e-DUG

Job Posting: SAIC openings

2008-06-18T13:38:00.002-04:00

SAIC is looking for a Rapid Project Conversion Team Consultant and a Time & Expense Analyst. You can apply for these positions here and here.

Cognos Honors Global Partners For Excellence In Performance Management Innovation

2008-05-30T06:45:00.001-04:00

Technology Partner of the Year: Noetix

By establishing themselves as an important part of the Cognos/Oracle integration strategy, Noetix was selected as Technology Partner of Year. The Noetix Generator provides a connector that automatically generates business intelligence content from enterprise applications...

Global System Integrator Partner of the Year: Accenture

Accenture was selected as Global SI Partner of the Year due to its commitment to Cognos, its extensive investment in training and for developing leading industry-focused solutions. Accenture was also the top revenue-producing GSI partner for Cognos this past year.

Global Alliance Partner of the Year: Deloitte

Deloitte was selected as Global Alliance Partner of the Year for its key strategic alliance with Cognos, which has resulted in both companies’ strong success in the performance management market. Through their understanding and commitment to IBM Cognos products, Deloitte is helping Cognos clients deliver innovative, high-value solutions that solve industry-specific business challenges.

The Powered by IBM Cognos Software Partner Solution Award is given to partners for developing outstanding solutions based on Cognos products. This year the top Powered by Cognos Award for all Alliances was awarded to BearingPoint for their work in developing and marketing the POM Budget solution for the United States Department of Defense.

Cognos Honors Global Partners For Excellence In Performance Management Innovation

Interview: IBM Cognos chief Rob Ashe | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

2008-05-30T06:34:00.001-04:00

Interesting Rob Ashe interview @ ZDNet.com:

Ashe said part of the reason the industry grew up so quickly was that customers were looking to BI applications to squeeze returns out of ERP systems. Today, it’s clear that ERP systems are about automating transactions, but BI is the real differentiator because it optimizes the business. That realization is one reason why Oracle and SAP bought BI companies.

[...]

IBM’s approach to BI is to take Cognos and integrate it into the so-called information life cycle. In other words, IBM will take Cognos and layer its performance management software on top of its information server, data quality tools, storage and data warehousing applications. “They (SAP and Oracle) are selling transaction environment. We’re selling data and information management independent of transaction.”

[...]

“Most enterprises have performance management already, but are looking for more centralized capability to get a single strategic view of data.”

Interview: IBM Cognos chief Rob Ashe | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Robot as teacher

2008-05-30T06:29:00.001-04:00

Deltek User Conference coverage from Nick Wakeman at Washington Technology:

Deltek took over the Opryland complex with 4,000 attendees. It was an impressive sight to see that many people focused on one set of products. I went to the opening session on Tuesday, thinking this was going to be the big sales pitch.

Sure there was some rah-rah stuff, but it was not obnoxious. Kevin Parker, the CEO, gave a good overview of the company and where it is headed. Look for more on that in an upcoming issue of WT.

Robot as teacher

NASA's publicly accessible workforce information Cognos PowerPlay cubes - InformationWeek

2008-05-30T06:06:00.001-04:00

NASA has public Cognos PowerPlay cubes accessible online containing all its workforce data available here.

The Workforce Strategy Division in the Office of Human Capital Management provides updated WICN Cubes every two weeks. The cubes contain multiple dimensions - any of which can be dragged over to replace the row or column currently shown. Clicking on a row or column label will drill down to a lower level of detail.

Who Works Where?
Locations, occupations, grades, salaries, demographics of NASA employees. This information comes from the personnel/ payroll system.

Who Works on What?
Deployment of the workforce across all the Agency’s missions, themes, programs and projects. This information comes from the Agency’s labor distribution system
and more...

Found in a related article about NASA's retiring workforce woes:

The average age of NASA employees is 46.2 years and rising, and the space agency forecasts that more than 4,000 of its full-time workers will retire over the next six years [...]

It's easy enough to see the demographic data that's driving NASA in this direction. The agency makes its workforce data publicly available via Cognos PowerPlay business-intelligence software. You can view NASA's workforce data cubes on the NASA site here.

Social Networking As Rocket Science - Startup City Blog - InformationWeek

Social Networking for government contractors: Deltek Partners with mySBX

2008-05-30T05:50:00.001-04:00

Deltek... announced that it will be sponsoring two on-line communities within the mySBX destination portal to help Government contractors connect, collaborate and share information and opportunities to enable their businesses to grow.

[...] mySBX is a destination portal that will enable users to grow their businesses, find new opportunities and access content specifically built for their industry. Enabled by a first-of-its-kind collaborative platform, government contractors are able to partner, share information, exchange billable opportunities and access valuable insight into best-of-breed vendors and services.

[...] Deltek is sponsoring two cornerstone communities: Earned Value Management (EVM) and Cost Accounting Systems. Some of the many features of these communities include an "Artifacts" section for hosting documents and training materials, a "Directories" section of constantly updated and ranked source for community key players, as well as sections for service and technology providers, government agencies, useful websites and company professional associations. There are tools for managing upcoming events, conferences, training and user meetings. In addition, webinars are offered to help users stay on top of topic issues as well as journals, articles, research capabilities, on-line books and blogs. Users can even utilize an "Ask the Expert" section to access a group of on-line industry professionals to help with designating the top contributions in each area to maximize their mySBX community experience.

PR-USA.net - Deltek Partners with mySBX to Enable Government Contractors to Connect and Collaborate in New and In

Cognos will protect its partners, says executive | COMPUTERWORLD

2008-05-14T04:27:00.001-04:00

More comments on the Cognos partner eco-system business model:

Cognos partners needn't worry about being swamped by the over 90,000 members of IBM's PartnerWorld program. Cognos partners will be protected, and IBM partners wanting to sell Cognos will need to apply to join the Cognos program like any other partner.

Cognos will protect its partners, says executive | COMPUTERWORLD KENYA

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: The Official Guide

2008-05-14T04:23:00.001-04:00

In bookstores now! Available on Amazon.

John Daniel Associates (JDA), a Platinum Reseller and accredited Cognos partner, has announced the release of the first Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) book, IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: The Official Guide. The book is published by McGraw-Hill and is the only book IBM Cognos recognizes as official representation of its Cognos 8 BI solution. The book is authored by Dan Volitich, president and owner of John Daniel Associates. It debuts today at Cognos Forum 2008 in Las Vegas

John Daniel Associates, Inc. Announces Authoring and Release of: IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: The Official Guide

IBM Plans To Double Cognos Sales In Under Three Years - IT Channel - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness

2008-05-11T06:49:00.000-04:00

As IBM moves to integrate Cognos, some partners had been concerned about their future role:

IBM Plans To Double Cognos Sales In Under Three Years - IT Channel - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness: "To grow the Cognos market IBM wants to increase the amount of Cognos-related consulting services available in the marketplace. 'This is actually a tremendous opportunity for our partners,' Zeledon said, citing performance management and data integration as consulting service examples.

IBM intends to use a controlled distribution model to "preserve the Cognos ecosystem," Zeledon said. IBM will not automatically make Cognos products available to the 90,000 members of IBM's PartnerWorld channel partner program. Such a move could create "a dilution of the [Cognos] ecosystem" because many won't know the technology or add sufficient value, the Cognos executive said. PartnerWorld members that want to resell or work with Cognos products will have to apply to Cognos to do so."

Forrester Information Management Blog

2008-05-06T05:16:00.001-04:00

Forrester Research has an interesting blog post that puts BI in the context of a management consulting initiative rather than a stand-alone IT project, focusing on Cognos' new CXO access through IBM's strategy consulting relationships.

...Business intelligence (BI) is still very much an art, less so a science (see our latest "It’s Time To Reinvent Your BI Strategy" and "Strong Partners Are Key To Successful BI Initiatives" research reports), is causing vendors with significant BI product portfolio to lead the trend. Most notable relevant transactions were the acquisition of PwC Consulting by IBM and Knightsbridge by HP. These acquisitions allowed IBM and HP to take their rightful place alongside with Accenture, CGEY, Deloitte, Bearing Point and others as generic, vendor neutral management consultants with strong BI capabilities.

The trend is far from over. Now that SAP, Oracle and Microsoft moved into big time, stack independent, heterogeneous BI products, it most probably won't be long before they acquire a large management consulting firm with strong BI capabilities, or one of hundreds boutique BI consultancies that are out there and are doing extremely well. SAP, Oracle, Microsoft desperately need these management consulting capabilities to continue to compete effectively with IBM. If they don't, IBM will always have that one advantage and strong differentiation.

Forrester Information Management Blog

Deltek Announces Release Date for First Quarter 2008 Results

2008-04-28T20:30:00.000-04:00

Deltek Announces Release Date for First Quarter 2008 Results: "(Deltek) announced today that it will release its first quarter 2008 financial results on Thursday, May 8, 2008. The Company will host a conference call at 5:00 p.m. ET to discuss the first quarter results.

The dial-in number for the conference call is 1-877-381-6419 in North America and 1-706-643-9496 outside North America (no password required). Interested parties may also go to the Investor Relations section of the Company's Web site (http://investor.deltek.com) to listen to the earnings call. Those unable to participate in the live call may hear a rebroadcast by dialing 1-800-642-1687 in North America and 1-706-645-9291 outside North America (pass code: 43441906). The rebroadcast will be available through May 15, 2008. In addition, a recording of the call will be available on Deltek's Web site through May 15, 2008."

How To Choose Among The Four Bright Lights Of BI -- Business Intelligence -- InformationWeek

2008-04-12T07:54:00.001-04:00

InformationWeek has an interesting article about the BI market place. Some interesting excerpts:

Understanding their (the big four vendors) strategies will help you decide whether to listen or walk away. In one short year, Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL) acquired Hyperion, SAP (NYSE: SAP) bought Business Objects, and IBM (NYSE: IBM) grabbed Cognos. Including Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), the big four BI vendors now account for about half of the $7 billion-a-year BI tools market, which is expected to grow 11% this year, according to IDC.

On pricing (and open source vendors):

Oracle, IBM, and SAP will need to lower their pricing if they want to compete with inexpensive open source providers like Pentaho and entry-level tools that are gaining more capabilities, such as the Google Docs spreadsheet. Tools from IBM-Cognos, Oracle-Hyperion and SAP-Business Objects typically cost well over $1,000 per user. Microsoft has adopted a pricing structure to make the cost per seat decrease as the number of users increases, charging $20,000 for PerformancePoint Server 2007 and $195 per user.

On IBM Cognos:

IBM is positioning itself as the go-to megavendor that can help customers create a company-wide information architecture, from the desktop down to the bowels of the data repositories. But BI tool-buying decisions are typically made based on application functionality and not how well they work with data management systems. IBM's approach forces IT departments to consider not just what users want from BI tools, but how they integrate with the search, content management, master data management, data cleansing, data warehousing, and data integration systems to form a cohesive whole

...since IBM has been a "neutral player," it isn't going to show favoritism toward any one enterprise app, Ashe (head of IBM's Cognos unit) says

In the coming year, Ashe says Cognos technologies will be tied more closely to a "treasure trove" of IBM capabilities and products. One plan is to tap into the company's extensive work in natural language processing to develop new products and capabilities for analyzing unstructured data, such as e-mails and customer service transcripts. IBM also is creating more collaborative BI capabilities by tying Cognos to Lotus Notes. "There's a lot of smart thinking and research going on in how this will all work together in a social environment," Ashe says.

On Oracle:

Since Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion a year ago, the company hasn't provided much explanation of which products it expects to be strategic and which will just be maintained and supported. In fact, Oracle said its BI executives were too busy to talk with InformationWeek for this article, despite several weeks' lead time, and could provide Kopcke (Oracle's senior VP of enterprise performance management) only via e-mail.

On Microsoft:

Microsoft, a BI leader. Who knew? Among the four megavendors, it's been the dark horse that may have a shot at winning...(PerformancePoint Server 2007) pulled together Microsoft's products, including business Scorecard Manager, Excel, and new apps for planning, budgeting, and forecasting, with advanced visualization and analysis technologies acquired from ProClarity.

How To Choose Among The Four Bright Lights Of BI -- Business Intelligence -- InformationWeek

Technorati Tags: Business Intelligence,BI,Oracle,Hyperion,SAP,Business Objects,IBM,Cognos,Microsoft,PerformancePoint,Pentaho,InformationWeek

Deltek Announces Consulting Edition of its Vision Product

2008-04-11T17:20:00.001-04:00

Deltek announced the release of the new Consulting Edition of its Deltek Vision product. This product contains new features and capabilities designed specifically for today's consulting firms.
The new Consulting Edition of Vision was created by utilizing Deltek's more than 25 years of experience with project-focused businesses and gathering extensive input from hundreds of consulting services firms currently using Deltek Vision. Through this process, Deltek added new functionality around human capital management (HCM), client satisfaction analysis and workforce optimization.

Deltek Announces Consulting Edition of its Vision Product

IBM rolls out tools for non-techies, developers to build mashups

2008-04-10T05:23:00.001-04:00

It is not clear if this is Cognos related, but given the fairly recent acquisition of Cognos, it would make a nice addition to Cognos Connection. At a Deltek User Conference technical session a few years ago, I had asked if there was an easy way to enable RSS feeds out of Costpoint data. The starter scenario was to allow project managers to view the latest accounting activity regarding their projects on their intranet launch page with an RSS feed. This would make data more accessible and allow them to catch erroneous charges without waiting for month end reports, running a Cognos report or even navigating to a Cognos dashboard. The presenter responded that generating RSS feeds would probably be in the Cognos reporting tools domain. The new mashup products below might take us closer to making this happen.

IBM unveiled two mashup products today, one designed to enable non-technical business users to quickly build new applications by melding data from various sources, and another that's positioned as a mashup development environment for technical users.

The first product, the IBM Mashup Center, is designed to allow any business user to drag and drop mashup components from personal, enterprise and Web sources to create new customized Web applications, IBM said. Planned to launch in beta on April 15, the Mashup Center also includes the management, security and governance features that IT departments usually require for the corporate use of mashups.

IBM rolls out tools for nontechies, developers to build mashups

Technorati Tags: Cognos,IBM,mashup,Deltek,Costpoint

e-DUG Events Calendar

2008-03-29T23:26:00.001-04:00

You can now find interesting events on the shared e-DUG Google calendar!

Click the calendar icon in the sidebar to view the entire calendar.

Events coming up include user group meetings for the Columbia Maryland Deltek User Group, Cognos Planning DC Area User Group, Capitol Area Cognos Users Group, the Deltek Insight '08 user conference and the Cognos Forum user conference.

Technorati Tags: deltek,costpoint,cognos,google calendar,deltek insight,cognos forum

Cognos Planning DC Area User Group Meeting

2008-03-29T22:28:00.001-04:00

The Cognos Planning DC Area User Group will meet on Wed. April 2nd

from 9am-12 at the IMF in downtown DC. From the meeting announcement:

"The April meeting of the BI user group will include a presentation on the TM1 product that Cognos acquired last year. This may be a topic of interest to members of the Planning user group so please join us if you can."

To attend this meeting, sign up to join the group and RSVP at:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cognos_planning_dc/

Cognos YouTube Channel

2008-03-29T22:06:00.001-04:00

Cognos has a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/cognosBI. It currently has three short videos describing new features in Cognos 8 BI v3. Here is the first one titled "Easier to Deploy and Manage".

2008-03-24T19:55:00.000-04:00

Lumigent and Deltek Sign Partnership Agreement

Lumigent will bring to market an automated auditing solution specifically designed for Deltek Costpoint customers. Called the Lumigent Advantage Pack for Costpoint, it brings a custom-designed version of the industry's most complete application data auditing solution to Deltek's Costpoint customers.
...
The Lumigent Advantage Pack for Costpoint enhances database security and thereby strengthens SOX compliance and fraud prevention by providing continuous data-level auditing of relevant Costpoint tables and fields as well as the tracking of unique Costpoint users IDs to application data changes. Pre-configured rules, policies and reports specific to the Costpoint application provide users with the simplest and fastest way to implement and maintain continuous monitoring and auditing of the underlying Costpoint infrastructure. In addition, the solution provides comprehensive vulnerability scanning of the customer's implementation and immediately flags any changes to the system which would reduce security and introduce risk.
The Lumigent Advantage Pack for Costpoint is available in April 2008. For more information and a demonstration, please visit www.lumigent.com or call +1-866-586-4436.

2008-03-23T09:22:00.000-04:00

New Deltek partners

Deltek Expands Market Reach by Signing Bredet Services Inc. as a Deltek Software Partner
Deltek... has signed Oakville, Ontario based Bredet Services Inc. as a Deltek Software Partner further expanding the company’s growing partner network.
Bredet Services, established in 1983, has grown from a computerized accounting service to a firm specializing in business management software solutions involved with ERP implementations on a global scale.

Valiant Announces Workforce Management Solution with Deltek, Inc.
Valiant, a premier provider of comprehensive workforce management solutions delivered on a hosted SaaS (Software as a Service) platform, announced today that it has partnered with Deltek...Together the companies will deliver a complete software solution for contract security firms that combines the power of Deltek’s leading financial and project accounting system with Valiant’s single-database workforce scheduling, HR and payroll solution. Organizations that manage large, highly-regulated hourly remote workforces will see immediate sustainable benefits.

2008-03-23T09:11:00.000-04:00

Meetings In Profile: Attendee Feedback Spurs Tech Co. Meeting Changes

The Deltek annual user conference - Deltek Insight '08 is coming up May 19-22nd in Nashville. BTNonline has an article on how Deltek analyzed feedback from the conference last year and made changes for 2008 working with Maritz Travel (disclosure: I once worked for Maritz' local St. Louis smaller competitor Meridian)

Deltek late last year implemented a customer evaluation strategy to increase the return on investment of its annual user conference.

Deltek reassessed its annual Insight event for users of its enterprise management software after implementing third-party meetings management firm Maritz Travel's Meetings Effectiveness approach, which surveys meeting stakeholders and attendees to ascertain goals and determine the type of event that would provide the best return on investment (Meetings Today, Aug. 13, 2007).

"We were looking to figure out how we could continually make our events more effective and more appealing to our audience," said Deltek chief marketing officer Bill Clark.

Deltek started working with Maritz in August and within one month developed a 20-minute survey to send to its customers, "working very closely with the Maritz team to figure out the right questions to ask," said Caroline Proctor, vice president of corporate marketing. Survey questions covered customer preferences for the conference, including speakers, breakout session topics and time devoted to networking.

"It was very helpful to us to understand precisely what the customers like and what they don't," Clark said. "It's always helpful when you have real data as opposed to comments."

The survey results led to changes in this year's program, to be held in May, including more advanced topics for breakout sessions.

"We found out that those who tend to come to our conference have between three and 10 years of experience with our products, and tend to rate themselves as intermediate or advanced users," Proctor said. "We looked at that and said, 'We need to offer a lot more intermediate and advanced sessions versus entry-level.' "

She added that while many conference planners thought that attendees overwhelmingly would be new customers, "we find it's the customers who have been with us a few years who come in greater numbers, so we've changed the mix of sessions."
...
Customers also indicated that they wanted to meet with Deltek product specialists at the conference, so Deltek invested in a "meet the experts" area where customers can do so.

2008-03-23T08:48:00.000-04:00

Q&A: Kevin Parker, CEO Deltek - Yahoo!7 News

Some interesting comments from the Q&A:

Before I started out at Deltek two-and-a-half years ago, I didn't know much about the company. Its one of the best-kept secrets in software, but its probably the worlds leading provider of software for projects. Other companies have specialized in ERP for manufacturing or other industries, but they operate in fundamentally different ways from us.
...
We have 12,000 customers built up over a long period time, particularly in government and areas such as in architecture and engineering. It can also be used in places like consultancies and advertising agencies. Most ERP customers buy stuff and then spend lots of time customizing, but most of our software is deployed with no customization.
Its basically ERP for services companies or projects. We occasionally see SAP and Oracle for bids, but most we co-exist, as companies will use Oracle for rest of the business and our software for project work.
Our biggest footprint is in the mid-market; 98% of our customers have less than 1,000 employees.

2008-03-23T08:36:00.000-04:00

Deltek strengthens its position in the project software market...

Bloor research has a very upbeat analysis of Deltek post-IPO:

In November 2007, Deltek completed its Initial Public Offering (IPO), pricing its shares at $18. Deltek's shares are currently priced around $13 largely due to the global downturn in the financial markets. Not that this is bad—the share prices of SuccessFactors and NetSuite, who IPO'd at the same time, are down 35% and 45% respectively.
One key difference between Deltek and the SaaS vendors is that Deltek is profitable. Revenues for 2007 increased 22% to $278m and net income increased 47% to $22m. These are profit figures that SaaS vendors can only dream about. For example, Salesforce.com's 2007 revenues were $497m and net income was only $1/2m.
In addition, Deltek is investing back into its business. Around 15% of Deltek's sales revenues are ploughed into R&D, whereas Salesforce.com's R&D accounts for 1% of sales revenues. Deltek's more traditional business model therefore offers relatively more to its stakeholders in terms of product innovation, sustainability, and profits

IBM Cognos launches Cognos Communities

2008-02-21T06:16:00.000-05:00

Cognos (now an IBM Company) has launched Cognos Communities, a new website for Cognos users with discussion boards, blogs, documents and product and topic centric spaces. The new site is user friendly with features like tagging, discussion notification subscriptions and a point allocation system to reward helpful and knowledgeable fellow users. While you need an existing customer service logon for the advanced functionality, it appears guests can still search the site and read existing information.

I found the community very active and helpful. A question I posted regarding incremental publishing in the latest version of Cognos Planning yielded a quick and helpful response.

Cognos Communities:

"Welcome to Cognos communities. This peer-to-peer environment allows you to collaborate and work with other users of Cognos products to support and develop the best possible implementation for your business. To enter the communities, simply use your existing customer services logon. If you do not have a customer service logon already, please have your company's Cognos administrator create you as a contact within our system."

Deltek Reports Q4 License Revenue of $27 Million and Total Revenue of $77 Million

2008-02-21T05:38:00.000-05:00

The recorded earnings conference call is available here.

Deltek Reports Q4 License Revenue of $27 Million and Total Revenue of $77 Million: "Full-Year 2007 Results

License revenue for 2007 was $87.1 million, an increase of 16% over 2006. 2007 consulting services revenue increased 25% to $83.4 million, and maintenance and support revenue increased 24% to $102.9 million over 2006. Total revenue for 2007 increased 22% from 2006 to $278.2 million.

Non-GAAP net income for 2007 increased 43% to $29.5 million, or $0.71 per diluted share, compared to $20.6 million, or $0.51 per diluted share, in 2006.

Full-year 2007 GAAP net income increased 47% to $22.5 million, or $0.54 per diluted share, compared to $15.3 million, or $0.38 per diluted share, in 2006."

Government contractor targeted features in Microsoft Dynamics SL

2008-02-21T05:32:00.000-05:00

Microsoft Dynamics SL now has some government contractor friendly features, potentially targeting the same market as Deltek Costpoint:

CRM Rocks! EHTC CRM Team Blog.: SL Project Accounting Demo Online: "Microsoft recently held a Microsoft Government Contractor Summit. One of the sessions was specifically regarding 'Project and Financial Management Solutions for Government Contractors.'

To see how this process works, click here:

http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/sl/demos/PMA_300k.wvx

The highlight of this session were the robust reports that a partner developed for government contractors. This report pack includes Job Summary Reports, Statement of Indirect Costs, DCAA Schedules, and Indirect Cost Analysis reporting to name a few. See Presentation for reporting samples. These are super-critical to government contractors."