The news as of the first cup of coffee this morning, and the music is a Creedence Clearwater Revival-John Fogerty solo iPod mix. I'd pretty much ignored Fogerty solo, as much as I like CCR, who are one of the half-dozen finest American rock bands ever, figuring he couldn't be anywhere near as good as Creedence. He's not - who is? - but he's better than I thought:
Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has hosted its first annual user conference in Greenville, South Carolina, attracting more than 100 attendees representing more than 45 companies.
Attendees included representatives from companies in financial services, professional services, public sector, manufacturing, technology, as well as execs from Microsoft, ExactTarget and Scribe.
Attendees heard presentations by Customer Effective executives and consulting directors, industry thought leaders and peers on current trends and issues including business intelligence, data management, workflow automation and SharePoint integration with Dynamics CRM.
The conference offered a wide variety of breakout sessions on Sales Force Automation best practices, marketing automation and development /customization strategies for CRM.
"Attending Customer Effective's user group was an excellent decision," said Aaron Roth, MarCom Specialist for Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, noting that "the sessions on business intelligence and overall CRM strategy as it relates to performance management were exceptionally valuable for my firm... everyone was there to learn more on how to use the software, but what I think was equally valuable was to see how other companies were using Customer Effective."
Customer Effective was named to the 2008 Inc. 500 list.
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The Romanian Educational Network has chosen a Nortel next-generation 10G optical product to provide scientists and researchers with enough bandwidth and network capacity needed for science and research projects, as well as education and training.
Felix Telecom, Nortel's integration partner in Romania, will deliver the project to RoEduNet including design, installing, deploying and providing ongoing servicing for the network.
The adaptive and intelligent RoEduNet optical network from Nortel will "unite all Romania's research and educational facilities, using more than 4,239 kilometers of optical fiber to connect cities and campuses," according to the Nortellians, adding that the network is intended to provide universities, high schools, cultural, scientific and research non-profit institutions with the means to communicate with each other, "as well as delivering access to higher-speed, always-on connectivity."
"We are building a true partnership and cooperation between RoEduNet and Nortel," said Professor Rusu, general manager RoEduNet, adding that they want to "ensure that our new 10G network can down the road easily evolve to 40G and 100G."
"The RoEduNet project appealed to Nortel from the beginning because of its value to global research," said Sorin Lupu president Eastern Europe Markets, Nortel.
The Nortel product is engineered so it's possible to increase network bandwidth to cope with bandwidth-sapping applications like IPTV, Internet video and grid computing for faster processing capabilities -- a powerful benefit for cash-conscious research and educational institutions.
Nortel's Optical Network Manager is being used by RoEduNet to conduct network-wide administration, monitoring and planning from a single management center in Bucharest. This enables troubleshooting, fault resolution and traffic management with no need for technical personnel to visit individual network nodes.
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ClairMail, a vendor of mobile phone-based customer interaction products, has announced that the ClairMail System has reached "millions of monthly mobile banking transactions" and increased growth, with over twelve mobile banking transactions conducted every month per consumer.
This is "more than three times greater than the monthly transactions per consumer" found in published reports from other mobile banking products, according to the ClairMailers.
ClairMail's bank customers have also experienced adoption rates "higher than industry averages," which ClairMail officials attribute to the product's two-way mobile banking and payments services and the ability for consumers to choose their preferred mobile interface.
ClairMail customers have seen upwards of 25 percent adoption by online banking consumers, reportedly higher than industry averages: the industry adoption rate for a bank's online consumer base averaged less than three percent, according to published data related to other mobile banking products cited by ClairMail officials.
The product offers two-way mobile banking and payments functionality on all mobile phones across three user interface types - messaging, mobile Web and client applications - known as the "two-way triple play."
On one platform with a single implementation, the ClairMail System integrates with a bank's systems of record and provides bank customers with a suite of two-way mobile banking and payment services. The ClairMail System incorporates a Event Engine that can handle the potential transaction volumes from banks and deliver actionable alerts.
TowerGroup estimates that every month through the first quarter of 2009, between 150 and 300 banks and credit unions in the United States will sign contracts for mobile banking products. Mobile banking will surpass six million users by the end of 2008, and TowerGroup forecasts 42 million U.S. active users of mobile banking by 2012.
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CA, Inc. has teamed with PricewaterhouseCoopers to market a joint governance, risk and compliance product to help companies "improve operational efficiencies and better manage their risk and compliance initiatives," CA officials say.
The idea is evidently for PwC and CA to team up for an enterprise GRC product to help reduce the risk of business interruption due to non-compliance with industry, governmental or IT regulations and standards. PwC's part will be to identify and define an integrated GRC lifecycle framework, while CA's GRC Manager product is supposed to take care of implementation of the risk and compliance program.
Officials of both firms see the advantages of the pairing to include combining the experience of PwC's GRC practice and CA's experience in implementing risk management systems throughout the enterprise.
The companies say they partnership offers visibility into risk and compliance across the organization via dashboard views, for a view of a company's compliance posture and centralized test results and policy documentation.
Acxiom, a global interactive marketing service provider, has said it's working with PwC and CA to implement a GRC program to help manage industry regulations.
In addition, PwC and CA are also offering a joint product for insurance organizations faced with the new requirements concerning the Model Audit Rule mandate which requires insurance organizations to adopt corporate governance and reporting standards similar to Sarbanes-Oxley for the 2010 reporting period.
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Cast Iron Systems, a SaaS integration company, has announced its public participation in the Microsoft ecosystem, helping connect Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM products with other enterprise applications.
Using what Cast Iron officials call a "configuration, not coding" approach, the Cast Iron Integration product allows the adoption and use of on-demand Microsoft Dynamics business products.
Cast Iron officials believe that many companies hesitate to transition to a SaaS product when confronted with the complexity of real-time integration with existing systems that contain business-critical information. They market their services as lowering the costs and risks associated with SaaS integration by delivering an integration product.
The product itself is available either as an integration service in the Cast Iron Cloud for complete outsourcing, or as an on-premise integration appliance.
Ken Comee, CEO of Cast Iron Systems, said the company looks forward to "strengthening the relationship" with Microsoft.
Founded in 2001, Cast Iron Systems counts British American Tobacco, Emerson, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Salesforce.com and Tesla Motors among its clients. It's backed by Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Lehman Brothers, is privately held and led by executives from Informatica, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel, Vitria, and WebMethods.
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