By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is an album just barely nosed out of First Coffee Top Five of 2007, Louis Jordan’s Let The Good Times Roll: The Anthology 1938-1953.

 

EMC Corporation, a vendor of information infrastructure products, and Document Sciences Corporation have announced that they have signed a definitive agreement whereby EMC will acquire publicly-held Document Sciences Corporation in a cash transaction valued at approximately $85 million.

 

Document Sciences Corporation sells document output management software for communications to customers, partners and suppliers. The acquisition “complements and extends EMC’s position in the transactional content management marketplace,” a segment of enterprise content management, according to the DSCers.

 

The board of directors of Document Sciences Corporation approved the transaction with EMC based, in part, upon the recommendation of a special committee of the Document Sciences board of directors. Under the terms of the agreement, Document Sciences Corporation stockholders will receive $14.75 in cash for each share of Document Sciences Corporation common stock.

 

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of calendar year 2008. It’s not expected to have a material impact on EMC financial results in 2008.

 

Document Sciences’ xPression suite of document output management and customer communications products lets organizations automate the creation and delivery of communications, from contracts, policies and relationship statements to marketing collateral and correspondence. It integrates with enterprise CRM, ECM and ERP systems.

 

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Ah, December, the time of year when tech firms predict next year. For the fourth year running, Technology Futures is offering a list of what is sees as the trends for the coming year. “These predictions differ from our normal activities where TFI traditionally looks further out into the future,” company officials note.

 

Commenting on the list, author David Smith, Vice President TFI, says 2008 will be “a dynamic year impacted by possible actions such as the potential financial instability including the threat of recession, changes in the geopolitical environment, and further changes to the landscape of business.”

 

The company is proffering its Top 19 Technology Trends for 2008, a refreshing number for such a list, and obviously it’s too long to incorporate here but it’s available on their Web site. What concerns us here is… well, okay, their #1 is “Green, Green, Green.” During 2008, “every thing turns green. The greening of information technology started in 2007, but will pick up speed and spread to all parts of both the corporate and consumer domains. This includes efforts at conserving power, more efficient procedures, less travel, and many other activities to save resources.”

 

And #2 is “Peer-to-peer rebrands itself and becomes an ad-supported connection between consumers, business, and content producers.” But what really concerns us is their #3 prediction, that the IT industry’s key players “dramatically increase the migration of core offerings.”

 

CRM, other applications, business intelligence, storage, imaging and the like “will migrate to online delivery models as a key method for profitably serving high-growth markets, particularly small and medium-sized businesses,” firm officials think. “Web mashups that combine data from more than one source into one integrated tool will be the dominant model for the creation of composite enterprise applications and will peak around 2012.”

 

They also say “Mashup technologies will evolve significantly over the next five years, and application leaders must take this evolution into account when evaluating the impact of mashups and in formulating an enterprise mashup strategy.”

 

Prediction #19? “2008 will be the toughest year ever for CIOs.” We’ll see.

 

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SWK Technologies, a Sage Software tech provider for small to mid-size businesses in New York and New Jersey, has announced the addition of 225 new customers during 2007 via organic growth and addition.

 

The firm, opening new locations in New York State as well, was also named to both the Sage Software President’s Circle and the Sage Million Dollar Club in 2007.

 

Jeffrey D. Roth, CEO at SWK Technologies, said SWK is increasing its infrastructure with “more staff, more locations” and more tech products: “Much like Sage, we’re putting a lot of effort into getting closer to our customers and finding out exactly what they require to keep growing. It’s working.”

 

Over the past year, SWK upgraded existing customers to versions of Sage Software products, including the addition of applications that address areas such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Human Resources, and Payroll.

 

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Wanna work for SAP? Now there’s an easier way to find and apply for SAP employment. SophLogic Global, an SAP consulting and professional services firm, has launched a SAP jobs portal that allows SAP job seekers to search current openings and register to apply and receive updates.

 

The SAP employment portal contains current SAP job opportunities and searchable SAP job locations in Florida, New York, Atlanta, California and throughout the U.S., as well as in Germany, Canada and other countries.

 

The SAP jobs portal allows SAP job seekers to search for current openings according to criteria such as amount of travel, location, start date, whether temporary or permanent, salary range or whatever.

 

Candidates are advised to create an SAP employment profile and sign up for notifications to make application easy and quick.

 

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Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and reseller of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has announced the opening of a new office in New York City.

 

“Our expansion into the Northeast supports our initiative to offer CRM technology to organizations nationwide,” said Scott Millwood, president of South Carolina-based Customer Effective.

 

Customer Effective sells CRM products to mid-market and enterprise organizations across a wide variety of industries. With its Capital Effective CRM Suite, the company provides front office products for financial services in commercial banking, private equity, investment banks, hedge funds and wealth management.

 

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CDC Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a provider of industry-specific enterprise software applications and business services, has announced it has joined the Open Applications Group Inc., an open standards group in the enterprise application industry.

 

Nigel Davies, vice president, Supply Chain Solutions for CDC Software, will continue to serve as chairman of the board of directors of OAGi until his term ends in early 2008 when he joins the five-member Executive Committee of the OAGi. Davies has served as chairman of the OAGi board for the past three years when he was an executive with Catalyst International, which was later acquired by CDC Software in September 2007.

 

OAGi, which oversees the Open Applications Group Integration Specification standard, is a non-profit development organization focused on building business language standards for enterprise application interoperability. The group is committed to driving down integration costs by removing the barriers to interoperability.