The CRM Week in Review

Editorial Director,
Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine

This edition of the CRM Week in Review is almost as exciting as the summer’s weekend movie lineup, though it unfortunately lacks Johnny Depp. He just didn’t really have an opinion about the current trend of enterprise CRM providers scaling down their products and creating partnerships to target the SMB market. However, the CRM Week in Review thinks that “Pirates of the Caribbean III: Multitenancy on the High Seas” has a nice ring to it.

But that’s not important right now.

Analytics software provider Verint Systems (News - Alert) Inc. today announced the acquisition of Mercom Systems, Inc., a privately-held provider of interaction recording and performance evaluation solutions for small to-midsized contact centers. The goal of the acquisition, according to Verint CEO Dan Bodner, is to allow Verint to access the SMB market around which Mercom has successfully built its business. The CRM Week in Review has an afternoon briefing set with Verint, so check TMCnet later in the day for more extensive information and analysis.

Also this week, CRM developer Adapt Software Applications has announced ADAPTcrm v5.0, of its ADAPTcrm software, targeted at manufacturers and distributors. ADAPTcrm software combines collaboration, marketing, sales and extended services management in a single module.

CRM solutions provider Onyx Software confirmed that CDC Corporation has commenced an unsolicited cash tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Onyx’s common stock not already held by CDC or its affiliates for $5.00 per share. After an initial refusal by Onyx to go gentle into that particular good night, CDC Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Yip stated, “After continued refusals by Onyx to consider seriously our prior offers to acquire the company, we have been forced to take our offer directly to the Onyx stockholder.” He added that the company’s current offer is “clearly superior” to Onyx’s preferred option of selling to M2M Holdings. Sounds like Onyx plans to rage against the dying of the light. (All apologies to Dylan Thomas.)

This week, EBSuite.com, a vendor of on-demand CRM software, announced an extended customer service agreement with S3, an entertainment and commercial security services firm. Turns out that S3 represents a number of colorful clients, including Harpo Studios, home of The Oprah Winfrey Show; Dennis Rodman; Jam Productions, the largest independent promoter in the U.S.; City of Chicago Special Events; Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears; Lollapalooza; and Country Thunder Music Festivals and its Harley Davidson Motorcycle 100th Anniversary celebration. I never imagined attendees of the Harley Davidson 100^th Anniversary celebration would need security. Who in his right mind would mess with them?

You know you’ve arrived when Microsoft (News - Alert) targets you as a competitor. The company appears to be enhancing its Dynamics CRM product line in order to directly aim for Salesforce.com. Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM solution will be the latest to make the transformation into a “live” service when it ships next year. But first, Microsoft will be sprucing up its CRM offering with an upgrade that will make it viable as a service. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 will have multitenancy capabilities built in, which will allow for multiple customer accounts on a single server.

In other Microsoft news, X10DATA Corporation, developer of the x10DATA Mobile Platform, has announced that it has mobilized Microsoft’s Dynamics ERP and CRM applications on Palm’s Treo 700w smartphone. According to TMCnet’s David Sims, “Nobody questions anymore the benefits of mobile workers holding the ability to track and update critical business information while in the field, since those who do have been silenced in specially designed re-education camps. Don't worry, they’re happy.” Well, there it is.

Contact center technology provider Noble Systems has unveiled a professional services group. The Noble Technology & Operations Profile (TOP) was created with the goal of helping companies identify new opportunities within their contact centers, wrote TMCnet contributing editor Anuradha Shukla this week. Noble Systems’ professionals will review daily contact center operations to help optimize performance. They will also meet company executives, managers and agents to explore processes and tools including staffing, training, management and reporting.

Anuradha also noted this week that on-demand contact center provider Contactual and IT solutions provider Infocom Corporation have opened a joint venture called White Pajama (which is the former name of Contactual … seems the company retains a fondness for sleepwear-related branding). The new organization is expected to deliver an on-demand contact center offering to the Japanese market. White Pajama will deliver the on-demand contact center platform and provide technical support and hosting services to its partners, who will be able to extend the advantages of the on-demand contact center technology to their customers.

As you may have noticed, it's becoming increasingly chic to enter the SMB market (though Vogue has yet to report on the trend. Huh. And they called themselves trendsetters). Citrix Systems, Inc., which provides access infrastructure solutions, announced on Monday that it has exceeded its first year reseller recruitment target in the small to medium business market, and plans to double that during the next year. Since its launch at last July’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Citrix has integrated over 3,000 new resellers into its Citrix Access Essentials (CAE) authorization track in North America, EMEA, Latin America and the Caribbean, 50 percent over its initial goal.

That’s all for this week, CRM enthusiasts.

--------

The author may be contacted at tschelmetic@tmcnet.com.