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Peregrine Systems, Inc. - Asset Management Software -
Category Directory
(858)
481-5000
3611
VALLEY CENTRE DRIVE
SAN
DIEGO, CA 92130
www.peregrine.com
Sales
$230
million
Business Description
We
are a global provider of enterprise software. Our core business is providing
information technology asset and service management software solutions that
are designed to enable organizations in the private and public sectors to
increase productivity, reduce costs and accelerate a return on investment by
managing portfolios of information technology assets and streamlining
service management operations.
Our flagship products, AssetCenter® and ServiceCenter®, support two main
business processes: asset management and service management. Typically, the
assets managed with our products consist of information technology assets,
such as computer and computer-networking hardware and software items, and
other assets used to provide infrastructure to a business. The services
managed with our products usually consist of the service delivery and
support processes necessary to troubleshoot, support and maintain those same
information technology and infrastructure assets.
AssetCenter®, our asset management software solution, enables customers to
manage the physical, financial and contractual aspects of information
technology and other infrastructure assets from their acquisition to their
eventual disposal.
ServiceCenter®, our service management software solution, is designed to
enable service desks to deliver services and support more efficiently,
accurately and proactively to maintain information technology and other
types of infrastructure assets. These products can be used in tandem to
provide a broad-based solution for information technology asset and service
management needs.
We currently offer four product lines to complement and enhance our
information technology asset and service management products:
• Automation;
• Business Intelligence/Reporting;
• Employee Self Service; and
• Integration.
Our Automation technology automatically finds, identifies and tracks
information technology and other infrastructure assets. Our Business
Intelligence/Reporting technology provides business intelligence and
reporting solutions to meet the needs of different users and organizations,
including real-time viewing of strategic performance metrics. Our Employee
Self Service suite of products, referred to as our Get-It™ applications,
allow organizations to extend information technology asset and service
management capabilities directly to all employees through a single,
web-based interface. Our Integration technology enables customers to connect
our products to a variety of third-party applications.
Our customers include Fortune Global 2000 companies, medium-sized companies,
numerous federal, state and local government agencies worldwide and
outsourcers such as EDS and Unisys. We focus on serving entire
organizations, including governmental agencies and educational institutions,
with complex infrastructures, but our customers also include departments of
these organizations as well as mid-size organizations with varied
information technology asset and service management requirements.
Products
As an enterprise software provider, our products address critical needs in
today's economy as the information technology departments of organizations
seek ways to simplify and consolidate information technology infrastructure,
reduce costs and align information technology priorities to business
objectives. Our flagship products in information technology asset and
service management are AssetCenter and ServiceCenter. We offer four
additional product lines that complement these flagship products:
Automation, Business Intelligence/Reporting, Employee Self Service and
Integration. Descriptions of our two flagship products as well as the four
complementary product lines follow.
AssetCenter. Asset management software products enable organizations to
manage information technology and other types of assets that comprise the
complex infrastructure supporting a customer's operations. These assets
include desktop, laptop and personal computers, servers, routers and other
computer-networking devices, data storage devices, off-the-shelf and custom
software housed on servers, cell phones, PDAs and other devices that make it
possible to operate a modern company or government agency. AssetCenter
allows organizations to inventory these assets and manage the other
physical, financial and contractual aspects of these assets through the full
lifecycle, beginning with procurement and ending when they are retired
through disposal or divestiture. Our software automates processes and
workflows, replacing tedious manual processes and less sophisticated
computer-based processes for tracking assets. Using this product,
organizations have access to information showing where assets are located,
who is using them, and which employees are entitled to their use under
corporate policy. This product also assists customers in managing the
financial aspects of each asset, including contractual terms of purchase or
lease and related warranties. AssetCenter also provides the capability to
manage software license compliance and entitlement, control expenses through
charge-back programs to business units and reduce costs with streamlined
procurement processes. Customers can choose among AssetCenter's modules to
meet specific business needs and provide a foundation for enduring
management of their infrastructure. These modules consist of "Cable and
Circuit," "Contract Management," "Financial Management," "Portfolio
Management" and "Procurement Management."
ServiceCenter. Service management applications enable an organization to
automate and optimize the service desk function, improving the availability
and productivity of infrastructure assets and reducing costs by allowing
this service to be provided more efficiently. ServiceCenter provides tools
and workflows designed to strategically manage and extend the value of
information technology infrastructure assets based on fully-integrated
best-practice processes, in accordance with the Infrastructure Technology
Service Management framework set forth by the Information Technology
Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITIL is a set of documents created by the
U.K. government that represents the standard for best practice in providing
information technology service. ServiceCenter is built upon an application
delivery platform that can be extended without complex programming and is
used as an information hub for an information technology organization. Many
customers standardize their systems using ServiceCenter, to consolidate and
replace multiple or isolated ticketing systems located across disparate
departments and geographies. Using ServiceCenter with our Employee Self
Service product, employees can easily submit any type of request or notify
the service desk of any issues related to computers, software applications
or any other information technology asset. These requests are automatically
routed, prioritized and tracked until completion of the task requested.
ServiceCenter's modules consist of "Asset Contracts," "Change Management,"
"Incident Management," "Inventory and Configuration Management," "IR
Expert," "Request Management," "Root Cause Analysis," "Scheduled
Maintenance," "Service Management," "Service Level Management" and "Work
Management."
Automation. Our Automation products find, identify and track information
technology assets with modules for "Desktop Inventory" and "Network
Discovery." Desktop Inventory delivers a comprehensive view of an
organization's desktop environment by automatically scanning personal
computer system configurations and tracking information about the software
installed on the computers. Network Discovery provides visibility into
network operations, including real time access into configuration and the
performance of hardware assets within the networked infrastructure.
AssetCenter and ServiceCenter augment Desktop Inventory and Network
Discovery to ensure that information technology asset management and service
delivery processes are built around accurate and reliable operations data.
Business Intelligence/Reporting. Our Business Intelligence/Reporting
product, BI Portal, is a tool for advanced analysis and mining of data
maintained in ServiceCenter. Our product provides a predefined set of
metrics and meta data from ServiceCenter, giving customers a consolidated
list of their business variables and enabling users to analyze standardized
business data from a number of perspectives. Users are able to generate
reports and graphs to identify and communicate trends that are not readily
identifiable through more traditional reporting methods. Our product also
allows users to define their own queries or metrics and publish the results
for other users to view.
Employee Self Service. Our Employee Self Service product line is composed of
web based applications that provide self-service capabilities designed to
make organizations more efficient. With these Get-It applications, employees
are able to obtain information, resources and services through any web
browser. Get-Services™ extends ServiceCenter, giving employees a single
point of entry for initiating and tracking service requests. An employee who
needs support for a malfunctioning laptop, for example, can simply access
Get-Services to request service. A second application, Get-Resources™,
enables employees to request information technology resources, such as a
printer, from their web-browser. The application streamlines the request
process by providing information on assets and services approved for use by
the business and automating the management approval process. Get-Answers™, a
knowledge management application for service desk technicians and employees,
provides a centralized company knowledge base accessible by specified users.
It provides a simple user interface, an intuitive and powerful search engine
and a methodology ensuring that new information can be added easily and
existing information can be updated.
Integration. We provide powerful business process integration and data
transformation capabilities in the form of adapters and protocols to support
integration of third-party software products with AssetCenter and
ServiceCenter. Our flexible and open applications allow integration of
disparate data and applications, including third-party products such as
accounting applications, commonly referred to as enterprise resource
planning, or ERP, applications, network systems management applications and
inventory applications. This integration capability also allows companies
with multiple information technology service organizations to maximize the
value of the disparate software tools being used across the organization to
better understand the performance of the overall infrastructure.
We recognize that the value of our software products depends on their
ability to address specified business needs. As a result, we plan to offer
pre-defined business solutions to solve our customers' highest-priority
challenges. In designing our business solutions, we will package one or more
of the software products described above with professional, educational,
customer support and maintenance services based on our best practices
experience. We currently intend to offer pre-defined business solutions for
"Service Control" and "Asset Expense Control" and we intend to offer other
solutions in the future.
Industry Background
We operate mainly in the network and systems management sector of the
software industry. This sector provides the applications and tools needed to
ensure the provision, capacity, performance and availability of an
organization's computing, networking and software applications resources.
Most of our customers are information technology departments of businesses
and government and education entities. These entities face intense pressure
to deliver highly reliable always-available service. Global enterprises
today must routinely manage tens of thousands of information technology
assets, which include desktop and laptop computers, servers, routers and
other computer-networking devices, data storage devices, off-the-shelf and
custom software housed on servers and personal computers, cell phones,
personal digital assistant (PDA) devices and other technology. Over the past
decade these enterprises have faced increasing costs and operational and
business risks in acquiring, managing and servicing information technology
assets. Our comprehensive asset management products enable organizations to
manage the financial and physical elements of massive amounts of information
technology and other infrastructure assets. Our service management products
enable organizations to improve the reliability and availability of their
infrastructure by providing support for information technology assets and by
efficiently managing the problem resolution process as well as additions,
changes in location, upgrades and other changes to these assets within the
enterprise.
Technology
Our applications automate information technology business processes and
provide tailoring and workflow capabilities that enable the product to be
modified to meet customer-specific business needs. Our client-server
applications are built using modern technologies and standard protocols to
support distributed, heterogeneous architectures and to cooperate with
common middleware—that is, the software that resides between the operating
system and the end user application software—found in most enterprise
environments. We also develop tools, which we term "light-weight" agents, to
automate complex discovery and administrative tasks, such as the
distribution of software corrections or remote process execution. Our newer
products use industry-standard protocols such as J2EE, XML, SOAP and HTTP to
facilitate integration with other enterprise software.
In addition to creating technology for our products, we incorporate into our
products certain technology created by other companies, some of which is
critical to product use. When we incorporate third-party technology into our
products, we may be required to pay royalties to the technology providers.
As part of our relationship with IBM, we have an obligation to maintain
compatibility between our products and certain IBM middleware components. In
return, we gain access to certain technical services from IBM, including
technical and development support, education and training. In addition, we
have early access to IBM's emerging technologies.
Product Licensing
We generate revenues from our software products by licensing them to our
customers on a fee basis. We typically license our software products on a
perpetual basis under a non-exclusive license agreement. License fees depend
on the product licensed, the product's use and functionality, the number of
users of the product licensed and the country in which the license is sold.
We offer discounts to customers based on competitive factors and the size or
number of implementations they require. We sometimes offer special discounts
to educational and governmental institutions. Indirect sales through our
alliance partners are made at discounts from our list prices based on the
program and level in which the particular alliance partner participates.
Customer Support and Maintenance Services
Customer support and maintenance services represent an integral part of our
relationships with our customers by facilitating their success with our
products and services. Our tiered-support offerings are designed to provide
customers with a choice of maintenance plans so that they can select the
plan that best fits their organizational support needs. Our offerings
include e-mail, phone and web-based support services. Additional offerings
are available either as part of a higher service level plan or as a
stand-alone offering. Examples include 24-hour customer support, use of a
designated support account manager and an annual system check. We maintain
customer support centers in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and
the United States. We also have relationships with third parties that
provide customer support and maintenance services for specified customers
and local markets. In addition, IBM agreed with certain customers to provide
maintenance services on Peregrine products it sold in the event we become
unable to fulfill those obligations.
Professional and Educational Services
In most cases, third parties are responsible for implementing the products
that we sell and are paid directly by the customer. IBM, for example, has
trained a significant number of its consultants to deliver a broad range of
professional services tied to our products. In addition, our own
professional services group offers consulting and project management
services to help customers enjoy the full value of our products. In order to
manage fluctuating demand for our services, we usually subcontract these
integration services we are responsible for to one of our integration
partners. We also sometimes act as a subcontractor to a third-party service
provider, such as IBM.
The basic consulting services we offer include:
• Analyzing user requirements and integrating basic functions that will
quickly demonstrate the benefits of our products;
• Comprehensive upgrade planning and execution to enable cost-effective
software version migrations to our most-current products; and
• Pre-packaged offerings that address specific customer requirements with
best-practice, repeatable procedures.
Our professional and educational services group also provides instructor-led
training, web-based training, virtual classroom sessions and on-site
training to our customers.
Our professional services group has staff in France, Germany, the United
Kingdom and the United States. In areas where we do not have professional
and educational services personnel, partners deliver these services.
Competition
Sources of Existing Competition. The market for our products is highly
competitive and diverse. Our competitors vary in size and in the scope and
breadth of the products and services offered. These competitors include
large, mid-tier and small vendors. Our closest competitors are Fortune 500
technology vendors that have greater financial resources than we do and
offer a wide range of products and services, including offerings that
compete with our information technology asset and service management
software, as well as a number of smaller niche vendors. Our competitors
include: Altiris; Computer Associates;
Hewlett-Packard; MRO Software;
Remedy, a BMC
Software company; and USU Software AG.
We believe that the principal competitive factors affecting our market are:
• Product functionality;
• Price and cost effectiveness;
• Product performance;
• Quality of support and professional services; and
• Company reputation.
Although we believe that our products and services compete favorably with
respect to these factors, the market for our products is highly competitive.
In addition, potential customers may have concerns about purchasing from us
because of our size relative to larger competitors and our past accounting
irregularities and bankruptcy proceedings. Finally, large enterprises that
compete with us have better access to potential customers, and may be able
to price their products more competitively because of their size and the
breadth of their product offerings.
Sources of Future Competition. We believe that competition will be
influenced by continuing consolidation in the software industry. It is
possible that new competitors or alliances among competitors may emerge and
rapidly acquire a significant market share. Current and potential
competitors have established, or may in the future establish, cooperative
relationships among themselves or with third parties.
General Competitive Factors in the Industry. Some of our current and
potential competitors have greater financial, technical, marketing and other
resources than we do. As a result, they may be able to respond more quickly
than we can to new or emerging technologies and changes in customer needs.
They may also be able to devote greater resources to the development,
promotion and sale of their products. We also believe that there is a trend
among competitors toward securing market share at the expense of
profitability. We may not be able to compete successfully against current
and future competitors that seek to improve market share at the expense of
profitability. If this occurs, our responses to competitive pressures may
adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.
Asset Management Software Companies in the Directory
Altiris
Computer Associates
Datastream Systems
MRO Software
Peregrine Systems
Remedy
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