BPM Partners Releases 2006 Performance Management Pulse Survey Results; Improved Satisfaction Ratings and New Functionality Indicate BPM is Ready for Prime Time.

STAMFORD, Conn. -- BPM Partners, the leading independent authority on business performance management (BPM) solutions, today released the 2006 BPM Pulse Survey, the industry's annual guide-at-a-glance to real world implementations and the only user report card on the BPM industry's vendors. This year's report shows that BPM is breaking out of the confines of the finance department and is starting to make inroads within functional departments in the rest of the organization.

"BPM is going mainstream; we had the largest percentage of non-finance respondents in the history of the Pulse survey," said Craig Schiff, founder and CEO of BPM Partners. "Part of the reason is that vendors are now successfully incorporating into their applications more end user driven enhancements. Meta data management, predictive analytics, business task specific features, additional intelligence and vertical market functionality are more prevalent in competitive applications. An important point is that these enhancements in today's applications make it easier to deploy and use these systems than in the past."

"Also, the pain that used to be associated with being a BPM pioneer is lessening. Vendor satisfaction scores are up across the board. Users are achieving greater satisfaction and vendors are helping them have more realistic expectations. Last year, only one vendor received a 4 or better (out of 5); this year several did. This is a positive trend; clients are achieving a higher degree of success with their BPM applications, and they are recognizing the vendors as a source for that improvement."

"However," Schiff cautioned, "users should not become complacent. The state of the market also complicates the selection process for those just starting out. There is a wider and deeper field of possibilities than ever before. Many of the vendors are achieving higher satisfaction scores because they have worked hard to identify their strengths and differentiators. Potential BPM customers need to make sure that their selection process is thorough and the vendor solutions on their short list provide the features they need to drive their specific business results."

The BPM Pulse presents feedback from actual BPM users in an easy-to-reference graphical report and serves as a benchmark for those considering, planning or starting a BPM project. Preliminary user satisfaction scores were recently presented as part of the annual "Beyond the Hype" Webcast in partnership with Business Finance Magazine. Free copies of the summary results, the listing of the top ranked vendors and analysis are available in a white paper entitled "2006 BPM Pulse Survey Results" which can be downloaded at http://www.bpmpartners.com/bpmcentral_whitepapers.shtml .

The 2006 BPM Pulse also identified several surprising trends, including:

--The rise of applications -- 33 percent of the respondents preferred an applications vendor, while 44 percent said their favorite BPM vendor offers both tools and applications. The tools-only vendors were the favorites of just 11 percent versus 2004 data which related how 27 percent planned on building their applications from tools or custom programming their own.

--Performance management as a true enterprise application - There are clear signs that organizations are recognizing the impact of BPM as a company-wide initiative. With a view towards synchronizing departmental applications to provide an integrated perspective, 75 percent of respondents rated metadata management as "important." In the same vein, 77 percent said that a unified solution, with a single database and interface, was important.

BPM - a growing software category with over 90 vendors - is a combination of business processes, select measures (metrics, key performance indicators) and systems that enable an organization to understand, act on and influence its business performance. In today's fast moving business environment, it is vital that corporate executives understand the true performance of the business at any given point. Budgeting, planning, consolidation, scorecards, dashboards, certain business intelligence (BI) tools and analytic applications all fall under the BPM umbrella.

About BPM Partners

BPM Partners is the leading independent authority on BPM solutions and a founding member of the BPM Standards Group. BPM Partners' vendor-neutral consultants guide clients through their BPM initiatives from start to finish, helping companies attain the maximum value from their business performance management initiatives. This is done through hands-on services that provide insight on how to collect and analyze the right information to address specific business goals. BPM Partners leads clients through vendor selection, evaluation and implementation of departmental or enterprise-wide BPM systems.

By analyzing and then matching the client's requirements with the appropriate vendor, BPM Partners helps companies narrow the selection of vendors from a lengthy industry list that includes Applix (Nasdaq: APLX), Business Objects (Nasdaq: BOBJ), Cartesis, Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN), Geac (Nasdaq: GEAC; TSE: GAC), FRx Software (a Microsoft Company), Hyperion Solutions (Nasdaq: HYSL), Longview Solutions, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), OutlookSoft, SAP (NYSE: SAP), SAS Institute, Systems Union (LSE: SUG.L), and others. Go to www.bpmpartners.com.