Sometimes as we go through our daily routines we lose sight of some of the little things that make life the great adventure that it is. One such experience happened to a member of the CBA family Labor Day weekend as a result of a chance meeting at the Dayton Air Show courtesy of Sean D. Tucker world renowned stunt flyer and member of the Oracle Flight Team and Power Aerobatics.

CBA Sr. Account Executive Bob Searles and his son Matt, who has Cerebral Palsy, met Sean at the Dayton Air Show. Matt (12), who is determined not to let his physical challenges keep him down, has a passion for flying. His dream is to be a pilot someday. In order to prepare for that dream, he spends most of his free time on his computer perfecting his knowledge and skills as a pilot on flight simulator software. When Sean and Matt met in August at the Dayton Air Show, they hit it off immediately. Matt’s passion for flying and his admiration for Sean set the stage for an instant friendship between the two. Sean was so taken with Matt he offered to take him up in his airplane, one of the most high-performance aerobatic aircrafts in the world, the Oracle Challenger. It is a fire-breathing monster with over 400 horsepower, weighs just over 1200 pounds, and responds to the slightest pressure on the control stick even at 300 mph. Not only did Sean offer to take Matt for a ride… he offered to let him fly it. I could go on, but I’ll let this amazing YouTube video of what happened next speak for itself:

As you can see, the experience only stoked Matt’s love of flying. We are grateful to Sean and Oracle for providing Matt with a once in a lifetime experience. In honor of Matt’s flight and to help other like him realize their dream, we will donate $100 in Matt’s honor to the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation (use offer code MATT11) for every order we receive for software or training through the about to be launched CBA Online Store in the month of October. If you want to place an order today before the Online Store goes live, please contact CBA Sales at 419-874-0800 and reference this article. The United Cerebral Palsy Foundation’s slogan is “Life without Limits” and Matt is certainly a shining example of that.

Congratulations Matt for making your dreams come alive and thank you Sean for making it happen.

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The iPhone application for P6 Team Members is now available for download on iTunes App store!

This is an exciting milestone for the Mobile Project Team.  Currently the app is supported on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. iOS 4.3.   Oracle Development is actively working to support iOS 4+ in the coming weeks for those users that have older version of the OS. Additionally, iOS 5 has been officially released. Also of note, support for the the Verizon iPhone will be available shortly.

The Team Member app lets users:

• Email changes to update P6 projects
• Filter list of tasks
• Send email to request tasks
• View assigned tasks by project
• Easily mark a task complete
• Update time spent, time left & dates
• Receive confirmation message for updates

Please contact CBA your Oracle Primavera Specialized Partner for additional information and a demonstration of what P6 can do for your organization.

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One by-product of the Oracle acquisition of Primavera in 2008 is that now it is relatively easy to become an Oracle partner and sell Primavera products, however it is very difficult to become an Oracle SPECIALIZED Primavera Partner. This status means that you have provided the highest level of expertise and customer satisfaction in the industry today. Customer testimonials are an integral part of this process, so experience and competence matters. CBA is the only Specialized Primavera reseller based in Ohio and Michigan.

Since the 2008 acquisition of Primavera by Oracle we have seen many nameless faceless “groups” appear by virtue of the Oracle Open Market Model, which allows virtually anyone to become an Oracle software reseller. With Oracle’s excellence in marketing anyone can easily create a compelling website using their content. However the devil is in the details.For example we know of one “group” of one, who has proclaimed 12 years of experience (even though they have only been in existence for several weeks) while never having delivered the stated services or training to any company or organization. The website for this “group” contains not one single name of a principle owner, executive, salesperson, consultant, trainer, or implementation specialist although they boast to have a well-schooled team of people claiming those skills. However they do show stock photos of nice looking people in business dress that exist only in a photo shop somewhere. This “group” continues to claim experience in multiple verticals, however offer no customer success stories, references, or any other evidence that any company in any of the industries they list has ever done business with them. This “group” also claims to offer training and even has an inoperable link to a non-existent class schedule.

At CBA we are proud of our heritage of providing real value to real companies for 26 years. On our website you will find the names and bios of our ownership and management team, consultants and certified training professionals. We also offer real training classes with a real class schedule for all levels of Primavera training, for which you can really register. Why do sham companies like the one referenced above exist? It is because they try to make easy money selling software cheap to unsuspecting customers and then try to back-fill services through the independent consulting community. Because they don’t invest in their business the way real companies like CBA and our true peers in the industry such as Evans Technologies, DR McNatty and Associates and CDP have they can sell software at unsustainable margins. Unfortunately all you get is low-priced software. The faceless, nameless man behind the mask is not going to help you with maintenance or licensing issues, or help you to receive the support and training necessary to be successful. This is a very dangerous shell game because as any savvy project manager knows project management solutions are not “out of the box” ready products and qualified training and consulting specialists are hard to come by. Just like the wild west hucksters selling snake oil what they are really selling you is deception.

CBAcan lead you out of that wilderness. Only a company with the depth and breadth of knowledge that CBA possesses can offer you the lowest Total Cost of Operation for Primavera products via our Software Advantage Program. As an innovator in project management services and a Oracle Primavera Specialized Partner we have developed the CBA Software Advantage Program. For no additional cost when you purchase 5 or more Oracle Primavera software licenses from CBAwe will enroll you in the CBA Software Advantage Program. This program entitles you to up to 4 hours of product support and assistance from one of our senior consultants at no cost, a 15% discount for enrolling in any of our scheduled training classes conducted by one of our certified Primavera trainers, and a 15% discount on any additional professional services you may need for implementation and administration of your Primavera environment. This is our way of thanking you for your business and ensuring that you have the necessary help you need to make your project management initiative successful and affordable. Save yourself from the wild west of project management and make the prescient choice to call CBA. Please contact CBA for further details.

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All good things must come to an end and the end is at hand for Primavera P3 and SureTrak two venerable products that were the tools that made sure projects from The Big Dig to millions of miles of roads and bridges were completed on-time and on-budget. 

Contructech Magazine chimes in by stating:  

“Oracle continues to bring to market new releases of Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management—even announcing the latest release from Oracle OpenWorld last week. However, in the past few years, plans for both Primavera SureTrak and Primavera P3 have remained undefined.  Now, Oracle confirms it will stop selling both products on Dec. 31, 2010. However, the company does confirm it will continue lifetime support of both products based on its Applications Unlimited program.

Still, for the construction industry, questions linger. According to a recent survey of Constructech readers, approximately 35% of construction professionals use Primavera products from Oracle for scheduling. This shows SureTrak and Primavera P3 have been some of the most widely used scheduling products in the construction industry.

While SureTrak and P3 users can continue to receive support from Oracle, some may choose to make tough decisions and look elsewhere. Other options include moving to Oracle’s Primavera P6 software, which is more of a full project-management system, as opposed to a targeted scheduling solution.”

As stated above although the product will still be supported the implications for project managment professionals are huge.  First, both products will cease to be mandated for use in bid specifications for new projects.  Secondly, although the products will be supported by Oracle no new code will be developed, since both products have a 16-bit code base they will present an issue when upgrading to Windows 7 and beyond.

Here at CBA we have sold thousands of licenses of both SureTrak and P3 to our customers over the years and we are dedicated to providing the best migration path to other tools including Oracle Primavera P6 release 8.  We announced yesterday a series of webinars beginning on October 25th to introduce you to P6 r8 and to explain your migration options.  In addition, our newly announced Contractor Compliance Program will provide large owners and prime contractors a service that will help to ensure bid specs are written to proper tools and services and provide support to winning bidders to easily comply with bid requirements.  Please contact CBA for more details.

Here are the links to register for the P6 R8 webinar series:

October 25 Introduction – Release 8: The Future of P6

November 17 Demo – Release 8: The Future of P6

December 8  Migration – Release 8: The Future of P6

 We would like to hear your comments and concerns on this topic, so please visit our Facebook page to post your comments and talk with our support experts and consultants.

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Almost since the inception of the invention of software itself M&A activity in the industry has been the norm not the exception. Great companies like Peoplesoft, Siebel, Mercury, Business Objects, and yes our very own Primavera have been gobbled up like plankton by the whales of the industry. IBM, Oracle, CA, Cisco, HP and Microsoft seemingly have an insatiable appetite for adding to their product portfolios. Once proud companies for which growth seemed to be unlimited are now adding profits to somebody elses’ bottom line. With the development of new technologies such as SaaS and Cloud Computing we will see more and more of the industries standard bearers disappear for one reason or another. A look at the Software Top 100  reveals an interesting fact. Eight of the top 25 companies are consumer game makers, something that would have been unheard of ten years ago.  The revenue difference between number 1 and number 25 is nearly 50 fold showing that the top 5 companies keep getting bigger as the industry consolidates. There is no reason to think this situation will not continue unabated, so the question is not if, but when most major players will cease to be independent.  Rumors abound over even the largest companies, just last year speculation surfaced for a second time that Microsoft would acquire software giant SAP.  With that question already answered for Primavera we can now look to the future with confidence and not uncertainty.

Since Primavera was acquired by Oracle in October 2008 we and our customers have been asking is this a good thing for us? There have been many times in the past 16 months when that question would have been difficult to answer. Looking forward from the Primavera customer perspective I believe we have successfully guided our customers through the sometimes difficult process of navigating the organizational maze that is Oracle. By assuming that burden for our customers they have been able to realize all the benefits of the Primavera to Oracle transition and none of the pain.  Going forward the benefit of being part of the Oracle brand will be obvious.  The lifeblood of any good software product is integration. Silos of technology only hasten obsolescence and by being a part of a larger family of products Primavera has the ability to continue to grow and add value by integrating with Oracle (and other) ERP solutions to complete the enterprise PPM vision. Under Oracle’s leadership the Primavera product portfolio of  P6, Contract Management, Primavera Earned Value Management, Risk Analysis, Portfolio Management, Primavera Inspire for SAP,  Contractor, SureTrak and P3, will continue to provide the most comprehensive and full featured product managment suite in the industry today.  As a founding Primavera PAR we see this as our opportunity to continue the work we have been doing for 26 years as an expert in project management in general and Primavera in particular. Oracle can provide a huge R&D budget for Primavera to continue to grow and thrive, but organizationally they are 25 years behind CBA in the knowledge of project management and the nuances of successfully implementing the Primavera solution. We at CBA welcome the opportunity to help our customers to face this new reality.   We know that CBA and Primavera will continue to thrive under the Oracle umbrella and with our help you can as well.

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