By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is The Other Stewart, Rod’s 1971 masterpiece Every Picture Tells A Story:
Today’s Reader Of The
Day is Peter Moore who, when
challenged by yesterday’s column to name Al Stewart albums other than Year Of
the Cat and Time Passages, rattled off eleven more, including one, Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, a
rarities and B-sides collection which First CoffeeSM’s never heard.
Well done.
…
Sedona Corp., which sells their Intarsia CRM
to small and mid-size financial institutions such as insurance companies,
community and regional banks and credit unions, has announced Q2 revenues of $229,000 compared to $407,000 reported in
the same period one year ago.
Revenue from license fees and royalties increased to $87,000
from $80,000 in 2004, a jump company officials attribute to additional sales
from one of the company’s partners.
Service revenues decreased to $142,000 compared to $327,000
reported one year ago. The reduction was due to a $300,000 decrease in related
party revenue recognized in 2004.
Total revenues for the first six months of 2005 were
$386,000, compared to $694,000 reported in 2004.
Their net loss for the three months ended June 30, 2005 was $641,000,
or ($0.01) per share, compared to $611,000, or ($0.01) per share reported in
the second quarter of 2004. For the six months ended June 30, 2005, the net
loss was $1,458,000, or ($0.02) per share, compared to $1,343,000, or ($.02)
per share, reported for same period in 2004.
…
Chalk up another milestone for Avaya: According to company
officials, they’ve just shipped their
seven millionth line, for ING Vysya Bank, a private Indian bank.
Avaya said its IP line shipments surpassed traditional line
shipments this year, further demonstrating Avaya’s global momentum in a growing
market.
The Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based IP telephony company
claims to be the “worldwide leader in IP telephony line shipments for first
quarter 2005 with a 21 percent share,” citing research from the Synergy
Research Group.
Jeremy Duke, president and CEO, Synergy Research Group noted
that “the adoption of IP telephony by enterprises is growing markedly, as
demonstrated by a more than 70 percent year-over-year growth noted in the first
quarter of this year,” opining that “the major part of the adoption curve still
lies ahead.”
In 2004, IP telephony accounted for eight percent of the 423
million total enterprise telephony lines installed worldwide, but that number
increases almost daily. The overall market for IP lines installed is expected
to quadruple by 2007.
…
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad
has upgraded its nationwide network
to enable it to be “more responsive to changing business requirements,”
according to company officials.
The network, deployed by HeiTech Padu Berhad via Padu*Net
with equipment from Cisco Systems, was “built on the principles of Cisco’s
vision for an Intelligent Information Network,” Bank Islam officials say, to “provide
Bank Islam with a foundation upon which to deliver fast, reliable and highly
secure banking transactions for more than 85 of its branches nationwide.”
Bank Islam expects the move to allow it to scale and deploy
advanced services such as VoIP and application optimization and virtualization
technologies integrating IT more tightly to the needs of the business.
Under Islamic banking principles interest is not paid,
instead profit-sharing agreements are agreed upon. Islamic banks in Malaysia
mostly use a concept called al wadiah yad
dhamanah, or guaranteed custody, where you aren’t paid interest for
depositing your money in the bank – paying interest is un-Islamic – you receive
mudaraba, a share of any profit that
the bank makes by using your deposit, according to a
good intro to Islamic banking principles.
Such profit-sharing, at the discretion of the bank but
almost always a predetermined ratio, generally works out to returns close to
those acquired under prevailing international interest rates.
…
Telvista, Inc., a provider of bilingual
contact center outsourcing products, will
use products from ClearCube Technology, which sells PC Blade technology, to “streamline workstations and secure data at
Telvista’s new customer contact center in Danville, Virginia,” according to
company officials.
Telvista needed PC products for the new center which could
serve “a wide range of corporate customers, each with different IT standards,”
according to Alvaro Holguin, Telvista CIO. He said PC Blade from ClearCube worked
well enough in their Odessa centers, so they decided to put them in Danville.
Because PC Blades are centralized, the technology can
increase security for IT equipment and data inside the Danville facility, which
opened April 20, 2005 and is expected to handle hundreds of thousands of
customer contacts per year via phone, e-mail, chat, and Interactive Voice
Response.
…
Proving their CRM acumen, Sovereign Bank has decided
to partner with the Philadelphia Eagles pro football team to offer the Eagles Totally FREE Checking account in the greater
Philadelphia area.
First CoffeeSM wonders who else they researched
as possible sports partners – the Montreal
Alouettes? Real Madrid?
The account features exclusive Philadelphia Eagles checks,
unfortunately not signed by Eagles owner Jeff Lurie. Customers will also
receive an Eagles checkbook cover and an official NFL Licensed Eagles hat when
they open the account at participating Sovereign Community Banking Offices or
through the bank’s contact center.
The account comes with built-in preset limits for checks
written to disgruntled wide receivers.
Sovereign, the official bank of the Philadelphia Eagles,
conducted research on fan loyalty and the potential of introducing an
Eagles-themed checking account into the Philadelphia market. The bank received
a very favorable response to the Eagles-themed checking account in the
Philadelphia area, which shocked First CoffeeSM, who just naturally
assumed that New England Patriots or
Dallas Cowboys-themed accounts would
do better in Philadelphia.
Honestly, how can First CoffeeSM get this kind of
CRM job, researching which NFL team has sufficient “fan loyalty” for themed
checking accounts in, say, Green Bay, Wisconsin? It really requires “research”
to determine that a Philadelphia Eagles-themed checking account would do well
in the Philadelphia market?
Features of the Eagles Totally FREE Checking account include
no minimum balance requirement, no monthly maintenance fee, Sovereign CheckCard
with no annual or monthly fee, free Online Banking with BillPay, free telephone
banking, no per check charges, unlimited check writing, free direct deposit – heck,
with terms like that this lifelong
Redskins fan’d happily sign up, writing “For Donovan McNabb’s Super Bowl last
drive medication” on the memo line of each check – but if your account is
overdrawn professional malcontent Terrell
Owens is sent to your house to whine and moan about how hard done by he is,
making only $7 million or so per year – before endorsements – to play a game for
about half an hour, 17 days a year, until you pay up.
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/
for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored
content.
