In what amounts to the start-up’s biggest deal to date, web- hosted application provider Portera Systems Inc will today announce a multi-million contract with Baan Co NV to host the ERP giant’s new e-services offering.
Portera, which launched itself into the market earlier this year, makes software that lets businesses run their professional services organizations in a web hosted environment managed by Portera. Its customers include consulting organizations which have services as their core business, as well as internal service departments within large organizations. Portera has already signed Synergy International and Millennia Vision Corp among its first customers, but the deal with Baan, which also extends to all the ERP vendor’s integration partners, is a coup for the Campbell, California based start-up. Portera’s CEO Gary Steele wouldn’t say exactly how much the deal was for, describing it only as extremely significant. He added that the company had other big deals in the wings and announcements would be made in the coming months.
Under the agreement, Baan’s services division will implement Portera’s product, ServicePoint, on a worldwide basis and the software will be run and managed from Portera’s Santa Clara-based datacenter. The ServicePoint suite includes applications – project management, collaborative planning and methodology, resource planning, issue tracking, and customer feedback surveys – which will enable Baan to manage user service contracts on a customized case-by-case basis. A spokesperson for Baan was unavailable as we went to press. á
