New Product Spotlight: September 24, 2003

SAP AG has released its newest version of mySAP CRM. This version includes real-time analytics to ensure that customer insight is applied to the customer interaction; multichannel support to enable a comprehensive view of all customer interactions across the enterprise; and workforce management to best address each customer with the agent possessing the best-matched skill set, according to the company. Salesforce.com announced it is joining BEA System's Controls and Extensibility Program as a founding member, and that it's developing an sforce-enhanced version of BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1. Together, Salesforce.com and BEA plan to deliver a cobranded, bundled solution that's designed to give developers pre-integrated access to all the capabilities in BEA WebLogic Workshop and the sforce client/service application platform. KANA has released the latest version of its knowledge management suite, KANA IQ 8. The application can understand and react to the context of a request and automatically respond with the best service and guidance for rapid request resolution. In addition, the company says KANA IQ 8 has vertical industry capabilities that provide rapid answers for a range of requests relevant to individual vertical markets. Art Technology Group has released the latest version of its self-service solution, ATG 6.1. ATG says version 6.1 contains a variety of new capabilities, including an upgraded Web-content management solution, integration with industry-leading application servers, and enhancements to ATG's innovative Scenario Personalization technology. Coremetrics, a provider of Web-analytics solutions, announced this week the release of Coremetrics Online Analytics 2004, a new version of the company's hosted solution. Coremetrics Online Analytics 2004, formerly named Marketforce, offers new functionality in three areas: platform enhancements to improve speed and flexibility; prescriptive analysis to automatically guide e-businesses towards rapid ROI; and data extensibility to ensure a comprehensive view of the business, according to the company. ChannelWave and Novell are partnering with the intent to provide CRM systems that are faster and easier to deploy, configure, manage, and extend securely across multiple sales channels. Using the new solution businesses can create a single sign-on infrastructure for multiple-partner Web sites and securely present customers, partners, and employees with personalized information, resources, and processes from multiple IT systems through a single portal interface. The company says this can support real-time sales collaboration with business partners, and provide more accurate and timely measurement of operational and channel performance. UniPress Software this week debuts its FootPrints Hosting Service, a fully managed solution to help organizations of all sizes automate their customer service and support operations. OnStation Corporation, a provider of online CRM for the automotive service industry, this week announced the release of Version 2.0 of OnStation ShopConnect CRM. The product collects customer and vehicle data from repair shop computers and sends outward-bound emails to customers reminding them about maintenance and other services. Interface Software Monday announced the availability of InterAction 5.1, the latest version of the company's relationship intelligence solution for professional services firms and similar relationship-based organizations. The company also announced the introduction of a new professional services offering, Data Quality Services, and a new optional module, InterAction Contact Verifier. Combined, the InterAction 5.1 release and the related module and services provide higher data quality and application usability, the company says.