The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is more Larry Norman. This guy single-handedly created the entire "Christian rock" genre, today worth billions, but back in the late '60s and early '70s he couldn't get played on radio, as he was too secular for Christians and too Christian for secular radio. His essential '69-'76 records have that dated Brit blues rock with a hippie hangover sound, but the songwriting's strong and they're still better than 95 percent of what passes for Christian rock today:

MPortal has assisted Comcast in developing Comcast mobile for the iPhone and iPod touch, described by mPortal officials as a mobile app providing features of Comcast Digital Voice, Digital Cable, and High-Speed Internet services to iPhone and iPod Touches. 

 

"This is mPortal's first commercial application launch with Comcast," said Alec Walker, Vice President of Strategic Accounts at mPortal. "Together with the Comcast team, we designed a converged voice, data, e-mail and video experience for Comcast subscribers using the iPhone or iPod Touch."

Among other features, the app lets users check Comcast e-mail and listen to home voice mail in one combined inbox, as well as read, reply, forward and compose e-mail and read attachments supported by the iPhone.

Users can manage voicemail messages and call logs, view voice mail in any preferred order as well as "touch" to call, and forward home phone calls to the iPhone from the iPhone, view call history and manage home phone settings.

And hey -- you can see what's on TV tonight, tomorrow or next week, including program details and watch video on-demand movie trailers. What's not to love?

J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Analyst of the Mobile and Wireless Group at Frost & Sullivan noted that this is a growing market, remarking "there are more opportunities to bring other cable operators and media companies into mobile."

MPortal helps service providers, content providers and enterprises "create, deploy and monetize" content and applications across mobile networks and devices, featuring its Springboard flagship suite of products.

...

Fort Lauderdale-based Runaware, which sells software marketing, says the company is jumping into Software as a Service with its recently-announced updated TestDrive platform. 

 

With the launch of the company's updated online demo service, Runaware wants to sell cloud computing services to other software companies. Their TestDrive platform is geared for the Platform as a Service market. 

 

Gartner estimated that the SaaS marketing represented $6.9 billion in revenue in 2006 and projected that the industry would grow by more than 21 percent by 2011, so obviously Runaware sees considerable potential here. In fact consumers are checking out hosted software, and some companies looking for resources to devote to continuing product development are finding the SaaS model to work for them.

"It has always been my goal to make sure Runaware is on the forefront of software hosting technology," said Tim Keyes, Runaware CEO, adding that "we haven't positioned ourselves this way in the past."

Keyes said the company would target "clients who want to get their software up in the cloud, but may not have the development funds or resources to convert traditional installed software to one that is considered SaaS... TestDrive has always been a PaaS-capable system, we just haven't taken it out of the demo space."

The TestDrive PaaS offering can host "all types of software," and deliver it over the Internet without the need for download or installation of the software. The system delivers full functionality of the software through a web browser while all of the processing power is handled by Runaware's servers located in data centers on two continents.

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Good or bad news, depending on your point of view: Owners of Bluetooth headsets in the US are using them less frequently. 

Only 26 percent of Bluetooth headset owners use their devices every day, in 2008, 43 percent did. These findings were based on surveys with 625 automotive consumers in the US and Western Europe summarized in the Strategy Analytics Automotive Consumer Insights report "Bluetooth Headsets Still Reign, but Daily Usage in US Declines."

The upside? Fewer people on the streets apparently carrying on animated conversations with the voices in their heads.

"The style and design of the Bluetooth headset remains a pain point for consumers," commented Chris Schreiner, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics. "The number of Bluetooth headset owners satisfied with the style of their device dropped 27 percent since 2008."

First Coffee thinks he means consumers' dissatisfaction with their design springs from observing other users, and realizing "Hey I must look like an unhinged loon wandering around the mall talking to myself, too."

Kevin Nolan, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics User Experience Practice, said that while Bluetooth headset owners were generally satisfied with the ease of use of their headsets, "owners of professionally-installed hands-free car kits reported greater satisfaction with ease of use, as well as with sound quality and style."

 

Especially those with tinted windows, First Coffee would imagine.

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DeltaCom has announced the enhancement of its Simpli-Business service with the incorporation of NEC's Univerge SV8100 Communications Server, establishing an Internet Protocol-based platform.

 

The platform is designed to increase functionality and provide a platform for future IP-based applications, company officials say:

 

"Simpli-Business now supports remote access for phone system management, including the ability to make changes to integrated auto attendant features and auto call distribution and also delivers multimedia voice to e-mail functionality."

Tony Tomae, Deltacom's Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, said the product has the ability to remotely update call distribution settings, manage call treatment from a PC, route calls to virtual extensions like mobile devices or alternate locations and receive voicemail via e-mail files.

Simpli-Business "bundles local and long distance voice, data and multi-media communications services with an IP-based phone system and desk top terminals in addition to multi-functional printers that print, copy, scan and fax," company officials note.

 

DeltaCom, headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama.

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Net-Results has announced the integration of its proprietary marketing automation platform and lead management tools with Salesforce.com. 

Presumably Net-Results, located in Golden, Colorado, toasted the deal with a beer brewed right there in their home town, name of Coors. Net-Results CEO, Michael Ward said having "accurate and detailed" prospect activity data available in real-time "accelerates the sales cycle."

Coupled with Salesforce.com's CRM offerings, Net-Results' new application is intended to "bridge the gap" between sales and marketing with regard to prospect and lead handling, company officials say. The integration package is now available on the AppExchange.

"Net-Results' lead behavior tracking and management system provides a benefit to existing Salesforce.com customers who are running lean in this economy," said Ward.

Salesforce.com customers can download the Net-Results' package into their account to provide real-time summary data and visit information for accounts, contacts and leads. 

According to company officials, the system not only tracks each visitor's information to a customer's Web site, but delivers such data as the most recent visits, pages viewed, total visit duration, page visit duration, navigational path, referral source, search terms, entry page as exit page.

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Netezza Corporation, a vendor of data warehouse and analytic appliances, says it's continuing to "fulfill its strategy" of certifying numerous Oracle applications in data integration, data analysis and business intelligence and reporting.

 

The affirmation comes on the heels of the recent introduction of the Netezza TwinFin appliance and the new Oracle certifications.

The Oracle Business Intelligence Packaged Application is made up of components formerly available from Siebel Systems as Siebel Business Analytics Applications, augmented with new capabilities and third party applications.