New Product Spotlight: November 12, 2003

PeopleSoft has released its latest mid-market CRM suite, EnterpriseOne CRM 8.9, which marks the first release of the former JD Edwards CRM suite under the PeopleSoft brand. "Basically the new release has a three part focus: enhancing support for global customers, enhancing total ownership, and better feature functionality," says Joel Reed, senior director of product marketing at PeopleSoft. The new release supports five new languages and also supports all EnterpriseOne back office products, Reed says. In addition, an improved mobile sales unit is included in the release. WebSideStory and Salesforce.com have announced that their two products now integrate to provide better visibility into the sales process. WebSideStory's HitBox Enterprise solution provides insight into online marketing campaigns by connecting Web-visitor behavior with offline customer conversions captured in Salesforce.com. By tying the two pieces together marketers can better manage online budgets, evaluate campaign effectiveness in driving leads, and measure the quality of these leads, the companies say. Sybase subsidiary iAnywhere Solutions has granted Salesforce.com the exclusive right to market and sell Mobile Sales for Salesforce.com, a custom version of iAnywhere's Mobile Sales product. With Mobile Sales for Salesforce.com, sales reps can read, modify and create key Salesforce.com accounts, contacts, opportunities and activities using Pocket PC and Palm OS-based PDAs and smartphones, according to iAnywhere. Edocs has announced the general availability of a new software suite for telecommunications service providers. The suite will help both landline and wireless service providers reduce customer churn and improve revenue and profitability, edocs says. Some of the key capabilities in the new suite include service and order management, reporting and analytics, customer rate plan advice, and e-billing and payment. E-Z Data has released SmartOffice for Agency Management, E-Z Data's agency automation solution for insurance agency owners and managers. It comes equipped with a full-service CRM suite. Maximizer Software has announced it will include Crystal Decisions' report writing tools in upcoming versions of its customer relationship management and contact management software. This partnership with Crystal Decisions enables Maximizer's customers to use Crystal Reports to easily report on the sales, marketing, and customer service and support information stored in their companies' databases, the company says. E-marketing firm IMN (formerly iMakeNews) has launched new behavioral analysis tools and has enhanced its reporting capabilities to improve marketers' return on e-newsletter and email investments. Through IMN's Web-based services, marketers now have access to detailed primary research correlating specific e-marketing content with reader behaviors. They also have greater access to mailing statistics and subscriber analyses to evaluate mailing performance, according to the company.