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CRM software and services provider Chordiant Software has released a new version of its real-time conversation and interaction management application for organizations with high customer-interaction volumes. The new Recommendation Advisor 6.1 has the ability to come up with “Next-Best-Action” recommendations for agents based on the software’s understanding of the conversation between a call-center agent and a customer.

It can also work in the self-service format where it provides personalized offers and recommendations. In fact the software is advanced enough to offer information on the moods of the customer so that the agents can speak accordingly. The software is built upon the Chordiant Decision Management, a suite of predictive and adaptive decisioning applications.

Coveo Solutions, Inc., is offering Coveo G2B for CRM, an application for bringing together data from diverse sources including salesforce.com, Siebel Systems, corporate intranets, tech support emails, customer support databases, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

G2B also offers content analytics and graphical representation of data so that making sense of tons of data and spotting trends becomes easier. Coveo’s product should further add impetus to mashup devices that help in extracting information from an ever increasing array of sources that come from so many different vendors.

The usefulness of such an application can hardly be overstated. It will help decision makers to arrive at decisions faster and after acquiring a holistic view of the scenario.

Intelestream, a Chicago-based software development company that sells automating sales and marketing products for businesses, announced today that it’s signed a partnership agreement with Interspire, a vendor of content management and e-mail marketing software.

The companies say that Intelestream will customize, resell, and host the Interspire Shopping Cart, E-mail Marketer, and Knowledge Manager products.

Intelestream has already customized the Interspire Shopping Cart to include an automated workflow based on customer buying habits, according to the company. The product is intended to enhance e-commerce selling for clients using the product, company officials say. Intelestream has also modified the E-mail Marketer according the particular business needs of one of its clients.

E-Gain is an established name in the field of multi-channel customer service and knowledge management software. E-Gain OnDemand, the hosted version of its EGain Service software suite., has completed 10 years today. E-Gain considers itself to be “the industry’s first-ever hosted enterprise applications software”. It aims to offer a single platform for multi-channel customer interaction and knowledge management.

Customers for E-Gain products are from varied domains such as consumer goods, healthcare, media and finances, financial services, etc. E-Gain enables its customers to make use of the SaaS approach and have a hybrid of application hosting, both on-demand and on-premise.

The audience for video games is zealous but fickle, and because of that, game studios have a unique challenge in attracting and retaining customers. While the tools they use are similar to those of other industries, studios have learned to be creative in the marketing tactics that support the effort.

The video game industry considers CRM to be a vital aspect of their business as it is based on a recurring payment model where the length of the subscription and the loytalty of the customer are linked. Renewing customer interest is important to have them coming back for more.  Micro-payments and sometimes item-by-item payment are the lifeblood of this business and these have to be renewed through offering something new frequently and letting the customer know about it.

Maximizer Software announced its partnership with McObject to enhance mobile productivity on Maximizer’s mobile CRM offering for BlackBerry smartphone devices.

With the new partnership, on-the-road sales professionals, business owners and others relying on popular BlackBerry devices will be able to store more critical data from Maximizer CRM onto their mobile device. The Perst Lite object-oriented embedded database from McObject, running on the Java ME mobile device platform, will enable CRM data to be stored on flash memory-based Secure Digital (SD) cards to extend storage capacity while on the road - making it possible to access more customer information in real-time, instead of relying on networks to download new data to the device.

CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a global provider of industry-specific enterprise software applications and consulting services, recently announced that its Pivotal 6.0 CRM software suite has been named by ISM Inc., a premier CRM consulting firm, as one of the “Top 15″ CRM software packages in the enterprise category for 2008, its 12 consecutive appearance in this prestigious listing.

The Top 15 are divided into two categories-1) Enterprise, and 2) Small & Medium Business (SMB) - to reflect the changes in, and growth of, the CRM marketplace.

Pivotal CRM 6.0 was chosen after intensive testing by the ISM Software Lab at its Bethesda, Md.-based headquarters. Each package was rated according to 217 selection criteria, including 103 business functions, 52 technical features, 36 implementation capabilities, 9 real time criteria and 17 user-support features.

The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality is readying a R46 million citizen relationship management (CRM), billing, financial and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for its debut in October.

The system forms part of the metropole’s Project Connect that is based on Microsoft .Net technology and a service orientated architecture that integrates 27 discreet legacy systems into a whole.

The work is being done by Fujitsu Services SA, whose head of application services, Pierre van der Merwe, says the implementation will affect 3 700 Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality staff and should revolutionise their ability to serve the residents of Port Elizabeth, Despatch and Uitenhage.

It appears that even the most “social” business functions of marketing and sales are not perfectly happy with the way social CRM is shaping up. These functions would rather have commissions and sales instead of a community.

What I don’t get is that even when they have a good thing going they are getting into cribs and nags about small things. Do they expect the software to close the deals for them. Maybe the whole thing is not as big a deal, maybe it is - for Oracle has come out with Sales Prospector, which is meant to help sales teams or individual sales reps build information-sharing networks that, in theory, will help them close more deals.

Of course, the key here is the sharing of data between salespeople. Would I want to share details on leads with fellow sales guys if my commissions depended on it?

Etelos, Inc. has announced the release of updated versions of Etelos Projects™ (project management) and Etelos CRM™ (customer relationship management). The updated versions of these applications, including Etelos Projects for Google Apps, Etelos CRM, Etelos CRM for Google Apps, and Etelos CRM for iPhone™, are now available in the Etelos Marketplace™.

Etelos has added its proprietary Etelos Ad Serve™ technology to the free version of Etelos Projects. Already provided in the free versions of the Etelos CRM family of products, this technology allows advertisers to place highly targeted and demographically effective ads into the Etelos Projects application. Users get the benefit of a free version of Etelos Projects without being interrupted by irrelevant and obtrusive advertising.