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Pivotal Software was founded by Norm Francis in 1994. Francis was a co-founder of Basis Software

Group (BSG) the company that developedACCPAC, an accounting software package which was

purchased byComputer Associatesin 1985. Francis invented the concept of 360-degreecustomer

relationship management(CRM), a concept that continues to be used today to describe the unification of

activities across the organization by employees who play a role in the customer relationship .[4]

The

company released its first customer relationship management product, Pivotal Relationship Version 1, in

April 1996; this product is the predecessor to the current Pivotal CRM product line.[5]

The company changed its name to Pivotal Corporation in June 1999 to reflect its broadening focus

beyond just software into professional services, content, hosted application services and other online

services.[6]

Pivotal Corporation went public in August 1999 and its shares were listed on the NASDAQ

Global Market under the symbol PVTL.[7]

In February 2000, Pivotal Corporation was selected byBill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software

Architect, to showcase its Pivotal CRM software at the worldwide premiere ofMicrosoft Windows

2000.[8]

Pivotal CRM, then called Pivotal eRelationship, was the first eBusiness relationship management

(eBRM) solution to be certified for Windows 2000.[9]

Pivotal Corporation was acquired by chinadotcom, now CDC Corporation, in February 2004. The

acquisition added 1,700 customers, as well as marketing, sales, service, and partner management

capabilities toCDC Softwares business unit focused on front-office solutions for mid-sized enterprises.[10]

[edit]Products

This article appears to contain a large number ofbuzzwords. Specific concerns

can be found on thetalk page. Please helpimprove this articleif you can. (July 2011)

Pivotal CRM is known in the CRM space for its focus on helping mid-sized enterprises with unique or

complex front office business processes. Pivotal CRM customers require CRM software that iscustomizable and adaptable to their unique business requirements; they also value the Microsoft

technology foundation.[11]

The Pivotal CRM product suite includes:[12][13]

Pivotal Sales (sales force automation)

Pivotal SalesMiller Heiman Edition (Pivotal Sales with embedded Miller Heiman sales

methodology)

Pivotal eMarketing

CDC MarketFirst(marketing automation and lead management)

Pivotal Service (service automation)

Pivotal Mobile CRM

Pivotal Mobile Client

Pivotal Wireless

Pivotal Handheld (for BlackBerry devices and Windows Mobile)

Pivotal Partner Management

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Pivotal Analytics

The latest Pivotal CRM version, Pivotal 6, was released in July 2008. Based on Microsoft .NET

technology, Pivotal 6 provides task-based navigation, embedded including Microsoft Office, Microsoft

Outlook, Microsoft SharePoint, and a smart client user interface.[14]

[edit]Platform and TechnologyPivotal CRM 6.0 is built on theMicrosoft.NETFramework. The product embeds commonly used Microsoft

business products within the CRM system, includingMicrosoft Office,Microsoft Outlook,Microsoft

SharePoint, andMicrosoft Visual Studio. As such, it is an example of anOffice Business Application.

CDC Softwareis a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.[15]

In 2009, CDC Software was awarded the Microsoft

Partner of the Year Award for Information Worker Solutions, Office Deployment on the strength of the

Pivotal CRM solution.[16]

[edit]Implementation

Pivotal CRM is primarily implemented as an on-premise solution, as opposed to software-as-a-service

or on-demand CRM software product.

[edit]Industries

The product line also includes industry-focused versions of Pivotal CRM products for the following

industries:[17]

Financial services[18]

Institutional asset management

Mutual fund wholesaling

Capital markets

Private banking/wealth management

Commercial banking

Healthcare insurance[19]

Home building and real estate[20]

Manufacturing[21]

Medical device manufacturing[22]

[edit]Criticisms

Early versions of Pivotal CRM employed a proprietary scripting language and development environment.

This posed a problem for in-house development teams that had, or wanted to have, a Microsoft-centric

skill set that could be applied to other problems. The development tools were graphical & not always

welcomed by developers who preferred to see lines of code on the screen. Owing to the success of the

early Pivotal versions, and the initial absence of any strategy on the vendor's part to migrate customers to

Pivotal's next-generation platform, many of the largest Pivotal sites in the install base continue to use a

proprietary language.

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