The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is an iPod shuffle of R.E.M., as we need to see how their supposed comeback album, Accelerate, stacks up against their past work when its tracks are interspersed randomly on a playlist. So far -- pretty well, although there's nothing on Accelerate to challenge for the R.E.M. Pantheon, nothing to stand with "Man On The Moon," "I Believe" or "Radio Free Europe." The album itself comes to rest somewhere above the dreck of the past several years and below the likes of Lifes Rich Pageant, Murmur or Document: Epicor Software has announced that Tecnología Metálica en Maquila Industrial (TECMET for the sake of this reporter), a Mexican company dedicated to the industrial production of stainless steel, has selected Epicor's manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) product to automate its business processes. "Striving to improve order and project control inside the company, it was important that we select a product that would comply with all our requirements," said Humberto Quintanilla, CEO of TECMET, located in Monterrey. Previously, TECMET did not use a processes automation system. "Since last year we knew that we needed a software tool that would let us take absolute control of all our projects, and enable us to improve our efficiency in costs, and time to fulfill delivery deadlines," Quintanilla added. "We were looking for a robust product with proven experience in the make-to-order manufacturing industry, and in January 2008 we selected the Epicor product," he said. The Epicor product, built on a true service-oriented architecture (SOA) using Microsoft .NET and Web services, is used for collaboration throughout the supply chain. ... Infopia, a SaaS eCommerce platform provider, has launched its new Infopia Transact eCommerce product. The platform includes "both software and service components for small- to mid-sized merchants," the Infopians say. As part of the Infopia Transact launch, Infopia has also announced a new Web site platform, in addition to search marketing and broader professional services initiatives that are all part of the product. The launch also includes new Web Services functionality, which makes the Infopia Transact platform open and flexible for merchants to integrate other business applications. Further information on Infopia Web Services is expected within weeks. "Infopia Transact is built upon the technology of our Marketplace Manager platform," said Bjorn Espenes, CEO at Infopia. "It is an evolution of that effort, expanding with technology and services that give online merchants the ability to both centralize and ramp up their online selling efforts across multiple channels." "As a beta customer for Infopia Transact, I can say that it's truly enabled us to do business the way we want to," said Lars Noreng of NextWorth, adding that the Web Services component alone has helped us reduce overhead by connecting our custom Web application, CRM software, and existing supply chain together with the online channels we sell in." ... Noetix, a software provider selling business intelligence (BI) content from enterprise applications, has announced that Activant Solutions, Inc. has adopted NoetixViews to deliver a reporting product to its users. Activant wanted "a product for our specific reporting requirements that included the need for a large variety of business views and pre-built reports," said Craig Davenport, Activant's senior director of information technology. "We wanted a robust operational reporting tool, yet one that was easy enough to understand for our business users and could be implemented in a very short time-frame." Apostrophically, in philosophy "noetics" refers to the science of the intellect and reasoning, the study of pure thought. Activant selected Noetix for what company officials say were "several business and usability reasons," including their ability to provide a secure metadata layer with hundreds of customizable reports that Activant could then share, transfer, and manipulate as required in Excel. Also "the breadth and depth of business views available from Noetix, with more than 800 out-of-the-box reports that users can easily modify to meet their needs," was a deciding factor, Noetix officials said. Activant's IT department was able to use nearly 70 percent of Noetix's pre-built reports with zero customization required, company officials say. ... Jenzabar, which sells software to higher education, has announced that 11 institutions of higher education selected Jenzabar's Internet portal, Jenzabar's Internet Campus Solution, during Q1 and Q2 2008. Among the higher education institutions that have chosen JICS are Avila Institute, Campbellsville University, Elizabethtown College, Green Mountain College, Goshen College, Molloy College, Naropa University, Northwestern College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Peace College, and Penn Highlands. The JICS campus portal connects candidates, students, alumni, faculty, and staff to an institution's database at any time and from any Internet browser. It offers a single point of access to Web-based self-service, e-learning, communications, and community-building applications. Constituents have secure 24x7 access to role-specific content, from administrative records and reports to personal e-mail and calendars, from chat rooms to online exams. ... SharperAgent has released a new eCRM marketing suite for CBSHOME Real Estate, a HomeServices of America affiliate. Providing agents with a marketing resource center, the platform was designed to "help agents stay connected with their clients and prospects," SharperAgent officials say. Developed specifically for their 600 sales associates located throughout Nebraska, the new EZ Marketing Suite includes eCRM features including a comprehensive contact manager designed to store information and build marketing communication plans. There's also a library of marketing materials including newsletters, greeting cards, flyers, postcards, guides, and brochures intended to help deliver messages to clients and prospects. A digital print and mailing fulfillment service feature gives agents direct mail marketing options. A marketing dashboard has daily tasks, new lead updates, best practice marketing tips, newsfeeds, reminders, and more. ... Neudesic, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, has announced the release of its NeuGuest product. As you might guess from the name, it's for the hospitality industry: NeuGuest provides users with "the ability to gather, analyze, and act upon information in real time, allowing organizations to quickly anticipate and respond to their guests' requests and needs," company officials say. Built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 solution, NeuGuest provides "a comprehensive view of guest behavior and integration between disparate systems via Neudesic's Neuron-ESB," described by company officials as an "Enterprise Service Bus built on the Microsoft software platform." NeuGuest provides a dashboard view of the performance of all major hospitality and gaming lines of business. Darren Gooding, Neudesic's Director of Dynamics, CRM said bringing together disparate systems and displaying the compiled data "allows our customers to use that information to anticipate and exceed guest needs and requests." NeuGuest is available in both a full enterprise version, or in a series of smaller modules that can be implemented over time. The NeuGuest Platform is also an application for conducting specific, targeted marketing campaigns to both current and potential customers. If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.