Contrado Manages The 'Software Supply Chain'

Contrado, a software start-up, unveiled the launch of Build Control System (BCS), which the company says reduces the time and costs associated with complex, large enterprise software rollouts and PC and server hardware refreshes.

Kenny Feld, president and CEO of the Dallas-based development and services firm, says corporate software rollouts can be massive, affecting tens of thousands of geographically disperse "end-point" devices, such as desktops, laptops, workstations and servers, as well as PDAs, handheld computers and wireless devices.

Contrado targets solution providers and systems integrators as its primary channel, Feld says.

Feld estimates that enterprises replace 25 percent of desktops a year on average.

Contrado provides real-time infrastructure software that enables enterprises to deliver software stacks and configurations to any device at any time, Feld says.

He describes the company's approach as a "software supply chain" for the development, packaging, deployment and ongoing management of enterprise software, both proprietary and off-the-shelf.

The company targets solution providers and systems integrators as the primary channel for its technology, as many software rollouts are outsourced, Feld says.

"There's a lot more leverage in the channel play," Feld says.

BCS can help drive down the expense of a software rollout by as much as 75 percent, says Contrado President and CEO Kenny Feld.

"By moving the software DNA upstream in the software supply chain process, the link between the initial deployment/ build process and downstream support drives down the total cost of ownership. This helps CSC to ensure ongoing high levels of service to our customers," Mahi says.

"The value we deliver is targeted to any enterprise that has to manage complex software stacks across distributed environments, which isn't necessarily specific to traditional industry verticals," Feld says. "Contrado's 'vertical' markets encompass IT outsourcers, hardware manufacturers and other enterprises, each of which services multiple industry verticals."

Contrado is a spinout of another Dallas-based company known as the Feld Group, which Feld's father, Charlie Feld, formed in 1991 with a group of senior IT executives and CIOs from the PepsiCo family of companies. The Feld Group then began a successful "CIO for hire" consulting practice.

Contrado, Latin for "to deliver wholly and completely," came out of a Feld Group assignment with Delta Airlines that began in 1997, Feld says. The consultancy completed an upgrade of Delta's airport systems using its own technology and complementary technology the company licensed from Support.com, which also was a part of the Delta system overhaul.

"What we do is our technology is based on LDAP-compliant directory services as well as relational databases on the profiling side," Feld says. "And that combination houses the information that drives what's going to end up on an end point."

Contrado's competition crosses categories and includes cloning tools such as Symantec's Ghost and packaging tools such as InstallShield's InstallShield products. Contrado also competes with software distribution and management offerings from Tivoli Systems and Computer Associates International, as well as Microsoft,with its Systems Management Server offering,and newer players such as Marimba, Novadigm and Cognet.

Stephen Sykes, director of business development for Support.com, says Contrado and Support.com engage in cross-selling of each other's products and services.

"Contrado is out aggressively targeting the same customer base that we're targeting," Sykes says. "So we're looking at companies that leverage software in a big way in order to automate their business processes. Those companies usually have a couple of cost issues and speed of execution issues. One is getting the software out and maintaining it. Another is supporting the software after it's out. This is sort of a nice dovetail."

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