New Product Spotlight: May 21

Oracle Corp. today has released a new version of its sales automation tool called Oracle Sales 11.5.9. "This new solution is all about sales effectiveness, about how to close more deals more quickly," says Robb Eklund, vice president of CRM product marketing at Oracle. He says that one of the key drivers of the upgraded product is Oracle Proposals, which he claims can cut the time it takes to write and prepare sales proposals by as much as 90 percent. The new product also has enhanced sales and service quoting features, as well as components to better enable telesales reps to multitask and service many customers simultaneously, Eklund says. Alinean, an ROI analysis firm, has released version 2.5 of its ValueIT benchmarking software. The software contains financial data from 20,000 public companies, giving users access to their competitors' data, which can be used for budgeting as well as business process analysis, according to Tom Pisello, president and CEO of Alinean. Talisma has announced a strategic partnership with Primus Knowledge Solutions, wherein Talisma will integrate and remarket the Primus eServer knowledge base, Primus Answer Engine natural language processor, and Primus eSupport Web self-service solutions as components of Talisma's multichannel WebCenter 5.0 Suite. The company says the combined solution will better enable call centers, help desks, and other support organizations to continually capture information from employees and customers, and use the knowledge gained to provide better customer support. Interactive Intelligence, a developer of software for contact center automation, announced that its software is now available preintegrated with Microsoft Business Solutions CRM. The company says its software for contact centers, called Customer Interaction Center, gives organizations such features as automatic call distribution, auto attendant, unified messaging, remote support, wireless access, and Internet text chat. The software runs on an open, "all-in-one," Windows 2000-based platform, which the company says allows for easier customization. RightNow Technologies announced a new services initiative called CORE (Continuous, Optimization, Results, Expertise), designed to optimize customer service operations. CORE aims to provide RightNow customers with a total assessment of business process management and related activities to facilitate better returns on companies' CRM investments. Mercado Software, a provider of enterprise search and browse solutions, has released its Enterprise Search and Navigation solution. The product is designed to locate information scattered across multiple information repositories and stored in disparate data formats. Quaero this week introduced Quaero MarketReady, a marketing data mart tool designed to help create more effective marketing campaigns. MarketReady works in tandem with Unica's Affinium Campaign implementation services.