Sopheon

Infobox Company
company_name = Sopheon plc
company_
company_type = Publicly traded
foundation = Netherlands, 1993
location = US Headquarters: Minneapolis
key_people = Andy Michuda, CEO
industry =
products = Software Solutions for Product Portfolio Management and Strategic Roadmapping, Services
homepage = http://www.sopheon.com

[http://www.sopheon.com Sopheon] [http://www.londonstockexchange.com/en-gb/pricesnews/prices/system/detailedprices.htm?sym=GB0006932171GBGBXAIM%200693217SPE (LSE:SPE)] is an international provider of software and services that help organizations improve the business impact of product innovation. Sopheon’s Accolade system automates and governs the innovation process, allowing customers to increase revenue and profits from new products. Sopheon is listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange and on the Euronext in the Netherlands

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History

Sopheon began in 1993 as Netherlands-based PolyDoc. Building on its competencies in linguistics and language management, the company developed software applications that allowed organizations to capture, organize and access knowledge through structured authoring tools, terminology management and thesauri. Use of this technology was focused on specific processes, such as hospital protocol management and the sharing of quality standards.

In November 1999, PolyDoc added to its knowledge harvesting and content dissemination competencies by acquiring AppliedNet, a UK supplier of knowledge management solutions and products with particular expertise in search and portal technologies. Besides extending the intellectual property of the group, the acquisition added strength in implementation services and expanded PolyDoc's market presence in the UK. In conjunction with its acquisition of AppliedNet, PolyDoc changed its name to Sopheon.

With a commercially sound set of software tools in place, Sopheon next looked for an opportunity to integrate content into its solutions and to gain a foothold in the US market. In September 2000, Sopheon completed the acquisition of Teltech Resource Network Corporation, a US knowledge management and research services organization. With a 16-year history, Teltech brought to Sopheon a diverse blue-chip US client base. As a part of the strategy for globalizing its research services offering, in July 2001 Sopheon acquired the Technology and Information Services division ("AIT") of Aventis Research & Technologies, Frankfurt, Germany.

In November 2001, Sopheon acquired UK-based Orbital Software, whose technology expanded the capacity of Sopheon’s solutions to include access to unstructured information within the product innovation process. In June 2003, Sopheon sold its US-based Information Management division to Find/SVP Inc. The transaction allowed the company to pursue a strategic decision to focus more closely on its growing software business. This focus centered on Sopheon’s primary offering, the Accolade product life cycle management (PLM) system.

Following its market introduction in 2001, Accolade has evolved into the product portfolio management submarket of PLM.

In June 2007, Sopheon announced the acquisition of California-based Alignent Software Inc. Alignent is one of only a few suppliers worldwide that specializes in the provision of advanced product and technology roadmapping software for complex global companies.

Products

Sopheon's Accolade product life cycle management (PLM) system automates product development processes, providing the strategic decision support needed to:

* Better understand the business value of each project in the innovation pipeline
* Speed the right products to market - faster
* Capture, collect, and compare new product ideas
* Make resource allocation decisions that are aligned with an organization's strategic priorities

Key Features of Accolade
* "Process automation": Automates any phase- or gate-based product development process
* "Process accelerator": Compresses implementation time and speeds process adoption
* "Portfolio management": Provides a pre-defined process model and guidelines that enable easy tracking and assessing of the status and viability of projects based on key performance metrics
* "Product planning and roadmapping": Makes it easier to develop and analyze product roadmaps and product release schedules
* "Idea management": Allows objective evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses and risks associated with a product idea
* "Resource planning": Provides details and analysis of project resource demands across the developmental pipeline
* "Document routing and approval": Tracks and records the progress of project documentation through review and approval processes
* "MS Project integration": Provides close integration of Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 into Accolade

Sopheon's Vision Strategist™, Strategic Roadmapping Software

Sopheon’s strategic product planning solution, Vision Strategist, is the first collaborative software designed exclusively for product and IT roadmapping. It allows the user to visualize and predict how external market and technology trends will impact product plans over time, enabling better decisions on product direction or the introduction of new technologies. A principal advantage of the system is that it centralizes planning information, making it easy to access the data and transform it into product, technology and market roadmaps.

Vision Strategist can also be used to help IT professionals better plan their technology paths, the implementation and integration of new systems, supplier capabilities, and map those to the needs of their internal business customers.

With Vision Strategist, you can:

*Streamline, automate and visualize strategic planning data
* Ensure that new product development and technology investments reflect long-term needs
* Eliminate redundant planning efforts early in the development process
* Identify technology and intellectual property that can be reused across products
* Share real-time product roadmaps across teams and with suppliers

External links

* [http://www.sopheon.com Company web site]