Microsoft dutifully selected its Inner Circle during the summer. The names of honored resellers filtered out as the firms themselves promoted the honor.

Xero is formulating its approach to entering the payments market. The cloud-based software company has not outlined plans for when it will do so.

ECI Software Solutions—owner of JobBoss, Macola and Max—has acquired Vineyardsoft. Terms were not disclosed. Vineyardsoft makes Knowledgesync, an alerts and workflow application.