Jacada announced the general availability of Jacada Fusion Agent Portal, a desktop solution that optimizes workflow processes across business systems within a contact center, providing a single point of access to systems and resources to improve agent satisfaction and the customer experience.

Concerto Software announced it is extending Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) functionality in several of Concerto's principal products with new releases scheduled to be launched in the next two quarters.

Salesforce.com announced the AppExchange, an on-demand application sharing service. With AppExchange, customers will have access to new applications that potentially bring the benefits of salesforce.com to an entire business, letting them manage and share all of a company's information on demand.

Courion announced that Evanston Northwestern Healthcare has selected Courion's AccountCourier for enterprise provisioning and PasswordCourier for password management as part of its identity management strategy to help the organization achieve compliance, reduce costs, improve customer service levels and improve security.

ClickSoftware announced that Badenova has selected ClickSoftware's ClickSchedule solution to optimize scheduling within Badenova's service operations.

A majority of corporate instant messaging users are unaware of potential cyber threats and increase the risk that their enterprise infrastructures will fall prey to hackers, according to a new survey from IMlogic. The survey demonstrates the need for companies capitalizing on IM's real-time business benefits to educate users about potential risks and deploy technology to prevent attacks from crippling vital communications networks.

M-Tech Information Technology and CRT Group will collaborate in offering IdM solutions to improve regulatory compliance and reduce user and access administration costs.

DoubleClick E-mail Solutions announced the release of the Q2 2005 E-mail Trend Report which shows that key e-mail performance metrics including the non-bounce rate, click-to-purchase conversion rate and orders per e-mail delivered all improved versus Q2 2004, despite a decline in open rates. Bounce rates, which were at an all time low at 7.9 percent, declined 25 per cent from the Q2 2004 rate (10.5 percent), and 5 per cent below the previous all time low in Q1 2005 (8.3 percent). Open rates declined for the fifth consecutive quarter, falling from 36.0 percent in Q2 2004 to 27.5 percent in Q2 2005.

KANA announced that the City of Amsterdam is implementing KANA's full SRM suite to provide its citizens and employees with easy access to information about its services and operations. A combined implementation of KANA Response, KANA IQ and KANA Contact Center will help the council switch to a single service number on January 1, 2006, which will give all citizens a single point of contact for telephone and e-mail inquiries.

RightNow announced its CEO and founder Greg Gianforte will address the Forbes CEO Forum 2005, which is being held September 19-21 at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Gianforte will be leading a panel discussion on the "Purpose-Driven Company."

  "OUR TAKE" (more)

9/14/05 - Siebel/Oracle - More Than Market Share From a stockholder perspective, Oracle's acquisition of Siebel seems to make good sense. In one very affordable (just a few billion bucks!) move, Oracle acquires the largest blue-chip CRM installed base available. In the same move, they acquire a mature set of applications and technologies.   Keeping score in terms of the installed base, and recurring maintenance revenue stream, is only part of the picture. Quickly, Siebel customers are going to want to know how their investment will be protected. Oracle has a big question to answer. Specifically, how does Oracle reconcile three technology bases into a cohesive CRM strategy that fits into a bigger enterprise application platform?   Oracle's application strategy is very much focused on one database - theirs. Peoplesoft had acquired Vantive but found it necessary to re-write the entire application to make it work in the bigger Peoplesoft application universe. So what about Siebel? Will it be integrated into the Oracle view of enterprise applications? How will it evolve or will it have to be rewritten? I have my opinion. What's yours?   Gary Lemke, Publisher (Share your thoughts)