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Pivotal Evaluates CDC Offer
The Special Committee of Pivotal announced that Pivotal's shareholders have approved a further adjournment of the shareholders' meeting. The meeting will be reconvened on Wednesday, December 3, 2003 in Vancouver, British Columbia. In addition, Pivotal has received from the Oak Group a waiver from certain requirements of the arrangement agreement between Pivotal and the Oak Group. The waiver permits the Special Committee, subject to certain conditions, to immediately begin discussions and negotiations with CDC.

Altitude uCI 7 Announced
Altitude Software announced the general availability of Altitude uCI 7, a suite of customer interaction management solutions designed to deliver return on investment and improve operational effectiveness in the contact center, at the lower total cost of ownership. Designed to be independent from platform and infrastructure, the new Altitude uCI 7 delivers personalized customer service and keeps customer information across communication channels.

RightNow Joins Fight Against Spam
RightNow announced that it has joined the Network Advertising Initiative's (NAI) Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC) to support legitimate marketers' fight against spam. RightNow joins a list of email service providers in their effort to preserve the integrity of email as an effective business communication medium by delivering technology solutions to eradicate spam, collaborating with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to refine spam policies, building consumer awareness and helping to define public policy.   (about RightNow)

Gartner Identifies New Platform
Business process fusion will create demand for cross-functional, end-to-end process applications, however, vendors are trying to figure out how to compete in this new technology platform, according to Gartner. Gartner has identified business process fusion as a set of trends impacting business applications, software infrastructure and their role in supporting business processes. Business process fusion is the transformation of business activities achieved by integrating previously autonomous business processes, to create a new scope of management capabilities. The technology platform for fusion applications will combine the infrastructure of application servers and integration brokers with portal, content management and collaboration support technology.

eGain Service 6 Gains Momentum
Several companies in industry sectors such as outsourcing, travel and hospitality, financial services, telecom and retail have implemented eGain Service 6. Among early customers: Charter Communications, La Quinta Corporation, Brookstone, Lockheed Martin, Wine Country Gift Baskets, Affina, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Vistaprint. The new suite appeals to customers looking to extend customer interaction management with follow-on task management and service fulfillment in their contact center operations.   (about eGain)

			Required Reading
		CRM Technologies That Drive Customer Satisfaction    Boom times or bust, companies need good customer relationships. Satisfied consumers are loyal, spend more money and promote the products and services they value to others. Enter CRM technology-the back-office systems and front-end applications that facilitate and coordinate how organizations collect, manage and use customer data. The payoff? Implemented correctly, CRM technology helps to ensure increased satisfaction, decreased costs and long-term revenue growth over the long haul. The promise of such bottom-line gains underscores the critical role CRM technology must has to play in reshaping how companies sell to and care for customers. more >>
Archive of past Required Reading articles

XM Radio Selects SITEL
SITEL announced the signing of a contract with XM Satellite Radio Holdings the subscriber-based satellite radio service in the United States. Under the terms of the agreement, SITEL will deliver support for subscriber management, billing-related customer service and back office functions. XM Satellite Radio, which launched its subscriber-based commercial service in late 2001, now has more than 1 million subscribers.

Retailer Selects ATG
ATG announced that Casual Male Big & Tall has selected ATG Commerce to serve as the platform for the re-launch of its casualmale.com commerce site. Over the past two years Web sales have grown four fold and are expected to double again for 2003. The company selected ATG to accommodate this growth with a more scalable and flexible commerce platform.

Concerto Software Named Microsoft Business Solutions Partner
Concerto Software announced that it has been named a Microsoft Business Solutions ISV partner. Concerto Software's EnsemblePro unified, multichannel CIM solution will complement Microsoft CRM. Concerto Software's contact center solutions help companies better manage customer interactions via voice, email, the Web and fax.   (about Concerto)

eTelecare Expands in Phillipines
eTelecare International opened its third greater-Manila call center with 150 inbound seats that will expand to 300 by January, growing eTelecare to a total of 1500 inbound and 350 outbound seats. Call Center 3 will use Avaya switches and CRM solutions, Cisco routers, NICE Systems monitoring software, Blue Pumpkin scheduling software and Pentium IV-based workstations. The majority of the new center's seats will be dedicated to technical support programs for a major US computer manufacturer.

Jaguar Extends Offer for FirePond
Jaguar Technology Holdings announced that it has extended the expiration date of the cash tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of common stock of FirePond at $3.16 per share until 12:00 midnight EST on December 2, 2003. According to LaSalle Bank National Association who is serving as the Depositary in connection with the Offer, as of November 21, 2003, approximately 83% of the outstanding shares of FirePond common stock (3,039,348 shares of FirePond common stock) have been tendered pursuant to the Offer.   (about FirePond)

PRG-Schultz Selects MicroStrategy
MicroStrategy announced that PRG-Schultz International has selected MicroStrategy Report Services for enterprise-wide reporting and analysis. Over 500 PRG-Schultz employees will be using MicroStrategy Report Services to run reports and analysis against a 300-gigabyte Microsoft SQL Server database. This will enhance such existing applications as financial reporting, human resource reporting, operational analysis reporting, auditor reporting and sales reporting.