KMPG Consulting has changed its name to BearingPoint (NYSE: BE). The firm recently acquired part of Andersen Business Consulting's practice and made other strategic acquisitions to increase its size to 16,000 consultants - more than doubling in just a few months.

In February of 2001 KPMG Consulting became the first major consulting firm to split from its auditing parent by doing an IPO. With a new name BearingPoint further distances itself from the scandal plagued world of accounting. Can a new name for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young be far behind?

Siebel Systems Schedules Q3 Earnings Call

Siebel Systems (Nasdaq: SEBL) will announce financial results for Q3 on Wednesday October 16, 2002 after the close of the market. The earnings conference call is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. pacific time the same day. The call can be accessed at siebel.com/investor. One big question investors will be asking is did Nucleus Research "nuke" the quarter?

SAP Appoints Bill McDermott Head of Americas Operations

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) has named Bill McDermott president and CEO of its SAP Americas operations. He reports to Leo Apotheker. Most recently he was Vice President of Sales at Siebel Systems (Nasdaq: SEBL). Before that McDermott was president of the Gartner Group and a long time executive at Xerox.

With 37% of total sales, the Americas form SAP's second biggest region behind Europe. Recent revenue disappointments in the Americas caused SAP as a whole to miss financial projections.

"Over the past few years SAP has continued to disappoint in the marketplace, especially with their CRM offerings. Hiring great executive talent is always a good first step in a turn around," said Jim Dickie of Insight Technology Group. "That being said, it should be noted that everyone thought the captain of the Titanic was also great talent, but the boat still sank."

McDermott will begin his new position on October 7, 2002. and can be contacted at william.mcdermott@SAP.com.

IBM and Siebel Systems Extend Global Strategic Alliance

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has extended its Global Strategic Alliance with Siebel Systems. The agreement has four major points, covering joint licensing, demo centers, marketing, and sales.

• Siebel Systems will license IBM software for its business process library.
• The two companies will create joint centers where customers can see demonstrations.
• Siebel Systems will offer existing customers of its point-to-point connectors a migration path to WebSphere.
• Siebel Systems will adopt WebSphere internally.

"The more software packages a customer has the more integration that is required", said Sean Poulley, Director, Business Development, WebSphere Business Integration. "We are fixing that problem today with our application partners where IBM provides the middleware and our business partners provide the application content. It is a central part of IBM's software strategy."

Joint Licensing

Joint Demos

Joint Sales

Joint Development

A good contact at the company is Sean Poulley, Director for Business Development for Webshere Business Integration 650-558-3396 or poulley@us.ibm.com.

SPSS Names Dyke Hensen Vice President of Marketing

SPSS Inc (Nasdaq: SPSS) has appointed Dyke Hensen to be vice president of marketing. In his new position, Hensen will be responsible for the overall strategic direction of the company's product management and marketing.

Hensen leads all product management functions including, marketing, product launches and new product strategy. In addition, he manages the company's business centers strategy that provides expertise and support to the sales and marketing of SPSS technology to key target markets.

Hensen most recently served as chief product officer at Hyperion Solutions. In that capacity, he led the executive management of all product development and marketing, including the strategic direction and planning for new product development in the areas of customer relationship management and e-commerce.

Before his role at Hyperion, Hensen held several management positions at Arbor Software, a pioneer in business analysis software that acquired Hyperion in 1998. While with Arbor, he held several management positions in the company's channel sales group including senior vice president of channel sales. He has also held positions with Pilot Software, ADP and Motorola.

Hensen received a B.S. in business administration with a minor in marketing from Plymouth State College, New Hampshire.

Axeda Device Relationship Management Validated with Siebel

The integration between the Axeda Device Relationship Management System version 2.5 and Siebel 7 has been successfully validated. The Axeda DRM System enables companies to use the internet to establish and manage connections with the remote devices.

"With the integration of Axeda DRM and Siebel Field Service 7, device manufacturers now have access to a solution that can significantly lower costs and improve productivity in their field service operations," said William Hou, Director of Product Marketing at Siebel Systems. "The result is smarter service and truly satisfied customers."

Everyday devices such as copiers, elevators, vending machines, building control units, medical devices, and automobiles are being built with connections into the internet. Device Relationship Management involves using a distributed information management system to gather timely, accurate, and unfiltered information directly from these machines to better manage their service requirements.

The Axeda DRM System extends Siebel 7 directly to machinery deployed at the customer's site. Joint customers of Siebel Systems and Axeda Systems can become more proactive about service by fixing problems before they occur, performing maintenance before it becomes urgent, and deploying field service personnel more efficiently -- thus improving service while at the same time lowering cost.

Axeda DRM version 2.0 has already been validated with Siebel 6. The integration of Axeda DRM version 2.5 with Siebel 7 extends this initial integration. For example, Siebel Field Service 7 extends the contracts module to include management of service level agreements. The Axeda DRM integration ensures that usage is tracked in real time, so that service level agreements can be managed more automatically.

"This hard return on investment that Axeda delivers through service cost savings helps justify corporate investments in CRM and other eBusiness projects" said Robert M. Russell, Jr., CEO of Axeda Systems.

Axeda Systems (Nasdaq: XEDA) helps businesses become more competitive by using the internet to extract real-time information from intelligent devices. Axeda customers include many Global 2000 companies in markets such as Industrial and Building Automation, High-technology, Medical Instrumentation, Office Automation, and Semiconductor Equipment. Axeda has sales and service offices in the United States, Europe, Israel and Japan, and distribution partners worldwide. A good contact at the company is Paul Henderson the Vice President of Marketing at 508-851-1281 or phenserson@axeda.com.