Technology researcher Gartner Inc. has agreed to acquire research competitor Meta Group for $162 million in cash. Gartner, which reported $858 million in revenues in fiscal 2003, will pay $10 per share in cash for Meta, which posted revenues of $122 million last year.

In the beginning, there were mainframes - computer behemoths that occupied whole rooms and buildings, churning, blinking, beeping and droning, storing information and eventually producing oversized green-and-white-striped printouts.

Leadership isn't developed in a day. It takes a lifetime.

Kintera Inc., the company that bought Fundware from Intuit, has named Jim Schenck as vice president of accounting and membership to direct the development of the company's accounting solutions.

Best Software named Marc Griffin to the post of senior vice president and general manager for its Nonprofit Solutions arm, filling the void left by the departure of Kent Hollrah in June 2004. In his new role, Griffin will be responsible for the day-to-day planning and operations for the MIP Fund Accounting and MIP Fundraising product lines. He comes aboard at Best following a 20-year career with ADP, where he served in a variety of management posts in that company's Dealer Services Division. He will be based in Austin, Texas

Lorrie Norrington, who served for three years as executive vice president at software provider Intuit Inc., has resigned from the company, which is headquartered here, to pursue a chief executive post. Her resignation was effective Jan. 7. Norrington came aboard at Intuit after heading several divisions at conglomerate GE, with the understanding that she would succeed incumbent chief executive Steve Bennett. Last year, however, Bennett announced his intention to lead the company for an additional five years. According to federal filings, Intuit will pay Norrington some $915,000 as part of a severance package, and a $640,500 performance-based bonus. In a statement, Bennett said, "Lorrie made significant contributions to Intuit in a number of areas over the last three years -- growing our QuickBooks and Quicken businesses, rebuilding our outsourced payroll business, and substantially improving the Intuit-branded small businesses. Her strong leadership skills and business acumen have made a positive, lasting mark upon Intuit. We thank her for a terrific job and wish her well."

Following the recent $10.3 billion takeover of PeopleSoft by Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. said that it would offer a migration program for users of the PeopleSoft Enterprise, PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne and PeopleSoft World. The migration program provides migration technology, price discounts on Microsoft Business Solutions software and services, and migration guidance. The program, available through June 22, provides customers with a 25 percent license discount, a 25 percent discount on a Microsoft Business Solutions support and enhancement plan for the first year, migration planning guides, and data migration tools. The program is available for all four MBS applications. The company also recommended that PeopleSoft World and PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne customers consider MBS's Axapta, and that PeopleSoft Enterprise customers in the United States and Canada consider MBS Great Plains. "Businesses that use PeopleSoft technology are facing some difficult choices today, and we're committed to providing them with the best options for moving forward," said Doug Burgum, senior vice president at Microsoft. "Today's announcement is evidence of our ongoing commitment to working closely with PeopleSoft customers and partners to help them migrate to Microsoft Business Solutions in a smooth, cost-effective manner, and on a schedule that best accommodates their business needs." The migration program is available now through Microsoft resellers worldwide.

Obsolete and redundant software is a major drain on companies' information technology budgets, according to a survey by the Business Performance Management Forum.

New York - Chief executives of the nation's fastest growing private companies expect a significant increase in productivity over the next 12 months, with most of the credit going to workforce efficiencies and technology improvements, and some attributed to good old-fashioned restraint, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.Among 364 CEOs at privately held product and service companies with from $5 million to $150 million in revenue, 60 percent expect that their company's productivity will increase, according to the latest PwC Trendsetter Barometer. Among that group, 21 percent say that growth will be "much greater," while an additional 39 percent say "somewhat greater." Thirty-seven percent expect that productivity will stay about the same, and 2 percent say that it will be somewhat lower.

BEST UNVEILS SIMPLY ACCOUNTING 2005: Best Software has released Simply Accounting 2005 Basic, an updated version of its proprietary integrated solution for small businesses.Priced at $49, Simply Accounting 2005 features a clear graphical layout and includes more than 100 starter templates for different business types, 30 days of free telephone support, and an optional payroll tax update service.

For the past few years, the mantra in the mid-range has been that Best Software will soon own the market. Acquiring solid and reliable competitors and positioning its lineup well, Best has indeed made strong inroads.But it doesn't own the mid-range, and won't in the near term. This is not due to any failing on Best's part, but rather to the rich offerings and loyal customer bases of its competitors. Of the eight products reviewed in this year's round-up, four are in fact published by Best Software. But the competitors from AccTrak, Cougar Mountain, CYMA and Microsoft are strong in features and well-positioned in their own right.

Firms are faced with opportunities and challenges as they head into the 2005 busy season.

Microsoft Business Solutions is giving its struggling Small Business Manager software a new name, price promotions and increased marketing to give it a better foothold in the market.

Tax and accounting software maker ATX has decided to hire a sales force to serve customers who are buying what it says is an increasingly complex product line.

RIA has added several new features, including enhancements to its financial reporting and management content, and expanded search capabilities in Tax Alerts, to the latest edition of its popular Checkpoint product.

A group of former Intuit employees have launched TaxNet.com, which provides Internet-based filing of income taxes, along with electronic filing.

MICROSOFT UNVEILS SMALL BUSINESS ACCOUNTING: In a push to gain small business clients, Microsoft has released a beta version of its new Office product, code-named Magellan. This would be Microsoft's second edition of its Office suite for small businesses, a market segment on which the company has increasingly focused.

The number of sophisticated businesses - law firms, financial advisors, insurance brokers and so on - with ineffective Web sites seems to be increasing at a geometric rate.

Cross-selling is the Holy Grail of CPA marketing. In its simplest form, cross-selling is the act of uncovering unfulfilled client needs and offering your firm services to fulfill those needs. And while no one would argue the value of serving client needs, it is our experience that cross-selling meets with unnecessary resistance in most firms. In this article, we'll explore some of the reasons for this resistance and share our ideas for developing a cross-selling culture and implementing cross-selling strategies and methodologies in your firm.

Two of the hardest tasks in financial advising and planning are getting clients - and then keeping them. Software can help with the first, but success in getting new clients is largely a matter of marketing expertise.Keeping your clients also is difficult. As their advisor, your clients expect you to be able to help them not only establish their financial goals, but also to achieve them. These goals are not necessarily static - they can be a mix of maximizing capital, maximizing income, offsetting income realization, or any other application of wealth and assets that the client's imagination can come up with. The strategies for accomplishing these goals are what the client is paying you to come up with.