Cary Sherburne:  Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I’m here with Bill Parker, who is the Chief Marketing Officer for GMC Software Technology.  Welcome.  

Bill Parker:  Hi, welcome Cary.  

Cary Sherburne:  It’s nice to see you again.  

Bill Parker:  Yes, it’s good to be back.  

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah.  So we talked earlier with your CEO, Renee Mueller, about the strategy behind your rebranding.  Maybe you can talk to us a little – because you did a lot of work with this, I hear.  

Bill Parker:  Yeah, it’s been a – it’s been a great project for us to work on.  And, whilst it’s not really a rebranding; it is actually a new solution.  

Cary Sherburne:  Okay.  

Bill Parker:  But what we’ve actually done is we’ve been able to actually sort of capitalize on the experience, we’ve actually built up over, you know, 20 years, with our existing product and actually combined that together and actually bringing in new functionality, a new product to actually build a new solution.  

Cary Sherburne:  And so, this solution, as we talked about with Renee, could be implemented as a whole or modularly, depending on how people want to… 

Bill Parker:  Exactly, I mean, they obviously, GMC Inspire is actually a single customer engagement platform.  And the objective is that, it actually labels customers to actually continually engage with their customers.  But of course, different organizations need to actually do different things at different times.  So whilst the solution is a single platform, it can actually be deployed and actually tailored and configured to the exact needs of the customer. 

Cary Sherburne:  So for example, if someone wanted to start by really getting into the analytics piece, they could do that.  If they wanted to, you know, if that’s where they choose to start, they could just get that part.  

Bill Parker:  They can indeed, yes.  So they can take some of the response management or just some of the customer insight pieces and actually build out exactly the pieces they need to actually sort of put that into their existing process.  

Cary Sherburne:  So will they be able to do some of this themselves or will they need professional services?  How will that work?  

Bill Parker:  The whole objective for our solution is to actually enable it to be basically administered, you know, by the user.  But of course, there are always times when there is actually some consulting, some work that needs to be doing, maybe it’s actually resourcing issue that need they may have.  And so James have built a team to actually cater for all of that and actually help the customer because the objective is to actually make sure that the customer can do what they want as fast as possible so they can start to get the results.  

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah, exactly.  That’s what they need.  And then the whole cloud thing.  That’s new for you, right?  

Bill Parker:  It is new, but I mean, obviously the cloud is actually a major, major actually sort of advancement in the IT world.  So you know, we can’t sort of sit back and say, “Eh, we’re not going to work with the cloud.”  It has to be there.  And that’s actually part of one of the strategic developments of the whole solution.  

Cary Sherburne:  You know, a lot of the work that people are doing with you solution has to do with highly confidential data, you know, transactional data and that kind of thing.  And so do you see those kinds of applications moving into the cloud?  Are people trusting that enough these days?  

Bill Parker:  I think that’s the challenge.  And I think for transactional data as well, the big issue is the amount of data.  So actually, transferring those huge amounts of data up into the cloud is still a challenge.  And I think what we will see is, over time, that may actually happen.  But I think people are going to be very cautious about what information they transfer.  And I think what we have to do is help them to really building security of the data.  Being able to actually… and you know equip the data and actually make sure that what they’re sending out is really secure.  And I think once we can do that, then people will actually sort of move along with that.  

Cary Sherburne:  And then also, maybe for smaller businesses, it’s an easier way to get into the product.  

Bill Parker:  Sure, yeah.  I mean, it’s like you say, it’s actually instant, basically.  You log on, you sign in and then you’re actually ready to go.  

Cary Sherburne:  You’re there, yeah.  Well that’s really exciting.  So, we’ll look forward to seeing how – I’m sure you’re going to be like beta testing this with customers or before the June availability.  

Bill Parker:  Yeah, we are indeed.  I mean, in fact, the product is actually being tested at the moment with a certain number of customers and we’re actually sort of extending that test to a wider audience actually at the end of April. So you know, during the following months, May and June, that’s when we’ll actually sort of finalize all of the testing and then ready for the launch.  

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great.  And we don’t have a picture of it here, but the logo is pretty cool.  And when will the website be available and reflect all of that?  

Bill Parker:  You can actually go there today.  There is actually… the Inspire site is actually ready today.  You can just log on… if you go on and actually sort of, GMCInspire.net, you can find out exactly what there.  You know, we actually put together a nice little clip to try and explain exactly what GMC Inspire does in less than two minutes.  

Cary Sherburne:   GMCInspire.net.  

Bill Parker:  Exactly.  

Cary Sherburne:  And then we have this little guy, who I understand is you without glasses.  

Bill Parker:  That’s what they say, but it really isn’t me.  That’s just purely a coincidence.  

Cary Sherburne:  Well, I’m gonna rip his head right off.  

Bill Parker:  Fine… 

Cary Sherburne:  Because he’s a USB.  This is very cool.  Very creative. 

Bill Parker:  You know what?  Maybe it is me because I’m sure there are a few people who would like to do that same thing.  

Cary Sherburne:  Thanks for sharing with us today, Bill.  

Bill Parker:  No problem.  Thanks Cary.