   Web services using Ruby on Rails has allowed integration between VisualCV's resume application and Intridea MediaPlug. When members want to upload multimedia files, MediaPlug takes the files from the VisualCV application, transcodes them, re-sizes them as needed, checks for viruses and then store them on the Amazon Simple Storage System.   "Though handled by different servers," company officials say, "the media files and resumes appear to members as a single online document."   Herman said his company "went from engaging Intridea in October 2007, to delivering alpha code in December, and then launching our public beta in February 2008." ...   RightNow Technologies has introduced August '08, the latest version of the company's on demand, customer relationship management (CRM) product.   Company officials say the product is for organization to "transform their static Web site support environments into branded, highly interactive online service experiences for customers."   With the RightNow customer portal, organizations can "brand and personalize the Web site service experience," using "interactive Web 2.0 information resources," company officials say.   The customer portal is part of RightNow Service and includes best practices for online customer self-service, and is designed to support consumers' "increased reliance on digital mediums to make informed buying decisions, with the ability to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies in the form of widgets, video, forums, and blogs."   The product also includes a studio development environment to create and manage the online service experience, including integration with Adobe Dreamweaver.   There's also something company officials are calling "The Collaboration Key: Co-Browse and Proactive Chat," offering "live, interactive assistance exactly when online consumers need it."   Evidently the products' co-browse feature lets consumers securely invite an agent, either on the phone or during an online chat session, to share their desktop and navigate or browse together, whether for resolving a problem, filling out a form, or guiding them through an online purchase.   Proactive chat is described by RightNow officials as "a new feature of RightNow chat that presents a chat invitation to a consumer based on specific, definable circumstances, such as being a premier or gold customer or spending a certain amount of time on a site."   "With more access to information, more sensitivity to price, and less sensitivity to advertising, customers are getting harder to win and keep. Organizations try to woo these empowered consumers with mediocre experiences - but it won't work.

CRM MSc at Cranfield, Belgian CRM and GlobalTech, Equisys and Zetadocs, DataArt and InsWorld, Integration's Ascent

August 23, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit (think The Smiths meet The Kinks in a studio with a policy against lead guitars, or The Beautiful South on a summer's day). Ungraciously dubbed "twee-rock" in some quarters, it's admittedly no Black Sabbath or Metallica, you'd sooner expect a harpsichord fugue than a guitar solo, but well-crafted pop music with corrosively bitter lyrics swimming in the sweet syrupy arrangements:   Equisys, a developer of software products for document production and delivery and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, has announced the launch of Zetadocs for NAV 1.2, the latest version of Zetadocs for Microsoft Dynamics NAV.   By adding electronic document delivery and storage to Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Zetadocs for NAV is designed to let users "limit their reliance on paper in their finance processes," as well as improve credit control, and comply with industry regulations on data storage and access, company officials say.   The production of financial documents is usually both labor and paper intensive. Delivering documents electronically with Zetadocs is pitched as reducing the amount of time spent producing the documents, cutting down on the amount of paper used, and eliminating postage costs.   Chris Oswald, CEO of Equisys, calls the release of Zetadocs for NAV 1.2 "the next step in our vision to provide the complete document management and delivery product for Microsoft Dynamics NAV."   Zetadocs for NAV is integrated with Microsoft SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services so companies can store and retrieve financial documents associated with a particular customer or supplier.   The latest version supports purchase invoice processing in addition to the sales order processing already available, Oswald says, adding that "this makes it simple to store copies of both inbound sales orders and purchase invoices electronically, whether they are received on paper, by fax or by e-mail." ...   DataArt, a software outsourcing company with development centers in Russia and the Ukraine, was selected by InsWorld.com to "improve data import and data mapping processes for its patented publishing software," DataArt officials say.   InsWorld.com sells e-mail publications that allow banking, accounting, and insurance organizations to send personalized newsletters to their clients. DataArt integrated InsWorld's existing subscription management system with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and created a framework that helped to facilitate the integration.   Enhancements in the data import processes made the system more "manageable and robust," DataArt officials say, while "improved data mapping usability enriched the overall end-user experience."   Eugene Goland, President of DataArt, said CRM customization "has become a strong offering in the roster of DataArt's services, and we'll continue to build on our experience in the sector."   Edward Roemke, CEO of InsWorld.com, said the CRM integration tool "has eliminated slower data exchanges, reduced data-entry errors and greatly improved our operational efficiency." ...   Cranfield University has announced a new full and part time MSc course in enterprise system implementation.

WMobile CRM, Salesforce.com Results, Upswing CRM, Kaleidico icoSales 5.0, Customer Effective: Inc.'s #226

August 21, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the literate, enjoyable pop songwriting of Between The Wars by Al Stewart:   W-Systems Corp has announced the release of version 1.8 of their wMobile Mobile CRM product. The new version adds graphical monthly, weekly and daily calendars to the application, which display "equally well," company officials say, on "any phone from BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone to Palm."   With the latest graphical team calendars, wMobile users can now "interactively access any team members calendar via their mobile phone," company officials say, adding that with dynamic time zone support, "any user can specify the time zone they are operating in and have schedule activities translated on the fly to display in the context of their current location."   "WMobile 1.8 illustrates a leap forward in the usability of mobile Web applications" by offering "a parity in user experience across all major phone operating systems," says W-Systems President Christian Wettre.   It's the mobile telephone client for the GoldMine CRM system, and company officials say "truly accessible mobile CRM" is not only feasible for large organizations with large budgets, but "equally accessible for small organizations with just a few users."   "Our installation procedures and $295 per user license cost means that wMobile is one of few mobile CRM products on the market that supports as little as two users and has been proven to scale up for larger organizations with hundreds of users," says Wettre. ...   Salesforce.com announced Wednesday after the closing bell that its second quarter profit more than doubled from last year, boosted by 49 percent increase in revenues and growth in net paying customers.   The company also provided outlook for the third quarter, and raised its revenue guidance for the full year.

Net income for the second quarter was $9.99 million or $0.08 per share, up from $3.74 million or $0.03 per share in the prior year quarter. On average, thirty analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial expected the company to earn $0.08 per share for the second quarter.

The San Francisco-based company's total revenues increased 49 percent to $263.08 million from $176.58 million in the same quarter of last year. Thirty analysts had consensus revenue estimate of $260.56 million for the second quarter.

Subscription and support revenues rose 50 percent to $239.7 million, while Professional services and other revenues grew 41 percent to $23.4 million in the year-ago quarter.

Earlier Salesforce.com said that it has acquired InStranet, which provides knowledge management technology for business to consumer call centers.







Knoa and SAP CRM, MicroStrategy and Sand, Selectica's CPM, Experian and the Naval Institute, StrongMail and SMBs

August 20, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is a guilty pleasure: Van Halen II. Quite guilty and quite pleasurable:   Knoa, a vendor of performance management software, has announced that Shred-it, an on-site document destruction company, has selected Knoa Experience and Performance Manager to improve end-user performance related to its use of the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application.   Shred-it is implementing SAP CRM to manage all customer-facing interactions, including contract administration, service orders, invoicing and customer support services.   Dan Snider, vice president, Business Solutions, Shred-it, says he "had concerns" that the IT team would not have sufficient visibility into the real end-user experience with the SAP CRM application and the issues individual employees were encountering. "The 'go-live' implementation of products such as SAP CRM can require a very intensive, hands-on end-user support practice," said Snider. "In those early critical weeks, everyone using SAP CRM should be in the line-of-sight of a support person."   Shred-it chose to deploy Knoa EPM to help with the adoption and use of SAP CRM by the end-user population.

CRM at Davis Medical, SMS in Call Center, Latin American Mobile Web, Atos CRM for British Gambling

August 20, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Miles Davis's Kind Of Blue:   Davis Medical Electronics, a vendor of new and refurbished medical equipment, has standardized on AccountMate products for CRM and other functions, company officials say.   The firm had used AccountMate Software to run their core business unit for the last two decades, but tracked their sales leads and customer follow-ups in Excel, company officials say: "Naturally, this process was labor intensive and difficult to manage as more sales representatives joined the company."   The company outgrew their client management system. "We quickly realized that an enhanced client and lead tracking product was needed to manage existing customers and post-sales marketing," says Brian Hibbits, their IT director.   Davis Medical wanted a Customer Relationship Management product that would manage company workflow, track and assign new leads, and automate the business process on customer follow-up. They also wanted to upgrade their accounting system and wanted a financial business product that would integrate their lead management requirements.   Davis Medical upgraded their accounting system to AccountMate for SQL, which provides the "essential business backbone" company officials say they were looking for. INFOtrac for AccountMate, AccountMate's CRM product, provided a way to integrate lead management processes and financial accounting functions.   Prior to the INFOtrac installation, Davis Medical maintained customer information in three separate places.

Stupid Call Center Calls, Bezaitis at Aspect, New NetSuiters, Ringbacks to Hit $29 Billion

August 19, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of that all-important third cup of coffee this morning, and the music is... well, let's have Apple pick the music for us. Okay, 5,476 songs on the iPod, let's just hit Shuffle Songs and see what the first one to come up is... Jaco Pastorius's "Continuum." Excellent choice, Apple.

CRM in Muscat, Al Futtaim and Futech, Apisphere and Nissho, Porthus and Microsoft, Boomi and Centive

August 19, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is a strange little bit from Warren Zevon, "Interlude, No. 2" form Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School:   The Times of Oman is reporting that Muscat Municipality has succeeded in implementing an Oracle e-services customer management system (CRM), thus becoming the first government service authority in the Middle East to implement this system.

The announcement came following the launching of the system by Muscat Municipality during its participation in the government e-service exhibition at Comex 2008.

Khaled Dawood Al Zidjali, DG of the Information System at Muscat Municipality, said the implementation is "part of the government's efforts in improving its service standards... we are proud of this e-step."

Oracle officials estimate the implementation of the system, consisting of package of services, including building permits, leases, municipality licenses, health and technical inspection, parking permits and meter-parking and violations, will reduce the time required to complete certain services by 60 per cent.   The system allows users an overview through connecting to the comprehensive service system, to limit repetition and ensure correct and accurate data and reduce by 60 per cent the time required for searching and entering the violations into the paid parking and the health inspection system.





CRM for Virgin Mobile, T-Mobile Family Plan, Customer Effective and ExactTarget

August 19, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The J. Geils Band's Blow Your Face Out double live album. It puzzles First Coffee why Geils didn't achieve more success than they did, they were an honest, high-energy, hard-working American band with good songs and a solid R&B-based sound. You always got more than your money's worth at the shows, and the records are serviceable, certainly no worse than those of more popular bands of the '70s and '80s:   Australia's Virgin Mobile network provider will go live next month with RightNow Technologies' on-demand CRM product to provide customer service.   Virgin Mobile officials say they will use RightNow on all contact center agent desktops to track and manage all incoming calls and e-mails. The product will also provide agents with a single system of record where they can find a history of all previous customer interactions which can then be used to enhance all communications with customers, customer officials said.   Virgin Mobile receives more than two million inbound calls each year.

CRM From Talisma, Amdocs and Telindus, Oracle and Voltaire, SAS Curriculum, RFID Study

August 6, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is the Scot-rock of The Crofters' wonderfully-named album Hold My Beer While I Kiss Your Girlfriend:   Roanoke College has chosen Talisma's Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) product to "personalize communications" in an effort to "increase enrollment and forge stronger relations with current students," according to Talisma officials.

  James Dalton, VP of IT and public relations, said the college's existing system "did not offer us the advanced capabilities we need." With the Talisma system, he said, "we can send messages that are relevant and timely to the receiver and have all the stored transaction data accessible to everyone who needs it."

The CRM suite lets users work with data from multiple sources, including ERP and legacy systems, and perform communications with current and prospective students through multiple channels, including e-mail, chat, Web forms, Web self-service, phone, SMS text, direct mail, and fax.

Talisma's higher education products are also used at the University of Alabama, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Abilene Christian University.   . . . .   Amdocs and Telindus, part of the Belgacom Group, a vendor of network-based products, has announced that Telindus has deployed the Amdocs Smart Agent Desktop to provide services to its customers across eight countries in Europe and Asia.   Globally, Amdocs products support more than 1,500 Telindus users with approximately 400 concurrent users.





CRM From NetSuite, Saaspoint's Consultancy, SnapLogic and Salesforce.com, LogMeIn, Customer FX

August 6, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first cup of coffee this morning, and the music is The Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night." Laugh all you want, aesthetes, this is One. Great. Song:   CRM vendor NetSuite has announced three mid-market and enterprise companies to go live on NetSuite -- Intuitive Surgical, Nestle UK, and Wasserman Media Group.   Intuitive Surgical sells operative surgical robotics, and will use NetSuite CRM to integrate and manage a number of complex business process services that they provide to hospitals across the United States, NetSuite officials say.   These services include tracking where and when its operative surgical systems are used, as well as which surgeons are using them. In addition, Intuitive Surgical's sales organization uses NetSuite to manage sales business processes, including tracking all new sales opportunities with surgeons and hospitals, and managing long sales cycles.   Nestlé UK used NetSuite Ecommerce to build an integrated online store, and now runs its online store for employees and local communities on NetSuite.   The company is famous for Nescafe. Nestle also sells Kit Kat, and is known in the United Kingdom for its brands of milk, cream, and pasta.   Following legislative changes, the company underwent a major reorganization of its manufacturing and distribution site in York, resulting in the loss of space for its popular staff shop.

CRM 'Not Optimized,' Currency Support from Soffront, Jacada's Telecom Deal, Apisphere and Atcom, Mobile CRM from Vaultus

August 5, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dexter Gordon's Dexter Calling...:   Jacada, a vendor of desktop and process products for customer service operations, has announced that it has entered into a material agreement with a new customer, a large telecommunications provider headquartered in the United States.   The majority of the revenue from the agreement, which was contracted through a Jacada global systems integrator partner, will be recognized in the current quarter, Jacada officials say.   The telecommunications company provides broadband services to customers in the United States, and its support contact center services customers who need help with their DSL, satellite television, long distance phone, or high-speed Internet service.   By "integrating the multiple disparate applications that the customer service representatives must access on each call," Jacada officials say, and by optimizing and automating key call processes, the company hopes the Jacada unified desktop will help improve customer service and retention, and reduce costs.   "The pressure on telecommunications providers to improve customer service has never been greater," said Sheryl Kingstone, director for customer centric strategies at the Yankee Group research and consulting firm. "As their offerings are increasingly commoditized, the one remaining differentiator is customer service and these companies' call centers are often plagued with a mass of aging, complicated and inflexible information systems."   Joe Horne, senior vice president, Americas sales operations for Jacada, and not the NFL wide receiver, who spells his last name "Horn," said it's even more accentuated "in a highly volatile and commoditized market like telecommunications, an industry where a clear link between the quality of customer experience and companies' financial performance has been so visibly established."   . . .

CRM4Business and Maximizer, Radiant Channel Expands, InterWeave, Convio Results, Gadget Pro Buyers

August 4, 2008

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Flogging Molly's Drunken Lullabies:

 

Maximizer Certified Business Partner and Customer Relationship Management specialist, CRM4Business, has "joined forces with VIP Technologies," which sells telephony products, to supply bundled CRM and telephone systems.

 

Company officials expect it to appeal in particular to organizations running outbound and inbound telesales operations.

 

"From as little as seven pounds per day, customers will be able to implement a new, fully integrated Maximizer CRM and phone product," which "saves on call time and ensures notes and forward schedules are completed," company officials say.

 

Outbound calls are generated hands free from within Maximizer software, which initiates automated workflow for note taking and next actions, while inbound calls automatically retrieve and forward the relevant company/contact details.

CRM Up for CDC, Oracle and BearingPoint, ClickFox's New CMO, IPayX, Etelos Marketplace, Harris and Microsoft

August 4, 2008

By David Sims David at firstcoffee d*t biz   The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Paul Simon's Graceland. First Coffee remembers seeing the Graceland tour in Chicago and was disappointed that he didn't use that great band to play more of his songs. Instead we had to endure exhibitions of South African music nobody but the pretentious snobs in the audience wanted to hear after shelling out a lot of money to see Paul Simon:   CRM vendor CDC Software has announced that in the first half of 2008 sales revenue for licenses of its CDC Respond product series rose by 62 percent over the same period the year before.

CDC Respond is designed to help manage complaints and customer feedback. In the first half of 2008, company officials say, 54 percent of the revenue from licensed users involved new customers, while 46 percent came from established users.   Company officials say they saw "significant cost savings and improved efficiencies" in its R&D operations as a result of moving its product development operations to a hybrid offshore/onshore model that uses emerging markets like China and India, as well as through the adoption of an Agile development process.   CDC Software's offshore development centers in Nanjing and Shanghai, China and Bangalore, India now represent more than 70 percent of the company's research and development resources, with future plans to increase that to 76 percent, company officials say.

LogiXML Gets OnDemandIQ, FrontRange's Version 6.1, Tribridge Gets VEELO, Hayes Gold Client, CDC in Latin America

August 1, 2008

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Josh Ritter's The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, with the killer song "Empty Hearts:"   LogiXML, a vendor of, Web-based Business Intelligence products, has acquired Los Angeles-based OnDemandIQ, a vendor of on-demand sales analytics products. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.   As a result of the acquisition, the entire OnDemandIQ team will be integrated into LogiXML. Steve Schneider, OnDemandIQ's co-founder, will assume the new role of chief technology officer for LogiOnDemand, where he will "continue to develop BI products based on the SaaS model," LogiXML officials say.   The move lets LogiXML "expand its suite of Software-as-a-Service BI products with the addition of a sales analytics platform that will serve as the core of LogiOnDemand," company officials say. LogiXML's SaaS division uses the company's BI software to provide hosted products for business users.   Arman Eshraghi, CEO and founder of LogiXML, said OnDemandIQ's technology "was built upon the LogiXML platform from the beginning, so it's a natural evolution that we come together."   OnDemandIQ gives users data aggregation from multiple sources such as CRM and accounting software, marketing, finance, HR and operations.

CRM for Bikinis, Blackbaud, Dealerskins and Mazda, Wipro and Microsoft, Broadridge Gets Investigo, CRMA Conference

August 1, 2008

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and there comes a time in most men's lives when the realize "Hey... I need some more Skynyrd on the iPod." That time has come for First Coffee, so the music today is Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helping:   CRM vendor Epicor has announced Canadian swimwear retailer Groupe Bikini Village has selected the Epicor Retail Software as a Service (SaaS) product.   Bikini Village sells swimwear across Eastern Canada. Headquartered in Boucherville, Québec, the company operates 60 stores under the Bikini Village banner in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.   Bikini Village has overhauled and refreshed many of its stores, company officials say, "part of an ambitious renovation and expansion strategy now beginning to yield results." The company recently posted a 25 percent increase in Q1-2008 year-over-year revenues.   Bikini Village wanted an end-to-end "retail product that would give the company greater inventory visibility, improve operational efficiencies and streamline business processes," company officials said.   The Epicor Retail SaaS delivery model is a turnkey retail product billed as "virtually eliminating the need for an on-site retail IT infrastructure." It has associated implementation and integration services, support and maintenance as well as ongoing updates and upgrades.   For a fixed fee plus a one-time start-up charge, the SaaS offering delivers Epicor's Store, Merchandising, Planning, Audit & Operations Management, CRM and Business Intelligence to store locations and the head office. ...   Blackbaud has unveiled a new release of Blackbaud NetCommunity, saying it includes "major enhancements in both function and features."   Company officials cite "improved site design features to enhanced Web accessibility and a native social networking feature called 'Wave,'" all designed to provide nonprofits with ways to engage constituents online.   The vendor has also unveiled a new set of NetCommunity Open Platform APIs for creating custom parts, integrated Web services, and custom transactions.   "With Wave, Blackbaud has introduced a new way to use social networking -- both within the application and by integrating to social network services like Facebook -- which will add to the viral nature of our work," said Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Director of Information Technology Michael Sola.   Marc Chardon, Blackbaud's chief executive officer, said since it was introduced in 2004, more than 600 nonprofits have selected NetCommunity. "Integration with The Raiser's Edge lets nonprofits customize Web visitors' online experience while capturing key information in their CRM systems," he noted.   Wave, Blackbaud NetCommunity's new social networking feature, helps nonprofits create mission-specific online communities that also integrate with popular social networking sites like Facebook.   Additional enhancements include content approval -- "allowing workflow approval processes for content publishing and versioning," company officials say, as well as eCards allowing Web site visitors to send electronic cards for free or for a donation. ...   Dealerskins, a division of Dominion Enterprises and vendor of automotive dealer Web products, has partnered with Mazda North American Operations to create Web sites for Mazda dealerships.   As "the preferred provider of Web products for Mazda dealers," Dealerskins officials say, they will create "custom, expertly designed Web sites for each dealer, and will provide training and support." As part of the deal Mazda dealers will receive Dealerskins' proprietary sales tools including its Ups!
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