December 15, 2004

CUSTOMER WINS Hospitality Solutions International (HSI) has adopted Best Software's SalesLogix 6.2 as the sales CRM system for its offsite representatives. The company, which provides point-of-sale systems and management services to the restaurant, entertainment, and hospitality business, migrated from Best's ACT!. HSI elected to stay with a laptop-based remote client to ensure that the highly mobile sales team would not lose functionality while unplugged. Collections Etc. will work with Harte-Hanks to refine its marketing database and strategy. The gift cataloger intends to improve its insight into customer activities and grow ahead of its competition by shifting from a mass-marketing strategy to targeted marketing hinging on customer patterns and preferences. Improved accuracy and precision of revenue forecasts is also expected from the deal. MTS Systems (MTS) has expanded its use of Salesforce.com across its entire Test Segment business. MTS, maker of engineering test equipment and industrial gauges, has been a Salesforce.com user for more than two years, and has now extended the use of the system to markets accounting for nearly all of global revenue. The project includes back-end integration with MTS's ERP system. Additionally, Bowne Global Solutions, an international technical and corporate writing and translation firm, has selected Salesforce.com to continue to drive the sales process for its services in about 40 offices across two dozen countries. Bowne, which inherited a Salesforce.com implementation when it bought a competitor in 2002, has customized its use of the system to include advanced tracking of lost opportunities, as well as integration with a proprietary project management program. The international deployment allows enforcement of master sales agreements at any office. NEWS Omniture and DoubleClick announced that the Omniture Web analytics system, SiteCatalyst, will take the place of DoubleClick's SiteAdvance system, beginning in Q1 2005. DoubleClick will begin voluntary migration at that point, although discontinuing SiteAdvance is on the agenda. SiteCatalyst will integrate with DoubleClick's DARTmail and DART for Advertisers online advertising servers, and DoubleClick will act as an Omniture analytics reseller to customers using other ad serving solutions. CallMiner, a speech analytics developer, announced two key executive changes. Mike Dwyer will now lead all CallMiner software development. Dwyer was previously the software chief architect, charged with expanding the CallMiner product's integration capabilities and analytical accuracy. Mike Pahner, a veteran of IBM, Aspect, and eTalk, joins CallMiner as region sales director, where he will head up channel partner sales for the growth-minded company. Related articles: Overstock.com Zeroes in on its Customers