ITGumbo: spicing IT up

Earlier today Aternity Inc., announced its first set of packaged Frontline Performance Intelligence (FPI) solutions tailored for specific enterprise applications and the launch of its worldwide Partner Program. Last week, I had the opportunity to interview Aternity CEO, Trevor Matz, by phone to discuss the two-fold announcement a little more in depth. The following is the interview.

LD: Can you give a brief background of the company?
TM: Aternity is an end user experience management solutions provider based in the U.S. with an R&D center in Israel. Our Frontline Performance Intelligence Platform is transforming the typical reactive enterprise into one that is proactive. The platform uniquely monitors the end-user experience in real time by analyzing, aggregating and correlating desktop performance, application performance and user productivity to help determine and resolve in less time the root cause of any problems. Using the FPI Platform, companies can become proactive in capacity planning, application licensing optimization, and desktop virtualization and orchestration.

What is the new Partner Program?
The Partner Program addresses two problems through two types of partners. The first type, application partners, are companies that make and sell their own applications who can integrate Aternity's FPI Platform into their products to increase end user productivity. The ROI from such integration is usually 4 times the cost of loss in the first year. The second type is consulting partners, such as IBM, EDS and boutique System Integrators. They will be certified to make sure that they know the methodology and technology of our product. Both types of partners will be able to bring this to a broader market.

What are some of the features and benefits included in the packaged Frontline Performance Intelligence (FPI) solutions?
FPI packaged solutions will be offered around leading enterprise applications, such as SAP, Siebel and Microsoft Office/Exchange. It can build support in the field and through our past work, it has a library of packaged solutions for specific applications. These are directed in rapid time to benefit more rapid ROI.

Is there anything else being offered with the first set of packaged FPI solutions?
We are also offering a unique twist connected to this and our Partner Program. Any organization can suggest that we build a mission critical application for its product. If the organization qualifies, we will then work with it to build the application based on its products for free in 2-3 days on site.

Which markets are most of your customers in?
Our customers are primarily in the healthcare and financial markets. After that there is a split between the high-tech and manufacturing markets, but our customer base isn't really limited by industry as our products solve the same set of problems that everyone has - lack of visibility and understanding.

What gives Aternity its edge over its competition?
Our integrated analytics correlation engine and virtualization support makes our solutions unique. These programs truly deliver immediate time to value and show our proof of concept in one day by showing the value-decrease effort and movement.

How much does the FPI Platform cost?
Pricing depends on the number of end points in an organization, but it generally starts at $100,000 and up.

About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

Coming soon to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dining halls throughout Israel: Automated time and attendance management software developed and supplied by Synel Industries Ltd.

Globes reported earlier this week that the Synel-provided terminals "will include options to define meal times and types" and "are equipped with a printer that issues meal coupons." The automated process can keep track of and "identify what meal type has been consumed in which dining room and on what time." The intended result will be reduced expenditures on food and food-related administration and the amount of food wasted.

For those IT professionals who aren't touched by how Synel's technology can lead to less food waste in the Israeli army, there are plenty of other ways Synel's products and solutions can be deployed in your company - especially since it is about to be distributed by SYNNEX Corp.

According to the Globes article, Synel recently signed a strategic distribution partnership agreement with SYNNEX Corp that

"will enable Synel to offer its time and attendance and access control solutions - TimeLOG and Falcon through SYNNEX's information technology distribution channel."

IT professionals looking into better time and attendance management solutions can consider Synel's TimeLOG for medium organizations and Falcon PRO - a full access control software (including security) for employees and the workplace - for the enterprise.

Company Facts

Founded in 1990.

Gabi Buganim, President and CEO.

David Ashkenazi, V.P. R&D.

Products: TimeLOG Pro, Falcon Pro and Harmony.

Website: www.synel.com.


About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

Last week, Globes reported that Activity and Decision Management solution provider, ActionBase Corp. raised $1.7 million from venture capital firms Giza and Vertex as part of its $6.5 million third financing round.

According to the ActionBase website, ActionBase is an Enterprise Action Items Management Solution

"for managing meeting minutes, decisions and action items. It is designed to manage day-to-day action items and meeting minutes and fills the gap between sophisticated project management tools and conventional Microsoft Office applications."

The solution

"provides an easy to use email based system designed for tracking decision execution through its entire lifecycle - including all the relevant documents, meetings, action items, decisions and emails, thereby alleviating the problem of information overload."

The management and tracking system process also minimizes the involvement with the IT department. ActionBase is currently being used by over 150 large enterprises in Israel and abroad, including Coca-Cola, Texas Instruments and Tnuva.

IT professionals looking for management software that goes with MicroSoft Office and has a proven track-record with major enterprises should consider using ActionBase's solutions. It should also be interesting to see how ActionBase will innovate its products using its new funds.


Company Facts

Founded in 1999.

Based in Bnei-Brak, Israel.

Since 2004, ActionBase has been part of the AdvanTech Group.

Sam Somech, Chairman of the Board.

Eyal Maor, CEO.

Website: www.actionbase.com


About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net.

News
Globes reported last week that there are rumors circulating that Symantec is considering selling Precise Software Solutions, which operates in Israel. The article speculates that interest might be coming from "one of the major enterprise software houses interested in improving its position in the enterprise IT systems performance market."

Background
Precise Software Solutions was taken over by Shimon Alon, Ron Zuckerman and Aki Ratner in 1997 and within 6 years the company went from making $10 million to $100 million under their management and the help of Gemini Israel funding. The company went public in 2000 and was sold to software storage provider, Veritas, for over $600 million in 2004. In 2005, Veritas was bought by Symantec. Under Veritas and Symantec, Precise has been able to keep its Israel operations independent, though its management has changed (many moving on to enterprise software supplier, Attunity).

What it does
Before being sold, Precise was considered the leader in application performance management, with its Precise i3 being its most successful product. Now known as Symantec i3, the software "helps organizations improve business efficiency and mitigate costs by quickly identifying and resolving potential bottlenecks within an application infrastructure," by providing "IT managers with a comprehensive set of end-to-end performance management tools that will allow them to pro-actively monitor, analyze, and fine-tune their applications to attain increased application transaction performance and high availability service levels for their organizations."

Market and Future
The Globes article lists some of the major IT companies that are active in the market that may have fueled the sales speculation. In general, some competitors in the application management solutions industry include IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and EMC.

The idea of Symantec selling Precise to any of these companies doesn't have a clear basis. The industry is still growing and Symantec i3 has been leading the way. Revenue numbers for Symantec's security and data management sector grew in 2006, with Veritras (including Precise) products contributing $410 million. The fact that the security and application management industry is currently as hot an area as it is and with other big companies looking to get a share by acquiring smaller companies in the field, should provide enough reasons for Symantec to keep Precise off the sales block and out of the hands of its competitors.

Additional Resources
Veritas-Precise merger
2001 Interview