The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Warren Zevon's interesting solo acoustic live album Learning To Flinch, followed by Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver's exquisite a capella bluegrass gospel album There's A Light Guiding Me. It makes more sense than it might seem:
AbilityCRM, a CRM seller based in Tempe, Arizona, has teamed with Rave Computer Association and Consona ERP to release myCRM-Appliance, a CRM server appliance marketed to small to medium sized companies.
Customer Relationship Management is "front and center" for all growing companies, says James Marzola, President and CEO of AbilityCRM, because "the market conditions mandate a different approach to increasing new business, taking care of your customers, and marketing your products and service."
Customer Relationship Management is "front and center" for all growing companies, says James Marzola, President and CEO of AbilityCRM, because "the market conditions mandate a different approach to increasing new business, taking care of your customers, and marketing your products and service."
The product is billed as giving customers a choice of mid-market CRM systems from either Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Sage SalesLogix CRM for 10-25 users. It also has the recent release of Intel's new Nehalem architecture processor and a price point between $59.00 and $89.00 per user, which includes installation, configuration, training and ongoing 24-hour system and network monitoring support, according to AbilityCRM officials.
Frank O'Nell, vice president of product management for Consona ERP, says the new appliance "streamlines the implementation process, and could reduce the cost of implementation and support services." Options include the AbilityConnect integration interface for Consona Made2Manage and Intuitive ERP systems and data import and conversion for ACT!, Salesforce.com, or GoldMine.
"Having two respected software partners like AbilityCRM and Consona further solidifies Rave's presence in the ISV appliance market," said Joe Borowicz, CFO of Rave Computer. "This is a win, win for everyone."
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Knoa Software, a vendor of experience and performance management software, has announced a partnership with Serene Corporation, which implements Siebel CRM. Knoa officials say the alliance is designed to help customers use Knoa's technology and metrics and Serene's Siebel-specific expertise "whether in a call center, operating service processes, or supporting a field sales force."
"CRM professionals cannot afford failed technology deployment projects, particularly in tough economic times when business survival may be at stake," wrote Bill Band, vice president and principal analyst, Forrester, in the February 2009 report titled "How To Risk-Proof Your CRM Deployment Strategy."
The report continues, "To pinpoint the real-world pitfalls that can trip up CRM initiatives, Forrester surveyed business and IT leaders at 133 organizations. The executives were asked, 'What were the major challenges in successfully implementing [CRM vendor solution] in your environment?' The companies we studied are all well-experienced with CRM initiatives; they typically had 30 months of deployment experience under their belts with a wide range of leading enterprise and mid-market CRM suite solutions."
As it turns out, Band wrote, "there are plenty of risks to worry about. In fact, respondents reported more than 200 individual problems with their CRM projects, encompassing 27 risk areas. These perils form the basis of Forrester's CRM project risk evaluation. Thirty-three percent of the problems reported were related to technology, 27 percent to business processes, 22 percent to people, and 18 percent to CRM strategy and deployment."
The Knoa-Serene alliance is intended to help in end-user issue identification, officials of both firms say, since most CRM initiatives are "hampered from inception by insufficient visibility into the real impact of the end-user experience on performance." When bottlenecks are found with Knoa EPM, Serene's consultants use the Siebel Performance Intelligence Toolkit to identify the root cause of the performance issues and provide recommendations for resolution.
Ajit Kumbhare, co-founder and managing partner of Serene Corporation, says that until recently, "there was no effective way to systematically capture meaningful data on the behaviors that drive service efficiency and productivity."
The Knoa-Serene alliance is intended to help in end-user issue identification, officials of both firms say, since most CRM initiatives are "hampered from inception by insufficient visibility into the real impact of the end-user experience on performance." When bottlenecks are found with Knoa EPM, Serene's consultants use the Siebel Performance Intelligence Toolkit to identify the root cause of the performance issues and provide recommendations for resolution.
Ajit Kumbhare, co-founder and managing partner of Serene Corporation, says that until recently, "there was no effective way to systematically capture meaningful data on the behaviors that drive service efficiency and productivity."
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Xactly Corporation, a vendor of on-demand Sales Performance Management products, has announced the release of version 4.5 of its flagshipXactly Incent application. The company also provided further details on its plan to deliver a unified product platform following its acquisition earlier this year of SPM vendor Centive.
Available to all customers on April 17th, the Xactly Incent 4.5 release has "enhanced dispute resolution, faster access to critical information, as well as summarized compensation-plan detail by individual," according to company officials.
The product will deliver what company officials describe as "more flexibility in designing and routing plan documents to ensure the right information is sent to the right people in a timely manner." Also, as Incent currently features single sign-on capabilities with on-demand CRM applications from Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.com, with the new release, users can "configure and embed widgets throughout their CRM application that offer one-click access to Xactly SPM reports and sales performance management metrics," company officials explain.
Following its acquisition of Lowell, MA-based SPM vendor Centive earlier this year, Xactly became a vendor of what company officials say are "100-percent on-demand sales performance management" products. Xactly officials say they have selected the Xactly Incent platform as the underlying technology platform moving forward.
In order to move all customers to a single SPM platform, Xactly will be migrating Centive Compel customers to the Xactly Incent platform over time. Xactly is committed to supporting Compel customers for a minimum of 18 months. The company will also deliver new modules built natively on Salesforce.com's Force.com platform in 2009.
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American Airlines officials say they are taking the experiment with in-flight Wi-Fi "out of the trial stage," and have decided to install Gogo Inflight Internet on more than 300 domestic aircraft over the next two years. It will install the Aircell system on its domestic MD-80 and Boeing 737-800 aircraft fleets, beginning with 150 MD-80 aircraft this year.
American launched the Gogo service last August, providing it to customers traveling on 15 of American's Boeing 767-200 aircraft, "primarily on nonstop flights between New York JFK and San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami," company officials say. The price for the Gogo service ranges from $7.95 to $12.95 based on length of flight and whether the device is a handheld PDA or a laptop computer.
Dan Garton, American's Executive Vice President-Marketing, says the six-month trial offered customers gave the airline "the ability to study customers' willingness to take advantage of high-speed, on board connectivity and to gauge how the service performed technically in a variety of settings over an extended period of time. We are pleased that the results were positive and that we have decided to move forward."
Gogo turns an American Airlines flight into a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling passengers to surf the Web, check e-mail, send instant messages, access a corporate VPN and more. Once the aircraft has reached 10,000 feet, users can simply turn on their Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, smartphones and handheld PDAs, open their browsers and be directed to the Gogo portal page where they sign up and begin surfing. Gogo is powered by the Aircell air-to-ground system, which uses three small antennas installed outside the aircraft and connects to Aircell's nationwide mobile broadband network.
Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet, e-mail and VPN access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol service use will not be available.
Gogo turns an American Airlines flight into a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling passengers to surf the Web, check e-mail, send instant messages, access a corporate VPN and more. Once the aircraft has reached 10,000 feet, users can simply turn on their Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, smartphones and handheld PDAs, open their browsers and be directed to the Gogo portal page where they sign up and begin surfing. Gogo is powered by the Aircell air-to-ground system, which uses three small antennas installed outside the aircraft and connects to Aircell's nationwide mobile broadband network.
Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet, e-mail and VPN access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol service use will not be available.
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The Netherlands' Dexton Software has introduced iSales, described by company officials as "a true agile CRM on demand application." ISales officials say the product is "a self supporting on-host CRM application" pitched at the "market demands for products that let users start on each level of CRM awareness."
The Netherlands' Dexton Software has introduced iSales, described by company officials as "a true agile CRM on demand application." ISales officials say the product is "a self supporting on-host CRM application" pitched at the "market demands for products that let users start on each level of CRM awareness."
Unlike iSales, Dexton officials say, "most competing on-demand CRM products require complicated programming for even the simplest change. ISales is based on the Dexton Software ASE principles and brings agility in every business and in every necessary step."
With iSales, "we bring an on-demand CRM product to the market that can help enterprises adapt to changing market circumstances within days rather than weeks. That is exactly what the market is waiting for," says Jos Halkus, CEO of Dexton.
iSales is an on host application. Through the Web site, users get access to relation management data and tasks that are hosted on a co-location. The only requirements to use iSales are a subscription to iSales and an Internet browser. For a fixed fee Dexton iSales provides customers functionalities "wherever and whenever."
With iSales, "we bring an on-demand CRM product to the market that can help enterprises adapt to changing market circumstances within days rather than weeks. That is exactly what the market is waiting for," says Jos Halkus, CEO of Dexton.
iSales is an on host application. Through the Web site, users get access to relation management data and tasks that are hosted on a co-location. The only requirements to use iSales are a subscription to iSales and an Internet browser. For a fixed fee Dexton iSales provides customers functionalities "wherever and whenever."
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