Triplefin acquires Flintfox USA

Triplefin, a Cincinnati-based provider of supply chain solutions, has acquired Flintfox USA as well as an interest in Flintfox's international business. Flintfox is based in New Zealand and offers a TPM package that will be complementary to Triplefin's offerings.

"Triplefin constantly works with our clients to make it transparent and easy for their staff, customers and other authorized users to create, execute and manage promotions," stated Jill Hein, Business Development Account Manager of Triplefin. "Triplefin has been a leader in promotion technology and execution for e-Commerce, DTC and retail channels, but it lacked a truly best-in-class technology for retail trade-spend. Flintfox is the answer, and I am very excited about the integration of Flintfox into Triplefin's Salefish technology platform," concluded Jill.

Flintfox had had a relationship with Kineticsware before that company ran into financial problems.

MEI names Petrelli as VP-Sales

Andrea Petrelli has been appointed as the new VP-Sales and Business Development at MEI, a supplier of TPM software. From the press release:

In this function, Ms. Petrelli is responsible for developing value-added partnerships, and for overseeing MEI's global operations and sales management efforts. She replaces Fred Schroeder, who previously held the position of Executive Vice President of Sales.

Andrea Petrelli comes to MEI with a successful track record in managing operations and growing sales for global consumer package goods manufacturers. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Finance and Operations for Pinnacle Foods Canada where she was responsible for finance, trade and inventory management, production planning, and sales operations for the manufacturer, a marketer and distributor of branded food products. After being promoted from Pinnacle's Director of Finance, she was instrumental in driving the strategy to maintain sales in a time of extreme market turbulence among retailers in Canada, while continuing double digit growth of the bottom line. Ms. Petrelli began her sales career with Compaq Canada and went on to assume several sales and finance positions with Nabisco Canada LLC - one of Kraft's billion-dollar brands.

Anybody who can cross over between Sales and Finance is a real Renaissance person. Best wishes to Andrea in her new role.

Bye-bye , Vista / Hello, Windows 7

Microsoft bid a probably not-very-fond adieu to the Vista name -- a thoroughly damaged brand -- reintroducing the product as Windows 7.

Microsoft introduced what it said would be a slimmer and more responsive version of its Windows operating system on Tuesday, while unceremoniously dropping the brand name Vista for the new product.

Vista got a cold response from both techies and ordinary users, and it will be interesting to see if the new version is a big improvement. Vista is blamed for Microsoft's recent lackluster financial results.

The problem was highlighted last week when Microsoft reported its financial results for the most recent quarter. Its Windows unit reported just a 2 percent rise in revenue against a 4 percent decline in operating income. The computer industry viewed the setback as a shift of historic proportions. The company acknowledged last week that the mix of Windows sales in both mature and emerging markets had tipped more toward low-cost PCs, which come with lower-margin versions of Windows and often not Vista. Sales of Office software rose 23 percent, bringing in more revenue than the operating system.

Kineticsware buys Flintfox

Kineticsware announced today that it has acquired New Zealand TPM software firm Flintfox. According to the press release:

The acquisition will enable Kineticsware to provide a new generation of full lifecycle TPM solutions to consumer goods companies delivered both directly and through selected partners globally. The combined company will have 141 customers and operations in 12 countries across North America, Asia Pacific and Europe.

Kineticsware has built its reputation in the supply chain, and the acquisition of Flintfox would be intended to improve its trade promo capabilities as an extension of that basis. Or, as the press release puts it:

“Significant margin impact from skyrocketing raw materials costs such as wheat and oil have driven consumer goods companies of all sizes to explore ways to protect their margins in the contractual trading relationship with their retailers.” said Jeff Sampson, CEO, Kineticsware. “With this acquisition, Kineticsware increases the breadth of its functionality to support the entire lifecycle of a trade promotion from budgeting, planning, execution and settlement to monitoring and analysis."

Flintfox has a solid base in AsiaPac that will complement Kineticsware geographocally, plus they have some very good people.

JDA buys i2

JDA bought i2 Technologies earlier this week for $346mil.

JDA Chief Executive Officer Hamish Brewer expects that this latest move -- supported by its 2006 purchase of Manugistics as well as nine other acquisitions in 10 years -- will further strengthen its position in the global manufacturing market for supply chain planning and optimization solutions.

This is more broadly supply-chain technology than my narrow trade promo focus (though there are obvious overlaps), so I don't have the knowledge to discuss whether it's a good deal or not, but the analysts quoted in this Consumer Goods Technology article are sure doing a great job of controlling their enthusiasm, for example:

"The roll-up of assets in the supply chain planning market will have little effect on options for the consumer products market. Despite a lot of marketing on penetration of the consumer products market by i2, the only application where the company was able to gain traction was transportation planning. We expect that it will have little effect on these IT investments or the use of these technologies." - Lora Cecere, Research Director, Consumer Products, AMR Research

Oracle buys Hyperion

Oracle is continuing their recent imitation of a teenager let loose at the mall with the family credit cards, this time adding Hyperion to the overflowing shopping bag.

AMR's weekly newsletter suggests that this will be the first of a series of purchases of business intelligence companies. Their list: "IBM-Cognos, SAP-Business Objects, and HP-Teradata, for starters."

John Kittle joins MEI

John Kittle, formerly Director of Trade Promotion and Category Development for Meow Mix, has joined MEI as VP-Industry Relations. Kittle had responsibility at Meow Mix for implementing the MEI solution. Prior to Meow Mix, Kittle was Director of Customer Sales Force Development at IRI, and had spent twenty-one years at Nabisco in various sales and marketing positions.

"John was a natural fit for this position given his industry experience and excellent reputation," stated Fred Schroeder, CEO, MEI.

DemandTec acquires TradePoint

DemandTec has announced the acquisition of TradePoint Solutions.

TradePoint offered an "online deal management software linking manufacturers, sales agencies and retailers", which will now be jointly marketed with DemandTec's retailer and manufacturer systems. According to the press release:

The combined solution from DemandTec, including the DemandTec TradePoint and DemandTec Promotion modules, is the industry’s first to combine consumer demand management and forecasting, promotion planning and optimization, and online collaborative deal management, all delivered via a software-as-a-service platform for both retailers and manufacturers.

Benefits to manufacturers and sales agencies include improvements in trade spend effectiveness and efficiency, improved demand planning, better forecast accuracy, efficient and accurate deal negotiation, streamlined deduction clearing and improved audit compliance.

Benefits to retailers include consistent deal management and billing across all vendors and brokers, integrated and controlled planning with vendors, improved promotion and category performance, better forecast accuracy and in-store service levels during promotions and improved audit compliance.

Rob Hand joins Oracle

Oracle has hired Rob Hand. Smart move, Oracle.

Oracle acquires Demantra

Oracle Corp., which has been on a buying spree lately, has bought analytics firm Demantra.

This is Oracle's twentieth acquisition in the past eighteen months, including Retek, ProfitLogic, and the high-profile purchases of PeopleSoft and Siebel.

From a trade promotion standpoint, the importance will be the integration of Demantra's promotional analysis tools (used by Welch's and other CPG firms) in Oracle's TPM package.