We Blog CRM

CRM vendors are now offering would-be clients help in preparing a business case for deploying CRM (basically getting the CEO to loosen the purse strings). It is a savvy business move by these vendors who do all they can to portray the business benefits of their products and services, of course clothed in the lingo of tech jargon and powerpoint presentations that are bound to impress all but the most hardened money conscious CEO.

Aspective is a niche consultancy provider and a winner of the Microsoft’s global CRM partner of the year award believes in the power of communication. It talks to departments in a company that stand to benefit from the CRM deployment and offers them perspective on what to realistically expect from the deployment. Read more

PacificNet, Inc., who is billed by its own PR as “a leading provider of gaming technology, e-commerce and Customer Relationship Management services in China” but might be more accurately described as a big company well worth listening to, announced today that its Take1 Electronic Bingo Machines have received Technical Systems Testing Certification.

The certification means that TST has verified through mathematical and statistical analysis that the Take1 Electronic Bingo Machines operate with sufficient non-predictability, fair distribution and lack of bias to particular outcomes and complies with generally accepted industry standards for highly regulated jurisdictions.

TST offers a full range of testing and consultation services for terrestrial (that’s “terrestrial” as in “traditional/land-based,” rather than involving the third planet revolving ‘round ol’ Sol) and interactive-based gaming, wagering, lottery, e-commerce and information technology industries, to ensure that gaming operates in a manner that is fair, secure and auditable. TST services are delivered by a hard-hitting team of computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians and information systems auditors. Explains PacificNet (in abridged and nicely edited from), PacificNet’s Take1 Electronic Bingo Machines are based on traditional bingo. Read more

Update: Get the latest iPhone CRM news.

It had to happen. Apple’s long awaited iPhone was so popular so quickly that businesses with the little device are already being offered CRM product to run on the doodad.

Companion Link Software got things rolling ‘round about July 4 with a solution providing CRM synchronization for the iPhone. Said solution promises to synchronize contacts and calendar from ACT! by Sage, GoldMine, Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, Time & Chaos, Google Apps, and Palm Desktop to the Apple iPhone.

Companion Link is available in “Express” and “Professional” versions. Both versions start at $49.95 and require Microsoft Outlook to be installed. An Outlook-free direct sync by the end of September. A free fourteen-day evaluation version of Companion Link is available at the company’s homepage.

This week, more players – specifically, Etelos and biggie NetSuite – jumped onto the iPhone CRM bandwagon with brand spankin’ new releases. Read more

Yesterday here at CRMchump, faithful readers were promised a manageable byte-sized harnessing of the squall of news emitted from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. And so, here we are.

On the sales win side, the Microsofties announced that Securitas Systems USA Inc., the US division of international security systems and services provider Stockholm, Sweden-centered Securitas Systems will be deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP business-management software to replace its Sage MAS 200 system.

Securitas operates in seventeen countries and maintains fifty locations in the United States, and will be installing Microsoft Dynamics GP along with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to create a common operating platform for US operations.

The Microsoft software seeks to coordinate management of Securitas’ 500 US field technicians. The folks from Exact Target were able to introduce the company’s wide-ranging partnership network, involving twenty of the largest worldwide Microsoft value-added resellers, including Inetium, Customer Effective, Sonoma Partners, and K3. Read more

Of course, one bit of news dominated CRM-related blogosphere areas and media outlets: Today, it’s all about the Microsoft CRM Live prices announced at the Worldwide Partner Conference in excellent Denver, Colo.

(Actually, the conference is producing a steady squall of news items – as these events always do – which will be reported upon in an upcoming entry here at CRMchump. However, i can inform y’all now that all bits and bites are paling in comparison at the moment.)

In short, as Information Week describes it, CRM Live will “begin its life partially by attacking Salesforce and RightNow on price,” i.e. numbers that are – so claims Microsoft – half the industry average for similar product.

The Enterprise edition of the solution will be $59 per user per month and Professional will be listed in 2008 at $39 per user per month. CRM Live will be employing a code-based currently known as Titan. Titan introduces Microsoft product on an advanced multi-tenant architecture, using a single code base to support on-premise deployments and software-as-a-service deployments through hosting partners and through the – you guessed it – Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM service. Titan promises “a smooth upgrade path for existing on-premise and SaaS customers.” We’re still no closer to a release date for CRM Live or Titan, however, with word at the convention saying “later this year.” We do know that the early-adoption program begins in the autumn and will be based at Microsoft’s Virginia data center. Read more

The news about Oracle today is reading like a press-release version of that 2001 Japanese cinema classic, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

The software behemoths aren’t destroying Tokyo with fire breath and the like, but there is a lot of bellowing and stomping going on involving three of the biggest names in the biz.

Computer World is running a bit more on the software lawsuit of the year, i.e. Oracle v. SAP AG, with SAP reportedly now hoping to settle with the big O. Oracle v. SAP, a case “about corporate theft on a grand scale, committed by the largest German software company,” in the opening words of the complaint.

Oracle originally brought the lawsuit against SAP in the US Federal District Court in the Northern District of California on March 22. The lawsuit alleged that King Ghidorah – i mean, SAP was guilty of violations to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Unfair Competition, Intentional and Negligent Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage and Civil Conspiracy, i.e. they ripped off Oracle data. Read more

Extremely sad and disappointing news over at KANA Software, Inc., as company CEO Michael Fields announced that the company will be laying off “some workers and contractors” (or rather, to coin a company PR-employed euphemism, a reduction in “employee headcount”), although no specific figures on this matter were forthcoming.

The news came as a result of poor fourth-quarter results turned in by the company, with total revenues for the second quarter of 2007 expected to be between $13.3 million and $13.5 million. Approximately $3.6 million to $3.8 million is expected to be recognized as second quarter license revenue.

Fields, trying to put a positive spin on the underwhelming business, stated that “We are encouraged by the momentum of the core business and we remain committed to the goal we set at the beginning of the year to grow profitably…”

To this end, Fields and Kana reported upward trends such as an increase of medium- sized deals (license or OnDemand transactions of $100,000 to $800,000) and that the number of transactions above $1 million in the pipeline grew year-over-year. Read more

The folks at Maximizer Software Inc., provider of Customer Relationship Management software applications, have announced the signing of a new strategic agreement with ES Research Group.

ESR is touted as a sales effectiveness and performance research firm which assists companies in evaluating, implementing and measuring sales performance programs. Maximizer and ES Research will “cooperate to expand the ecosystem of software options and sales effectiveness and performance services available to American sales leaders.”

ES Research Group will be employing Maximizer CRM in its Certified Measurement Program (ESR/CMP). The certification program reportedly represents the nation’s first independent evaluation and approval rating system for measuring the performance of sales training programs offered by training vendors.

Under the terms of the agreement, Maximizer and ESR promise to offer sales leaders in the market for sales training and supporting sales technology enhanced access to the knowledge and services available in today’s crowded vendor market. Read more

In a story fascinating for the face-saving admission from a high-up exec on the imperfection of product, CRN.com is running a revealing story entitled Symantec’s Parrish: “We’re not perfect.”

That’s “Parrish” as in “Symantec vice president of global channel sales and strategy Julie Parrish,” who admits that her firm has a lot to answer for after innumerable ERP and support systems problems in the wake of Symantec’s acquisition of Veritas about eight months ago. Resultant problems experienced by customers have elicited adjectives like “painful,” “ugly,” and “stupid” in CRN writer David Raikow’s piece alone. (And you can bet that those are only the most frequent terms on the printable end of the linguistic spectrum.)

The Symantec brain trust has blamed the problems on difficulties with integrating Veritas’ ERP system with Symantec’s own. The launch itself, according to “We’re not perfect,” had Symantec partners “forced to grapple with additional complexity in the ordering and licensing processes, problems tracking order status, and a variety of the sorts of bugs that accompany any significant launch.”

Said launch took place in early November. Parrish admitted that, as a result of the improper launch, the load on partner support systems “dramatically increased … sending customer care and technical support call volume skyrocketing by more than 1,000 percent,” thereby causing Symantec to go into “crisis mode.” Read more

The interest in Salesforce.com is hardly limited to those dealing with CRM or even those merely intrigued by the whole Software as a Service phenomenon at large. The way that Salesforce stock and profits have been moving since 2006, Salesforce attracts quite a share of attention from investors as well.

The excellent investors’ website The Motley Fool posted an excellent analysis on Salesforce.com stock’s recent performance, in the format of a debate. On the “Salesforce.com Bull” side is Tom Taulli, while the multi-culti monikered Rick Aristotle Munarriz takes on the “Salesforce.com Bear.”

Taulli’s premise reckons that Salesforce’s “valuation may be high and its profits comparatively low, but this innovative firm’s growth isn’t likely to die down anytime soon.” Tualli makes particular note of the supposition that “Salesforce.com seems to have learned much from Siebel’s mistakes.”

In fact, Taulli sees Salesforce having a unique advantage in the stock market world, due to its very nature as a SaaS firm. Since Salesforce.com earns revenue from subscriptions, the result is a predictable recurring revenue stream, “a much-coveted asset in Wall Street’s eyes.” Read more