The Week in Review 3/14/03

In the news... More and more retail companies are realizing the importance of making CRM investments, as demonstrated by the Hudson Bay Company's decision to aggressively embrace customer analytics software. Hudson Bay, Canada's largest retailer and oldest corporation, has selected MicroStrategy as its enterprisewide standard for accessing, analyzing, and sharing information. In other analytics news, more proof that the sector is growing rapidly comes from Applix, which provides analytics software in addition to other business intelligence software. The company says that in fourth quarter 2002, ended December 31, 2002, analytics revenues increased sequentially by 22 percent, and analytics license bookings increased 60 percent sequentially. The company says 54 of its 65 new customers in the quarter purchased its iTM1 analytics engine, either in a bundled deal or by itself. More companies have stepped up to offer migration programs for customers of the now-defunct CRM vendor Xchange. Eloqua, a hosted CRM solution, and SAS, which specializes in analytical CRM, have both offered specific migration programs to their product suites. Earlier this week CRM provider Unica announced a similar plan for Xchange users in lieu of making an offer to buy Xchange's assets in a public auction. NICE Systems customers have created a NICE User Group (NUG), the company says. The NUG promotes the optimal benefit obtained from using NICE applications by supporting education and training programs, quality initiatives and events. Executive changes... Dendrite International, which provides sales and marketing solutions for the life science industry, announced the immediate appointment of Kathleen Donovan as CFO. Donovan joined the company in 1997. BMC Software has appointed Jim Grant as vice president and general manager of its Remedy subsidiary. Remedy automates service-related business processes through a suite of out-of-box best-practice service management applications, including Help Desk, Asset Management, and Customer Service and Support. Saratoga Systems, a CRM software provider for medium-to-large multinational organizations, announced this week two new additions to its executive team, Larry Blair and Mario Cavagnari. Blair joins as vice president of professional services and Cavagnari as vice president of sales. SSA Global Technologies, a provider of extended enterprise solutions and services, Thursday announced the appointment of Cory Eaves as vice president of global solutions management and solutions research.