Hosted contact center software solutions can provide many things: lower costs, increased flexibility, and faster deployments to name a few. But like every large technology purchase, there are a few challenges you must face to ensure success. In a white paper published by Cincom Systems titled "The Hosted Model: Simplifying Contact Center and Agent Desktop Solutions," Cincom gives a tutorial on the basics of hosting including what issues you need to have resolved before entering into a hosted software agreement.

UCN announced inContact/PeerCompare, a real-time performance benchmarking service to be provided in conjunction with BenchmarkPortal. PeerCompare enables contact center managers to compare their center's performance against that of other call centers in similar industries.

SAP announced that independent research firm IDC named SAP as the leader in the worldwide analytic applications market, a segment of the overall business analytics market, by revenue. In its report, entitled "Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2006 - 2010 Forecast and 2005 Vendor Shares", IDC found that in 2005, the worldwide business analytics market grew at a rate of 11 percent to reach $16.6 billion in revenue. SAP's business analytic applications revenue grew faster than the overall market, at a rate of 13.4 percent.

Aspect Software announced the release of Web Powered Agent 10.1, a thin-client agent desktop for Aspect Spectrum ACD, a complete inbound solution that includes robust queuing, routing, reporting, agent empowerment and modeling capabilities.

Witness announced that its Impact 360 Compliance Recording solution has been deployed by Node4 Limited, the specialist provider of modular IP telephony systems. Node4 is using Witness Systems' Impact 360 software to support client-based IP telephony interactions for Motorpoint - the UK car supermarket.

Scribe Software announced the release of Scribe Insight, version 6.0.8. Included in the newest release of Scribe Insight is a new Adapter for both ACT! 2005 and ACT! 2006, used to migrate data from ACT! to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SalesLogix, and Salesforce.

HP announced that it has completed its acquisition of Mercury Interactive. The deal integrates Mercury's application management and delivery and IT governance capabilities with HP's broad portfolio of management solutions to create a new HP Software organization that will lead the industry in business technology optimization (BTO).

ExactTarget and salesforce.com announced an expanded integration of ExactTarget for salesforce.com's AppExchange. ExactTarget's expanded integration with Salesforce enables users to send emails to any Contact, Lead, Campaign or Report and have results data pushed back into Salesforce.

RightNow announced that it will resell the data integration technology from Informatica. Through the combination of Informatica's data integration technology and RightNow's service, sales, and marketing solutions, RightNow customers can better take advantage of the vast array of data sources across their organizations.

Organizations spanning the life sciences industry -- including biotechnology firms, contract research organizations, as well as pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers -- are choosing applications, infrastructure software and services from Oracle to help them accelerate and optimize new product development cycle time, enhance operational efficiency, improve sales and marketing effectiveness, streamline regulatory compliance and reduce risk.