March 1, 2005

CUSTOMER WINS Open Solutions and OmniAmerican Credit Union announced the implementation of Open Solutions' technology platform. The new application will handle the institution's retail transactions, consumer loan servicing, and integration strategy for its more than 241,000 members worldwide. Verint Systems announced that Abbey, a U. K.-based financial services company, selected Verint's ULTRA solution to help enhance the quality of the services it provides to customers across nine contact centers in the United Kingdom and India. Yamaha Motor Europe, the European headquarters of Yamaha Motor Corporation, is implementing Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software to gauge customer insight into new product designs. Yamaha Motor Europe will use the analytics software to improve product evaluation process and to enhance the competitiveness of its existing products. Yamaha Motor Europe gathers customer feedback on new product designs through its online portal, Yamaha Design Cafe. IN THE NEWS IBM announced a series of new Business Partner initiatives to help their clients address pending regulatory requirements and improve data retention solutions through the building of compliance practice areas. As part of the initiative IBM announced a new channel-ready pilot-program initiative that provides Systems Integrators, Business Partners, and Independent Software Vendors with the capabilities to create a Data Retention Center of Competence that can help their clients plan, build, and implement compliance and data retention solutions. Roger Jewett, president of Rare Method, a Canadian interactive marketing firm, announced that the company has expanded the scope of its interactive marketing business with the addition of Video and Motion Graphics team. The new team will focus on the production and development of broadcast marketing and motion graphics initiatives for Rare Method clients. NEW PRODUCTS The newest version of the SAS Enterprise ETL Server has been released. Features include simplified core functions in the extraction, transformation and load (ETL) process, and shortened time required to get key information in to an organization's BI mix. The SAS Enterprise ETL Server is a key component of the SAS 9 Intelligence Platform, which represents the foundation of the SAS 9 family of technologies and solutions. Delivra, an email services company, has launched an upgrade to its email marketing software. The upgrade includes new features and changes to the interface to make Delivra's software easier to use. Upgrades include a new homepage interface, the ability to set recency limits, and to automatically unsubscribe banned email addresses. Related articles: QM Is Poised For Growth The Ideal Shopping Experience