CHECKBOX 4.3 Enables Business Intelligence for Small and Medium Business

The Checkbox 4.3 Developer Kit adds new web services to allow developers to integrate existing applications (CRM, HR, BI) with a powerful user, form, and survey management system in order to create a customized business intelligence system for organizations of all sizes.

Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) August 15, 2007 — Leading online survey software and business intelligence software provider Prezza Technologies announced a new web services component as part of their new Checkbox 4.3 Developer Kit. The new web services layer adds to an existing API (Application Programming Interface) that has been available for years to their customers. This allows any company to create a powerful business intelligence system.

“This announcement really highlights the uniqueness between our system and other, lower-end players in the industry,” says John Craven, President of Prezza Technologies. “This new web services component makes it even easier for companies to share and swap data between Checkbox and other applications.”

This new web services component makes it even easier for companies to share and swap data between Checkbox and other applications.

Prezza’s customers have already integrated with the Checkbox Developer Kit – mainly to exchange data between existing applications or to build new applications from scratch:

• An emerging brand consultancy (SalesTrac) used Checkbox Mobile to collect feedback via handheld and integrate Checkbox with their PromoSpace social networking system.
• A west-coast financial services company integrated Checkbox with their learning management system in order to integrate and centralize feedback about courses and instructors.
• An east-coast university is using Checkbox to build a social networking tool and 360-degree feedback platform that will be resold to other schools.
• A sales consulting company uses Checkbox as the platform for their mini-site building and lead scoring system in order to rate leads before they are passed onto their clients.

Craven highlights more of the advantages of integrating a survey and forms system: “Data sitting in a CRM system can be extracted and inserted into a Checkbox survey, making questionnaires, forms, and surveys extremely targeted and direct. It’s like using the mail merge feature with a company’s existing, enterprise-wide databases and applications.”Checkbox 4.3 will be available August 27, 2007 for new and existing customers in both on-demand and on-premise edition. To see a demonstration, prospects may visit www.prezzatech.com and sign up for a live demo, download a free trial, utilize live chat services, or call the Prezza sales team at 1-866-430-8274.

About Prezza Technologies

Based in Cambridge, MA, Prezza Technologies is one of the fastest growing providers of online survey software and business intelligence software. The company was co-founded in 2002 by Tom First, who previously built and sold Nantucket Nectars (a perennial member of Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing companies in the 1990s). Prezza Technologies’ on-demand and on-premise products are currently used by major organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies and educational institutions in over 30 countries.

For more information, contact:
John Craven
President
617-715-9600

*SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE FREE VERSION OF ULTIMATE POLL HERE. (http://demo.checkbox.com/Samples/poll.aspx?ForceNew=true)*

HIGHLIGHTS OF ULTIMATE POLL:

• Autogenerates Javascript Code
  • Drop a poll onto any of your web pages.
• Embedded AJAX Technology
  • View results without page reloads.
• Fully Web-Based, Customizable Polls
  • Add styles, pictures, and text in any font.
• Track Results in Real-time
  • Instantly view results with IP address + time/date.
• Customizable, Open Source Code
  • Modify Active Server Pages for customization.
• Poll Scheduling Makes Web Poll Administration Easy
  • Use page zones to rotate ads on a schedule.
• Poll Answer Choice Randomization
  • Randomize answers to reduce bias.
• Actions Based on Answers
  • Each answer choice can redirect to a page.

*SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE FREE VERSION OF ULTIMATE POLL HERE.* (http://demo.checkbox.com/Samples/poll.aspx)

It doesn’t take a survey to know that whatever Apple puts out is going to be well designed, well marketed, and desired by the masses. The iPhone is no exception. A research company conducted a survey of 19,000 people are determined that 90% of them have heard of the iPhone and 1/3 want to buy it.

Link to the PC world Article

An independent research company released a report on how quickly Software as a Service was impacting businesses around the world. Personally, I can’t wait until online service providers come up with a standard way of describing online software – SaaS or On-demand or online software, etc

“We’re seeing breakthrough levels of SaaS acceptance across all categories of business software – from SMBs to the largest enterprises worldwide. Gone are the early days where SaaS was primarily a business-unit driven phenomenon. Today, IT is now actively engaged in building hybrid architectures that leverage the best of web-based applications, with on-premise enterprise software – especially as SaaS increasingly addresses mission-critical workload requirements. At the same time, much of this growth is coming without any sort of plan or management structure,” states Saugatuck VP Mark Koenig, head of the SaaS research program and co-lead author of the new report.

Some notable points:

• Twenty-six percent of companies now have at least one SaaS application installed, up from 11 percent at the beginning of 2006. By year-end 2007, Saugatuck forecasts that SaaS adoption will grow to forty-seven percent, and by 2010, to over 65 percent. Meanwhile, SaaS usage within mid-size and large enterprises will more than double by 2010 – averaging more than 7 SaaS solutions in production.
• While a few technology “master brands” with established distribution channels will thrive in SaaS markets (e.g., Salesforce.com, IBM, Microsoft), the real long-term winners will be dominant business brands (e.g., telcos, banks, or master brands such as FedEx) that partner with leading SaaS Integration Platform (SIP) providers
• Reducing and managing software costs remain important attractions for SaaS, but users are focusing much more on Service Levels, Integration with Data and Workflow, and intra- and inter-company collaboration
• Hybrid application architectures are emerging – SaaS is increasingly linked to on-premise data, applications and processes through Web Services-based Integration APIs
• SOA, Open Source, Collaboration, Mobility, Mash-ups and Web 2.0 are converging on SaaS platforms, providing rich, configurable applications and business value
• The next two years will see exploding growth for ad-supported SaaS initiatives targeting consumers (i.e., business services and productivity tools) and vertical-market small business niches (e.g., health care patient records)
• SaaS is already expanding its reach into a variety of business services as traditional BPO providers struggle to rationalize their one-to-one outsourcing models, reduce costs and bring greater process efficiency to their clients

The California Wine Club recently sent out a survey to it’s members and found that most of its members thought that screw caps were OK, but didn’t agree that screw tops were ever superior to cork bottles.

More than 50 percent of responders viewed screw caps as having the same quality, while 35 percent believed they were less quality. Only 2 percent of respondents believed screw caps were of higher quality, while 10 percent said they did not drink wines with screw caps (i.e. cork snobs).

Link to Press Release

Here at Prezza Technologies in Cambridge MA we’ve been proud of the steps we’ve taken towards producing software that is not only powerful but simple – we’re significantly decreasing support requests towards IT Professionals and enhancement requests towards Development teams.

Survey designers come to us for support, and the technical teams can get back to solving mission-critical problems.

It’s simple to install and host on your own servers – as in Checkbox Survey Server – we now support SQL Express.

We also host and maintain our own survey hosting environment for customers who prefer to get up and running even faster. We call this Checkbox Online®. Because we rely on our partner RackSpace, we offer what could be the best uptime, security, and backup/disaster recovery procedures in the industry.

Our latest product released is Checkbox Mobile – available as downloadable software or as a hosted environment – which enables offline, handheld survey and form data collection. It can be used for simple order forms or as part of a major market research initiative. It synchronizes occasionally with a backend server which can be on a company’s servers or at Prezza (RackSpace servers).

Also, in the press release there’s a nice quick start guide that will help you try our online demo’s at demo.checkbox.com!

Link to Press Release

Brian

Our survey and form software, Checkbox®, now has an image CAPTCHA feature. A CAPTCHA can help keep automated spammer programs and scripts from signing up for certain accounts online, including email, blog posts, and anywhere where there’s a form.

CAPTCHA stands for … Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell all Computers and Humans Apart. Seems fitting that Carnegie Mellon, a school noted for it’s contributions to robotics, holds the trademark on the name.

This article, from Slashdot refers to a NY Times article, discusses the fact that humans are even having a tough time cracking the CAPTCHAs. I have to agree. On some accounts I’ve had to type the secret jumbled words a couple times in order to get access.

Best practice?

Use a CAPTCHA, but don’t make it very difficult (we have over a dozen CAPTCHA styles to choose from).

Link to Slashdot CAPTCHA Evolution Article

A survey conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity(i4cp) – says that some 65% of business professionals are connecting via personal and professional social networking websites and the most popular site used for professional networking was LinkedIn, followed by Yahoo 360 and MySpace, according to the study.

• 52% of respondents do so to keep internal staff and remote employees connected
• 47% use the networks to connect with potential clients and to showcase their skills
• 35% say they use networks to assist them in finding a job.

Thanks for the Marketing Guy for this.

According to this article, gaming will be integrated into the culture of many companies who aim to attract younger workers who find they work harder after a little bit of fun gaming.

A recent survey by WorldWinner, a subsidiary of FUN Technologies Inc., more than 80 percent of online gamers who play on and off throughout the workday said they are able to better focus on work after playing. A reported 72 percent actually rely on game breaks to help them deal with job-related stress.

Link to Article

Many bloggers veer off the safe path and get nasty or reveal confidential information, and, according to this study, risk being canned!  Croner – a business consultancy – put this study out their to educate companies and employees on the risks, and of course, offer a solution to the problem highlighted.