Portfolio Management Software Offered in SaaS Model

HP moves to offer PPM software in a SaaS model, like salesforce dot com. If the pricing is competitive, this is a nice way to buy by the drink and show value of project portfolio management before expanding to a large enterprise deployment. ...

... "Project and Portfolio Management Center – Standardizes, manages and captures the execution of project and operational activities, and provides critical information to assist real-time decision making. " ...

Via HP: HP Strategy to Expand Its Software-as-a-Service Offering

Ford Microsoft Sync Digital Automotive Experience

Microsoft and Ford integrate Sync digital experience into Ford cars. The software will enable hands-free calling with voice activation, seamless transfer of phonecalls on car entry through Bluetooth, text to speech for phone SMS messages, and hands-free music management through voice activation. See Bill Gates discussion of Sync at the CES. ...

... "Sync offers consumers two ways to bring electronic devices into their Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles and operate them seamlessly through voice commands or steering wheel controls: Bluetooth, for wireless connection of phones and phones that play music. A USB 2.0 port for command and control and charging of digital media players " ...

Via Microsoft: FORD TEAMS UP WITH MICROSOFT TO DELIVER SYNC; IN-CAR DIGITAL SYSTEM EXCLUSIVE TO FORD ...

Project Innovation: Look to the Sky

If you need inspiration from the heavens to innovate on your project or just a break from your terrestrial surroundings, don't miss the transit of Mercury this week. Please use safe viewing techniques. ...

... "On Wednesday, 2006 Nov 08, Mercury will transit the Sun for the first time since 2003. The transit or passage of a planet across the face of the Sun is a relatively rare occurrence. As seen from Earth, only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible. " ...

Via NASA: 2006 Transit of Mercury

PPM / EPM Software Market: HP Acquires Mercury ...

HP acquires Mercury and creates a $2B software line of business. The software LOB seems like a complementary fit - infrastructure software and application management / EPM governance software. It was inevitable that Mercury would be acquired, given the consolidating EPM market. HP paid a sizable premium - a nice bonus for Mercury shareholders given delisting. Mercury customers should be delighted - some stability - and likely continuing investment in the application suite. ...

... "HP announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Mercury Interactive Corp., a leading IT management software and services company, through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or an enterprise value of approximately $4.5 billion, which is net of existing cash and debt. " ...

PPM / EPM Software Market: HP Acquires Mercury: Via HP: HP To Acquire Mercury Interactive Corp.

ITIL Service Desk Software: Market Consolidation ...

Mercury acquires ITIL service desk software vendor to improve the depth of its offering. Rapid integration of this acquisition should position Mercury as a viable competitor in the service desk space with its suite approach to IT service and portfolio management. ...

... "The acquired offering is an advanced set of ITIL-based technologies that help enable companies to take a business-centric approach to managing an enterprise service desk with low total cost of ownership. This technology provides advanced out-of-the-box ITIL-based capabilities in incident management, problem resolution, configuration management, change management and release management, along with robust functionality in asset and inventory management. Mercury provides this technology as part of its Mercury Service Desk product, which is available as a strategic part of the Mercury BTO Enterprise and part of the Mercury Application Change Lifecycle solution. Mercury plans to further incorporate this technology to expand its set of ITSM offerings within the Mercury BTO Enterprise. " ...

ITIL Service Desk Software: Market Consolidation: Via Mercury Interactive: Mercury Accelerates BTO Strategy For IT Service Management With Strategic Acquisitions ...

Microsoft Poised to Take the IT EPM Market

It's like the tortoise and the hare. For years, Microsoft has been evolving its low-cost MS/Project suite and capturing the IT market, while mega-EPM providers such as Mercury, Niku, and Planview focused on meeting enterprise portfolio needs.

Now things are about to change. As we reported a few weeks ago, Microsoft acquired UMT, a leading EPM consulting firm. This brought technology and expertise to enable Microsoft to release a truly enterprise-driven product. Since Microsoft still owns the IT market by a wide margin, this will no doubt steer IT organizations in this direction. Whether other industries follow suit remains to be seen.

Microsoft has code-named their new product Microsoft Office Project "12". It is expected to be delivered in the second half of 2006, so design work has been well underway.

For more details about what Project "12" will offer, see PMForum's news update...

PMFORUM, Connecting the World of Project Management PMFORUM Breaking News: MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES NEW INNOVATIONS IN ENTERPRISE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

ServiceOriented Architecture SOA Governance: Market Consolidation ...

Mercury acquires Systinet to extend its reach into the service oriented architecture SOA market. It further expands the footprint of their integrated business technology suite. This market space is ripe for consolidation as major information architectures transition to the services model. ...

... "Mercury Interactive Corporation, the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO) software, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Systinet Corporation, a privately held company, for $105.0 million in cash. Systinet is a leading provider of service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance and lifecycle management software and services. Customers use Systinet technology to manage SOA business services and to build secure and reliable Web services. Systinet technology, when combined with Mercury BTO Enterprise offerings, will help enable customers to take a lifecycle approach to optimizing the quality, performance and availability of SOA business services.

Systinet SOA products provide a system of record and a set of governance and lifecycle capabilities that help provide the visibility, control, quality and integrity critical to SOA success. Systinet products deliver capabilities for publishing and discovering business services; creating, managing and enforcing policies; and managing the full lifecycle of business services and other SOA assets. " ...

ServiceOriented Architecture SOA Governance: Market Consolidation: Via Mercury: Mercury to Acquire Systinet to Capitalize on High-Growth SOA Market ...

Project Management News; Mercury Future Uncertain

Check out the latest article in IT Toolbox on how things are going with Merury Interactive, since their CEO resigned. As reported in the article, Mercury will try to avoid a NASDAQ delisting when it meets with the organization on November 15th. But still, it's stock has plummeted, and the company is now ripe for acquisition.

PM News: Mercury Falling?

An EPM and IT Governance Giant is in Trouble; Mercury Interactive CEO and CFO Resign

Amid a corporate scandal, Mercury's CEO, Amnon Landan, and its CFO, Douglas Smith, resigned after a special committee found that they benefited from an options pricing practice installed at Mercury.

Their stock fell considerably, and some are speculating that it could make Mercury an acquisition target. Mercury is the corporation behind Mercury ITG, an EPM and IT Governance suite purchased from Kintana.

Here's the story from TheStreetcom...

Mercury Interactive CEO, CFO Resign

Optimize IT Business Outcomes: Seminars ...

Upcoming seminars by Mercury on the business outcomes of information technology: Enhance the end-user experience. ...

Optimize IT Business Outcomes: Seminars: Via Mercury: Mercury Announces Seminar Series on Optimizing the Business Outcomes of IT ...

... "Mercury Interactive Corporation (NASDAQ: MERQE), the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO) software, announced a new application management seminar series to help customers optimize the business outcomes of IT. The series will provide a world-class forum for the exchange of ideas and advice on making the end-user experience the metric for managing IT change and optimizing the business outcomes of IT. " ...

IT Governance: SAP ESA Strategy

Implementing effective IT governance is suggested as a pre-requisite to the transition to SAP's enterprise services architecture, SAP ESA.

IT Governance: SAP ESA Strategy: Via Search SAP: Breaking down SAP's ESA strategy ...

... "... according to Naeem Hashmi, chief research officer of Information Frameworks, an IT research and strategic consulting group in Londonderry, N.H. Good IT governance and a hefty amount of planning should prepare most enterprises for the changes ahead, he said. " ...

SAP has developed a consortium-based strategy to its enterprise services architecture ESA:

... "SAP has established Enterprise Services-Ready to identify products that incorporate the Enterprise Services Architecture, leveraging the power of business process services in the enterprise. This standards based certification ensures that SAP and partner ISV solutions that are Enterprise Services-Ready are able to extend ESA functionality across the IT landscape, to help organizations design, deploy, run and maintain innovative business processes at lower cost and higher flexibility. Industry support for Enterprise Services-Ready and ESA as the enabler of flexible, next-generation business continues to grow, already adopted by Adobe, Avaya, Computer Associates, Dell, EMC, HP, Intel, Macromedia, Mercury, Microsoft, Network Appliance, Novell, Research In Motion, RSA Security, Symantec and VERITAS. " ...

Process Atrophy: Digitize It ...

Process Atrophy: Digitize It: Via Ram's IT Governance Blog: Digitized processes keep the binders away ...

Ram says digitize the business process workflow to prevent process atrophy - Project Management Process Binders ;-) ...

... "Process atrophy is the greatest threat to any process initiatives such as ITIL, CMMi etc. " ...

Automate Portfolio Management Process: Neilsen ...

Automate Portfolio Management Process: Neilsen: Via Mercury: Mercury IT Governance Center Rates High with Nielsen Media

Neilsen leverages Mercury ITG to automate their portfolio management process ...

... "Nielsen was looking for a way to improve customer response time and transform their time-consuming manual portfolio management process to an automated process across business units. They wanted a portfolio management process to provide increased visibility and efficiency to quickly get proposals and requests for different audience rating services into the work flow. Nielsen was also looking to gain a more strategic approach to matching daily demand versus tactical demand. " ...

Mercury IT Governance Center™ helps customers automate IT business processes from demand management to portfolio, program and resource management, to change management. Mercury IT Governance Center is comprised of integrated applications, a real-time dashboard and an enterprise foundation. Mercury IT governance products and services help customers with compliance regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, and it supports quality programs and process control frameworks such as Six-Sigma, CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration), ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), ISO-9000, and COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technologies).

Nielsen Media Research is the world’s leading provider of television audience measurement and advertising information services. In the United States, Nielsen’s National People Meter service provides audience estimates for all national program sources, including broadcast networks, cable networks, Spanish language networks, and national syndicators. Local ratings estimates are produced for television stations, regional cable networks, MSOs, cable interconnects, and Spanish language stations in each of the 210 television markets in the U.S., including electronic metered service in 56 markets.

BTO Business Technology Optimization: Market Size $6B By 2007 ...

BTO Business Technology Optimization: Market Size $6B By 2007: Via Mercury.com: BTO Market Expected to Grow to More Than $6 Billion by 2007, Yankee Group Reports ...

... "Yankee Group forecasts a rapid 21 percent compound annual growth rate for the BTO market through 2007. Investment in BTO technologies is projected to be $3.3 billion globally in 2004, up 18 percent from $2.8 billion in 2003. Yankee Group projects growth will continue to $6 billion by the end of 2007. These investment trends are driven by the need to change the status quo in IT. In 2004, BTO projects will focus on optimizing applications and IT processes to reduce inefficiency and costs. Yankee Group research indicates that the definition of BTO will expand in scope over time to transform IT units into more strategic, business-oriented organizations. " ...

Mercury Interactive, the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO), is committed to helping customers optimize the business value of information technology (IT). Founded in 1989, Mercury conducts business worldwide and is one of the fastest-growing enterprise software companies today. Mercury provides software and services to govern the priorities, people, and processes of IT; deliver and manage enterprise applications; and integrate IT strategy and execution.

ITIL Certification BTO Software ...

ITIL Certification BTO Software: Mercury BTO Software Receives Certification for ITIL Support: Mercury IT Governance and Application Management Products Certified by Pink Elephant ...

Mercury's business technology optimization software receives ITIL certification from Pink Elephant ...

... "Today, Mercury Interactive Corporation (NASDAQ: MERQ), the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO) software, announced that Mercury BTO offerings have completed Pink Elephant's PinkVerify certification process, receiving the Service Support Enhanced certification. This certification is awarded by Pink Elephant, a leading global IT management best practices company. It is a verification of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) compatibility and represents the highest level of IT Service Management (ITSM) product certification. " ...

Pink Elephant is a leading IT service management conference, education and consulting provider. A global organization, Pink Elephant works with an extensive array of public and private sector clients to help improve the quality of IT services through the application of established best practices, including ITIL.

Mercury Interactive Corporation (NASDAQ: MERQ), the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO) software, is committed to helping customers optimize the business value of information technology. Founded in 1989, Mercury conducts business worldwide and is one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies today. Mercury provides software and services for IT Governance, Application Delivery, and Application Management. Customers worldwide rely on Mercury offerings to govern the priorities, processes and people of IT and test and manage the quality and performance of business-critical applications. Mercury BTO offerings are complemented by technologies and services from global business partners.

IT Savvy: Governance Best Practices: Peter Weill

IT Savvy: Governance Best Practices: Peter Weill: Via Research - Center for Information Systems Research (CISR)

Attended excellent webcast today, hosted by Mercury, where Peter Weill, MIT's CISR, discussed IT governance methods and best practices. Enjoyed his research that shows exemplary performers are able to turn lemons (negative NPV infrastructure investments) into lemonade (positive NPV business/IT investments) and regularly identify growth enablers that provide long-term strategic value. Exemplary performers' exhibit IT savvy (Peter's term) behaviors, which he expands on, in his research.

... "by making effective IT investments for their business strategy and enhancing the resulting IT portfolio with specific IT related practices and competencies. We call this set of practices and competences, IT savvy. " ...

The Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) conducts field-based research on issues related to the management and use of information technology (IT) in complex organizations.