SAP announced that it is delivering enhanced connectivity between the plant floor and the enterprise by acquiring Lighthammer Software Development, a supplier of enterprise manufacturing intelligence and collaborative manufacturing software, based in Exton, Pennsylvania. Lighthammer's Collaborative Manufacturing Suite (CMS) will be delivered as an SAP xApps composite application on the SAP NetWeaver platform.

Airframe Business Software announced the release of CRM Express 3.0, an on-demand application for managing the customer service, sales and marketing departments in small and mid-sized businesses.

M-Tech Information is pleased to announce record sales in the first half of 2005. This upward trend is expected to continue for the remainder of 2005.

CustomerImpact launched a means of capturing customer feedback data within retail environments. The Talkback solution offers an automated method finding out what customers think of their shopping experience while they are actually experiencing it.

Active+ Software has launched a new version of its email software eMill which brings features to improve list management and message tracking.

Merced Systems announced the company has joined the Genesys InterWorks Partner Program. Through the InterWorks Partner Program, Merced Systems will develop integrated analytical applications with Genesys' products and make them available to Genesys customers.

Utopy announced that the company's SpeechMiner 3.5 product suite earned the "Best of Show" award at the 2005 Call Center Demo and Conference in Orlando.

DoubleClick announced the release of the Q1 2005 Email Trend Report which shows email to be more productive than ever, with significant increases in the click-to-purchase conversion rate and orders per email delivered.

NACDA has selected SKYLIST to power its email marketing programs and enhance member communication efforts. NACDA will use the SKYLIST StormPost email marketing automation system to personalize email messages to its 6,100 members and assist them in networking and exchanging information with other college athletics professionals.

Spoke Software and salesforce.com announced a new Customforce-built application delivering Spoke's sales prospecting solution as an Sforce custom web tab. The Spoke custom application allows sales professionals to search the Spoke sales lead network to identify target companies and people within those companies with the titles they sell to -- then add those prospects as contacts or leads in Salesforce without leaving the Salesforce application.

  "OUR TAKE" (more)

6/27/05 - Is "Customer" in the CEO's DNA? Sometimes we muse that the words and actions of a company don't seem to line up. However, in this case, the lack of words and actions seem to be in perfect alignment. What am I talking about? In short, it seems CEO's have not learned the word customer.   According to a March Deloitte survey of 150 technology CEOs, only 6 percent say building customer loyalty is their biggest challenge to sustaining growth. Peppers and Rogers Group recently tracked 23 CNBC interviews with CEOs discussing their companies' strategies and only six used the word customer.   If you want to read more about this, you can read Dear CEO: Don't Leave Customers in the Dust. Seems so obvious that CEO might say something like, "Our growth will be based on making sure we have the right products and rights services to match our customers' needs." But they just don't seem to get it.   Gary Lemke, Publisher (Share your thoughts)