The company unveiled a new customer Cloud Service Agreement (CSA) on Thursday. The agreement aims to avoid landing enterprise customers with unused ’shelfware’ via usage provisions that allow them to change the number of users month by month and to ensure satisfaction by offering yearly contracts that allow them to terminate more easily.

RightNow is a smaller player in cloud-based software services than its rivals, such as Salesforce.com and Oracle. Company chief executive officer Greg Gianforte said the CSA is a call to action to the entire industry, which he said have failed to deliver on the promise of the cloud they have been touting.

“The promise of SaaS was that we could significantly lower the total cost of ownership, have faster deployments, rapid innovation, and reduce shelfware and long-term locking. The software industry has only delivered half of the problem — we solved the technical issues but we’ve [dragged] along some of the worst aspects of enterprise software delivery,” he said.

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First, understand what is meant by “social” in the context of CRM (define). CRM as a form of technical art has been around for awhile, so it’s better to define it (though more than a few new entrants appear not to have fully appreciated this). In this context, social implies that people are working with other people to share information and produce better outcomes. In a recent column, I noted the difference between “interactive” and “social,” and that same distinction applies here. So, right off the bat solutions that claim “social CRM” but then demonstrate what they mean through features that post marketing e-mails to Twitter are lightweight at best. Useful? Sure - a recipient pushing an e-mail offer into her network is worth something. Is this social CRM? You be the judge.

What really makes “social + CRM” work? Connecting customers, business processes, and employees. (Note that this is equally applicable in non-profit or governmental organizations, though the terminology may differ.) Social CRM involves multiple elements, linked together, to provide an end-to-end understanding of how your brand, product, or service is received in the marketplace and how your internal processes produce and deliver experiences that drive this reception. Zappos is the oft-cited example: get the right people, organized around the right values and processes, and the marketplace conversations will largely take care of themselves. (For an excellent presentation of social CRM, you can view this presentation prepared by Gaurav Mishra, CEO of an agency where I’m the consulting director.)

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“We are seeing a huge growth in demand from Indian SMBs, and expect demand to grow at more than 50 percent on the SaaS front in the next fiscal year,” says an optimistic S Sunderaraj, Senior VP, India Operations at Ramco Systems. The SaaS-based solution is apt for SMBs with pricing starting as low as Rs 5,500, deployment time of six weeks, and since there is no need to buy hardware.

A case in point is Srinisons Wiring Systems, a manufacturer of automobile wiring harness, which chose Ramco’s SaaS-based ERP over traditional ERP systems. “In addition to the cost savings, we also find the SaaS model attractive as payments are tied down to the quality of the software and support provided—which is critical for an SMB with a small IT team,” says Kesavan Srinivasan, Executive Director, Srinisons Wiring Systems.

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Customer relationship management, or “CRM,” professional services provider Intelestream offers a variety of systems that give potential users an assortment of applications that are more preferable than other, more traditional systems.

Intelestream’s own CRM system, intelecrm, is specifically designed with SMBs in mind.

“With its flat fee for unlimited users, our pricing model encourages every member of an organization to get on board,” said Stafford McKay, marketing director at Intelestream, adding that the reasoning behind the offer is the understanding of the necessity of CRM for all companies looking to improve productivity, in a recent TMCnet interview.

While intelecrm is not an open source application, it can be customized by the Intelestream team to fit each customer’s specific – and incredibly tailored – needs.

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(PRWEB) March 8, 2010 — BigHand, the leading voice productivity vendor in the global legal community, has today announced that Top-30 law firm Nabarro LLP has deployed BigHand for BlackBerry® smartphones to 460 lawyers in one of the largest deployments of a BlackBerry dictation application globally. The BigHand for BlackBerry deployment will enable lawyers to get more tasks done when working remotely, enhance client service and is part of a firm-wide refresh of mobile devices that is expected to reduce costs by up to 40%.

Andrew Powell, Director of IT at Nabarro commented:

‘’Nabarro has been both a BigHand and BlackBerry customer for several years. Our recent BigHand for BlackBerry implementation was a central part of a wider programme of IT simplification and efficiency in response to the economic downturn. We have used VPN and least cost routing principles to significantly reduce our telecoms cost base whilst the BlackBerry deployment to more than 460 lawyers has allowed us to retire overlapping technologies such as DECT and standalone mobile telephony whilst introducing new technologies such as extension mobility across both VOIP and Blackberry handsets.

BigHand offers additional security of recordings on BlackBerry devices beyond the native settings controlled by BES policies such as encryption of internal & external media and remote kill. Extension mobility and unified messaging have also recently been introduced, and are making a significant contribution to business agility.”

About BigHand
BigHand is based out of Chicago, London, Sydney, and Toronto. BigHand is a Microsoft Gold Partner, BlackBerry ISV Partner, and was voted as ‘Dictation System of the Year’ at the 7th Annual Law Technology News (LTN) Awards 2009. BigHand was also nominated at the British Legal Awards 2009 as ‘Technology Provider of the Year’. Additionally BigHand won ‘Mobile Product of the Year’ at the CNet Business Technology Awards 2008 and ‘Best of Breed System of the Year’ at the Legal Technology Awards for 2008. Further information is available at www.bighand.com

Contact:
Jo Beckwith, UK Marketing Manager, BigHand Ltd

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3691134.htm

London (PRWeb UK) March 8, 2010 — Eze Castle Integration, Inc., a leading provider of IT services and technology solutions to hedge funds and alternative investment firms, today announced it was named an “IT Support Company of the Year” finalist in the MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence (ACEs) 2010.

The MicroScope ACEs are designed to honour and reward the strength and depth of the channel, giving outstanding IT service providers the recognition they deserve. The “IT Support Company of the Year” award recognises a firm that has deep knowledge of the latest technology systems as well as the ability to support and maintain legacy systems to help customers control costs while meeting business priorities. Eze Castle was selected as a finalist based on its premier IT service, broad product and solutions offering and focus on outstanding client service.

“Since opening the Eze Castle London office in 2007, our team has worked endlessly to set a new standard in client service and help clients derive meaningful benefits from their technology investments. Being named a finalist for the “IT Support Company of the Year” award is exceptional validation of our efforts,” said Serge Bukhar, director of UK service, Eze Castle Integration. “Our goal is to act as a trusted partner to our clients and provide them guidance and technology solutions that enhance their business operations.”

Eze Castle supports more than 550 hedge funds and alternative investment firms worldwide providing technology solutions, IT services and strategic consulting to help minimize infrastructure risk and increase operational efficiency.

Online voting begins on 15th March 2010 at http://www.microscopeacesawards.co.uk. The announcement of the winners will be made at the MicroScope ACEs Awards on Wednesday 26th May 2010 at Lancaster London.

About Eze Castle Integration
Eze Castle Integration is the leading provider of technology, consulting and IT services to the investment industry. The company’s products and services include Startup and Relocation, Outsourced Technology Support, Professional Services, Managed Services, Telecommunications, Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery, Archiving, Storage, Colocation and Internet Service. Eze Castle Integration is headquartered in Boston and has offices in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco and Stamford.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://uk.prweb.com/releases/london/itsupport/prweb3697034.htm

The next 10 years will be remembered as the “decade when enterprise software died”, according to Salesforce.com’s European president Dr Steve Garnett, saying something “radical” was happening to the business software industry.

He said: “I think you will find, ladies and gentlemen, a radical change in how business applications will be deployed, and the old world of buying and installing business software will dissappear.”

And it’s no small change. “This shift is more than the shift we saw from mainframe computing.”

Like others before him, Garnett said that the consumerisation of IT was driving this shift.

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“In today’s knowledge economy, SDL Web Content Management Solutions and SDL Structured Content Technologies do more than simply throw sophisticated technology at its customers,” says Hugh McKellar, editor in chief of KMWorld. “They provide real solutions through inspired planning and execution throughout the entire content lifecycle chain.”

The SDL Web Content Management Solutions division, formerly SDL Tridion, provides the ideal user experience across multiple web channels, languages and sites, while integrating with other SDL technologies, to create a comprehensive information platform with global reach. The SDL Structured Content Technologies division has proven success helping global companies accelerate the time to deliver information to global markets, drive down the cost of content development and translation, provide more agility for the overall business and increase customer satisfaction through access to relevant and fresh information.

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BBC online managing editor Ian Hunter claimed in a blog post today that the term “open source” had been “conflated” by users who had grumbled about third party RTMP plugins being locked out of the catch-up service.

“We know that a number of applications have been making unauthorised use of some media types and we have tightened security accordingly - this was done for several of the formats and content delivery types, not just for Flash,” said Hunter. “The result was that some applications that ‘deep link’ to our content may no longer work.”

He was also at pains to insist that the decision had not been made to appease Adobe.

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Cornerstone, which recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary, continues to rank among the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. on respected lists such as Inc magazine’s Inc 5000 and Deloitte’s 2009 Technology Fast 500, which recognized Cornerstone for 311 percent revenue growth from 2004 to 2008. Cornerstone also recently was named among the top 10 Fastest Growing Private Companies in the Southern California region by Los Angeles Business Journal.

“Over the past decade, Cornerstone OnDemand has emerged as the premier learning and talent management software vendor in the world,” said Adam Miller, President and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand. “This past year was a game-changer for our company, marked by a global reseller partnership with ADP, the world’s largest SaaS deployment with Kelly Services’ 700,000 users, and phenomenal business growth despite terrible macro-economic conditions. In the coming year, we will continue to invest to ensure the success of our clients, scale our operations and further extend our international reach.”

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