The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Charlie Parker's 1947 debut album, Charlie Parker. First Coffee isn't a jazzhead by any means, we certainly enjoy Parker's playing, and we'll plead ignorant to the parsing out of influences and trendology jazz freaks obsess over, but it's hard to see what everybody got so excited about. Guess you had to have been there:

Austin-based ManageEngine, which makes network, systems, applications and security management software, has announced the "latest version of ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus, its customer support software.

Claiming the product can now "meet the needs" of larger organizations, company officials say the multi-tenancy capability means users can "simultaneously assist internal users from various company departments and business units, as well as help individual customers and customer groups" from a single console. 

 

It also lets administrators view and organize pending employee and customer trouble-tickets. ManageEngine is a division of ZOHO Corporation.

Its Computer Telephony Integration feature is designed to speed up the time to resolution, company officials say -- "with CTI, when a user makes a phone call for assistance, SupportCenter Plus can match the number from which the user is calling with information about the user's computer configuration stored in a database." At that point the product can route the call to a specific technician.

But for those times when a user needs more than to be talked through an issue, the product has the remote control capability to let a tech -- with the user's permission -- view PC configuration information to help solve the problem.

ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is available as a downloadable file for both Windows and Linux platforms. A 30-day fully functional trial edition is freely available from the Web site. Pricing starts at $495 for two users in Standard Edition and at $995 for two users in Professional Edition.

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If you suspected that one result of more flexible work schedules is employees working outside of the office more, a recent Harris Interactive survey found that you're right -- 47 percent are working off-site more often now than they were two years ago.

 

And if you thought that's a good thing you're, well, more than half right, as 54 percent "concentrate better" when working off-site compared to being in the office. We just need to get that 46 percent back in the office and away from daytime TV, evidently.

 

The survey also found that in a best-case scenario, a more flexible work arrangement can allow employees to connect better with customers in the field. 

 

The survey, commissioned by Riverbed Technology, found that access becomes an issue in such cases: "Mobile worker productivity is damaged by an inability to efficiently access business files or software remotely." The survey also found that 40 percent say they would work off-site more often if their business files or software would load more quickly.

 

These days working remotely means not only working from home, although that accounts for 80 percent of all business file or software usage out of the actual office, but from a hotel room, another company office location, a vacation destination -- there's your hard core right there -- the airport, a business conference, a Wi-Fi enabled public space such as a park, and -- eleven percent -- from "a coffee shop." 

 

The numbers for "golf course" were not recorded. 

Riverbed Technology is an IT "infrastructure performance" company selling wide area network optimization products. 

 

The survey collected data collection from March 27-March 31 and March 31-April 2, 2009 via the QuickQuery online omnibus service, among 4,391 adults aged 18 years and older, of whom 910 are employed full-time, normally work on-site, and have ever accessed business files or software stored on their employer's server/network/drives from off-site.

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IPass, which sells enterprise mobility services, has announced that Finpro, a consultant network promoting Finnish companies, is rolling out iPass Mobile Office to offices over 40 countries.


 

"Finpro came to us with a very clear need to take back control of the spiraling data roaming costs," said Ren Hendrikse, VP EMEA, iPass.

The company's products are being used to "help mobilize several hundred Finpro staff," according to iPass officials, who add that they're interested in iPass's global Wi-Fi network, which "encompasses almost 140,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, including nearly 60,000 in Europe alone, as well as 3G Mobile Broadband coverage, Ethernet and dial-up."

iPass Mobile Office is a service designed to unify mobility management over any Internet connection, "optimize mobile access, centrally manage mobile connections, and control the end-user organization's mobility expenses." Yes, it works with mobile device support as well. Yes, Finpro, it works with Nokia. Yes, rest of the world, it works with BlackBerry and iPhones.

Finpro officials said staffers using their 3G phones when abroad "has resulted in runaway costs." The main appeal of iPass, they say, is that it could "help the company to reduce these costs," as well as get "the same user experience regardless of location or network access type and irrespective of whether the connection is established from a laptop or handheld device."

"The financial repercussions of unmanaged data roaming charges forced us to review our mobility strategy," said Jarmo Jonninen, IT manager at Finpro.

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Dorado Software has announced the  deployment of its Redcell product suite at Imperial Online, a South African service provider, involving help from Solution Blox, the Dorado-certified EMEA partner.

Imperial Online say the growth common among service providers is "even more fierce in the emerging African market." Company officials say they determined that "existing disparate infrastructure management platforms would require significant consolidation and feature enhancement."

Dorado Software's Redcell Suite was chosen, Redcell officials say, due in part to its modular offering -- individual products can be purchased separately -- while combining server and network monitoring in a single platform.

Andries Coetzee, General Manager of Imperial Online, said Redcell had the "single console" approach they were looking for as well.

 

The Redcell product consolidated "over a dozen monitoring and management products into a single product," a single, integrated platform "spanning multiple layers, domains, networks and services," Dorado officials say.

Besides the ability to manage the entire data center and network infrastructure from a single console, operational efficiencies also include consolidated reporting. The Redcell deployment gives users the ability to monitor and manage customer networks from the console.

All of the described Redcell products are generally available and trial software is available on the Dorado Software site.

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Houston-based The Planet, an IT hosting vendor, has announced the appointment of Capstar Commercial Real Estate Services to lease its fifth data center in the Dallas Metroplex. 

 

It's also offering space for a business continuity center, office space for customers requiring a disaster recovery base of operations during an outage. A video preview of the facility is available on The Planet Web site at the link above. 

 

The first of what company officials say will be four 12,000-square-foot pods has been completed, providing white-floor space "complete and ready for leasing." It's the company's eighth data center.

 

Planet officials say the newest data center uses modular cooling technology from Turbine Air Systems with high-efficiency, water-cooled chillers designed to "eliminate the possibility of an interior water leak." Colocation, private racks and managed hosting services will be offered in the new facility. 

 

Citing interest from North Texas companies "looking to expand or outsource their data center facilities," The Planet's Vice President of Global Sales Tom Blair said this new space "enables us to accommodate the rapid colocation market growth we've seen in the Dallas-Fort Worth area."

The Planet currently hosts over 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 18.5 million Web sites worldwide.

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Speech recognition technology at New Zealand Ministry of Social Development has been chosen as a role model for the UK's public sector contact centers

The news from Maidenhead, England is that officials of Salmat VeCommerce, a vendor of voice self-service and speaker verification products, say that UK public sector organizations could "learn some valuable lessons" from New Zealand's Ministry of Social Development when it comes to "handling calls more efficiently using self-service voice technology." 

The New Zealand Ministry of Social Development and Salmat VeCommerce have won a 2009 Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand Award, following the introduction of speech recognition technology into its Work and Income contact center. 

 

The center gets about 6.5 million incoming calls annually.

EMEA General Manager at Salmat VeCommerce, Brett Feldon, says with increased pressure on the public sector to cut costs and meet new improved service delivery targets, "the work at New Zealand Ministry of Social Development demonstrates how local authorities and government departments can use technology to manage contact with the general public on the phone."

In particular, Feldon said, a key concern of local authorities and government departments is "eliminating waste calls and focusing on the true purpose for which the customer is calling. By focusing on why the customer is calling these new products enable more callers to get to the right person first time, minimizing the waste and delays of unwanted call transfers."

At NZMSD average call waiting times have been reduced significantly, "as much as halving in peak times," Salmat officials say.

"The new system means we have a better understanding of why clients are calling and we can get down to business quickly and work out how we can help," said Barry Fisk, Work and Income On-line Services and Technology Director at New Zealand Ministry of Social Development.

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Dotcom-Monitor, a vendor of externally-hosted network & IT monitoring services, has announced that Internet-based product wholesaler DollarDays International has selected Dotcom-Monitor "for its fourth consecutive year."

DollarDays is a B2B online wholesale distributor letting small business owners offer merchandise "free of membership," DollarDays officials say, with the same sort of "discounts and margins offered to the largest retailers."