December 14, 2004

CUSTOMER WINS Pepsi-Cola North America has finalized a multiyear contract with Paymentech to have the payment processing firm process credit and debit cards in several hundred vending machines throughout the United States. This deal represents Paymentech's initial foray into the U.S. vending industry. Paymentech will process all credit and debit transactions at Pepsi vending machines in the U.S. that are enabled with cashless vending technology. Currently, Pepsi's bottlers have several hundred of these machines in such high-traffic venues as malls and hotels. Unica has announced that Lenox, the table- and giftware company, will use Unica's Affinium solution for its customer segmentation capabilities. Prior to selecting Affinium Lenox was using a proprietary, homegrown solution that required technical programmers to profile customers. Lenox hopes Affinium will increase the speed and efficiency of its marketing campaigns. NEW PRODUCTS Apptera announced the availability of new applications in its Financial Services Suite. Apptera Account Enrollment, Account Payment, and Mortgage Quote are designed to automate a range of customer service requests. These include establishing new customer accounts, making credit card or loan payments, and receiving quotes for refinancing and new mortgages. ReleMail has released Relemail Email Privacy Certification. The new service audits and certifies email privacy practices. Relemail monitors an organization's email practices and certifies those that meet standards of privacy and professionalism. Rather than using antispam technologies, Relemail employs "email investigators" to secretly subscribe to clients' email newsletters and monitors resulting inbound emails for ethical email practices. The results of those investigations are publicly posted at Relemail.com. NEWS Selectica, a provider of solutions for automating the sales-opportunity-to-order process, and contract management vendor I-many announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to merge. Under the terms of the agreement Selectica will pay $1.55 per share in cash for all outstanding shares of I-many common stock, for a transaction value of $70 million. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, but is still subject to customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2005. Harte-Hanks has named Charles Weir as its managing director, retail market. Recent earnings have shown retail revenues account for greater than one fourth of Harte-Hanks direct marketing revenues. Harte-Hanks also named Kyle Kennedy as its managing director, direct marketing. He will manage the company's Austin, TX-based response management and CRM services. Related article: Daily Dispatch: December 3, 2004