The client had recently purchased a software product from an independent developer and L&P was hired perform a code review to evaluate whether or not a certain section of source code in the product was duplicated from a separate product that the same developer had sold all rights to years earlier. Not only were we able to determine with certainty that the duplication had occurred, but were able to establish a timeline for the duplication that contradicted the developer’s attempt to explain away the problem. The issue is now moving to litigation.

The client has a niche web commerce site that they were hoping to expand into new markets. After a code review and design review, we determined that although the product was well engineered and the team was capable of taking on new tasks, the feature set of the product was so targeted to their unique market that significant work would be required to move to more general markets. The company subsequently decided to expand their markets through acquisition.

The client was an investment banking firm seeking to spin a specialty media business out from a large web services company. We were hired to perform technical due diligence because the client was concerned about the scalability and robustness of the platform the business was run on. After an extensive design review, we were able to demonstrate that these concerns were well founded and the client was able to use our report to significantly reduce the purchase price of the business.

The client is a new cell-phone based services company targeted at the college and university market. L&P was hired to design and develop interfaces from the client’s system to various outside systems owned by the universities and cell providers. Over the course of 6 months, we successfully completed four separate integration projects, all of which provided new functionality for their customers and/or resulted in internal cost savings for the client.

The client is an energy services company that also had a product that used hardware and software combined to save energy at their customer sites. L&P was originally hired to evaluate a V2 upgrade to this product that was two years overdue. After a design review and skill assessment, we determined that the current engineering approach was not feasible and that the outside consultants working on the project were not capable of finishing. We were then asked to complete the project ourselves. Redesigning the hardware from scratch and keeping as much of the V1 software as possible, we were able to produce a working, UL tested and manufacturable product in under 9 months. The energy saving system’s monitoring application for remote monitoring and control of the device was also examined and upgraded during this time.

A software product for transferring doctor’s notes between services, shifts and other health care professionals administering to hospital patients had been developed. The product proved to be invaluable in cutting down on mistakes and in evaluating interns experience and outcomes. This product was funded by and developed in partnership with a well known teaching hospital. The hospital officials decided they wanted to create a company that would market the product to other hospitals and to expand its functionality going forward. L&P was asked to review the design and assess the skills of the technical personnel involved with the project and to develop a business plan that would be used for raising funds for the new company. This business plan was successfully completed and included recommendations for pricing, sales strategies, costs, organization plans, vision for future products, competitive analysis and product descriptions among other things. The company is now installing the product in additional hospitals.

A software company that had, over a period of years, developed and installed their product at customer sites for helping companies do capacity planning, and optimization of the overall software processing performance. Their software contained proprietary algorithms and modeling tools for determining the performance of new system configurations and software installations. It had been used to optimize SAP installations and other software installed in an enterprise level customer base. In order to reach profitability and take advantage of a window of opportunity in the market the company decided to accelerate its product plans to include virtualization. The investors hired L&P to perform due diligence on the existing product and technical personnel along with the proposed product roadmap to determine if the company could execute the desired plan as proposed. The evaluation was completed and recommendations made to the investors and accepted by the management of the company. The investors used the results of the evaluation to tailor their funding proposals so they matched more closely with the needs of the development project. Recommendations were also made regarding market areas in which L&P thought the company had a proprietary edge.

A leading biotech startup providing gene sequencing services to major pharmaceutical and biotech companies was having difficulties servicing their internal application requests and customers’ needs as well as providing the needed applications for automation of their laboratory and gene sequencing algorithms. They also needed expert IT help to set up their backup and disaster recovery as well as to eliminate their single points of failure in their MIS and network operations. Due to the urgency of the problem L&P Consulting was hired to identify the key areas needing software improvement and to provide design and development solutions without major rewriting or overhauling of the existing systems. L&P, because of their initial successes, was subsequently hired to manage the MIS department and to provide the necessary applications, systems and infrastructure which would enable them to increase throughput, automate procedures, modify and enhance on-line customer ordering and results reporting. L&P also helped put in place the necessary documentation and MIS procedures for industry certification. The company was subsequently acquired in a very lucrative transaction.

A successful consulting company in the computer storage market wanted to obtain intellectual property of their own to supplement their business and add value for their customers. L&P Consulting, after reviewing internal operations, presented a proposal that would enable the company to develop their own IP which would be customized for their market needs while simultaneously providing value to their internal operations at each step in the development process. The proposal included automating and enhancing their existing procedures for data gathering and analysis and then adding extensions in a manner that would result in a finished product. Added advantages that result are that the product can be easily extended and customized as business analyses expand and all customer engagement data would be warehoused and easily accessible for added analytical value. L&P was hired to do the design and development work and has successfully completed the automation and improvement of their existing processes.

A manufacturer of ‘turn key’ storage systems was having difficulty releasing its new product line. They were actively recruiting OEMs but were finding continual problems with their releases and difficulty in solving problems without introduction of new ones. Their documentation was also inadequate for support of OEMs. L&P Consulting was brought in to assess the situation and make recommendations to help fix their product development and release management processes. After an initial fact finding session followed by a week of consulting, L&P produced a complete set of procedures and recommendations for fixing their version control system, bug fix and patch release process, and documentation control. Specific responsibilities were assigned and problem areas highlighted while minimizing the procedural impact. The results were so successful that L&P Consulting was retained as an ongoing advisor and is currently working on internal tactical and strategic issues.

A leading provider of eLearning content, learning management, and related services required a robust, collaborative, web-based content delivery platform. L&P Consulting was retained to develop the platform and integrate it with the existing learning management system. The client also required that L&P generate the specifications and ensure that proper changes and upgrades were made to enable seamless integration with existing systems. It also involved setting up the infrastructure for servicing and maintaining the hosting environment and network. In addition to successfully delivering the product within a very short time frame, L&P designed and developed a tool which enabled users to rapidly development professional presentations and which could be delivered ‘live’ using the newly created content delivery platform. The product is being successfully marketed and is a cornerstone to the company’s strategic plans.

A team of entrepreneurs had spent considerable time developing a database that consisted of modifications to an existing popular database enabling it to run on laptops which were synchronized to the main database for periodic updates. The project began to look promising and the entrepreneurs decided to raise capital and form a corporation to finish the product and market it. They turned to L&P Consulting to help them develop a business plan and a presentation for the VCs. They also wanted L&P to counsel them on business development and to provide the president with support in the performance of his duties. The company raised the needed capital, completed the first version of the product and has installed it in several Fortune 500 sites for evaluation.

A company had been formed to broadcast certain live pricing information to subscribers. This information was sent via a transmission network utilizing satellite communications and telephone technology. The real-time financial instrument pricing data was input at multiple source sites and transmitted to a central collection site where it was collected, correlated and formatted prior to transmission to a centralized satellite up-link facility where it was broadcasted via satellite to receiving stations. Where satellite receiving antennae were not available it was further transmitted via phone lines to the subscribers. This company was the result of a joint venture partnership started by a pair of major banks.

After several years of operation it became apparent to the Chairman of the Board that he needed a review of operations resulting in recommendations for technology change that would bring the company to profitability. Feeling hostage to the technology environment and existing technology management, he also felt that in order to effect changes he would need someone he trusted to document operations so it could be transferred to the appropriate new employees if deemed necessary, and to help him understand the technology and how it was applied to the business.

We were tasked initially to make a review of operations. After a discussion of our findings, we subsequently were asked to document the technology and operations followed by formal recommendations regarding technology change. Over a period of one year the role expanded to general manager during which time the MIS department and its operations were revamped and new management hired, all technology was completely documented freeing up management to take any desired course of action, improved software was written and disseminated to the field, and client desktops were modified to operate with standard equipment. The product line was also expanded and the technology used to test new lines of business.

A large credit collection company discovered it had put itself in a near bankrupt position. Its cost of operations and debt load were overwhelming the operations. Having grown rapidly and successfully for a number of years it was perplexing to the owners as to why they found themselves in this position. We were initially asked by the two partners to review operations and personnel and discuss our observations with them. Having discovered key areas to pursue which were most urgently needed to fix, we were brought in with an expanded role of further refining, defending and implementing our recommendations. One of the classic business mistakes that had been made was that they had forgotten what business they were in and gradually over time had over invested in technology both from a capital as well as operational standpoint. After reviewing the technology thoroughly along with the internal development operations, it was apparent that the portion of the business involved in the development of computer technology to support data collection be divested and that the company be merged or sold. In our final role we successfully found a purchaser who was able to renegotiate the bank loans thereby enabling the business to continue while helping the principals avoid bankruptcy.

A venture capital partnership had invested a considerably amount of money in an entrepreneurial group led by several Harvard physicians to build a world class system of hospitals and triage centers. We were asked to review existing state-of-the-art hospital software technology and make recommendations regarding how to make the new hospital’s system world class. Having worked with the entrepreneurs and VC for a period of six months, an initial report containing recommendations was presented. The report was so well received that the VC requested that a plan be put together to develop a key component required for the advanced technology. The VC subsequently decided to fund us in bringing one of the primary recommendations to fruition. The product which was developed enabled data bases to be integrated for producing clinical medical records from disparate sources of information.

For various reasons a major corporation, in the process of reviewing its portfolio decided to assess the potential and overall probability of success of one of its holdings. This holding was a mid-cap health care software company in the process of developing new products on which they were dependent for future competitiveness and profitability. What was particularly disturbing was that the company had been continually reporting delays and budget overruns in the development of their new flagship product. We were initially asked to assess senior management, product plans and development personnel. Having done this, we were asked to expand and intensify our reviews and report on our overall findings. They were to include, among other things, observations re. personnel, product potential, chances for success, scheduling, and alternative methods for achieving the same goals at less risk and cost. The core of the product depended on the development of a new, single database integrating both financial and clinical information. It was quickly discovered that the product development plan was overly complex and did not have the required unified support of all management. Mid tier management was competing with their own products internally and did not have the required leadership vision or expertise to pull them together. Morale was low and large holes existed in the technical organization. Much of the work being done was for demonstration purposes and did not cover the major advances required at the database level. Other technical work was fractured and had no clear objectives. The resulting flagship product, if successfully completed, would be a nightmare to support and would require enormous set-up time, and much more. After making recommendations to management to mitigate the problems, it was apparent that they were going to remain intransigent regarding the fundamental changes needed. A decision was made to sell the company.

A software company was in the process of developing a set of software development tools for application and user interface development. Their initial development was based on windows and they had made a decision to move to UNIX and C. They had discovered a company that was developing a competitive tool in the UNIX environment and wanted to negotiate some sort of licensing arrangement which would enable them to complete and sell the code under their own name. We were asked to perform technical due diligence on the product and negotiate the best possible licensing arrangement. An arrangement was consummated in which the company we represented was given source code rights with very favorable royalty payments. We were then hired under a long term contract to effectuate the cleaning up of the code and design, and to complete the development of the product using the licensed source code. The company later successfully completed an IPO.

A major bond broker-dealer wanted to enhance and upgrade its private distribution network but was wary about hiring the large consulting firms. He wanted to deal on a personal level with the people he would hire to develop the network. He also wanted to explore potential ideas without getting in too deep financially, and wanted someone who could talk to his traders and pro-actively recommend new functionality. We were hired under retainer to explore possibilities including the upgrading of the network as well as the trading systems on the desk tops. The result was a vastly improved network with a completely revised trading system utilized by all the traders. Once completed we remained on retainer to perform on-going consulting and modifications.

A major producer of certain medical devices had decided to enhance their offering by selling, along with their devices a distributed, real-time hospital equipment data collection and monitoring system. The company then hired a core of development personnel and funded a division that produced the first incarnation of the system. It was quickly discovered that the system design was inadequate from a performance standpoint, but also was not scalable, could not be produced at the target costs, was developed on an inadequate platform of hardware and development software, and its user interface was poor. Additionally, the project had stalled due to quality problems. We were hired under a long term contract to development the required product. We completely redesigned the network architecture and user interface. The entire product had to be written from scratch. After successfully completing the project we oversaw the installation in several prestigious hospitals. Following that we were hired to train the sales force and to produce final design documents. We were also involved in the go-to-market strategies and the product roadmaps. Finally we helped staff the support group and signed an ongoing support contract. . The product went GA after one year and ran at customer sites for more than 3 years, 24×7 without interruption, before the technology was sold to another company.

A prominent venture capital firm was interested in a young company which had produced product and become profitable selling into the file sharing market. The VC had seen other companies in this area and wanted to more clearly understand the differentiating factors.

As part of this due diligence, L&P was retained to visit the company, interview the key players and evaluate the product and its competitive features. L&P submitted a report which cleared up the areas of most concern and interest to the VC.

It was determined that the products main differentiating feature, disaster recovery in the case where the central server went down, was not sufficient to raise it above the noise in this particular market segment. Other claims made that it could be used as a product to effectively compete in the backup space against prominent players were dispelled. Since this was a key area of interest for the VC, they elected not to pursue the investment.

A prominent venture capital firm was interested in evaluating a new computer storage product company for investment. They particularly wanted to examine the products technical features from a viability and competitive standpoint. It quickly became evident to the partners that the sophistication of the product required an expert in the field.

After reviewing the product and giving the VC firm a quick overview of their findings, we were hired to do more extensive due diligence including sitting in on a product presentation followed by detailed discussions with the partners after the presentation. A written report was submitted supporting our findings.

A prominent venture capital firm was considering investing in a company that was developing an ETL product which could be used in data warehousing and for helping solve other database integration needs. The core group of developers were considered experts in the field and had successfully consulted for multiple major corporations in helping them create data warehousing applications. They had solved some complex problems in this area and wanted to capitalize on their experiences by imbedding their procedures into intellectual property that could be marketed to a larger audience.

As part of their due diligence process, the VC firm asked L&P Consulting to review the product from two standpoints: first, to present an opinion regarding the efficacy of the product including any major technological concerns or shortcomings, its true value added, its relative merit when compared to other possible solutions, and advantages/disadvantages the product presents in the sales process; secondly, to help the core team pull their thoughts together and to create for them a project plan with costs and deliverables which would provide a user interface that would enable the functional modules to be sold as an easy to use integrated product offering.

L&P completed both tasks and presented them to the VC in written form. The conclusions were that the company would really be offering a consultative sale with the product and that the product itself could not be readily sold to customers who could use it “out of the box” without expert hand holding. This was confirmed by the founders. Secondly, there were technological shortcomings in the product which had to be developed quickly in order for it to compete in the market place. This would delay the product introduction significantly. Lastly, the true value added features and functions depended on work yet to be done or illustrated, and were only 60% solutions requiring additional expert input in the development process.

L&P recommended that an investment decision not be made, or at least postponed until the founders had demonstrated the products ability to be sold and successfully used in actual customer environments.

A prominent VC firm requested a technology assessment of a product that created and maintained large amounts of files that were indexed for easy and quick retrieval. This product used their proprietary indexing scheme. The product had been successfully sold into several major accounts in the telecommunications market place where it was being used successfully.

L&P quickly determined that the major advantage of the product was its ability to enable very rapid insertions of files and file changes into their system. This would be particularly useful in the vertical industry they had targeted or other industries requiring that level and kind of performance. Contrary to what the VCs were thinking, this was not a more general purpose “Index Engine” that could have clear value-added advantages of other products in the market that analyzed and saved files for rapid querying and retrieval.

L&P provided the VCs with a competitive analysis and a clear picture of the advantages. It was recommended that an investment might be warranted if the pricing and margins were advantageous and the market could be shown to be big enough to sustain a sizeable company

Examined existing product line and proposed development tasks necessary to make product competitive against the best competition. Supplied the development manpower, managed the development and performed the development tasks which resulted in analysts ranking of the product number one against its competition in functionality and performance.

Acted as CTO and provided product roadmaps and technical product presentations.

Developed new product lines including the desktop content visibility and control product and presented product requirements for a cataloguing and search engine.

Developed a web dialogue product which enabled presentations to be published to and presented from the web (a competitor to WebEx).

Recommended, developed requirement for and built a new product which enabled presentations to be developed using content from multiple applications sources and which could then be seamlessly uploaded to the product for presentation via the Web.

Productized for the market a set of analytical tools appropriate for use in document classification. Provided the product and market management direction and molded the product so that it could be and was successfully sold to a company in the content monitoring and control market space.

Provided support for and help in developing, testing and deploying client software packages which enable remote PC service by customer personnel. Provided the ability to reliably reproduce and deploy the entire client application from their source code.

Created interfaces for the client software enabling customers to easily maneuver the applications requesting help, reporting problems, interacting with the service personnel.

Creating the tools necessary to convert language translation software from a packaged/installed product to a Web service. This will enable Idiom to provide translation services via the Web using remotely located translators. The software will also automate the deployment of files needing translation to the remote translators and integrate the translations when they are submitted via the Web. Also establishing the systems architecture and supporting systems software required to support the product and ongoing evolution and maintenance.

Reviewed, built requirements for, and developed the software required by the company back office operations for analyzing, storing and processing energy data transmitted from devices in buildings.

Created a proposal for rewriting the communications package needed to reliably collect and transmit data from multiple sources and to provide on-line reporting, maintenance and checking of sensing devices, transmissions and transmission connections.