PricewaterhouseCoopers Study Reveals Companies Need to Address Widening Economic Impact of Unlicensed Technology
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) has released the third annual survey of its kind focusing on technology licensing trends. The 2007 Technology Licensing Marketplace Study found that as technology has moved to the heart of most business processes, an increasing number of industries are suffering the effects of licensing non-compliance. This growth puts even more companies at risk of losing millions in earnings and potentially billions in market capitalization to unlicensed technology.
Meanwhile, in the last year, more than three quarters of all technology licensors suffered revenue leakage due to licensing non-compliance, and this leakage was most serious in lucrative, high-growth economies such as the United States and China. In the software industry alone, the global loss to underreporting, overdeployment and piracy was estimated at nearly $40 billion.
"Companies must recognize the seriousness of this situation," says David Marston, partner and U.S. leader for Licensing Management, PricewaterhouseCoopers. "The impact to earnings and market valuation suffered by companies that do not pursue revenue leakage from unlicensed technology is both significant and quantifiable."
Seventy-eight percent of technology licensors report revenue leakage from licensing agreements, however, companies appear to be relatively unconcerned about its effects. Seventy-two percent of software companies and 71 percent of all technology licensors respondents do not consider piracy or the black market an important issue. Almost half (48 percent) also do not have a plan for recovering lost licensing revenue.
Without accurate information on which to base their assessments, technology licensors tend to view leakage as a minor financial issue that does not constitute a material loss. Sixty percent of technology licensors believe leakage accounts for 5 percent or less of total licensing revenue, and only 6 percent report leakage that exceeds 20 percent of revenue.
Despite that view, the study found that revenue leakage caused from $25 million to more than $125 million in losses for at least 31 percent of technology licensors in 2006.
"The current state of the technology licensing market magnifies the importance of earnings performance," adds Marston. "As assets of large, generally public companies, large licensing portfolios are under constant pressure to maintain growth and boost corporate earnings."
Other noteworthy trends include:
-- Technology licensors are most concerned about licensing revenue leakage in China and the United States
- China is the world's fastest growing licensing market. The highest proportion of companies (40 percent) rate China as a top region for leakage, and 33 percent consider the U.S. a primary concern.
- The U.S. licensing market also has the highest average number of agreements per company. In 2005 and 2006, more than half of companies reported more than 250 licensing agreements in North America and about one-quarter reported 2,500 or more.
-- Changing attitudes and new compliance tools are driving increased scrutiny of licensing compliance
- In 2006, 54 percent of all technology licensors employed compliance audits, a number that increased to 61 percent among companies with more than $1 billion in total revenue.
- Eighty-nine percent of respondents believed their customer relationships remained the same (75 percent) or grew stronger (14 percent) after compliance audits.
-- Best practices could significantly improve the effectiveness of many licensing compliance programs in recovering lost revenue and strengthening customer relationships
- Revenue-recovery programs are very likely to pay for themselves and, in many cases, also add to the bottom line.
- Thirty-eight percent of technology licensors believe that a lack of internal controls among licensees is the main cause of non-compliance.
"Attitudes are changing," comments Marston. "Guided by the precedents in Sarbanes-Oxley, aided by new tools, and driven by increasing revenues, the licensing marketplace is becoming more transparent and mature. As best practices for revenue tracking and compliance become standard practice, so will appropriate economic compensation for intellectual property."
The PricewaterhouseCoopers 2007 Technology Licensing Marketplace Study is based on interviews with CFOs and CIOs at companies in the United States and Canada with annual revenue of $250 million or more and operations involving licensing agreements. These companies were identified by SIC codes that traditionally fall within the technology sector, but 29 percent of respondents classified their companies in industries outside the technology sector, including professional services, financial services, distribution and logistics, publishing, automotive, consumables, and research.
Contact www.pwc.com/us/licensing
The Common Application Safeguards its Online Offering Via Technology Escrow
By Frank A. Bruno, Manager, Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management
The Common Application was founded 30 years ago as a not-for-profit organization that enables high school students to submit one common application to its over 300 member colleges and universities that use a holistic, qualitative selection process for admission. For the first 21 years, this was handled manually, with a paper process, but nine years ago the Common App Online debuted as a web-based service.
When the Internet exploded, The Common Application began making its application form available online in a web submission version. In the first year, they had 1,248 applications submitted overall; this year they have passed the mark of one million annual submissions. Executive Director of The Common Application Rob Killion explains, “There has been a sea change in people’s comfort-level with the Internet, particularly among the high-school age population. As recently as two or three years ago, many still found it unimaginable to trust something as important as a college application to the Internet. And, now many people believe the reverse - to trust something this critical to the vagaries of the mail seems hard to imagine.”
To provide the best user experience and stay true to its goals of equity, access, and integrity in the college
“The primary benefit is the security that we get. We know that if catastrophe strikes – either catastrophe in terms of a deteriorating business relationship, a natural or personal catastrophe – there is a now a ‘plan B’ with Iron Mountain, and that’s something we haven’t had before.”
- Rob Killion
Executive Director
The Common Application |
application process, The Common Application decided it needed to build a next-generation online service. They hired a third party technology partner, AY Software Services, a subsidiary of AY Recruiting Solutions, to develop the new Common App Online. AY will also host, manage and maintain the service after its launch. An important element of the new Common App Online will be added protection for its users, including technology escrow.
Jennifer Wagener, President of AY Software Services states, “We were pleased to have been selected by The Common Application for this project, based on our extensive industry experience. From the perspective of The Common Application, we understand that they certainly want to have some level of protection. Hence, their requirement to use an escrow service for the purposes of this system that we are developing for them.”
The Challenge
The next generation Common Application Online has many differences that will enhance both the student user experience and the ability for member schools to work with the data submitted. Killion explains, “The front-end user interface has been entirely re-thought and designed from the ground up; it will be a very modern, user-friendly interface. We will also be incorporating a search engine that students can use to more easily and accurately locate which of our schools meet their search criteria. And, high school counselors and teachers will now be able to transmit their recommendation forms and high school transcripts online.” On the back-end, the new system will now use Microsoft ASP.net and there will be many more tools for the member colleges to be able to manipulate the data.
Killion adds, “As part of the added security in the new service, we decided it would be prudent to consider digital escrow services for the first time. Our intellectual property attorney recommended we look at Iron Mountain, and so we did.”
Wagener echoes his sentiments, “From a practical business perspective, their volume surpassed a million applications this season. That’s really starting to get to a level where you need to make sure you have good business plans. As they continue to promote the Common App Online and expect to see significant growth, the protection of an escrow strategy is now part of the service that they need to provide to their users.
The Solution
The Common Application selected Iron Mountain’s SaaSProtect Escrow Service, especially designed to protect applications and data in Software as a Service business models. With SaaSProtect Escrow Service, applications are protected with both source code and object code escrow deposits. This provides all the components necessary to recreate the live production environment for the application – either on the customer’s premise or at a fail-over site – and to restore service to end-users. The Common Application will also use Iron Mountain’s verification testing to ensure the application can be re-built quickly.
Killion elaborates, “When our new application year starts, AY will be doing twice a month escrow deposits. And, once a year, we will also be taking advantage of Iron Mountain’s verification service, where Iron Mountain will be verifying the system for us to make sure that what has been deposited is actually fully functioning replicable code.”
From the service provider’s point of view, Wagener of AY Software Services states, “We have been hired to provide a reliable system that is available 24 by 7. In the event that doesn’t happen, for whatever reason, the Iron Mountain service provides a back-up solution for The Common Application to utilize to ensure system availability. We would never expect it to be needed, but it is a safeguard for them.”
As The Common Application examines risks and decides on protection strategies, Iron Mountain’s SaaSProtect Escrow Service has been integrated into the Common App Online as part of the company’s “best practice” business continuity strategy. “We are fortunate that the online application generates sufficient revenue to continue providing best practice security measures for our members,” he continues. “And, digital escrow and digital verification services are certainly an important part of that.”
Frank Bruno consults with developers, corporations and intellectual property law professionals throughout the United States on IP management best practices for Iron Mountain. He delivers expertise in IP Protection (Strategy, Process & Management) as it relates to technology development, technology acquisitions, software asset management, and managing Domain Name portfolios to Iron Mountain’s clientele. Prior to joining Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management, he was a Director of Business Development for The META Group, a leading Information Technology Research Consultancy. The Common Application and Common App Online are registered trademarks of the The Common Application, Inc., and are used with its permission. |
SAP Co-Innovation Lab to Offer Hands-on Environment for Collaborative Work With Partners and Customers Around Enterprise SOA
The new SAP Co-Innovation Lab in Palo Alto, Calif. will offer a hands-on environment for SAP, independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators (SIs) and technology partners to work together with customers around current and future technologies, and to showcase how customers can increase competitive advantage and improve efficiencies by transforming their business networks with enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA).
The SAP Co-Innovation Lab will provide an efficient work environment for joint projects and will feature a simulated heterogeneous data center incorporating hardware and infrastructure software from the various participating vendors. To accurately simulate what is needed to support enterprise SOA effectively, the lab will re-create real-world performance and security required for Web-enabled and Internet/intranet-accessible business applications.
“The opening of the SAP Co-Innovation Lab exemplifies the tremendous power of the SAP ecosystem and is a physical manifestation of how SAP is truly engaging partners and customers in joint collaboration,” said Zia Yusuf, executive vice president, Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP. “We’ve established this lab as a trail-blazing facility for ISVs, SIs, technology vendors and customers to come together to exchange ideas and develop the next generation of innovations that customers need to run their businesses as efficiently and effectively as possible. We are pleased Cisco, HP, Intel, NetApp and our ecosystem of partners stand behind this vision.”
Sponsors of the lab will participate in joint projects with ISVs, systems integrators and other technology vendors, and also will collaborate with SAP to develop solution blueprints to help customers create data center environments optimized to support enterprise SOA. ISVs and SIs will leverage the lab to collaborate with SAP and customers around enterprise SOA, as well as have the opportunity to test and demonstrate their products in an IT environment that supports heterogeneous systems based on the open standards that customers demand today. Callidus Software, Novell, Questra and Wonderware are among the first ISVs signing on to initiate projects in the SAP Co-Innovation Lab.
Technology vendors will leverage the lab to optimize their infrastructure products for SAP customers and ensure that their offerings simplify customer adoption of enterprise SOA. Citrix Systems and F5 are among the first infrastructure partners committing to initiate projects in the SAP Co-Innovation Lab.
“SAP and Cisco are committed to helping customers realize the full potential of their IT investment and enable technology to transform their business,” said Bill Ruh, vice president of Advanced Services, Cisco Systems. “Critical to achieving this value is the convergence of application and IT infrastructures. The SAP Co-Innovation Lab is a valuable resource for our customers to witness the potential of their overall IT investment while assuming best practices in their deployments.”
“This announcement enhances our long-standing relationship with SAP by leveraging elements of HP’s Business Technology portfolio with SAP’s evolving product and service offerings for enterprise SOA,” said Ron Eller, vice president and general manager of Enterprise Solutions Alliances, HP. “The collaboration will create a future generation of highly agile and adaptable solutions that provide better business outcomes for our customers.”
The SAP Co-Innovation Lab builds on a successful pilot of a co-innovation facility in Silicon Valley for network vendors that ran from November 2006 to April 2007. The goal of the pilot facility was to give leading network vendors hands-on experience testing their products and services together with SAP applications, while SAP could explore ways to optimize the network performance of its enterprise SOA offerings. By expanding the concept and opening a hands-on co-innovation lab in the heart of Silicon Valley, SAP customers will benefit from reduced integration costs and faster innovation cycles.
Contact www.sap.com
New HP Software and Services Accelerate Delivery of IT Projects to Improve Business Outcomes
With major software updates and new services in its quality management and service management offerings, as well as further integration across its software product line, HP is enabling customers to rapidly deliver IT projects and services to achieve better business outcomes, such as on-time, on-budget product introductions and increased profitability.
“With so much of business today relying on technology, CEOs need IT more than ever to fuel growth,” said Thomas E. Hogan, senior vice president, Software, HP. “To ensure that IT delivers the speed and agility the business needs, HP BTO software and services provide a platform that aligns IT with business requirements, automates for efficiency and increases collaboration across functions.”
According to a recently released study conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of HP, companies are experiencing unacceptable levels of IT delays. Although 62 percent of companies surveyed said that faster IT meant higher profits, the study showed that one in four IT projects is delivered late. Furthermore, majority of those surveyed said no more than one in two IT initiatives produced positive business outcomes. This gap results from tight budgets and limitations imposed by manual processes, point solutions and teams working in silos.
To address this growing gap, the HP BTO portfolio helps IT organizations:
• Make sure IT and non-IT managers work on the same business goals;
• Speed up internal processes within IT functions such as IT strategy, applications and IT operations; and
• Automate processes across the different IT roles.
“Demand for greater business agility is driving the majority of new application implementations and changes, and it requires the optimization of every aspect of the application’s lifecycle,” said Thomas Murphy, research director, Gartner, an industry analyst firm. “When it comes to delivering applications that meet the needs of the business, quality assurance teams must look for ways to greatly accelerate their testing cycles in order to meet increasingly stringent schedules from business and application teams."
Contact www.hp.com
Softrax Releases Newest Versions of Its Comprehensive Revenue Management and Billing Solutions
Softrax Corporation has released new product versions of innovative financial solutions for companies in software (including SaaS), business process outsourcing (BPO), e-commerce, online content, research, e-learning, and related industries.
Softrax Operations 8.2 and Softrax Contrax 3.0 include a number of feature enhancements designed to improve critical revenue recognition processes and to facilitate compliance with the latest legal and regulatory requirements. These latest releases specifically enhance tax calculation, billing and invoicing as well as capabilities well suited for organizations conducting business in multiple currencies. They also offer the broadest range of support for today’s heterogeneous IT environments, including support for Microsoft SQL 2005 and Oracle 10g.
“With Softrax solutions we are able to manage our most critical revenue recognition and accounting processes,” said Joshua Sroge, Director of Finance and Accounting at Spatial Corporation. “Everything happens like clockwork. We have a lot of other technology that we use,” he continued, “but Softrax is at the center of the hub. All vital information flows through it, and no other financial application could replace it.”
The newest features and enhancements help increase the efficiency of critical accounting procedures, enhance reporting, integrate existing usage-transaction systems, and lower the cost of customer billing practices:
- Enhanced charge and bill generation – Softrax has added functional enhancements around the generation of charges and customer billing. Companies can now generate new invoices at any point in time to reflect up-to-the-minute billing for specific companies or sets of companies within an organization.
- Expanded integration with third-party systems - By improving key areas of functionality, including customer contact information and tax jurisdictions, these latest Softrax releases provide greater flexibility to integrate with third-party SFA, CRM and tax accounting applications.
- Greater flexibility for tiered-pricing models – Softrax provides the flexibility necessary to support billing for products and services with tiered pricing models. With this release, companies can now provide their customers with accurate, itemized descriptions of exactly what each pricing tier is costing them.
- Revenue Recognition enhancements– Responding to customer requirements, Softrax has added more flexibility for revenue scheduling, giving finance managers extended control over financial quarters based on daily or weekly calendar schedules.
- Enhanced tax calculation – Softrax now offers improved tax accounting capabilities through continued integration with ADP Taxware. These features help support organizations conducting business in states and jurisdictions that utilize maximum tax and bracket tax laws.
- Enhanced support for international revenue recognition – In addition to valuable reporting tools to aid in forecasting deferred revenue, Softrax has enhanced support for companies doing business in multiple foreign currencies. International organizations can easily revalue deferred revenue according to exchange rate fluctuations according to FASB 52 accounting rules, providing even more precise forecasting and visibility into your organization’s bottom line.
- Strategic and Tactical Data Visibility – Softrax maintains native compatibility with powerful business intelligence and real-time reporting solutions. Softrax Business Intelligence and Softrax Inform will provide revenue centric views into business activity in addition to “financially driven” day-to-day details to support the information requirements of many, and promote a true customer-centric environment.
- Expanded platform support - Softrax has expanded platform support to include Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Oracle 10g, in addition to support for Microsoft SQL Server 2000, helping organizations maximize their investment in existing IT infrastructure and expertise.
Softrax Operations and Softrax Contrax automate a broad set of critical financial processes including contract management, pricing, billing, revenue allocations and deferrals, expense accounting, and renewals. Softrax Contrax is further optimized for the more complex requirements of companies with subscription and usage-based business models. Since traditional accounting and ERP systems do not include functionality to integrate and automate these particular revenue management processes, Softrax solutions are in demand across an industry base that is increasingly broad.
“Many of our customers, both public and private, are recognizing Softrax as an industry standard for managing their revenue accounting and billing practices, ” said Gottfried Sehringer, vice president of marketing at Softrax. These newest releases build on our long standing experience with hundreds of customers in this market, and deliver the most comprehensive revenue management solutions available today. They allow our customers to better leverage their technology investments and to make their revenue management and compliance processes easier and less costly.”
Contact www.softrax.com
SeaTab’s PivotLink Version 3.5 Provides Users with Increased Access to Graphically Rich, User-defined Visualizations
SeaTab Software, a developer of enterprise-grade, on-demand business intelligence solutions, has released Version 3.5 of its flagship product, Pivotlink OnDemand. The release includes major enhancements to data visualizations, including the ability for each user - from CEOs to rank-and-file employees - to create rich graphical dashboards and scorecards without requiring IT assistance. The enhanced dashboard capability in PivotLink OnDemand v3.5 is a powerful tool for users, enabling them to create tailored, at-a-glance reports in a user-friendly, visually appealing format.
PivotLink 3.5 also includes new functionality that accelerates data load times by 50 percent and ensures round-the-clock availability of PivotLink OnDemand, with no 'lock-out' times when new customer data is being uploaded.
"Effective visualizations are a powerful way to communicate complex information to BI users throughout an organization - from the CEO to a local sales manager," said Elias Israel, director of product development at SeaTab Software. "Like everything else about PivotLink OnDemand, our new dashboard functionality can be tailored by each user to create a custom environment that meets their specific needs. In addition, because our dashboards are dynamically linked to the underlying analysis that drives them, they pack a huge informational punch and lend even greater accessibility to the product."
SeaTab Software is the leading developer of enterprise-grade, on-demand business intelligence solutions. SeaTab's PivotLink OnDemand puts the full power of business intelligence in the hands of people who need it, with tailored environments for each user - from CEOs to rank-and-file employees, from vendors to customers. SeaTab's unique, self-directed analytics capabilities provide these users with complete analytical freedom without requiring IT involvement.
Contact www.seatab.com
Pitney Bowes MapInfo Enters Strategic Alliance with Accruent
Pitney Bowes MapInfo has entered a strategic alliance with Accruent, a provider of real estate performance management (RPM) solutions that delivers retail and financial services organizations a comprehensive solution for identifying the most profitable locations and accelerating new store openings.
“Retailers and financial service companies are under tremendous pressure to quickly secure optimal real estate site locations and stay ahead of their competitors,” says Mark Friedman, chief executive officer, Accruent, Inc. “By combining the site selection expertise of Pitney Bowes MapInfo with Accruent’s RPM solutions, organizations can accurately forecast sales potential and pinpoint the best areas for growth, as well as speed up the approval, construction and opening of new stores, saving considerable time and controlling costs.”
Accruent’s RPM solutions manage the business processes surrounding key real estate decisions and streamline the entire real estate lifecycle, including finding, developing and managing store locations. Integrating these capabilities with Pitney Bowes MapInfo location intelligence enables businesses to proactively identify more high-performance locations and evaluate site alternatives before their competition. Predictive analytics tools develop sales projections that are compared to site and development costs. Companies can then generate real-world ROI estimates and devise tactical execution plans so that new store locations can be up and running sooner.
“While location intelligence is critical for any successful retail or financial services company, integrating business and operations data into the site selection process is incredibly valuable,” said Robert Buckner, vice president of global predictive analytics services, Pitney Bowes MapInfo. “By coordinating their use of Accruent’s real estate performance management solutions with Pitney Bowes MapInfo location intelligence technology, organizations have the tools to create healthy real estate portfolios, whether they are launching a high growth expansion or remodeling existing locations.”
Contact www.accruent.com
Contact www.mapinfo.com
Uniloc Develops Global Piracy Auditing Solution as Part of New Software Copy Control Product Suite
Uniloc USA Inc.’s new solution, softANCHOR 5.0, offers anti-piracy features to prevent license exploitation, provides a global view of piracy-driven loss, allows license throttling to raise or lower device activation parameters and provides full-featured open source license management.
According to research by IDC and the Business Software Alliance, 35 percent of the software installed in 2006 on personal computers (PCs) worldwide was obtained illegally, amounting to nearly $40 billion in global losses due to software piracy. To address this issue, Uniloc made it possible to implement and maintain highly secure, fully embedded product activation in house. Far from an activation "wrapper", softANCHOR 5.0 enables developers to quickly and easily implement fully embedded seamless security configurations, allowing an unlimited number of tripwires and validation checkpoints. softANCHOR's thousands of code variations and obfuscation practices ensure maximum code protection.
Included in the softANCHOR 5.0 product suite is a global piracy auditing solution, SoftAUDIT. With softAUDIT, users are now able to quantify how pervasive their software piracy issues are and adjust licensing strategies on-the-fly to set policies addressing casual sharing, open sharing and piracy. SoftAUDIT provides real-time statistics about actual license usage with 100 percent accurate results, so that license management decisions are made on fact versus assumptions. The auditing capability can be deployed independent of softANCHOR 5.0 to provide insight and analysis for any software vendor, using existing software builds and existing software copy control products. To act on this information, Uniloc has also introduced 'Throttling', giving the ability to increase or decrease software copy parameters to strike a balance between help desk calls and piracy protection, and optimize viral marketing models.
Physical Device Fingerprinting is the core technology behind softANCHOR 5.0 and is based on the fundamental principle that no two digital devices are identical. The process of physical device recognition starts by generating a digital identity for a device, known as its "Physical Device Fingerprint." A Physical Device Fingerprint is made up of a combination of machine characteristics and properties that are generated using a set of proprietary algorithms. The Uniloc Physical Device Fingerprinting algorithms allow the unique, reproducible identification of a device with an accuracy greater than 3.4 * 10^38, allowing Uniloc to identify devices with more comparable accuracy than human DNA.
softANCHOR 5.0 is copy control by developers for developers that seamlessly integrates the most powerful IP protection into the development process, side by side with application code. The softANCHOR 5.0 suite is a copy protection platform that is further enhanced with the following capabilities:
- SoftAUDIT real-time global piracy auditing for comprehensive license visibility and actionable data that creates opportunity from piracy
- On-the-fly configurable license rule 'Throttling' for providing balance between piracy levels and help desk calls, and optimizing the use of viral marketing tools.
- Open source license management with MyLicenseManager (MyLM) for activation reporting and management, including detailed information on successful activations, failed activations, attempted activations, installation target locations, regional Throttling model identification and more.
"In defense of intellectual property, we are dedicated to delivering innovative solutions based on our core technology, Physical Device Fingerprinting. Our intellectual property positions allow us to offer solutions that address the industry's most pressing concerns, including software piracy and realistic software licensing strategies," said Mike Broderick, CEO of Uniloc USA. "The launch of softANCHOR 5.0 breaks new ground, re-defining ease-of-use for software users and opening new opportunities for developers."
Contact www.unilocusa.com
Alchemy Launches Alliance Program
Alchemy Software Development and Madcap Software have entered a joint technology partnership that combines state-of-the-art technical content creation with highly advanced visual translation memory technology.
Madcap Software has joined the Alchemy Alliance Program, an initiative designed to accelerate the delivery of innovative localization solutions that remove the barriers faced by organizations that operate in international markets.
Through the Alchemy Alliance Program, both companies will provide seamless interoperability between Madcap Flare and Alchemy Language Exchange, a centralized visual translation memory platform. This will provide a total integrated solution for single-source content creation and multilingual content publishing.
“Today’s fast growing companies are looking to unify, centralize and standardize their localization processes,” said Tony O’Dowd, CEO and President Alchemy Software Development, ”They need to deliver products and services in a timely fashion to customers worldwide, while maintaining high levels of quality. The Alchemy Alliance Program unites the industry’s leading technology companies to provide integrated translation memory solutions with advanced content creation technology for accelerating the delivery of high-quality translated software and online content.”
“High-quality translation of published content is crucial to the success of multi-national companies,“ said Anthony Olivier, CEO, Madcap Software. “This is especially so with the emphasis on building larger and more interactive online Help systems. By integrating our industry-leading products, such as Flare with Alchemy’s product portfolio, our joint clients can lower overall localization costs, reducing time-to-market and improving quality.”
The Alchemy Alliance Program establishes a partnership between technology industry leaders. Partners offer content-related technology that can be incorporated into the Alchemy portfolio of products such as Alchemy CATALYST and Alchemy Language Exchange. These solutions can span the entire information lifecycle ranging from authoring content to localization to publishing.
With more than twenty thousand licenses worldwide and 80% of the world’s largest ISVs as its clients, Alchemy Software Development has the most widely adopted visual translation memory platform for localized content. The Alchemy Alliance Program proactively assists partners to jointly develop and integrate localization solutions by providing technical materials and SDKs, and access to Alchemy’s software and technology.
Contact www.alchemysoftware.ie
Software for Assessing Partnerships and Alliances Released
AllianceAnalytics has released Partner Value Optimizer (PVO) for generating business intelligence and analytics data to evaluate and optimize the full range of partnerships and alliances. With AllianceAnalytics PVO, companies can now harness an automated and repeatable measurement system to greatly improve the bottom-line outcomes of all their alliances, channels and partnerships.
AllianceAnalytics PVO will enable executives to make more informed partnering decisions based on the results of measurements of all factors that may affect results. PVO can specifically determine the effectiveness of a company's partnering processes, policies, programs and personnel, and then compare the findings against live objectives and revenues. PVO is a fully scaleable enterprise application. Any number of partnerships can be measured down to an individual contributor level.
"PVO is a truly revolutionary technology that fills a critical void in the marketplace," said AllianceAnalytics President and CEO Bill Davidson. "PVO will empower businesses to proactively identify and fix partnering problems before they have an opportunity to affect results."
He added: "For the first time, companies can find and correct root-cause issues that impact partnership performance, accurately predict partnership results and substantiate claims regarding the performance of their partnerships. No less significantly, armed with PVO, businesses can now accurately identify any significant deficiencies and material weaknesses relating to their partnerships' financial results, and measure the operational effectiveness of internal controls -- ensuring compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory and legal requirements."
"Being able to quantify alliance impact is increasingly being viewed as essential both internally and externally," said Ann Trampas, a board member of The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. "Externally, such quantification helps organizations and their partners work more effectively and builds credibility as 'partners of choice.' Internally, it proves value to the stakeholders."
AllianceAnalytics, a Microsoft ISV Partner, has developed PVO using Microsoft's SQL Server 2005, which was built to provide a scaleable and reliable platform for enterprise decision management and business intelligence (BI) applications. PVO utilizes the BI enhancements within SQL Server 2005 so that PVO can be integrated as a part of a company's end-to-end BI solution.
Contact www.allianceanalytics.com
2007 Software Industry Award Nominations Are Open to Software, SaaS and Web 2.0 Companies
The nomination process for open for the 2007 Software Industry Awards. The annual awards have recognized over 50 companies in the past for industry excellence. Make your company stand out from the crowd by highlighting you excellence. This year, the awards will recognize many awards by two levels of company size to feature both proven leaders and the companies that are changing the software landscape.
Nominate your Company - http://www.softwarebusinessonline.com/sb_siawards.htm |
