CDC Acquires Software Vendor Respond

CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a vendor of CRM and other industry-specific enterprise software applications and consulting services, has announced the acquisition of Respond Group, Ltd. a European provider of customer service software applications generally focusing on the management of complaints and enterprise feedback.

Mirroring CDC Software with a position in key vertical industries, the Respond applications and organization are called "highly complementary to CDC Software's Pivotal CRM products" by CDC officials.

Respond adds 800 customers to CDC Software, which itself claims over 5,000 customers. Respond brings AXA Insurance, Barclays, Aegon and other prized pelts, primarily in the financial services industries.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West, September 1-3, 2009. Los Angeles, CA.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West, September 1-3, 2009. Los Angeles, CA.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West, September 1-3, 2009. Los Angeles, CA.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West, September 1-3, 2009. Los Angeles, CA.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West, September 1-3, 2009. Los Angeles, CA.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West, September 1-3, 2009. Los Angeles, CA.

Allianz Dresdner Asset Management, Julius Baer Investment Management and Morgan Keegan & Company are current Pivotal CRM application customers. In October 2006, Pivotal CRM was added to the SecuritiesTech 50 list of top front-office products in financial services.

The Respond products are also used in government organizations, which CDC officials see as a cross-selling opportunity for its Pivotal CRM applications, as well as other software and consulting services from CDC Software itself.

As Pivotal CRM sales and marketing applications are also used in the home building and real estate industries "the importance of complaint management, improving customer service and increasing satisfaction in these industries is expected to create additional cross-selling opportunities for the Respond applications," CDC officials said.

In addition to the synergies of the product lines and industry expertise, both CDC Software and Respond are Microsoft (News - Alert) Certified Partners, and the respective applications share complementary architectures based on standard Microsoft platforms. The applications are deployed via the Internet, enabling browser-based deployments.

James Heavey, CEO of Respond, said the pairing would "create a variety of new choices and expanded set of solutions for both customer bases."

China.com, an Internet services provider in China and a Hong Kong listed subsidiary of CRM vendor CDC Corporation, has announced that it has acquired a five percent interest in Beijing Menlo Network Science Limited, the owner and operator of Menllo.com, a Web 2.0 online community in China.

Under the terms of the agreement, China.com will provide Menllo.com with "strategic market coverage" for one year in exchange for the five percent interest. China.com will have the right to appoint a director to the Board of Menllo.com and will have the option to increase its holdings in Menllo.com in the future.

With a large and fast growing user base across China, Menllo.com is attractive to CDC as a platform for sharing music, videos, journals, photos, whiteboards and more for people with common interests. It is an online destination for "emerging musicians, writers, photographers, and a variety of other talents," China.com officials say.

By collaborating with China.com, Menllo plans to use the market coverage of the CDC family of companies, including millions of visitors to China.com, growing numbers of subscribers of CDC Mobile, and more than 42 million registered users of CDC Games.

For instance, much of the user-generated content on Menllo.com will also be made available on mobile phones through CDC Mobile's 3G services. By building a mobile Web2.0, CDC Mobile plans to increase its portfolio of content to grow the company's sources of revenue. In January CDC Mobile announced its $100 million 3G content partner program to target 3G content providers and aggregators in North Asia and Europe, as well as the creation of new original content for the 3G marketplace.

Last month CDC Mobile, a leading provider of mobile value-added services in China and a business unit of CDC Corporation, has entered into an agreement with Nokia (News - Alert) to allow the world's largest cell phone maker to pre- install CDC Mobile's proprietary software in selected Nokia cell phones sold in China.

CDC Software's product suite includes Pivotal CRM, c360 CRM add-on products, industry solutions and development tools for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

Third Generation (3G)	X
A variety of cellular phone specifications collectively known as Third Generation mobile technology. 3G networks do not operate in the same frequency spectrum as 2G. Examples of 3G wireless specs incl...more

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