The Week in Review: July 23, 2004

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM announced that it has been recognized in the industry as one of the fastest growing small and midmarket CRM solutions. More than 2,500 organizations have acquired Microsoft CRM, which represents more than 100,000 users since the product's launch in January 2003. In a recent AMR Research report, AMR analyst Laura Preslan said, "Microsoft CRM saw amazing growth in 2003, topping the charts with a 94 percent growth rate. Customer references cite three top reasons for why they invest in Microsoft CRM: viability, Outlook integration, and ease of use." ChannelWave announced that the company's results in the first two quarters of 2004 were its strongest and most profitable to date. Since the December 2003 merger of ChannelWave Software and Aqueduct, the combined company has increased bookings by 300 percent, and revenues by 70 percent. Other highlights of the first two quarters of 2004 for the company include international expansion in Europe and the availability of its PRM solution is 10 languages, the 6.1 release of its channel management solution, and a "Promising" rating in the Partner Relationship Management MarketScope published by Gartner. Dendrite International has completed its acquisition of Schwarzeck-Verlag GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutscher Aerzte Verlag GmbH, based in Munich. Schwarzeck is a provider of physician databases, direct marketing services, and sample fulfillment services to pharmaceutical companies in Germany. Deals of the week... ChannelWave announced two new customers this week: InterFirst Wholesale Mortgage Lending, a division of ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, and ATI Technologies, a manufacturer of 3D graphics and digital media products. InterFirst Wholesale Mortgage has chosen ChannelWave's PRM solution for its mortgage broker, construction, and correspondent lending partners, and ATI Technologies has selected ChannelWave to launch full-service commerce sites in Canada and the United States. Harte-Hanks announced that it is providing database marketing services for IBM's EMEA (Europe-Middle East-Africa) Market Intelligence division. These services include campaign list selection, campaign response handling, and marketing data management for its integrated B2B marketing campaigns. UCN, a provider of business telecommunications services, announced that Simple.Net, an ISP provider, selected UCN's inContact product for its call center reporting tools and ACD features. MicroStrategy announced that DuPont Crop Protection Products has selected the MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform for enterprisewide reporting and analysis. Alpine Access, a provider of outsourced call center solutions using home-based agents, announced a one-year agreement with Office Depot to provide inbound call center support for the company's commercial clients. Escend, a global design-win management enterprise software developer for semiconductor and electronic component manufacturers, announced that Zetex Semiconductors plc, a provider of analog semiconductors for signal processing and power management, has selected Escend's management software. Dendrite International announced that the Canadian subsidiary of a pharmaceutical company's consumer healthcare division has chosen Dendrite's sales force effectiveness and trade promotions management solutions to promote the company's over-the-counter products. iPhrase announced its customer wins for the first half of 2004, which include companies such as Carnival Cruise Lines, Dell, Netegrity, Radio Shack, Bank One, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, FCC. Aprimo recently completed an acquisition of UK-based Then, an MRM competitor. Aprimo CEO Bill Godfrey says the purchase helps Aprimo strengthen its capabilities in marketing campaign fulfillment and distribution. The company has integrated Then's technology as three optional Aprimo modules, focused on collateral customization, print-on-demand management, and an advertising creation and publishing tool. Executive changes... Harte-Hanks has promoted Mark Picone to the position of managing director of its database services division and data center facility in Baltimore. Picone was most recently CTO of Harte-Hanks' direct response agency, Harte-Hanks Direct. The company has also appointed Bill Bullington as managing director of its marketing services facility in Fullerton, CA. Prior to Harte-Hanks, Bullington was a founding partner for Direct Distribution Services, a Web-enabled presort mailing facility. Larry D'Angelo joined iPhrase as senior vice president of worldwide field operations, and Paul Esdale has been named senior vice president of business development for the company. D'Angelo comes to iPhrase most recently from DataPower, and Esdale comes from a history in leading partner organizations for Revenio, upromise, and Open Market. New products... Dieselpoint has introduced Dieselpoint Search 3.0, the newest version of its search software. The technology provides a comprehensive, all-Java solution to help find information in documents, databases, and XML. New features of the Dieselpoint Search 3.0 include a new graphical administrative interface to add, modify, and query indexes; a forced-rankings feature to tweak relevance ranking and ensure that results are presented in the desired order; and new crawler and scheduler features. Visible Path Corporation, a developer of relationship capital management software and services, released its Visible Path v1.0 solution. The Visible Path platform enables large companies to develop their own, private relationship networks of employees and partners. Features of the new release include scalability to support terabytes of relationship data, performance and reliability for large enterprise deployments, and enhanced security and session management.