Part 1 of this blog series covered the spectrum of Meridian Systems’ Proliance solution for Tier One, multi-billion-dollar global companies. It also analyzed Meridian’s early bet on leveraging Microsoft Office Business Applications (OBAs), and harnessing the Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology collaboration that is revolutionizing the capital infrastructure industry.

Meridian, which promotes its business as the Plan-Build-Operate (PBO) technology solutions leader for Project-Based Organizations (another PBO acronym, and thus the “PBO squared” mantra), offers an end-to-end solution for building owners, construction and engineering firms, and public agencies in three flavors. These offerings respectively cater to high-end (Tier One), mid-market, and small market organizations that manage capital building programs and facility assets. Read the rest of this entry »

Claiming the “Catch us if you can” movie mantra, the quiet Infrastructure Lifecycle Management (ILM) leader Meridian Systems, based in Folsom, California (US), and now owned by the billion-dollar global positioning system (GPS) giant Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB), is going on the offensive with competitors and industry analysts in its newest round of marketing announcements.  To the large bastion of technology vendors, reporters, and research analysts reporting on market requirements for what once was simply the realm of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS)  – the company’s somewhat shy, but technology-precocious, management is issuing a hearty challenge: “Catch up (with us)!” Read the rest of this entry »

Part III of this blog series analyzed the relatively recently launched Deltek Vision 5 [evaluate this product] and Deltek Costpoint 6 [evaluate this product] suites. It also tackled the related potential opportunities for Deltek. For one, key up- and cross-sell opportunities should come from:

• Additional modules, especially from the newly minted Deltek EPM [evaluate this product] suite: The majority of new Deltek customers initially purchase a single module or a select few modules of the suite (e.g., project management, financials, human resources [HR] or timesheets) and add more modules a few years after implementing the initial modules; and
• Migration from entry-level and/or legacy products to Costpoint or Vision: Deltek GCS Premier [evaluate this product] is a low-cost entry-level application suite designed for smaller contracting firms. As GCS customers outgrow these systems, there is opportunity for migration onto Costpoint. Similarly, we expect legacy Deltek FMS, Sema4 and Advantage customers to migrate onto Vision or Costpoint (depending on industry), as their scalability requirements exceed system capabilities. These legacy products were designed for small professional services firms.

As for focused geographic expansion, due to largely offering products that support only English, Deltek’s initial focus will logically be on English-speaking countries such as Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. International geographies have so far represented only a few percentiles of total revenue, but the company plans to generate 20 percent from international markets over the next three to five years, mostly via expansion into the UK and Australia/New Zealand. Read the rest of this entry »