Entellium
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, Customer relationship management |
| Founded | May 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia |
| Founder | Paul Johnston |
| Defunct | December 2, 2008 |
| Fate | Acquired by Intuit through bankruptcy proceedings |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington , United States |
Area served | Small to mid-sized enterprises |
Key people | Paul Johnston (Founder, former CEO), Parrish L. Jones (former CFO) |
| Products | Rave, eSalesForce, eCustomerCenter |
Entellium was an American software firm that focused on providing cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solutions tailored for small to mid-sized enterprises. The company was eventually acquired by Intuit through bankruptcy proceedings; nevertheless, as of October 2009, Intuit reportedly did not implement the acquired software.
Company overview
Established in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in May 2000 by Paul Johnston, who previously held a sales executive role at Apple, Entellium moved its main operations to Seattle, Washington in 2003, while continuing to operate a research and development center in Kuala Lumpur.
Wire fraud incident
On October 7, 2008, former CEO Paul Thomas Johnston and CFO Parrish L. Jones were apprehended and charged with wire fraud due to deceptive practices involving the misrepresentation of company revenue figures. According to the FBI, the reported revenues were grossly overstated: actual revenue for 2006 was $582,789 but was falsely declared at nearly $4 million; 2007 revenue was $1.4 million but inflated to $6.2 million; and 2008 revenue stood at $1.7 million while being reported as $5.2 million.
These fraudulent financial statements secured substantial private funding, including $19 million from Bellevue-based Ignition Partners, who asserted that they would have withheld investment had they been aware of the accurate financial data. In the aftermath of these arrests, Entellium reduced its workforce by 40 employees.
Bankruptcy proceedings
Entellium filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on December 2, 2008, which facilitated the sale of certain assets to the financial software company Intuit.
Product offerings
The company provided two customer relationship management platforms alongside an issue tracking solution:
- Rave, a smart client CRM application constructed using the Windows Presentation Foundation
- eSalesForce, a web-based CRM solution developed on the ASP.NET Framework
- eCustomerCenter, a web-based issue tracking system
Gamer-inspired design approach
Entellium integrated gamer-inspired design (GID) elements into its Rave application, utilizing video game mechanics to boost user interaction and efficiency. Notable GID features included:
- Star-based ranking system for leads and deals
- Dynamic animated visuals
- Context-sensitive activity groupings
- Comprehensive contact database
- Personalized user profiles
- Performance ranking metrics for users
External links
- 2000 establishments in Malaysia
- Customer relationship management software companies
- Customer relationship management software
- Defunct online companies of the United States
- Fraud in the United States
- Intuit
- Software companies based in Seattle
- Defunct software companies of the United States
- Malaysian companies established in 2000
- Software companies established in 2000