The Week in Review: May 14, 2004

In the news... Siebel Systems announced that Lockheed Martin has selected Siebel business applications to provide core support of the F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). The F-35 is a supersonic aircraft designed to replace a range of aging fighter and strike aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps; the UK Royal Air Force and Royal Navy; and allied defense forces worldwide. The F-35 aircraft's health and maintenance actions are generated through the ALIS. Using Siebel, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Team will provide support to international warfighters anywhere in the world. This use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software is expected to increase weapons systems availability through proactive, warfighter-centric support to the fleet of F-35s. According to Brian Stone, general manager of the Siebel public sector, "Siebel Service and Siebel Analytics will assist the JSF program in proactively looking at its service needs, predicting weapons systems failures, and increasing mission flight time." The solution enables a unified view of all maintenance activity, issue resolution, communications, and inquiries, allowing the warfighter, the F-35, and the JSF support organizations to seamlessly exchange information. It will offer a service solution to generate and respond to service requests, regardless of location or method of access; requests from the field, via email, the Web, or phone, will be routed to appropriately address the customer's needs. Rockwell FirstPoint Contact announced sales of $33.3 million for its second quarter earnings, compared to sales of $24.4 million in 2003's second quarter. Operating earnings were $5.7 million for the quarter, compared to breakeven for the same quarter in 2003. The company attributes the boost to its sales of enhanced application software, selling and shipping over 12,000 agents seats from January 2004 through March 2004. Rockwell also acquired several new-name global customers, such as Unity4, Averitt Express, and Portman Building Society. IntelliCare, a provider of medical contact center services and technology, announced that Ellen Curran, RNC, CEN has been named the 2004 Telenurse of the Year, and that Beth Roehm, RN has been named a finalist. IntelliCare launched the Telenurse of the Year award this year to recognize outstanding achievement in the expanding field of telenursing. "Because our nurses deliver care via the phone, they develop a unique set of skills for assessing and building relationships with patients," according to Victor C. Otley III, CEO of IntelliCare. Potential nominees for the award are evaluated in the areas of patient experience improvement, contribution to the advancement of the telenursing profession, and professional growth as a telenurse. Deals of the week... Amdocs announced that Vodafone Hungary, an affiliate of mobile telecommunications network Vodafone Group, has made a contract to use Amdocs Enabler as its new legacy billing system. Genesys Telecommunications announced that Teleperformance USA, a contact center outsourcer, has purchased Genesys Voice Platform and Genesys Framework. RightNow Technologies announced that Corel, maker of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and WordPerfect Office, has deployed the RightNow Service solution for its worldwide technical support operation. eGain Communications announced that Cox Newspapers has deployed eGain Email 6.0 for the customer email management of two of its divisions, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Palm Beach Post. eGain also announced that eHarmony, an Internet relationship service, has selected the hosted version of eGain's software to provide personalized customer service through email, chat, and Web self-service. Alliance Data Systems, a provider of transaction services, credit services, and marketing services, has selected Unica's Affinium Suite for its marketing planning and campaign execution. Transcom, a European outsourced services organization, has chosen to implement Altitude Software's Altitude uCI 7 solution in all of its 40 sites. Tyson Foods has chosen to implement the CRM solutions within the mySAP Business Suite, integrating the technology into its operating units to run end-to-end trade promotion management processes. Executive changes... Witness Systems has appointed Steve Allen its senior vice president of international operations. Prior to Witness Allen most recently served as senior vice president of EMEA for BEA Systems. Dr. James Hubbell and Peter Krogh have joined Tell-Eureka to head the company's Voice User Interface Team. Dr. Hubbell comes to Tell-Eureka with a history at Bell Labs and AT&T Labs; Krogh joins as the founder of VUI Design Services. Indus International, a provider of service delivery management solutions, announced the appointment of Thomas W. Williams Jr. as CFO. Williams comes to the company with over 20 years of financial leadership experience.