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Omnicom Group Inc.’s Diversified Agency Services division finished its week with the neat purchase of Expert Communications Inc. Expert is a San Francisco-based direct marketing agency specializing in the financial services, healthcare, telecommunications and utilities industries.

Expert Communications will operate as part of Omnicom’s Star Marketing Group, which already includes such amassed customer relationship marketing-focused agencies as Javelin Direct, Innovyx, Optima and Critical Mass.

In explaining the acquisition, Star Marketing Group president/CEO Ed McNally stated that Expert Communications’ “deep expertise in CRM specifically and their ability to convey complex and highly regulated communications in financial services and technology as well as healthcare” appealed to Omnicom.

Expert Communications will keep its name and retain its staff of sixty employees. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 1995, Expert Communications offers creative, database marketing, production, modeling, analysis, data warehousing and account services.

A roll call of news from the big O, then, to cap the workweek.

Oracle Corporation doled out some nice awards this week, namely its top performing Oracle Partner Network partners with awards for delivering Oracle application solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Certified Advantage Partner IBM of France took the Oracle EMEA SMB Partner Award for Sales Performance; certified partner Abast Solutions (Spain) took the Oracle EMEA Partner Award for Customer Success; and the Oracle EMEA Oracle Accelerate Excellence Award was called a tie between certified partner De Theus Technologies (France) and certified partner Pyxis Consulting Group (Germany).

IBM France is a strategic systems integrator partner for Oracle and boasts a large Oracle applications practice. Abast Solutions is a twenty-plus year veteran of the IT market with more than 1000 customers. De Theus Technologies and Pyxis Consulting Group were among the first EMEA partners to submit an Oracle Accelerate solution for Oracle’s review following the programme’s launch in March.

The Oracle Accelerate programme based on “the company’s approach to fully address the diverse IT requirements of SMBs…” Meanwhile, from the technological heart of the Asian “region,” news outlet SDA-Asia reported on a statement out of Oracle stating that Oracle CRM On Demand is “gaining momentum” in the Asia Pacific market, which Oraclers now reckon will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.9 percent between 2006 and 2011, to reach $846.4 million in total software revenue in 2011.

The Oracle brain trust figures one-quarter of new business software will be delivered as software as a service by 2011.

Lest we forget Oracle also does actual CRM work, the big firm recently announced that Yarra Valley Water, a Australian water and sewage services provider, has selected Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to provide a reliable, scalable billing platform for the 1.5 million Yarra Valley customers in the Melbourne area. Yarra Valley Water’s legacy CRM system had been in place since 1995.

Finally, for those of you interested in the Oracle v. SAP corporate espionage lawsuit (and who doesn’t love a good lawsuit?), Oracle legal counsel Geoff Howard of Bingham McCutchen LLP got to exchange a little legal gunfire with SAP yesterday.

Oracle brought a lawsuit in the US Federal District Court in the Northern District of California against SAP and TomorrowNow in March. The lawsuit alleged that SAP was guilty of violations to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Unfair Competition, Intentional and Negligent Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage and Civil Conspiracy, i.e. they ripped off Oracle data.

Henning Kagermann himself spoke to the media after SAP legally filed in the ‘suit, explaining that TomorrowNow was authorized to download materials from Oracle’s Web site on behalf of TomorrowNow customers.

Kagermann also admitted that “SAP acknowledged that some inappropriate downloads of fixes and support documents occurred at TomorrowNow. Importantly, SAP affirmed that what was downloaded at TomorrowNow stayed in that subsidiary’s separate systems. SAP did not have access to Oracle intellectual property via TomorrowNow.”

In return, Howard stated that, “SAP CEO Henning Kagermann has now admitted to the repeated and illegal downloading of Oracle’s intellectual property. Oracle filed suit to discover the magnitude of the illegal downloads and fully understand how SAP used Oracle’s intellectual property in its business…”

Sounds confident, eh?

You want to know how ERP affects you in daily life? Check out the Junction Solutions white paper entitled “Tracing the Genealogy of an Outbreak.” (Sensitive or nauseous readers probably will want to skip not only this particularly entry, but the white paper as a whole.)

Using the simile of researching family genealogy (hence the title), paper author Nick Bova seeks to illustrate the difficulties facing food processors who for one reason or another must trace product back to its source. Said investigation can require “tracing the lot back through handwritten ledgers to the grower, block, field, etc.”

Naturally, in the Information Age, certain errors can lead to horror stories: “all it takes is one zero that looks like a six in one entry to send the entire investigation in the wrong direction…”

With proper methods of data collection and storage, argues “Outbreak,” most headache-inducing labor and mistakes can be avoided. When such a long-ranging ERP system is in place, lots can be traced back to the source in four minutes or less.

The author also sees problems in the nature of industrial food processing. Since “A typical day’s run in a high-speed environment may involve numerous batches of the same types of ingredients, with the next batch being added to the previous one without stopping production. … it is unlikely the machinery will be cleaned between runs, as that would be inefficient and unnecessary under normal circumstances. In short, after awhile you can’t tell where one batch ends and the next begins.” Ick.

Because of this sort of issue, argues the paper, even conventional ERP systems may not be enough to prevent efficient recall of potentially dangerous product.

Towards the end of “Outbreak,” the ‘paper briefly touches upon “the risks of bioterrorism affecting the food chain.” As though you weren’t sold already, eh?

There’ll be fallout from the Apple iPhone media blitz for some time to be sure. Indeed, the folks at Companion Link Software were so excited about their new advance for the new toy that they announced the news on July 4th.

That news? Well, Companion Link Software announced the release of its handy CRM synchronization for the Apple iPhone solution. The solution promises to synchronize contacts and calendar from ACT! by Sage, GoldMine, Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, Time & Chaos, Google Apps, and Palm Desktop to the Apple iPhone.

Companion Link is available in “Express” and “Professional” versions. Both versions start at $49.95 and require Microsoft Outlook to be installed. An Outlook-free direct sync by the end of September. A free fourteen-day evaluation version of Companion Link is available at the company’s homepage.

Companion Link patted itself on the back a bit for its “rapid development capability introducing synchronization solutions for new devices, platforms and technologies” in the announcement, but CRMchump has got to admit that this is quite the quick production for the hip gadget. We’ll see if Companion can innovate fast enough to beat the competition on that Outlook-less version.

The press release came ran something like this: NetSuite Inc., a vendor of on-demand, integrated business management application suites that provide ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and e-commerce functionality for small and medium-sized businesses and divisions of large businesses, today announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock.

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC will act as sole book-running manager for the offering. In addition, WR Hambrecht + Co will act as co-manager of the offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. Copies of the preliminary prospectus for the offering, when available, may be obtained from Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, etc.

But then came the flurry of commentary and reactions to the whole Larry Ellison connection thing from the blogosphere and mainstream media, not to mention the red ink of the balance sheet.

According to NetSuite numbers required for public release upon announcing an IPO, For the quarter ended March 31, the company reported net losses of $3.7 million on sales of $23.2 million. In 2006, NetSuite generated $67.2 million in revenues and net losses of $23.4 million.

Even more catching to the collective imagination, though, and thus reported everywhere was that Oracle Corporation CEO Ellison “controls about 74 percent of the stock in the San Mateo company through Tako Ventures LLC. Netsuite said it plans to use some of the proceeds to repay a $7.5 million balance on a secured line of credit to Tako.”

NetSuite will be selling ten percent of its shares in the IPO and hopes to garner $75 million.

Amdocs, plugged as a customer experience systems provider, has recently announced a couple of deals to increase presence on the all-important continent of Asia.

Most recently was Guizhou Telecom, subsidiary of China Telecom, announcing the selection of Amdocs in helping integrate its enterprise data for improved system management.

Reportedly, Guizhou is the first China Telecom subsidiary to implement an enterprise-wide operational data storage project. Amdocs’ enterprise data architecture seeks to provide a data hub that standardizes and consolidates customer and product information, including bits and bytes from sales, marketing, billing, ordering, service assurance and call centers.

Last week, Amdocs scored a nice connection with Cambodian service provider Applifone, which will deploy the Amdocs Compact Convergence suite to support rapid delivery of next-generation products and services. This agreement represents Amdocs’ entry into Cambodia.

Applifone will employ Amdocs integrating news services such as money transfer, SMS, personal internet protocol web phones for roamers, call management, and mobile data on a single platform. In addition to the rapid service launch integrated with real-time convergent rating, the solution also promises integrated business process support with Voice over Internet Protocol capability.

Applifone is owned and managed by VISOR, an investment company based in Kazakhstan.

No one can ever accuse PacificNet, Inc. of doing things in a small way. The Asia-side provider of gaming technology, e-commerce, and Customer Relationship Management services in China, opened a joint venture with Japan-based Bellsystem24 last week.

Bellsystem 24 is said to be Japan’s single largest telemarketing call center services provider. (How big is it? Try over 5,000 clients, 27,348 communication service representatives and 33 offices throughout Japan.)

Dubbed a bit, um, Spartanly, Bell-Pact Consulting Limited is located in Shanghai, and was opened grandly by executives from PacificNet and Bellsystem24 in an opening ceremony.

The two parties signed the joint venture agreement in January of this year, with PacificNet owning a 40 percent equity stake and Bellsystem24 with 60 percent of Bell-Pact. Aggregate investments totaled about $643,000.

The joint venture will principally offer CRM call center consulting and training services, technical and business consulting services, network product sales, software development, system integration, value-added services and the soon-to-be classic “other relevant services.”

PacificNet, Inc. is a provider of gaming technology, e-commerce, and Customer Relationship Management in China. PacificNet’s gaming products are specially designed for Chinese and Asian gamers with products including multi-player electronic table games such as Baccarat, Sicbo, Fish-Prawn-Crab; roulette machines; server-based games with multiple client betting stations; slot and bingo machines; video lottery terminals; and multimedia entertainment kiosks.

PacificNet’s gaming clients include hotels, casinos, and gaming operators in Macau, Asia, and Europe. E-commerce and CRM clientele includes telecom companies, banks, insurance, travel, marketing and business services companies; clientele here includes China Telecom, China Mobile, Unicom, PCCW, Hutchison Telecom, Bell24, Motorola, Nokia, SONY, TCL, Huawei, American Express, Citibank, HSBC, Bank of China, Bank of East Asia, DBS, TNT, China and the Hong Kong government. PacificNet employs about 1,200 staff in offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Macau and Zhuhai, China, the US, and the Philippines.

Easy Software UK scored a big one today, announcing that none other than the Premier League has standardised on its suite of Document Management solutions. Easy UK is a branch of Easy Software AG, provider of integrated document and email management, workflow and archive solutions.

The wonderfully-named Premier League head of IT Simon Thunder reportedly initially recommended electronic document management technology to his Finance Director.

Touchstone Group, a supplier of integrated solutions for business and financial management and those who had supplied its Microsoft Dynamics GP accounts system and expense management solution, acted as advisor to the Premiership in the move.

The football department of the Premier League stores a wealth of documents and historical records on the league, its members and players. As one of most significant current and historical Premier League document stores, the football department was early on the list for automation with the Easy electronic document management system.

Easy Software worked with Simon and his team to integrate EASY ENTERPRISE into the player contract system, and, according to Premier League PR, “The sensitive nature of these documents is such that all scanning is being done internally.”

One of Simon’s longer-range goals is for the Premiership to gradually convert each department to storing and retrieving its documents electronically and archiving off-site documents for long-term retention.

Easy Software was founded in 1990 and is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Apart from its head office in Mülheim a.d. Ruhr, the company has further branches in Germany and subsidiaries in Austria; Philadelphia, Penna.; and London and Bury St. Edmunds in the UK. Easy now claims the endorsement of Microsoft and more than 400 strategic alliances with systems integrators and line of business application partners.

Big numbers first, then: Infor was most pleased to announce IBM’s benchmarking the performance of Infor CRM Epiphany at beyond 10,000 concurrent users in a real world test.

IBM’s scalability metrics benchmark tested Infor CRM Epiphany Sales and Service on their WebSphere application server and exceeded 10,000 concurrent users without any failures in a six-hour test run. IBM tested the solution based on information provided by an unnamed international banking organization to establish business scenarios in three defined test scripts.

The scripts were based on the level of detail and response required for a customer service representative to complete a customer interaction. Company PR states scripts “were comprised of 50 percent simple, 30 percent medium and 20 percent complex customer interactions.”

Infor also announced enhancements to the Infor CRM Epiphany product line which allow integration of CRM functionality with the latest releases of Avaya, Lotus Domino, and Crystal Reports. Infor CRM Sales 7.0.2 and Infor CRM Service 7.0.2 are now certified to support said platforms.

The latest version of CRM Sales 7.0.2 includes the addition of Infor CRM’s Configuration Module, which seeks to enable companies in standardizing the sales and specification process.

In terms of all-new releases, Infor put out the Infor EAM Enterprise Edition, the latest version of the company’s flagship enterprise asset management solution. Particularly touted in this release is functionality specifically for the fleet management, manufacturing, facilities and life sciences industries. Functionality for additional industries is promised in subsequent releases.

This week saw Infor report a success story, too, with the announcement on Tuesday that Muang Thong Mahachai Co. Ltd, a manufacturer and distributor of footwear in Thailand, has gone live with Infor ERP System 21. Infor ERP System 21 comprises financial, distribution and manufacturing modules.

Through a web-based user interface, System 21 allows automation of key manufacturing and financial processes. Muang Thong Group brands were established in 1983. MTG products are sold under brand names (you may have seen one or two) such as Gold City, Planet, Nature, Fight, Sunshine and Sunwood.

Finally, the best for last: namely, a few more numbers, because you know CRM Chump loves the numbers. Infor announced that over 150 net new manufacturing SMEs have signed up for Infor’s ERP Visual in the last twelve months.

Significant adopters announced include Cygnus, DFW Test, Frontier Electronics System, John-Richard, Pennant Moldings, RotorWay International and D3. I

nfor can now claim an installed base of more than 4,000 manufacturers around the world.