By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and we’re still on our jazz kick here at the sprawling office complex headquarters of First Coffee, having Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah Um piped to all the far-flung office buildings, garages, stables, indoor golf courses…
Microsoft partner Workopia, Inc. wants you to know that it now offers national assistance to small businesses that want to evaluate and implement Customer Relations Management software at an affordable price.
Unlike most Microsoft enterprise partners, and certainly most unlike Microsoft itself, Workopia believes it "talks the language of the small/medium company" when discussing enterprise level software. Workopia trains their clients on necessary operations to any extent desired, but will do hands-on set up for the client to save time and money if that is desired.
According to Frank Lee, president of Workopia, many smaller firms want to manage their customers better, "but don't have the staff and resources to learn about CRM systems." Lee thinks Microsoft CRM 3.0 can be adapted to smaller companies, "so we act as temporary staff to get clients up and running."
The success of Workopia earned Frank Lee an MVP designation (I don't know, "Microsoft Valued Partner," maybe?), one of the few MVPs in the country devoted to the small/medium enterprise. Workopia is a Certified Microsoft Business Solutions Partner and helped launch two of Microsoft's 18 showcase customers for their CRM 3.0 system.
Microsoft was pleased enough with their efforts to encourage Workopia to expand their services nationally to get other small and medium size companies using CRM 3.0. Aztec Software in Springfield, N.J. was one of the first clients outside of the San Francisco Bay to retain Workopia.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you MoveOn.org and Daily Kos, for accomplishing what no Republican could ever have done this year -- taken away a safe Democrat Senate seat in Connecticut. The patented Daily Kos Kiss of Death at work.
The wonderful thing about political morons is they have a self-destruct button (Republicans still send Ralph Nader a Christmas card every year for single-handedly costing Al Gore the 2000 election) and by taking away a valuable safe seat -- Joe Lieberman will run as an Independent in Connecticut and will win, the loony militants are the ones who actually bother to vote in primaries -- from the Democrats the nutroots rapidly taking over the once-proud Democratic Party are doing their part to ensure Republicans maintain control of Congress.
No candidate backed by Daily Kos has ever won any office, they're something like 0-22 now. Were First Coffee a conspiracy theorist he'd suspect Karl Rove was bankrolling Daily Kos, as valuable allies as they've proven to be in destroying the Democratic Party as a party of serious national governance.
A few Democrats in Georgia's Fourth Congressional District grew some brain cells and threw out certified embarrassment Cynthia McKinney, who no doubt was also the favorite of the Code Pink-Mama Moonbat Sheehan crowd. Honestly, for all the liberal conspiracy wackos attracted like moths to MoveOn.org, Daily Kos, Code Pink and Mama Moonbat you'd think somebody'd notice "Hey, Karl Rove couldn't be picking off liberals with any more deadly accuracy than our supposed 'leaders'…"
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Neocase, a vendor of collaborative customer service CRM products, has announced that Tamera Scholz has joined as vice president of professional services, a new position at the company.
Scholz will oversee the pre-sales, professional services and customer service organizations as the company expands its U.S. presence following the recent launch of its CRM solutions for the U.S. market.
At Neocase, she will be responsible for the deployment of Neocase customer service and CRM applications, and the execution of software integration projects and customer support across Neocase's channel partners, customers and internal teams.
Scholz said she thinks Neocase has the "ideal" product for mid-sized companies looking to improve their customer operations processes. Additionally, Neocase's flexible delivery model -- via on demand or on premise -- "is designed to meet the specific needs of our customers and let them focus on providing the best possible customer care."
Prior to joining Neocase, Scholz served as director of implementation services and director of worldwide training services at NetSuite, where she was responsible for creating and delivering CRM product training to worldwide end-users and partners.
Scholz has implemented educational programs and led training teams at Corrigo, Flexi International Software and Industrial Indemnity.
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Advent Software, Inc., a vendor of CRM software and services to the investment management industry, has announced that Bill Few Financial Group, a Pittsburgh-based investment and wealth advisor and broker-dealer group, has migrated to Advent Portfolio Exchange for client relationship management functionalities.
Bill Few Financial Group, which has $1.2 billion in assets under management, participated in the client validation development process of Advent Portfolio Exchange last year. The company upgraded from Axys to Advent Portfolio Exchange, Advent's next-generation portfolio management platform that integrates front-office marketing and CRM functionality with back-office portfolio accounting and reporting operations.
Bill Few officials said moving to Advent Portfolio Exchange was done to improve the firm's client services, improve compliance and security, and help integrate front-office functions with back-office operations.
"A key benefit of Advent Portfolio Exchange right out of the box was the security functionality. We can set up user IDs and limit user access to specific accounts, which enables us to allow portfolio access to select affiliates," said John Jones, Chief Operating Officer of Bill Few Financial Group, adding that "the built-in CRM capabilities show us all the client's data in one integrated view."
Advent Portfolio Exchange is built on industry standard tools, including Microsoft's SQL server for data security and simple IT functionality.
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CRM vendor Knova Software today announced the financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2006, losing $500,000.
Revenue for the second quarter of 2006 was $7.5 million, a two percent increase over second quarter 2005 revenue of $7.3 million. Revenue for the quarter was comprised of $3.2 million of software license revenue and $4.3 million of services and maintenance revenue compared to $2.8 million of software license revenue and $4.5 million of services and maintenance revenue for the second quarter of 2005.
The GAAP net loss for the second quarter of 2006 was $0.5 million or $0.05 per share. This compares to a net income of $0.06 million or $0.01 per share for the second quarter of 2005. GAAP net loss in the second quarter of 2006 includes stock based compensation charges of approximately $0.5 million reflecting the company's adoption of Statement of Financial Standards No. 123R ("SFAS 123R") on January 1, 2006.
On an adjusted non-GAAP basis, net income for the second quarter of 2006 was $0.2 million or $0.03 per share.
Based on the company's first half 2006 results, Knova is raising its annual revenue guidance. Revenue for 2006 is expected to be in the range of $26 million to $29 million.
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