We Blog CRM

FTS, a global provider of Business Control, Billing and CRM solutions for service providers has announced that Globalcom Inc. has selected the FTS Leap Billing RC for its billing platform.

FTS’ Leap Billing RC (LBRC) is an end-to-end billing and customer care solution designed for the American market. FTS’ LBRC platform is to be integrated with Globalcom’s existing back office platforms including order management.

Chicago, Ill.-based Globalcom is a provider of telecommunications services, offering a portfolio of VoIP solutions, broadband and IP Telephony integrated from a single provider.

Saaspoint has announced the availability of the Salesforce.com AppExchange application TimeTrack.

TimeTrack enables the recording of time spent of projects and tasks, automating the reporting process by “capturing the time electronically.” (Wow, that sounds useful. Do you need a time machine to do it?)

Timetrack is immediately available to download for a free 14-day test drive at (Where else?) www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

Saaspoint was established by some of the original founders of salesforce.com EMEA and has recently launched operations in North America. Saaspoint now lays claim to status as Europe’s largest specialist salesforce.com implementation consultancy.

Asia Commercial Bank this week announced its agreement with Hanoi-based Thien Nam Information Technology Company, an international reseller of banking and financial processing systems. Thien Nam will be upgrading Asia’s core processing platform to the latest release of Open Solutions Inc.’s classically no-nonsensically named The Complete Banking Solution.

Open Solutions Inc., a provider of integrated enabling technologies for financial services providers, recently signed an international reseller partnership agreement with Thien Nam Information Technology Company.

Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Asia Commercial Bank has more than $1.7 billion in assets, 84 branches and 658,000 customers. ACB originally converted to Open Solutions’ TCBS platform in 2001 through a private label reseller agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Thien Nam will offer Open Solutions products within Asia and will sublicense Open Solutions’ relational enterprise data processing solution and integrated ancillary products. Thien Nam will be responsible for implementing, customizing, localizing and supporting the products covered by this agreement.

In addition to The Complete Banking Solution data processing platform, Asia Commercial Bank will be implementing Open Solutions’ CRM business intelligence program cView, online banking, cash management, financial accounting solution, imaging, interactive voice response, loan origination and payment solutions.

Creative Manager, Inc. this week released version 8.4.3 of its flagship product Creative Manager Pro.

Creative Manager Pro promises 52 enhancements to the program in the areas of accounting, project management, media, and reporting. All updates are at no cost to Creative Project Manager and Creative Manager Pro users.

Creative Manager Pro is web-based integrated project management and job tracking software for the creative design industry, created exclusively for design firms, ad agencies, in-house marketing and communication departments, and creative service firms.

A free test drive can be had at the Creative Manager website.

Last month saw Creative Manager Pro working on its Ad Agency software internally, mainly in tandem with Creative’s Fortune 500 clients. Also in May, Ad Agency Software expanded its server base to its Australian and New Zealand clients.

In the investment world, Salesforce.com had an, um, exciting Friday and early on appeared to have snapped its recent two-week slump. On Friday, Salesforce.com stock was reported as “breaking out on increased volume and is attempting to rebound.”

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. By 10am, Marc Benioff’s company had prices up to $46.60 after starting at $45.57 and dipping to $45.53. The peak came rapidly thereafter, with Salesforce.com fetching $47.14 before falling back down to … $45.59, a mere 0.26 percent increase on the day, despite the heavy trading.

iCongo Inc. closed out the week with the announcement that Lecavalier Auto Parts, reportedly Canada’s leading distributor of recycled auto parts and equipment, has selected the iCongo ICE3 suite of collaborative e-business systems. Lecavalier will be employing iCongo e-commerce to conduct customers’ order entry and order management processes online.

The applications being implemented by Lecavalier include iCongo’s ICE3 Business-to-Business Catalog and Online Order Entry System; the ICE3 Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce System; the ICE3 Customer Portal; and a suite of marketing and collaboration modules.

Lecavalier Auto Parts was founded in 1942 by Fernand Lecavalier and was acquired by Roger Fugère Sr. and his brothers in 1965. In 1982, Roger Fugère Jr. joined the business, followed a year and a half later by his brother Philippe. Lecavalier acquired the Centre de recyclage St. Jean in November 1999, and Ford Motor Company bought Lecavalier in November 2001. Lecavalier’s four facilities process approximately 15,000 vehicles a year to provide professionally cleaned and thoroughly tested parts to body shops, garages, dealerships, insurance companies, and individual consumers.

This much we know: Earlier in the month, Oncontact Software announced the release of Oncontact CRM 6.0, the latest version of its flagship Microsoft. NET-based CRM software billed as “the industry’s first CRM software to update its graphical user interface and visual style to complement Microsoft Windows Vista operating system.”

Designed for mid-market organizations, additional features touted in Oncontact CRM 6.0 include Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility, Lotus integration, a time billing module and an advanced search function. The solution promises compatibility with industry-standard solutions including Microsoft SQL Server and a help desk management system is available to track service inquiries, incidents and problems.

All well and good. This means that, if Oncontact CRM 6.0 is indeed the first CRM to be designed for Vista cohabitation, the product should make for a good barometer of the relative use of the new Microsoft browser.

CRM Buyer’s Erika Morphy follows up on the postulation in a story called “Oncontact Rejiggers CRM App for Vista.” (Gotta love the use of the verb “to rejigger” there. Nice.)

In the piece, Oncontact president Jon Zimmerman unabashedly says that “Not many of Oncontact’s clients have requested the Vista makeover yet, although customers have been clamoring for support of Microsoft Office 2007.” However – surprise, surprise – “I think companies will be forced to jump to Vista as it begins to take off.”

Ah, good ol’ Microsoft…

Be sure to check out “Rejiggers,” a nice bit of work that goes well beyond Oncontact to check out the popularity of Vista, which Sterling Market Intelligence president Greg Sterling is quoted as saying, “Vista’s numbers came in higher than expected given the initial mixed reviews of the application.”

Centric CRM, a developer of open-source Customer Relationship Management technology, today announced the company will receive investment funding from Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of good old Intel Corporation.

Centric CRM will use the funds to pursue growth opportunities forecast for the CRM technology industry, “and,” said Centric CRM CEO David Richards, “to expand our sales and marketing activities to capitalize on the rapid growth in our space.”

Centric CRM, Inc. is the developer of an advanced open source CRM system. Under development for almost seven years, Centric CRM now comprises over 2 million lines of code. Its Java/J2EE, web-based, and object-oriented architecture runs on all standard platforms. Centric CRM is a founding member of the Open Solutions Alliance and a member of the Red Hat Exchange.

Intel Capital invests in a range of companies offering solutions targeting enterprise, home, mobility, health, consumer internet, semiconductor manufacturing, and clean technologies. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than $6 billion in approximately 1,000 companies in over 40 countries. In that time, about 157 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and another 187 have been acquired by other companies. In 2006, Intel Capital invested about $1.07 billion in 163 deals with approximately 60 percent of funds invested outside the United States.

Maximizer Software Inc., a provider of Customer Relationship Management software applications, today announced some good results by their product for non-profit organization West Coast Environmental Law.

Vancouver, Canada-based West Coast is a team of lawyers and researchers analyzing environmental law, doing work in public awareness and advocacy “to empower and mobilize communities and reform the law in order to bring about progressive change,” which is to say the West Coasters provide their expertise free of charge to those involved in legal matters that affect the environment and its sustainability.

Maximizer is employed at West Coast Environmental Law in lawyer-client relationships, streamlining operations and ongoing fundraising efforts; best of all in terms of green thinking is the organization’s transition to a largely paper-free operation.

Built on web-based architecture, Maximizer is integratable with existing corporate systems in sales force automation, marketing automation, email marketing and customer service technologies. Maximizer Software has broken the 1 million barrier in license sales, with clientele including Siemens, Playground - an Intrawest Company, HSBC, Cathay Pacific, TD Securities, Brian Tracy International, the South Carolina Department of Commerce and Lockheed Martin.

Verticals onDemand, developer of industry-specific on-demand CRM solutions for the life sciences industry, and MediMedia Information Technologies will integrate their solutions to provide pharmaceutical managed care teams with the first on-demand CRM solution pre-loaded with formulary data. Formulary data will be automatically updated through web services and the Salesforce.com API.

The new Software as a Service CRM solution promises ease in loading, updating, and routing formulary data.

Verticals on-demand leverages the Salesforce platform for its customer relationship management solutions for specific industry segments. The company’s flagship products are VBioPharma for global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and VMedical for global medical and surgical device companies. Verticals onDemand is a privately-held company headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif.

MediMedia Information Technologies is a division of MediMedia USA, and is a provider of plan-specific formulary data. The Formulary Compass is MediMedia’s comprehensive collection of over 5,000 plan- and organization-specific formularies, including all state Medicaid and Medicare Part D formularies.