The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Miles Davis's 1975 live album Agharta. Some pretty blistering fusion work - most '70s fusion didn't stand the test of time, heck most of everything doesn't stand the test of time, but Davis's genius ensures that this does:
CRM and ERP vendor Consona Corporation has announced that its AXIS product line has achieved "exceptional customer support satisfaction levels," according to company officials, adding that AXIS is Consona's ERP software designed "specifically for the unique requirements of manufacturers and distributors in the metals, wire and cable industries."
According to what Consona officials say are regularly tracked metrics, since October 2008, AXIS ERP software customers have expressed "100 percent satisfaction with their support service experience with Consona - nearly 18 consecutive months." Hard to improve all that much on100 percent.
"For the entirety of 2009, customer feedback was 100 percent positive, and has maintained this record thus far into 2010 as well," Consona officials assert, crediting their business model that places significant importance on providing an efficient, effectual support experience for customers, in which cases are resolved.
In 2009 alone, in fact, Consona handled 2100 support cases - "down from 2600 cases in 2008," company officials say - with "only four in backlog at the end of the calendar year." Throughout this period and into the present time, they say, AXIS customer support "is able to maintain an average of less than three days' backlog of support cases."
Consona officials say the backbone of their support model consists of proactive educational materials the company provides through a database of online courses, Knowledgebase articles and discussion forums in the searchable Expert network that customers can access at any time: "Consona encourages customers to take advantage of this resource, and likewise share experiences and feedback with peers to enable information sharing among the customer base and support staff."
In addition, 33 new recorded classes on the AXIS ERP solution were produced in the past two years.
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Parents are about to get a new resource: DirecTV, which is offering what company officials call "common Sense Media's age-based content reviews on its TV programming guide."
The service is designed to provide parents with what DirecTV officials describe as "detailed, age-based information and reviews so they can make the right programming choices for their families."
DirecTV and Common Sense Media have been making kid-friendly ratings information available on directv.com since early last year. Now DirecTV customers will be able to access this information on the electronic program guide via the "info" button on their remote control.
Doing so will give users access to Common Sense Media's information on the program's violence, sexual content, positive messages, topics for family discussion and more.
Saying it's "based on childhood development criteria," DirecTV officials say Common Sense Media's age-based ratings system complements traditional ratings services by providing more detailed, easy-to-understand information."
Eric Shanks, executive vice president, DirecTV Entertainment, says DirecTV "believes that finding appropriate TV choices for your kids should be simple and straightforward. Common Sense Media reviews go well beyond the current TV ratings system and actually give parents the information to make decisions about the TV choices in their home."
Not only does it give practical information about individual TV shows, he added, "but it also presents ideas of how to discuss the shows or movies with your kids."
"We applaud DirecTV for being the first to integrate our ratings into their on-screen guide," said Anne Zehren, president and COO of Common Sense Media.
Customers can continue to access ratings information on directv.com by clicking on a TV show or movie title on the directv.com programming guide and use the "Parental Ratings" tab to link directly to the Common Sense Media information.
After reviewing the ratings, parents can use DirecTV's DVR Scheduler by simply clicking on the "record to receiver" tab and scheduling the program to record on their DVR at home - only at directv.com.
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IBM has announced that Whitney National Bank, an independent business bank, is deploying IBM technologies to "integrate and speed the delivery of specialized services to its growing customer base."
IBM officials say the move is intended to provide "new levels of efficiency and intelligence to both the bank and its customers."
Whitney officials say they recognize the need to compete in today's dramatically altered financial playing field by using "smarter banking strategies to achieve new levels of risk control, efficiency and customer service."
Bank officials say using the IBM tools, they will be able to extract key intelligence to obtain a full view of a customer's transaction history -- including a comprehensive analysis of sales trends and costs -- to deliver more customized services and offerings: "Increased visibility to this account data also empowers the bank's customers to regulate their activities and expenses."
They're hoping for new operational efficiencies as well, given their recent growth: "After acquiring more than a dozen banks, Whitney faced the challenge of consolidating customer information and reducing IT applications such as those supporting checking and savings account management, online bill payment and loan processing."
In the past, if a customer requested a report of daily transactions, the information had to be pulled from a dozen different systems that could take a few days to deliver, bank officials explained, saying that has now been reduced to hours and minutes.
By deploying the IBM Banking Industry Framework, a portfolio of pre-built financial reports and dashboards, Whitney officials say they expect to be able to cut their banking applications in half, be able to retrieve customer information instantaneously, improve service levels by automating routine processes, reduce costs and eliminate redundancies across the enterprise.
Thomas "Stan" Limerick, Whitney's Senior Vice President and Director of Strategy and Architecture, Operations & Technology Division, says the bank is also migrating to IBM Power System with DB2 in its data centers in Allen, Texas and Prattville, Alabama, adding that the new Power System enables Whitney to cut disaster recovery times between its data centers from hours to seconds.
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Metatron has announced that it will release the appMovie "Michael Jackson HIStory World Tour Live" concert on iTunes, Android and Blackberry under license from Soul Legends and Darryl Payne Productions.
The concert was recorded from the third and final world concert tour by Michael Jackson as a solo artist, which grossed a total of $165 million, included a total of 82 concerts with a record-breaking attendance of 4,500,000 fans.
Metatron officials say this has never before been seen in the US: "This is the first and only High-Definition recording of Michael Jackson performing all of his hits live."
The video quality is described as "extremely high." It was shot with fifty cameras and is two and a half hours long. This app also contains 500 rare pictures.
Joe Riehl, CEO of Metatron, said Jackson's music and videos "continue to be top sales performers in all formats. This concert video is exclusive to our subsidiary i-Mobilize and has not been released in any format in the United States until now."
Jackson's 1982 album Thriller sold more than 110 million copies, and remains the best-selling album ever, while several of his other albums rank among the world's best-sellers. He scored 17 number-one singles in the US (including four as a member of The Jackson 5); and garnered estimated world sales of over 780 million records, making him certainly one of the best-selling recording artists ever.
Metatron officials describe their business as a "diversified internet holding company with a mission to harness the power of today's online and wireless consumer interactivity to make daily life easier, more productive and more entertaining for people all over the world."
