The Week in Review: February 20, 2004

In the news... Privately held analytics provider SAS Institute announced financial results for 2003, reporting overall revenue of $1.34 billion. This represented a 13.5 percent increase in revenue growth and marked the 27th consecutive year of profitable revenue growth for SAS, the company says. Salesforce.com is still on track to make its initial public offering of common stock next month. And to reiterate the company's dedication to customer-facing solutions, Salesforce.com has chosen CRM as its ticker symbol. In a move to extend its intellectual capital management capabilities, Verity, a provider of intellectual capital investment software, announced this week that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the intellectual property, certain customer agreements, and other strategic assets of NativeMinds, a privately held provider of integrated self-service solutions. Both companies' boards of directors have approved the definitive purchase agreement under the terms of the all-cash deal, valued at $3.8 million. ACCPAC International, a subsidiary of Computer Associates International, announced this week the availability of more than 50 add-on applications developed by independent software vendors for its ACCPAC CRM software. ASC, a global provider of integrated communications recording and quality monitoring solutions, has announced the opening of its new Federal Government Division which will be dedicated to responding to the government's expanding needs for secure voice and data recording solutions. Deals of the week... Upromise, a service that helps families save for college tuition, has selected Coremetrics as its Web analytics provider. Tellabs, a bandwidth management system supplier for the telecommunications industry, has selected Salesnet's CRM solution to help better manage sales and align internal resources to the right opportunities. Sector Treasury, part of the Capita Group, has installed Achiever CRM software to improve its customer service. The pharmaceutical division of Bayer HealthCare, a subgroup of Bayer AG, has purchased Dendrite's WebForce Express sales effectiveness suite in Turkey. Executive changes... KANA has named Jim Kelly senior vice president of North American sales. Kelly previously served as vice president of decision support sales for Intrepid Systems. Harte-Hanks, a CRM marketing services and targeted media company, announced this week that Paul Steven Hacker has joined the company and will serve as vice president, legal and secretary. Prior to joining Harte-Hanks, Hacker was a partner in the corporate department of the global law firm of Baker Botts LLP. Nicholas Remzi has joined TAH Limited, an information integration firm, as director of its midmarket integrated solutions division. Remzi most recently served as sales and marketing director of CRM specialist Astea International.