The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Beach Boys’ Surf’s Up:
Intelliworks, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) products for higher education, has announces that New England College, an independent liberal arts college located in Henniker, New Hampshire, has selected Orion to manage and streamline the marketing and communications functions of its undergraduate admissions department.
"We see the Orion product as a vehicle to accomplish more with less," said Diane Raymond, director of admission for New England College.
New England College's undergraduate admissions office is responsible for managing relationships with a variety of constituents including prospective students both in the United States and around the world, guidance counselors, independent college admissions consultants, and officials at a number of two-year schools.
Orion's centralized contact database enables constituent interactions and follow-up for all members of the department, as well as a single historical record of all communication.
Dev Ganesan, chairman and co-founder of Intelliworks, said Intelliworks provides "a CRM product for NEC's undergraduate admissions team that is easy to use and requires no time investment from the college's information technology team."
…
Autonomy Corporation, a vendor of CRM and other infrastructure software, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Zantaz, a vendor of content archiving and electronic discovery products.
Michael Lynch, group CEO of Autonomy, said: with the acquisition "we'll expand the addressable market, distribution and reach for Autonomy's Aungate IDOL-based products further into markets driven by recent regulatory changes."
On 3 July 2007, Autonomy and Zantaz announced that they had entered into a definitive merger agreement for Autonomy to acquire Zantaz for a purchase price of approximately $375 million in cash after certain deductions.
…
According to a recent report issued by Springboard Research, "The SaaS Market in Asia Pacific, 2006 to 2009: Expanding the Reach & Appeal of Software," the regional market is still dominated by five vendors -- Salesforce.com, WebEx, RightNow Technologies, Oracle and NetSuite.
The report found awareness and adoption of SaaS across the region (excepting Japan), with the market increasing 92.5 percent in 2006 to a the market size at $154 million. The SaaS market in Asia will reach $1.16 billion by 2010, the report found, with a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent, to comprise 15 percent of the enterprise software application market.
"Although customer relationship management accounts for the largest chunk of the market in Asia, representing 45 percent of revenue in 2006, organizations are aware of and use many different types of SaaS applications," the report's author found.
After small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for vendors, now large enterprises are also looking at SaaS for non-critical applications, said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, Research Manager for Springboard Research.
"SaaS is definitely going beyond CRM, which is the area it has been associated with in the past," said Pandey. "With all segments of SaaS growing, we are seeing applications across the board being adopted by enterprises in the region and more importantly, we are seeing enterprises being very happy with the SaaS applications they are using. This bodes well for the market, not only the small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for SaaS vendors, but also those large enterprises looking at SaaS for non-critical application."
…
Maximizer Software has announced that the South Carolina Department of Commerce has used Maximizer CRM to "blow out its annual job creation targets by more than 40 percent," in less than 6 months using the system, according to Maximizer officials.
Representatives of the agency believe the new, customized system gives the state agency a major competitive advantage over neighboring regions.
After six complete months using Maximizer CRM software, SCDOC officials say the department benefits from complete investment project management in a single system, 100 percent integration of Microsoft Outlook e-mail, 100 percent project manager adoption of the new system and standardized process for attracting and closing new investment to the region -- "very rare in state governments," officials note.
SCDOC's Director of Administration Mandy Kibler said "we feel we've increased our competitiveness by focusing on delivering customer experience to the companies investing in our region. As we pass through our first six months of Maximizer use, the biggest gain is providing confident reporting with hard numbers."
…
EStara, a vendor of conversion products for enhancing online sales and support initiatives, has announced that IdeaForest, which owns and operates Joann.com, has selected eStara Click to Call to round out its online customer service offerings.
Already a customer of eStara's parent company, ATG IdeaForest's selection of eStara "demonstrates the synergies and customer centricity between the companies' products," eStara officials say.
Joann.com will use eStara's rules-based click to call capability to engage consumers interested in high-value purchases. This allows customers to access an expert over the phone to handle complex sales without burdening IdeaForest's contact center with calls about lower ticket items.
Juan Gonzalez, IT director, IdeaForest, said the company wanted to "find ways to capture online browsers during the buying process." eStara's Click to Call offers online retailers the ability to engage browsers either when they are likely to abandon a Web site or during key points in the sales cycle where up-sell or cross-sell opportunities exist.
EStara is used by Continental Airlines, DaimlerChrysler, Dell Financial Services and Superpages.com, among other companies.
…
Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, continues to hold the No. 1 position in the data warehousing server space, based on the Gartner Server Evaluation Model (SEM) report just released.
The Teradata Warehouse platform was recently expanded and is used for analytical intelligence and customer relationship management (CRM).
The evaluation model assesses data warehouse database management system server performance across multiple dimensions, and Gartner's latest SEM is used to develop acquisition strategies for data warehouse DBMS servers. The evaluation document, "Server Evaluation Model Summary: Data Warehouse DBMS Servers, 1H07," examines database servers from all major vendors.
As Teradata approaches its independence from NCR, it believes the No. 1 ranking will serve it well in computing hardware as well as software and enterprise-class business intelligence consulting and support.
"In our business speed is a critical competitive advantage, and provides powerful economic benefits, from real-time decision support to personalized customer interaction, to serving our customers when and where they have a need," said Sam Peterson, senior vice president, technology, for Overstock.com.
"When Teradata becomes an independent company later this quarter it will be the only business on the planet with a core focus on enterprise data warehousing from platform, to applications, to consulting and support," said Randy Lea, vice president, product and services marketing for Teradata.
Intelliworks, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) products for higher education, has announces that New England College, an independent liberal arts college located in Henniker, New Hampshire, has selected Orion to manage and streamline the marketing and communications functions of its undergraduate admissions department.
"We see the Orion product as a vehicle to accomplish more with less," said Diane Raymond, director of admission for New England College.
New England College's undergraduate admissions office is responsible for managing relationships with a variety of constituents including prospective students both in the United States and around the world, guidance counselors, independent college admissions consultants, and officials at a number of two-year schools.
Orion's centralized contact database enables constituent interactions and follow-up for all members of the department, as well as a single historical record of all communication.
Dev Ganesan, chairman and co-founder of Intelliworks, said Intelliworks provides "a CRM product for NEC's undergraduate admissions team that is easy to use and requires no time investment from the college's information technology team."
…
Autonomy Corporation, a vendor of CRM and other infrastructure software, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Zantaz, a vendor of content archiving and electronic discovery products.
Michael Lynch, group CEO of Autonomy, said: with the acquisition "we'll expand the addressable market, distribution and reach for Autonomy's Aungate IDOL-based products further into markets driven by recent regulatory changes."
On 3 July 2007, Autonomy and Zantaz announced that they had entered into a definitive merger agreement for Autonomy to acquire Zantaz for a purchase price of approximately $375 million in cash after certain deductions.
…
According to a recent report issued by Springboard Research, "The SaaS Market in Asia Pacific, 2006 to 2009: Expanding the Reach & Appeal of Software," the regional market is still dominated by five vendors -- Salesforce.com, WebEx, RightNow Technologies, Oracle and NetSuite.
The report found awareness and adoption of SaaS across the region (excepting Japan), with the market increasing 92.5 percent in 2006 to a the market size at $154 million. The SaaS market in Asia will reach $1.16 billion by 2010, the report found, with a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent, to comprise 15 percent of the enterprise software application market.
"Although customer relationship management accounts for the largest chunk of the market in Asia, representing 45 percent of revenue in 2006, organizations are aware of and use many different types of SaaS applications," the report's author found.
After small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for vendors, now large enterprises are also looking at SaaS for non-critical applications, said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, Research Manager for Springboard Research.
"SaaS is definitely going beyond CRM, which is the area it has been associated with in the past," said Pandey. "With all segments of SaaS growing, we are seeing applications across the board being adopted by enterprises in the region and more importantly, we are seeing enterprises being very happy with the SaaS applications they are using. This bodes well for the market, not only the small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for SaaS vendors, but also those large enterprises looking at SaaS for non-critical application."
…
Maximizer Software has announced that the South Carolina Department of Commerce has used Maximizer CRM to "blow out its annual job creation targets by more than 40 percent," in less than 6 months using the system, according to Maximizer officials.
Representatives of the agency believe the new, customized system gives the state agency a major competitive advantage over neighboring regions.
After six complete months using Maximizer CRM software, SCDOC officials say the department benefits from complete investment project management in a single system, 100 percent integration of Microsoft Outlook e-mail, 100 percent project manager adoption of the new system and standardized process for attracting and closing new investment to the region -- "very rare in state governments," officials note.
SCDOC's Director of Administration Mandy Kibler said "we feel we've increased our competitiveness by focusing on delivering customer experience to the companies investing in our region. As we pass through our first six months of Maximizer use, the biggest gain is providing confident reporting with hard numbers."
…
EStara, a vendor of conversion products for enhancing online sales and support initiatives, has announced that IdeaForest, which owns and operates Joann.com, has selected eStara Click to Call to round out its online customer service offerings.
Already a customer of eStara's parent company, ATG IdeaForest's selection of eStara "demonstrates the synergies and customer centricity between the companies' products," eStara officials say.
Joann.com will use eStara's rules-based click to call capability to engage consumers interested in high-value purchases. This allows customers to access an expert over the phone to handle complex sales without burdening IdeaForest's contact center with calls about lower ticket items.
Juan Gonzalez, IT director, IdeaForest, said the company wanted to "find ways to capture online browsers during the buying process." eStara's Click to Call offers online retailers the ability to engage browsers either when they are likely to abandon a Web site or during key points in the sales cycle where up-sell or cross-sell opportunities exist.
EStara is used by Continental Airlines, DaimlerChrysler, Dell Financial Services and Superpages.com, among other companies.
…
Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, continues to hold the No. 1 position in the data warehousing server space, based on the Gartner Server Evaluation Model (SEM) report just released.
The Teradata Warehouse platform was recently expanded and is used for analytical intelligence and customer relationship management (CRM).
The evaluation model assesses data warehouse database management system server performance across multiple dimensions, and Gartner's latest SEM is used to develop acquisition strategies for data warehouse DBMS servers. The evaluation document, "Server Evaluation Model Summary: Data Warehouse DBMS Servers, 1H07," examines database servers from all major vendors.
As Teradata approaches its independence from NCR, it believes the No. 1 ranking will serve it well in computing hardware as well as software and enterprise-class business intelligence consulting and support.
"In our business speed is a critical competitive advantage, and provides powerful economic benefits, from real-time decision support to personalized customer interaction, to serving our customers when and where they have a need," said Sam Peterson, senior vice president, technology, for Overstock.com.
"When Teradata becomes an independent company later this quarter it will be the only business on the planet with a core focus on enterprise data warehousing from platform, to applications, to consulting and support," said Randy Lea, vice president, product and services marketing for Teradata.
