We Blog CRM

Though not, strictly speaking, CRM news, a few announcements from Apple this week have made waves across all the software industries thus far. (And it’s only Wednesday.)

The biggest of the big deals, of course, was Apple’s introduction of Safari for Windows. Safari 3 was introduced at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco and is touted as “the fastest browser running on Windows, based on the industry standard iBench tests, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.”

Safari 3 is promised to support all modern internet standards, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Java. Safari software updates are delivered through Apple’s Software Update application, which automatically checks for updates.

Safari was noted as just the second product – after iTunes – to deliver the Apple user experience to Windows and Mac users along with full support of open Internet standards.

The mention isn’t merely frivolous, either; judging from Steve Jobs’ introductory talking up of the product in a keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference, it seems Apple wants this bad boy to ride iTunes’ coattails for a bit.

“We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari,” said Jobs. “Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safari’s superior browsing experience, too.”

Jobs figures that there are currently about 18.6 million Safari users, leading one more-than-slightly sycophantic blogger to extrapolate that “we’re looking at 100 million or more Safari users within 30 months.”

(The entry continues along the lines of “Steve Jobs, by releasing Safari to Windows, has laid the foundation for the next major computing platform which will be Web-based, built for Safari, mobile, and Apple’s. … The big question is what, if anything … can Microsoft do to effectively respond to this massive threat?” Sheesh.)

Safari 3 public beta is available today as a free download at apple.com. The final version of Safari 3 will be available as a feature in the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard, and will be available as a free download to Mac OS X Tiger and Windows users in October.

Safari 3 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.9 or later, a minimum of 256MB of memory and is designed to run on any Intel-based Mac or a Mac with a PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor and built-in FireWire. Safari 3 for Windows requires Windows XP or Windows Vista, a minimum of 256 MB of memory and a system with at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor.

Oncontact Software has announced the release of Oncontact CRM 6.0, a new version of its flagship Microsoft. NET-based CRM software that is 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. The product is offered at one price per user.

Since CRMchump is devoted to publishing any news featuring the holy synthesis of CRM and beer, today we were lucky to find Computer Weekly’s story on Heineken brewery’s successfully implemented mobile reporting system, particulary since it’s all “part of a drive to improve the quality of beer served.”

The system uses Antenna Software’s AMPower system on Blackberry PDAs, which allows field representatives to more efficiently monitor the maintenance of lines for some 8,000 pubs, hotels and restaurants in Ireland; the brewer schedules 24,000 pipe cleans every month.

AsiaInfo Holdings, Inc., a provider of telecom software solutions and IT security products and services, has announced this signing of a contract with China Unicom subsidiary Jiangsu Unicom to upgrade the existing billing and Customer Relationship Management to support its new GPRS services.

Currently plans call for Jiangsu Unicom to upgrade its GSM system to GPRS in three cities and offer services including MMS, Wireless Application Protocol browsing, and mobile Java applications. Under terms of the agreement, AsiaInfo will upgrade Jiangsu Unicom’s existing billing and CRM system to support billing and customer care for new GPRS services.

Jiangsu Unicom currently employs AsiaInfo’s convergent billing and unified customer care systems to support both GSM and CDMA services. Organized as a Delaware corporation, AsiaInfo began operations in the United States in 1993. The Company moved major operations to China in 1995 and played a significant role in the construction of the national backbones and provincial access networks for all of China’s major national telecom carriers, including China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Netcom. Since 1998, AsiaInfo has continued diversifying its product offerings and is now a major provider of telecom software solutions in China.

Pharmaceutical business intelligence specialist Cutting Edge Information (let’s give that name a nice 7.3 out of ten on the Retro 1980s College Radio Remembrance Scale) announces the release of its “Patient Communications Library.”

The collection is made up of three primary research studies seeking to address issues of pharmaceutical companies in the areas of patient adherence, direct-to-patient communication, customer relationship management and overall patient education.

The individual reports are entitled Patient Education and Direct-to-Patient Communication; Pharmaceutical Customer Relationship Management (CRM); and Pharmaceutical Patient Adherence and Disease Management.

Focus Solutions Group plc closed the week with the announcement that the firm had launched “an integrated front office and customer relationship management solution that is integrated with Oracle CRM solutions, into the EMEA financial services market.”

Additionally, the folks in Focus PR announced that the unnamed CRM solution had been delivered to an unnamed Oracle/Focus joint customer.

The solution promises to allow a rich set of client data to be transferred from either application along with compliant documentation. Focus is providing fact finding, needs analysis, risk profiling, and quote-and-apply functionality as part of the solution, which will be targeted at retail banking, insurance and wealth management organisations.

Mobile on-demand business applications provider Vettro was proud to announce its Oracle status to that of certified partner. Vettro representatives also announced validation of its integration of Vettro 360 Sales to Oracle’s Siebel CRM On Demand.

Vettro 360 Sales for Siebel CRM On Demand seeks to provide mobile users with the ability to access, create, and manage business information in real-time from standard wireless smartphones or PDAs.

Vettro is currently deploying the Siebel CRM On Demand solution for Dot Hill Systems. Dot Hill will deploy Vettro 360 Sales for Siebel to increase use of SFA/CRM information.

Vettro is a mobile application provider specializing in Global 2000 businesses. Among Vettro’s clientele of 300 are Bell Mobility, BostonCoach, Carillion, Carey Limousines, Cigna, Clemson University, Cytyc, General Electric, Honeywell, Mac-Gray, Merrill Lynch, SuperShuttle, and YRC Worldwide.

IDC released a couple of reports this week worth a little discussion in the industry blogosphere.

In analysis entitled Western European CRM Applications, Forecast and Analysis 2007-2011, IDC provides CRM applications market forecast data for Western Europe.

IDC found that the Western European customer relationship management applications market grew by 6.3 percent in 2006, topping last year’s forecast by almost one percentage point and reaching a value of €2.2 billion (approximately $2.94 billion). IDC expects this positive trend to continue, and has increased its five-year forecast.

Analyzed IDC European enterprise applications program manager Bo Lykkegaard, “Early CRM adopters, especially in the financial services and telecommunications sectors, are investing in CRM again, while the low-end segment is seeing a significant impact of software-as-a-service.”

In the report, IDC forecasts the CRM application market by deployment model. Revenue from on-demand CRM applications grew almost 40 percent during 2006 and is expected by IDC to maintain this momentum throughout the forecast period.

Meanwhile, IDC Brazil released a study on the home country’s mainframe market entitled Brazilian Mainframe Market and Migration Trends 2007. Though the Brazilian IT market represented only 1.5 percent of overall worldwide IT spending in 2006, it is sixth in new mainframe purchases, trailing Japan, United States, Germany, France and Italy.

Investment in new mainframe systems around the world has dropped to around 11 percent of worldwide server spending, but the proportion in the Brazilian market has grown to 30 percent over the last five years.

Among the study’s findings was a stat stating that 65 percent of interviewed companies were planning to perform some kind of migration process to other platforms over the next couple of years. According to the interviews, mainframe users host an average of 60 business applications per server.

Seeburger Inc. has released a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) adapter for its suite of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solutions, including the standalone Seeburger Business Integration Server and the Seeburger EDI add-on for use with the SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure.

The new adapter is designed for organizations that using the SFTP communications protocol and complies with the FIPS 140-2 standard to enable use by the US Department of Defense, other federal agencies and their contractors.

The product was developed in-house to provide a one-platform EDI/B2B architecture that seeks to ensure compatibility, common work environment, and simplify maintenance across the supply chain.

Seeburger currently offers over 60 adapters for FTP/s, AS2 and other communications protocols as well as pre-built integrations to ERP and business applications including those from SAP AG, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, QAD, Navision, Ariba, Bauerer, Intentia and SSA Global/Baan.

Client Profiles, a provider of CRM, case management and financial applications for the legal profession, this week announced the acquisition of the CRM consulting practice of Lynch Marks, LLC.

Since 1998, Lynch Marks CRM consultants have specialized in CRM implementation and consulting services, providing services including CRM technology selection; application development and execution of CRM implementation plans and projects; CRM data cleansing; validation and integration; training; and support.

Lynch Marks has reportedly successfully completed over 175 CRM implementations and consulting projects including engagements with over 45% of the Am Law 100 and 200 law firms.

Following the acquisition, the Lynch Marks organization will “tighten their focus on the Datalyser conversion technologies” and PSShip software.

Client Profiles’ flagship product CRM4Legal is an Outlook-based client relationship management system for law firms built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform.