Last week business software provider Oracle announced that Gregory B. Maffei will be their new president and chief financial officer, starting in July. Maffei comes to Oracle from 360networks, a fiber optics communication company based in Seattle, where he served as chairman and chief executive officer. Previously, Maffei was chairman of Expedia, a travel Web site, and the CFO of Microsoft from 1997 to early 2000. He will succeed Harry You, who left the position in March to become chief executive officer at BearingPoint, a business consulting and services enterprise near Boston. Safra Catz, co-president at Oracle, will continue to act as interim CFO until Maffei takes over.

Three years after it purchased the consulting unit of Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for $3.5 billion in cash and stock, IBM Corp. said that it would launch a new supply chain consulting arm specializing in global logistics. The Armonk, N.Y.-based concern has tapped veteran Bob Moffat to head the new unit, which will bundle consulting services, software automation technology and its proprietary global computer logistics. IBM projected supply chain services -- which constitute a $23 billion market, according to IT industry researchers -- as its next new growth area.

Denali, a new product line from business applications developer Cougar Mountain, was unveiled this week and the company said that many of the modules will be ready for shipment in late July. The Denali product family is based on .Net and SQL technology from Microsoft, and is geared toward those companies looking to grow in size, location and data volume. The remainder of the products will be released in the fall."This new family of products provides features of the high-end accounting programs at a very reasonable price," said chief executive officer Jim Stone. "The product allows organizations to tailor functionality while following generally accepted accounting practices." Scheduled for the July release will be the Denali Point of Sale, Inventory, Specialty Shop, and Multi-location Inventory solutions. In the fall, Cougar Mountain will unveil its Denali General Ledger, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable applications. Denali products will be available for multiple-location environments with unlimited transaction volumes, and provide multi-level security. The Denali POS system being released this July accepts multiple currencies and different tenders (checks, credit/debit cards and cash) in one transaction, updates in real-time to let users know if an item is out of stock, and has automated vendor pricing information, among other features.

The Compliance Consortium, an international group that promotes effective governance, risk and compliance management, has merged with the Open Compliance and Ethics Group, a nonprofit organization specializing in compliance and risk-management strategies. The merger is effective immediately. Members of the Compliance Consortium will serve as the initial members of the newly created OCEG Technology Council. Ted Frank, chairman of the Compliance Consortium advisory council and president of governance software provider Axentis, will join the OCEG's overall Leadership Council and head the newly formed Technology Council. Sebastian Holst, president of the Compliance Consortium, said that one of the OCEG Technology Council's first objectives will be to expand its membership to include commercial organizations and other technology providers.

Intacct Corp., an on-demand business applications provider, announced three new on-demand services integrating with their online enterprise resource planning software -- CustomERP, ConnectERP and ManageERP. When an Intacct customer updates something, like an address, in their ERP system, the new CustomERP will then automatically update any other application needing the new information, such as the customer's CRM application, for an address change. ConnectERP is a Web Services integration platform that connects the CustomERP to the customer's applications so the updates can be made. ManageERP is a Web portal for deploying and managing applications, customizations and integrations."Normally, you would need a middleware application and you need a lot of complex computer code [to transfer data between the ERP and other applications]," said Alf Abuhajleh, an Intacct representative."We've taken all that away. Using simple Web Services, not only can you integrate other applications into our system, but you can share real-time data between them as well." Separately, president and CEO Robert J. Jurkowski has been appointed to the Software Division Board of the Software & Information Industry Association. Consisting of 19 executives from SIIA's 750-company membership, the SIIA Software Division manages strategic direction, work and activities of SIIA software programs.

Microsoft Unveils Accountants' Network: Microsoft Corp. has launched the Microsoft Professional Accountants' Network to offer training and technical support on its upcoming Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 application.Program participants will have free business-critical and installation support on the SBA application. Another support program is also available for $300 a year; it includes five free incident calls for accountants outside the two free support services, 10 free licenses for SBA and 10 free licenses for Microsoft Office Small Business Management Edition 2006, software with SBA embedded into Microsoft Office.

Despite its size, Germany-based SAP sometimes toils in relative obscurity in the United States. For instance, many remain unaware that SAP, known primarily for larger enterprise applications like Strategic Enterprise Management, makes a small business accounting software solution - Business One.

At last month's Sage Software partner conference here, chief executive Ron Verni spoke to the 3,000 attending partners about freedom of choice for Sage customers.

In our last article on the topic of leadership, we explored the first dimension of leadership influence, which is who you are being, or the behavioral attributes that you should strive to exhibit, as a leader. In that article, we established that leadership in business is the art of influencing others to do the things you need them to do to meet their objectives, which should translate to meeting your organization's objectives.

The alarm clock is going off for the third time. It's time that you get up and go to work, even if you don't want to. If you don't pay attention, you will lose.

Top-ranked accounting firm Plante & Moran has tapped technology veteran Michael Dickson, CPA, CITP, as manager with the firm's technology consulting and solutions practice.

A California start-up is entering the online tax prep software fray with the launch of a new Web-based software package aimed at accounting firms with up to 15 practitioners.

Financial software provider Serenic Corp. has entered into a reselling pact with the Public Sector Partner Group, a six-VAR consortium, for its proprietary Serenic Navigator not-for-profit solution.

Informatica, an enterprise software integration provider, at its annual user conference, announced an original equipment manufacturer agreement with San Mateo, Calif.-based Itemfield, a data transformation software developer.

Intuit founder Scott Cook this week laid out how the latest software market trends will impact accountants and their clients at the California Accounting & Business Show and Conference.

Tax prep software maker Drake Software has named company veteran Tim Hubbs, CPA, as its president and chief executive.

* CSI ACQUIRES ACCOUNTWARE LINE: Tax and accounting software provider Creative Solutions Inc. has acquired the tax software line of Cincinnati-based Accountware for undisclosed terms. CSI said that it would extend an array of incentives, including price protection at Accountware renewal rates and training options, to Accountware's existing customers to transition to CSI's proprietary UltraTax CS products.

Best Software, part of the billion-dollar London-based software company Sage Group Plc, has been changing the face of its Accpac line for some time now - literally.

In a move to deepen its penetration into southwestern markets, middle-market software and consulting concern Enterprise Resource Group, headquartered here, has acquired Houston-based Burch Consultants.

First introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, microcomputer-based accounting has long been the Rodney Dangerfield of applications - often getting little respect. Some accountants and their clients have been somewhat dismissive of these packages, considering them "starter" accounting systems - good to get a client computerized and familiarized with the benefits and requirements of an in-house system, but ultimately just a stop on the way to a real application. While there are numerous clients that eventually will want to upgrade, the majority of entry-level accounting packages provide clients with a robust feature set and capabilities that will help them meet regulatory requirements and provide the information that they need to run their businesses better.