Shortlist

Hyperion Applications Suite 4
Several notable features are introduced in this version. A new user interface from Frog Design removes some of the common barriers to business performance management (BPM) adoption — inconsistent interfaces among modules and lack of process flow being chief among them. SmartView for Office, also new, links spreadsheets to Hyperion BPM processes; it's more deeply integrated than the old Excel add-ins. Also, working offline is a more practical option than it used to be; version 4 supports synchronization. Workforce Planning is the first in a series of domain-specific enhancements slated for the more generic Hyperion Planning module. Hyperion Solutions, www.hyperion.com

Attensity Workstation
Attensity makes technology that extracts information from free-form text and transforms it into tabular data for analysis with other data. The new Workstation product is easier to learn than earlier offerings. It includes new Directed Learning technology, which lets users train the system by feeding it example documents; it doesn't require a computational linguist to prepare to analyze a document set. It works on text written in any one-byte language. Compatible with all widely used operating systems. Attensity, www.attensity.com

Versata 6
Versata 6 is a rapid application development environment and a business rules engine, built to create and manage data-intensive, transactional business applications. You can generate 95% of your code by declaring business rules for data and transaction processing, process and workflow and presentation/user interface logic. Systems-level Java programmers write the rest of the code. Based on J2EE and Eclipse standards, Versata supports importing models from other Eclipse-compliant tools. Versata, www.versata.com

AfterMail 3.0
AfterMail captures e-mail traveling through mail servers for storage, retrieval or analysis. One popular function for this type of product is to help companies comply with legal and auditing requirements. Version 3.0 takes only a few hours to install, retrieves archived and live mail without troubling the user about the difference and debuts storage optimization that's expected to reduce storage by 80% compared to the previous version. AfterMail supports Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise and Lotus Domino, among other e-mail servers. AfterMail, www.aftermail.com

Sarbanes-Oxley Readiness Toolkit
Emagia software helps large enterprises manage cash flow through better visibility and process automation. This Toolkit is free to download and doesn't require other Emagia software to be installed. Interactive process flow diagrams and risk assessment tools guide finance professionals through the steps necessary for Section 404 compliance. It's handy technology, but it doesn't replace a professional audit. Emagia, www.emagia.com