Jobfox – A Fox in the Job Board Hen House
We recently caught a Jobfox launch event in Chicago and were quite impressed with the company, the crowds they attracted and the product. After a trial run of the product, we’ve developed a report on the firm and, hopefully, will make it available on this website in a few days.
A Flurry of New Reports Coming Soon
We recently attended HR Week in New York City and met with executives from a number of HR and HR Services providers at that conference. Specifically, we had in-depth discussions with:
Veritude – Kate Donovan and Laura Cleveland – We will update our Fall 2007 report on Veritude. They’ve recently scored a big win and are moving in some new directions.
Kenexa – Phil Stewart and Brandt Hamby – They’ve acquired StraightSource recently and advised us of additional announcements. We’ll prepare a new report on Kenexa after next week’s analyst event.
Workscape – Daryl Ashley, Tony Marzulli, Marc Moschetto – Workscape’s succession planning products and benefits outsourcing offerings dominated our conversation. An update report will be developed.
Emportal – David Lee – We re-connected with David and discovered that Emportal’s secured several new clients. We’ll update our report on them.
FutureStep – Bill Gilbert, Kelly Cartwright – Great first meeting and a solid RPO briefing. New report to be issued.
Salary.com – Elle Hoxie – Salary.com is clearly busting out from being a data-driven solution. New report to be issued.
Varicent – Brian Hartlen – Varicent’s laying claim to the Sales Performance Management space. New report to be issued.
Last week, NetSuite announced its NS-BOS business operating system. Along with this announcement, NetSuite also announced the availability of a new debugging tool.
There is a bigger picture angle to this and its one that escapes other SaaS application vendors. NetSuite’s approach to the mid-market maybe superior to that of over SaaS vendors. It’s a lower integration cost strategy that should receive a very warm welcome with mid-market software buyers and the vertical industry application developers who ally with NetSuite.
This report is available for sale @ $495 per copy. To order, please use our online info request form or email us at contact@vitalanalysis.com
New Report on NetSuite’s 2007 Earnings
Today, 2/14/2008, NetSuite management briefed analysts on the company’s financial performance for the year 2007. Executives also discussed NetSuite’s competition, capital deployment, hiring plans and a recent 1000 user CRM win. 
All of these items are discussed in the a special Vital Analysis report. For a limited time, this report is available for free to those persons submitting a report request on our website and using a valid business email address. Alternatively, you can request a copy via email from: contact@vitalanalysis.com
Progress Apama – An Event Technology That’s Work a Long, Hard Look
We recently had a chance to watch a demonstration of Progress’ Apama product. Apama is an event-driven technology that has seen market successes in the financial services industry. The demonstration we witnessed was in another industry – Manufacturing – and was provided by a Progress partner Manuvis. This demonstration was so striking because of the way that Manuvis has incorporated event processing into discrete manufacturing. Consider this example:
Manuvis continuously monitors production equipment and other key production statistics in a manufacturing environment. Suppose the software detects a continuing anomaly in a machine. The software will notify workers to tend to the machine. The software will also dynamically re-direct production and potentially re-optimize the production schedule. Workers, in a Manuvis environment, answer to this network software – not a production supervisor. Why? No human being can continuously monitor every aspect of production, every product produced, every machine, etc. Nor can a production supervisor continuously re-adjust production schedules, repairs, etc. while monitoring events at the plant.
ERP systems were good at crafting a periodic production schedule; however, the need to optimize business results requires a more dynamic solution. Event-driven technologies, like Apama, are particularly well-suited to such a business need.
If you’d like a copy of this report, please complete the request form on this website or send a valid, business email to: contact@vitalanalysis.com . This report is available for free for a limited time.
NetSuite Adds Powerful Tools to its Product Line
Late 2007, NetSuite announced powerful new product line capabilities to its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application product line. We were particularly impressed with the intense new vertical extensions that have been developed by NetSuite resellers using the new SuiteBundler tools.
In the Prognosis section of our report, we wrote that:
“For NetSuite customers, SuiteBundler is a very positive, albeit indirect, step forward. SuiteBundler should trigger a landslide of new vertical functionality within the NetSuite ecosystem. For NetSuite’s target market, the small to midsized business, this additional breadth and depth in industry functionality is a welcome sight. While high-end ERP solution providers possess some of this needed industry expertise in their products, their price points are cost prohibitive for SMB buyers. Traditional SMB solutions often contain stripped down or skeletal vertical capabilities. These traditional SMB solutions may create perplexing or undesirable workarounds for their customers and often require excessively high-cost implementation fees to make workable. SuiteBundler should help usher in a more cost-effective and robust set of vertical solutions for the SMB space.”
This report is available to Vital Analysis clients. Inquiries regarding it can be directed to contact@vitalanalysis.com .
New Research Report
Workstream had a big product launch of its talent management solution at the Fall 2007 HR Technology show in Chicago. We developed a short research report covering the highlights of this announcement along with our prognosis for the product. Here’s a blurb from the Company/Product Highlights section of the report:
“The new software has these attributes:
average time to deploy the solution is down to 1-12 weeks per customer
43 currencies supported
10 languages supported
Several beta and prospective beta customers were on hand for the announcement. These included United Way, GlaxoSmithKline and others. Also on hand was a representative from ExcellerateHRO. ExcellerateHRO is a joint venture of EDS and Towers Perrin. Talent Center is being used in their client HR BPO solution set. A representative of ExcellerateHRO was generally bullish on the product.”
If you would like more information on Workstream or this report, please send an email to: contact@vitalanalysis.com
<a href=”http://technorati.com/claim/93pabh6sr7” rel=”me”>Technorati Profile</a>
New Research Report
We recently completed a new research report on CyberShift. Here’s a brief excerpt from the Overview section:
“The market for time and attendance systems may seem to some to be somewhat stuck in time (no pun intended). Sure, time clocks have been supplanted with badge readers and other devices that are now integrated with ERP solutions but the basic functionality of recording a person’s time spent on the job has still remained constant.
CyberShift has been moving their product line beyond just time and attendance. They have modules to provide scheduling and optimization capabilities so that companies can optimally schedule personnel as well as record the hours those persons work. This combination of functionality materially enhances the value of CyberShift’s product line.”
For a brief period of time, we will make this report available to readers who submit a valid business email address to contact@vitalanalysis.com or complete our online request form.
Impressive Pedigree, Growth and Market Focus
From the Overview section of this report:
“We see at least three types of firms requiring staff augmentation assistance. At one level, there are highly dysfunctional firms who are undergoing some sort of crisis or time sensitive need for additional staff. For these firms, vacancies must be filled and filled immediately. The second kind of need arises for those companies who have moved past the crisis and now want to understand and mitigate those causal factors that created the staffing problem in the first place. The third kind occurs when companies have moved to a stable work environment and are seeking methods to improve the long-term quality of their work force and of the methods used to identify, recruit and retain those workers.
Veritude has structured its business to help companies at any of these three levels and also to help firms move from one level of staffing capability to the next. To that end, the company provides contingent staffing services as well as consulting services, Managed Services Programs (MSPs) and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO).”
We developed this report shortly after this Fall’s HR Technology conference in Chicago. Veritude’s briefing and executives were most impressive and we strongly recommend users of traditional staffing firms should shortlist this company.
For a very limited time, this report is available via email to those requestors submitting a valid business email address. Please send your request to contact@vitalanalysis.com or use our
New Report Available: Talent Management with Intellectual Property
We recently met with Michael George of Vurv at the Fall 2007 HR Technology show in Chicago. Vurv made a big splash with their talent management solutions. Vital Analysis prepared a short research report based on the new announcements. Herewith is a brief excerpt from the Vurv Product Details section of the report:
“The new Vurv products show very well. The user interface is crisp and intuitive. But the bigger story may be in the inclusion of a significant amount of intellectual property within the product. For example, the performance management software comes complete with detailed knowledge of some 1750 competencies. Interview questions are prepopulated with approximately 25,000 questions that recruiters, supervisors and interviewers can utilize. These questions assist individuals in assessing the degree of competency of individual candidates and employees. Much of this new intellectual property comes to Vurv via their acquisition of InScope in January 2006.
The new succession planning module has side-by-side comparisons of key employees. Relevant competency strengths and gaps are highlighted as well as differences in education and other relevant attributes. Specific plans regarding these individuals can be generated and incorporated into that person’s training program or future staffing/role assignments. Whereas some talent management tools provide career development planning as part of a training module, Vurv makes it part of its succession planning functionality. This is a better placement for this functionality.”
This report is available at no charge for a limited time to those who send a valid business email to: contact@vitalanalysis.com or submit a request using our request form page.