Software Industry Awards Submission Deadline is August 29th
The annual Software Industry Awards have recognized more than 50 companies in the past for industry excellence. Make your company stands out from the crowd by highlighting your achievements. The Software Industry Awards will recognize winners by two levels of company size to feature both proven leaders and the companies that are changing the software landscape.
Categories include: Software Industry Leadership Excellence, Outstanding Partnering Program, Outstanding and Innovative SaaS Company.
Nominate your company today!
Corporate Software Spending Under Pressure, According to Latest RBC IQ Survey
Corporate software spending is still subdued, as purchasing decision-makers who expect their companies to spend less over the next 90 days continue to outnumber those who expect to spend more by a two-to-one margin. However, for the first time since last fall, there are signs that the rate of decline in spending is leveling off, according to the latest RBC IQ Survey of corporate software purchasing decision-makers, released by RBC Capital Markets.
"Corporate software purchasing sentiment continues to be flat, consistent with continued year-over-year deceleration in IT spending metrics," said Marc Harris, RBC Capital Markets' co-head of Global Research. "The poor business climate, capital spending constraints and reduced need for new software are all taking their toll on the industry, continuing a slowdown that began last year and accelerated in 2008."
The quarterly national survey of 1,902 executives involved with their companies' software procurement decisions found that 25 percent of respondents expect their companies to spend less over the next 90 days than in the previous 90 days, and only 12 percent expect their companies to spend more. Nearly half of all respondents (44 percent) said their company has no plans at all to purchase software over the next 90 days, continuing a year-long downward trend.
Security and virtualization are the only two software categories that appear to be weathering the storm, with both showing signs of increased spending over the next 90 days.
Security software remains a staple for corporate IT budgets, driven by compliance and regulation as well as by the ever-increasing shift to conducting business via e-mail and the Internet, as companies try to avoid the downtime and reputational risk of security breaches.
Virtualization is a relatively young industry that is catching the mindshare of IT departments, as a way to centralize data that traditionally reside on the desktop, thereby improving security, increasing utilization and lowering maintenance costs.
Among other sectors, Business Intelligence software is being pressured by the overall slowdown, and Planned Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software spending also appears to be weak. Enterprise Resource Planning software is the weakest category of all going forward, slightly lower than Document & Enterprise Content Management Software.
The tough software environment is attributed to several factors. Three in 10 respondents (30 percent) say their company does not need to purchase any new software, double the 14 percent who say that their corporate purchasing decisions are being driven by the general slowdown in business and capital budgets. In another clear sign of a challenging environment, more than a quarter of respondents (28 percent) say their company's overall capital budget for the current quarter has been adjusted downward in the past 90 days, compared to only 9 per cent who say the budget was increased.
"While the results of this survey reflect a spending environment consistent with last quarter, this does not necessarily mean we are at the bottom. The next 90 days look challenging for software manufacturers hoping to sell to corporate customers," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Robert Breza. "There are some signs of a possible rebound; however, this could be threatened by both the degrading macro environment in Europe and Asia and uncertainties associated with the upcoming U.S. elections."
The RBC IQ survey was conducted July 15 - 31, 2008, and included 1,902 respondents. ChangeWave Research assisted RBC Capital Markets in the survey. The margin of error was +/-2 percent.
Kennet Targets High-Growth Technology Firms with Third Fund
Kennet Partners, a technology growth equity investor, has closed its third fund, Kennet III, at over $315 million. Kennet, with offices in London and Silicon Valley, invests in technology segments including software, IT services, semiconductors and new media.
Kennet III will continue the current strategy of investing in later-stage technology businesses in Europe and the US. The emphasis has long been on growth equity financings and recapitalizations of businesses which are founder-managed and have been developed without significant external capital. Kennet invests in the US and Europe from a single fund, providing its portfolio companies with unparalleled support as they expand across borders.
The Kennet investment portfolio has included some of the most successful growth companies and some of the highest-value private company exits in the technology industry. These have included Paragon Software (acquired by Openwave), Altitun (acquired by ADC for approximately $1 billion), Cramer Systems (acquired by Amdocs), Chipidea (acquired by MIPS), Consul (acquired by IBM), and Adviva Media (acquired by Specific Media).
Two investments from the Kennet III fund have already been announced. The first was a $10.7 million financing of Telemedicine Clinic, the market leader in the provision of sub-specialized teleradiology services to public and private healthcare providers across Europe. The second was a $33.7 million recapitalization and investment led by Kennet into NTRglobal, a provider of on-demand systems management software. These companies join Kennet’s extensive portfolio of businesses with recurring revenue models in a range of high-growth vertical markets.
“Kennet’s growth equity strategy is well-timed for the US market, where bootstrapped, founder-led businesses are underserved, since the majority of investment capital is targeted at early-stage venture deals or large buyouts,” adds Javier Rojas, Kennet managing director, Silicon Valley.
Investors in Kennet III include Access Capital Partners, Adveq, Alpha Associates, BNP Paribas Private Equity, Capital Dynamics, Crédit Agricole Asset Management Capital Investors, Credit Suisse, European Investment Fund, Finama, LGT Capital Partners and Siemens.
Lawson M3 Enterprise Software Applications Central Part of Broader IT Strategy
PHS Group Plc. (PHS), one of the UK’s leading workplace service suppliers, has selected the Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System from Lawson Software. The Lawson implementation will become the IT backbone for the organization, helping provide transparency and integration across PHS’ business operations.
PHS has experienced 118 percent growth over the last five years, and as a result has outgrown its existing system. With a target to double its sales revenue over the next three years, the company identified a need for a solution that will help provide transparency across its business operations from a central point. The Lawson M3 enterprise applications, which will run on an IBM System i platform, will support PHS’s ambitious growth plans and are designed to help the organization achieve cost savings and process improvements.
“We have experienced tremendous growth over the last few years, resulting in an increase in the complexity of our supply chain, which caused us to assess our IT infrastructure,” said Ian Featherstone, director of information systems for PHS. “With 20 operating businesses across five divisions, we needed a solution that could provide us with a central repository of timely information and reports. We chose the Lawson M3 system as it will help provide better transparency across our business units, from asset management through to financial management.”
“The service industry is turbulent with a high volume of customers and an increasing downward pressure on price,” said Nick Scully, vice president of sales for northwest EMEA for Lawson. “In such complex environments, logistical challenges, such as accurate forecasting, production scheduling and distribution require intelligent use of IT. The Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System is a scalable solution specifically designed to give users access to customer and product information that enables them to better utilize their fleets and have more precise information on equipment availability. This can ultimately help increase customer satisfaction.
Award-Winning Avistar C3 Technology Sees Rapid Distribution Through Partner and Technology Channel Strategy
Avistar Communications Corp.’s C3 solution is projected to be on more than 100,000 desktops in the next couple of years, as a direct result of Avistar's aggressive partnership strategy and commitments from leading industry distributors, resellers and technology partners in the US and Europe. In the past few months alone, more than 15 direct channel and technology partners and their constellation of resellers have signed with Avistar to offer C3 to their clients and users across the globe. By leveraging reseller and technology partners, Avistar has been able to expand its addressable user base greater than five-fold, without having to incur the increased operational and sales overhead of selling directly to the market.
Simon Moss, CEO, Avistar, said, "In 2008 we migrated our go-to-market strategy away from a direct, narrowly focused sales approach, to a broader, deeper and much larger indirect channel and business partner strategy. Our focus is on partners in order to achieve wide distribution of our C3 technology, which has been designed for simple and rapid global deployment, while retaining market leading performance and scale. We also introduced a new strategy to monetize our patent portfolio through a combined technology and patent licensing model.”
"We expect that these channel and technology relationships will propel Avistar beyond being just a provider of desktop videoconferencing solutions to that of a videoconferencing engine powering other software in the market. It is a strategy focused on leveraging both the significant operational turn-around the firm successfully executed in the first half of 2008, and an impressive redesign of the product portfolio, both of which are expected to realize tangible and measurable benefits and sequential quarterly growth," Moss continued.
Serena Software Joins Valtech in Agile Software Development Services Partnership
A new partnership announced between application lifecycle management (ALM) provider Serena Software and Valtech, a global provider of strategic software consulting, lean and agile-focused software engineering, skills training and coaching, promises to usher in a new era of Agile software development in the enterprise. Building on its commitment to support the exponential growth of Agile methodologies in the enterprise, Serena is combining its enterprise IT tool-making expertise with Valtech's transformation, coaching and education techniques to help corporate employees make use of Agile processes quickly and on-demand, without extensive prior training.
Agile is an iterative software development methodology that promotes team collaboration and adaptability throughout a project lifecycle. It's faster and more responsive than the traditional waterfall model, which takes a purely sequential approach to creating software. As a result, Agile developers deliver software that more closely matches actual customer needs more quickly, since "user stories" replace "specs" in the application development process.
"Agile development methodologies are seeing tremendous adoption in ISVs and IT departments of all sizes," said Jeremy Burton, CEO of Serena. "We are committed to delivering a pure-Agile toolset via SaaS later this year and are delighted to have Valtech as our partner of choice as we roll that toolset out to market."
"Valtech enables organizations to leapfrog the endemic challenges that early Agile and Lean adopters have encountered when attempting to catalyze strategic organizational and personal change within the software and product development lifecycle. A focus on developer adoption without an equal focus on corporate and business alignment has consistently proved ineffective," said Brad Murphy, CEO of Valtech North America."
Leading SaaS Consultancy Mural Consulting Corporation Acquires OnDemand Solutions, Inc.
Mural Consulting Corp., a global Software as a Service (SaaS) consultancy for software, hosting and telephone companies, has completed its acquisition of OnDemand Solutions, Inc. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., OnDemand specializes in helping Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) make their SaaS implementations more successful with strategy and execution services including business plan validation and development, marketing services, technical architecture design and software development. OnDemand brings to Mural Consulting a strong and motivated group of employees and consultants who are highly experienced in the ISV market. Together with an extensive partnership network, this has enabled OnDemand to provide laser-focused solutions for the unique set of challenges faced by ISVs who are considering, or already positioned in, the SaaS marketplace.
The combined companies achieve the collective experience of successfully helping more than 400 companies make the move to SaaS and improve existing on-demand offerings.
Mike Jalonen, CEO of OnDemand, said, "After having partnered with Mural Consulting for some time, it became clear that we compliment each other's reach and offerings. As we join Mural Consulting, our strong relationship is sealed and the depth and breadth of the expertise available to our customers is increased."
Reed Overfelt, CEO of Mural Consulting, said, "The new Mural Consulting has successfully worked with hundreds of clients and completed over 400 strategy sessions with service providers, hosters, and independent software vendors. This is an unprecedented level of experience and expertise in the area of SaaS. Mural Consulting is now better equipped than ever before to meet the needs of our clients more quickly and cost-effectively." |
