Channel-Only ASP Entellium Officially Launches CRM Service

"We won't sell directly. Period," said Paul Johnston, Entellium's chairman, president and CEO. "Every dollar we collect means money down the line for a partner."

Launched in 2000, Entellium's key customers include Honda Motors, Telus Communications, Standard Charter Bank and Pan Pacific Hotels. The company has established U.S. headquarters in Seattle and is opening additional sales offices in Montvale, N.J., Austin, Texas, and Phoenix. Johnston told CRN Entellium initially wants to recruit 35 VARs in these four areas. The company has already signed up three in the Seattle region, including Lyon Technical Services, which provides IT outsourcing, computer support and system integration for small and midsize businesses.

"When we came across Entellium, it seemed a good fit for our clients who want full-fledged CRM but don't have the funds," said Shawn Martin, vice president of sales and marketing at Lyon. "It's a better price than Salesforce.com and a lot more attractive for us to work with because of the attractive margins. With Entellium, we get an ongoing revenue stream for the life of the contract, which is a lot better than a onetime hit."

Entellium's software primarily comprises sales automation, customer care and marketing modules that can be subscribed to individually: All three feature more advanced workflow capabilities than typically are found in CRM applications, enabling customers to craft business processes to mirror fairly sophisticated requirements.

With eSalesForce, customers can track both recurring and non-recurring revenue, making the software appropriate for handling partner relationships as well as those with customers. Other features include realtime reporting and analytics, as well as voice-recognition capabilities that enable users to use their phones to update and retrieve sales-related information.

The eCustomerCare module also takes advantage of voice-recognition technology so end-user customers can call in services incidents. Additional features include online chat and the ability to route service requests to specific customer representatives.

Entellium customers can use its eMarketing module to plan and track marketing campaigns. The module offers computer telephony integration to identify callers over on-screen pop-ups.

Entellium pricing depends on the number of modules, per user. A two-module subscription, for example, costs $59 per month for each user. Three modules cost $67. Unlike Salesforce.com, customers can give users only those modules they need. With Salesforce.com, when one user requires the full suite of capabilities, costing about $125 a month, customers must put the full suite in the hands of every user in the company.

Johnston said Entellium is recruiting three kinds of partners. The first tier encompasses strategic alliance partners, which can private-label or OEM Entellium's software. According to Johnston, such partners "tend to provide their own first level of support to their customer via their own help desk, can integrate our software with theirs, and they enjoy a larger commitment and share of revenue from Entellium."

Resellers and systems integrators, which receive an average 35 percent margin for the lifetime of the customer's contract, make up the second level. Such partners can provision the software and configure workflow on behalf of customers. "We call this the hybrid VAR model," Johnston said. "Partners receive monthly, dependable income--plus they can continue to charge for training [and] premium-level support for customizing workflows and for application integration using our EntelliCOM toolkit."

"With other vendors you might find your name on their Web site, and you never hear 'boo' from them," Martin said. "These guys actively work for us, put technical people at our disposal and really support us."

Finally, Entellium is going after online partners looking to extend their own portals with additional hosted services. These Entellium marketing partners will receive referral fees whenever they send business to Entellium or its channel.