Ryan B. Patrick

A sudden influx of large donations poured in to World Vision Canada after the recent Southeast Asia tsunami disaster. This occurred just as the humanitarian aid and relief organization was in the process of deploying a new customer relationship management solution. The tsunami crisis reinforced how important it was for the organization to improve the way it managed contact information.

Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), a Valcourt, Que.-based snowmobile and watercraft maker whose brands include Ski-Doo, Sea-Doo and Evinrude, recently signed a seven-year technology products and services contract with Dell Inc.

Tom Marlor, deputy chief and Ross Memmolo, manager of computer services, both of the Hamilton Police Service, decided to throw the book at an old content management scheme during a recent Web site redesign. The Hamilton Police Service is deploying Web content management software to improve its community-based policing initiatives.

IBM Corp. intends to forge stronger bonds between its messaging and collaboration tools with updated versions of Lotus Notes and Domino, which were launched last month at the Lotusphere user conference in Orlando, Fla.

Larry Finnson readily admits that business software vendor SAP AG is typically regarded as a large enterprise vendor. But the president and co-founder of small-to-midsize business (SMB) candy manufacturer Chris and Larry's Clodhoppers recently deployed an SAP software solution anyway. The project paid off in spades. The firm implemented SAP Business One enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, a product SAP says is geared specifically to the SMB market.

The Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ont. (Waterloo Region) recently automated its paper-based content management processes as a way to improve public accountability, a city official said Wednesday. Waterloo Region recently implemented a corporate-wide electronic document and records management (EDRM) system from content management vendor Hummingbird Ltd. Kris Fletcher, director, council and administrative services/regional clerk for the municipality said Waterloo Region is using the Hummingbird Enterprise platform as part of an effort to improve public accountability by lowering the risk of lost or unmanaged electronic and paper documents.

Sudbury may well have a reputation for its nickel deposits, but this Ontario municipality says it has struck gold with a new desktop management platform. The amalgamated city of Greater Sudbury, Ont. recently standardized its IT environment of 1,400 workstations and 80 business applications on a Novell Inc. desktop management system

Industrial packaging company Greif Inc. estimates it is currently saving $1 million in IT costs since consolidating on a single platform. The firm recently underwent an IT consolidation strategy using SSA Global technology and the IBM Corp. i5 eServer hardware platform.