Marketing Software: The Next WaveMarketing Software: The Next Wave

Epiphany Inc. has set its sights on a burgeoning class of software designed to help companies plan and run effective marketing campaigns. The CRM vendor last week said it will produce and sell products with SmartPath Inc., a maker of marketing-resource-management software.

E.piphany Marketing Management will combine E.piphany Campaign Management and E.piphany Interaction Advisor software with a specifically configured version of SmartPath's software.

The marketing-resource-management market totaled $100 million in licensing revenue in 2002, but that could change as more vendors enter the market, Gartner analyst Claudio Marcus says. To date, traditional market-management players such as Unica Corp. and digital-asset-management vendors such as Artesia Technologies Inc. have dominated the space, but it's being targeted by smaller companies such as E.piphany and SmartPath as well as enterprise-application vendors such as Siebel Systems Inc. and PeopleSoft Inc.

"The entrance of the larger players is certainly going to increase the momentum of this space," Marcus says. "Within three to four years, I think you'll see larger application vendors benefit from a market-share standpoint, but specialized best-of-breed solutions will grow with clients with sophisticated requirements."