The Week in Review: March 5, 2004

Inforte announced that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Compendit, which provides SAP business intelligence (BI) implementation consulting services. Under the agreement's terms Inforte will pay $5.5 million in cash on closing; additional cash payments may be paid over the next two years, based on 2004 performance. The acquisition allows Inforte to enhance its ability to offer analytics and BI solutions, according to company representatives. Kevin McDonald, CEO and cofounder of Compendit, will lead Inforte's SAP Practice as general manager; the Compendit management team will report to him, and the company's 54 employees will comprise the rest of the business unit. PeopleSoft announced that PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne will support Red Hat Linux for its Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, Supplier Relationship Management, Financial Management, Asset Lifecycle Management, and Project Management applications. EnterpriseOne applications that run on Red Hat Linux will also support the database, application, and Web-server tiers. The development is slated for availability in the Q2 2004 release of EnterpriseOne 8.10. Salesforce.com announced its integration with WebEx Communications' WebEx MediaTone Network to provide a comprehensive, on-demand sales automation and communication service via the sforce platform by summer 2004. The integration will enable customers to launch a WebEx meeting from salesforce.com and to use relevant information from the salesforce.com service. BlueRoads Corporation announced it has acquired $5.3 million in Series B financing from ArrowPath Venture Capital and El Dorado Venture. This accompanies BlueRoads' 100 percent increase in customer acquisition within the first two months of 2004. According to Charles Beeler, general partner at El Dorado Ventures, the financing allows BlueRoads to exceed revenue from direct sales, and to immediately improve the return on channel investment. Deals of the week... PeopleSoft announced that Hobby Lobby, a retail creative center, has chosen its EnterpriseOne applications. Hobby Lobby will deploy the solution's Human Capital Management, Financial Management, and Supplier Relationship Management technology. Dendrite International announced that Celltech Pharmaceuticals, an international pharmaceutical business of European biotechnology company Celltech Group, has signed a new international services agreement with the company. Harte-Hanks made public its acquisition of Avellino Technologies, a developer of data profiling technology. The company also said that it will incorporate Avellino's operations with the Trillium Software division of Harte-Hanks. Ra'anana, a provider of multimedia recording solutions and applications, announced that Contact Center Americas, a call center outsourcer in Colombia, has selected NICE--in partnership with Avaya--for quality management and recording solutions within its newest 600-seat call center. Executive changes... William Goodison has been appointed executive vice president of sales and alliances at Datria, a provider of field service applications. Prior to joining Datria Goodison was group vice president of industry worldwide sales and marketing at J.D. Edwards.