You can't know the players without a scorecard

FreeMarkets is buying the sourcing & services assets of Covisint, an e-business service provider to the automotive industry. Covisint will transfer its customer contracts for auction services to FreeMarkets. Long term, FreeMarkets will serve DaimlerChrysler, GM, and Ford using FreeMarkets' own sourcing technology and services.

The Sage Group is acquiring ACCPAC International, a subsidiary of Computer Associates International—equity value $110 million. ACCPAC has accounting, CRM, HR, warehouse management, manufacturing, EDI, and point-of-sale solutions, and is expected to add more than 540,000 business customers to Best Software's nearly 1.8 million small and medium-size customers in the U.S. For Sage, the deal strengthens its business in Australia and South Africa, and gains entry into Asia with a strong position in Singapore.

EXE Technologies' stockholders approved an agreement and plan of merger with enterprise vendor SSA Global. EXE, a supply chain execution solutions vendor, will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SSA Global.

Supply chain management vendor TECSYS completed acquisition of all the shares of PointForce, a provider of outsourced IT software and services including e-commerce, accounting, and distribution software, as well as integrated EDI and other automation tools.

In an announcement out of Singapore, Symphony Technology Group will invest an initial (SEK) $256 million in enterprise suite vendor Intentia International and acquire 38.8 million shares at a price of (SEK) $6.60 per share. Symphony says it will support Intentia's collaborative enterprise and business analytics initiatives, adding that its product development expertise will strengthen Intentia's solutions offerings. Symphony is a software investment firm led by Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, one of the founders of AspectDevelopment, which was purchased by i2 Technologies at the height of the Internet boom.

Supply chain execution vendor HK Systems, a supplier to the pharmaceutical industry for 30-plus years, says its new Pharmaceutical Center of Excellence (COE), announced in January, brings consulting, design, project implementation and customer services to meet the diverse demands of pharmaceutical manufacturing, as well as warehousing and distribution environments.

With Wal-Mart and Department of Defense mandates now on the books, Acsis, which has supply chain and business process automation solutions for companies using SAP ERP, is working with Alien Technology for an integrated solution that will give SAP users both Alien's electronic product code (EPC) Class 1 tags and Acsis' RFID solutions.

ERP solutions vendor Cincom Systems has opened an office in Shanghai, responding to market demand for a Chinese version of the client/server version of CONTROL, a portfolio of Web-based solutions for complex products makers. Supply chain execution vendor RedPrairie has opened for business in Shanghai as well, the first vendor in its industry to do so.