CRM Systems for Serving the Customer as 'King'

CRM is becoming less one-size-fits all and more customized apps and delivery methods to meet specific needs. To that end SugarCRM has come out with the Sugar Data Center Edition, which is comprised of systems management, provisioning and monitoring tools that enable centralized deployment and managing distinct Sugar CRM versions.

The saying "the Customer is King" is no longer just a cliché. This time customers really are in charge. The Internet has given them vast powers to research and compare products and services and to spread the word on them, good and bad. Buyers expect you to be at their service at their convenience and when they summon you, which can be through a variety of means, none predictable, you have to be there immediately. They also decide whether, when, and how you can contact them, backed up by stronger laws that could have you punished in the public eye.

Your appeals and past service to these new monarchs mean nothing. If you don't have what they want at the price they wish to pay, you are heaved out of the castle. Yet you'll be invited back should your offering meets their requirements at what they are willing to spend.

So is it worth it to provide royal service via customer relationship management a.k.a. CRM? Obtaining a complete view of customers' interactions and analyzing what they want is a costly proposition. The solutions can cost as much as $1,500 to $2,000 per seat for enterprise customer premises software (CPS). Deployment can take two to three years, with a return on investment (ROI) in as long as three to five years.

Finding customers to have relationships with often requires prospecting, especially in B2B, which can be arduous, time-consuming and sometimes frustrating, but done right is ultimately rewarding. New tools such as Oracle Sales Prospector give salespeople a head start by finding qualified leads faster by identifying what to sell to which potential prospects based on buying patterns of customers with similar attributes. Sales reps are then focused on the best deals that could lead to customer relationships.

Newer hosted or software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions have improved CRM viability as they can be up to 25 percent less expensive than their CPS counterparts, depending on the applications, while their deployments and ROI can be measured in months. The offsets are fewer features and less customization. Even with SaaS CRM still requires a considerable resource commitment.

Not surprisingly, many enterprises are thinking twice about adopting CRM. Dimension Data, a specialist IT services and solution provider, reports that in 1997 39 percent of contact centers said they had a single view of the customer, a key CRM indicator, with 45 percent planning to create it in two years. That has dropped to 34 percent having that view in 2007.

"The rise of the Internet, and the use of different channels such as IVR and Web self-service has disrupted the unified Relevant Products/Services 360 degree view of customers in CRM," observes Stephen Loring, business development manager for customer interactive solutions. "At the same time the payback period for CRM installations is too long for many of today's business managers."

So Why Invest in CRM?

"If you have customers won over you need to maintain those relationships, on the marketing side you need to get people interested in your product or service by understanding their buying behavior is, and then on the sales side you understand what the customers' needs are," explains Pete Marston, an analyst with Forrester Research. "The various CRM tools help you carry out these functions."

Service and Product Trends

There has been a steady evolution in the design and in the features of CRM solutions and services that enable organizations to meet end-customers' demanding and diverse needs faster, easier, at less expense, and with greater flexibility and scalability.

The latest version of SAP CRM has an all-IP software-based, end-to-end contact center solution, including queuing and routing capabilities that eliminates the need for costly communications Relevant Products/Services hardware. That feature will enable contact centers provide better service to customers through faster response times and more consistent service across contact channels while reducing IT capital and support costs. SAP CRM also makes realtime recommendations for cross selling/upselling, retention and other marketing messages or actions to boost revenues, loyalty, and customer satisfaction.

There are new tools to solicit and deliver feedback from customers to facilitate immediate action on their issues. RightNow Technologies' new RightNow May '08 obtains information from satisfaction surveys conducted over the phone, via e-mail, on the Web and online chat. Feedback can also be gathered from anonymous online consumers, such as someone who recently abandoned a shopping cart. Results are compiled for trend analysis, and individual responses are included within customer profiles to enable future, more personalized service.

Suppliers are devising new tools to help marketing departments to maximize results while cutting costs, which have become especially crucial in the face of a weaker economy.

Infor's new Infor CRM Epiphany Marketing Resource Management (MRM) provides personalized home pages, a global calendar, and a shared marketing repository. These ensure that each member of the extended marketing organization has visibility into enterprise marketing activities and access to relevant materials.

There are new applications being created that tap into the business power Relevant Products/Services of social networks. Oracle is developing for Oracle CRM social networks for sales professionals, which it calls Social CRM, where the leads, campaigns, opportunities, and content are rated, tagged, and shared in social networks. Social CRM takes information that has traditionally been put into sales pipelines and places them into virtual beehives, enabling quicker and more accurate feedback and ultimately more productive selling.

Suppliers are responding to greater IT and data security needs. Satuit Technologies' SatuitCRM 10.7 offers single sign-on capability that increases compliance with internal IT security policies through a partnership with Ping Identity, as well as simplifying deployment. A team-centric data privacy module lets teams and their managers to dynamically control access to customer records and sensitive data.

CRM is also becoming less one-size-fits all and more customized applications and delivery methods to meet specific needs. To that end SugarCRM has come out with the Sugar Data Center Edition (DCE), which is comprised of systems management, provisioning and monitoring tools that enable centralized deployment and managing distinct Sugar CRM versions. Sugar DCE Enterprises permits large companies to manage multiple variations of SugarCRM within their firms from a single location. Sugar DCE for Partners allows resellers and hosting Relevant Products/Services providers to deliver SugarCRM in a SaaS model to their customers.

Forrester's Marston reports that CPS suppliers are moving away from proprietary to more open, standards-based software that permits integration with other vendors' products and which is less costly and time consuming to develop, install, maintain, and upgrade. These moves are being driven in part by competition from SaaS solutions.

"The key restriction on SaaS is that its costs to users grow as its use grows," explains Marston, "whereas there are no such limitations on CPS because its costs are based on the number of licenses you acquire."

Keith Dawson, senior analyst, Frost & Sullivan, sees accelerated adoption of the SaaS model, citing improved robustness and new features that are enabling these services to close the gap with CPS on functionality, and minimal risk.

"The primary challenges with SaaS are not technological but cultural and managerial, i.e. who owns the system and who's going to have access to the data and budgeting resources, "says Dawson.

Those new features include global support. NetSuite's new NetSuite OneWorld permits multinational and multisubsidiary companies to manage their global business operations with NetSuite's CRM, ERP (enterprise resource planning) and e-commerce suites. OneWorld provides locally and nationally appropriate functionality, such as currency, taxation, and language along with instantaneous global rollout and compliance management. It also offers realtime marketing and services measurement.

SaaS solutions now permit more analytics. The Salesforce Content feature in Salesforce Summer '08 has content analytics that permits usage metrics to be effectively tracked to determine the most frequently used content among sales reps, marketers and other users.

There are limits to SaaS. Chris Wagner, Vice President, Marketing, InfoCision, points out that SaaS is a great option for organizations with up to approximately 100 contact center seats, or 3 to 4 million transactions per year and/for those that have decided against larger IT departments. Beyond that, the ownership costs and the complexity and the need to change go beyond its capability.

"Whether you go for CPS or SaaS really depends on the size of your current IT department, their comfort level with the CRM that you are considering deploying, their available time, workload, and the commitment of your company to completely support a CRM development project," explains Wagner.

CRM software has not only has to be back-end functional but it must also be easy and appealing for those who use it i.e. contact center agents and sales staff. One excellent example is the computer-game-inspired graphics on the new Rave CRM line from Entellium. Company founder and president Paul Johnston had discovered from learning to play his son's games that while they are challenging to master they had thought of the users in their designs. One option is adopting SaaS then migrating to CPS while another is using each delivery method and solution for applications that they are specifically best suited for. Several CRM suppliers make software in both modes.

"More companies may be a lot more willing to take a flier on a SaaS system knowing that they can scale up or down at will," says Dawson. "If they obtain SaaS systems from CPS vendors they can migrate, needs and budget permitting, to CPS systems."

Getting the Most Out of Your CRM Application

When deciding what CRM services and solutions to buy, take a careful look at your needs, your budget and resources, including IT, and then at the solutions available, in that order. Do not let the technology dictate your decision.

Paul Greenberg, Chief Customer Officer, BPT Partners and author of CRM at the Speed of Light, points out that there is a strong tendency, partially due to the pressures vendors place on prospective buyers, to see the technology as a panacea for CRM.

The thinking, he says, goes like this "if I use this, then I can improve relationships and engagement with my customers." Instead it should be "if I do this and then use technology to do it, then I can improve relationships and foster engagement with my customers."

"To find the right technology tools you have to have your strategy in place and know which processes are going to be important to you to use and how you want to communicate with the customers and amongst yourselves," explains Greenberg. "Only then does "which technology" and when that's decided "which purveyor of that technology" become a focus."

In making your choice between solutions, keep in mind the long lead time especially for CPS CRM. That means your investment will only be solving those problems that are present several months or more down the road.

"Even if a CRM deployment works perfectly, when it takes say 18 months or so to achieve, a company has solved the problems it had 18 months ago and not necessarily the problems it faces today, "Ian Jacobs, senior analyst, Frost & Sullivan points out. "That is one of the greatest value propositions for hosted solutions like SaaS; because they take less time to get up and running they better help companies deal with the problems in the current reality."

Customer relationship management applications should be in most marketing executives' toolboxes because it usually costs less to retain customers than acquire new ones. Solutions such as Infor s Epiphany Marketing Resource Management provide marketing executives with strategic and tactical planning tools to manage CRM programs and individual campaigns.

Make sure that when you deploy CRM solutions, whether CPS or SaaS, that you also employ predictive analytics to anticipate customers' responses to your offers.

Predictive analytics aggregate data from multiple streams, from inside and outside contact centers. They enable managers to build models on how agents should improve performance and how customers will likely do in response to your business processes. Analytics methods include business intelligence tools, call center analytics, speech analytics, and performance management.

"To show to customers that you know them and are truly interested in meeting their needs you have to reasonably know, like in any good relationship, what they are going to do next," says Frost's Dawson.

Bruce Pollock, Vice President, West Interactive is seeing an increase in the number of companies that are interested in analytics and predictive analytics as part of their CRM programs -- to allow them to understand their customers better and treat them in a more tailored fashion.

The company is engaged with clients in analyzing CRM data to find out what kinds of proactive, customer "opt-in" outbound campaigns the client can be doing to build and maintain customer relationships, utilizing West Interactive's patented preference management system.

"The foundation of CRM is all about knowing your customers better, anticipating their needs and meeting those needs with products and services tailored to benefit them," says Pollock. "Similarly it is important to communicate to customers in the channel of their choice be it live agent, speech recognition, text, video, or the Web."

Customer Effective's Effective CRM

Making CRM installations successful requires effectively integrating the software with your network and making sure it is usable to both your staff and your customers.

To that end, Customer Effective, a Microsoft Relevant Products/Services Gold Certified Partner and implementer of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has created the User First Design Formula (TM) which it uses to define, design, develop, deploy, and enable the CRM product.

Using the formula, Customer Effective outlines key measurements and goals to define the client's definition of success, understand their expected business results, and fine tune a project plan to achieve these results.

The firm designs the system to get the client where they want to go with Microsoft CRM including fields, forms, workflow, business rules, reports, data and integration that reflect the way the employees work. It builds, tests, pilots and refines the solution and trains employees to use it. Customer reaction is monitored and any issues that they raise are immediately addressed.

"The benefits of a CRM solution that employees will actually use every day means that data is real, information is up-to-date and management reports and key metrics have real meaning," explains Suzi McNicholas, Director of Marketing, Customer Effective. "When users adopt and utilize the system, it's not just technology. It's a real productivity solution."

Athenahealth's "Sweet" CRM Solution

As enterprises and their needs grow, so do their CRM requirements. Sometimes that means changing their solutions.

Athenahealth is a provider of physician revenue cycle management services that integrate workflow, billing, and collections into a single service on a Web-based software platform. It has locations in Belfast, Maine and Chennai, India.

The firm tracks multiple data sources, such as customer contact info, account history, and interactions, across multiple departments. It was, however, experiencing inefficient workflows across customer service, sales, and other functions. It needed a CRM system that could automate and streamline these tasks, and standardize all customer-facing departments and personnel on a single system.

Athenahealth had, however, outgrown its older CRM solution, delivered as SaaS, which it had for four years. It selected SugarCRM because it could simplify tasks and get everyone on the same page. SugarCRM's open source architecture also proved very attractive by giving the firm the flexibility of SaaS with the customization of premises software. It can readily integrate with other applications.

"We required a solution that fit our unique business processes and needs with customized workflows to match them," explains Monna Nanavati, Director, MIS at athenahealth. "There would be lots of planned customizations and integration with other back-end systems that touched customer data. SugarCRM has the capability to evolve and grow to our increased demand and process changes."

Athena initially deployed SugarCRM beginning in 2005 for 200 users who had utilized the older SaaS solution for customer support and sales. It has since expanded the implementation to over 650 users across other areas including marketing, client management, finance, and legal.

The SugarCRM application has also been integrated with Microsoft Great Plains, Open Air, and with Athena's Web site.

The move to SugarCRM reduced Athena Healths software costs, which was achieved within nine months. It gave, as promised, a more flexible system that fits into their current processes.

"For example, integration with athenaNet, our revenue-cycle management system, delivered exception-based routing of inquiries to subject matter experts," says Nanavati. "This allowed us to manage cases and tasks daily with no increase in staffing and with shorter turnaround cycles."

CRM for SMBs

Small-midsized businesses (SMBs) may need to maintain or regain their differentiating customization and responsiveness edge, now that larger firms are using CRM to provide personalization and tailored offerings, along with lower prices, to draw and keep customers.

In response suppliers are offering more CRM solutions designed for SMBs. Entellium's Rave+ meets the needs of the smallest enterprises that have up to 20 employees with integrated account, contact, and prospect management. Rave Complete, targeted at 20-100 employees, supplies a complete solution with lead management, analytics, reporting, and benchmarking. It also allows users to add customer support and marketing functionality.

Infor's Infor CRM Business Edition has been specially created to help SMBs convert leads to sales and nurture customer interactions into long-term profitable relationships. It combines sales opportunity tracking together with detailed customer information, such as interaction tracking across multiple channels, which enables businesses to deliver outstanding service.

Oasis CRM Announces New Microsoft Great Plains Interface

CHARLOTTE, NC, Sep 26, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- KnowTia Corporation announced that the Oasis CRM product line will now be enhanced with a new interface to Microsoft's Great Plains(R). The interface to Great Plains(R) will include integrated customer, vendor, inventory & order management integration. These features will be interfaced with Oasis CRM's real-time integration engine, InfoLink. This new interface will assist with further securing Oasis CRM as a standalone "Total Business Solution."
Oasis CRM for Microsoft Great Plains(R) will leverage the existing accounting investment for small- to mid-sized businesses. By incorporating Sales Force and Customer Service Automation with comprehensive inventory control features, Oasis CRM automates the entire customer life cycle and eliminates duplicate data entry for their clients.
KnowTia recognized early on that many companies rely on disconnected software systems to handle SFA (Sales Force Automation), Customer Service, Fulfillment and Accounting. These disconnected solutions in turn caused process bottlenecks and further prohibited growth. Additionally, the increased chance for errors and overall increases in operation costs limit the business' future success. As such, Oasis CRM was designed to eliminate these bottlenecks and provide a structured, easy to use system where information is entered once and flows automatically through the various stages of the company, including accounting.
Put simply, the most efficient companies in the world know that the key to growth and customer satisfaction requires internal business processes which are connected and automated for efficiency. Oasis CRM software was specifically designed for Microsoft Great Plains(R) customers that are looking to improve efficiency and eliminate the bottlenecks of growth.
About KnowTia Corporation
Founded in 2001, KnowTia Corporation is currently headquartered in Tampa, FL. Oasis CRM is the fourth successful solution that KnowTia has presented to the small business market and is a QuickBooks Gold Certified Solution. KnowTia's philosophy that a CRM should be a "Total Business Solution" defines why Oasis CRM is ideal for most every sales and service need a business has. As an Intuit & Sage business partner, KnowTia has become an efficient and cost effective solution for almost any business owner's CRM needs. For more information about KnowTia's product lines and services please visit KnowTia's website at http://www.OASISCRM.com or call 1.866.566-9842.
Copyright 2008 KnowTia Corporation. All rights reserved.

Contact:
Jeffrey T. White
Oasis CRM
KnowTia Corporation
17115 Kenton Drive, Suite 207A
Cornelius, NC 28031
http://www.oasiscrm.com
(704) 896-0063

SOURCE: KnowTia Corporation

Global Businesses Agree – Automated Translation Becomes A Key Strategic Enabler

SDL, a provider of Global Information Management (GIM) solutions, today announced the results of a survey on trends in automated translation. Completed by over 385 individuals in global businesses - of which over 71 percent were of managerial level and above - the survey highlights a stark increase not just in the motivation of businesses to use automated translation compared to two years ago, but also in the actual deployment of the technology. SDL conducted the research in conjunction with the International Association for Machine Translation (IAMT) and Association for Machine Translation Americas (AMTA).

Most respondents were familiar with the concept of automated translation, with nearly 25 percent either using it or planning to use it.

Furthermore, 40 percent of companies said they were more likely now to utilize it. These two statistics alone point to a substantial industry shift in perception, as interest and trust in this technology and its uses increases.

It is also interesting to identify into which types of application organizations would consider incorporating the technology. Over half - 55 percent - wanted to use it for generally producing foreign language versions of company content. Reflecting modern business practices, particularly where instant communication is required, the other areas of potential usage were all fairly evenly distributed between integration with chat tools, in e-mail, Microsoft Word documents, on wikis and blogs, integrated into a web page and for conducting research on foreign language documents.

"We conducted the survey on a global scale so that we could gain a worldwide perspective of automated translation in business, and to also identify its role within the current business climate. There is clearly much greater awareness and interest in it than there was two years ago, and a larger number of organizations are using or planning to use this technology," said Laurie Gerber, President at the International Association for Machine Translation. "Expectations and demands concerning quality remain high, with a large number of participants requiring high-quality output from automated translation. This is understandable as the majority see it as part of a human translation process, to improve productivity and reduce costs without sacrificing quality."

Technical documentation was the main anticipated usage of automated translation, with 62 percent of respondents agreeing on this, while 49 percent also cited support and knowledge-based content. Other types of content highlighted included website copy and virus alerts.

Over 70 percent of respondents named French, Italian, German and Spanish (FIGS) as their main target for usage. Asian languages accounted for just over 50 percent and Eastern European languages accrued 42 percent.

"The results speak for themselves, but it is great to see that automated translation is now rising up the boardroom agenda in terms of priority," said Sophie Hurst, Senior Product Marketing Manager at SDL. "SDL has been using the technology as part of its SDL Knowledge-based Translation System™ for over four years now to deliver multilingual content for global brands such as Chrysler, CNH, Microsoft, HP and Renault. In this process it is combined with human skills to reduce the time and cost of delivering multilingual content while ensuring high-quality."

SDL offers companies the ability to use automated translation either to give internal and external customers a gist of the meaning of content or to provide their customers with high-quality publications. SDL does this by combining automated translation together with other translation technologies as well as with the skills of humans, so that customers benefit from high-quality content while still reducing the time and cost of delivering that content into global markets.

The majority of respondents (59 percent) were from North America and Europe (33 percent), with a small number of respondents from Latin America, the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific and Japan. The results across Europe and North America were compared and showed very similar results. Respondents were cross-industry, from manufacturing, life sciences, aerospace, finance, electronics and telecoms.

Source:crm2day.com

Semantra Launches Channel Partner Program

DALLAS, Sep 23, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Semantra, a pioneering developer of conversational analytics software that simplifies the reporting and analysis of business-critical data, today announced the launch of the new Semantra Partner Program. With a strategic focus on CRM, BI and analytics, Semantra is building a team of strategic business partners who will distribute Semantra for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Semantra partners include Microsoft NSIs (National Systems Integrators) and leading regional VARs including Tectura, ePartners, Hitachi, Quest, First Tech Direct and I.B.I.S.
Semantra's technology addresses a very common and acute pain for CRM users: ad-hoc access to business data. Semantra for Microsoft Dynamics CRM empowers common business users to execute inquiries by simply entering familiar business terms into a Google-like search box.
Semantra helps all types of knowledge workers become more productive: salespeople by significantly improving pipeline visibility and sales close ratios; marketing personnel by actively managing campaigns and other marketing metrics; and service and support personnel by enabling quick and easy access to case information, service requests and overall customer satisfaction levels.
"Semantra's technology makes sense to our clients. Shortening their sales cycles, improving customer retention and increasing marketing ROI are important business metrics. Semantra helps our clients quickly access information in a usable format for more insightful decision-making," said John McKeague, Tectura North America Microsoft Dynamics CRM Practice Lead.
Semantra's Partner Program benefits:
-- 24/7 sales and services support
-- Lucrative partner revenue program
-- Co-marketing programs
-- Sales incentive and reward programs
-- Customized bundled offerings
-- Business development funds
-- 30-day free customer trial
"We are energized to join forces with such a strong team of partners. Semantra customers will benefit from the extensive Microsoft knowledge and domain expertise these companies bring to the table," said Chris Davis, CEO of Semantra.
In a move designed to deepen support of its growing partner network, Semantra has launched a new Partner Portal featuring a comprehensive collection of resources developed to facilitate Semantra sales and installs. The portal arms partners with the tools needed to seamlessly add Semantra's intuitive search and analytics capabilities to their clients' CRM functionality.
To ensure exceptional channel support and product benefits that exceed client expectations, the company has also established the Semantra Product Advisory Board (PAB). The advisory board is comprised of ten industry thought leaders responsible for participating in product discussions, periodic surveys and feedback sessions during a series of 90-day appointment periods. PAB members are shaping the direction of Semantra's product road map and go-to-market strategies for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The inaugural PAB Board includes professionals from Avanade, ePartners, Microsoft, Pariveda Solutions and Quest.
"No other analytics or BI solution on the market today approaches the analytics problem in such a pragmatic way. As a PAB member, it's great to represent our clients' needs and make sure the Semantra solution continues to exceed their expectations," said Bill Anderson, ePartners' vice president of marketing.
Semantra 2.5 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be available October 1, 2008.
About Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that help businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.
About Semantra
Semantra is a pioneer in Natural Language and Semantics that is applied in a search and information access context that enables enterprises to quickly and easily retrieve precise, critical information from complex corporate databases through inquiries in the language of a user's business. With an understanding of linguistics, conceptual modeling and relational theory, Semantra built its software to empower business users with real time, common language commands and requests unavailable through traditional BI or enterprise search solutions. Semantra significantly improves the value of any enterprise business application. Semantra's headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas. Please visit www.semantra.com for more information.
Semantra is a trademark of Semantra Corporation. All product and service names are the property of their respective owners. (C) Semantra 2007-2008.
SOURCE: Semantra

Semantra, Dallas
For media inquiries:
Sally Rivero, 512-794-8600
sally@petersgroupPR.com
or
For partner and reseller inquiries:
Cody Aufricht, 214-445-2900
Vice President of Marketing, Semantra

Are You Sure About This, Microsoft?

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has finally found a company that won't say no to its amorous advances -- itself. The world's largest software company announced a $40 billion share repurchase this morning.

It's aggressive. It's confident. It's also stupid.

Don't get me wrong. I love share buybacks. Open-market purchases help support a stock price. Eating away at a company's diluted share count is a great way to improve earnings on a per-share basis.

I will praise a company's decision to use its greenbacks to put its money where its mouth is 99% of the time. At a time like this, when money market funds and short-term instruments are yielding a pittance, it just doesn't make sense to keep good money dormant. However, Microsoft is different. It's under attack. Its future is uncertain. That money is better used as ammo than price-supporting trickery.

In the money, honey
With more than $20 billion in cash and short-term investments in its coffers at the end of its latest quarter, it's not as if the company has a blank check for the $40 billion buyback. This doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't good for the money.

The last time Microsoft announced a $40 billion repurchase, during the summer of 2006, it had $34.2 billion in the bank. It didn't complete the buyback right away. It went with a tender offer for half of the sum right away, but took the next two years to complete the balance.

Work the math, and you can see that Microsoft is a well-oiled cash-generating monster. However, it's also dealing with around $13 billion less in the vault. There is no way it will just throw $40 billion at the market in buy orders in the near term.

This morning's move comes with the company authorizing debt financings for as much as $6 billion, but does anyone think that the company that once had the most cash-rich balance sheet is about to become a leading debtor? Microsoft isn't going to let that happen. However, it is going to let Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) get away.

Say goodbye to Microhoo
Microsoft made a ridiculously overpriced stab at Yahoo! back in January. Yahoo! did it a huge favor by turning it down. However, now that Microsoft could probably get away with picking up Yahoo! for roughly two-thirds of what it ultimately offered, it's eliminating its ability to go bargain hunting.

Microsoft will never be able to take on Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) organically. Hooking up with Yahoo! would have given it less than half of Big G's market share. It would have been a nice start, though, in a lucrative, high-margin area.

Rather than simply return $40 billion to its investors, $30 billion -- or even as much as $33 billion to $35 billion -- would be a better investment in a fixer-upper like Yahoo! If Yahoo! is too big a purchase, Microsoft could have embarked on a buying spree to pick up several meaty pieces to remain relevant in the future.

* Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) would make Microsoft a leader in enterprise software cloud computing.
* VMware (NYSE: VMW) is a bargain these days, at less than last year's IPO price, and would be a huge boost for Microsoft in the fast-growing virtualization software niche.
* Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) would seem like a left-field purchase, but nabbing the BlackBerry parent would find it in a better position to take on the iPhone -- put out by its other major threat after Google -- in the smartphone market.
* Take-Two Interactive (Nasdaq: TTWO) is ripe for a buyout, and would give Microsoft the ability to take its Xbox 360 to the next level by making Take-Two's marquee titles proprietary Xbox titles.

Can some of these deals still happen, even with a gradual $40 billion buyback in the works? Of course. However, Microsoft can no longer be as aggressive. It could have bought Take-Two, VMware, and Salesforce combined for less money than the buyback. It could have purchased Research In Motion, but mega cash buyouts will be off the table the moment that Microsoft begins buying itself instead of something else.

Money is important, Microsoft; or are you just going to throw it all away on more Seinfeld ads?

From TactileCRM To Microsoft Dymamics : A Short roundup of great CRM solutions for smaller businesses

An old work colleague from more than 10 years ago pinged me a random email last week asking which CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software I use for my sales teams.

She actually described it as follows: "What system does your sales team use for filing their contacts and details etc...?", which is probably how most non geek-speak people would describe a CRM system.

It happened that I've been spending some serious time thinking about this, reading web sites, listening to and watching podcasts and online demos, so I felt pretty damn qualified to offer a quick summary of my thoughts.

That email has now become this post which I hope many will find useful.

Although I normally sign the praises of our outsourced IT service providers for their day to day service, they sadly managed to sell me into migrating our internal CRM from Salesforce.com to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The main reason I decided to do this, was because of the apparent smooth integration with Outlook, which I felt Salesforce lacked.

This was OK in theory, but with hindsight a devastating and costly mistake. The first few weeks we used Microsoft Dynamics were littered with problems, most of the issues we raised had to be escalated to Microsoft and many came back with workarounds, not simple solutions or replies like "Sorry it's not possible yet" or "it doesn't work like that", which to me were unacceptable.

How on earth can Microsoft develop a CRM system that does not properly integrate with its own flagship product Outlook!? Does the hand not talk to the brain?

In fairness, like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has many great features that with time and effort you can configure to create a very clever and personalised customer relationship tool.

However, this comes only with serious time and effort, which as we all know, for any reasonably small business Time = Money.

I hate it when people turn up 10 minutes late into the office, let alone waste hours trying to work out how to use a bit of software which is actually supposed to make them more productive.

Would I recommend Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Salesforce? Well if you have a sales team of maybe 15/20+ staff, then you might consider it.

If you are smaller than that, then don't waste your time or hard earned cash.

So, what now then? On a personal note, having already invested a serious amount of time and effort into Microsoft CRM, I have decided not to change things just yet - maybe Microsoft will release a major upgrade soon and some of the simple issues we've raised might get fixed.

However, I want to impart what I found from my research, as it might help you save serious time and money when considering ways to manage your customer database.

Depending on how detailed you want to be about managing your data, there are two very economic CRM’s you should seriously consider: High Rise from 37 Signals (who incidentally do a whole range of fantastic online tools that can be used by any business quickly easily and cheaply) and TactileCRM.

I actually already use High Rise for one of my other businesses, but if I started again, I would use Tactile.

What I like about these solutions is that they are really simple and straight forward to set up and use.

High Rise is very robust and does almost everything you would expect from a simple and affordable CRM.

However, what I like about Tactile is that it offers the ablity to track opportunities and sales pipelines, which for me is the probably most important reason for having a CRM - how much money is my sales team likely to make this month?

Not only that, TactileCRM also offers a clear roadmap of what they've built and what they plan to build.

This at least shows aspiration to grow and develop the product. In contrast, my experience with 37Signals has been: release a product and move onto the next, which in fairness, seems to have changed recently with minor updates to products like BaseCamp, which I also use.

If you are still looking for something more advanced than High Rise and Tactile, but more econonmic than Saleforce and Dynamics, then take a look at ZOHO CRM and Sugar CRM.

In truth I have not spent enough time on either to give you my preference, however what I can say is that they both offer some fantastic functionality at great prices.

Approximate costs of each solution (per month, per user):

Salesforce.com £45

Microsoft Dynamics £50

ZohoCRM £FREE first 3 user, then about £6-8

SugarCRM £20-2

HighRise £2-3 (min 6 user license, so £12-15 per month)

TactileCRM £FREE first 2 users, then £2-3

This post was written by Andy Evans, MD of Netcommunities Ltd, Publishers of ITProportal.com.

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InsideView Enables Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customers to Tap Into the Social Web

InsideView today announced the availability of SalesView for Microsoft Dynamics CRM at Interop New York 2008. SalesView is one of the first true socialprise applications, which through mash-ups is designed to collect and scan subscription-based sources and the rich, unstructured information living on the social Web to deliver the meaningful insights salespeople need to increase results. SalesView is the first business search and intelligence solution integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and is available immediately for Microsoft customers.

SalesView FREE™ is available to all Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers as a native mash-up. The SalesView integration allows Microsoft Dynamics CRM users to access the valuable sales intelligence generated by SalesView within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM interface, significantly reducing time needed for research and improving productivity. The SalesView application is available for both on-premise and on-demand deployments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. More detailed information can be found at http://www.insideview.com/Microsoft.

"SalesView is a great addition to Microsoft Dynamics CRM," said Brad Wilson, general manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "SalesView provides an entryway to the social Web and empowers sales organizations to gain valuable insight from a wide range of information sources beyond data contained in Dynamics CRM. As a partner, InsideView complements our mission of enabling businesses to find, win, and grow profitable customer relationships."

"The amount of information across the social Web that can benefit sales and marketing professionals is growing. With SalesView, it is possible to efficiently unearth relevant news and business relationships from across the Web," said Rand Schulman, chief marketing officer of InsideView. "Socialprise applications are engineered to generate insights for sales and marketing professionals that will help them make more deals and close them faster."

The integration of SalesView into Microsoft Dynamics CRM adds to the growing ubiquity of InsideView's pioneering sales intelligence application. InsideView's partnership with Microsoft is the fourth mash-up the company has executed since launching SalesView earlier this year. Other partners include SugarCRM, Salesforce.com, and most recently, Landslide Technologies, Inc.

"The addition of SalesView to Microsoft Dynamics CRM is consistent with the direction that sales and marketing professionals need to go to be successful in today's market," said Brent Leary, social CRM strategist and founder of Atlanta-based CRM Essentials. "There is just too much information being added to the Web each day to stay on top of it all manually, but through sales intelligence applications like SalesView, professionals can efficiently get a steady stream of data that is relevant for their business needs, ultimately improving productivity and performance."

SalesView brings together social data with enterprise-grade business search and intelligence capabilities to help sales teams automate prospecting, accelerate sales cycles and ultimately close more deals. SalesView presents relevant customer data discovered and distilled through web harvesting, specialized research providers and social networks, within the familiar context of enterprise applications like sales force automation systems.

About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that helps businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft's corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.

About InsideView

InsideView is a pioneer in on-demand Business Search and Intelligence applications, bringing insight gained from subscription-based and user-generated sources to the enterprise. InsideView's revolutionary platform enables automatic discovery and analysis of relevant personal, professional and corporate data and presents the resulting intelligence within the meaningful context of specific business processes. InsideView applications institutionalize collaborative and repeatable workflows to drive sales productivity -- automating prospecting, accelerating sales cycles, and ultimately, resulting in more closed deals. The company is privately held and venture-backed by Emergence Capital Partners, Greenhouse Capital Partners and Rembrandt Venture Partners. InsideView's sales force automation partners include Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Microsoft and Landslide Technologies. InsideView's customers include Advantage Inc., Ariba, Centive, Jobscience, LucidEra, Rearden Commerce, ServiceSource, and SuccessFactors. Founded in 2005, InsideView is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit www.insideview.com.

The VisionCRM Connector

The VisionCRM Connector gives you real time access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM from Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly known as Navision).

The VisionCRM Connector exchanges needed data and functionality between the well known Microsoft user interface and the accounting system - without interrupting the user. By integrating the 2 systems the companies avoid the expensive and resource-intensive processes, maintaining and updating information in the 2 systems - not to mention the possibility of making errors due to manually typing.

The solution is not just synchronizing the two databases; by use of the best integration tools from both systems - and by using web services - we give access to both data and functionality from both systems. This way our users experience a full real time integrated solution.

You can set up, if you want, data to go from one system to the other, the other way or both ways. In the PDF you can see the administration tool, where you decide which fields the accounting system and the CRM-system shall exchange with each other.

How to get it
If you have any questions to the solution or just want to see the functionality in the VisionCRM Connector, please visit www.vpchannelsales.com or call VisionPeople Denmark on +45 70 23 32 00

You can read more about the solution in the PDF and see examples of screen shots illustrating the functionality.

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Microsoft Dynamics Goes for the Mid-market

Microsoft’s on-again, off-again flirtation with the high-end of the enterprise software market is off – again. The current thinking, the product of the latest massive shift in the leadership team of Dynamics, is that the lower to mid-market is the place to be, and Microsoft plans to be there to the exclusion of the massive, global enterprises that represent the tip of the customer icebergs – and an enormous revenue stream – for both SAP and Oracle.

This shift was somewhat predictable, though what it really means is less clear than it may seem. Surely, Microsoft’s insistence on an indirect sales model as the only way to sell enterprise software precludes selling to large enterprise accounts. It was also predictable that very large enterprises would be hard to service insofar as Microsoft has been hampered by a partner model that does a decent job of providing vertical solutions but is a little challenged when it comes to supporting global customers: Too many vertical solutions come from local partners that simply lack the girth to meet global customer needs.

But the change at Dynamics still represents a disruption in the marketplace that takes a major player out of a key competitive arena, at a time when the SAP-Oracle duopoly could use the pressure from a smaller, lower-cost competitor. SAP and Oracle have been looking over their shoulder at Microsoft for some time, and Microsoft’s moves out of the very large enterprise gives the duopolists one less massive competitor to worry about. Sort of.

Because how this will really impact the competitive landscape remains to be seen. For one, the definition of what is now off-limits to Microsoft’s channel is a little vague. Clearly, the very largest global accounts are now verboten, but their actual number is relatively small. SAP has about 200 of these very large accounts, accounts that have licenses worth more than $60 million. Oracle’s very large accounts are little harder to figure, as Oracle has a much broader portfolio to sell to its large accounts. But I would imagine it has no more than 200 comparable accounts, and probably fewer.

So, taking a few hundred accounts out of play leaves tens of thousands of SAP and Oracle accounts as potential targets for Microsoft. SAP counts some 34,000 mid-market customers today, all of which could probably fit into Microsoft’s new definition of Dynamics’ sweet spot. Take away the very largest of the SAP mid-market customer base and you still have 24,000 customers whom Microsoft would love to convert to Dynamics.

And, in a coincidence that’s almost weird, guess how many mid-market customers Oracle now counts: 24,000. In Oracle’s case, none of these companies are smaller than $15 million in revenues, whereas SAP’s count includes BusinessOne customers that are better characterized as small businesses than mid-sized. Regardless, those 24,000 Oracle customers represent a decent playing field for some heavy-weight competition.

And that’s just the existing accounts that the Big Three would love to poach from each other. Remember, this is the mid-market, where “other” still remains the dominant vendor. Indeed, when it comes to winning deals, the Big Three’s biggest problem is getting in the running at all: the deal flow is so large and so predominantly local in the mid-market that SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft often struggle more to find the deals than to win them in a competitive bake-off.

Which is where Microsoft’s massive channel comes in. Having literally thousands of resellers and partners around the world makes it much easier for Microsoft to find and compete in these deals. Of course, there really aren’t thousands of truly great partners – to 80/20 rule works in the partner world too: in a very rough estimate, 80 percent of the deal flow comes through 20 percent of the partners. Regardless of how you count the channel, Microsoft has a massive lead that will be hard to beat.

And that’s without counting the global systems integrators, traditionally the handmaidens of SAP and Oracle, and now more and more attracted to growing complexity of Dynamics. To the chagrin of the traditional partners, Microsoft is going to push its growing global SI partners towards the mid-market – in direct competition with the traditional partners – and away from the very large accounts where global SIs have the most traction.

So, Microsoft exiting the very large enterprise market doesn’t take a lot of pressure off of SAP and Oracle after all. In fact, it probably increases the pressure more than a little by allowing Microsoft to focus more strategically on accounts that it’s frankly more likely to win anyway.

A final note: I have a feeling that Microsoft CRM either missed the memo or is ignoring it. Or maybe their recent string of successes are another indication of what exiting the top end of the market really means. Microsoft CRM has won some pretty big deals this year, numbering in the thousands of seats, from some pretty large companies. These are deals that SAP’s and Oracle’s direct sales force would have given a body part or two to win, and their value to Microsoft is only beginning to be realized, assuming these new CRM customers might, just might, be interested in some other Dynamics functionality down the road.

In the end, the admission the Microsoft should try to stay out of the top end of the market is neither shocking nor does it give SAP and Oracle a free pass. What it does is actually sharpen the competition for the majority of the customers in the market, which in volume represent a majority of the market’s revenues as well. Indeed, all Microsoft is saying by exiting the top end of the market is that it would rather have thousands of mid-market customers than a few hundred very large customers.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

NetSuite Launches NetSuite OneWorld in Australia and New Zealand

SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- NetSuite Inc., a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites for mid-market enterprises and divisions of large companies, today announced the launch of NetSuite OneWorld for the Australian and New Zealand markets. NetSuite OneWorld makes real-time, global business management feasible by combining a mature, multi-company business application suite-that includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and Ecommerce -- with cloud computing delivery. For more information about NetSuite OneWorld, please visit http://www.netsuite.com.au.
Built from the ground up as one system that includes ERP, CRM and Ecommerce, NetSuite OneWorld enables mid-market businesses with multiple subsidiaries, business units and legal entities to:
-- Manage local operations across multiple locations, and roll the data up for regional and global visibility in their currency of choice.
-- Adjust for language, currency, taxation and legal compliance differences at the local level, with regional and global business consolidation and control.
-- Bring a newly acquired or created subsidiary online quickly into a consolidated management view, supporting acquisition or rapid expansion of the business.
-- Reduce costs by staffing operations centrally, with the same employees handling operations across multiple subsidiaries.
-- Make informed executive decisions and timely course corrections with key company metrics visible and measurable in real-time across all business operations.
NetSuite's native Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model enables its ERP, CRM and e-commerce functionality -- including NetSuite OneWorld capabilities -- to be accessed anywhere simply by opening a browser. It also eliminates the enormous IT issues associated with traditional approaches to global business management software. The combination of the new NetSuite OneWorld capabilities and NetSuite's cloud computing delivery platform helps eliminate the cost and technology barriers facing midsized companies operating globally or across multiple locations.
Prior to NetSuite OneWorld, typically only large companies with the ability and willingness to spend a large sum of money could approach such levels of business integration. Mid-sized companies using traditional applications such as Microsoft Dynamics GP (often referred to as Great Plains) could achieve a low-level of business integration, but often only see limited consolidated financials, which can be of suspect value. Of course, large systems such as SAP or mid-market systems like Microsoft Dynamics GP are not delivered as native web-applications, so any attempt at limited business consolidation typically requires large expenditures in IT costs and systems management.
"With NetSuite OneWorld, we are delivering capabilities to mid-sized companies that even the world's largest companies have often failed to achieve after spending millions of dollars," said Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite. "I am confident that the introduction of NetSuite OneWorld into Australia and New Zealand will help local businesses achieve global success. NetSuite OneWorld delivers local control with global visibility, not just across financials but across every aspect of the business -- from lead to forecast to order to cash collection. This really makes the fantasy of running your business globally in real-time come true."
Additional benefits of NetSuite OneWorld include the following:
-- NetSuite OneWorld allows companies' back-office ERP operations to have local control over accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, inventory, billing, invoicing and order fulfillment but with multi-currency business consolidation of financials in real-time from these local operations or independent subsidiaries, to the regional office, to global headquarters.
-- NetSuite OneWorld makes global Ecommerce operations feasible with multi-site, multi-currency, multi-language, local tax compliance and local inventory sourcing capabilities.
-- NetSuite OneWorld provides global CRM capabilities to improve global selling with multi-currency quotas, forecasts, commission payments, sales tax calculations and real-time reporting.
-- NetSuite OneWorld delivers real-time analytics for global organisations to make timely course corrections, rather than having to wait so long for research to be completed that often the question to be resolved becomes moot.
Pricing and Availability
NetSuite OneWorld is available now through the NetSuite Australia office and is offered for $2670 AUD per month.
About NetSuite
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N 16.20, +0.72, +4.7%) is a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites for mid-sized businesses and divisions of large companies. NetSuite enables mid-market companies to manage core business operations in a single system, which includes accounting / enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and Ecommerce. NetSuite's patent-pending "real-time dashboard" technology provides an easy-to-use view into up-to-date, role-specific business information. For more information about NetSuite please visit http://www.netsuite.com.
NOTE: NetSuite and the NetSuite logo are registered service marks of NetSuite Inc.
SOURCE NetSuite Inc.

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KTL Solutions Presented With Inc. 5000 Award

FREDERICK, Md., Sept 11, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- KTL Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and implementer of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Dynamics GP (formerly Microsoft Great Plains), announced its recent inclusion in the 2008 Inc. 5000 list. With this recognition, KTL Solutions is identified as one of the nation's fastest growing companies by Inc. magazine. From 2004 to 2007, the company has grown by 158.9%.
First introduced in 1982, Inc. 5000 is Inc. magazine's renowned annual ranking of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. These companies drive the U.S. economy, crossing a wide range of sectors including consumer products, financial services, retail and technology. The Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth over a four year period.
"Being named to the Inc. 5000 speaks volumes about KTL Solutions' presence and extensive growth in the enterprise resource planning," said Tim Lally, President of KTL Solutions. "Since 1999, KTL Solutions has provided clients with business solutions, customization of those solutions, and the ability to maximize customer relationships using tools based on the Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM platforms. KTL Solutions correlates our consistent growth in revenue and clients with our customer-first approach, top-tier service and leadership."
The Inc. 5000 recognition is an addition to a notable award list for KTL. Recently, KTL Solutions was honored with the Microsoft Mid Atlantic Region President's Club Award. With this recognition, KTL Solutions is regarded as a member company of the upper echelon of Microsoft Dynamic's value added resellers and independent software vendors.
"Partners need resources designed to support their expertise in providing mature financial, analytic and business management solutions for unifying data and processes across a business using Microsoft technology," said Jon Pratt, senior director of Microsoft Dynamics GP at Microsoft Corporation. "The Microsoft Dynamics GP Specialization aids in developing skills to maximize the value of technology investments, simplifying new integrations and reducing development costs."
About Inc.com
Inc.com, "the Daily Resource for Entrepreneurs," delivers advice, tools, breaking news, and rich multi-media to help business owners and CEOs start, run, and grow their businesses more successfully. Information and advice covering virtually every business and management task, including marketing, sales, finding capital, and managing people can be found at www.inc.com.
About KTL Solutions
KTL Solutions is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, with expertise in designing and/or implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities using Microsoft's financial and supply chain management solutions. A recipient of several Microsoft awards, KTL Solutions recently received a Microsoft Dynamics President's Club Award. For more information, visit www.ktlsolutions.com.
SOURCE KTL Solutions

Ascentium Associate Partner Receives 'Dynamic' Award From Microsoft

SEATTLE, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascentium Corporation, a leading interactive marketing and technology consultancy, has announced today that Associate Partner and Director of Software Development, Ross Lotharius, has been awarded Microsoft Dynamics CRM MVP status. This prestigious award recognizes exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their high quality of real world expertise with others.

Lotharius is one of only 26 CRM MVPs worldwide and has received this honor for his outstanding contributions to the CRM user and partner community, which includes speaking engagements and answering questions on newsgroups and blog posts. Lotharius has served as a CRM Lead Architect and Lead Developer on several large scale projects, one of which resulted in a 2007 Microsoft Pinnacle Award for Excellence in Services Industry Leadership. Prior to joining Ascentium, Lotharius was the Director of Software Development for Invoke Systems and he has overall worked for Ascentium/Invoke for seven years.

In order to receive the Microsoft MVP Award, nominees undergo a rigorous review process by a panel of MVP team members and product group teams. Each nominee's technical expertise is evaluated along with the quality, quantity and level of impact of the candidate's voluntary community contributions for the past year.

"The CRM MVP Award is an honor that Ross has long deserved," said Jason Hunt, Partner, National CRM Practice of Ascentium. "His passion for the product and constant evangelism, both within the company and within the community, are the hallmarks of a great MVP. We are all very proud of Ross here at Ascentium."

Ascentium currently holds two of the 26 CRM MVP titles and is the largest sales partner for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. With its wide breadth of services and numerous accolades, Ascentium continues to make to maintain its position as the leading experts in the area of Microsoft CRM.

MEDIA CONTACT

For additional information on Ascentium please contact Jacqueline Platt at Corbin & Associates, LTD. at 646.233.0465 or .

ABOUT ASCENTIUM

Ascentium is a leading, multi-faceted Digital Agency with a focus on technological services, Web design and digital marketing. The award-winning company provides customer loyalty and branding through innovative creative and technical solutions. Ascentium is ranked as the 27th largest digital agency in the nation according to Advertising Age's Top 50 Digital Agencies annual list. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Ascentium has offices across the U.S. and in the U.K. Clients include Amazon, Boeing, Dell, Expedia, InfoSpace, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo and Providence Health Systems. For more information, please visit .

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Microsoft took a step in the right direction this week by releasing an update to its Dynamics CRM product, but it showed its age and lack of cachet with its Jerry Seinfeld commercial, writes columnist Denis Pombriant. Meanwhile, Microsoft's guru program falls short of its customer service

Microsoft Free Trial. Security Software As A Service From Webroot. Latest News about Microsoft announced an important update to Dynamics CRM this week in which it spiffed up its marketing capabilities. You can find the news details pretty easily out on the Web, but the details are less important to this piece. The fact that Microsoft delivered an update is the really interesting part, and I was glad to see it.

When it announced the general release of its new CRM product, Microsoft went out of its way to point out that it would make frequent updates, and this first major update is on track to redeem the promise. That was certainly important to Microsoft because the company has had a reputation for delivery problems -- most notably in CRM, where it skipped a whole version number release because it was so tardy. So, Microsoft delivered on this promise, and maybe we make too much of what for any other company would be a rather pedestrian event.
Clothes in the Shower?

Another Microsoft event caught my eye this week, which is less germane to the company's CRM technology but very relevant to the practice of CRM. Did you see the new ad with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates? It was part of a reported US$300 million branding Learn how you can enhance your email marketing program today. Free Trial - Click Here. campaign that supposedly will help to restore Microsoft's luster as a hip technology company.

Does it work? I don't know. What's really going on here?

With all due respect, Seinfeld went into syndication about 10 years ago, and Bill Gates went into syndication this summer. How are they supposed to restore the luster of the old brand? They're not -- they can't. Despite Dynamics CRM's relative success this week, Microsoft is dogged by the failure of its Vista operating system.

In a related move, the company is now deploying what it calls "gurus" to Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) Latest News about Best Buy stores to help sell the virtues of Microsoft products. That's a good idea, and it mimics Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple geniuses -- people who know everything about Apple products who work at Apple stores. While the gurus will help with initial purchases, the program is not fully articulated to the point where Microsoft will provide training and post-sales support World Class Managed Hosting from PEER 1, Just $299. Click here. as Apple geniuses do.
Transition Crisis

Give Microsoft some credit for making these attempts, but they may prove to be little more than windows dressing (I know, bad pun, but it proves to be irresistible). Microsoft is suffering from what I can only describe as a "transition crisis," and it's been ongoing for some time. The company is not alone, and many of the high fliers of the last couple of decades can be similarly categorized.

These companies have succumbed to "over-financialization," a condition that occurs when the founder and leading product visionary leaves a company -- or at least retires from day-to-day management. To fill the void, the board selects a financial whiz kid (WK) to run things. The WK and his/her team's purpose in life is pleasing Wall Street, and there is nothing they won't do to add a penny to the quarterly earnings per share.

My economist friends will tell me that's what the WK is supposed to do, to maximize shareholder value, and I might even grant that as a proposition for a moment. However, the primary constituency is not the shareholder but the customer. After all, it is the customer who makes the purchases, and unhappy customers lead to unhappy shareholders.

You can find traces of over-financialization in other companies, like Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) Latest News about Oracle and SAP (NYSE: SAP) Latest News about SAP AG -- two companies that have had great rides and, to their credit, are trying to figure it all out.

Oracle especially seems to have an internal skunk-works operation going in what used to be Siebel. Oracle-Siebel is innovating and trying to bring to market some new ideas based on Web 2.0 thinking. Whether it will succeed is anybody's guess, because it is surrounded by the sclerotic remains of old Oracle. For sure, though, it will be fun to watch.
Ways to Go

Microsoft is not that far along, as demonstrated by the Seinfeld-Gates ad. Seinfeld is best known for a long-running comedy show about, well, nothing, and the commercial continues in that vein.

In some of my lectures and writings, I like to point out that today's customer is different from the customer who bought the first iteration of the product. As so often happens, today's customer has grown up with a technology or a solution, and using it is second nature. That leads to interesting disconnects, which is what the Seinfeld ad points out. The ad, in some ways, is trying to connect technology with everyday life, but the customer knows this intuitively. This generation of customer is way ahead of the curve, preferring a quick search to fill a need over an ad that tries to entertain.

I've seen a few print ads for Salesforce and Oracle -- the former has never, to my knowledge, run commercials, while the latter confines itself to golf tournaments and the like. Moreover, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google and many others have built very nice companies without advertising at all.

What this tells me is that Microsoft is not cool these days. It could be again, but it will take a serious rethink and some product improvements to get the mojo back. I wish the Microsoft marketers had called me instead of Seinfeld; I would have saved the company $299 million.

Source:crmbuyer.com

NetLedger rolls out Oracle offering for CRM midmarket

September 9, 2002 (InfoWorld) -- The midmarket customer relationship management (CRM) market continues to heat up.
Oracle Corp. is expected to announce a new online CRM offering Monday that's designed to automate all front-office customer transactions for companies with up to 500 employees. The product from NetLedger Inc., maker of the Oracle Small Business Suite, comes on the cusp of Microsoft Corp.'s eagerly anticipated entrance into the middle market with its new CRM offering, expected to be released late this year.
NetLedger's NetCRM tool will allow businesses to sell and track product and service sales with integrated order processing capabilities while integrating purchasing histories to create tailored campaigns.
This ability to take orders within the CRM system will set the product apart from others on the market, said Zach Nelson, president and chief operating officer at NetLedger in San Mateo, Calif. "With our product, you can generate the sales order [and] you can put business logic around it. You manage a history of the sales order as well. You know when a warranty is up, because you have a history of what a customer has purchased."
In addition, NetCRM will support end-to-end marketing campaign management -- from system-provided templates to e-mail campaign creation and distribution to results measurement. It also will feature knowledge management technology for customer self-service to allow users to search an online knowledge base and find answers to questions without having to call customer support.
For sales partners, NetCRM will support partner relationship functionality that allows selling partners to view their leads and track orders.
NetCRM includes server-to-server integration capabilities with XML and can be configured to allow for single sign-on authentication. Customization capabilities are designed to make the package completely extensible to specific business needs and allow businesses to define their own data records with complex relationships between one another and between existing records and transactions.
The new application service builds on the CRM functionality found in NetLedger's flagship Oracle Small Business Suite, an application service that integrates front- and back-office application functionality and enables companies to run the entire enterprise on a single, hosted software service.
NetCRM -- slated to be available next month -- will put Oracle in a head-to-head battle with Microsoft, which plans to leverage the installed base of subsidiary Great Plains' back-office systems when it rolls out its new midmarket CRM offering.
"[Microsoft] is talking about CRM plus ERP," Nelson said. "They're talking about CRM plus accounting. This is the Version 8 release of that strategy. In a year, integration between your accounting package and your CRM package will not be a 'nice to have' -- it will be a 'must have.' "

Source:computerworld.com

Google Chrome Will Challenge Some SaaS Providers

Adam Gross, VP of developer marketing at Salesforce.com, has experimented a bit with Google Chrome. "I'm very excited by what I've seen," he said. "All this new innovation and technology." Google's open-source approach means other Web browsers will benefit from its innovations, he added.

Gross's enthusiasm could be influenced by the fact that Salesforce.com is among Google's closest allies in the enterprise software market; the two worked together to integrate Google Apps with Salesforce.com CRM. But there are no immediate plans for any sort of enterprise partnership deal with Chrome. Salesforce.com is "looking at Chrome like everyone else," Gross said.

Particularly important, Gross said, was Google's emphasis on developing Chrome to access Web applications, not just view content. Although JavaScript already is being pushed to its limits by some Web applications, he said, Google, Apple, and other Web browser developers are doing a good job of capitalizing on the technology to make the Web experience more interactive. Further, Web browsers need to continue to evolve to support the fledgling world of enterprise software mashups.

"As we are increasingly dependent on Web apps, how business users use Web browsers changes," Gross said. "It speaks to a world not about Web sites you visit once, but apps like Salesforce or Gmail that you live in all day, every day."

About half of Salesforce.com customers use Internet Explorer 6 to access its software, one-third use IE7, and about 14% use Firefox, according to a Salesforce.com blog. Use of IE6, however, dropped 14 percentage points in the last year, with users shifting to IE7 or Firefox. It's a good trend for Salesforce.com, considering that the older IE 6 browser has a hard time handling JavaScript and has created challenges for Salesforce.com developers.

Another Browser To Support

While the emergence of Chrome and its overall impact on the browser market should improve SaaS user experiences and possibilities, it also creates challenges. "There's the question: Does the world need another browser, or should Google have just participated in another project?," said Alan Coleman, CTO at DemandTec, which provides various SaaS applications to the retail and consumer goods industries. "When I first heard the announcement I thought, 'Why not just help the Firefox guys out?'" Another browser means SaaS companies need to spend time and effort, and precious research and development funds, understanding and dealing with Chrome's specific idiosyncrasies.

Regarding Google's "sandbox" approach with Chrome, in which specific Web applications are isolated from one another to improve stability, speed, and security, Coleman isn't convinced there's much different there. Most modern Web browsers take a sandbox approach to some degree or another, he said. But he does like the idea of being able to launch a Web application from the desktop without the extra steps of opening a browser and then launching a Web app from a bookmarks tab -- the Chrome style is more consistent with how most business users launch their applications.

Most of DemandTec's users are on IE 6, and Coleman certainly doesn't expect them to flock to Chrome anytime soon, given that Web browser upgrades across a company can be a major investment for a CIO. It's more likely that businesses follow the consumer market, should Chrome take off. And that's fine with Coleman. "My personal opinion is Google has some great ideas (with Chrome), and I hope their good ideas get incorporated into other browsers."

Charles Ballaro, director of product management at SciQuest, which provides SaaS for supply procurement to such markets as education and health care, also has concerns about adding another browser to the mix. It's challenge enough already to support several browsers. "A developer may come up with a really cool feature, but it was developed in Firefox, and when it goes into IE it doesn't work," he said. Safari, he added, has presented SciQuest with the most development challenges.

Still, the resources that go into solving issues that arise among different types of browsers isn't a "huge impact" in terms of research and development dollars. "We'll have to do some modifications and make some changes" if businesses adopt Chrome, he said, adding that it would make life easier for SaaS companies if all browser developers did a better job of adhering to the established standards. SaaS vendors, meanwhile, also must be able to support older technologies: some of SciQuest's customers required support for Netscape for a few years after it had pretty much disappeared from the enterprise market.

The browser issue doesn't affect all SaaS vendors equally. Consumers who access customer self-service Web sites run by RightNow Technologies' SaaS CRM use Web browsers, but the contact center agents who use RightNow access the software service via Microsoft's Smart Client Technology, which operates more like a desktop than a browser, utilizing the OS and hardware power of the desktop. Web browsers are a poor choice for contact center agents because of their limited usability features, among other things.

"We believe with Google's entrance of Chrome, we'll eventually end up supporting it on the consumer side," said David Vap, RightNow's VP of products. "But it'll be a substantial amount of time before any browser could handle the sophisticated apps we deliver into the contact center."

Copyright 2008 CMP Media LLC

NetSuite Announces Support for Google Chrome Browser

CRM solutions provider NetSuite has announced its support for Google (News - Alert) Chrome, a new open source browser recently introduced by Google in beta form. NetSuite said this makes it the first business applications company to support Google Chrome.

A Webkit-based and open source Web browser, Google Chrome features a new JavaScript rendering engine (V8), and OmniBar support for running tabs in multiple processes. In addition, it also features new ways to highlight most visited sites, most searched terms, and more.

Since this browser from Google, is optimized for Web 2.0. NetSuite (News - Alert) said the performance speed of its AJAX-powered solution features are enhanced by Google Chrome. These features include eXtreme list editing, type-ahead lookups, rich text editing, drag-and-drop and quick-add portlets.

Additionally, OpenAir experiences similar performance gains for workflows, such as assigning project resources and managing project tasks. This year in July, NetSuite acquired OpenAir for $26 million.

Currently, NetSuite and OpenAir support three other Web browsers—Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

With the addition of Google Chrome support, NetSuite expects to provide customers with broad-based freedom of choice when it comes to running their businesses and accessing key business data from anywhere.

“At NetSuite, we strive to offer our customers the latest innovations that will enable the greatest degree of choice, flexibility and productivity,” said Per Jakobsen, vice president of product management at NetSuite, in a statement.

Jakobsen also said that his company salutes Google for the innovation offered in the new Chrome Browser, and is pleased to be able to offer early support for Chrome to all NetSuite and OpenAir customers.

At present, the support for Google’s browser is being introduced in phases, and the rollout is expected to be completed in mid-October. And, once the rollout is complete, all NetSuite and OpenAir functionality will work with Google Chrome’s current release.

NetSuite is a vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites for mid-market enterprises and divisions of large companies.

Last month, NetSuite announced its latest services industry convert customers — firms that switched from Microsoft (News - Alert) Great Plains to NetSuite, to take advantage of NetSuite's integration of enterprise resource planning (ERP)/Accounting, customer relationship management ( CRM), and ecommerce capabilities in a single on-demand application.

The new customers include CMC Energy Services, Symbiot, Safir Rosetti and Advantage Sign Supply.

To learn more about the business applications mentioned in this article, please visit the CRM Solutions channel on TMCnet.com, brought to you by NetSuite.

Google Chrome: A Hit with Online Software Vendors

Makers of online software say Google's Chrome Web browser will likely work well with their products. They are confident many of their customers will adopt Chrome as Google adds more features in the coming months.

From Google's point of view, the creation of Chrome centered around providing a good avenue to access Web applications, as opposed to older browsers designed to view static webpages with text-based features (such as newspaper articles). This issue is of particular interest to Google since its software suite, called Google Apps, currently being sold to businesses, eventually may compete with Microsoft Office.

In its comic strip promoting Chrome, the company noted that older browsers weren't designed to handle the rich features of the Web that we have today.

"People are watching and uploading videos, chatting with each other, playing Web-based games," the comic strip says. "All these things that didn't exist when the first browsers were created."

While Chrome might not affect the Web browser market drastically just yet, and though it offers sparser features than Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Safari, it might gain traction with companies that use online software, also known as software as a service (SaaS), or which use the latest buzzterm, cloud computing. But for users to choose Chrome, the online software vendors need to make sure their apps work well on it.

One such vendor, Zoho, makes a wide range of Web-based applications that bleed into competitive areas with Google and Microsoft. Zoho provides e-mail, documents, spreadsheets, wikis and customer relationship management (CRM) software to its customers.

Raju Vegesna, Zoho's chief evangelist, is very optimistic about Chrome and encourages his service's users (and there are now 1 million) to try it. The reason he cited: JavaScript, the programming language that is used for many of the interactive features on the Web, runs "very fast" on Chrome.

"I see Zoho running very well on Chrome," he says. "As JavaScript executes faster, our apps become faster with not much tweaking from our side. This is great news for all Web apps."

Ross Mayfield, president and co-founder of Socialtext, a company that makes wikis and other collaborative apps for businesses, has begun looking into Chrome but doesn't officially support it yet. But Mayfield, too, is optimistic about its prospects.

"Because of Chrome's speed and ability to fail gracefully when running multiple Ajax apps, we at Socialtext welcome the innovation and competition to the browser market. All browsers will trend towards being rich-experience operating systems for the Web," he says.

SharePoint splits the field

It's a truth universally acknowledged that Microsoft SharePoint has really shaken up the content management market since it burst onto the scene a few years ago. Well, according to the latest piece of research by independent analyst firm CMS Watch, the arch disruptor is really going at it in the enterprise portals space.

SharePoint has made the huge impact it has thanks to a few factors, according to CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne. Microsoft has done a great job of evangelising the product, so that the vast network of developers and consultancies under its wing, for right or wrong, think that SharePoint can basically solve all of their problems. The truth, of course, is slightly more mundane - it can't. In addition, the commonly-held perception that SharePoint is free may have helped to drive its popularity, Byrne suggested. The reality, yet again, is somewhat different - although the underlying service comes at no cost, the pounds can quickly mount up as extra functionality is piled on top.

CMS Watch's Enterprise Portals 2009 report which was released last week notes that SharePoint's rivals are desperately trying to claw back their share of the market by adding high-end functionality that Microsoft cannot currently provide, in a bid to differentiate. Specifically, deep integration with heavyweight, and more importantly, non-.Net based CRM, ERP and other systems is one area where Oracle, IBM and the rest have a chance, because Microsoft's offering is widely regarded to be too lightweight in this area. Web 2.0-type functionlity was also mentioned in the report as one area where the high end portal vendors are looking to capitalise on areas SharePoint has traditionally been weak in.

But that strategy may turn out to be a tad problematic for them, because you can be pretty sure that this hasn't gone unnoticed in Redmond. As Byrne commented, it's only a matter of time before Microsoft improves what it's doing in the social software space, perhaps with the release of Office 14 in a couple of years. And it will also be working SharePoint's ability to integrate with non-.Net enterprise systems - it can technically be done via BizTalk, says Byrne, but it's still not ideal.

One other interesting trend to note from the report that make Microsoft ever so slightly worried though - the open source firms seem to have SharePoint firmly in their sights for "simpler scenarios", with Apache, eXo, Liferay, and uPortal all recently undergoing major upgrades and rapid expansion.