September 9, 2005

IN THE NEWS Harte-Hanks launched six additional U.S. and European service centers offering a broad range of email marketing services tailored to financial, insurance, pharmaceutical, retail, technology, and other vertical markets. Each center has a staff of email specialists with expertise in vertical direct marketing solutions capable of managing email marketing programs for clients using Harte-Hanks Postfuture Enterprise Edition e-marketing suite. "By shifting email campaign strategy and execution responsibility to locations most familiar with client and industry needs, we are better able to centralize marketing strategy, streamline day-to-day execution, and simply be more responsive," said Richard Merrick, managing director for Postfuture at Harte-Hanks, in a written statement. NetSuite opened a new office in Singapore to provide sales, support, and consulting to customers throughout Asia. "Singapore's excellent infrastructure, supportive government, and ease of accessibility to some of the fastest growing economies in the world make it an ideal launch pad for our continued international expansion," said CEO Zach Nelson in a written statement. "The Singapore office will be fundamental to our continued growth throughout Asia." Alliance Data Systems announced that its Epsilon subsidiary has reached an agreement to acquire BigFoot Interactive, which the company says will play a key role in expanding its North American marketing loyalty services. As a result, the company expects a stronger presence for Epsilon in financial and retail verticals. Once the acquisition is complete, BigFoot will be known as Epsilon Interactive. Verint Systems announced record sales of $74.7 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2005, ending July 31,2005, a 24 percent year-over-year increase. Verint's sales increased approximately 4 percent from the first quarter of 2005. "Our record second quarter sales were due to demand for our actionable intelligence solutions in the security and business intelligence market," said Dan Bodner, Verint CEO and president, in a written statement. NEW PRODUCTS Experian has launched Mosaic France, an international consumer classification product designed exclusively for the French market to help direct marketers communicate more effectively with customers and prospects. It delivers consumer information about everything from hobbies to what newspapers people read to preferred communication channels. L-Soft, a provider of list management software, announced the release of LISTSERV Maestro for Mac OS X. It allows businesses that prefer the Mac operating system to employ LISTSERV Maestro to manage, measure, track, and report the results of their email communication initiatives. ON THE MOVE The Sage Group hired Dave Batt as general manager of global CRM. He previously ran Microsoft's customer and partner adoption of Microsoft CRM, coordinated midmarket sales for Siebel's CRM products, and served as vice president of CRM for the services industry at Oracle. Siebel Systems named Perry Keating senior vice president of global services. Keating will be responsible for the company's professional services, business consulting services, technical training, and end-user education business units. Related articles: Verint Systems Buys The Opus Group Sage Taps Experience to Lead Its Midmarket Segment