“The popularity of dashboards is due to their ability to give CFOs and financial managers — not to mention CEOs — accurate and instant insight into the state of the business, which allows them to react faster to brewing issues. With this new dashboard capability, Budget Maestro now provides a complete Business Performance Management solution, allowing even the smallest companies to take advantage of this management trend,” said Centage Vice President of Sales and Marketing Jim Nauen.

The Budget Maestro Dashboard Kit is “very simple to use, and gives us clear, concise information on a monthly basis,” said Debbie Rapp, treasurer for Fleet Card Fuels.

The kit was tailored for the SMB market in several ways: 1. It leverages the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel(R) 2007 for dashboard creation, which contributes to its low license fee of $1,995. The kit comes with four Excel-based, Budget Maestro KPI templates, which users can customize. Users with Excel 2007 can also easily create additional dashboards if desired. 2. Users can leverage their own business intelligence (BI) software. Since the Dashboard Kit transforms the financial data in Budget Maestro into a “normalized” SQL database, the software is compatible with any BI tool that can read a SQL database, including PowerPlay(R) from Cognos, Crystal Xcelsius(R) from Business Objects, ProClarity(R)+ from Microsoft, and the soon to be released Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. 3. Set up time is minimal. Existing Budget Maestro users can be viewing KPIs on the desktop literally minutes after taking the Dashboard Kit out of the box.

The Excel 2007 dashboard templates come with pre-defined key performance metrics such as gross margin, net income, working capital, inventory turnover, and day sales outstanding. Users can create comparisons of actual performance to plan or forecast; on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis; and across any number of categories such as product lines, divisions, locations, or projects.

Users can set their own metrics and tolerance levels, and customize the dashboard type and style for consistency with other corporate materials. Dashboard visuals can be incorporated into Microsoft PowerPoint(R) presentations, and published to an intranet.

The Budget Maestro Dashboard Kit is compatible with the Desktop, Small Business and Enterprise editions of Budget Maestro 5.8. Even those with single-user licenses can share the Dashboard within the company with any user of Excel 2007.

Using DataSynapse GridServer technology, organizations can create a cost-effective High-Performance Computing (HPC) environment by tapping into the unused processing and storage capacity of existing servers across the enterprise. Applications that are virtualized can be split into functional components, such as individual calculations, modeling and simulations, that can all be processed in parallel across a distributed computing infrastructure, significantly reducing the overall processing time.

At the investment banking division of one of the UK’s biggest global banking groups, for example, it was taking two hours each night to upload and aggregate 500,000 lines of financial transaction data from the bank’s General Ledger system into the Longview database to support the bank’s daily reporting requirement. By virtualizing the Longview application using the DataSynapse GridServer technology so that billions of complex calculations could be performed in parallel by a large number of servers and desktops across the bank’s global computing infrastructure, the processing time for complex calculations has been reduced by more than 90 percent.

“The bank had already invested in GridServer technology from DataSynapse to accelerate the performance of its trading and risk management applications,” says Kevin Kelly, Director, Business Development, EMEA at DataSynapse. “The bank was able to simply and quickly add the Longview application to the existing computing grid, significantly improving their ability to perform timely, accurate financial reporting based on massive amounts of data – an otherwise difficult task for any performance management tool.”

The Longview-DataSynapse solution addresses a challenge familiar to many companies – uploading financial data from a GL system, along with data from other systems such as HR and ERP, to a multi-dimensional performance management tool, where various calculations can be performed, comparisons with budgets and forecasts made, and reports generated on the performance of the business. For most companies using most performance management tools, this process takes place quarterly, monthly or perhaps weekly. In a GridServer environment, the Longview application can do this on a daily or more-frequent basis, even for the largest data requirements. This is especially helpful for large companies processing large volumes of data that want real-time reporting capabilities.

“By virtualizing the Longview application with GridServer technology, we can now perform complex calculations on billions of rows of data in a fraction of the time,” says Mark E. Burton, President and CEO, Longview Solutions. “This is great news for Longview customers, who can now leverage existing computing capacity worldwide to achieve dramatic new levels in performance and scalability, while still getting all the benefits of a single application and a single repository of data that have made the Longview Platform unique in the industry.”

In 2006, Adaptive Planning demonstrated exceptional momentum in the BPM market by signing a record number of new customers. Customer growth was strong across multiple industries, including the software, nonprofit, high technology, healthcare, and manufacturing segments. New customers ranged in size from less than $5 million to over $500 million in annual revenues, and included both privately- and publicly-held companies from across the globe. Notable new clients from select industries include Black Duck Software, StepStone, and SuccessFactors (software), DentalPlans.com, Gilsbar Inc., and Passport Health Communications (healthcare), Cortina Systems, Tennant Company, and Uponor (manufacturing), and numerous others including AAA, Jaguar Mining, and Med-Eng.

In addition to adding new customers, Adaptive Planning also deepened relationships with existing clients. As confirmation of its sterling customer satisfaction, over 90% of Adaptive Planning clients renewed their subscriptions.

In 2006 Adaptive Planning also launched a worldwide partner program and tripled its roster of partners. By committing marketing, sales, and technical resources to the partnership, these organizations are helping Adaptive Planning expand its reach and successfully support growing international demand.

Other key corporate milestones achieved by Adaptive Planning include:

* Introduced First Open Source BPM Solution. In August 2006 the company launched the industry’s first open source BPM solution, Adaptive Planning Express Edition, which provides an entry-level set of capabilities for collaborative budgeting and forecasting. Available for free, this application features a simple “one-click” approach to downloading and installing powerful enterprise software. To date, the project has generated over 35,000 downloads from 69 countries, demonstrating broad market acceptance for solutions that address the unmet need for affordable, easy-to-use BPM solutions. Adaptive Planning Express Edition consistently ranks as the top project in the “Spreadsheets” and “OLAP” categories at SourceForge.net, among the top five highest ranking projects in the Finance and Accounting categories, and in the top 50 out of 143,000 total projects. Adaptive Planning was also a founding member of the recently announced Open Solutions Alliance, a consortium of leading open source companies dedicated to driving adoption of comprehensive open source business solutions.
* Significantly Expanded Product Suite. During 2006, Adaptive Planning introduced new product configurations, offering its solutions in three editions—Express Edition, Corporate Edition, and Enterprise Edition—to meet the varying needs of different types and sizes of companies. The company also introduced an on-site version of its leading software as a service (SaaS) solution, providing customers with flexible deployment options. And finally, Adaptive Planning released three new versions of the software, with each release continuing to add new product features that help companies automate their budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and analysis. Notable new features include graphical dashboards and charting, a Get Started Wizard, workflow, multi-currency support, and numerous user-requested enhancements. All told, these flexible choices, together with the software’s powerful, affordable, and easy-to-use features, deliver unprecedented value to budgeting, forecasting, and reporting clients worldwide.
* Completed Executive Team. Adaptive Planning completed its executive team in 2006, with three key hires that contribute both operational excellence and domain expertise to the company. William A. Soward joined as chief executive officer. Previously, he was general manager of FRS, S1 Corporation’s most successful business unit, as well as interim CEO of S1 Europe and S1’s Edify business unit. Neil Thomas was named vice president of sales. Previously, Neil was a sales executive at Cognos and a founding member of the budgeting and planning company Adaytum. And Kumar Thiagarajan joined as chief community officer, responsible for spearheading the company’s open source and on-site initiatives. Prior to Adaptive Planning, Kumar was founder and CEO of CastBridge, a real-time collaborative spreadsheet company.
* Received Prestigious Industry Awards and Recognition. Adaptive Planning was named the “2007 Mid-Market Vendor of the Year” by BPM Partners, a noted authority on budgeting, forecasting, and reporting solutions. In granting the award, BPM Partners cited Adaptive Planning’s leading-edge product offerings, as well as its outstanding customer satisfaction marks—the company placed in the top four out of more than two dozen BPM vendors whose customers were surveyed. In addition, Adaptive Planning was named a finalist in the Best Financial Software Solution category of the 2007 CODiE Awards, which honor outstanding achievement and vision in the software industry. And, Adaptive Planning’s unique business model and customer value were highlighted in leading industry publications and analyst reports including The Wall St. Journal, Inc. Magazine, Business Finance Magazine, Financial Executive Magazine, Intelligent Enterprise, and Gartner, Inc.’s Magic Quadrant for CPM Suites, 2006, among others.
* Closed New Round of Venture Funding. Adaptive Planning recently completed a new round of funding, with a $7.5 million investment led by new investor Cardinal Venture Capital. The new funds will be used for additional product development to expand the breadth of solutions it offers its customers, as well as to extend its marketing, sales, and business development activities.

“We are delighted with our 2006 growth and corporate achievements,” said William A. Soward, chief executive officer, Adaptive Planning. “We are particularly pleased with our strong rate of customer adoption and stellar customer satisfaction scores, which testify not only to the value that our solutions deliver to mid-market clients, but also to our company’s commitment to world-class support. We are now building on these successes to make 2007 a breakout year for Adaptive Planning.”

“We are committed to offering our customers the most powerful performance management framework,” said Crispin Read, CMO, Cartesis. “By leveraging Microsoft for infrastructure, HP for hardware and Cartesis for performance management, global customers can meet today’s aggressive reporting demands with a system that supports thousands to hundreds of thousands of concurrent users at uncompromising performance levels.”

HP Integrity servers are optimized for performance management applications by offering high availability, impressive scalability and robust performance to support the increasingly high IT demands from finance and performance management processes and applications. Specifically, HP Integrity servers can provide Cartesis customers:

--  Scalability to support the growing diversity and analytical processing
intensity of BPM solutions
--  Speed and accuracy needed for PM reporting and compliance requirements
--  Processing power and virtualization to lower IT costs without
jeopardizing performance
--  Flexible infrastructure capable of growing with business needs

“We have engineered the HP Integrity server family to meet the most aggressive performance demands of our customers’ mission critical applications,” says Michelle Weiss, vice president of marketing, Business Critical Servers, HP. “Together Cartesis and HP Integrity servers offer an adaptive performance management infrastructure suited to grow with business needs.”

The IDC report highlights the Cartesis 2005 acquisitions of INEA and AIS, product enhancements as well as the introduction of Cartesis 10, a comprehensive BPM suite, as the main drivers for the company’s leading 2005 growth rate. Citing revenue growth that exceeded the market average, the report also regarded Cartesis as well-positioned to challenge other leading vendors in the region.

“Cartesis has undergone important changes in the past few years. Because of its excellent momentum, its market share and position as the fourth largest BPM and FAA vendor in Europe, we view Cartesis firmly in the leadership corner,” said Christina Steensboe of IDC who authored the report. “Cartesis is getting closer to the top and challenging SAP and Cognos for the number two position in the market.”

Steensboe also projects an 11.6 percent compound annual growth rate for the BPM and FAA market as compliance requirements continue to drive initiatives in finance and information transformation, and accelerate investment in BPM and FAA solutions. While budgeting and planning software are considered the primary growth areas as organizations streamline those processes, the consolidation market also growing, fueled by the ongoing need for solutions to support complex compliance requirements.

Introduced in April 2006, Cartesis 10 represents the world’s most powerful business performance management (BPM) solution and the first solution to integrate internal and external financial data for publication, benchmarking and M&A planning. It enables multinational companies to meet market demands for faster closing cycles, more accurate and integrated forecasting and planning, external benchmarking, and more timely access to information for analysis and decision-making. Cartesis 10 represents a dramatic shift in business performance management solutions by integrating financial consolidation, management reporting, planning, forecasting and budgeting, and analytics to give companies a clear view of their historical, current and future business performance. The suite consists of Cartesis Finance, Cartesis Planning and Cartesis Analytics.

“The sizable growth rate we have maintained in Europe over the last 12 months is substantially larger that of the other vendors in the region,” says Didier Benchimol, CEO of Cartesis. “With Cartesis 10 and the successful and timely integration of last year’s acquisitions, Cartesis is poised to continue to accelerate its growth not only in Europe, but globally, with a full suite of performance management applications that help companies measure, understand and optimize financial and business performance.”

The report is based on IDC’s European Software Group’s evaluation of multiple aspects of the largest BPM and FAA vendors to collectively evaluate their activities, position, and potential in the Western European BPM and FAA market. The result of this exercise is depicted in the IDC Leadership Grid, which is based on an analysis of factors such as market share, product depth, financial strength, European coverage, and market momentum. These factors are consolidated quantitatively, weighted by importance, and ultimately produce a distribution on the two dimensions – present indicators and future parameters. For a description of the IDC Leadership Grid methodology, please see the full report. The report titled, Western European Business Performance Management and Financial Analytic Applications, 2005 Vendor Shares (IDC #LT05N, July 2006) is available at www.idc.com.