Reseller Bennett Porter is transitioning out of its Syspro business. The Tigard Ore-based company has sold its Syspro practice to Systems Advisory Services effective October 1. It is still supporting four customers that use the manufacturing software application in conjunction with SAS, but only through December.

Xero has named Tony Stewart to the newly created position of chief data officer. The New Zealand-based cloud accounting software company says in this new role Stewart will be responsible for accelerating automation, business systems roll out and big data innovation. The hiring follows last month's phishing episode in which the company said  a small number of users tricked of customers were tricked into disclosing their Xero logons.

Ken Lorenz, whose career has spanned a wide-range of mid-market jobs, has taken a position in business development for vertical ISV relationships for Acumatica. Lorenz has had two stints with SAP. He was with that software vendor from July 2003 through April 2009 and spent his first two years and two months with SAP America as a regional channel manager and finished with three years and 11 months as Business development director - global megachannel.

Edgewater Technology, which has Oracle and Dynamics AX practices, has retained Signal Hill Capital Group to evaluate a hostile takeover launched by Ameri Holdings. In a prepared statement, Edgewater said this week it is aware of an attempt by stockholder, Lone Star Value Investors, to remove certain company directors. "The Board and Company management value input from all of the Company's stockholders," Edgewater said in a prepared statement. Lone Star, led by activist investor Jeff Eberwein, teamed up with Ameri Holdings recently to launch a proxy solicitation.