Stacy Cowley

Oracle Corp. has finally shipped the newest version of its Oracle Collaboration Suite, two years after the software's last major update and more than a year after its intended release date.

RightNow Technologies Inc. rolled out the latest version of its hosted CRM (customer relationship management) software service this week and introduced two new add-on products aimed at expanding the company's telesales and customer self-service offerings.

IBM Corp. is looking to broaden the reach of its WebSphere Portal. A recent upgrade made the 4-year-old software available for the first time on IBM's zSeries mainframe and iSeries midmarket servers, a move IBM hopes will spur customer interest in deploying portal software on platforms for which it has previously not been widely available.

IBM Corp. is reorganizing its Global Services business, replacing John Joyce as the group's head with a pair of executives. Joyce, 51, who spent 30 years at IBM and once served as the company's chief financial officer, is leaving IBM to join private technology investment firm Silver Lake Partners.

Intentia International AB has released the latest version of its business applications suite, an update that's likely to be the software's last major overhaul before Intentia completes a planned merger with fellow midmarket ERP (enterprise resource planning) software maker Lawson Software Inc.

Less than two months after closing its acquisition of Ascential Software Corp., IBM Corp. is releasing to beta testing two data integration technologies, Ascential's software codenamed Hawk and IBM's Project Serrano. Serrano is a refresh of IBM's Information Integration portfolio, which includes tools to help customers centrally tap into corporate data from various sources.

Energy supplier NiSource Inc. said Tuesday it has signed a 10-year agreement with IBM Corp. to outsource a number of IT support functions, a deal IBM estimated will be worth US$1.6 billion in service fees over the life of the contract.

Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) has agreed to buy Niku Corp., an IT management and governance software company, for around US$350 million in cash, the companies announced Thursday. CA's relationship with Niku began in January, when it signed a deal to resell, service and support Niku's Clarity IT-MG software.