First Coffee

PRC's Third Anniversary, Speed Texting Champs, Image to OCR Converter, New Ringtones

January 26, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is John Coltrane's highly accessible but not wallpaper album, My Favorite Things. We'll follow that with Workout from an underrated trumpeter, Hank Mobley:

PRC, which sells outsourced customer contact management services, marked its third anniversary as a member of the Colorado Springs community with a celebration on January 14 in the PRC offices at 6805 Corporate Drive in Colorado Springs.

As part of the celebration, local employees pledged 1,000 hours of community service to the Colorado Springs area through PRC Community Care, a company-wide initiative that encourages and enables PRC employees to take an active role in improving their local communities. Each month throughout 2010, PRC employees will participate in a specific volunteer activity, raise money or collect items for donation to organizations that address homelessness, youth and family matters and provide support for U.S. soldiers serving overseas.

"Giving back to the community has been a part of the PRC fabric since our inception nearly 30 years ago," says PRC CEO Steven Richards, who attended the celebration in Colorado Springs. "We are very pleased to be a part of the Colorado Springs community and look forward to working with our employees, local leaders and community organizations to further improve the economic outlook and quality of life for residents in the area." You know how it goes if you've been reading this space for any time at all: If a company's doing charitable work, they get to be a bit puffy here.

SpoofEm.com, NCIC Inmate Phones, Cignias and BlackBerry, Epicor Retail Mobile

January 26, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Duke Ellington's "Track 360:"

SpoofEm.com has launched their latest service, Wiretrap. "Most anti-spyware programs detect spyware on a computer, but Wiretrap is a Web-based service that will detect 'who' installed spyware on an individual's computer," company officials say.

"The main objective of a hacker is to somehow get spyware installed onto a victim's computer. This spyware allows the hacker to follow every keystroke that is entered through the system," explains Sheehan Toufiq, IT Spokesperson and Assistant Developer to the Wiretrap Project. "With this information a hacker can enter an e-mail account to steal personal, social, and even financial information."

Evidently when a hacker opens the Wiretrap set by the user and clicks the link in an attempt to steal information, the hacker's IP address, information and location is sent back to the victim, as Toufiq explains: "If the individual who installed the spyware has a Webcam or microphone attached, or built into their computer, Wiretrap will take pictures or an audio recording of the culprit." Then the pictures, audio recording, IP address, and other information of the individual who installed the spyware will then be e-mailed to the victim.

OpDecision and Soldiers, CBTReferee App, IPOWOW and DCN, Regulations Stifling Argentina

January 26, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Frank Sinatra's Only the Lonely, the album of dark, moody ballads he called his "suicide songs" collection:

OpDecision, a corporate wireless expense management firm, has formed a sponsorship with Cell Phones for Soldiers. More than 150,000 troops are serving overseas and are away from their families, and OpDecision and Cell Phones for Soldiers wants companies and individuals to help them out by donating cell phones.

"We are in the wireless business, and no one is more worthy of regular communication than our soldiers who serve overseas," says Jay Milgrom, CEO of OpDecision. "That's why we have formed a sponsorship with Cell Phones for Soldiers, which lets our soldiers connect with loved ones back home."

Cell Phones for Soldiers was founded by teenagers Robbie and Brittany Bergquist from Norwell, Mass., with $21 of their own money. Since then, the registered 501c3 nonprofit organization has raised almost $1 million in donations and distributed more than 500,000 prepaid calling cards to soldiers serving overseas.

Approximately half of the phones are reconditioned and resold. The proceeds from each donated phone are enough to provide an hour of talk time to soldiers abroad, CP for S officials say.

"During the past few years, we have been amazed by the generosity of others.

FCC's Sports Ruling, Hooters' Screen Wash, Norsat in Haiti, iPhone Losing Its App Lead?

January 26, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the wonderful sounds of silence. Hey everybody needs a break now and then:

Raise a beer, sports fans, Verizon says you've won: The Federal Communications Commission ruled last Wednesday that incumbent cable television providers that control unique, regional sports programming can no longer unilaterally refuse to provide access to that programming, including high-definition feeds, to competing providers.

In a 4-1 decision, Verizon officials say, FCC commissioners concluded that withholding regional sports programming presumptively violates section 628 of the Cable Act and is anti-competitive: "The order, approved at Wednesday's open meeting, includes standstill language barring cable companies from cutting off access to programming during program renewal negotiations."

Verizon competes with Cablevision in the television market with its FiOS TV. It filed a program access complaint against Cablevision in July because the cable incumbent, in the words of Verizon officials, "continually denied Verizon access to high-definition versions of regional sports programming Cablevision controls in New York and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut." Hey Cablevision, can you hear Verizon now?

Kathleen Grillo, Verizon senior vice president of Federal Regulatory Affairs, said "This is a big-time victory for television sports fans." So, see, it has to be true. "The FCC's decision to make must-see regional sports programming, including high-definition feeds, presumptively available to competitors, puts viewers in the driver's seat," she added. "This ruling means that consumers will no longer have to stick with their incumbent cable provider in order to watch local teams in high definition."
...

Raising the level of journalistic inquiry a few notches, this reporter is investigating the news that Hooters Calendar and On The Go Girls have announced today the launch of Hooters Calendar Sexy Screen Wash in the App Store. I know, you think the life of a freelance business technology journalist is all glamour and glitter, but friends, there are some things expense accounts just don't cover. The announcement, Hooters says, demonstrates "the new ways in which successful brands are reaching consumers on today's smart phones."

Hooters Calendar Sexy Screen Wash is based on the popular Sexy Screen Wash applications from On The Go Girls, which have been downloaded by over one million users.

Sprint for Haiti, NICE and AnswerOn, Ectaco in Haiti, IQServices Locator

January 26, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. One of the sturdiest bands in the history of American rock music, CCR's genius was that they created a sound that could take uninspired material and carry it along so it's not a distraction between the highlights:

As of Friday, Sprint has been advancing 80 percent of the funds of the mobile giving donations from its customers to the relief efforts in Haiti, with the remaining 20 percent to be submitted under Sprint's normal 30 to 90-day settlement cycle, company officials say.

This advance payout "will encompass all of the Haiti disaster relief shortcodes in which Sprint has waived standard text messaging fees, including the American Red Cross International Response Fund." And as regular readers of this space know, if your company's pitching in for worthy charitable causes we'll let you get away with a bit of P.R. here.

Between now and Sunday, January 31st, Sprint is waiving all fees and charges for Sprint customers sending text messages to and from Haiti. "During times of emergency, it has been shown that sending text messages rather than calling is more reliable form of communications and frees calling lines for critical communication between first responders, other emergency personnel and aid workers," Sprint officials say, adding that waived text-messaging fees do not apply to customers roaming on other networks.

Sprint "realizes the need for monetary resources and support for this effort from our customers has been overwhelming," says Ralph Reid, vice president of corporate social responsibility for Sprint.

Convergys and Gartner, Enpirion and Oracle, Kaleidico, ProTracker, CWR Mobility, Maximizer Software

January 22, 2010

Convergys has announced that it has been positioned by Gartner in the Leaders quadrant of the first ever "Magic Quadrant for CRM Contact Center BPO for North America," released in late 2009.

Xtreme Locator, Amdocs and Claro, Outsourcing Budgets, Turkcell, GOSO and Facebook, NCH on iPhone

January 15, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is :

IQServices.com has announced the release of its Xtreme Locator IVR Dealer Locator application, for "companies that are unable to keep up with calls from customers trying to find out where to buy their products," according to company officials. William Tremaine, Director of Sales, says Xtreme Locator IVR technology "allows companies to automate telephone requests for store locations with packages starting as low as $50 per month."

The Xtreme Locator IVR is a companion to the Xtreme Web Locator, a vendor of locator products since 2000, and is engineered to handle "hundreds of concurrent phone calls," company officials say: "Callers enter their zip code using their telephone keypad and our text-to-speech engine delivers the location information in a realistic human voice."

The locator, Tremaine says, is designed to "save human CSR time by automating the process of sending callers into your stores. Since we have the capability to handle nearly an unlimited number of concurrent calls, customers will never have to wait and information will always be up to date and accurate." The company also offers an option for callers to "Patch Through" to speak directly to the nearest location when they need more information. ...

Customer experience systems vendor Amdocs has announced that Claro Brazil, a mobile service provider, will deploy Amdocs to support customer ordering, sales force automation, e-commerce and Web self-service. The Amdocs products will support all Claro Brazil's current sales channels, including call centers, dealerships and kiosks, and "will also improve a new channel -- the Internet." Claro Brazil officials say they will introduce e-commerce as a new service
Ricardo Santoro, chief information officer of Claro Brazil, called the Brazilian market "heavily-penetrated," adding that the Amdocs products should give Claro customers "improved convenience and control through the new e-commerce and Web self-service offerings."

Claro Brazil officials say the company will deploy products from Amdocs' CES product portfolio to "modernize and standardize customer ordering, customer management, e-commerce, and product catalog management." They add the company will "benefit from the efficiencies gained by having one centralized system to manage and update, which reduces errors and operational costs."
Claro already has billing and partner relationship management products from Amdocs in production. Claro is a wholly-owned subsidiary of America Movil, S.A.B. de C.V.

Amdocs in Bulgaria, Ritmo for IPhone, Byki for IPhone, Google and On2, BatchBlue Experts, Nuance Study

January 14, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Diane Birch's iTunes Session. She's a new artist, with a truly expressive voice, First Coffee enjoys listening to her sing, but her material is so unoriginal. We've tried to like her album Bible Belt but can really only get interested in a couple tracks, these sessions are good but not much of an improvement, sorry to say, we listen to them and nothing really jumps out at us:

Bulgarian mobile provider Mobiltel, and "customer experience systems" vendor Amdocs, have announced the deployment of Amdocs CES Customer Management products at M-Tel. The products deployed include Amdocs Smart Agent Desktop and Amdocs Support for the service process from initial customer contact to resolution. The products are built on Amdocs' Smart Client Framework. More than 1,000 users across M-Tel's contact centers and retail shops can now access the tool to use when providing customer service.

RedHorse Systems, Dimension Data, ICE App for IPhone, C-Com in New Zealand, Convergys

January 14, 2010

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dolly Parton's fine bluegrass album of a few years ago, The Grass Is Blue:

RedHorse Systems, a vendor of business management products, has announced the latest version of its customer relationship management, RedHorse CRM, described as a "customizable" CRM platform. New features include pending and history record preview panes and an e-mail and history archive, which allow the user to view progress on every account. The new version also includes e-mail enhancements, telephone integration for incoming and outgoing phone call pop-up and the ability to create tickets from e-mails and Web imports.
"Companies no longer want to purchase and maintain multiple software products to fill their CRM needs. They want one product that includes everything necessary to get the job done," says Connie Koch, founder and lead developer of RedHorse.

Company officials describe it as an "account-centric application," as it lets users "manage all aspects of their customer relationship." Among other functionalities, it lets users follow leads and opportunities as well as manage contracts, and is "designed to help users capture Web site leads," company officials say. RedHorse CRM v2.4 also has an enhanced screen designer that includes custom fields in its upper quadrant, as well as improved import from GoldMine. It has a built-in e-mail client and integration with Outlook for mass e-mail campaigns, and lets users manage quoting and sales forecasting, as well as interact with customers through an inline help desk. It's compatible with QuickBooks. RedHorse Systems, Inc. is currently developing both a Web version and Spanish language version of RedHorse CRM. ...

Dimension Data, an IT products and services provider, and Sword Ciboodle, a vendor of business software and services, have announced joint implementation of a pan-European contact center product for Sony Europe's Consumer Electronics division.

The product was designed and managed by Dimension Data and Sword Ciboodle, and is based on Sword Ciboodle's process-driven CRM software.

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Case-mate for iPhone, Jobscope's CRM, Business Card Phone Scanner, Aegis on Gartner

January 12, 2010

Case-mate, which designs accessories for mobile devices and electronics, has announced the launch of "a new brand experience," not "a brand new experience," called "I Make My Case."

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