The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is one of the prettiest, most finely-wrought and most subtly sung songs from '60s folk, Simon & Garfunkel's Bleecker Street:

 

BigMachines has announced that Carestream Health has deployed BigMachines' Configuration, Pricing, Proposal product.

 

The CPP implementation, led by eLogic Group, has streamlined the front-end selling process and is integrated with Carestream Health's sales management platform, according to the BigMachinists.

 

The CPP application, coupled with eLogic Group's process expertise, lets Carestream consolidate its medical products product lines in a single tool used to configure product, price and generate proposals for sales opportunity management.

 

Carestream Health sells medical and dental imaging and information technology products, molecular imaging systems, and non-destructive testing products.

 

"BigMachines' sales automation product, coupled with eLogic's implementation expertise, enables us to go from inquiry to order," said Rick Gary, Director of Worldwide Operations and Business Systems, Carestream Health. "We have a product that generates quotes and proposals, offering us much more capability than we had before."

 

BigMachines sells on-demand configuration and proposal software. Its CPP software is integrated with customer information systems to provide a single view of customer data, in addition to automatically updating sales forecasts as quotes and orders are created and changed. BigMachines can also integrate with SAP systems.

 

"Carestream Health provided challenges with their aggressive schedule, requirement to combine two businesses in a single product, and the worldwide representation during the requirements definition phase," said Tom Erdle, principal and co-founder of eLogic.

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DataDirect Technologies, a vendor of data connectivity and mainframe integration and an operating company of Progress Software, has announced that StreamServe, an enterprise provider of document composition, management and delivery products, has embedded the DataDirect Connect for ODBC and DataDirect Connect for JDBC database drivers into the latest version of StreamServe Persuasion.

 

The agreement provides StreamServe Persuasion users with "database connectivity to relational databases including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and IBM DB2 running on any platform," according to the DataDirecticians.

 

StreamServe Persuasion lets companies get information from enterprise applications such as ERP, CRM, SCM and legacy systems and use it customer correspondence and cross-sell, upsell campaigns.

 

With "an emphasis on enterprise customers and an open architecture," company officials say, StreamServe Persuasion is "designed to run on all established operating systems including UNIX platforms, Windows, and Linux." StreamServe officials say they realized its proprietary database architecture could not properly scale or meet the data connectivity and performance requirements of a heterogeneous environment.

 

Moreover, company officials say, they "didn't want the performance of StreamServe Persuasion to be dependent on the vagaries of whatever ODBC and JDBC drivers may be available in its customers' environments."

 

By embedding the DataDirect Connect for ODBC and DataDirect Connect for JDBC product suites into the latest version of StreamServe Persuasion software, the product can support Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases. Company officials say they plan to provide future support for the IBM DB2 database "without the costly development and quality assurance cycles in-house engineering demands."

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XAware has announced it is contributing its data integration software and professional services to the Armed Forces Support Foundation's Hire A Hero network.

 

Hire A Hero is an online social network that provides the infrastructure, tools, and support needed for service members to find quality careers upon their return from active duty. Since its founding in January 2007, Hire A Hero has come in contact with over 190,000 service members and helped many transition back into the civilian world.

 

The vast majority of the transitioning military community is men and women in their 20s. These veterans are comfortable with online social networking tools such as instant messaging, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Similar to these social networking sites, Hire A Hero users are able to create online profiles that can communicate the individual's story and career objectives.

 

This includes pictures, resumes, podcasts and videos. At the same time, Hire A Hero is working with companies of all sizes, management associations, staffing companies, and trade unions to bolster its national network and provide quality job opportunities for service personnel.

 

"The men and women who protect our country should be rewarded, not penalized, for their service," said Brac Selph, executive director of Hire A Hero. "XAware's pro-bono data exchange services and donated licenses of salesforce.com's Software-as-a-Service CRM product have been instrumental in allowing us to connect service members with people who can help them get good, well paying jobs. Those who have done the most to protect the American Dream should participate fully in its rewards."

 

Hire A Hero uses the Salesforce CRM application to help automate the job placement process for veterans as part of Salesforce.com's One Percent Product Donation program. XAware, an open source product "that hides the differences and complexity of data coming from disparate sources," company officials say, "transforms the data into a common format that can be understood and used by Hire-A-Hero's Salesforce system."

 

"It's amazing to see an organization like Hire A Hero do such extraordinary work and support it using next generation technologies," said Suzanne DiBianca, executive director of the Salesforce.com Foundation. "We applaud their efforts."

 

Hire A Hero has also embarked on a campaign to gather one million "Thank You" messages for our troops. The online message board contains messages to remind service members of how much our nation appreciates their sacrifices. For more information, please visit: www.thanksforserving.com.  

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Montage Hotels & Resorts, creators of luxury residential enclaves in Laguna Beach and Beverly Hills, has selected BrightDoor Systems to provide lead generation and enhanced customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities.

 

BrightDoor sells a sales engine developed expressly for builders and developers. For Montage, BrightDoor has a product designed to provide "dramatic interactive sales presentations that can be experienced on site, at locations anywhere in the world, or via personalized Web portals," the BrightDoormen say.

 

BrightDoor's BrightApps suite of presentation applications targets the entire real estate sales lifecycle, from lead generation and agent presentation to follow-up private Web portals for post-tour communication and closing. They allow every presentation and self-guided tour to be tailored in real time to the interests expressed by the individual buyer.

 

Alan Fuerstman, Montage's founder and chief executive officer, said his company's home buyers "are attracted to the conveniences of a hotel lifestyle," and want "a level of service that helps minimize the complexities of owning a second, third, or fourth home."

 

Boy, don't I know that feeling.

 

Montage currently has residences in development in Beverly Hills, and ones opening soon in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Deer Valley, Utah and Royal Island, Bahamas.

 

"Our buyers may not want to sift through a brochure or big book," Fuerstman said. "They want to be immediately drawn in, based on their personal interests."