SAP has acquired sales performance management and configure-price-quote (CPQ) technology provider Callidus Software in a deal valued at $2.4 billion. The CallidusCloud (name used for products) Lead to Money suite for sales will combine with SAP’s Customer Engagement suite for a CRM solution portfolio.
CallidusCloud's offerings include sales enablement, sales analytics and customer engagement. CallidusCloud has been a partner of SAP for several years, based on a joint selling agreement. Company officials said the deal with strengthen SAP’s position in the customer relationship management (CRM) space. SAP competes with Oracle, Salesforce and Microsoft here. CallidusCloud’s solutions link pricing, incentives and commissions to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
“SAP is connecting the back office to the front office in this consumer-driven growth revolution. Our customers are focused on reinventing sales, service, marketing and commerce.,” Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP.
CallidusCloud CEO Leslie Stretch said his company's software aligns well within SAP Hybris and S/4HANA. SAP expects to consolidate all CallidusCloud product assets within SAP Hybris solutions as part of SAP’s Cloud Business Group. The existing management team will continue to lead CallidusCloud. CallidusCloud solutions will be integrated within the the SAP Cloud Platform.
In other digital and customer experience software news...
Evergage Acquires MyBuys
Somerville, Massachussetts based Evergage, which provides a personalization platform, has announced the acquisition of the MyBuys merchandising products business from digital advertising technology company Magnetic. Terms of the deal, which closed in January, were not disclosed. MyBuys offers first-generation technology for product recommendations. Users can deliver product recommendations on their websites and via email, utilizing online and offline data. Evergage will be bringing onto its team MyBuys employees, including engineering, customer success and technical support professionals.
Evergage will migrate each of MyBuys customer onto the Evergage personalization platform. Evergage uses behavioral analytics, a customer data platform and advanced machine learning for personalization across websites, web and mobile apps, onsite search and email. Jason Shriver, the former head of client success at MyBuys and now VP of customer success at Evergage, said in a statement, Evergage "aligns closely with MyBuys’ ideals."
Beckerman Acquires Chicago Digital
Marketing and public relations firm Beckerman has acquired Chicago Digital, a full-service digital marketing agency. The Chicago-based company focuses on digital and online solutions, including web design and search engine optimization. Beckerman is based in Hackensack, N.J. The outfit has offices in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C. “Building teams with domain and service area expertise has been the cornerstone of our success, and the addition of Chicago Digital is consistent with that brand promise," Beckerman CEO Keith Zakheim said in a statement.
Sitecore Announces ‘Most Valuable Professional’ Awards
Sitecore, an experience management company, has announced its Sitecore Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) for 2018. In its 12th year, the Sitecore MVP program now recognizes 329 of the most valuable contributors who "implement Sitecore solutions and evangelize the platform among customers, partners and the Sitecore community," according to a Sitecore press release. "Every year, the Sitecore MVP Awards honor individuals with a passion for sharing their knowledge and expertise through active participation in online and offline Sitecore communities."
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This year, the company expanded the list of MVP categories to include a new Ambassador category. MVP Andy Uzick, VP of MarTech Innovation at Atlanta based Arke, a brand experience consultancy specializing in implementations of marketing technology solutions, said in a post by Arke, "The MVP award recognizes the leaders of a vital community that is at the heart of Sitecore’s success. Over the past 15 years, I’ve been fortunate to count many in the MVP community among my most valued friends and associates."
A full listing of the Sitecore MVP winners can be found here.
WoodWing Software Deepens Partnership with SPRYLAB
Multichannel content creation provider WoodWing Software and Premium Technology Partner SPRYLAB have announced that SPRYLAB’s Purple DS, mobile app creation software is now integrated with WoodWing’s Enterprise solution. It is designed to allow publishers to create their content directly in Enterprise’s "Content Station" and publish stories to their mobile app.
Media publishers can create a story in the Content Station digital editor and publish as an individual article and also now publish the content from a print issue onto their app. It also allows for things like PDF-to-app publishing and mobile-optimized publishing for phone and tablet.
ContentSquare Raises $42 Million
ContentSquare will boost research and development and plans to expand after it announced it received a $42 million Series B funding round led by Canaan. ContentSquare's technology helps companies understand the impact of each user interaction with their website or mobile application. They can use artificial intelligence to prioritize insights and predicted outcomes and have access to AI-powered insights, according to a Forbes report.
The company wants to expand into Asia and additional regions.
Amdocs to Acquire Vubiquity
St. Louis-based Amdocs, which provides solutions for communications and media companies, has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Vubiquity, which provides content services and technology solutions. The combined technologies are designed to help users increase customer insights from content consumption. Customers will be able to redirect operations, enable large libraries for global distribution and monetize their content offerings. “Our capabilities, coupled with Amdocs’ global scale and rich set of complementary solutions around monetization, analytics and personalized customer experience will be truly unique, allowing us to deliver to a larger set of customers while solving key industry challenges," Vubiquity CEO, Darcy Antonellis said in a statement.