June 2009 Archives

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Diane Burch's Bible Belt. First Coffee tried this a week or so ago, found it okay but rather samey, so in the interests of fairness and objectivity we're trying it again. She has swell pipes, that's for sure, but the songs aren't strong across the board and the arrangements aren't all that great. The bottom line is here's a talented singer in need of better material:

Want your employees to experience a significant increase in work-life flexibility, productivity and overall satisfaction? You might want to consider letting them work remotely.

Cisco has announced the findings of its Teleworker Survey evaluating the social, economic and environmental impacts associated with telecommuting at Cisco. The study, Cisco officials say, found the improvements mentioned above.

You'd be in good company, too, as more companies are experimenting with various telecommuting strategies to save costs and retain top talent. Cisco's study found that it lets people work together no matter where they are located, as well. And it doesn't necessarily hurt the bottom line: Cisco's Internet Business Services Group, the company's global strategic consulting arm, found that allowing employees to telecommute and telework has generated an estimated annual savings of $277 million in productivity as well. 

And you can't overlook the goodwill allowing employees the remote option generates. "As a working mother of three children, I know firsthand the benefits of Cisco Virtual Office," says Carina Reyes, manager, Operations, Cisco. "Through voice and video, I remain engaged and able to lead global teams and programs and avoid back and forth trips to the office... juggling early-morning Europe calls, midday doctor's appointments and evening Asia meetings. My family and I feel fortunate that I work for one of the best companies today that enables true work-life navigation."

Cisco used the occasion of the study to tout its enterprise-class remote connectivity products, such as Cisco Virtual Office and Cisco OfficeExtend, and virtual collaboration tools like Cisco WebEx.

The study looked at almost 2,000 company employees, finding that Cisco employees spend about 63 percent of their time communicating and collaborating. Forty percent of Cisco employees say they are not located in the same city as their manager, and across the board the average Cisco employee now telecommutes 2.0 days per week. Sixty percent of the time saved by telecommuting is spent working and 40 percent is spent on personal time.

Approximately 69 percent of the employees surveyed cited higher productivity when working remotely, and 75 percent of those surveyed said the timeliness of their work improved -- 67 percent of survey respondents said their overall work quality improved when telecommuting. And Cisco employees reported a fuel cost savings of $10.3 million per year due to telecommuting.

And 0.01 percent of all remote workers admitted to "Facebooking when I should be working." Which means, of course, that approximately 94.99 percent lied about it.
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OpenLogic, which sells enterprise open source software, has announced the results of what company officials characterize as an "informal" survey, finding that enterprise acceptance of open source software is increasing -- while 60 percent of enterprises using open source lack effective means to track what open source software is installed.

Company officials polled a variety of executives -- "more than half of them from Fortune 500 companies," they say -- on how their corporations identify and manage open source usage. They found 18 percent of respondents "preferred" open source software, while a healthy 41 percent think open source software is "on equal footing" with proprietary software. But most respondents admitted that they have no automated way to track what open source software is used inside their organization, "either because they don't have any formal inventory processes or because they rely on self-reporting."

None of the executives polled said usage of open source was flatly not allowed at their companies. Twenty-nine percent said their company policy was that open source was to be used only if no other solution existed, and twelve percent said open source was allowed when it was "superior to other solutions." 

OpenLogic provides a library of open source software, with what company officials say are "hundreds of the most popular open source packages via OpenLogic Exchange, a free Web site where companies can find, research, and download certified, enterprise-ready open source packages on demand."

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Exploria SPS has announced the introduction of what company officials say is an "integrated, SaaS-architected closed loop marketing application" designed to let pharma sales reps customize messaging to physicians via a live or remote detail setting.

Exploria SPS President Richie Bavasso says the advantages of the product are generally those of SaaS itself: "No server hardware to purchase, optional software install on a mobile device, implementation measured in weeks or months, no upgrade costs, incredible speed and flexibility, and empowered and excited end-users... a multi-channel continuous loop marketing program within a flexible SFA or CRM system gives sales teams the power to create individual customer details that they can deliver to individual doctors using various media that can be optimized every day to incorporate new information."

Many companies desiring investment in CLM are "put off" by the hardware and software investment in arming and supporting a field force with the traditional client server model, Bavasso contends.

SaaS, which we used to call Application Service Provider software, does have a lot to like: You get your software from the vendor, who takes care of the hosting and operation (either independently or through a third party), all you have to do is use it over the Internet. Upgrades? No problemo. SaaS apps are usually more flexible as well. 

In this particular case, customizing applications to accommodate the needs of all of the pharmaceutical sales teams -- primary care, specialty care, managed markets, and KOL managers, to name a few -- is relatively easy and inexpensive, Exploria officials say: "Technically speaking, this is made possible because the metadata layer allows for customization yet the program is shared over the Web with the whole group so any changes can be shared with all the appropriate users in a matter of minutes." Try that with an in-house IT staff you can afford.

With this latest Exploria offering, Bavasso says, "customers can create new workflow policies and permissions, change validation rules, design and drop in their own customer facing viewer which will be automatically tracked in the platform, add users, change territory definitions, change hierarchies, and easily integrate to the latest CRM offerings. Compare this to a traditional client/server or hosted CRM application that requires at least five to ten steps and three or more months to accomplish these same types of changes."
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We believe in catering to most all tech marketing needs here at First Coffee, so this part's for nanomedicine: A report titled "Nanomedicine: A Global Strategic Business Report" has been announced by Global Industry Analysts, covering "major market dynamics, trends, issues, and competition pertaining to the market." 

Quick primer: Nanomedicine is the part of nanotechnology dealing with the capability to change the course of treatment of life-threatening diseases. 

Nanomedicine's great advantage is that it minimizes adversities associated with standard therapeutics. In other words, it's a safer and more efficient means of treatment in many cases. It includes nano drug delivery, nanoanalytical contrast reagents, nanobiomaterials, and nanopharmaceuticals, which have been "surging at a stable rate." That's from company officials, but what a great phrase: surging at a stable rate. "Captain, the waves are surging -- but at a stable rate." "Steady as she goes, bosun."

In recent years implementations of several programs by the industry have bridged the gap between outcomes of clinical research and commercial products. "As a result, the present nanobiomaterial product pipeline poses a healthy picture with numerous novel products for use in health care applications, primarily in the form of coatings," according to the report's authors.

Drug delivery market represents the largest application area, while the Biomaterials segment represents the fastest growing application segment for nanomedicine over the years 2006 through 2015.

The nanomedicine market's major market participants include the likes of Abraxis BioScience Inc., AMAG Pharmaceuticals Inc, Arrowhead Research Corporation, Crucell N.V., Flamel Technologies S.A., Elan Corporation Plc, Enzon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Life Technologies Corporation, Nanosphere Inc., Nektar Therapeutics, Novavax Inc., Oxonica Plc, Par Pharmaceutical Companies Inc., Starpharma Holdings Limited, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc., among others.

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Global Wireless Solutions has reported "dramatic growth" this past year in the demand for drive tests by wireless carriers as the number of mobile subscribers and demand for advanced broadband applications, like mobile video, continue to grow. 

We're talking a growing market even in the economic downturn, too. Mobile usage is growing significantly according to anyone's numbers -- just to pick one, the top 10 U.S. mobile operators added nearly 3.5 million net retail subscribers in the first quarter of 2009, which brings the total subscribers to 278 million, according to "1Q Wireless Gross Subscriber Additions: Prepaid Carriers Continue to Grow," a recent report from IDC.

GWS officials say they've recently reached a milestone of sorts by driving more than 4 million miles around the U.S. to collect data and analyze how well wireless networks perform. Friends, that's going the extra mile a few million times. This "made it possible for GWS to build a third-party database of network performance statistics," company officials say, adding that the benchmarking data gathered, compiled and analyzed by GWS "gives its customers an unbiased view of their own network performance, as well as competitors' networks, as experienced by subscribers."

The company's test equipment products enable comparisons of wireless networks that use different voice and data access protocols, including GSM, UMTS, HSPDA and CDMA. The company has built on this experience to develop testing systems for upcoming 4G networks, with capabilities for assessing WiMax performance, officials say.

"Competitive and economic pressures, as well as more mobile users using sophisticated smart phones, have combined to make wireless carriers realize that it is even more critical now to know exactly how their networks perform in the field. That is the best way for them to ensure customer satisfaction and exceed expectations," says Paul Carter, president of GWS. "The drive tests we perform for wireless carriers are vital for benchmarking and measuring quality of service so they can take the necessary action to correct weaknesses in their network."

In other news GWS has introduced TroubleSpots, a free iPhone coverage application available on iTunes that lets the phone's users report, in real time, when they experience areas of no wireless network coverage, dropped calls, failed call attempts failed data service and view their reported incidents.

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and we'll play The Jackson Five's "ABC," the last recording Michael Jackson made First Coffee would want on an iPod, then put on PJ Harvey's Stories From The City -- Stories From The Sea. The real tragedy of Wacko Jacko is that he was, along with Prince, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, one of the most ridiculously gifted musicians of his era. Yet those three have full, rich catalogues with years of quality work, while Jackson, who never made a good record without Quincy Jones, had Off The Wall, Thriller and a handful of singles. That's not much for such a rare talent.

You'll be relieved to know that there will not be a "religious war between an open source community on one side and commercial proponents on the other" in Europe, according to IDC.

Rather, says Bo Lykkegaard, research director, European Enterprise Applications and Services, IDC, "it will all come down to a battle over who can provide the customer with the most ERP or CRM per euro."

The research firm has issued a study titled Open Source Enterprise Applications in Europe: Disruption Ahead? examining SugarCRM and open source vendors' adoption in the enterprise applications market "from both a demand side and a supply side," firm officials say.

The study offers in-depth profiles of SugarCRM and other open source application vendors in Europe.

 

DC officials say the survey of 515 Western European IT decision makers in organizations with more than 50 employees showed "surprisingly high usage of open source enterprise applications." IDC identified the "main driver" behind open source adoption as "the absence of an upfront license payment along with a lower total cost of ownership. 

Not that it's overwhelming European business -- nine percent of respondents reported current use of an open-source back-office application and seven percent reported using an open source CRM application. Still, relatively speaking, that's not bad. "In an enterprise applications market in which large vendors boast a ten percent market share, adoption rates of nine percent and seven percent appear very high," says Bo Lykkegaard, research director, European Enterprise Applications and Services, IDC, adding that the survey results "show that open source adoption in ERP and CRM has reached a critical threshold and should now make a 'bleep' on every vendor's radar screen, particularly for those that compete in the mid-market."

 

Other vendors profiled in the study include Compiere, Openbravo, xTuple and vtiger.

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Good news for those of you in the broadband industry: We're addicted. 

 

Economic downturn or no, consumers aren't giving up home broadband services. They'll cut dining out and leisure travel first, according to a series of recent studies sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent.

The global study, conducted by Alcatel-Lucent's Market Advantage Program on the impact of the economic recession on spending for telecom services and "the role broadband services can play in promoting global economic growth and social welfare," determined how consumers prioritize household spending during a recession, "comparing the relative value of a wide variety of specific fee-based services."

So if you're earning your bread off broadband services you appear to be in luck, as the study found them "nearly recession-proof," with 84 percent of consumers identifying broadband as an "essential" network service not on the table for cuts. Heck, you might even get an extra loaf: More consumers globally are even planning to subscribe or upgrade their broadband services, the study found. 

 

Why is broadband so crucial? Key factors identified by the study include a desire to reduce the cost and travel time associated with commuting, and in developed countries a "growing dependence on the Web as an information source, business tool, social network and entertainment venue." Basically, friends, we're junkies who'll give up toothpaste before broadband.

"This clearly shows that people across the world rely on broadband services as a central part of their social and economic lives," says Tim Krause, Chief Marketing Officer for Alcatel-Lucent. Do tell.

The research also turned up some interesting attitudes about broadband from different regions and socio-economic strata. In markets such as France, for example, consumers indicate that the financial crisis has had "a greater negative impact" on their household when compared to consumers in other countries, the study found. Yet people in emerging countries are "more optimistic about the future than those in developed countries" -- two thirds of consumers indicated they are cutting expenditures, 85 percent of consumers from emerging countries indicated that their household economic situation would be the same or better a year from now compared to 64 percent of respondents in the developed countries.
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If you're an American or Canadian business with on-site deployments from certain vendors, and you're not happy, you may be interested in eGain Communications's promotion letting enterprises with "obsolete and non-integrated systems for customer service management" switch to eGain's multichannel customer service with no license fee for acquiring the eGain software to replace existing vendor licenses, one for one. 

The idea behind the promotion, according to eGain officials, is that enterprises with legacy, non-integrated customer service products "face non-existent product road maps or costly, forklift upgrades to new unproven versions." For companies who want something else, Ashu Roy, CEO of eGain says their SafeSwitch Program "will make the decision even easier for them."

 

EGain's selling an alternative, eGain Service, described as a "customer interaction hub software suite" with Web self-service, chat, co-browsing, e-mail, SMS, fax, postal mail and other capabilities on a common platform. "Unlike CRM generalists, eGain has focused on enterprise customer service needs," company officials say.

 

Okay, the fine print: To qualify for the promotion you need to have incumbent on-site software deployments fro Brightware/FirePond, Colloquis, Kaidara, KANA, KNOVA/Consona, Mustang/Quintus, noHold or Talisma. A typical conversion effort would be "in weeks, not months," eGain officials say.

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From Tokyo comes news that the ObjectsOnClouds Open Source Project Initiative, "OOCOSPI" to his friends, is "a worldwide collaborative effort to develop a set of integrated technologies as a cloud computing platform."

 

The ObjectsOnClouds Cloud Applications Computing Platform consists of a Java-based server component (The Ionosphere Server), IDEs for building cloud applications (Aurora), platform-native desktop cloud application clients (Gravity), as well as AJAX/Web-based cloud applications.

Features the ObjectsOnClouds Platform include real-time multi-user collaborative multi-language content editing, version control with instant push notifications upon content changes and fine-grained permission control for secure access to contents. It also has a free-form "natural" database, project officials say, which "abstracts the complexity of traditional relationship databases." The advantage here is that "non-technical people" can create cloud applications.

The Ionosphere Server is a Java EE/GlassFish-based server component, and Aurora is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for building cloud applications. As a native application for Mac and Windows, Aurora is "designed to take advantage of the platform's speed and efficiency.," company officials say.

 

Right now the ObjectsOnClouds Project is looking for both professionals and students with "the skills and dedication to open source software development" to become involved in creating the next cloud applications platform. Developer membership is free. Guess what the pay is.

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NetSuite has announced the appointment of veteran technology exec Edward Zander to its board of directors. 

 

Zander was most recently chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Motorola, and was with Sun Microsystems for 15 years before that, serving as president and chief operating officer. NetSuite officials say Zander will also serve on the Compensation Committee and the Nominating and Governance Committee of the Board. 

 

"I am personally excited to have the opportunity to work with him again," says Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite. "Cloud computing is the convergence of telecommunications, advanced data center capabilities, and great Web-native software."


 

Zander has also worked as managing director of private equity fund Silver Lake Partners, vice president of marketing at Apollo Computer, and as an engineering and marketing executive with Data General. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a member of the Dean's Advisory Council of the School of Management at Boston University.


 

Zander has served on the board of directors of several technology companies, and in addition to NetSuite he serves on the board of directors of Netezza Corp. and Seagate.

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the fine Apple Jam portion of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, the only ex-Beatle album which can be spoken of in the same breath as the Beatles' records:

Zoho has announced Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint, so online Zoho users can now collaboratively create, view, and edit files stored in Microsoft SharePoint. 

 

Clicking on a file in Microsoft SharePoint brings up options including "Edit in Zoho Editor" and "View in Zoho Editor." Hit the Edit option and you open the file for editing in a Zoho editor within Microsoft SharePoint -- either Zoho Writer,Zoho Sheet, or Zoho Show, depending upon the file selected. The View option opens the file for viewing in appropriate Zoho applications within Microsoft SharePoint, company officials explain, adding that a user must be connected to the Internet to access Zoho applications.

 

Raju Vegesna, a man whose business card says "Zoho evangelist," says that the company noticed "some businesses like the collaboration capabilities of online productivity applications, but they prefer to keep their data behind their firewall." Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint fills both needs, he claims.

It's delivered as an add-on that installs on top of Microsoft SharePoint 2007 and 2003. Once installed, company officials say, it lets users working in Microsoft SharePoint view, edit, and create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in Microsoft Office formats -- "but using Zoho online applications."

Vegesna notes that in addition to letting users work on Microsoft SharePoint documents from any operating system, the approach "can help save some money on Microsoft Office licenses." Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint itself is available now as a 30-day free trial version, after which an annual subscription runs $24/user and a monthly subscription three bucks per user.

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NEC Unified Solutions officials say the newly-opened boutique theWit [sic] Hotel in Chicago is using NEC communications technology to deliver guest services and amenities.

Guest rooms at theWit feature touch-screen access to such services as valet notification, setting restaurant reservations, ordering wake-up calls, requesting towels from housekeeping, and looking up airline flight or weather information. If you're into truly surreal experiences you can request wake-up calls with Second City comics doing celebrity voices, including President Barack Obama, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Al Capone and Harry Caray. As a former Chicago area denizen First Coffee would like to see Lou Mitchell's voice offered as well. Let's get on that, huh?

"Technology is a cornerstone of theWit, every piece has to integrate in order to create a truly unique guest experience," said Lou Carrier, chief brand officer for ECD Company / theWit Hotel, adding that what NEC offers "speaks directly to our brand."

From "the very beginning," the "technology vision" for theWit has been to provide guests with "an experience that is second-to-none," according to Darrin Pinkham, chief technology officer for ECD Company / theWit Hotel. 

Lou Van De Water, vice president and general manager for eastern regional sales, NEC, says theWit is "a prime example of the UNIVERGE360 concept by making guests and staff the central components of their technology decisions."

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Mountain View, California-based eGain Communications has announced the availability of eGain IVR. 

Company officials say it adds "human-like intelligence to IVR" while unifying it with other interaction channels, including Web self-service. The product is part of eGain's suite for multichannel customer service, eGain Service. It's being billed by eGain officials as reducing the total cost of ownership of multichannel self-service and customer service operational costs, "while enabling end-customers to accomplish more through IVR."

It comes in two flavors -- eGain IVR (Standard) helps handle informational and transactional customer service queries, using the eGain CIH platform, such as the common multichannel knowledge base, interaction records, customer database, and integration with back end systems. EGain IVR (Advanced), in addition to the standard features, has the Guided Help module, which uses the CBR technology of eGain Inference Reasoning Engine. This option enables interactive dialogs simulating customer conversations with the best human agents, in the words of eGain officials allowing businesses "to offer self-service for complex interactions that would usually need the intervention of experts."

IVR systems are notorious for frustrating users with inadequate content and the "IVR black hole" syndrome, where the user is trapped in a self-service maze, of the "press 26 to hear the menu again" variety. "Without meaning to, some companies have essentially taught consumers to avoid self-service channels because it is nearly impossible to accomplish their goals by using them," writes Dr. Natalie L. Petouhoff, Senior Analyst at Forrester, in an August 2008 report titled "Why Talking To Your Customers Is Ruining Your Business" from "The Gap in the Customer Service Experience" series.

EGain officials say to avoid this, their IVR uses CBR technology "to capture agent expertise in the knowledge base and prompt customers with appropriate questions in a way that the best agents would, until an answer or the next best step is found." They contend that this allows IVR users to access the same information and complete the same transactions that they would be able to accomplish through other channels. 

EGain IVR can be deployed as an on-site, on-demand, or managed product.

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Austin, Texas-based DoubleHorn Communications CEO Tab Schadt says his company's search for a firm to conduct "unbiased interviews of its customers," settled on References-Online.

References-Online contacted executives at several DoubleHorn clients, speaking with them about such offerings as the Voice over IP system that DoubleHorn deployed and currently manages.

References-Online, which counts such companies as SAP, Phillips, Sybase and Level 3 as clients, markets its services as "sharing the real story about the relationship with their customers," providing hosted phone service, managed broadband or e-mail applications to small and medium-sized businesses along with customer service. The company sells local technical support "in each of the major Texas markets we serve, and guarantee that a live person will answer the phone within four rings during normal office hours," officials say.

Jim Mooney, Founder and CEO of References-Online, describes the kind of company they want to work with as ones "that place importance on its reputation in the marketplace."

About DoubleHorn Communications

DoubleHorn officials say they include "all customer premise equipment at no cost, considering equipment as part of the Managed Service offering." Their service bundles provide are pitched as Small Business Communication products interoperable with such IP equipment manufacturers as Polycom, Adtran, Cisco, Digium and Linksys.

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Wichita, Kansas-based Bold Software, which you may have known in the past as Bravestorm, has announced that its integration module for Salesforce CRM is now live on the Force.com AppExchange. 

With the Bold Software module on the AppExchange, company officials say, customers get a product that transforms chats into leads, contacts, and cases within Salesforce CRM. 

Bold Software company officials describe their products as combining live chat, click-to-call, e-mail management, active co-browsing, and remote control "into a single, intuitive interface" pitched mainly as tools for larger scale retailers' sales and online support efforts.

"The integration between Bold Software and Salesforce CRM gives users tools for working with customer information," says Bold Software President and CEO Steve Castro-Miller, adding that the ability to roll live chat, click to call and e-mail management up into one tool "enhances the online customer experience."

Bold Software's newest product suites for enterprises, BoldCCM, offers Web site communications tools, including tools such as ActiveAssist, a co-browsing and remote control capability that allows an operator to take over a shopper's mouse or computer to resolve sales and support questions. An enhanced dashboard is said by company officials to provide contact center supervisors with "a graphical representation of the entire Web site communications operation."

Applications built on the Force.com platform can be distributed to the cloud computing community through the Force.com AppExchange marketplace.

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Kinks' classic 1968 album Something Else, the best non-Beatle pop songwriting to appear in the 1960s:

According to the redoubtable J.D. Power, Optimum Business ranks highest in satisfying home-based and small to midsize business customers with telecommunications data services, and Verizon's tops among customers in the large enterprise business segment.

 

After a sharp decline in satisfaction scores in the small/mid-size and large enterprise business segments between 2007 and 2008, overall satisfaction in both segments have increased in 2009, J.D. Power officials say, "driven by improvements in the billing and customer service factors." The results are in the latest J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Major Provider Business Telecommunications study.

With an index score of 654 on a 1,000-point scale, Optimum Business by Cablevision ranks highest in the home-based business segment. No, there's no comparison from last year's performance or a defending champion, it's a new segment in the 2009 study. 

 

The study found that Optimum Business performed well in performance and reliability, and picked up kudos for offerings and promotions. Silver and bronze went to Cox Communications (637) and EMBARQ (629).

Optimum Business also took top honors for the small/mid-size business segment with a score of 673, performing particularly well in sales representatives/account executives, billing, cost of service and offerings and promotions. J.D. Power characterized these particular categories as "four of the six factors driving satisfaction." 

 

Cox Communications seems to be playing Avis to Optimum's Hertz, following Optimum in the segment rankings with a score of 669. AT&T ranked third with 632.

In the large enterprise business segment, Verizon ranks highest in customer satisfaction with a score of 694, performing particularly well in performance and reliability, sales representatives/account executives, customer service, cost of service and offerings and promotions. Time Warner Cable came in second with 677.

In more good news, the study found a "considerable decline" in the percentage of small/mid-size and large enterprise business customers who said they had "difficulty understanding the customer service representative," which includes a lack of understanding of the problem by the customer service representative and issues with the clarity of a customer service representative's response. Sixteen percent report having experienced this problem, compared with 23 percent in 2008. Among large enterprise business customers this went from 26 percent to 13 percent.

"The sharp decline in communication-related problems between customer service representatives and their clients is just another example of how strong internal training programs pay long-term dividends for business services providers," said Perazzini. "These results are particularly impressive considering that there were no major differences in network outage performance between 2008 and 2009."

 

J.D. Power is a McGraw-Hill company.
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NEC Unified Solutions has announced that TORO National Support Network is using NEC's UC for Business product to handle customer service.

TORO NSN's call center handles troubleshooting and maintenance for customers using TORO's turf irrigation computer systems. TORO chose NEC's UC for Business unified communications application, according to TORO officials, to "enhance the NSN contact center's performance and reporting capabilities." The product is supposed to streamline administration and allow the company to handle the real-time demands of its call center.

In addition to providing advanced contact center functionality, NEC's deployment at TORO NSN offers unified messaging, mobility and desktop telephony applications. Desktop monitoring software allows TORO NSN to supervise incoming calls and prioritize those that need to be addressed immediately. In a pure IP environment the TORO NSN can meet its current communications needs with advanced technology.

"By choosing the UNIVERGE SV8300 and UCB, TORO NSN is providing its call center employees with the tools they need to make decisions and respond to customers quickly and knowledgeably," says Larry Levenberg, vice president and general manager, National Channel for NEC.

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Mailprotector, a vendor of e-mail security services, has unveiled quota-free hosted Exchange services. The new service is being pitched as going "beyond alternative hosted Exchange offerings" by "eliminating downtime resulting from mailbox limits that are exceeded quickly, preventing e-mail access."

 

"E-mail quota management has been a struggle for both users and organizations managing e-mail systems. Quotas reduce productivity by requiring users to manage their mailboxes instead of focusing on more strategic business activities," says Michael Osterman, founding analyst for Osterman Research. "With 60 percent of organizations having to impose a size quota on e-mail this is a widespread issue."

 

Mailprotector is offering fully hosted MS Exchange 2007 mailboxes with unlimited storage capacity, protected by Mailprotector's e-mail security service that includes spam, virus and phishing removal. The company's services start as low as $12.95 per user for unlimited mailbox storage e-mail security, inbound/outbound filtering,  business continuity, daily spam quarantine reports, unlimited contacts and aliases and centralized calendars and contacts, among other features.

 

Also announced is the Mailprotector Premium Security Suite, which includes spam and virus filtering to protect not only incoming messages but now outgoing messages as well. A new user adjustable spam filter provides the ability to fine tune settings based on a customers own specifications which, company officials say, "mitigates false positive issues surrounding the loss of legitimate e-mail as a result of filtering."

 

Additionally, configurable content management capabilities now allow users to create content filtering rules for individual users or entire domains to better enforce corporate e-mail politics... oops. that should be "policies," sorry.

Quota-free e-mail hosting services start at $12.95 per user.

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Don't worry, it's almost here, keep your shirt on -- June 19th AT&T begins selling iPhone 3G S nationwide in its more than 2,200 company-owned retail locations.

 

And probably as we speak AT&T is shipping devices to customers who preordered online. IPhone 3G S will also be available in all 211 U.S. Apple retail stores. (Only 211? First Coffee would have thought there'd be more than that.)

"The time is finally here. We're more than ready to open our doors tomorrow and begin selling the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet," said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets. "We understand that customers are eager to get their hands on this great new device. So we've worked hard to make the experience as easy as possible." One wonders if that includes passing out complimentary coffee and doughnuts to the no-lifers camped out on the sidewalk in front of the store.

As a public service, First Coffee is passing on the notice that customers who preordered in AT&T stores can return to the same store -- with their receipt, that's key now, don't forget your receipt, no excuses will be accepted -- to pick up their order. Customers should be sure to check the e-mail notification they received for their actual arrival date as some preorders will arrive after June 19; dates are based on when preorders were made and available inventory. 

 

All stores will open at 7 a.m. local time to exclusively serve preorder customers whose orders are expected to arrive on June 19. Any customer is welcome to visit beginning at normal business hours, at which point all customers will be served on a "first come, first served" basis. Initially, AT&T stores will sell one iPhone 3G S per person for new customers; existing customers may purchase one per eligible telephone number. Online shoppers may purchase one device per household.

 

Sounds like getting U2 tickets, doesn't it?

 

First Coffee swears this sentence appears verbatim in the official press release: "Customers who inherit an iPhone 3G from a friend or family member will need to visit an AT&T store to activate their device. Customers who inherit an iPhone can request a SIM card from AT&T and activate at home using iTunes."

 

That's right -- they've set up inheritance policies for these suckers.

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Independent communications holding company SureWest Communications has announced the launch of Caller ID on TV, a feature which provides an option for immediate, on-screen notification each time the phone rings. 

 

Sounds like one of those gizmos from hell, but wait -- "Sacramento area customers can now decide whether to ignore incoming calls that may be an interruption to their television program or to get up from the couch and answer important phone calls."

 

Perpetual couch potatohood takes another step forward -- notification of who it is calling on that phone inconveniently placed six whole steps across the room.

"With each call that comes in while the TV is on, a small pop-up window will appear at the bottom of the TV screen displaying the caller name and phone number of all unblocked calls," say the rightfully proud inventors. "Customers choose whether to answer the call, ignore it or inform the proper person in the house of the call." We'll leave it to your imagination to interpret that last option, but First Coffee knows what it entails around his house.

 

The Caller ID on TV feature is included free of charge for triple-play customers who subscribe to SureWest TV, phone and Internet, and costs $9.99, every penny well-spent, per month for other qualifying customers.

With maybe a hint of a tongue poking his cheek, Peter Drozdoff, vice president of marketing for SureWest, says this feature "allows people to take control of their phone, reducing unwanted interruptions and receiving immediate notification of truly important calls. To provide an exceptional customer experience, we must continually offer new features like Caller ID on TV that bring value and convenience to our customers' lives."

New SureWest triple-play customers will automatically receive the Caller ID on TV feature free of charge. SureWest currently offers Caller ID on TV in its Kansas City market.

Customers have the option to turn the Caller ID on TV feature on or off and customize it to suit their preferences. It keeps track of calls while the TV is off and the call log displays the 20 most recent incoming calls with the caller's name, number, date and time of call. No additional equipment is necessary to use Caller ID on TV.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Neil Young's re.ac.tor. A rather uninspired hard rock workout released during his rather uninspired "Hey, let's steal David Geffen's money!" phase, with a lot of what sound like dummy lyrics, but a bracing shot of noise when you need to wake up:

As soon as you heard Apple was updating its iPhone software you knew what was coming next -- and sure enough: Salesforce.com officials say the Salesforce CRM Mobile application has been updated to "take full advantage of the new iPhone 3.0 OS software," giving customers features including the ability to cut, paste and copy, clone records, create custom filters and manage tasks using a new calendar interface."

Users can cut, copy, and paste text from e-mails and text messages directly into Salesforce CRM. They can use the, ah, "thumb-saving clone button" to create identical records and save a bunch of typing. If that's a good thing. No, First Coffee does not have an iPhone, Mrs. First Coffee correctly identifies his pleas to get one as "just technolust, buddy."

The upgrade lets users manage events with a new date-indexed view and a calendar-like interface, find information with custom filters on any list of data and convert a lead "as soon as the user hangs up the phone. The iPhone now offers lead conversion on a single form."

Evidently you can also create custom mobile links on any object in Salesforce CRM, linking directly from an account to a Yahoo! news site with news about a company, or link to a custom Visualforce page to show all related contacts and their images.

Salesforce.com officials say their mobile application is approaching 100,000 downloads, and is on pace to cross this threshold in July. Salesforce CRM Mobile is available free from Apple's App Store on iPhone and iPod touch. It's included with Salesforce Unlimited Edition and available to Enterprise and Professional Edition customers.

...

Metastorm, a Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture software vendor, has announced the release of a software product called Metastorm ProVision Connect for SAP.

Company officials say it's designed to be "an interface between the Metastorm ProVision enterprise architecture and business process analysis suite and SAP Solution Manager," adding that it's designed to "accelerate the design and deployment of solutions running on SAP and help customers gain a broader picture on how their SAP processes are interlinked to other assets in the organization." 

It lets users link Metastorm's software with SAP's Solution Manager for two-way exchange of models and associated information. Basically it's being pitched as a way for customers of both Metastorm and SAP to extend visibility, speed process design and enhance governance. 

It gives users a way to model SAP with a modeling tool and, if desired, within the broader context of the business strategy, business architecture and technology architecture. Metastorm officials say it helps users "understand the broader relationships, and impact, of SAP components to people, broader processes and other systems so that solutions can be implemented with lower risk." You might want it if you need to implement SAP and need help complying with any legal and regulatory requirements.

With the economy in a downturn and companies tightening IT budgets and scrutinizing every project, "our ability to accelerate the deployment of SAP, minimize rework, and maximize business results is more critical than ever before," says Jens Steuer, Solution Practice Principal at Hewlett-Packard GmbH. 

...

 

Never let it be said that First Coffee doesn't go the extra mile to bring you news that might be of serious impact to your life. Yes, we're speaking to you San Franciscans who don't realize how much you're overpaying for parking. 

 

According to Urban Mapping and its Urbanware Parking database, prices for off-street parking in the same general area of the city can vary greatly from one lot to another. For example, the city's most expensive lot for a weekday morning costs $17.75 for the first hour -- that's the one you're using. A lot one block away costs $7.50 for the same hour, and another option six blocks away is only $2. That's the one your ex-wife's using and not telling you about.

Further evidence is the large disparity between prices for all-day parking, according to Urban Mapping officials: "To park from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a weekday, the priciest lot costs $54. A lot 200 feet away charges less than half that amount, $25 for the day, and a spot five blocks away costs $11 a day."

Ian White, CEO of San Francisco-based Urban Mapping, hits the nail on the head: "Technology is supposed to improve our lives, yet something as rudimentary as where to park has largely been overlooked." That'll preach. Products "to help get us from Point A to Point B are becoming mainstream, and some do provide basic parking data, but many of the important attributes of a lot are overlooked. How do the rates change depending on the day of the week or time of day?" he asks. Does the lot accept credit cards or just cash? Does it validate? Where do you actually enter and exit? 

 

"We've put people on the streets to collect all this data, not just for San Francisco, but for the top 50 metropolitan areas across the country," White says.

Other highlights from the San Francisco data include:

What's that? Oh okay. The city's most expensive hour of parking on a weekday morning ($17.75) can be found in the Nob Hill area, specifically the 1000 block of California Street. But don't feel too bad -- parking during the same time in New York City can cost up to $34.63 per hour. The priciest lot for all day parking during the week ($54) is near the Ferry Building on 100 block of Spear Street. Equivalent parking options in New York go as high as $73.50, so again, count your blessings.

 

Parking from noon to 2 p.m. at the Westin St.-Francis on Union Square costs $18; for the same times, the lot under Union Square goes for five bucks. And two hours of parking near the Transamerica Pyramid on a weekday costs $24 at the priciest lot, one block away it's only $4.50. 

 

And here in Mangawhai, New Zealand? Wave at the clerk in the Foursquare grocery store and you can park free in their lot all day, as long as you pull around back.
...

For the second consecutive year conferencing and collaboration services provider InterCall has been named Frost & Sullivan's 2009 Conferencing and Collaboration Service Provider of the Year in Asia Pacific. 

 

Frost & Sullivan officials say the award "recognizes InterCall's commitment to expand and enhance service to its regional customers during 2008."

InterCall offers "an excellent value proposition to small and large businesses alike," says Pranabesh Nath, industry analyst, Frost & Sullivan, adding that the company has also "taken a lead" in integrating shared work spaces and enterprise social networking to its existing unified audio and Web conferencing services.

During 2008, InterCall expanded conferencing options for customers in the Asia Pacific region with the introduction of InterCall Unified Meeting, and increased partnerships with companies such as IBM, ON24 and Huddle. The company also invested in international conference calling with the introduction of Global Network Access, which provides a link for international conferences through a distributed conferencing option.

Hain MacKay-Cruise, managing director, InterCall Asia Pacific, said his company was pleased to receive the award. It was conferred at the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards, described as recognizing companies in the information and communications technology industry "that have risen above the competition and demonstrated outstanding performance across the Asia Pacific region." Criteria include revenue and revenue growth, portfolio diversity, major wins and key achievements in financial year 2008, according to Frost & Sullivan officials.

...

It's not all bad news out there, friends, the Global IPTV market is up to nearly 24 million with 9.77 percent quarterly growth and "strong activity" across North America, according to the Broadband Forum.

 

The Forum has announced the latest broadband and IPTV statistics, which show what they consider to be "impressive growth in the face of the global economic downturn." Its report, prepared for the Forum by industry analysts Point Topic, shows that broadband "grew by 16.6 million lines globally in the last quarter alone, with more than three million being added across North America - while IPTV continues to expand strongly."

Broadband lines in the world now top 429.2 million and the last quarter shows growth slightly higher than the previous three month period. Twenty countries grew by 10 percent or more in that time. The biggest growth in the top 20 came from India at 13.4 percent, while the other large gainers were Ukraine (15.2 percent), Egypt (10.6 percent) and Mexico (10.3 percent). 

 

North America was again "a major factor in the continued IPTV success story," Forum officials say, pointing to the region's growth of more than 15 percent over the last quarter and "a huge" 94.2 percent year-on-year improvement: "There are now nearly 4.5 million lines of IPTV across North America."

 

In terms of technology, DSL continues to be the most popular broadband access technology, Forum officials found, "although fiber grew by more than three million lines to reflect a 12.4 percent share of the market, while wireless showed a healthy proportionate increase of over one million lines to a total of 5.58 million."

The Broadband Forum's mission is "to develop the full potential of broadband," its officials say. The organization has around 200 members of service providers, equipment manufacturers, chip vendors and other organizations.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dwight Yoakam's wonderful acoustic.net, the 2000 solo acoustic reworkings of gems from his back catalogue. Some songs shine brighter in this setting than they did with full band backing, notably "Readin', Rightin,' Rt. 23" and "Little Sister:"

Virgin Games, Virgin's on-line gaming offering, is claiming an average e-mail response time of "less than five minutes" to customers, following the implementation of a multimedia contact center product from NEC Philips Unified Solutions. The combined multi-media contact center is a first within the Virgin Group, breaking away from their traditional telephony based applications.

The NEC Philips tool combines call, chat and e-mail customer contact facilities. Virgin Games officials say they've seen a 200-300 percent improvement in service delivery since the product was implemented, as well as "average abandonment" rates dropping to below one percent. Operations Director Christina Thakor-Rankin said "most companies consider 2-5 percent abandonment acceptable."

The company went live with the new tool, which uses IP and contact center technology from NEC Philips, in November 2008 with the launch of its in-house Customer Support Team. The company decided at the time to replace its previously outsourced customer support functions, company officials say, to ensure "full ownership of and a better, more streamlined customer experience."

Thakor-Rankin said that "at launch our volumes went through the roof and whilst we aim for First Contact Resolution wherever possible, the fact that some customer interactions require some investigation means that unfortunately it is not always possible to give an instant response. " She said in the last five and a half months "we have received 25,000 hits across all media, be it call, chat or e-mail."

...

Aspect, a unified communications vendor, has announced that one of its customers, Fran Horner from NorthShore University HealthSystem, won the 1to1 Customer Champion Award from industry journal 1to1 Magazine. 

As the senior director of patient access, Horner was cited for "driving patient services initiatives and using the UC application for the contact center capabilities from Aspect." In recent months NorthShore improved its contact center satisfaction level "from 60 percent to up to 98 percent," lowered agent turnover by 58 percent, and boosted the "calls answered within 30 seconds" metric to 82 percent, Aspect officials say.

"The patient experience begins the moment you call a healthcare provider," said Horner, stressing the need to keep the process "as pleasant as possible." Horner said it was "gratifying" to have their work at NorthShore University HealthSystem "validated by 1to1 Magazine."

Horner and NorthShore University HealthSystem decided on what Aspect officials characterized as a "people-focused, cross-departmental initiative supported by technology." NorthShore, a healthcare provider based in the northern Chicago suburbs, implemented the inbound, outbound, voice portal, recording and workforce management capabilities of Aspect's UC application for the contact center, Blended Interaction. Horner established new recruiting and training initiatives to deal with patient inquiries.

The 1to1 Customer Champions are chosen by 1to1 Magazine based on "their ability to transform customer loyalty into profit," publication officials say.

...

Noting that companies today are "increasingly selective about their technology spending, putting pressure on value added resellers to provide one-stop value for software products and professional services," Tricension officials have announced that the organization has achieved Microsoft Business Solutions Certified Partner and acceptance in the Microsoft Services Provider Licensing program.


 

"Our Dynamics CRM practice has continued to grow and with the current economic environment, clients were increasingly shying away from capital purchases and looking for a more manageable technology cost model for Microsoft Dynamics CRM," says Mike Lammers, Tricension's President and Chief Business Architect.

The Service Provider License Agreement lets firms offer hosted Microsoft licensed products on a monthly basis. Tricension's Software as a Service offering is focused on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, "complimented with Exchange 2007 and SharePoint," company officials say. The firm pairs Certified Microsoft Dynamics professional services with the Dynamics CRM hosted product.

"Clients are asking for low cost of ownership ways to automate business processes," Lammers notes.

Kansas City-based Tricension targets "C-level managers in mid-market companies who have a high level of frustration with their current technology," company officials say, as well as serving "well-managed young companies."

...

Tighten your belts, campers, the news isn't good: According to new research from industry analyst firm IntelliCom Analytics, North American Business Communications market revenues plunged by 29 percent in the first calendar quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. 

All of the major providers tracked in the IntelliCom report saw year-over-year declines, with the top five -- Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, Mitel, and NEC -- dropping 20 percent or more.

These figures, from the "IntelliCom Market Performance Dashboard First Quarter 2009 Report," are based on "total manufacturer product revenues associated with premise-based communication platform hardware, software applications, and end user devices," IntelliCom officials say.

"Q1 represented the first full quarter impacted by the general economic downturn, and the impact was severe with North American businesses dramatically reducing spending on Business Communications solutions and related applications," stated Frank Stinson, Partner and Senior Analyst at IntelliCom Analytics. "This market decline is unprecedented in both its breadth and depth. No one went unscathed."

The silver lining in all this is that total market penetration in Q1 was "generally consistent" with established trends. Cisco continues to hold a nearly 10 point lead over second place Avaya, while Nortel remained in the number three position it occupied prior to filing for Chapter 11 protection in January. Stinson said to expect "significant dynamics" over the next several quarters, however: "We expect the next several quarters to be particularly significant, especially for those players in a weakened condition... whether that be through aggressive competitive tactics or acquisition."

The IntelliCom Market Performance Dashboard looks particularly hard at core telephony software, platform hardware, end user devices and emerging Unified Communications applications.

...

None of that doom 'n' gloom for some companies, however -- Host Analytics, a vendor of SaaS corporate performance management products, is ramping up its "blazing hot" quarter with the launch of Host Analytics version 9.0, the company's 17th major product release in the last nine years. 

Company officials say the newest release introduces "new functionality designed to make the SaaS CPM suite more comprehensive, extensible and usable," with "a more comprehensive feature set for the financial consolidation module of the Host Analytics suite, eliminating the complex macros and scripting required in spreadsheets and legacy tools." 

The launch of v9.0 caps a busy spring for Host Analytics. Last month the company announced it closed a Series B financing which they say raised "multiple millions of dollars," and in April Host Analytics passed the 8,000 paying-user milestone.

Jon Kondo, CEO at Host Analytics, said "curiously, the 'CPM system' Host Analytics most often replaced when we began in 2000 is the same product we are displacing in the market today -- Microsoft Excel. Though great for any number of basic projects, Excel lacks the functionality, agility and accessibility required by business in the midmarket and beyond to execute CPM thoughtfully and strategically."

Host Analytics officials are also announcing a Team Edition - Financial Consolidation, designed to replace Microsoft Excel and legacy on-premise products in midsized companies and enterprises, as well as a series of new partnerships with SaaS-focused ISVs and systems integrators.

Version 9 also has enhanced Excel integration for dynamic access to actuals, budgets and forecast values for custom and ad hoc reporting and analysis. Extensibility has been enhanced to support SEC-required XBRL reporting through NeoClarus, web services based integration to ERP, CRM and HCM data sources through Boomi, and custom reporting through Microsoft Reporting Services documents that can be run within the Host Analytics suite. Usability improvements include reduced process steps, task lists, wizards and Web 2.0-based toolbars and menus.

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is, if I must be honest, Grand Funk Railroad's "Loco-Motion." Go ahead and laugh if you've never listened to anything for the pure dumb fun of it:

Inilex has launched Apprize, described by company officials as a "machine-to-machine software service" for "challenges faced by developers" of M2M products. It lets developers add different devices and networks with no limitations, and can integrate outdated legacy devices that are still a part of an M2M system with newer or modern applications. 

 

The SaaS product is billed as letting developers "deploy any type of M2M application using any device, any protocol, over any communications network." 

It's not difficult to see the market opportunity Inilex is heading for here. Strategy Analytics says the M2M industry is projected to grow exponentially in the coming years, from approximately $16 billion in 2008 to more than $57 billion by 2014. Apprize is positioned by Inilex officials as offering M2M software "that can be implemented across a variety of industries such as telemedicine, energy management, environmental, security" and more.

"It takes between four and six supply-chain partners" to develop and manage just one M2M product, says Vice President of Yankee Group's Enterprise and SMB Research, Steve Hilton. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Inilex, Scott Ferguson said he's found that "customers can pay up to half a million dollars to develop and maintain M2M solutions."

 

Inilex is based in Chandler, Ariz. and was founded in 2003. Company officials describe the firm as a vendor of "intelligent telemetry" products, monitor, track and control machines across a number of industries. Their products include Advantra, an M2M development platform, as well as vehicle safety and security products using GPS and cellular messaging systems.

...

PSCU Financial Services, a financial services CUSO and provider of 24/7 call center operations for credit unions, has honored four credit unions at the San Dimas, California-based Financial Service Centers Cooperative 2009 annual meeting in Las Vegas. 

 

Honolulu-based Hawaiian Tel Federal Credit Union, University of Hawaii Federal Credit Union and Hawaii USA Federal Credit Union were noted for using their custom call center to "enhance member service in the last year," and Kealakekua-based Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union received the Call Center Innovator award.

According to the citations, these credit unions "conducted cultural training to better align Total Member Care service representatives with the needs of their members." In response, Total Member Care adopted Hawaiian elements to its call center services, including island-themed hold music and a cultural-focused custom training regiment, as well as other ways to "ensure the members of the Hawaiian credit union community are given the level of care and service to best fit their needs and expectations." Insert hula girl line here.

 

The awards note the four credit unions' collective effort to transition members to Total Member Care's mainland call center.

"Each year, PSCU Financial Services recognizes credit unions that find ways to maximize member service through our round-the-clock call center operations," says Peter Schmitt, executive director of PSCU Financial Services. "This year, we chose to acknowledge the exceptional member care of Hawaiian Tel, University of Hawaii, Hawaii USA and Hawaii Community Federal Credit Unions," noting especially their "implementation of cultural elements from their state."

 

This sort of thing might work well in Hawaii, but one recoils to think what would happen if other states implemented "cultural elements" in contact centers. New Jersey: "You gotta problem wid dis? Yeah? Tellya what, jabrone: You gimme your home address an' we'll send Vito and Vinnie aroun' to, ah, discuss dis here so-called problem. Smart move, I put you down here as one more satisfied customer. Have a pleasant day." Click.

 

...

FrontRange Solutions, developer of the GoldMine family of CRM software, has announced its top global CRM partners, including two UK channel organizations, Wizard Systems and Armstrong Consultants, in the top ten. The CRM Partner of the Year globally went to Ticomix Inc. of Illinois.

FrontRange CEO Michael McCloskey said the Partner of the Year awards "give us the opportunity to recognize the hard work and dedication they give to the marketing, implementation and support of our customer relationship and IT management."

The winning partners were chosen for their results in "several key categories," McCloskey said, including revenue generation, certification and customer satisfaction.

Greg Anderson, General Manager of GoldMine business at FrontRange, said that despite the global economic situation, "many businesses have the foresight to see that investing in improving customer relations is one of the best ways to both survive the recession and come out the other side in an even stronger position."

FrontRange Solutions recently launched GoldMine Premium Edition 8.5, a product offering mid-range companies such features as Universal Search and cross-validation of manual-entered data.

...

"Knowledge is power." Agree? The folks at 24x7Guru.com do -- they credit that for increased revenue and an expanded customer base. 

 

The global education portal is using Analytix On Demand SaaS business intelligence to gain "in-depth insight into customer subscription trends," according to company officials.

24x7Guru.com [Note to grammarians: It's okay to begin a sentence with a numeral if it's a proper noun: "7-Eleven officials said yesterday..."] provides assessment and education services to students in India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, specializing in mathematics and science. Analytix officials said 24x7Guru.com, created by LearnSmart India, needed "detailed analysis of how its revenue breaks out by geography, demographics and educational subjects, including data about who is using the company's services and how."

 

Obviously such information would be of great help in determining where to allocate marketing spend and what product enhancements would boost business.

"The more data we have, the more we can model our solution for future behavior," says Muralidhar K.S., CEO, LearnSmart India. "Now that we know so much more about what our customers are using, what they're buying and who they are, we can determine what they're more likely to buy next. We can see in real time what's working, so we can not only improve existing curriculum, but also identify new areas for expansion - either in terms of the product itself, or even potential new groups of customers."

Vik Torpunuri, Analytix On Demand founder and CEO, says traditionally, "this kind of insight into company performance was only available to large enterprises with massive budgets and a lot of time. But thanks to SaaS technologies, we can provide enterprise-class business intelligence at a fraction of what it used to cost."

As an intelligent Web-based assessment application, 24x7Guru.com lets students take tests at their convenience and from any browser without any downloads, company officials say, adding that the portal provides for "objective type questions with instant results, along with analytical feedback of performance every time the child takes the test."

 

Analytix On Demand is based in Irvine, California with offices in New York, Houston and San Jose.

 

...

Navis, a developer of reservation-capture products for the vacation rental management and independent resort markets, has announced that Waterstone Resorts & Vacation Homes of Panama City Beach, Florida has contracted for Navis RezForce reservation call center services. 

 

The agreement authorizes Navis to take after-hours calls on behalf of Waterstone Resorts and book reservations for vacationing guests.

 

"Waterstone Resorts understands that a lost call means lost revenue," says Kyle Buehner, CEO of Navis. "Navis Vacation Planners are trained in the art of booking reservations and are providing 24x7 call center services for more than 100 companies in the hospitality market. We are proud to add Waterstone Resorts to this prestigious list of Navis clients."

Waterstone Resorts & Vacation Homes operates condominium resorts and resort homes in Florida. The mission statement is simple - "a commitment to providing the finest vacation accommodations in the best resort locations with an unmatched level of service to guests, homeowners and employees." 

 

Yep, First Coffee would have to say that pretty well covers it. 

Navis, headquartered in Bend, Oregon, is a privately held company founded in 1987.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a random play of the 102 Rolling Stones songs on my iPod. Current selection: "Midnight Rambler" from Let It Bleed:

Advisor Products, a financial advisor technology and marketing company, and CRM vendors Redtail Technology have announced the integration of Redtail's flagship Web-based CRM system and Advisor Products' Personal Client Portals.

Personal Client Portals, which uses Web 2.0 technology, is designed to give a client of a financial advisor a financial Web page "complete with live feeds from portfolio management, financial planning, and CRM systems, as well as market data, an advisor blog, and personalized financial content," according to company officials.

Using XML feeds, client activity information can be pushed from Redtail CRM to the client-facing product. Advisers can make notes of work done for clients and display this in each client portal's To-Do Manager. Company officials note that this feature is "especially valuable to fee-based advisers for validating their fees, since most of the work advisers do is often unseen by clients."

The product also lets advisers assign tasks to clients directly through their CRM system. "If an advisor notices that it's time for an annual meeting with a client, he can assign a reminder to the client directly," says Redtail Technology CEO Brian McLaughlin.

...

The Black Hawk County, Iowa, 9-1-1 Service Board has announced that the Black Hawk Consolidated Public Safety Communications Center has become the first 9-1-1 Call Center in the country to receive text messages sent directly to 9-1-1. 

The approach uses Short Message Service to establish a text conversation directly between the "caller" and the 9-1-1 operator. While SMS was not initially developed for use in public safety, it has gained widespread acceptance by the Speech and Hearing Impaired Community, as one might imagine. Currently it's in restricted test mode with plans to go live in early July.

"It's important to note that a voice call remains the best way to contact 9-1-1," Black Hawk County officials say, adding that texting to 9-1-1 "should be limited to use in situations where a voice call is not possible."

Proponents of the technology say this allows those with speech and hearing impairments to use text messaging to communicate directly with a 9-1-1 operator in an emergency. Many communications companies, including Intrado, i wireless, Positron Public Safety and RACOM Corporation, worked to support the move. Currently people with speech and hearing impairments must communicate with 9-1-1 operators using a relay center or a specialized communications device.

Richard Ray, chair of the National Emergency Number Association's Accessibility Committee, urges public safety agencies to "accelerate the deployment of this technology and to encourage, support and celebrate efforts such as this."

Increasingly, says Chief Thomas Jennings, chairman, Black Hawk 9-1-1 Board, text is "becoming the way people communicate and public safety must be able to support 9-1-1 text messaging."

...

Innoveer Solutions, a customer strategy consultancy, has announced that it has partnered with Suffolk Construction, a privately-held building contracting firm, to develop and implement customer relationship management (CRM) to "serve as the foundation for the firm's new nationwide sales program and business development process."

Suffolk is interested in CRM because they want "a centralized customer view with better pipeline and forecasting accuracy and management," company officials say. "CRM enables us to remove many manual and siloed processes, reduce the amount of time that our business development team spends on administrative tasks and better manage contacts and opportunities," says Corren Collura, Chief Information Officer, Suffolk Construction. 

 

Collura says Suffolk's system automates "many of our executive reports that track leads, opportunities, pipeline and customer wins," and has "reduced our time to create reports from one full day to a few hours" with increased accuracy.

"Innoveer's consultants worked with Suffolk on a phased CRM implementation, which gave them the time and focus necessary to understand the CRM system and its benefits, address their concerns, and focus on adoption," said Steve Noone, vice president, US Operations, Innoveer Solutions. "The team at Suffolk committed to understanding their overall business process first and then selected the appropriate technology to support that process. As a result, they now have a CRM system that the entire company follows, and they are poised to achieve their goal of nationwide growth."

...

Salesforce.com has announced that Advent Software, which sells software and services for the global investment management industry, has deployed Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform throughout the company for what Advent officials say are "hundreds of sales, marketing, professional services, customer support, IT, finance, and executive management employees."

 

Belinda Rodman, Chief Information Officer, Advent Software, says that "cloud computing has delivered rapid time to value and has been widely adopted by our employees."

Advent uses Salesforce CRM as a central data repository to "help sales and customer service better understand customers," Advent officials say, adding that its high adoption rate among users "ensures that customer data is consistent and reliable," and that the company "benefits from custom forecasts and dashboards that provide real time views of key opportunity and deal metrics, and make it easy to compare historical data."

In addition to Salesforce CRM, Advent is developing project management and other custom applications on the Force.com platform, using what Advent officials describe as "multiple Force.com sandbox environments" for developing and testing new customizations and applications before deploying them.

As of April 30, 2009, Salesforce.com counted its customer base at 59,300 companies.

...

Helpstream, a vendor of customer service communities, has announced HelpExchange, a community designed to "facilitate sharing best practices for customer service excellence." It's supposed to give companies a "one-stop shop" for more than 40 articles on topics such as "Attracting Members and Evangelizing Community" to "Selecting and Deploying Technologies," according to company officials.

"A customer is a terrible thing to waste. Companies have poured huge sums of money into products that focus exclusively on solving customer problems at the lowest possible cost," says Anthony Nemelka, CEO of Helpstream. "Unfortunately, these investments have done nothing to help companies extract the true value from its customers. We believe engaging customers using social customer service communities helps companies use customers' expertise to not only solve problems, but also to identify new market opportunities, defend the brand and stimulate referrals to new customers."

He described HelpExchange as "a first step in stimulating a forum for ideas, success and learning in this area."

HelpExchange is a customer service best practices community allowing practitioners and community managers to "share experiences and ideas" on how to get the most from customer service communities, company officials say. The site includes original Helpstream Community Best Practices content, a discussion forum, IdeaStorm brainstorming channel, portals to outside community resources, and customer service-focused ideas and blogs, all free and licensed under Creative Commons attribution license.

"A best practices community focused on customer service communities is greatly needed," says John Ragsdale, VP of technology research for the SSPA, AFSMI and TPSA organizations. "The majority of our members now offer customer service communities, but an understanding of key success metrics, target performance benchmarks, and overall best practices is sorely lacking."

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a rather new find, Diane Burch's debut white soul album, Bible Belt. She has a good voice for this sort of thing (think a warmer, more playful Joss Stone), and there are some sparkling moments here -- "Ariel" is a standout track -- but this is the second time through and it's sounding very much the same. Lenny Kaye's fine guitar work is wasted on the rather bland arrangements, the horn charts don't knock me over and she could have used stronger songs. But it's a good showcase for her vocal abilities, and she can broaden the material she tackles next time out, she certainly has the pipes for it:

Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has named NetSuite CRM recipient of a 2009 CRM Excellence Award.

NetSuite officials say the award recognizes "NetSuite's growing impact on companies looking for powerful, integrated Software as a Service (SaaS) business management." The CRM Excellence Awards, now in their tenth year, are based on each rated product's ability to extend and expand the customer relationship across the entire enterprise, and provide end-to-end customer life cycle management.

Other recent industry awards for the on-demand CRM vendor recognize the company's software products and "contribution to helping organizations streamline business processes and spur growth," NetSuite officials say. Strategic advisory service ISM recognized NetSuite and NetSuite CRM solutions with a Top 15 CRM Small and Medium Business Software Award for 2009 -- marking the eighth straight year ISM has so honored NetSuite -- and Network World listed NetSuite as one of the top 10 cloud computing companies to watch, alongside technology leaders Amazon and Google.

These recent industry accolades complement NetSuite's launch of SuiteCloud Connect for both SAP and Salesforce.com, which provides transparent integration with other enterprise systems, and NetSuite OneWorld, a product pitched for those looking to improve their "global business operations," NetSuite officials say. For more information about these awards.

ISM officials say their awards are issued on the basis of testing at the Bethesda, Maryland-based firm's ISM Software Lab. NetSuite and its peers were rated on 217 selection criteria, including 102 business functions, 51 technical features, 36 implementation capabilities, 11 real-time criteria and 17 user-support features.
...

Officials from Stratford Upon Avon-based -- how cool to find a firm based in Bill Shakespeare's old stomping grounds -- Cyber City note that as the recession continues to bite, "many companies are looking at how they can achieve the impossible; improve the level of service they offer for an ever increasing demanding customer base at the same time as reducing their costs.

In call center outsourcing, shared service typically involves paying a call center a fee pay per minute, rather than the hourly paid business model. The in-house call center operates at medium-level staffing levels, switching to overflows any calls past a certain point. To outsourcers such as, oh, Cyber City. This ensures more efficient productivity for the in-house center and cutting down -- a lot -- on the abandon rate. And this is a concern -- "With the downward pressure on costs, some centers are now experiencing abandon rates in excess of 20 percent at busy times of the week, which in the long-run has been proven to have a negative impact on customer retention," company officials say.

It's not for everyone -- shared service call centers are "typically more suitable for applications of a purely transactional nature," Cyber City officials note.

Some companies like to use shared service overflows to deal with any activity which stimulates calls not handled efficiently in-house, such as responding to media advertising, or when there are heavy call volumes due to billing periods. "Many of our clients use our shared service to handle calls resulting from DRTV, catalogues or press advertising," Cyber City officials say, adding that in the retail sector, shared service overflows "are often heavily used during the run up to Christmas or whenever call volumes are higher."

Then, of course, there are those companies who see a 24x7 call center as too expensive for the cost per call, and prefer to use outsourcers to keep the cost per call answered down to a minimum by paying per call minute rather than the fixed costs of dedicated staff. It's also attractive to those concerned about disaster recovery.
...

Prolific report and study generators IDC's latest study finds that, despite the "tough economic climate," more than 30 percent of Asia/Pacific companies have "intentions to increase" their spending on software, while only 6.1 percent intend to reduce their investments in this area over the next 18 months.

Overall, the study showed, a majority of the companies are "still keen to maintain their investment budget on software solutions."

The results of the study were "encouraging. Many companies whom we interviewed were particularly interested in solutions that can play an integral role in improving performance and automation efficiency within the infrastructure environment," says Wilvin Chee, Research Director, Asia/Pacific Software Research at IDC.

Across the board, Chee says, "the increase in infrastructure management and database software spending could see some reallocation of budget away from business applications and middleware solutions. However, countries such as India, PRC, Indonesia, and Vietnam are expected to see a continued surge in investments for customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource management (ERM) applications."

Still, the on-premise subscription model remains "the dominant option" for most companies in the region, IDC officials say, "due to better control over reliability and security." The survey did find that more companies have warmed up to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) or open source concepts, with an average of 16.2 percent of respondents saying they are "likely" to adopt SaaS model for their new (or increased) deployment in the next 18 months. A year ago 2.6 percent said they were likely to do that.

"Better product values and offerings, coupled with the current economic pressure," are the major reasons driving more companies to consider this pay-per-use option, Chee said, noting that while cost considerations remain "the prime factor" when making decisions on software investments, companies are not so tolerant towards poor support services or complex product features.
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ProTrak International has announced full-scale integration with BlackBerry handheld devices for their CRM application.

 

ProTrak Mobile is the BlackBerry component company officials say was developed by ProTrak "exclusively for the ProTrak Advantage CRM system." It has wireless access to the ProTrak database for searches, retrieval and updates to the central data store.

Simon Koziel, president of ProTrak, said using the mobile product, users can conduct searches for investors, contacts, consultants, managers or funds, view and create activity notes, create and assign follow-up tasks, view and edit the ProTrak calendar and assign contacts to mass mail lists while traveling, among other functions.

"We specifically designed and developed ProTrak Mobile to have the same look and feel as our CRM, instead of simply placing a pre-developed BlackBerry package on top of ProTrak," says Koziel, citing as an example ProTrak's inclusion of a "Send and Add to ProTrak" option in Outlook e-mail. The product lets users Send and Add e-mails to ProTrak whether they are in their BlackBerry Contacts' Address Book or in the ProTrak Mobile application as well.

ProTrak officials said "ease of use and consistency with the ProTrak CRM platform" were "major design considerations" that went into the development of ProTrak Mobile.

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Transcensus, the Orem, Utah-based makers of SHO Guide, has announced it has earned Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program. 

 

Being a Certified Partner means a company has demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and pleasing customers. It's good to have if your business makes a considerable chunk of its money off Microsoft products, since being a Certified Partner means you get access, training and support others don't.

Transcensus's SHO Guide is an online guided help product addressing usability issues and new user training. It creates interactive learning scripts with step-by-step guidance for the application. The company also has "Learning Specialists" who create integrated Performance Support products. SHO Guide is optimized to work on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

 

Transcensus declared a Microsoft Competency in ISV/Software Solutions. Microsoft Competencies differentiate a partner's capabilities with specific Microsoft technologies to customers looking for a particular type of help. Each competency has its own requirements and benefits. This one means Transcensus has a successful record of developing and marketing software based on Microsoft technologies.

 

Dan Peay, vice president of customer and partner experience for Transcensus, explained the product by saying "I can launch SHO Guide, capture doing the task correctly, like creating a marketing campaign in Dynamics CRM, and then publish the resulting script so that anyone in the company can create their own campaign. It's like I'm right there, showing them where to click and guiding them through the process."

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is one of the more unjustly overlooked albums of recent years, former J. Geils Band front man Peter Wolf's Sleepless:

RightNow Technologies officials say their CRM on-demand product is "assisting" 200+ service representatives for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, a tax prep company, give better customer support experiences. 

Specifically, RightNow officials say, the tool lets reps view "contextual and timely" information for each customer call, see a single, unified view of all customer and franchisee interactions and access the same self-learning knowledge base used on the company's Web site for more consistent and accurate answers. 

Jackson Hewitt piloted the RightNow product this past tax season at the peak of its seasonal activity -- throwing it to the wolves right out of the gate "to ensure it was robust enough to handle its high volume of interactions with franchisees, while simultaneously improving their support experiences," according to RightNow officials. Indeed, if it can handle that mad rush it's probably the right tool for the company. 

"The successful trial of the RightNow on demand solution during our busy season proved that it could help us deliver a better customer experience and could scale to meet our needs during the most demanding time of year," says Danamichele Brennen, Chief Technology Officer, Jackson Hewitt. She added that using the tool, "call volumes dropped, questions were answered and we received positive responses from our franchise system."
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Describing it as "part of its ongoing commitment to Java technology... as well as industry-wide technology standards and open source," SAP says it's taking "a more active leadership role" in the Eclipse Foundation by increasing its membership level from Strategic Consumer to Strategic Developer. 

SAP is a founding member of the foundation and has been using Eclipse technology since 2002. Company officials say the firm has been "involved in the Eclipse ecosystem" since 2004.

This means SAP will provide at least eight full-time development resources to various projects and lead open source projects, company officials say, "ensuring direct input into the development and architecture of Eclipse." As a Strategic Developer, SAP "will be more active within the Eclipse community, including the new Eclipse Git Team Provider, the Eclipse Modeling Project and the Eclipse Equinox Project."

SAP officials say the use of standard technologies developed within the Eclipse community "provides customers and partners with a familiar development environment," lowering the learning curve for resources. 

Its expanded involvement means SAP will collaborate with other members on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and run times for building, deploying and managing software across the life cycle. The Eclipse Git Team Provider project was co-initiated by SAP for a distributed version control system to get easier Eclipse integration and better performance at reduced total cost of ownership. 

 

SAP officials say they hope their participation in the Eclipse Modeling Project will "drive the evolution and promotion of model-based development technologies," and that "the Eclipse Equinox Project will provide a service-oriented OSGi-based modular platform for application development and operations."

SAP has proposed a new project, codename Pave, within WTP, with initial code donation from SAP that will provide a template-based application framework to simplify development of complex applications.

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According to a new survey on small business technology trends from Avaya, 59 percent of the small businesses in North America claim to be "investing in communications technology right now," or plan to do so within the year. 

Avaya officials say the survey shows that telecommuting and mobile technologies are of interest to small organizations, with 69 percent saying they would let employees work from home "if it could be done on a trial basis first." The most popular reasons mentioned for allowing small business employees to work from home were "to increase productivity (39 percent)," "to retain employees (35 percent)" and "they don't shower frequently." 

However, the survey also found that most small businesses are not yet equipped to let employees work from home or mobile locations -- 66 percent of respondents say that less than a quarter of their employees, and in some cases no employees, are currently equipped to work away from the office. 

Avaya's spinning the results as showing "a small business environment still interested in investing in communications technology, even during these tough economic times." Of course that can also be read as a small business community still interested in survival during tough times. The vendor says that according to their findings, fully 75 percent say that communications technology is "critical" to their business. Only 75 percent? First Coffee wonders what sort of business finds communication "not all that important, really."

Reasons for the high interest given were that when it comes to keeping employees as productive as possible, "communications tools are the top response (46 percent)," followed by "compensation" and "flexible work schedules." 

Small businesses are different from big businesses, in that a) they're smaller, and b) "they can have a more flexible, entrepreneurial mind-set that can help them thrive, even in current conditions," according to Anthony Bartolo, general manager of Avaya's Integrated Office Communications business unit.

"More small businesses are recognizing the productivity and motivational benefits of letting employees work from home or on the road," added Bartolo, "but many are not yet equipped to do so." 
...

Calling it a "demonstration of its ongoing commitment to providing affordable products for small businesses in a tough economy," AT&T has announced a bundled offer targeted at small businesses that includes wireless, wired and high speed Internet services, starting at less than $100 a month.

The "All for Less" bundle is now available to qualifying small business customers (one to four lines in a single location) across AT&T's 22-state footprint. 

 

The services, which come on one consolidated bill, include wireless from AT&T where customers will be able to conduct business wirelessly with 450 minutes each month per wireless device on a 3G network, available in nearly 350 U.S. metropolitan areas.

It also offers AT&T High Speed Internet Business Edition in "a variety of speeds," with U.S.-based business-class technical support, all-in-one protection suite for selected tiers, up to 11 e-mail accounts and AT&T Wi-Fi connectivity at more than 20,000 hot spots nationwide and more than 90,000 hotspots worldwide.

There's also unlimited local calling voice package, including Call Forwarding and Caller ID and unlimited domestic long distance calling. To qualify, customers must already have wireless service or purchase new wireless service from AT&T in addition to new or existing local voice, long distance voice and broadband services.

According to industry research firm In-Stat, small businesses with one to four employees spent nearly $17 billion last year on telecom services and associated equipment in such areas as wireless, broadband, and local and long distance voice.

Bear in mind that AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

...

MTS Allstream is announcing the launch of Virtual Workplace Solutions, described as a suite of end-to-end products for "business customers of all sizes." 

It's being marketed more specifically to those concerned about "the challenges of globalization and ever growing mobility with a virtual work environment," and they're being sold under the Allstream brand to business customers across Canada.

"Business today can see the value in a remote workplace strategy, but the challenges can be daunting," says Dean Prevost, President Enterprise Solutions, MTS Allstream. His company, Prevost says, can "create a virtual workplace strategy for a multi-site organization with hundreds or thousands of employees, in different time zones, with many variables. We can cut out the clutter, and help ensure the different platforms required to support Virtual Workplace work together. We've done it for our own business."

Remote workplace strategies "are not just about the technology," he says, explaining that "it's a shift in culture, in human resources policies and the adoption of collaboration tools within an enterprise."  

MTS Allstream is a wholly owned subsidiary of Manitoba Telecom Services. Manitoba Telecom Services Inc.'s common shares are listed on The Toronto Stock Exchange. 

 

 

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Aimee Mann's rock-solid "Live At St. Ann's Warehouse." Call me cynical, but if this is truly an all-live album, without any studio overdubs, then it's one of the greatest jobs an artist has done in improving the studio versions of her songs to the stage:

 

The Machine-to-Machine market is already at $50 billion, say analysts from Beecham Research, who foresee "strong growth prospects" ahead.

 

It's traditionally a B2B market, but the new report by Beecham predicts the coming of age of a growing consumer market for M2M products and services that will rapidly catch up to the traditional business. The report, titled "Consumer M2M: The Approaching Mass Market" forecasts over 100 million consumer M2M products being shipped within the next five years, mostly for cellular mobile networks.

 

"A fundamental change in the M2M arena is now under way," says Georg Steimel, lead author of the report, saying today the M2M market is dominated by individual products serving the needs of individual users: "In contrast, the developing consumer market requires integrated products that offer simplicity and one-stop-shop availability that is easily enabled. To get to this requires new business models."

 

According to Beecham Research, the M2M market is still small compared with the worldwide mobile handset business, with new network connections for mobile handsets slowing in many markets -- particularly in Europe and North America -- and those for M2M speeding up. "Mobile Operators need this business," says Robin Duke-Woolley, Founder and CEO of Beecham Research.

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Watch out, cell phone companies, gray power's coming after you.

 

"It's time for cell phone companies and their poor disclosures to U.S. seniors and other consumers to get the same kind of tough going-over that Congress just gave to credit cards," according to officials from The Seniors Coalition.

 

The Seniors Coalition commissioned a March 2-5, 2009 survey by Opinion Research Corporation of 1,595 Americans with cell phones, finding that while "two out of five Americans do not know what penalty they would pay if they canceled their cell phone service," 60 percent of consumers aged 65 or older don't know.

 

It was not disclosed whether the pollster asked them if they had the information off the top of their heads, or if they knew how to access the information should they ever feel like cancelling the service.

 

The Seniors Coalition National Spokesperson, "Grandma" Green, said in her estimation "this statistic clearly shows why millions of Americans pay more for their cell phone service than they need to: They worry about getting clobbered with a penalty if they change services... this is just simply unconscionable in terms of the treatment of U.S. seniors and other consumers."

 

The ORC survey also found that 54 percent of consumers say they use fewer minutes than they pay for every single month, and that 70 percent of Americans say they go under on their minutes every month or "nearly every month."

 

Terrible, just terrible, according to Grandma Green: "These wasted minutes add up into the millions of hours and dollars every month for American consumers. Too many cell phone plans are pegged to excessively high-minute levels, so the options consumers have for plans that actually meet their needs are limited."

 

She also criticized "unlimited" plans as "just a way, in some cases, of charging more and hiding the number of wasted minutes under an 'all you can eat' arrangement. Wasted minutes are money down the drain no matter how they are marketed."

 

Conceding that, okay, it might be consumers' responsibility to "have a good handle on how many cell phone minutes they use each month," she blasted the "gobbledygook bills provided by most cell phone companies" as making it difficult to do so, saying the industry's "agenda" is to "enrich themselves at the expense of befuddled consumers."

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IBM officials have announced new services and programs to "help more companies lower costs and reduce inefficiency" by migrating from Sun and HP servers to IBM's System z, particularly on the Linux platform.

 

The new Server Consolidation and Migration Services offering is billed as being able to "reduce the time and effort" in moving applications to an IBM mainframe infrastructure. IBM also announced a program -- z Rewards - offering financial incentives to lure customers to the services.

IBM's introduction of The Server Consolidation and Migration Services is another step along IBM's marriage to Linux on System z, as nearly 2,800 of the 5,000 unique applications available on the System z platform are Linux-based. Linux accounted for about half of the roughly 1,000 new or updated applications produced for the IBM mainframe in 2008, and over 40 percent of new System z customers last year installed Linux.

Under the new z Rewards program, companies that purchase or upgrade to a new qualifying z10 Enterprise Class or Business Class mainframe in order to consolidate competitive Sun and HP systems can earn points that can be redeemed for certain IBM migration services, Big Blue officials say. 

The new offerings are linked to IBM's expansion in September 2008 of its Migration Factory program for IBM Power Systems to System z, as that program provides clients considering a move to System z with services that aid in their evaluation process.

...

Propalms has announced that they have received an order for Propalms TSE software from the publishing company Ratna Sagar Pvt Ltd., India, which is replacing their current Citrix deployment with Propalms TSE 6.0 after evaluating the performance of Citrix, Go-Global and Propalms TSE 6.0.

 

"Ratna Sagar chose to replace Citrix with Propalms TSE due to its simplicity, feature-rich functionality and cost effectiveness," says Goutam Sirker, Manager IT Infrastructure & Systems for Ratna Sagar Pvt Ltd.

 

Ratna Sagar, founded in 1982, publishes books for children "that will really constitute an ocean of gems," according to the publisher's officials: "They will represent exemplary standards of book publication. Each will embody the highest levels of teaching methodology, design and presentation and pedagogical effectiveness. These books will employ the most modern and proven approaches towards the shaping of young minds."

 

And that, my friends, is a corporate mission statement worth its salt.