Xactly and AIM Technology Partner to Drive Call Center Performance and Profitability
Xactly Corp., a provider of on-demand sales performance management, and AIM Technology, a provider of analytical performance-management software solutions for contact centers and service organizations, have announced a strategic go-to-market partnership. Under the agreement, Xactly and AIM will co-sell and co-market their respective on-demand software solutions to extend call center performance management capabilities to include pay-for-performance cash and non-cash incentives.
Contact Center Performance Management (CCPM) solutions providers such as AIM Technology offer tools that allow organizations to closely monitor the effectiveness of their contact centers. Xactly, a provider of on-demand Sales Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) software, provides solutions that allow variable compensation, such as cash commissions and non-cash rewards, to be leveraged as a strategic tool for motivating employee behavior and promoting retention.
A leading industry analyst recently noted that, "ICM is gaining notice for supporting pay-for-performance programs in field services and call center organizations," indicating that organizations using call-center-based sales channels should look closely at deploying ICM.
"Motivating and managing the performance of call center employees is an essential component of achieving operational goals and delivering contact center performance management," Mark Smith, CEO & EVP Research, Ventana Research. "Through this alliance, Xactly Corp. and AIM Technology are delivering a comprehensive pay-for-performance system, including cash and non-cash incentives that can further improve the measurement and management of call center performance."
Joint customers currently shared by Xactly and AIM include Aspect, ACS and PayPal. The companies plan joint selling and marketing activities over the coming months.
SolArc Achieves Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Status
SolArc, a global provider of commodity supply, trading and risk management software solutions, has attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program.
The Microsoft Partner program was created to provide market recognition to companies that demonstrate a consistent, high-quality delivery of solutions built on Microsoft technology and the .NET Framework. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners must meet a demanding set of criteria including enhanced certification and a portfolio of real-world customer references. Only qualified, top-tier organizations are successful in achieving certification, and are thus identified as the most skilled partners in specific solution areas.
“We are proud to be recognized by Microsoft as a Gold Certified Partner,” said Cynthia Haynie, SolArc CTO. “Many businesses in commodity-intensive markets look for partners that bridge the gap between business demands and technology capabilities. We will soon release significant components of our flagship product, RightAngle, on the latest .NET development platform. We committed to achieving Gold Certified Partner status during development of this release, and the vigorous review cycles have resulted in an even more robust solution for our customers.”
Brad Anderson, SolArc CEO, added, “Our development team has always delivered high quality commodity supply and trading solutions. Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status provides further evidence that SolArc solutions continue to meet the highest levels of service readiness and competency, based on the most powerful development platform available today. I am confident that our relationship with Microsoft will continue to result in the best possible technology solutions for our customers.”
“Solutions competencies are an important way for Microsoft to better enable ISVs to meet customer needs,” said Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president of the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft Corp. “They allow ISVs to keep and win customers through their deep knowledge of solutions-based Microsoft platform technologies. Microsoft has a long history of working closely with ISV partners to help them deliver compelling solutions and applications to our mutual customers, and the Microsoft Competencies are an important step in continuing to enhance vital relationships with ISVs worldwide.”
Progress Software Teams with rPath to Deliver SaaS Applications via Virtual Appliances
Progress Software Corp. has certified rPath's rBuilder for its OpenEdge platform. This allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to use rPath technology to quickly create Software as a Service (SaaS) applications as virtual appliances that include/leverage the Progress OpenEdge business application development platform.
“By teaming with rPath, Progress Software is addressing a growing need in the ISV community to reduce application deployment costs while accelerating time-to-market,” said Colleen Smith, managing director, SaaS, at Progress Software. “Virtual appliances built with rBuilder and certified on Progress OpenEdge give ISVs deployment independence, dramatically reducing complexity and costs.”
A virtual appliance is an application combined with just enough operating system (JEOS) to run optimally in any virtualized environment. Virtual appliances eliminate the time consuming task of installing, configuring and maintaining complex application environments. rPath's rBuilder and the rPath Appliance Platform are the first and only comprehensive technology solution for creating and managing application images that can be delivered to customers as appliances or on-demand applications running in a compute cloud.
The Progress OpenEdge platform is the first integrated platform optimized for the development and deployment of service-oriented business applications. It isolates developers from the complexities of today's computing environments, allowing them to concentrate on what really matters - creating the business logic of their application.
ChannelAdvisor Secures $20 Million in Funding
ChannelAdvisor, a provider of e-commerce channel management solutions, has received an additional $20 million in funding to accelerate its growth. The funding round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from current ChannelAdvisor investors Advanced Technology Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, eBay and Southern Capitol Ventures.
Additionally the company plans on implementing a restructuring plan that will both streamline operations and accelerate the company's path to profitability.
During the past year, ChannelAdvisor's revenues have grown more than 55 percent and gross merchandise value (GMV) has grown more than 45 percent.
With several acquisitions over the past two years, ChannelAdvisor has expanded its paid search offerings, distanced its leadership in the online marketplace space and most recently entered into the rich media segment with the acquisition of RichFX.
"ChannelAdvisor has grown rapidly over the last two years, both organically and via two material acquisitions, and has strengthened its leadership position in the e-commerce channel management space," says Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor. "With the additional financing and restructuring of the company, we are excited about accelerating our path to profitability. We have reached not only a revenue scale that very few Software-as-a-Service companies have achieved, but also outstanding growth and profitability metrics."
Open Text to Acquire Captaris
Open Text Corp., a global provider in Enterprise Content Management (ECM), and Captaris, Inc., a provider of software products that automate document-centric processes, have announced a definitive merger agreement in which a wholly owned subsidiary of Open Text will acquire Captaris. Under the terms of the agreement, Captaris shareholders will receive cash consideration of approximately $131 million in total, or $4.80 per share in exchange for their Captaris stock. The companies expect the transaction to close by the end of the calendar year, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Captaris's shareholders and anti-trust approvals.
Captaris's software products include document and data capture solutions that let customers convert paper documents to digital content, and manage associated processes. The acquisition will expand Open Text's partnership offerings by creating tighter integration with Open Text's invoice management solutions that work with SAP and Oracle. Captaris also offers business information and delivery solutions built on the Microsoft .NET framework which integrate, process and automate the flow of content.
"Captaris's technology will strengthen Open Text's ECM solutions by providing another on-ramp for integrating content into our ECM solutions," said John Shackleton, president and CEO of Open Text. "We are committed to continuing Captaris's products, and partner and customer support." |
