Awards and Certifications From June 29

Compuware Covisint named market leader: Detroit-based Compuware Corp. (Nasdaq:CPWR) Monday announced that its Covisint subsidiary was named a hosted identity and access management market share leader by independent analyst firm, Forrester Research Inc. The title of the report is "Hosted Identity Is Real -- Are You Ready For It?" Covisint was one of only two companies listed in the Tier 1 category, which represented companies with more than $10 million in hosted identity revenues for 2008. The report also noted that "with the current economic downturn, many organizations are looking for ways to reduce the costs of their security operations and are looking at outsourcing to achieve this objective." According to the 15-page report, "Identity and access management (IAM) projects have long been plagued with their long implementation times, high services-to-licence ratios, integration challenges, labor-intensive build-out and operations and long wait times to produce compliance and end user benefits. The recent emergence of the hosted IAM market alleviates these concerns by offering managed services that deliver clear benefits of 'instant' compliance, reduced IAM operational and staffing costs, and pay-as-you-go, operational expense pricing models." Said Covisint president David McGuffie: "Covisint -- a cloud pioneer and hosted market leader -- enables companies to thrive and focus on their core competencies by alleviating the hard technical, security and regulatory challenges they face daily. Forrester Research is an independent and well-respected research firm, and we believe this report is yet another concrete acknowledgement that companies can benefit from Covisint's hosted identity and cloud computing model, which has delivered proven business success for more than a decade." Covisint's industry collaboration platform also was recently called a cloud computing pioneer by Forrester Research. Covisint's on-demand collaboration platform and cloud computing approach helps virtual communities securely access, use and share time sensitive information. Covisint solves business problems by streamlining and automating processes globally -- connecting state and nationally based communities, organizations and systems in the healthcare, automotive and financial services industries, as well as the public sector. Learn more about Covisint at www.covisint.com.

Downriver Insurance Agency Wins Tech Award: Wyandotte-based Daly Merritt Inc. has been recognized by National Underwriter magazine as one of the three most innovative agencies in the United States for the integration of technology into its business. Daly Merritt accepted the National Underwriter Agency Technology Achievement Award, at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Orlando, Fla. late last month.  “It’s a terrific honor and validation of our business,” said Joseph aly, president and general counsel. “It tells our customers that we’re always looking for better and more efficient ways to serve them. It tells our carriers that our practice is professional and forward-thinking, and it tells our employees that we are committed to giving them the tools to provide the best customer service.” 
Daly Merritt, along with honorees AH&T of Leesburg, Va. and RCM&D of Baltimore, Md., was chosen from a national field of entries, based on how creatively they employed technology to enhance customer service, simplify operations, and grow their business. The firm has installed systems that have streamlined benefits administration, document management, and agency operations, along with a training system that allows for quick adaptation by its employees. More at www.dalymerritt.com.

Plex named manufacturing ERP champion: Auburn Hills-based Plex Systems Inc. said Monday it had been named champion in the "ERP in Manufacturing" report from industry analysts Aberdeen Group. The champion designation is the highest level of achievement in the Aberdeen AXIS methodology, and applies to a vendor that has demonstrated superior proficiency in delivering real value and support of its user base. Plex Systems is the only company to achieve the Champion ranking in the “ERP in Manufacturing” AXIS report, scoring above legacy ERP developers SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. The report is available for download at http://offers.plex.com/AberdeenERPChampion.html. The Aberdeen AXIS report is the result of an objective, fact-based vendor assessment methodology based on vendor performance in more than 250 evaluation criteria.  Aberdeen evaluates business pressures, actions, capabilities and enablers to arrive at its conclusions. The majority of the criteria used to rank companies are derived from quantifiable results achieved as reported by the software vendors’ customers, rather than by the software vendor themselves. More at www.plex.com.