December 7, 2009 - Abacus announces partnership with DataGenic
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, announced that it signed a partnering agreement with DataGenic, the international specialists in the delivery of data management solutions.
"We are pleased to partner with DataGenic and offer joint products and services that enable our clients to achieve operational excellence and gain and sustain competitive advantages” said Simon Dawes, Business Development Manager of Abacus Solutions Inc. “Our clients rely on a broad set of skills, tools and capabilities to meet their business needs. Through a carefully established Alliance and Partnership Program (APP), Abacus Solutions Inc enriches its own offerings with best of breed tools and services from a select group of partners" according to Mr Dawes.
“We are very excited about our new partnership with Abacus Solutions Inc” commented Richard Quigley, CEO of DataGenic. “Like Abacus Solutions Inc, DataGenic's philosophy is to develop and quickly deliver solutions that are attuned to client needs, without the steep investment, deployment lag and maintenance associated with proprietary offerings. DataGenic's high performance and versatile data management solutions have been adopted by many organisations across the world and we are looking forward to working with Abacus Solutions Inc and their clients in providing advanced data management capabilities that will augment and enhance the powerful risk management capabilities offered by Abacus Solutions Inc”.
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  June 30, 2009 - Abacus announces partnership with Rackspace Hosting, Inc.
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, today announced that they have entered into a Select partnership in the Solution Partner Network with Rackspace® Hosting, (NYSE: RAX), the world’s leader and specialist in hosting. This agreement is designed to add mutual value for their current clients and to increase targeted exposure and reputation for both companies.
"We are pleased to partner with Rackspace and offer joint products and services that enable our clients to achieve operational excellence and gain and sustain competitive advantages” said Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO of Abacus Solutions Inc. “Our clients rely on a broad set of skills, tools, and capabilities to meet their business needs. Through a carefully established Alliance and Partnership Program (APP), Abacus Solutions Inc enriches its own offerings with best of breed tools and services from a select group of partners", according to Dr. Jabbour.
“We are pleased to add Abacus to our Solution Partner Network and we look forward to working with them” said Robert Fuller, Vice President, Worldwide Channel Sales of Rackspace. “We will strive to build hosting services that fit the needs of SATURN clients and enable small companies and large enterprises to access a very advanced technology without the hassles of setting up and maintaining needed IT infrastructure. Our services are backed by our award-winning Fanatical Support® and our service level agreement, which includes our 100% network uptime guarantee. This should allow Abacus to concentrate on their customers, rather than worrying about their IT infrastructure. The scalability of our joint service should streamline the growth of the SATURN application and help alleviate infrastructure obsolescence costs.”
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  June 26, 2009 - Abacus announces collaboration with leading energy market software firm Utilisoft
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, announced that it entered into a new collaborative relationship with Utilisoft, a software firm that provides energy market integration solutions to over 75 companies in several areas including energy trading, retail, metering, and distribution. Utilisoft enables the effective exchange and use of data within and between energy companies in accordance with market processes and offers market compliance for the UK and Australian energy trading markets. Abacus and Utilisoft plan to introduce a next generation integration system for the US energy trading market through a joint initiative. Utilisoft has offices in the UK and Australia and has been the leading provider of market interaction solutions to the energy sector for twelve years.
"We are pleased to partner with Utilisoft and offer joint products and services that enable our clients to achieve operational excellence and gain and sustain competitive advantages” said Simon Dawes, Business Development Manager of Abacus Solutions Inc. “Our clients rely on a broad set of skills, tools, and capabilities to meet their business needs. Through a carefully established Alliance and Partnership Program (APP), Abacus Solutions Inc enriches its own offerings with best of breed tools and services from a select group of partners" according to Mr. Dawes.
“Utilisoft is delighted to collaborate with Abacus and offer our joint customers the benefits of our best of breed market interaction and integration tools and processes” said John Furness, Managing Director of Utilisoft. “Abacus is emerging as a leading solutions provider in the energy trading market and shares many characteristics with Utilisoft, including the ability to react quickly, decisively, and responsively to customer needs and demands” according to Mr. Furness.
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  June 18, 2009 - Abacus partners with UK-based consulting firm Baringa
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, announced that it signed a partnering agreement with Baringa, a UK-based international consulting firm that delivers strategic and practical programs to the energy, utilities and financial services sectors.
"We are pleased to partner with Baringa and offer joint products and services that enable our clients to achieve operational excellence and gain and sustain competitive advantages” said Simon Dawes, Business Development Manager of Abacus Solutions Inc. “Our clients rely on a broad set of skills, tools, and capabilities to meet their business needs. Through a carefully established Alliance and Partnership Program (APP), Abacus Solutions Inc enriches its own offerings with best of breed tools and services from a select group of partners" according to Mr. Dawes.
“Baringa's team of industry leading ETRM consultants makes significant differences in trading operations through the implementation of market leading vendor solutions. Increasingly, our asset backed trading clients are seeking integrated solutions that bring asset optimisation capabilities together with core transaction management processes” said Nick Tallantyre of Baringa Partners. "The SATURN product from Abacus Solutions Inc has been developed to address the needs of sophisticated buyers looking for key strengths in the asset optimisation and stochastic risk measurement space. A new generation technical architecture enables SATURN to achieve unparalleled results for users with a significant focus on system performance” according to Mr. Tallantyre.
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  June 12, 2009 - Abacus partners with LIM, the world’s premier source for energy data
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, announced that it signed a partnering agreement with LIM, the world's premier source for extensive high quality energy data and the tools to analyze such data.
"We are pleased to partner with LIM and offer joint products and services that enable our clients to achieve operational excellence and gain and sustain competitive advantages” said Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO of Abacus Solutions Inc. “Our clients rely on a broad set of skills, tools, and capabilities to meet their business needs. Through a carefully established Alliance and Partnership Program (APP), Abacus Solutions Inc enriches its own offerings with best of breed tools and services from a select group of partners" according to Dr. Jabbour.
“When you have a Porsche, you need premium fuel to go along with it and run it” said Tony Kolton, president of LIM. “Our data is the perfect fuel for the SATURN ETRM system; together we offer best of breed tools and solutions” he added.
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  May 25, 2009 – Abacus joins the Mid-Continent Energy Marketers Association
 
The Mid-Continent Energy Marketers Association (MEMA) announced today that Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, has joined MEMA as an associate member.
“The MEMA Board of Directors is extremely pleased to welcome Abacus Solutions Inc. as MEMA's newest Associated member and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship” said Mr. Michael B. Critchley, Executive Director and CEO of the Mid-Continent Energy Marketers Association.
"We are pleased to join the Mid-Continent Energy Marketers Association (MEMA) and we look forward to working with MEMA members” said Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO of Abacus Solutions Inc. “MEMA includes key market participants in the energy industry in North America; our membership will facilitate their access to our flagship technology, SATURN, a modern software system that offers energy marketers and traders risk management and decision support tools with unparalleled speed, ease of use, and accuracy through seamless integration of key capabilities including market analysis, generation optimization, load analysis, credit management, financial analysis, business intelligence, ISO integration, and portfolio management", according to Dr. Jabbour.
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  April 7, 2009 – Abacus named “2009 Cool Vendor” by leading analyst firm Gartner
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, has been selected by Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, for inclusion in the firm's "Cool Vendors in Energy and Utilities, 2009" report.
The report stated, “This research highlights vendors whose technologies provide an innovative approach to traditional utility business processes, as well as vendors whose solutions address new challenges caused by energy utility transformation … Any energy merchant or utility in any region should be interested in a close coupling between ETRM and Generation Optimization functionality or in improving the connectivity between emissions management and trading and generation optimization. While the established requirements around deal capture, position management and reporting, straight through processing and market and credit risk management and reporting are well covered by many ETRM vendors, not many venture into Generation Optimization, one of Abacus's strengths.”
"We are honored to be named by Gartner as a 'Cool Vendor' in the energy and utility space. We believe this prestigious award distinguishes SATURN from other legacy ETRM systems and validates our innovation and our achievements" said Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO of Abacus Solutions Inc. " As the only full 21 st century ETRM system, SATURN offers many risk management and decision support solutions with unparalleled speed, ease, and accuracy through the seamless integration of 12 key capabilities including market simulation, generation optimization, parameterization, load analysis, trade capture, trade valuation, credit management, financial analysis, business intelligence, ISO integration, risk management, and portfolio management"
According to the Gartner report, “Since the early 1990s, Energy Trading and Risk Management (ETRM) development has moved in many directions, including wider cross-commodity operations, wider support for financial instruments and physical logistics, improved market and credit risk. Abacus Solutions, through its Saturn application, has a unique offering in this domain — combining extensive ETRM functional coverage with Generation Analysis and Optimization. Covering a wide range of generation asset types (including Thermal, Storage and Renewables) in depth, Saturn has extensive configuration and integration options as well as traditional and SaaS delivery options.”
“Our customers are gaining significant competitive advantages by transforming overwhelming data into meaningful and actionable information”, said Dr. Jabbour. “SATURN enables them to meet growing business and risk management challenges and facilitates their data management needs and decision making processes. Their success in using our software helped create this award and recognition.”
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  March 25, 2009 – Abacus expands SATURN support into Europe from London, UK
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, the developer of the integrated enterprise ETRM system, SATURN, announced that it hired Mr. Simon Dawes to expand its global marketing and sales into Europe from London in the United Kingdom.
"We are pleased to announce the addition of Simon to our team” said Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO of Abacus Solutions Inc. "Simon has the ideal mix of skills, experience, and expertise needed to achieve our short and long term goals. We look forward to Simon implementing initiatives to reach out and present our innovative software to the global energy industry.”
Prior to joining Abacus, Simon held senior account executive and business development positions with ORACLE, D&B and LIM where he was responsible for sales and marketing of enterprise software and data management solutions in the energy and financial services industries. Simon has over 15 years of business development experience and extensive account and customer relationship management expertise; he is a native of the United Kingdom and holds a BA Honors in Geography.
"I am very excited to join Abacus and take part in brining the innovative software system SATURN to the energy industry” said Simon Dawes. “Having spent lots of time talking to software users in the energy industry, I am keenly aware of their integration challenges and their need for decision support tools and portfolio management capabilities. SATURN addresses both challenges and offers users a unique and differentiated solution.”
At Abacus, Simon will lead the global sales and marketing activities of SATURN, Abacus flagship software system. As the only full 21 st century ETRM system, SATURN enables users to perform many risk management and decision support analyses with unparalleled speed, ease, and accuracy through the seamless integration of 12 key capabilities including market simulation, generation optimization, parameterization, load analysis, trade capture, trade valuation, credit management, financial analysis, business intelligence, ISO integration, risk management, and portfolio management"
“SATURN is the ideal system to meet current market needs and emerging customer challenges” added Dr. Jabbour. “Replacement rates for ETRM systems continue to be very high, exceeding 60% according to some industry analysts. Consolidation is exacerbating integration challenges and creating additional opportunities for integration tools. Users are becoming increasingly sophisticated and painfully aware of the limitations of legacy ETRM systems. Emerging market conditions are requiring more advanced risk management, generation optimization, business intelligence, and decision support systems. Senior management is asking increasingly challenging questions and requiring integrated portfolio management”, according to Dr. Jabbour.
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  December 5, 2008 – Abacus announces a groundbreaking full simulation runtime
 
Salim J. Jabbour, CEO and founder of Abacus Solution Inc announced today an unparalleled groundbreaking runtime with Abacus flagship software system SATURN. According to Dr. Jabbour, “full simulation risk management model runs are notorious for requiring a very long time to execute, even when using the most advanced hardware; this is particularly the case when the analysis includes good modeling of physical generation assets. Such runs can take many hours, even days, to complete; often memory limitations can be a key limiting hindrance.” Dr. Jabbour added “We are pleased to announce today that we have demonstrated a runtime of less than one hour for a full simulation 500-scenario/5-year hourly-granularity case that includes over 50 generation units, over 100 markets, and over 5000 trades.”
According to Dr. Jabbour, “This performance is unparalleled and groundbreaking; SATURN is 20-50 times faster than competing systems. This is attributed to a modern multi-processing, multi-threaded and scalable architecture with a load-balancing capability that handles automatic hardware configuration, spawns threads, and allocates RAM for each process based on case/run memory needs and available hardware.”
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  September 23, 2008 – Dr. Jabbour gives the keynote presentation at EUCI's Risk Management Conference
 
Dr. Jabbour gave the keynote presentation at EUCI’s Energy Trading, Transaction and Risk Management (ETRM) conference in Houston, Texas on September 23, 2008. In his speech, “Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) – Are we There Yet”, he stated that ERM remains an elusive goal in the energy industry despite numerous claims by ETRM vendors and system integrators. The presentation outlined the challenges of this much needed capability and offered concrete suggestions to address them. Dr. Jabbour addressed 12 functional areas including Footprint, Data Acquisition, Data Mining, Data Analysis, Data Management, Transaction Management, Data Security & Integrity, Reporting & Presentation, Decision Support, Application & Use, Architecture, and Enterprise Services.
Download full presentation: EUCI ETRM Conference (September 2008): Keynote Presentation of Dr. Salim J. Jabbour
   
  August 15, 2008 – Risk publication The Desk publishes a glowing review of SATURN
 
John Sodergreen, Editor-in-Chief of Scudder Publishing newsletters, published a glowing review about SATURN in the August 15, 2008 issue of The Desk. He summed up his review with his statement “pretty slick stuff” and elaborated that “Saturn covers 1) Traditional trading/transaction management functionality, 2) Data mining/management, 3) Asset optimization, 4) Risk management, 5) Financial analysis, and 6) Reporting and presentation … Saturn isn’t a slimmed-down version of each discrete function area – this is no “lite” ETRM system. The demo we saw offered layer upon layer of sophisticated portfolio management functionality we’ve not yet seen in a platform designed exclusively for the Web.”
Mr. Sodergreen also addressed how SATURN streamlines business processes and workflows as he described how “simulations can be fully automated; users can set them on a schedule and the system will update market data, develop the necessary simulation parameters (volatilities, correlation factors, etc.), run the simulations, and create the reports without any user mess. One great feature we noted in the parameterization algorithm lets you know if data or details are missing for a specific market or zone. Say you received some data from a broker on a specific market. If numbers or any other details are missing, the tool will flag these areas with a unique color block amidst the sea of numbers on your screen … Saturn was designed to be fully integrated ... All are a click away, from histograms to distributions to price ratios, and hundreds of charting possibilities can be generated on the fly.”
The review concluded with this recommendation: “Saturn ETRM looks to be the real deal. We recommend you make the time to beat this system up yourself. It won’t take long.”
Download full article: The Desk (August 2008): SATURN ETRM
   
  July 7, 2008 – Dr. Jabbour discusses Abacus launch of SATURN with Energy Risk
 
UK-based Energy Risk magazine published an interview with Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, Abacus founder and CEO, in the System Frontrunner section of the July 2008 issue. According to Dr. Jabbour, “a combination of five features differentiates SATURN from the crowded field of legacy energy trading and risk management (ETRM) systems: integration framework, rigorous analytics, modern architecture, intuitive interface, and easy deployment. The system’s 64-bit, multi-threaded, multi-core architecture enables the use of advanced quantitative solutions across a broad footprint. An elegant and intuitive interface enables a wide range of analysts, managers, and executives to be direct users. A standardized building-block approach streamlines system deployment, one of the most difficult and agonizing software challenges.”
Addressing the system key benefits, Dr. Jabbour noted that “SATURN transforms data into actionable business intelligence and offers tangible benefits. It saves time and costs, reduces risks and mistakes, streamlines data mining, and improves decisions. This is achieved by integrating applications, facilitating reporting and presentations, improving enterprise-wide consistency, and reducing redundancies. Users can easily generate statistics about historic prices, load-weather relationships and generation, and transfer results to PowerPoint and/or other tools – all within 2–3 minutes. Price simulation parameters can be automatically developed from recent data and market quotes. Managers and executives can review performance updates through customized dashboards. Traders can quickly review updated market information and hedge positions as trades are entered into the system.”
Download full article: Energy Risk (July 2008): System Frontrunner Interview with Dr. Salim J. Jabbour
   
  March 31, 2008 – Scottish Power licenses SATURN
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, Los Altos Hills, California, announced a new SATURN Application Service Provision (ASP) agreement with Scottish Power UK plc, Glasgow, UK. Under the terms of the agreement, Scottish Power is licensed to use Abacus flagship software system, SATURN, and Abacus will provide all necessary hosting services through a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection.
Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO and founder of Abacus Solutions Inc, said “we are pleased to reach this agreement with Scottish Power after several months of extensive testing and validation. This contract is very important as it demonstrates SATURN’s ability to meet the requirements for business management software in Europe including those for an ASP setup. Given Scottish Power’s high standards and requirements, we are pleased of their selection of SATURN.”
According to Mr. Richard Cook, Generation Planning Manager at Scottish Power, “SATURN streamlines our business management workflow and helps us save a significant amount of time; it enables us to perform extensive “what if” analysis very quickly. SATURN has performed 20 times faster than our tools. It is an easy-to-use next generation system. We are very pleased with our collaboration with Abacus.”
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  February 28, 2008 – PSEG licenses SATURN
 
Abacus Solutions Inc, Los Altos Hills, California, announced a new SATURN End User License agreement with PSEG Services Corporation, a New Jersey Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, PSEG is licensed to use Abacus flagship software, SATURN, an enterprise risk management system.
Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO and founder of Abacus Solutions Inc, said “this agreement demonstrates that our recently released software, SATURN, has many features and capabilities that are not matched by existing more established systems. This is particularly important in the context of PSEG’s high standards and requirements.” According to Dr. Jabbour, “this contract was reached after several months of detailed testing and validation through which Abacus demonstrated SATURN advanced capabilities and ease of use, including its easy integration within the infrastructure of a large enterprise.”
According to Mr. Steven B. Oster, Director of Quantitative Analysis at PSEG, “As a large integrated company, our enterprise risk management requires rigorous stochastic modeling of inter-related broad areas including forward and spot market prices, generation assets, and loads. SATURN enables enterprise risk management with an unprecedented mix of analytics, ease, and speed. Abacus was able to meet our needs and provided us with a comprehensive solution.”
For more information about SATURN, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
  March 2, 2007 – Abacus launches its flagship software, SATURN, a next generation ETRM system
 
Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, CEO and founder of Abacus Solutions Inc, announced today the launch of an enterprise risk management software, SATURN. According to Dr. Jabbour, SATURN is a next generation business management integration framework that facilitates key corporate processes including deal capture, transaction management, data mining, data analysis, decision support, asset management, risk management, financial management and compliance with governance and regulatory requirements. SATURN integrates data capturing, data mining, data analysis, and data presentation across all fundamental areas in the energy industry including markets, plants, trades and loads. It has a wide footprint that includes price simulation, generation optimization, trade capture, retail load, credit analysis, risk management, financial analysis, data mining, reporting and dashboards.
SATURN covers all commodities in great detail, including power (energy, capacity, ancillary services, REC), fuels (oil, gas, coal, nuclear, biomass and other), emission allowances (NOx, SO2, CO2, Hg, PM, VOC), weather, interest rates, foreign exchange, load (electric and gas), electric transmission, gas transportation, gas storage, credit, and insurance products. In addition to advanced analytical features, SATURN offers several other capabilities, including dynamic news feeds, usage records, e-mail notifications, full audit trail, data validation, warning and error messages, detailed diagnostics, newsletters, document sharing, and links with other systems
Download SATURN brochure: SATURN Brochure
   
  October 19, 2006 – Abacus prepares to roll out SATURN, an enterprise risk management system
 
Dr. Gary M. Vasey, General Manager of UtiliPoint Europe and noted expert on energy trading, transaction, and risk management software published a review about Abacus software, SATURN, in the October 19, 2006 issue of UtiliPoint IssueAlert. Dr. Jabbour, Abacus founder and CEO told Dr. Vasey: “I saw an opportunity to solve a growing problem in the energy industry; lack of integration has become too costly and too painful” and added “true integration goes beyond linking a bunch of systems; it involves removing unnecessary redundancies and offering a common scalable platform with broad analytical functionality.” Dr. Vasey noted that “its broad and deep functionality makes SATURN somewhat unique … Based on the demonstration and comments of various users currently testing SATURN, Dr. Jabbour and Abacus seem to just have succeeded.”
Download full article: UtiliPoint International (October 2006): SATURN – An Enterprise Integration and Risk Management Solution
   
  May 03, 2005 – Dr. Jabbour, CEO of Abacus Solutions Inc, warns buyers of ETRM systems
 
In the May 2005 issue of Energy Risk magazine, Abacus founder and CEO Dr. Salim J. Jabbour cautions buyers of ETRM systems about 5 common mistakes in selecting an ETRM system and offers the following recommendations:
Integration: Strive for a wide stable footprint that is compatible with your infrastructure.
Analytics: Keep a broad perspective and ensure a balanced approach.
Decision Support: Look for vendors with established experience in decision support systems.
IT Matters: Ensure end-to-end modern system architecture and data structures.
Patches and Fixes: Accept only limited patches and fixes; short-cuts are often short-lived.
Download full article: Energy Risk Magazine (May 2005): Buyer Beware (Article by Dr. Salim J. Jabbour)
   
  October 06, 2004 – Energy industry veteran Dr. Salim J. Jabbour starts Abacus Solutions Inc
 
Dr. Salim J. Jabbour, a 20-year veteran of the energy industry, is now President and CEO of Abacus Solutions Inc, a new consulting and software firm focused on risk management, decision support, and business applications. Previously, Dr. Jabbour was the founder and CEO of Business Management Consulting (BMC), a company he sold to Nexant, Inc in 2001. According to Dr. Jabbour, “the industry shakeout of the last few years created significant challenges and opportunities for software vendors and consulting firms in the energy space. Industry structural changes, corporate strategic re-directions, and software and hardware technological innovations created the need for new business solutions and corporate management systems. Legacy companies are facing great difficulty in trying to deal with these fundamental and disruptive changes; new players are emerging and have started to capitalize on the opportunities. Abacus will play a key role helping energy companies to deal with the challenges of the 21st century by offering modern solutions un-encumbered with legacy thinking and outdated software.”
For more information, contact Abacus Solutions Inc info@abacussolutionsinc.com
   
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