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Enterprise CRM Is Three Sheets to the Wind Forrester doled out quarterly evaluations of enterprise CRM vendors to find out who is best in class and who has been slacking off in the back row. "The Forrester Wave: Enterprise CRM Suites, Q1 2007" finds Oracle's Siebel CRM and SAP's mySAP CRM to be the top performers in the space, but the report asserts that despite sweeping market consolidation, there are still a large number of other solutions that stand as viable options for CRM adoption. Companies should identify functionality and benefits most crucial to their business plans and review a large number of vendors and products to find the best fit for them.

Sage Unveils a New Taste of CRM Sage Software launched the newest edition of its CRM software, SageCRM version 6, for small and medium businesses, an application that company officials say provides advanced training and search capabilities, including instructional feature tours and on-screen coaching and expanded search queries and grouping functionality. The new version also enables integration with other Sage applications for accounting and business management, including Sage Accpac ERP, Sage Pro ERP, Sage MAS 90 ERP, and Sage Timberline Office, as well as integration with a variety of third-party back office systems.

VoIP Has Too Much Variation for SMBs SMBs are still very much in the dark about all the options available to them with VoIP technology, making them less able to take advantage of the cost savings and potential productivity improvements, according to new research from AMI-Partners. "Making the Move to Hosted VoIP or Premise-Based IP-PBX" reveals that most SMBs turn to market leaders like Avaya and Cisco Systems for on-premise needs, and to smaller independents like Covad and M5 Networks for hosting.

Verint: Can I Get a Witness? Verint Systems, a provider of analytics solutions for security and business intelligence, announced plans to acquire workforce optimization vendor Witness Systems, marking a red-letter day for the contact center solutions industry. The marriage of these two giants stands as a move toward more serious consolidation, indicating the growth in the market. The acquisition, which is expected to close by the second quarter of 2007, will cost Verint $27.50 in cash per share for Witness. The total enterprise value of the transaction is approximated at $950 million. The merger will help Verint complement its current solutions and strengthen its focus on the contact center, following its acquisition of Mercom, a provider of interaction recording and performance evaluation tools, in July 2006.

Microsoft Brings Analytics to the Desktop Microsoft has taken another step toward bringing customizable business applications to the desktop. The company has announced general availability of Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation, a free set of prepackaged customizable BI tools and source code, for users of its Dynamics CRM software. With Analytics Foundation, customers and partners can either use the tools out of the box or create customized BI applications, including dashboards, to run on top of Dynamics CRM 3.0, according to Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Microsoft's intention is to provide businesses with role-based access to analytical capabilities normally considered beyond their sphere of knowledge, using the tools to make them part of the everyday Dynamics CRM work environment. (For the full stories and more news, visit destinationCRM.com.)

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