December 1, 2004

NEWS Customer support provider Sento announced that it has completed its acquisition of the operating assets of contact solution provider Xtrasource. The transaction included the purchase of Xtrasource's assets and assumption of approximately $500,000 in net liabilities. Additionally, Sento acquires all the stock in Xtrasource's wholly owned European operations. According to Patrick O'Neal, president and CEO of Sento, the combine operations are already recognizing revenue and adding customers. In addition, it gives Sento an established operation in Europe. CUSTOMER WINS Callidus Software revealed the details of a recent implementation of its incentive management system at Wachovia General Bank. The financial institution replaced its internal compensation engine with the Callidus TrueComp system, to better monitor and execute complex compensation plans for 25,000 employees and contractors. Wachovia currently manages dozens of different, tiered compensation programs, accounting for more than 2 million monthly transactions. Talisma announced that insurance provider ICICI Lombard has deployed Talisma V6. ICICI Lombard plans to use Talisma to enhance its customer service with quicker and more accurate claims processing. Using Talisma ICICI Lombard's customer service reps get a 360-degree view of each customer on one screen, as well as a complete trail of all past interactions. Additionally, the systems has created an integrated claims process that simplifies the process, saving agents time. The initial results show an increase in customer retention and faster, more accurate claims processing. According to Sudhir Salian, head of IT and retail for ICICI Lombard, the company is "focused on using multichannel and self-service capabilities" to spur growth, and is using Talisma to support those efforts. NEW PRODUCTS SugarCRM announced the immediate availability of its Sugar Cube server. The rack-mount enterprise server ships with SugarCRM Professional installed and ready to integrate into most common small-business IT environments. The Sugar Cube comes in two flavors, designed to support up to 100 and up to 400 users, respectively. According to the company, it uses the exact same Sugar Cube hardware platforms to run its hosted services for customers in its data center. Nsite, which provides BPA capabilities via on-demand delivery, has announced details of its integration capabilities with Salesforce.com. Nsite's Sales Operation SmartSuite focuses on purchasing, sales operations (including pricing and contract approval), and field-service ticketing and reporting. Those features may now be accessed within a Salesforce.com screen, rather than requiring the use of both applications side-by-side. Related articles: Earnings Roundup