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Business as Usual No Longer
January 1, 2008
Introduction last fall of a reseller program and a simplified versions of its single-sign-on software mark new paths for Sentillion Inc.
The Andover, Mass.-based vendor in November launched a "Channel Partner Program" under which it will certify resellers to market its products used by more than 525 hospitals and some large clinics.
Sentillion sells the Vergence suite of single-sign-on, context management, and user authentication and access control software. This enables computer users to access and simultaneously view patient data from multiple information systems during a single session.
The company also sells a standalone user provisioning module, an application to enable a virtualized work desktop on a remote computer, and a next-generation, standalone single-sign-on application.
Last year, Sentillion started working with a limited number of vendor partners to resell the user provisioning and work desktop virtualization software. Now that it has learned to work with partners, it has launched a formal reseller program for its entire product suite, says Robert Seliger, CEO.
Initial resellers include Duluth, Minn.-based Compudyne, Atlanta-based Logic Trends, and Mile High Technologies of Castle Rock, Colo. Some partners only will resell applications while Sentillion will handle implementation and support. Others will sell, implement and support. "The partners can pick the products they want to sell based on their customers and comfort level," Seliger says.
Bringing in resellers will expand Sentillion's opportunities to grow its business, Seliger notes. Created in 1998, the privately held company had $30 million in revenue in 2006 and has been profitable since 2003.
But the move also carries some risk, he acknowledges, which is why the company spent a year developing the program and getting to know its new partners.
More Change
Another major new initiative is the introduction of expreSSO, which is a standalone version of the single-sign-on software that is part of the Vergence suite.
It is designed to be a simpler application that also incorporates some features more advanced than those of the legacy single-sign-on product, Seliger says. The new software, for instance, has a tool that eases creation of connectors-a type of interface-between information systems. The tool includes pre-created scenarios that enable a non-programmer to create a connector without writing new code.
At the same, time, expreSSO lacks bells and whistles that made the Vergence single-sign-on more difficult to use as a standalone product. Vergence, Seliger explains, is "like a home theater system with seven speakers, but some customers just want stereo."
So, expreSSO doesn't have the documentation, configurations and settings that are in Vergence single-sign-on application to tie it to the other Vergence modules. "We eliminated anything that could be even mildly distracting to our customers if all they want is single-sign-on," Seliger says.
And at $40 per user license before volume discounts, expreSSO is priced "substantially lower" than Vergence, he adds. The company also touts the new single-sign-on software as being deployable enterprisewide within five days.
In late November, the company introduced new functionality, called Enterprise Grace Period, to enable a proximity card to be used to physically access a building or room and to access authorized computer systems. In the past year, Sentillion also has branched out to the United Kingdom, where it has two hospitals live on Vergence and several others in various stages of implementation.
Sentillion isn't a big enough company yet to handle the regulatory burdens of being a public company, Seliger says. But that will become a real possibility once it hits $50 million to $60 million in annual revenue, he adds.
"I think it becomes a viable path and as you can imagine, we're paying a lot of attention getting to that point," he notes. "Any venture-backed company ultimately has a 'liquidity event'-a sale, initial public offering or merger-to give investors a pay-off."
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