Interesting things I've been briefed on lately...
NetSuite, CA, iTrade Network, Meridian Project Systems, UC4, Project Open,....
NetSuite has some new financial consolidation/planning functionality in their SaaS solution. It permits global firms to handle currency conversion. Adaptive Planning’s software is at the core of this solution. This technology does not currently use an in-core memory resident database. The more of this sort of advanced financial capability that NetSuite builds into its products, the more upmarket they'll become.
iTrade Network is the result of three related firms coming together to solve an important problem in the food industry. iTrade is providing the traceability needed in this sector to protect us, food manufacturers and distributors and others from problems in our food supply. Their solution can expedite recalls and hopefully drive a more complete and accurate removal of contaminated products from the selves. The company has already attracted a lot of big name customers. Last year, I did a white paper for SYSPRO on the food sector. Product recalls were one of the most contentious issues that I discussed in that piece.
ARRA (American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009)– You’ve likely seen this acronym on a road project near you. In fact, my daughter and I recently drove from Colorado to Chicago and we passed a lot of construction sites benefiting from these rehabilitation monies. Meridian Project Systems briefed me many months ago about this and now CA is out there with their Grants Management functionality. CA’s solution is an offshoot of their PPM solution (nee Clarity). Meridian has scheduled a more detailed briefing with me later this week.
UC4 has put the 2.0 moniker on something called Automation 2.0 for the IT data center. Their software puts all kinds of scheduled tasks under a single, integrated toolset. Why is this technology needed? Just look at how many different applications and activities IT groups support now versus a 10-15 years ago? Email archiving, CRM applications, web applications, data resident on SaaS systems, etc. are all relatively new IT responsibilities. Each of these requires backups, report runs and other processes and they all must be scheduled. IT shops don’t need to buy a different scheduler for every database, application, reporting tool, etc. IT data center personnel should experience greater productivity and should be available to work on more strategic initiatives. UC4 claims a 6-12 month ROI.
UC4 also acquired an event-driven technology, SENACTIVE, to complement its offerings.
Project Open is an open source project portfolio management solution based out of Europe. The software has attracted a fair following there and is used by a number of professional services firms (e.g., Cambridge Technology Partners). The software is frequently used in an on-premise mode although hosted versions are available from the firm or selected partners. I only had time for a cursory examination but the functionality appears fairly robust for service groups of 20+ people. It's a PSA/PPM option for those looking at open source solutions.