Dennis Callaghan

Enterprises looking to expand customer data analysis into unstructured data will find new software to solve that business problem from Spotfire Inc. and Island Data Corp. Unstructured data is nonnumerical data, typically text, graphics, or audio or video files. The new software deals mainly with text analysis. This week, Spotfire, in Somerville, Mass., will announce […]

The long-forecasted consolidation of the CRM software industry showed signs of picking up again after Pivotal Corp. on Thursday announced plans to acquire marketing automation software vendor MarketFirst Software Inc. Under terms of the agreement, Pivotal will exchange shares of its common stock for all the issued and outstanding securities of privately-held MarketFirst. The value […]

Documentum Inc. announced late Thursday plans to acquire collaboration software developer eRoom Technology Inc., solidifying the bonds between the two companies. The cash-stock deal is valued at around $125 million. The companies had been working together to offer integration between their respective applications, Documentums enterprise content management software and eRooms team collaboration software. The acquisition […]

Following the release this week of IBMs Lotus Software divisions Notes and Domino 6 platform, Microsoft Corp. next week will unveil more of its forthcoming Titanium release at its Microsoft Exchange Conference in Anaheim, Calif. And as Lotus did with Notes and Domino 6, Microsoft officials will tout reductions in the total ownership cost of […]

IBMs Lotus Software division debuted the long-awaited Version 6 of its Notes and Domino messaging platform Tuesday along with three new collaboration products. During a launch event at the divisions Cambridge, Mass., headquarters, Lotus officials formally announced Notes and Domino 6 along with Version 3 of its Sametime instant messaging and online meetings platform; its […]

Amdocs ltd. has added a browser-based interface and enhanced support for business process management and integration in an upgrade to its ClarifyCRM software. ClarifyCRM 11 is the first release of the customer relationship management software since Amdocs, of Chesterfield, Mo., acquired it from Nortel Networks Corp. last year. With the upgrade, ClarifyCRM catches up with […]

In the two years since the release of Microsoft Corp.s Exchange 2000, less than half of the Exchange user base has upgraded from previous versions of the messaging platform. To try to spur migration along, developers of administrative tools for Exchange will gather at next weeks Microsoft Exchange Conference, in Anaheim, Calif., to roll out […]

William McDermott is alive and well and the new CEO and president of SAP America Inc. The company named the former top sales executive at Siebel Systems Inc. to head its North American operations Tuesday. McDermott replaces Leo Apotheker, president of Global Field Operations and executive board member of SAP AG, who had headed SAP […]

E.piphany Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced a partnership Monday to integrate Microsofts MapPoint.Net geographic mapping system with E.piphanys E.6 customer relationship management software suite. MapPoint, a .Net-based Web service, will allow users of the E.piphany Sales 6 application to map customer locations, obtain driving directions and plot travel itineraries from within the application. Customers would […]

A common standard for developing multimodal applications—those that combine speech, text and graphics—is closer than ever, according to IBM Corp. executive Ozzie Osborne. Osborne, an IBM vice president and segment manager of Big Blues Pervasive Computing group, delivered the opening keynote at the Friday session of the VoiceXML Planet Conference and Expo in Boston. He […]

SAS Institute Inc. has announced plans to add a new product to its analytical CRM arsenal, one that would analyze customer interactions in real-time to improve personalization. The new product, SAS Interaction Management, will apply real-time analysis to all inbound and outbound customer interactions to enable more effective multi-channel dialogues with customers, SAS officials said. […]

IBM is putting another stake into the ground in the small-to-midsize business CRM space, partnering with Clear Technologies Inc. to bring customer relationship management solutions to that market segment, the companies will announce Thursday. The deal calls for IBM to package Clears C2 CRM suite with its hardware, middleware and database technologies. The companies will […]