And the winner is…

With an abundance of CRM products and a plethora of online pundits examining them, this market of the software industry is seeing awards and honors within the field graced every week of the year. Heck, to keep up, you’d need a scorecard.

Below is one writer’s attempt to provide such; a look at some of CRM’s recent trophy-hoisters and the reasons for their pride.

Catch a rising star

Voice Print International became perhaps the latest in the industry to bag a trophy, announcing last week that the company had taken one of three Rising Star Award from CRM Magazine. The contact center solutions provider was cited by CRM editorial director David Myron for “expanding its portfolio of integrated quality monitoring and workforce optimization technologies and positioning itself as a serious player in a very competitive space.”

Centive back-to-back

On-demand sales compensation management specialists Centive were pleased to accept Technology Marketing Corporation’s Customer Interaction Solutions magazine CRM excellence award, and even more so that the prize was the firm’s second consecutive nod from the prestigious publication. Web-based Centive Compel has also won the firm a CODiE and a “Wiz Kids Award” from Beagle Research.

In Cali, it’s Kintera

Kintera Inc., specialist in CRM solutions for non-profits, recently showed CRM development’s advancing place in the software world. This month, Kintera took home a California Innovation Award from the California Innovation Corridor. Kintera made the final 15 from an initial pool of 300 nominated. Finalists were chosen based on market leadership within their industry, employment figures, continuous innovation of products and services, contribution to the California economy, and significant accomplishments in 2006.

Link me up

Product of the year? For TMC’s communications solutions department, it’s Envox PhoneLink. PhoneLink is a CTI application that allows service and support organizations to leverage data from CRM solutions.

Quick what?

Ah, the ever-elusive and -prestigious Software & Information Industry Association CODiEs…this month, on-demand financial applications provider Intacct Corporation is polishing one of those bad boys off, getting a "Best Financial Software Solution" prize for its Intacct Enterprise application. A more unique title given Intacct came in March with Inc. Magazine naming the product "Best for Replacing QuickBooks."

Praise and prize

KNova, already a prize bagged by Consona CRM in a recent acquisition, made its new benefactor proud with last month’s Service Excellence Award from CRM Magazine. Together with Onyx, a second Consona solution frequently teamed with KNova, Consona now has “a powerful combination that would give larger competitors like Oracle and SAP a run for the money.” Now that’s praise that might be more valuable than the prize…

OSS on FTS’ promise

CRM solutions provider FTS has a bright future ahead, at least in the eyes of those at the TeleStrategies Billing & OSS World 2007 conference and exhibition in Chicago last month. FTS was named the “Most Promising Company” at the show and in the Windy City showed off its recently released version 7.0 of Leap Billing RevChain, a billing product specifically targeting the American market; and version 4.0 of its Leap Billing, a solution serving customers worldwide.

Salesforce.com gives back

Sure, Salesforce.com has an edge-up in most awards competitions by dint of size and reputation, but sometimes the recognition is harder earned. To wit, the Salesforce.com Foundation’s winning of a “2007 Building Strong Communities Award” from YMCA of San Francisco. Sometimes, winning isn’t only about sales.

Technically excellent

Sogeti Group was named winner of the “Overall Technical Excellence in an IBM Business Partner” award from the big company in April. Sogeti is a systems integration firm. It’s a hard-earned nod, indeed: In 2006, Sogeti opened three centers of excellence in Spain, Sweden and the United States, training more than 500 consultants; hosted more than 25 seminars featuring Rational offerings in Europe and the United States with more than 500 clients attending; and opened testing centers in Sweden and the US using Rational technology. Sogeti also opened two mainframe academies in France and Belgium with the full support of IBM, to expand the life of the mainframe in large accounts.

A Dialogical decision

The Frost & Sullivan awards are another set that are well lusted after for their prestige; this year, the multinational consulting firm bestowed a Market Leadership Award on media and signal processing technology provider Dialogic Corporation. Said Frost & Sullivan analysts: “[Dialogic] has continually demonstrated an ability to closely monitor market changes and implement superior market strategies accordingly.”

Joe Jackson would be proud

Probably the prizes with the coolest names, the Steppin’ Out Awards are presented by internationally acknowledged “CRM guru” Paul Greenberg and usually quickly reported on by industry writers referencing the 1980s pop hit. The awards haven’t stepped out for 2007 quite yet, but Zoho is already pumped that the firm bagged a finalist nod in the “Vendor” category. Zoho’s nomination is based on its “customer-centric focus, constant innovation, and comprehensive and remarkably inexpensive Office 2.0 suite.”

Intelligent, sophisticated, calls you back…

Product of the year? According to Call Center Magazine, that would be Interactive Intelligence Inc.’s contact center automation software, Customer Interaction Center. CIC was selected by magazine editors as “Product of the Year” for its “open, sophisticated architecture built to process multiple types of interactions, including calls, faxes, e-mail, web chats and web callbacks.”

Take us to your (Service) Leader

KANA Software, Inc. can now call itself a true leader, having earned a “2007 Service Leader” from CRM Magazine. The 2007 Service Leaders Awards are given to “honor CRM vendors who are committed to making the customer a strategic business priority.” The rankings are derived from a weighted formula that considers factors including company direction, reputation for customer satisfaction, depth of functionality, and market share. KANA reportedly earned the highest scores for “Reputation for Customer Satisfaction” and “Reputation for Company Direction,” while ranking a close second in “Reputation for Depth of Functionality” among the companies evaluated.

Software and The City

Meanwhile, in the shadows of Gotham…Vormittag Associates, Inc., a provider of enterprise solutions specializing in the distribution, manufacturing, retail and service industries, are polishing their LISA. Spelled out, that’s a Long Island Software Award given to the company for its S2K Enterprise for Retail. LISAs are awarded by the Long Island Software & Technology Network (a.k.a. LISTnet) to software product developers that demonstrate excellence in development and design.

Developing Seagull

Seagull Software brought home a CODiE from the beach in April, as its HostFront was selected as the “Best Software Development Solution” by the SIIA. Seagull specializes in solutions that transform legacy business applications into service-oriented architecture programs. HostFront is a native extension to Visual Studio.NET that offers .NET developers a familiar development environment in which to transform IBM host applications into web services.

Follow the Beacon

It’s always nice to be noticed by the big guys: Just ask Axentis, winner of the “IGS Teaming Award for Independent Software Vendors” in the annual IBM PartnerWorld Beacon Awards competition. Judges remarked that Axentis “has a unique compliance, risk and governance application that is delivered totally as service using IBM hosting, which helps take care of the scaling requirements of their clients. This is a good way of delivering this kind of solution to the SMB and enterprise space.”

The great Dane

Denmark, a land not normally known for its software accomplishments, nevertheless produced at least one player on the international market last month in a repeat performance of last year. Danish IT firm Zoomio took home no less than a CRM prize from CeBIT for a Microsoft Dynamics CRM marketing module. The independent jury’s award signified Zoomio’s solution as the most innovative in the CRM category. Not a bad win for the land of Hamlet, then.

High Altitude

Product of the year? From the Network Computing Awards, that would be independent contact center solutions vendor Altitude Software’s uCI 7.5. Around for 15 years, the latest version of Altitude uCI took home the prize based on reader votes, all the better to emphasize the product’s popularity with, eh?

Konftel’s big five-oh

Frost & Sullivan found conference telephone supplier Konftel pretty cool this year, too, giving the company a “Product Differentiation Innovation Award” in recognition of Konftel’s having “developed a technically innovative product that differs from competing products in terms of functionality.” Specifically speaking, the Konftel 50 was the innovative product.

Sage, again

Finally, some firms just can’t stop winning. Sage Software recently announced that SageCRM and Sage SalesLogix were both selected by ISM Inc. Customer Relationship Management and eCustomer strategic advisors as “Top 15 CRM Small & Medium Business Software Award” winners for 2007. SageCRM received the ISM award for a fifth consecutive year, while Sage SalesLogix received the award for a ninth straight year, Jordanesque streaks both.