And a fine howdy-mornin' to y'all, welcome to Radio CBM 98.6, all Steve Miller Band all the time and the pride of East Waukegan.
Top story in the news is that Microsoft has announced three major incentive offerings [1] for its ERP and CRM customers.
One, Business Ready Flexible Pay, gives new Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM customers in the U.S. "the option to purchase the products today but pay for them in equal payments over three years." Denying that this is just financing with interest charges, the Microsofties said it's "an opportunity for businesses to manage their budgets."
Oh, of course, my fault, how stupid of me. Thanks for clearing that up.
And in May some Microsoft partners will offer their customers Microsoft Dynamics ERP with a 50 percent discount on licensing, and if they send in five boxtops receive a rebate equal to 25 percent of the suggested retail price of Microsoft Dynamics, up to a maximum of $25,000 "to help offset the costs of switching from Sage MAS 90 or MAS 200, or Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne."
Microsoft denied trying to eat Sage or Oracle's lunch, saying "we want their breakfast and dinners, too. Hors d'oeuvres, well, we'll negotiate, maybe they can have those."
Alterian is now partnering with Jigsaw [2], a vendor of business to business company and contact information. According to the Alterians, Jigsaw will fit Alterian's platform in place to help improve its database.
Jigsaw says it has over 800,000 member pieces in its business directory, which Kevin Akeroyd, chief operating officer, Jigsaw said is "a real puzzle to put together the right way." According to Akeroyd, the Alterian platform will help sort contact lists, queries, edge pieces, data visualization, red from the rose and the red from the fire engine, reporting, pieces of sky with cloud on them and analytics.
By the way it's weird, isn't it, how every once in a while Elvis Costello's album My Aim Is True is exactly, and I mean exactly, what you need to hear?
Serial entrepreneur Graham Ede is baaaaack [3] with a customer management company, Blueview, offering "integrated customer management at every touchpoint." Ede says he wants to help companies with what he calls "true choice" over exactly which areas and elements of their customer management they outsource.
"Organizations wanting to attract, keep and develop customers are fed up dealing with vendors that try to sell them the service package they want to sell, rather than the solution the client really needs to buy," Ede says, adding that "we aim to correct gaps only where needed. That is the route to delivering real value to clients."
In politics Vice President Joe Biden reclaimed the title [4] of The Dumbest Man In Washington, a hotly contested honor he held for much of his Senate career. "Slow Joe," as he's commonly known in D.C., said he would advise his family members to avoid airplanes, subways and other "confined" places to avoid catching swine flu.
Administration officials quickly clarified that he was speaking only of his own family, and that "it's not a concern for the Vice President if anyone else catches swine flu on airplanes or subways."
Tellme Networks, a Microsoft subsidiary, is now offering a mobile voice service [5] letting users press one button, say what they want and get it, whether that is to send a text, make a call or search for information. Microsoft officials say this service "puts many phone functions behind a single button."
Of course the Best Little Software Company in Redmond is playing catch-up to Apple yet again, as the Cupertino Kidz released the noted One-Button Laptop [6] months ago.
Contact center vendor Altitude Software has released the Altitude Unified Desktop [7], described as a contact center "universal remote," according to Miguel Lopes, Product Management Vice President at Altitude Software.
According to the report [8], "Agents Desktops: The Contact Center Universal Remote," from independent analyst The Pelorus Group and sponsored by Altitude, unified desktops deliver "what consumers want the most," according to Dick Bucci, author and Senior Consultant for The Pelorus Group, which is "to communicate with the contact center at a time and channel of their choosing and get correct answers the first time. Well, that came out Number One if you eliminate 'guaranteed street parking in Manhattan' and 'never seeing anything about Paris Hilton ever again.'"
In sports the big event was the NFL Draft, one of the most popular athletic events in which absolutely nothing athletic happens. Encouraged by the success of the televised event, NFL officials are kicking around the idea [9] of spreading it out over three days and moving it to prime time, because Lord knows the nation's on the edge of its seat to see if the Cleveland Browns will take a left guard from Central Michigan or a free safety from Florida A&M in the sixth round.
Other ideas under consideration include a spin-off show, NFL—The Schedule!, allowing viewers to watch math geeks write algorithms to feed into a computer to produce the league's game day schedules. "We see it up against American Idol," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters.
ES Research Group has announced findings [10] from its annual "Sales Training Vendor Guide," which is available for purchase from its Web site. Among the conclusions for sale is that as much as 15 percent of sales training delivered in 2008 is having a lasting impact of more than 90 days, up from only 10 percent in 2006 and 2007.
But what really sells reports like this, of course, is doom 'n' gloom, and no disappointments here: ESR identified "several worrying trends" that "may negatively impact results for 2009 and beyond," including corporate investments in sales training dropping from 20 to 40 percent in 2009, traditional live, on-site, classroom training being slashed 60 percent or more from travel expense limitations, having salespeople without "the skills and personal traits to succeed" in sales jobs, famine, war, pestilence and a second Obama term.
That's the show for today, we're off to see if we can get a refund on our wedding gift [11].