Press Release
November 2, 2004
Sendia Introduces Management Console To Provide Wireless Administration Of Salesforce.com CRM Solution
San Francisco, Calif. - Sendia Corporation, developer and provider of wireless enterprise solutions that extend desktop applications to mobile workers, and salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the market and technology leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM), today announced the launch of the new Sendia Management Console. Available now, Sendia Management Console gives IT administrators the power to remotely manage wireless users and configure devices from any Web-enabled computer. Sendia's Wireless Salesforce Automation (SFA) extends Salesforce.com to wireless handheld devices, including BlackBerry Wireless Handhelds developed by Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq:RIMM; TSX:RIM) and Treo 600 smartphone devices developed by palmOne (Nasdaq:PALM).
The Sendia Management Console was announced today in San Francisco at Dreamforce 2004, the second annual salesforce.com user and developer conference.
Since sforce was launched in June 2003, salesforce.com has created an ecosystem that is significantly changing the way on-demand applications are built, just as Salesforce.com changed how they are delivered. Today, Sendia joins an sforce community of 3,000 developers, 750 enterprises and more than 100 ISVs who customize, integrate and extend Salesforce.com through sforce in order to create custom CRM solutions.
"Sendia's Hosted Edition of Wireless SFA has the potential to take the CRM world by storm," said Neil Strother, senior analyst for In-Stat/MDR. "With widespread predictions that the enterprise mobility market will explode next year, Sendia's fast and reliable wireless technology is the logical choice for hundreds of thousands of potential Salesforce.com subscribers."
Sforce partners expand customer choice by creating a wide range of new customer-centric solutions for many business requirements, including, contact center, email marketing, ERP, integration, social networking and more. All solutions are built using open standards on the sforce on-demand platform, one of the most widely used and broadly supported enterprise Web services. Partner solutions can be found in the On-Demand Marketplace located at www.salesforce.com/marketplace.
"One of the truly great selling points of salesforce.com CRM lies in its flexibility and configurability," said Mike Kreaden, director, sforce Ecosystem Development. "We're delighted to see that Sendia's new Management Console gives enterprises the same benefits of visibility, flexibility and customizability that our customers are accustomed to in their desktop salesforce.com."
An enhancement of Sendia's Wireless SFA, the Sendia Management Console is a hosted application that can be accessed from any Web-enabled computer, giving IT administrators the ability to set up custom views, monitor connectivity status, create user groups and profiles, and set data filters. Administrators can also deliver application upgrades over-the-air simultaneously to an entire base or subgroup of users so field sales people can always have the latest version of Wireless SFA without needing to return their devices to the main office or insert them into a cradle.
"The Sendia Management Console effectively enables enterprises to manage the wireless devices and applications of their mobile sales force," said Alex Klyce, executive vice president of Sendia. "We have created a tool that gives administrators complete visibility into their wireless user base and empowers them to freely configure their wireless CRM to maximize their Salesforce.com ROI. Administrators can now leverage IT resources by making changes in-house as the need arises."
The sforce on-demand platform allows solution developers to customize, integrate and extend Salesforce.com to create sophisticated custom CRM solutions. In contrast to traditional packaged software, sforce allows developers to use the tools they already know and love from IBM, BEA (NASDAQ: BEAS), Borland (NASDAQ: BORL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and open source solutions like Perl and PHP, to build CRM integrations and applications with record speed and success. Leveraging standards and technologies from the Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), sforce continues to demonstrate how the on-demand platforms are a central part of the new enterprise IT strategies. Free access to the sforce community, as well as more information on the sforce Developer Program, is available at http://sforce.com.
Enterprise Needs Met Through True Custom Configurations
The Sendia Management Console accommodates each enterprise's unique customization needs. Administrators can set up user profiles and user groups within an organization so that only data that is most relevant to particular users gets delivered to their handheld devices. Data fields, tabs and user interfaces can be changed to match customizations on the backend of their salesforce.com or prioritized based on a user's most critical needs. The console lets enterprises create advanced filters with salesforce.com's SOQL.
"One of the most important features of the Sendia Management Console is the power that it affords administrators in determining which data sets get sent to which users," said Laura Fay, Sendia's vice president of Product Management. "Different users have different information needs and the new Management Console gives administrators the chance to set up role-based profiles so each role-defined user group has access to the data they require while working in the field."
On a larger scale, Sendia's customization feature enables companies to 'future proof' their wireless investments as their company needs change. "The customization capabilities of the Management Console make it possible for a company to grow their Wireless SFA as their company grows," Fay added.
Sendia Management Console Provides Robust, Remote Administration
Sendia Management Console facilitates smooth enterprise-wide deployment and allows IT administrators to manage an entire organization or groups of users. From a single location, administrators can monitor the connectivity status of any device, troubleshoot problems, send application updates over-the-air and even ensure the integrity of enterprise data with the ability to erase the data from lost or stolen devices and shut them down remotely. This improved visibility, security and control enables administrators to identify usage rates and activity levels, and to quickly respond to any problems their mobile sales force may be experiencing in the field.
The console's key capabilities include:
- User Account Configuration - Administrators can view and configure user items, such as a type of user account, user's contact information, device type, and connectivity via a color-coded status system.
- Mobile Application Configuration (User Interface) - Retrieves configuration schemas from salesforce.com and allows administrators to select the most relevant fields to mobilize.
- Mobile Application Configuration (Data) - Filters may be designated to selectively limit the amount and type of data that is sent to the device(s), starting with default filters such as Account, Activity and Opportunity. A handy wizard enables ranges of data to be configured.
- Diagnostic Tools - A set of diagnostic tools allows investigation of message and event logs to track issues as they arise.
- User Deployment and Upgrade Management - Administrators can tell what version of an application is deployed and push upgrades as needed. Alternatively the administrator can inform the users of the availability of an upgraded application and allow them to upgrade in a self-service manner.
Sendia's Industry-Leading Technology
Sendia has developed an advanced mobile applications platform that moves data bi-directionally between enterprise applications and off-the-shelf handheld cellular network devices such as the RIM BlackBerry® wireless handheld or the palmOne Treo 600. Sendia's innovative wireless technology helps enterprises achieve higher returns on investment through a superior user experience that includes powerful capabilities such as enterprise class management, security and deployment capability. Sendia's unique platform works in and out of wireless coverage, continually comparing changes to data on both the client and server-side and automatically forwarding only the data that has changed, ensuring the user or manager always has the very latest information.
Sendia's Wireless SFA architecture has security and data integrity built in. All data transmissions are AES encrypted end-to-end. Authentication of users and administrators is controlled by secure passwords that are never transmitted or stored unencrypted. The salesforce.com access model is preserved, so rights of authenticated users cannot be expanded. Lost or stolen devices can be remotely wiped clean and further access denied. With Sendia, full transactional integrity is maintained - even when moving in and out of cellular coverage to help prevent data from being lost or duplicated.
Salesforce.com and sforce are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., San Francisco, California. Other names used may be trademarks of their respective owners.
The Sendia, Palm, Treo, BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of their respective companies.
The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.
