Amdocs buys defunct CRM firm

Software maker Amdocs has paid $5 million to purchase the assets of Xchange, a former contender in the customer relationship management software market.

The cash acquisition, announced Wednesday, gives St. Louis-based Amdocs a set of programs from Xchange for streamlining marketing campaigns. The deal also calls for Amdocs' Clarify division to support about 100 Xchange customers, including Allstate, Staples and Fidelity. Ten former Xchange employees will become part of Amdocs' staff.

Xchange, based in Boston, closed its doors last month after a financing plan to take the publicly traded company private fell through. Competitors in the marketing software arena include Chordiant Software, DoubleClick, Epiphany, NCR Terradata, SAS and Unica.

Amdocs, which also makes billing and order processing applications, entered the customer relationship management (CRM) software market when it acquired Clarify from Nortel Networks in 2001 for $200 million in cash.

The CRM applications market has been under consolidation amid a protracted downturn in the business software industry. Many software companies that focused on a particular niche of CRM, such as marketing, have been absorbed by bigger companies.