OpenMetrik to provide a seamless transition path for OpenMetrik customers to migrate to GRIP

Piscataway NJ (October 01, 2007) As OpenMetrik announced its immediate availability of GRIP line of products at the MIT Emerging Technologies Conference Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies (EmTech) Conference at MIT this September 25-27 2007, OpenMetrik announced plans for moving current customers of “OpenMetrik” product to GRIP platform.

What necessitated the release of GRIP?

“The reality is, even though the hype about portfolio management started in 2002, still the dust has not settled and new hype continues to emerge. Words such as application portfolio management have come in vogue, while outsourcing governance, which is an integral component of both projects and applications management, is still not fully streamlined an integrated with project and application portfolio management”, says Chandra Sekar, VP Product Strategy at OpenMetrik and the principal engineer of GRIP product line. “GRIP integrates project, applications and infrastructure into one, while the industry practices are yet to converge. GRIP enables the CIOs and IT line managers not as resource managers, finance managers, project and application managers, but as part of the extended continuum of delivery lifecycle – from demand to legacy decommissioning.”

Where do customers stand with respect to Integrated Governance?

“Today, after two and half years of publishing the article Forrester’s Big Idea: Integrated Governance drives efficiency in Feb 2005, all Customers have seen so far is acquisitions after acquisitions of companies, but no true convergence and smooth workflow. Customers are still victims of power play of big software vendors. Let the CIOs and VPs touch their heart and say, that they have achieved true integration of IT Service Management processes. I bet you can find only a few, who have spent a few millions over two years.”

“With GRIP, you can have a cradle-to-grave of demand turning to projects/BAU requests, becoming applications and getting decommissioned. And along the extended lifecycle, customers can see strategy, finance, execution and resource data in one repository.”

But as customers of OpenMetrik, such integration was always possible. What is new with GRIP? What are its competitive advantages?

Two major achievements have been done.

One is level based licensing, as opposed to module based licensing. Customers have been sold wrong pills – they were sold Demand managers, Finance Managers, Resource Managers – bits and pieces of software. Each piece has a fixed set of business processes. There was no flexibility or the ability to choose the level of rigor, like a video game. GRIP is sliced into resource, finance, demand functions, but also provide different levels within each of the functions. Organizations that have good PMO rigor, but no Project Planning rigor or Finance rigor can choose their own level of process rigor. In fact, the licensing of GRIP will not be module based, but instead based on the rigor – Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3.” This simplifies the Total Cost of Ownership – you never pay per module, like you would have, with other vendors.

The second is elimination of Business Intelligence tools and Performance Measurement tools on top of your Governance systems. Big vendors charge per module for demand, finance, resource functions, and still charge on dashboards. IMHO, customers have to pay for the “True Governance” as opposed to bits and pieces, while they read “Governance” in magazines and media. This is injustice to Customers. This has been eliminated with GRIP.

Specially, when back-office automation and ERP systems are being criticized as expensive, it is high time users saw a real benefit, in terms of addressing the governance issues, and the cost associated with it. CIOs will appreciate that more than anything else.

Finally, the big question:

What about existing OpenMetrik Customers? How do you plan to migrate them?

“As you know, even though we deprecated HyperLens, we still are supporting customers who have not been able to migrate for various process reasons. We have been very religious and passionate with respect to our customer relations, however, we are not able to guarantee base software compatibility. We are strongly urging them to move up and working with them to accommodate their needs. Bear in mind they have to move up two versions. ”

“OpenMetrik customers who upgraded from HyperLens to OpenMetrik just under two years ago or less are the ones who are seemingly most affected. They will have a free upgrade with GRIP, at the level at which they use GRIP. All customers will be charged Level 2 or Level 1, regardless of the level they are in. This will apply for their current annual renewals, if done within calendar year 2007.”

“For Customers of OpenMetrik who have done customizations, we offer GRIP-sp. GRIP-specialized is a custom set of processes, which include the customization code that we have done for our flagship accounts, with very unique and special process needs. We offer an upgrade of license at a nominal fee, and urge them to move to our SaaS model”

“Typically, the cost to implement the upgrade will be about four weeks, not including the custom code, which is customer’s responsibility anyway. But even in that case, we closely look at the processes and suggest off-the-shelf alternatives. This analysis will be done for free. Availing an off-the-shelf functionality equivalent will save tons of money. We will do this for our customers who adopt SaaS model.”

“Please note that we are going to adopt “SaaS” as the only model going forward, and urge all customers to avail the full benefits of the changing licensing model. Service hosting hardware could be at the Customer location if you so desire, and in that case, maintenance will be via secure VPN connectivity.”

About OpenMetrik, Inc

OpenMetrik, Inc (previously known as Genesys Automation, Inc) develops the software, solutions and services that empower Senior Management Executives from Product Development and Service Delivery organizations. Founded in 1995, Genesys pioneered in the creation of "Real-Time Management Control Systems" since 2000. OpenMetrik Management Control Systems are in use as official systems in Fortune 100 organizations.