REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--Coghead today announced widespread support for its do-it-yourself webware1 service that provides a simple, powerful way for tech-savvy businesspeople to create, manage, and deploy custom web-based applications. Today, Coghead has attracted more than 17,000 registered developers who are creating customized web-based applications for a wide variety of needs — from managing sales pipelines to tracking supplies for restaurants. In a separate release today, Coghead also announced the general availability of its do-it-yourself platform for developing web-based applications (see “Coghead Goes Live with Do-It-Yourself Web-Based Business Application Service”).
Coghead has struck a chord with problem-solvers in small and large businesses alike that are looking for a simple way to create applications that solve specific business challenges. Within a few hours, tech-savvy people can create applications with forms, a database, and business logic using Coghead's 100 percent web-based approach — no coding required. Coghead puts control over application development into the hands of the people who are closest to a business challenge. This long under-served market includes consultants and technically-minded individuals that have specific application needs that cannot easily be solved with packaged software or custom application development.
“We are gratified to see the number and range of valuable applications that our members are developing, and we know this is only the beginning,” said Paul McNamara, Coghead CEO. “In the past, each of these companies and individuals would have had a few less-than-ideal choices: spend a lot of money on custom software development, buy packaged software with more features than needed, or cobble together a solution using spreadsheets or email. Now with Coghead, they can develop and publish applications quickly and cost effectively.”
AllRounds – Financial Services
AllRounds is using Coghead to build out its Private Capital Management System (PCMS), a sophisticated, on-demand system that facilitates interactions among investors, companies, and exchanges in the private capital markets. PCMS provides capabilities for the entire private capital life cycle, including deal sourcing and relationship management, ownership management, deal flow management, portfolio analytics, market analytics, partnership accounting, and investor relations. According to CEO Jamie Cohan, “Coghead met my requirements in terms of performance, scalability, and maintaining data integrity in a rapid development cycle. Of the systems that I evaluated, Coghead was the only one that could meet the requirements.”
Morrison Express – CRM
Morrison Express, a leading international freight forwarder and logistics services provider, has used Coghead to create a comprehensive CRM system that enables the sales team to effectively track leads, opportunities, contacts and activities within accounts. The system provides management visibility into the sales pipeline and enhances the productivity of the sales team. The application expands upon the functionality typically found in enterprise systems such as SalesForce.com or SugarCRM with customizations for the logistics and transportation industry. The customizations increase Morrison Express’s agility, facilitate prospecting of future customers, and provide for enhanced customer satisfaction. According to Paul Fu, vice president of corporate development and CIO of Morrison Express, “We need applications that work the way we work, not the way a software vendor thinks we should work. Packaged software often ends up delivering more than we need in some areas and less than we want in others.”
Tres Agaves – Getting Things Done and Private Event Management
Dave Stanton, president of Rocks, No Salt, Inc., the owner of the popular Tres Agaves, a Top 100 restaurant in San Francisco, is using Coghead for two applications: a distributed workgroup task and prioritization application using David Allen's highly regarded "Getting Things Done" methodology; and Private Event Manager, an application designed to help the staff to schedule, manage, and communicate information about private events. Coghead’s flexible and open interfaces allow the users to model the system to the unique business needs of the restaurant industry.
Ben Atkinson – Muscle Fatigue Analysis
Ben Atkinson, an independent consultant for a $13 billion insurance company, will use his Coghead application to help manufacturing facilities better match a job’s physical demands to a worker’s physical capacity. The application captures how much stress a particular activity places on various areas of the body, including neck, legs, and back and then tabulates the data and assigns each task a “risk score.” This helps determine the jobs that are prone to particular injuries, so people can be placed at the most appropriate task based on their strengths, weaknesses, and injuries. Coghead automates a formerly manual process of collecting and analyzing data on job demands and enables easy access by many users within the facilities, who previously had no way to get this data. Coghead also enables Atkinson to build job design into the quality process at large companies.
Joseph Szpiro - Templates for Project Managers and Business Analysts
Joseph Szpiro, an independent consultant in California is using Coghead to author general application templates and industry-specific templates for corporate project managers and business analysts. The Issue Manager template provides any workgroup with a state-of-the-art issue tracking, assignment, and notification tool, which can be customized in minutes to the unique work environment of the organization. The Benefits Manager template provides healthcare companies and benefits administrators with a database, workflow, and document management system — all in one. In system testing, users of the system see a significant reduction in the use of spreadsheets, reduced need of local databases, and less time spent in communicating critical benefits and rates information throughout the organization. With Coghead, the businesspeople closest to the process are able to obtain the needed system solution rapidly and at a low cost.
Visit Coghead at Web 2.0 Expo
Coghead will be demonstrating its application development service in booth #202 at Web 2.0 Expo, which runs April 15-18 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Coghead customers will also be on hand to demonstrate the applications they have created with the Coghead service.
About Coghead
Coghead provides a radically new way for tech-savvy businesspeople to create, manage, and deploy their own web-based applications. The Coghead service enables the users closest to a business challenge to create customized solutions in hours or days at a fraction of the cost of large packaged applications or custom development projects. Founded in May 2003 and funded by El Dorado Ventures, American Capital, and SAP, Coghead is staffed by industry veterans, serial entrepreneurs, and some of the brightest minds in software. For more information, visit the company’s web site at http://www.coghead.com and the company’s blog at http://blog.coghead.com/.
