David Sims
January 2009
You are browsing the archive for January 2009.
First Trace's Kinnosa, Microsoft CRM and Intermedia, 2009's Online Marketing, Netbook (Dis)satisfaction?
January 21, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Charlie Parker's eponymous album. Look it up: Now this is serious: A benchmark analysis of consumer reviews of netbook laptops collected from consumer electronics review Web sites has been released by Biz360, a vendor of market and media intelligence products. Seeing as how First Coffee swears by his netbook, could I be... wrong? One of the consumer research study's findings indicates that consumer advocacy for the Netbooks category "lags behind consumer advocacy for all laptops." Evidently Biz360 analyzed over 20,000 online opinions, culled from review consumer electronics sites such as Amazon, Best Buy, CNET, Newegg, PC World, Circuit City and CompUSA for the period May 15, 2008 through November 15, 2008. The company's Opinion Insights social media measurement product was used to analyze the online comments. "While performance is the #1 attribute driving laptop advocacy, the performance Net Advocacy for the Netbooks product category is predominantly negative," the study found.
EDL and Citrix, SMB CRM From AIO, Leo and Sage, Rangam and Microsoft, Teleperformance in France
January 20, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the soundtrack to the movie version of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Broadway musical Showboat. When the show appeared on stage in 1927 it was the first time white and black performers had appeared together on stage as equals, singing with each other. It's regarded by many as the most important musical in the history of American theater. For my money it's got the best song in Broadway's repertoire, "Ol' Man River," and I'll take William Warfield's version on this the 1951 soundtrack. Yes Paul Robeson Jr.
KinetiCast, Lloyd James Group, Infusionsoft Guarantee, OpenAir's PSA, Sage's Business Partner Status
January 19, 2009
The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is the debut album from It's A Beautiful Day, a band out of the San Fran psychedelic scene who released one stone-cold classic album, the cleverly-titled debut It's A Beautiful Day in 1969, then self-immolated. Imagine an acid rock band fronted by a former symphony violinist, David LaFlamme, with a strong complementary female vocalist and you have a pretty good idea of the band. They re-emerged, of sorts, with a fine live album, Live In Seattle in 2003, but seem to have sunk back into oblivion, having said their piece on their first album, really:
Coxsackie, New York-based - and how often does one do business with a firm based in Coxsackie, New York? - KinetiCast, which sells SaaS multimedia presentation software for sales and marketing, has announced that Affiniscape Merchant Solutions, a credit card processing company, has chosen KinetiCast's multimedia presentation software to "enhance its marketing efforts to lawyers and law firms around the country," according to the KinetiCastians.
The Law Firm Merchant Account was developed and customized for attorneys to accept credit card payments from clients. Due to special credit card processing requirements in a law firm, AMS chose to use KinetiCast's online presentations to help market and educate their potential clients "with a more visual approach," according to AMS officials.
"KinetiCast has allowed us to get in front of our time-sensitive attorneys," said Janelle Benefield, Business Development at AMS.
AMS found that the KinetiCast online presentation software allowed the sales representatives to engage their clients on an individual basis and gauge their response through tracking and analytics.
Boomi and Ingres, DynamicExchange Wiki, DataForceCRM Guarantee, Convergys and Vivo, Xactly Results
January 19, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dexter Gordon's Dexter Calling, more of his sweet jazz sax sound from the string of great albums he did in the early 1960s:
FYI: The DynamicsExchange CRM AnswerCenter Wiki is here.
It's described by its developers as "filling a gap in bringing Web 2.0 and Social Web technologies to the time consuming trouble-shooting aspects of implementations and eases the ongoing education of users, and administrators."
Pause for breath.Like a normal wiki anyone can use or contribute new posts or edit posts. The Wiki has a posting approval process to keep out objectionable unrelated content or inappropriate self-promotion. Most contributions come from technology communities where issues are discussed and not necessarily resolved, but in the CRM AnswerCenter Wiki only a precise question and the concise answer are posted, its developers say, "saving substantial time on the current multiple searches and reviews, posting and waiting, and searching more."
The Wiki is optimized for easier search and advanced search functionality to reduce time to answer.
DynamicsExchange.com has been in development for over a year by Microsoft's Dynamics CRM Gold Partners, according to the Microsofties, and still in beta, is described by them as "dedicated to the deployment of better tools for the access, review, implementation, support, purchase, development, and maintenance of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM enterprise software platform."
The new community site is said to benefit from the latest Web technologies and philosophies and, most importantly, independence from Microsoft having sole responsibility for global community wide knowledge, product, and service availability. Contributing and accessing anything on DynamicsExchange is free, even partner recognition advertising.
The president of a founding partner of DynamicsExchange.com, Darryl Henderson, says that since this is a beta announcement "we're not ready for a rush of users just yet, just more partners to provide usability feedback and contribution, including their promotional content."
The partner portal is scheduled to enter beta by the end of January, allowing all partners access to community visitors.
...Boomi has announced that Ingres Corporation, a vendor of open source database management software and support services, has selected Boomi AtomSphere for its Software-as-a-Service integration technology.
AtomSphere will be used to integrate internal business applications including finance, human resources and analytics for Ingres, according to the Ingressors.
Q&A With Joel Bomgar, Bomgar Corp. CEO & Founder
January 19, 2009DS: When you were an IT rep, you say, you were "amazed" at the time you spent traveling and on the phone. Tell us when you realized there was a better way.
JB: When I looked at the price of GoToAssist and WebEx Support Center and saw that both have high monthly fees. I evaluated their respective features, and it became clear that in order to find the product I wanted to use, I would have to build it. I also really wanted to own the technology, not rent it, which is what you had to do with all the solutions offered in this space.
DS: What did you think of the early remote tech support tools and products that were available?JB: As a former IT technician, it frustrated me to no end that the products and vendors on the market at the time had never put enough focus into the remote support technology market to make their products strong. They got their products to the point where they thought they were "good enough" and then got what I call "executive A.D.D.," where executives have a constant urge to do anything other than what they are currently doing.
Composite Software, Melissa and Clairvoyix, Treehouse's 2008, Bridgeline, TDWI
January 19, 2009The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a fine old Eric Clapton rocker, "Tulsa Time." It's hard for me to call Clapton the greatest rock guitarist ever, as many would like to do. Jeff Beck was more brilliant, Jimmy Page harder, Steve Howe more technically accomplished, Jimi Hendrix more inventive, Eddie Van Halen flashier and the best guitar attack in all rock is the Keith Richards-Ronnie Wood two-headed monster for the Stones. Clapton? Probably the best mix of all the above in one package:
Composite Software has announced that the nation's fourth largest bank, Wachovia Corporation (well, fourth largest after its merger with Wells Fargo & Company), has selected its Composite Information Server. Wachovia officials say the Composite software will be put in its Corporate Investment Banking line to help with holdings and offerings information for customers.
Composite's data virtualization layer is intended to simplify "the complexity of accessing siloed and disparate data sources," according to the Compositians, who say the technology "reaches data where it is" and "federates the disparate data into services and views."
The server's ability to "cache our data from multiple federated sources" was one of the key selling points, according to Sid Vyas, managing director, Corporate and Investment Banking Technology, Wachovia. "Our data federation platform supports product and client data as well as the transaction data reporting and analytics."
When dealing with data integration, "there is a difference between art and execution," adds Sanjay Mishra, director of data architecture at Wachovia. "We need to get the execution right."
Additionally, Composite Software's technology plays an integral role in service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives that support delivery of best practices in shared services. These initiatives will accelerate applications' time to market, therefore realizing their business value sooner.
Founded in 2002, Composite is a privately held, venture-funded corporation based in Silicon Valley.
...
Melissa Data's Data Quality Suite has been adopted by Las Vegas-based Clairvoyix, a consumer data management and direct marketing firm.
Melissa officials describe the toolkit as a contact data verification product.
Clairvoyix performs data hygiene and data enhancement services, counting La Quinta Inns and Suites - described as "limited-service hotels," First Coffee wasn't aware that was a service category.
Chordiant and BSkyB, Genesys Survey, CRM for CAM, Lasso for the Waldorf, Dominion's Dealer
January 19, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Elton John's live album Here and There. Maybe you haven't listened to this album in a while. Maybe you don't own this album. Maybe you've never heard this album.
SageCRM v6.2, Wheaton College and WebGUI, Alterian and Jaguar, Accenture Report
January 15, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Scottish mopesters Belle & Sebastian's album "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant," because if there's anything sure to make your own day seem better it's listening to overpaid, over-privileged, underworked people whinge and moan about how dreary, boring and difficult their utterly pointless lives are. Especially when it comes with a snappy pop-rock sound cut in whole cloth from The Kinks' 1967-1969 golden years of Something Else and Village Green Preservation Society: Sage North America has announced SageCRM v6.2, a CRM system aimed primarily at small and medium-sized businesses. According to the Sagians, version 6.2 includes new pre-configured and customizable screen themes, an editor capable of handling multilingual e-mail campaigns and "an enhanced graphical view." The product is available today as a standalone CRM system, and as part of the Sage Accpac Extended Enterprise Suite. It will be available in the Sage MAS 90 and 200 Enterprise Suite later this month. David van Toor, senior vice president and general manager, Sage CRM Solutions North America, said the product lets organizations "outfit their CRM systems and access financial and operations data through ERP integration." The new version has a branding toolkit to change the look and feel of SageCRM screens using provided themes, or administrators can customize or create whatever themes strike their fancy.
Microsoft CRM and PowerObjects, Merkle and The Limited, Spanair and NeoMedia, Blackbaud, Infinite and Roundstone
January 15, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the soundtrack for what promises to be a long, hard, slogging blue-collar working day, Creedence Clearwater Revivial's "Cosmo's Factory." CCR picked up their lunch pails and hammers to pound out as honest and hard a working day with their no-frills, stripped-down rock sound as reliably as a steelworker building a bridge, and that's what kind of day it's going to be here at the sprawling campus of First Coffee, so that's the kind of music we need - call it hard hat rock: Mobile check-in has landed in airports across Spain following the introduction of a paperless ticketing service by Spanish carrier Spanair Airlines. Paper boarding passes, kiss 'em goodbye - company officials say they can be replaced by an electronic 2D barcode received via MMS and stored by the passenger's mobile phone. The system is enabled by NeoMedia Technologies, which has to date installed its EXIO scanners in eleven Spanish airports. The scanners read the 2D codes on the phones at the airport terminal check-in desks and security points. Based on returns from the service so far, Spanair thinks that 800,000 2D barcode mobile tickets will be issued in 2009. If so, that would account for ten per cent of its total ticketing transactions. Spanair is kind of the canary in the coal mine for this sort of thing in Spain.
InQuira and IGT, Bridgeline and the NFL, SugarCRM, Parature and Webs.com, CallFire Survey, the Walkman
January 9, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, which falls in that category of music that's good for background while at work but isn't elevator music. In fact, if you can cue it up in the office at the right time, you can build your work force's emotional intensity until by the time the seventh movement, Doppio Movimento and its lovely Shaker hymn melody rolls around, they're flying at their peak of productivity:InQuira has announced that International Game Technology, a company selling computerized gaming machines and systems products, has selected InQuira to help improve their customer service.IGT will use InQuira's Knowledge Management software platform and customer service application to try to get "faster, more effective support products" for IGT's Web self-service customers and call center agents, according to IGT officials.InQuira's Knowledge Management platform includes support for support-oriented content through a workflow and publishing cycle, as well as intelligent search technology that "discerns user intents and applies approaches for matching searches to available content," according to the InQuirians, adding that the search module "analyzes all search words for relevance, not just the keywords."The platform is expected by IGT officials to provide a knowledge base for Web self-service and agent-assisted support that lets customers do more in the way of self-serve and have less occasion to call center agents.IGT sells stand-alone and networked gaming systems for casino operators. Their products include its MegaJackpots wide-area networks of games, linking casinos together for larger jackpots, including Megabucks, Wheels of Fortune and other multi-site casino games.... CRM vendor Parature says that Webs.com has selected Parature Customer Service software to manage their customer service and support. Webs.com is a social publishing platform that lets users build Web sites for an active community.James Watson, Director of Customer Relations for Webs.com, says they wanted a new customer support system to correct an "inadequate process to provide customer support." As a Web-based company, according to the Paraturians, they wanted customer service software that was also Web-based, as pretty much anybody with an IQ over room temperature these days does.One thing Webs.com wanted was the ability to make service or product announcements, or even answer a commonly asked question without accessing another application or requiring the assistance of another department, on a Web interface that looked like their presence, not a third-party fulfillment vendor.Watson noted that Webs.com grew from fourteen products in 2005 to over fifty in 2008.
NFinanSe's Reloadable Card, Bella's Field Service, New Infusionsoft Line, Arada and Atheros, Convergys
January 9, 2009
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Boomtown Rats' album The Fine Art of Surfacing, an album which really doesn't suck all that much worse than anything else released in 1979, not the finest year in music history, Rust Never Sleeps aside: Okay, this isn't straight CRM news but it's First Coffee's philosophy, open to verification, that those involved in CRM, the vast majority anyway, are actual human beings who have other components to their lives, such as home, family and forwarding e-mail jokes. To that end, in First Coffee's never-ending efforts to provide added value, we're reporting on nFinanSe reloadable prepaid debit card. Features include the ability to be immediately used, text messaging notification of transactions and balances and free customer service. It's billed - get it? - by the nFinanSeians as "a lower cost electronic payment option for the 73 million unbanked and underbanked consumers in the country." In other words, folks who, for whatever reason, find standard credit cards aren't for them. Now it isn't your maxed-out credit card we're thinking of here, but your teenage daughter's. She lives day-to-day on a cash basis with no banking relationship anyway, maybe she'd be better off with a reloadable card. "Banks are now slashing the number of new credit cards, reducing credit limits, decreasing services and limiting options," says Jerry R. Welch, Chairman and CEO of nFinanSe, adding that you can find and reload the card in Dollar General locations and Winn-Dixie grocery stores.
