January 25, 2005

CUSTOMER WINS Talisma announced that Midlands Choice has selected Talisma's Healthcare CRM suite to automate its Customer Support and Care to improve customer response. Healthcare CRM is a healthcare-tailored CRM solution designed to anticipate customer needs and enable users single-touch issue resolution across multiple customer touch points. LexisNexis and Interface Software announced that law firm Sussman Shank has selected InterAction as its CRM solution. The firm is integrating InterAction with Microsoft Outlook to provide lawyers and staff access to relationship intelligence via email. Interface Software was recently acquired by LexisNexis, a provider of legal, news, and business information services. IN THE NEWS Witness Systems has completed its acquisition of Blue Pumpkin Software. The total purchase price of approximately $75 million consisted of $40 million in cash and 2.1 million shares of Witness Systems common stock. Solutions from the combined company will offer customers broader contact center capabilities that will include advanced workforce management software. The acquisition expands Witness Systems' software and services by adding forecasting and scheduling. Vcommerce announced yesterday that it has entered into a partnership with Omniture. The agreement will integrate Omniture's SiteCatalyst, an online analytics solution, into Vcommerce's on-demand solutions for managing direct-to-consumer transactions. Vcommerce will market and resell the SiteCatalyst solution to its customer base. The integration of the two will give Vcommerce clients the ability to identify and track factors that affect business success. The configurable analytics solution will be a fully integrated optional component of the Vcommerce offering. NEW PRODUCTS appStrategy, a provider of .NET-connected software tools and solutions for CRM, announced the availability of a rapid application development system that allows Microsoft CRM partners and customers to extend the capabilities of Microsoft CRM. AppRadius is a systems that delivers features for midmarket and enterprise customers. Version 1.5 of appRadius includes an XML-based system configuration engine and data source drivers that support Microsoft CRM's FetchXML, SQL, and legacy formats. TeleTech Holdings, a global provider of customer management and BPO solutions, and Avaya today announced a five-year agreement to jointly market hosted contact-center infrastructure, applications, and professional services to midsize and large enterprises worldwide. The joint offering--Intelligent Systems on Demand--is a suite of contact center solutions and services for businesses that contract out their customer service operations. The solution will allow companies to purchase specific technology or services in an on-demand model that allow them to scale up or down, based on seasonality, growth, or other specific business needs. IBM announced a new service that provides a Web-based repository for documents and records management to help clients comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) regulations. Called IBM Flexible Hosting Solutions, Workplace for Business Controls and Reporting (WBCR) Service, the solution will enable clients to use IBM's WBCR software via the Internet. Companies will be given an alternate to building and running their own technology infrastructure in-house, and will enable users to tap into computer systems in IBM data centers to provide management of WBCR application software. Allen Bonde Group, a management consulting and strategic advisory firm, has launched a series of new packaged advisory services to complement the firm's project-based consulting. The new retainer services provide market insight and access to ABG's expertise. Targeted at software vendors, the services offer on-call access to the firm's experts and include executive planning sessions. Related articles: Talisma Broadens Its Reach in the Contact Center Market Daily Dispatch: January 10, 2005 Witness Systems to Purchase Blue Pumpkin