Aberdeen and Alinean Partner to Source Financial Validation for IT Security Investment Decisions

Business Wire,  June 12, 2002  

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Business/Technology Editors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 12, 2002

Aberdeen Group, a leading provider of technology market consulting and research for the investment and Information Technology (IT) supplier communities, and Alinean, the IT Value Experts, today announced a strategic partnership to create and jointly market The Security ROI Selling Toolkit, an interactive solution to help vendors demonstrate the value of IT security projects.

The tool kit combines Aberdeen's extensive primary research in IT security with Alinean's patent-pending methodologies and software tools that quantify the value and return on investment (ROI) from IT expenditures. As a strategic selling tool, it helps vendors tap today's $10 billion market for security solutions with a comprehensive financial business case for security-based IT projects.

This partnership addresses the challenges faced by IT vendors and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) alike in generating hard-dollar cost justification for security solutions. Security measures can be notoriously difficult to quantify. Many crucial elements are based on 'what-ifs' that never happen, such as when intrusions are prevented or downtime is avoided. The Security ROI Selling Toolkit assigns values and metrics to the cost of implementation, tangible benefits, intangible benefits and risk, helping CIOs and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) more accurately calculate the true cost, return on investment (ROI), total cost of ownership, net present value savings, internal rate of return and payback period.

"Security solutions lead IT investment acquisitions with 55 percent of companies intending to make a purchase and 82 percent citing that economic validation will be required. IT security solution providers urgently need to present defensible financial justification to help CIOs and CFOs understand the benefits, risk mitigation and time-to-payback of proposed solutions," says Jim Hurley, Vice President and Managing Director of Aberdeen's Information Security practice. "Our partnership with Alinean meets this need by giving our joint clients access to advanced IT security-specific research and ROI methodologies from two trusted and respected sources."

The Security ROI Selling Toolkit incorporates customer requests for financial justification from security vendors through business cases, automated ROI sales and marketing software tools, white papers, sales training and services, all validated by a third-party. The tool kit details a strategic view of critical security requirements of enterprises today, a rationalization of the complexity of enterprise security solutions and acquisition criteria to help companies make informed and cost-justifiable decisions.

"IT security is one of the few areas where companies are aggressively spending," says Tom Pisello, President and CEO of Alinean. "This means there's immense competition, so it's essential that vendors demonstrate realistic value-based analysis to effectively sell security solutions. The Security ROI Selling Toolkit is expected to increase the effectiveness of security-related sales proposals by 60 percent and reduce sales cycles by up to 40 percent, delivering significant competitive advantage."

Alinean's founding team created the industry's first ROI and total cost of ownership methodologies, helping enterprises tie technology investments to bottom-line business goals. The company offers advanced methodologies and powerful software tools, including the ROI Dashboard model, which is the industry's first to combine traditional cost analysis with the ability to pinpoint soft benefits and potential risk. Its customized ROI Calculator and ROI Analyst sales tools accelerate IT spending by helping vendors and consultants develop business cases for specific solutions and value propositions.

About Aberdeen

Since 1988, Aberdeen has been a leader in providing market analysis and positioning services that help business technology suppliers meet the challenge of establishing leadership in fast-changing markets. Aberdeen is headquartered in Boston, MA, and has research divisions in Palo Alto, CA; Fort Collins, CO; and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Aberdeen is accessible via the Web at www.aberdeen.com.

About Alinean

Founded in July 2001 to develop research methodologies and software tools to measure and quantify the value and ROI from information technology, Alinean develops custom tools to prove and improve the value of IT investments. The Alinean team originally pioneered the concept of interactive ROI and TCO software in 1994, developing award-winning solutions for leading IT vendors and consultants. Alinean is a privately held company, headquartered in Orlando, Florida and is a client of the UCF Technology Incubator Program. For more information visit the company's Web site at www.alinean.com.

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