January 28, 2005

NEWS Siebel Systems has announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2004 and the year. Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2004 were $392 million, a 24 percent increase over the third quarter of 2004. License revenues were $161 million, a 54 percent increase over the third quarter of 2004; maintenance revenues were $122 million, a 4 percent increase over the third quarter of 2004; and services and other revenues were $109 million, a 15 percent increase over the third quarter of 2004. Earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2004 were 10 cents per share, a 233 percent increase over the third quarter of 2004. Income for the fourth quarter benefited from an effective tax rate of 32 percent. Total revenues for 2004 were $1.34 billion, a 1 percent decrease from 2003. The company earned $487 million in license revenues, a 1 percent increase from 2003; maintenance revenues were $470 million, a 5 percent increase from 2003; and services and other revenues were $383 million, representing a 9 percent decrease from 2003. Earnings per share for 2004 were 20 cents, a 21 cent per-share increase over 2003. Income for 2004 benefited from an effective tax rate of 37 percent. Sento, a multichannel customer service solutions provider, has reported its results for the third quarter of fiscal 2005, which ended December 31, 2004. The company's results include the results of Xtrasource, which it acquired in 2004. For the third quarter of fiscal 2005, the company reported consolidated revenues of $10 million and a gross profit of $2 million. Including a bad debt provision of $475,000, or 12 cents per diluted share, Sento reported an operating loss of $182,974 and a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $298,400, or 8 cents per diluted share. Excluding the bad debt provision, which resulted from the inability of a customer to pay its receivable balance, the company earned an operating income of $292,026 for the fiscal 2005 third quarter. Inforte, a BI consultancy, has announced its 2004 results. Its fourth quarter revenue was $11 million, and net revenue was $9.8 million, which represents 14 percent growth year over year. Its 2004 revenue was $50.1 million, and net revenue was $43.9 million, up 35 percent from 2003 and representing organic growth of 7 percent. Pro forma diluted earnings per share were 7 cents, compared to 16 cents for the previous year. NEW PRODUCTS ATG has unveiled ATG Marketing, a solution that delivers targeted cross-channel e-marketing capabilities to its users. With the solution marketers can take their customers' histories and create personalized, fully integrated offers across channels, including the Web, email, contact centers, and direct mail. Features include customer process-flow capabilities, customer segmentation capabilities, event-driven marketing and proactive service features that help spur upsell and cross-sell opportunities, A/B split testing to help marketers determine what offers and navigation garner the best results, and optional inbound email response management. ATG Marketing fully integrates with ATG Commerce and ATG Adaptive Customer Assistance. CUSTOMER WINS Orrtax Software Solutions, Keystone Helicopter, and ClearCube Technology have selected Salesforce.com. Orrtax, an income tax preparation software provider, and Keystone Helicopter selected the on-demand vendor to manage and share consolidated customer information. ClearCube uses Salesforce.com to provide real-time customer information via any Web connection or mobile device, which has helped to increase lead generation, shorten the sales cycle, and improve sales representative productivity. DataMentors has announced that Dollar Bank has selected DataMentor's modular data-cleansing and relationship-matching system, DataFuse, to develop and deliver targeted marketing campaigns via the channel that fit its customers' needs. The data quality solutions provider also designed a marketing database model in Dollar Bank's existing Oracle environment that allowed the financial institution to transfer the files cleaned by DataFuse directly into Oracle tables. ON THE MOVE DataDelta has announced that Ron Friedman, former president and COO of Group 1 Software, has joined DataDelta's board of advisors. Related articles: Siebel Moves Beyond Messaging Enterprise CRM: Change Is Inevitable