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First Coffee -- Motorola's $80 Million Russian Contract -- Parature's Hospital Stay -- Cingular, GoodLink In Deal -- Brubeck's Time Out -- IPCC White Paper Drafts -- Workopolis Hires NetSuite
By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dave Brubeck�s landmark 1959 album Time Out, the first jazz album to feature all original compositions, and the first jazz instrumental album to sell a million copies:
Cingular Wireless is offering Good Technologies Inc.�s mobile e-mail service for business customers � at a nice price: free.
Cingular, the largest mobile phone service provider in the United States, will bundle the GoodLink service with its wireless Internet service for mobile phones free of charge, the Associated Press reports, �charging $45 a month for unlimited usage. Previously, users also paid the equivalent of $27.50 a month to GoodLink.�
The one-time account fee of $1,500 and one-time set-up fee of $99 for each individual user still apply, though. Gotta make money somewhere.
This is a huge boost for Good, still far short of BlackBerry and their over three million customers. Under a previous agreement Good Technology users had to sign separate contracts with the company and Cingular. They�ll now use the single-contract system Cingular does for BlackBerry.
Cingular Wireless executive Michael Woodward told Reuters there aren�t any problems with BlackBerry, but �we heard our customers saying� they were looking for some choice, a little bit of flexibility.�
This is the first time GoodLink, compatible with other providers� mobile devices �will be sold directly by a major carrier in nearly a year,� according to AP: �By contrast, Cingular and the other four national cell carriers already sell BlackBerry devices� and its complimentary e-mail system directly to corporate customers.�
Good�s growing fast, but it�s nowhere near BlackBerry. As of this morning�s announcement it claimed about 6,000 corporate accounts. Cingular claimed 50.4 million customers, both business and personal, at the end of March.
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Motorola is announcing an $80 million one-year frame agreement with Mobile TeleSystems, the largest mobile operator in Russia.
Under the agreement, Motorola will supply Global Systems for Mobile/General Packet Radio Service infrastructure, letting MTS to increase its coverage area and the capacity of its network across the Moscow region, Central Russia and the Urals.
Approximately $20 million of this revenue has already been recognized so far this year and the one-year agreement has a projected value of $80 million.
The GSM/GPRS infrastructure, which includes Motorola�s Horizon II 900/1800 MHz base stations, should simplify the future development of the MTS network as the company looks to incorporate 2.5G GPRS.
Although Motorola and MTS have worked together for eleven years, Margaret Rice-Jones, corporate vice president and region management, Motorola Networks EMEA said this is �the largest contract we have signed with MTS.�
Mobile TeleSystems is the largest mobile phone operator in Russia and the CIS. Together with its subsidiaries, the company services over 40 million subscribers. Since June 2000, MTS� Level 3 ADRs have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange as �MBT.�
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Parature is announcing this morning that Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, a hospital � First CoffeeSM refuses to polysyllabificate �hospital� to �healthcare provider� � in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has replaced Peregrine�s Service Center with Parature�s Help Desk Support Solution.
�The biggest obstacle we experienced with Peregrine was its inability to adapt to our changes as we continued to grow,� stated Shannon Simpson, Director of MIS at Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center. Simpson added that Parature�s wide range of modules, which include self-service customer support features �will provide us with an immediate return on investment.�
Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center is the dominant institution in health care � see, we can cut �dominant institution in health care � to �biggest hospital� � in the Greater Baton Rouge area and is the largest private medical center in Louisiana, with 763 licensed beds. Established in 1923 by the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady, in a given year Our Lady of the Lake treats approximately 25,000 patients.
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Just before the Memorial Day weekend Workopolis, which bills itself as �the largest job site in Canada� announced that it has picked NetSuite CRM for sales force automation, customer service/support �and more,� according to NetSuite officials.
Workopolis wantsNetSuite to track sales orders from lead to close, provide customer support and deliver real-time, accurate reporting capabilities to employees. Workopolis will use NetSuite�s advanced customization capabilities via NetFlex, customizing SFA to have multiple service reps attached to a single customer record.
Previously using Siebel, Workopolis came to NetSuite for attributes that fit the specific needs of Workopolis� fast-growing business, including integration with the existing e-mail and calendar system, customer support/case support, and level of customization.
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You may have seen this one before, but just before the Memorial Day weekend the International Packet Communications Consortium announced the completion of several technical white paper drafts that cover a variety of topics including interconnection, session border controllers, wireless and wireline convergence, and a process for evaluating voice quality for VoIP calls.
Michael Khalilian, chairman of IPCC, said they�re trying to drive �common methodologies and metrics for VoIP,� and says IPCC�s Working Groups, comprised of IPCC member companies �have worked hard to ensure each document is company and vendor-neutral, and represents an unbiased view of solutions to critical VoIP issues.�
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A little more about today�s music, The Dave Brubeck Quartet�s Time Out, that rare work popular with the non-jazz set yet highly respected among jazz musicians. A good parallel in American art would be the poetry of Robert Frost, which can be read from kindergarten to post-grad seminars with enjoyment and meaning.
According to a good review by Steve Huey in All Music, it was a risky move � �Brubeck�s record company wasn�t keen on releasing such an arty project, and many critics initially roasted him for tampering with jazz�s rhythmic foundation,� Huey writes. But with a smash single in �Take Five,� Time Out became an unexpectedly huge success, today second only to Stan Getz�s Jazz Samba in commercial success.
Brubeck, almost kicked out of college when they found he couldn�t read sheet music (he stayed after promising he�d never teach piano), served four years in World War II with Gen. Patton�s Third Army, fighting in the Battle Of The Bulge. He formed The Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1951, and after he hired a black bassist, Eugene Wright, he cancelled many shows when club owners insisted he use a white bassist for the gig.
Despite Time Out�s ubiquity it�s hardly wallpaper music, like some popular jazz albums (cough Norah Jones cough). �Blue Rondo à la Turk� blends jazz with classical form and Turkish folk rhythms (which Brubeck heard in Istanbul), and �Take Five� itself is written in 5/4 meter � the entire album was the first jazz work to make full use of time signatures outside the standard 4/4 or 3/4 time.
The pretentious set sniffs at Time Out because of its enduring popularity among � shudder � the non-pretentious, but you�ll find few jazz musicians working today who haven�t been in some way inspired or influenced by it.
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content placement, so after much deliberation and consultation with his 7 and 6-year old sons has concluded that the coolest animals are definitely owls, dolphins and snow leopards.
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