A second cup of coffee this morning, but the music's still ol' Blue Eyes:

A research organization dealing with customer issues recently interviewed First Coffee, and the questions they asked got me thinking about how we can learn about CRM from nearly any field of human endeavor, but we learn the most through the most exciting, spectacular, idiotic ideas crashing and burning, like socialism.

One question they asked me was "What are the most important obstacles and pitfalls to be aware of in trying to integrate customer data in large bureaucratic companies and organizations? Imagine a large, older incumbent organization with entrenched fiefdoms, or a traditional regulated monopoly, or a large company that has grown through numerous acquisitions."

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Louis Jordan's great Anthology:

Scribe Software Corporation, a vendor of data migration and integration software technology for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, has announced that the company has been acquired by The Mustang Group and key members of the Scribe management team.
Mark Prestipino, President and CEO of Scribe said the principals at The Mustang Group "have the deep background, expertise, and operating experience in the markets we serve."

Previous investment firms Edison Venture Fund and Borealis Ventures sold their interests in the company as part of this transaction.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is "Rock 'n' Roll Records (Ain't Selling This Year)" by The Supersuckers:

Remember Daylight Savings tomorrow, spring forwards fall back. Don't show up to church early, enjoy that extra hour of sleep.

OnSite has announced the release of its "POS for NetSuite" product along with its acceptance into NetSuite's SuiteFlex Developer Program.

OnSite has used NetSuite's SuiteFlex platform to extend and enhance NetSuite to meet the point-of-sale needs of retailers.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Ultimate Collection by The Supremes, the great '60s band -- more #1 hits than The Beatles or anyone in the '60s -- unfortunately hijacked into a vehicle for Diana Ross's ravenous ego:

The Chinese CRM vendor CDC Corporation has announced today that its portal business unit has launched Google's click-to-play video in the China market via the China.com's English Channel.

Google's click-to-play video ads were launched this July as a new way to help Google's advertisers reach their target customers. On the English Channel of China.com, Google's click-to-play video ads will be accessible to both large and small advertisers and will provide brand advertisers with a richer and more engaging format to communicate their messages.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime," you know, "This ain't no party/ This ain't no disco:"

Happy Sugar Holiday from here in Istanbul, the three-day holiday ending Ramadan, where Muslims aren't allowed to eat, drink anything or smoke from sunup to sundown. Couldn't have come at a better time for the cab driver we had yesterday, I haven't seen a nicotine fit that bad in a long time.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Jimmy Cliff's The Harder They Come movie soundtrack, which somebody remarked is really the only essential movie soundtrack out there:

Hi David- I see you’re the CRM guy over at TMCNet and thought you might be interested in some news from one of my clients…

eGain, the Silicon Valley based pioneer of online customer support software (www.egain.com), is announcing its newest product suite on October 30th.

As you know, the mindset of today’s consumers is changing – they are embracing the speed and collaboration elements of the Web 2.0 world and demanding much more from their interactions with their favorite brands.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Faces' "Silicone Grown." Say what you will about the joke Rod Stewart's become, his disco, his atrocious pop fluff, his poor man's Frank Sinatra albums of standards, but every dog has his day and between 1969 and 1974 absolutely nobody did bluesy, boozy barroom rock'n'roll or heartfelt ballads guys aren't embarrassed to sing along with any better than Rod and his merry men in and out of the Faces -- Martin Quittenton, Ronnie Wood, Mickey Waller, Pete Sears, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, et al. The loose, inspired, ragged glory of Every Picture Tells A Story, A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse, Gasoline Alley, Never A Dull Moment, even Smiler had its indispensable moments... those shambolic concerts where you got either twice or half your money's worth...

Come to think of it, nobody's done it as well since then either.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius' 1976 debut album, cleverly named Jaco Pastorius:

Checking in with Companies Recently Taken Over this morning, we find c360 Solutions, a Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management Independent Software Vendor and a division of Chinese-owned CDC Software, has announced that it has exceeded key business objectives during the five months since it was acquired by CDC Software.

Since the completion of the acquisition of c360 by CDC Software in April 2006, c360 has added 95 new channel partners, bringing the total to over 600 worldwide; reached total cumulative c360 licenses of over 190,000, achieved maintenance renewal rates above 90 percent (one wonders what the target objective here was), and added five new products through licensing and acquisition (again, the targeted objective number isn't given here).

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits (And Some That Will Be):

First Coffee remembers when he was trying to get up-to-date information on Latin American call centers a few months ago, and got pretty much absolutely nothing. So it's good to see Zagada Markets, Inc. announcing the publication of its "Argentina Executive Call Center Report 2007: Heart of Innovation and Care."

This short executive report format is characterized as "the first of four concise reports in its South American series," which will also cover Brazil, Mexico and Chile in short order.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison's Common One album, followed by the somewhat overrated but still good Astral Weeks:

A previous First Coffee entry questioning the validity of tying Rep. Mark Foley's name to a product prompted a reply from the product creators.

The product itself, BeNetSafe, is an online "chaperone" for MySpace, Xanga and Friendster. It monitors communications and provides parents with a report basically highlighting flagged words and phrases so they can have an idea if their kids are doing anything online that the parents should know about.

By David Sims
[email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um:

Hey, I know I feel better after a successful North Korean nuclear test. Thanks to years of China's enabling and protection one of the craziest and cruelest dictators in the world now probably has nukes.

Don't you just love how well the U.N. works to protect us from this sort of thing?

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is just about the only Bruce Springsteen song First Coffee has much time for, "Light Of Day" from his MTV concert. It's one of the refreshing times he remembers he's one of the greatest hard-driving rock'n'roll musicians alive and not thinking he's the only person alive who knows what's good and what's not:

Ah, Friday. Time to clear out the ol' inbox.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Horace Silver Quintet's Song For My Father:

This morning SugarCRM's going to announce the availability of SugarExchange, a marketplace of Sugar community-built applications and extensions for SugarCRM end-users and administrators. 

Taking a page from salesforce.com's playbook, SugarExchange will offer production-ready community extensions as well as Sugar packages (please call them "cubes," please please please) and components to meet all the needs of a Sugar implementation. 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Bill Evans Trio's performance at the Village Vanguard, released on albums like Waltz For Debby:

Boy, an article about Caiman.com's terrible CRM is the gift that keeps on giving. After publishing a column on it last year I still get e-mails from people saying they've been ripped off, ignored and otherwise reamed over by the online company.

I too was a victim of Caiman.com just recently. I purchased a book, in new condition, and when it came it was curled badly because they had failed to wrap it with some cardboard support.