By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is Robert Earl Keen, Jr.’s “For Love,” the song of the year for 2005 as far as
I’m concerned:
INation’s NationBuilder CRM platform is now
partnered with portfolio accounting and performance reporting from Albridge
Solutions.
The partnership allows subscribers to iNation’s NationBuilder CRM tool to access
Albridge Solutions’ consolidated customer account information via one Web
portal.
Gary Bennett, president of iNation says financial advisors can now “segment
their book of business by searching and sorting using a number of variables.”
For example, an advisor could look at all clients invested in a particular investment,
with a certain account size, who live in the same area and have common
interests, and then use that data to automatically send e-mail communications
or a mail campaign to a targeted group.
INation’s NationBuilder product was launched in 2005, designed specifically for
financial advisors and other sales professionals.
…
Kind of an FYI, “gee-whiz” news piece, but the Japan
Economic Newswire is reporting this morning that Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. will
withdraw from the camera business at the end of March, selling its digital
single-lens reflex camera division to Sony. The company will dump 3,700
employees as well, just over ten percent of the workforce.
I know it’s a business decision and all that, the company
says they want to focus – sorry – on such products as copiers and electronic
components, but still, for those of us who’ve had Minolta cameras, the news
that there won’t be any more of them, it’s kind of, well, maybe my father felt
this way when Volkswagen stopped producing the Beetle.
The news reports say that the shift from film cameras to
digital cameras knocked Konica Minolta for a loop, being more of a pure optical
technology firm they weren’t really in the league anymore.
Oh well, time moves on.
…
Datamonitor’s done another one of their
studies, this time finding that business
for third-party logistics providers looks “very promising.”
In their recently published “European Logistics House View,”
the tech research firm finds that expenditure on outsourced 3PL provision
across the Automotive, Consumer, Hi-Tech, Pharmaceutical, and Retail industries
is “set to increase significantly over the coming four years.”
In Europe’s automotive industry for example, what
Datamonitor calls “continual pressure on costs” will mean 3PLs “account for 60%
of overall expenditure on logistics services by 2010,” Datamonitor thinks.
But they do warn that 3PLs must “understand the factors
driving the outsourcing trend in respective industries if they are intent on
winning new business,” presumably by purchasing a Datamonitor report.
Overall logistics spend in the European retail market will increase by
$12 billion by 2010, the report says: “Although the grocery retail
sector is largely nationalistic due to differing domestic tastes within Europe,
the largest European markets are reaching saturation point.”
Companies moving eastwards will present
opportunities to 3PLs as well, Datamonitor thinks, finding that within
the consumer grocery sector “European companies are shifting their gaze
eastwards due to competitive pressures caused by an increase in private labeling
and a rise in discounters,” says Chris Morgan, Datamonitor logistics analyst
and author of the research. “However, as with the retail sector, success in
Eastern Europe will largely depend on the available logistics network, which is
where 3PLs with the necessary infrastructure could play a significant role.”
And the research suggests to Datamonitor that in
high-tech, outsourced logistics will account for “two-thirds of overall
logistics spend in 2010.”
The supply chain in the hi-tech sector has come under
pressure due to the success of the “just-in-time” business model, and the
continuing globalization of both the production and consumer bases. As a
result, Datamonitor thinks, “logistics spend in this sector to increase by $724
million through to 2010, two-thirds of which will be given to 3PLs.”
“The driver for all industries looking to outsource the
movement of their goods is the need to reduce costs in order to increase
profitability,” the report concludes. “3PLs will have to understand and
anticipate the specific factors driving their targeted industry if they are to
satisfy current customers, capture new ones and make the most of this boom
time.”
…
Marc Benioff’s back in fine fettle, issuing
communiqués on salesforce.com’s recent Winter release of his AppExchange baby –
the “most exciting and important product I have ever worked on.”
Saying AppExchange “embodies the power of social production
(made popular through open source, blogs, Wiki, and other Internet systems) in
attacking the traditional monolithic enterprise software applications dominated
today by vendors with 1990 architectures,” the Sultan of the Soundbite says “dependency
on those cumbersome and inefficient behemoths can be lethal to productivity and
innovation,” claiming “there is always a better answer out there in the global
community, and only the most open and democratic systems will enable the
discovery and distribution of that better answer.”
As Utopias do, however, the brave new softwareless world
needs “a secure, reliable, scalable platform” to provide today’s businesses
with “the stability they need,” Benioff says. Why, that’s AppExchange, ready
with “the tools, databases, and directories for generating secure, scalable,
and reliable applications.”
The result? What Benioff’s calling “The Business Web.” He
cites Google, Adobe, Skype, Esker “and hundreds of others” as applications “not
born in conference rooms, emerging after years of negotiation and planning,”
living, breathing examples of “the creativity of social production in action,
and a most compelling example of The End of Software.”
I like Marc Benioff. I really do. It’s hard not to like
Marc, and this world in general and tech in particular would be better off with
more idiosyncratic visionaries who have as much on the ball as Marc does. But I’ll
be a lot more ready to hear about The End Of Software once salesforce.com stops
using it themselves.
…
Gotuit Media Corp., a provider of
personalized video products, has announced it has expanded the collection of concerts and live performance footage
available on its Gotuit Music On Demand service.
The concert videos and live performances being added to
Gotuit Music On Demand include the likes of Tupac Shakur, Ice T, Macy Gray,
James Brown, Ziggy Marley, Public Enemy, The Ramones, Brian Setzer, ELO, and
The Moody Blues.
And that’s why they made the cut here on First CoffeeSM
– anybody who can work both James Brown, the most ripped-off artist in
pop music history, and The Ramones in the same press release will get ink.
…
Private Business, Inc., a provider of
technology for financial institutions, has announced it has acquired the assets of P.T.C. Banking Systems, Inc. PTC is a
developer of teller automation products, servicing approximately 80 financial
institutions throughout the United States from its headquarters in Bradenton,
Florida.
PTC’s flagship product, WinTELLER, is a teller automation
system designed to help bank branches better manage customer account
transactions and improve teller efficiency. This acquisition is intended to
complement the financial technology products and services of PBIZ. Terms of the
agreement were not disclosed.
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