The Week in Review: May 9

In the news... Adroit Consulting has offered an opinion on the potential impact of Microsoft CRM on the mid-market space, claiming the product itself isn't much more than "Outlook on steroids." But John Doherty, partner and CTO at Adroit, says that Microsoft will have an important impact. "Conventional wisdom says Microsoft's entry into the CRM software market will raise awareness of the need for these solutions among small to midsize businesses," Doherty said in a statement. "For that, Microsoft is to be congratulated. But greater awareness doesn't guarantee success. With a large number of CRM projects still struggling to meet their defined goals, it's pretty clear by now that success has less to do with the functionality than with defining a clear business strategy and objectives for the CRM initiative, and paying enough attention to organizational change." Salesforce.com has officially announced its first quarter of profitability. In line with expectations, the company says it doubled revenue over the previous first quarter and generated an additional $3.5 million in cash for the quarter. "Salesforce.com generated a profit of more than 1 percent, which makes Salesforce.com the first profitable software-as-service company ever," says Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff. Elevon, a provider of collaborative commerce and knowledge management solutions, today announced that its board of directors has approved and entered into a definitive agreement with SSA Global Technologies, an enterprise software solutions and services vendor, under which SSA would acquire 100 percent of the Elevon common stock for $1.30 per share in the acquisition. Madison Information Technologies, an identity management solutions vendor, announced this week the company's new name, Initiate Systems. The company says that along with the name change it will be expanding from its core vertical, the healthcare market, and entering other vertical industries, including financial services, hospitality, and the public sector. Executive changes... Antenna Software, a provider of wireless solutions for the mobile field service industry, announced the appointments of two senior executives. Frank Kooijman has been named vice president of engineering and customer support and Jim Chou will lead Antenna Software's professional services division as vice president. Kanisa, a provider of customer service applications, has appointed Bruce Armstrong as CEO. Armstrong comes to Kanisa from Internet Capital Group. CommerceHub, which provides supply chain integration and management applications, this week announced the appointment of Jeff Whiteside as the company's COO. HigherGround, a call center recording and monitoring solutions vendor, announced that veteran telecommunications executive Nancy Gates has joined the company as vice president of marketing. Wausau Financial Systems, a provider of payment processing solutions, announced the promotion of David LeBeau to executive vice president of marketing and product development Merkle Direct Marketing has created a new catalog retail services group to serve that vertical, and has appointed Dan Wells as the new vice president of business development for the unit. Carlson Marketing Group says it is merging its partnership consulting and account-aligned partner negotiation groups into a centralized, full-service team. Leading the practice is Paul Queen, director of strategic alliance/partnership marketing. Epsilon, a provider of relationship marketing services, has added two marketing executives. Steven Roth was named vice president, CRM strategy and planning, and Rod Dillehay was named vice president, general manager, client services.