CUSTOMER INTER@CTION NEWS

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Apr 2008

(ProQuest: Deletions shown by "strike-through" in the original text are omitted and denoted by ... .)

www.tmcnet.com/1739.1

ShoreTel Launches ShoreWare Contact Center 4.66

ShoreTel, a provider of Pure IP Unified Communications solutions, has announced ShoreWare Contact Center 4.66. This suite of applications was designed to improve customer service while reducing the cost of deploying and maintaining high-performance inbound or outbound multimedia call center. ShoreWare Contact Center 4.66 is designed to support more simultaneous agents while offering several new features to enhance the customer experience. Such an execution will make it ideal for expanding mid-sized contact centers.

www.shoretet.com

www.tmcnet.com/1740.1

Aspect Brings UnNM communications To The Contact Center

Aspect's unified communications solutions bridge the divide between the contact center and the rest of the organization in a way that allows every person in an organization to become an integral part of the contact center in a manner that maximizes efficiency, customer service and sales levels. Contact center software with integrated workforce management has become an excellent way for organizations to manage their agents to achieve maximum efficiency. The irony is that generally speaking, the lower paid workers in an organization are in the call center. The more expensive "informal call center" agents have much higher compensation yet they aren't part of workforce management systems.

www.aspect.com

www.tmcnet.com/1741.1

Merced Systems kilns New Service to Sates Best Practice Ibid Benchmarking Study

Enterprise performance management solutions provider Merced Systems has launched the Merced Systems 2008 Service to Sales Best Practice and Benchmarking Study. The goal of the study is to assist organizations which are considering changing their customer service operations into blended service and sales operations. The study will examine current service to sales practices to help participants benchmark their transition strategies against those of other companies. Areas of focus include industry benchmarking and status of current service to sales transition programs; scope and challenges in making a transition to sales; and use of supporting tools and processes.

www.mereedsystems.com

www.tmcnet.com/1743.1

Micorsoft CRM Vendor Tecture Partners with SalesCentric

Tectura Corporation, a vendor of Microsoft Dynamics products, has chosen to partner with SalesCentric in offering Relationship Charts to their mid-market companies and large enterprise division CRM customers. Relationship Charts is an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics CRM allowing account managers to view the relationships within a prospect's organization, including vendors and suppliers, before the deal has passed. It integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, meaning users already familiar with the CRM package will require minimal training.

www.tectura.com

www.tmcnet.com/1744.1

Salesforce.com Named To Forbes Tech Growth List

Salesforce.com has, once again, been named to Forbes' "Fastest Growing Tech Companies" list. With annualized sales growth of 85 percent over the last five years, Salesforce.com ranked second only to Google on the list of technology innovators. Selection criteria for Forbes' "25 Fastest Growing Tech Companies" include a minimum of $25 million in sales over the last four quarters; 10 percent annual sales gains over the five previous years; profitability over the past 12 months; and 10 percent estimated annual profit growdi for die next three to five years.

www.salesforce.com

www.tmcnet.com/1749.1

SAP AG, Intel Announce Expansion of Partnership

Building upon its recently announced faststart program for SAP Business All-in-One products, SAP AG has announced plans for an expansion of its partnership with Intel. SAP and its long-term technology partner Intel intend to introduce a product offered on Intel Xeon-based systems via original equipment manufacturer and hardware system providers based on SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell and the database SAP MaxDB. SAP officials say the offering targets midsize companies in the manufacturing, service and trade industries and is intended to address the demands in these market segments for implementation, and products at "predictable costs."

www.sap.com and www.intel.com

www.tmcnet.com/1746.1

SaaS Adoption 'Rising Steadily' Among SMBs, AM Partners Finds

Among U.S. small businesses (1-99 employees) and medium businesses (100-999 employees), SaaS adoption is "rising steadily," according to the Access Markets International Partners report, 2008 U.S. Small and Medium Business Applications & Solutions Market Overview. The report found that 21 percent and 31 percent of SBs and MBs currently use SaaS products, which is double the percentage of adoption in 2004.

www.ami-partners.com

www.tmcmt.com/1747.1

Pegasystenis Announces New Venions of Business Process Management Solutions

Healthcare systems vendor Pegasystems, which sells business process management products, has announced new versions of its Customer Process Manager solutions for Healthcare. Built on Pegasystems' SmartBPM platform, the product uses customer processing capabilities that automate and optimize the service requests handled through a healthcare organization's contact center. Pegasystems' intent-driven processing is designed to anticipate both customer and service representative needs.