Verint announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with MultiVision Intelligent Surveillance Limited to acquire the company's networked video security business. The acquisition of MultiVision's networked video security business will provide Verint with local product development, customer support and solutions that are focused on the regional requirements of the Asia Pacific market.

Sendia announced the release of WorkSpace CRM 3.0 for salesforce.com, which features a host of powerful new features and upgrades, including support for salesforce.com's Customforce and other advanced capabilities such as filtered views, increased data capacity, and customizable lists.

RightNow announced the University of West Florida (UWF) has selected RightNow CRM to support the expansion of its new online campus. By implementing RightNow CRM, UWF will be able to more effectively market its distance learning services and better serve the needs of active students across the country.

As such a new report by Datamonitor, "Contact Center Component Technologies 2005," predicts the market for global contact center technology routing will be worth $4.7bn by 2009. Much of this growth will come from developing markets such as India, China, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Mexico and North and South Africa.

For high-end software companies, revenue from support- related services continues to pull ahead of product and license revenues, according to a new research report from the Association of Support Professionals (ASP). The report, based on data from a hundred major public software companies, shows that maintenance and professional services now generate 52% (median) of total revenues for a typical software company.

Astea announced that a European service integrator has selected the latest version of Astea Alliance, a rich and comprehensive Microsoft .NET based service lifecycle management offering, to enhance the highly successful customer-centric service organization.

CDC Corporation announced that former Ross Systems president of North American operations Rick Marquardt, a 20-year veteran of the enterprise application industry, has been promoted to the role of president at Pivotal Corporation, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) division of the company's software group, CDC Software.

Salesforce.com announced that Kaiser Permanente has selected salesforce.com to provide CRM on a national level, and to create company-wide oversight of the health plan provider's sales efforts. Kaiser Permanente will use Salesforce to improve reporting of its sales pipeline, and to track follow-up on sales leads.

TeleTech Holdings announced that it is proud to be part of a coalition of national businesses to support the American Red Cross efforts to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina. TeleTech provided infrastructure, phone support and employees to take donations from callers during the Red Cross telethon Friday, September 2, 2005 from 8:00 pm to 12:00 am EDT on NBC.

InterCall is providing free conference calling to victims of Hurricane Katrina so they can connect with missing friends and family members. The service is offered through Salvation Army aid stations.

  "OUR TAKE" (more)

9/12/05 - More on Customer Retention Let me extend a hearty "thank you" to those of you that have sent emails about customer retention strategies. I've told people that the collective knowledge of CRMAdvocate readers is unmatched! You have certainly proved that again.   I was recently reminded by one reader that he really appreciated some of my thoughts on customer retention from a presentation I did at a CRM conference. Yes, I regularly talk at conferences and I find it a good way to share best practices from our experiences as retention consultants.   In response to a request, I plan on using the CRMAdvocate Live webcast program to present a series of discussions on customer retention. The first one debuts today and is available on demand. It is entitled "CRM's Secret Sauce - Everything You Need to Know About CRM." It's 24 minutes in length and will give you all the ammunition on why customer retention is so important. Let me know what you think.   Gary Lemke, Publisher (Share your thoughts)