By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Charles Ives' A Symphony: New England Holidays:

Had a nice evening last night with Najide Tehrani, paterfamilias of the TMCnet family, fortunately his wife, daughter and he are in Istanbul for a few days, so my wife and I met them at Haci Baba's, the finest traditional Turkish kitchen-style restaurant here. We enjoy the city so much it's nice to be able to show friends to all the good places.

If anybody else is coming to Istanbul just let us know.

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Oracle has announced the general availability of the Siebel CRM On Demand Integration Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite, described by Oracle officials as "delivering pre-built integration between its subscription CRM application" and back office suite.

And hey, it can be yours for $30,000 per processor. Terms, conditions and restrictions apply. Contact our good friends at Oracle for the lowdown.

This latest version of Siebel CRM On Demand lets customers speed the implementation of end-to-end business processes, according to the product description from Oracle.

The Siebel CRM On Demand Integration Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite -- or SCODIPOES, as it's conversationally known -- is a component of the Oracle Application Integration Architecture, in which Oracle is delivering pre-built integrations across Oracle ERP, CRM and industry applications using a common object model and an open, Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) based platform.

These integration capabilities give customers and partners the ability to integrate between Siebel CRM On Demand with other applications and systems. For example, Oracle officials say, the SCODIPOES "streamlines business processes that span applications, such as the opportunity to quote/order process."

The pre-built SCODIPOES -- I'm getting fond of that acronym, but I'm pessimistic on its legs -- comes with not only bi-directional data synchronization, but also UI-level business process integration across the two applications. It uses Oracle Fusion Middleware technology.

Anthony Lye, Oracle Senior Vice President, CRM On Demand, says SCODIPOES lets organizations "deploy complex customer-facing business processes that span the front and back office," combining Oracle E-Business Suite with the interface of Siebel CRM On Demand.

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Norwich Union selected Teradata CRM modules Communication Manager and Communication Director, NCR officials say as well as Teradata Professional Services and the Financial Services Logical Data Model.

The recent agreement extends the existing relationship with Teradata that has developed the data warehousing platform to support Norwich Union's "Pay As You Drive" insurance product.

Through the CVM program Norwich Union officials say they want to transform the culture within Norwich Union and its Roadside Assistance Company, where "insight from their customers is used to drive an integrated approach across proposition development, pricing and marketing communications."

They'd also like to develop a single customer view both within and across the RAC and Norwich Union brands, develop marketing planning at a customer level that improves relationships across multiple brands, and create a world-class analytic capability for communications with customers.

Norwich Union and Teradata will also partner with Ogilvy One Worldwide, part of the WPP Group, through its recently-launched "Ogilvy Engage" operation to help deliver the cultural change needed to move towards a customer-centric organization.

Teradata announced in October 2006 that Norwich Union had selected the global enterprise data warehousing leader to provide an active data warehouse platform for sophisticated management of enterprise intelligence.

Norwich Union, an Aviva company, sells life and pension products in Europe and has substantial businesses elsewhere around the world. Its main activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance, with premium income and investment sales of £36 billion and £332 billion of assets under management.

Aviva itself has 58,000 employees serving 35 million customers.

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As promised a few weeks ago Creative Manager Inc., provider of Creative Manager Pro software, has released version 8.4.2 of its flagship product, Creative Manager Pro.

After last month's integration with Apple's Mac OS X iCal and Microsoft's Outlook, Creative Manager Pro turned it attention inward to allow the user to see a graphical representation of the project schedule across the entire firm.

"For the past few months, we've been focused on integration with outside systems, because those were important features that our clients asked for," said Ron Ause, Creative Manager's director of marketing.

Creative Manager announced version 8.4.2 last month, saying it was "expected in early May," and that "the focus this month is on graphical calendaring."

After March's integration with Apple's Mac OS X iCal and Microsoft's Outlook, Creative Manager Pro said last month it would turns it attention "inward to allow the user to see a graphical representation of the project schedule across the entire firm," according to company officials.

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OPV, an on-demand applicant tracking software provider, has announced the integration of its PassITon recruitment suite with Salesforce.com’s AppExchange.

As a result, Salesforce.com's customers have access to PassITon through the AppExchange, the on-demand directory for business applications.

PassITon is designed to assist recruitment by automating the recruiting process. From a single point of access, users can post job content, process resumes and screen applicants.

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Autonomy Corporation plc, a vendor of infrastructure software for the enterprise, has announced that it has entered into a multi-million dollar contract with the U.K. Ministry of Defense.

Under the terms of the deal, Autonomy will provide its Intelligent Data Operating Layer Server to support the MOD's new single information infrastructure. In addition to supporting Joint Operations, this new infrastructure supports MOD's stated objective of making information immediately available to those who need it.

To that end Autonomy's IDOL Server will allow the U.K. MOD access to the wealth of its unstructured information by automating critical processes and tasks traditionally performed manually. The system is expected to be available to more than 400,000 people internally, and will have the capability to accept an unlimited number of users on the extranet.

Autonomy has a long history of collaboration with government, defense and intelligence agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, the U.K. Audit Commission, the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, the French Ministry of Defense, and the Irish Revenue Commissioners.

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