The Week in Review: October 17, 2003

In the news... SAP AG reported a slight slip in revenue for the third quarter ended September 30, but net income was up. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2003 were down 3 percent, to euro 1.65 billion ($1.91 billion), while net income increased 25 percent, to euro 252 million ($292 million). Patrick Walravens, managing director and senior research analyst with JMP Securities, says SAP is poised for even more gains: "We expect SAP to continue to gain market share and to benefit from improving closing rates as the economy strengthens globally." Siperian, a customer data integration-solutions provider, announced this week it has acquired Delos Technology, a developer of information reliability software. Siperian will integrate Delos's CMX (Consolidate, Manage, and eXchange) product into its existing customer data integration solution by the end of the year, adding to its own data-quality capabilities, according to the company. Speech recognition telephony software revenue is on pace to reach $130 million in 2003, up from $128 million in 2002, according to the latest research from Gartner. The speech recognition industry hit its peak in 2000, when worldwide revenue totaled $140 million, but the industry suffered declines in 2001 and 2002, according to Gartner. Intalio, a business process management (BPM) provider, is expanding into Europe, opening two new offices, in Brussels and London. The Aberdeen Group forecasts that BPM spending in Europe will reach $850 million in 2003, and will top $1.67 billion in 2005. Deals of the week... iPhrase Technologies announced that the Corporate Communications Broadcast Network, a provider of Web-based solutions for the investment community, has selected iPhrase to power its search functions. Group 1 Software has announced that Fingerhut Direct has selected Group 1's data quality solutions to refresh and consolidate its customer data. Executive changes... Voice Print International, a provider of integrated communications solutions for digital voice, data and screen recording and quality management, has appointed Michael Smith as vice president and chief technology officer. Smith previously served as vice president and CTO for Magnasync/Moviola Corporation. ICICI OneSource, and Indian BPO provider, announced Thursday the appointment of Raja Gopalakrishnan as regional director, North America. Gopalakrishnan was formerly vice president, insurance and retail banking, at the company. TuVox, a provider of conversational voice response applications for call centers, announced this week the appointment of John Kirst as vice president of business development. In 1990 Kirst cofounded Edify Corporation, a global provider of enterprise CRM and customer contact-enter software.