Industry Leadership Excellence

Zach Nelson - President and CEO of NetSuite , Inc.

Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite is not the only person betting his company on the notion that companies inherently prefer to buy mission-critical business technology as a service. But he believes some in the SaaS industry don't appreciate that customers do not choose to buy technology as a service because it is a service. The decisions are made on the functionality of the product, not how the bits are delivered. In the disjointed mid-market where there are so many on-demand vendors, it may seem like the real deal-winner is the delivery mechanism. But it is functionality. People buy software to solve their business problems. This is the impetus behind Nelson's strategy in leading the on-demand mid-market.

Zach Nelson believes there is a battle coming in the mid-market SaaS marketplace. It is the same battle that was fought five years ago over on-premise software for very large enterprises. Buyers will feel out their options and see that they boil down to two categories: best-of-breed and the integrated suite. Nelson firmly believes this battle will have the same outcome now, in the on-demand mid-market, as it did then - the suite will be victorious, because only the suite can offer a reliable view of the complex transaction chain in a working enterprise.

There is a lot of noise out there made by the proponents of web services, who claim that web services free customers and developers from the responsibility of integration - this magical cloud of middleware will make sure everything about the transaction matches up in the end. Zach Nelson believes that web services can deliver powerful results by passing data from loosely coupled sources. It's what has made it work for the past ten years and will continue to make it work in the years to come. Ultimately, the integrated suite built from the ground up will win.

This may all seem scandalous coming from the CEO of an on-demand software company, but in Nelson's view it is just a matter of common sense and survival. Buyers want functionality, and care little about the underlying politics of how we deliver it to them. If a customer needs demand-based inventory replenishment, and you don't have it, it doesn't matter if your software is on-demand or hand-delivered from Mars-the customer won't buy it, because inventory replenishment is driving their pain. And if your on-demand software can't address their inventory replenishment needs without breaking the integrity of their transaction process, you won't get on the shortlist-or, worse, you will saddle the customer with a point solution, leaving them praying for a magical cloud to solve their integration headaches. That's not sustainable in any delivery model.

Nelson's deep understanding of the on-demand software industry has led NetSuite to taking major steps in its overall strategy which has a huge impact on the whole industry. Software giants such as Microsoft and SAP are making the noise to get in the on-demand business suites for the mid-market, and the pure on-demand CRM vendor like Salesforce.com is trying to create a platform for integrations. This is a testament to Nelson's vision which truly leads the industry.

Best Partnering Initiative

Webify Solutions helped healthcare and insurance carriers manage over six billion dollars of business in 2005. The company generated significant industry buzz by winning the industry's largest SOA deal to-date ($94M) and securing numerous accolades and awards for Webify's products and Webify's CEO and company visionary, Manoj Saxena. Webify also signed a number of partnership agreements with industry leaders and updated its service-oriented business software. Webify software is unique in the industry for its ability to adapt business services at runtime to create personalized Web services. Webify holds over 30 patents on this technology.

Webify has achieved the following in the past year:

Innovation, leadership and customer/sales traction:
· Partnered with IBM to win the industry's largest SOA deal from Fireman's Fund worth $94M
· Registered 280% growth in revenues and over 247% growth in year-over-year sales
· Helped healthcare and insurance carriers manage over six billion dollars of business in 2005

Partner traction:
· Partnership with Oracle to drive SOA based healthcare payer solutions.
· Product reseller agreement with IBM and worked with IBM to form a Webify Delivery Practice within IBM Global Services.
· Strategic partnerships with IBM , Oracle, BearingPoint, KPMG, Accenture, Trizetto, McKesson, Edifecs, Resolution EBS, Polaris among others

Business Development Initiative

Dassault Systèmes is an acknowledged leader in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software solutions. Their PLM portfolio enables companies to turn their intellectual property - creativity, knowledge and experience - into successful products in less time and at a lower cost over a longer life than their competitors. The company's PLM portfolio consists of integrated applications for designing products in 3D; storing, indexing and communicating design data to every company in the supply chain; and digitally simulating production processes.  

Dassault Systèmes' PLM portfolio lets companies capture, store and communicate every detail of their products' design and production from conception to end of life. Their solution creates a central repository for all product-related knowledge, where engineers far and near can contribute ideas and designs, and re-use other engineers' ideas to create new products and improve existing products. It unlocks innovation by enabling designers to explore product ideas more rapidly, while easily permitting last-minute modifications.

In the words of Industry Week magazine, April 1, 2005 , "Manufacturers are slowly waking up to the fact that PLM is fast becoming a necessity." Constantly shifting market dynamics and price pressure are combining to make companies that aggressively manage their intellectual property into the next generation of winners. PLMhas emerged as the most effective means of using intellectual property as a competitive advantage to manufacture the best products at the lowest possible cost in the least amount of time. Boeing designed its 7E7 Dreamliner from the ground up using Dassault Systèmes CATIA V5. The company plans is using Dassault Systèmes entire suite of PLM applications to manage the 7E7 throughout its life cycle. Just this week, Toyota announced it is using CATIA V5 as its primary product development platform. It now has 3,500 seats in production.

These developments are harbingers of things to come, according to industry watchers.  The market was worth more than $16 billion in 2004, according CIMData. As the pioneering company in PLM, with its only proven suite of products, Dassault Systèmes is recognized as the leaders in this hot new market.

Best Acquisition

Over a four-year period beginning in 2001, Jim Foy led the successful integration of six contact center technology acquisitions, culminating with the $1 billion acquisition of Aspect Communications by Concerto Software in September 2005. The result is Aspect Software, Inc., the largest company in the world specializing in next-generation products and services for in-house and outsourced contact centers.

Contact centers, which were once viewed primarily as a costly necessity, have the potential to be revenue-generating assets to modern-day businesses. However, they require a lot of enabling technologies that were historically sold by separate vendors as individual components or "point solutions."

Jim's foresight of market direction led him to bring together companies that offered complementary, high-performance contact center technologies that had the potential to be more easily integrated and offered on one unified platform.

He anticipated how technologies in this industry could best complement each other to help manage customer service, collections and sales interactions for a wide range of markets, including retail, transportation, financial services, telecommunications and government.

Best Sales Strategy

Invensys launched the InFusion initiative that combines company-developed manufacturing software with best of breed products obtained through acquisition. This software is part of the following $1.3 billion product portfolio:

· Foxboro process control systems and instrumentation

· SimSci-Esscor advanced control , simulation , and process optimization

· Wonderware plant intelligence and human machine interface software

· Avantis enterprise asset management software

· Triconex safety and critical control

These combine to enable manufacturers to improve competitiveness by automating significantly large portions of their operations. A chemical manufacturer, for example, might use a Foxboro process control system to control production variables, SimSci-Esscor software to simulate and optimize its process, Wonderware software to visualize the process and extract information, Invensys condition monitoring software for preventive and predictive maintenance, and Triconex technology to shutdown operations safely.

Leveraging synergies from the manufacturing industry's most comprehensive software suite, however, presented some challenges. First, each product used a different software platform, so integrating with each other and with third party products was a challenge. Customer research revealed an even greater barrier: most customers did not want more information; they wanted better context for the data they already had, help in contextualizing it. Invensys' new InFusion initiative addresses these integration and contextualization issues.

The initiative facilitates software integration via Invensys' ArchestrA applications environment. ArchestrA is manufacturing service-oriented architecture, which extends the Microsoft environment to the plant floor and for which Invensys has received "Powered by SAP NetWeaver Certification." Using this integration platform can reduce cost of integration by more than 80 percent.

"Messaging and re-branding exercises aside, most [vendors] have little to show for their investments," said Colin Masson, AMR Research Inc.'s research director of manufacturing operations, in a research note. "Invensys, on the other hand, has doggedly continued to invest resources -- nearly $100 million to date -- in replacing its legacy . products with an operations excellence platform, Invensys ArchestrA," Masson said.

The marketplace has reacted positively to the InFusion enterprise control strategy. Wisconsin Public Power, the first customer is nearing completion on the first implementation phase. Discussions are now underway with many other customers who will implement other aspects of the InFusion concept. Invensys has also restructured its sales force to leverage this new capability to cross-sell its entire line.

Best Product Delivery Strategy

Sentinel RMS from SafeNet is a complete software rights management solution that goes beyond software protection to include components for design, automated fulfillment and ongoing management of licenses dramatically reduces or eliminates many of the costs normally associated with license management.

Sentinel RMS provides you with the capability to implement a range of options in order to speed delivery and ease fulfillment. License activation can occur via phone, mail, fax, the Internet or through the use of a hardware token. Sentinel RMS makes web-based licensing easy, so your customers can select, purchase, register and activate products all online. In addition, embedded client activation allows the complete license transaction, including installation, to be executed over the Internet with no user involvement required.

2005 winners:

Industry Leadership Award: EMC CEO Joe Tucci
Business Development Excellence: SolidWorks John Mc Eleney
Best Partnership/Sales Strategy: Thor Technologies and RSA Security
Best Product Strategy: SSA Global
Best Technology Strategy: Cornerstone OnDemand
Best Financial Strategy: Novell
Best Partnering Initiative: Sage Software
Best Product Development Strategy: Brainshark
Best Business Development Tool: CNET Networks Upload.com Merchant Services Powered by Protexis

Business Development Excellence: PeopleSoft
Product Development Excellence: Lombardi Software
Best Partnering Initiative: Microsoft
Best Financing: PatchLink
Best Acquisition: Symantec Acquires Brightmail
Best Product Strategy: Prescient
Industry Leadership: Bruce Chizen, Adobe
Best Sales Strategy: Mercury Interactive
Best Technology: Data Synapse

Business Development Excellence: Kronos
Best Security Initiative: Macrovision
Top Acquisition: Peoplesoft Acquires JD Edwards
Best Partnering Alliance Program: FRx Software
Best ISV Relations Program: IBM
Best Localization Solution: Alchemy Software
Best Development Solution: Network Engines
Best Web Services Strategy: Flashline
Best Enterprise Integration: Ascential Software
Best Product Development: MicroStrategy

Business Development Excellence: JD Edwards
Best CRM/Help Desk Solution: InterVoice-Brite
Best International Growth Strategy: Business Objects
Best Security Initiative: iWay Software
Best ASP Solution: SAS
Best Website: Ipswitch
Best Web Services Strategy: Hewlett-Packard