Announce alliance to deliver collaborative contract management capabilities
San Francisco — August 12, 2003 — DETERMINE Software, a provider of contract performance management (CPM) solutions, today announced a joint development alliance with Kubi Software, the creators of a class of business software called Collaborative Email.
Under the alliance, DETERMINE said it would use Kubi's technology to power its new Collaborative Contract Negotiation Module, which will coordinate multi-party contract negotiations. Kubi technology provides structured workspaces for individuals and teams to conduct secure collaboration from within familiar e-mail applications such as Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes.
DETERMINE's Collaborative Contract Negotiation Module is an extension of its Contract Performance Management application suite that will allow companies to conduct contract negotiations without requiring them to log on to proprietary portals.
Through its alliance with Kubi, DETERMINE said it is combining centralized contract control and visibility with the necessary requirements to support distributed end-user collaboration.
With the new module, users will be able collaborate on tasks, redline documents and hold discussion groups directly from their e-mail, while at the same time ensure the tasks and data effected during the negotiation process are monitored, validated and captured within the DETERMINE solution, according to the provider.
"Successfully creating and managing contracts requires enterprises to empower end-users with the freedom to collaborate within their everyday working environment — without mandating proprietary technologies and portals," said Tim Minahan, vice president of Supply Chain Research at the Aberdeen Group. "Our recent benchmark of enterprise contract management procedures found that nearly all companies foster contract collaboration using a mix of commercially available word processing and e-mail applications. But in order to be meaningful, such freedoms must be employed in conjunction with consistent businesses processes and controls to ensure that corporate contracts both reflect optimal trading terms and minimize risk."
The new module is in beta release and will be made generally available to DETERMINE customers in the fall of 2003.
