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Here you’ll find the latest news about Walking Stick Solutions and where the company has been covered by the media throughout the world. If you are a member of the media or analyst community, it would be our pleasure to speak with you. Please get in touch with us using the contacts listed at right.
News Releases
Walking Stick Solutions Secures $2M in Funding to Assist Companies with Automated ERP Migration
Serial entrepreneur moves into ATDC; appoints CEO and president
KOLKATA, INDIA and ATLANTA – MAY 15, 2006 – Walking Stick Solutions today announced it has secured $2M USD in seed funding from Hyderabad, India-based Prithvi Information Solutions, a global provider of enterprise solutions and services. The funding will be used to fuel the company’s operational growth and to help it launch professional services and product initiatives for enterprises that need technical and strategic guidance to maximize investments in mission-critical ERP legacy deployments.
“We are excited about the vision of Walking Stick and its founding team, and believe it is highly synergistic with our growth plans,” said Prithvi Information Solutions’ Chairperson Madhavi Vuppalapati. “We are well-positioned to help the founder, Dr. Anindya Datta, and the Walking Stick management team, build a large, world-class enterprise.”
Walking Stick Solutions has its global headquarters in Kolkata, India and its North American headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia at Georgia Technology’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a nationally recognized science and technology incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies.
Walking Stick Solutions Founder and Chairman, Dr. Anindya Datta, has more than two decades of experience as an executive entrepreneur, IT innovator and academic leader, having contributed fundamentally to some of the key commercial technologies currently in use in the high performance data management area. In 1999, Dr. Datta founded Chutney Technologies based on work he and his graduate students performed while he was on the faculty of Georgia Tech. Under his leadership, Chutney attracted venture funding from some of the most elite venture funds in the world, and evolved from an application performance company into one of the pioneers of the application virtualization area. Since early 2005, Chutney’s technology and people are resident at Cisco, in its AONS class of products.
“In an era of vendor consolidation in the enterprise application software sector, enterprises need low-risk, high-value technology solutions to help them protect their application software investments and reduce the switching costs of moving to newer generation platforms.” said Dr. Datta. “We intend to significantly impact the way enterprises maintain legacy software applications and migrate to future solutions.”
Walking Stick Solutions has appointed Jay D. Clark to serve as president and CEO. A veteran of operating companies that have a global delivery model, Clark brings a 20 year track record of leading and growing technology services companies in the USA, Europe and India. He is experienced in performing corporate officer responsibilities for both publicly traded and privately held companies and brings an entrepreneurial spirit, leadership, and significant operational experience to the management team. Mr. Clark began his career with EDS and spent the first ten years of his career performing significant technical and account leadership roles for large outsourcing clients located throughout the United States. He also served a two year term as CIO for a large California workers’ compensation company during his tenure at EDS.
Helping Enterprises Sustain PeopleSoft® Applications
Walking Stick Solutions plans to initially target enterprises faced with having to maintain legacy PeopleSoft applications while confronted with tremendous uncertainty with regard to Oracle’s plans and ability to support them. Moreover, these customers are all under pressure to migrate to Oracle’s next generation enterprise platform, known as FUSION.
A March 27, 2006 study released by Gartner Group analyst Yvonne Genovese takes a critical look at the costs of upgrading from the PeopleSoft or JD Edwards suites to Oracle Fusion. According Genovese, that road map is expected to be disruptive and costly to users.
One of Gartner's main findings reported that for PeopleSoft and JD Edwards users, the cost of moving to Fusion is almost as expensive as deploying an entirely new application. In her report titled "Oracle Fusion: Understand the Road Map and Estimate Transition Costs," Genovese remarked: "For JD Edwards and PeopleSoft, significant cost implications will occur with a migration to Fusion."
About Walking Stick Solutions
Founded in 2006, Walking Stick Solutions provides professional services and technology solutions to assist enterprise companies that need support for current ERP installations as well as automated, affordable next-generation system migration paths to maximize their software investments. The company’s global headquarters are in Kolkata, India and its North American headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia at Georgia Technology’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC). For more information, visit www.walkingsticksolutions.com.
Oracle, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Recent Articles
Walking Stick raises $2m from Prithvi Information
IndUS Business Journal
July, 2006
KOLKATA, India — Walking Stick Solutions has raised $2 million in initial funding from the Hyderabad-based Prithvi Information Solutions.
The funding will be used to expand Walking Stick's operational growth and to help launch additional services and products, the company said.
Founded in 2006, Walking Stick Solutions provides professional services and technology products to assist companies that need support for current enterprise resource planning systems. The company's global headquarters are in Kolkata and its North American headquarters are in Atlanta at Georgia Technology's Advanced Technology Development Center.
"We are excited about the vision of Walking Stick and its founding team, and believe it is highly synergistic with our growth plans," said Prithvi Information Solutions' chairperson Madhavi Vuppalapati. "We are well-positioned to help the founder, Dr. Anindya Datta, and the Walking Stick management team, build a large, world-class enterprise."
"In an era of vendor consolidation in the enterprise application software sector, enterprises need low-risk, high-value technology solutions to help them protect their application software investments and reduce the switching costs of moving to newer generation platforms," said Datta. "We intend to significantly impact the way enterprises maintain legacy software applications and migrate to future solutions."
Datta has more than two decades of experience as an executive entrepreneur, IT innovator and academic leader, having contributed to some of the key commercial technologies currently in use in the high performance data management area. In 1999, Datta founded Chutney Technologies based on work he and his graduate students performed while he was on the faculty of Georgia Tech.
View this article at the IndUS Business Journal Online
Walking Stick offers ERP switch over
The Economic Times
Friday, March 31, 2006
KOLKATA: Walking Stick Solutions India Private Limited, a start-up venture, has devised a software which would help customers to switch over from one ERP platform to another.
Chairman of Walking Stick Solutions Anindya Datta said that the company had also floated a subsidiary in North America, where there is a huge customer base.
Datta said that the venture capital had been provided by a Hyderabad-based company and some private individuals with an amount of Rs 9.6 crore.
After three or four years, the company would come up with an initial public offer (IPO) to allow exit for the venture capitalists.
The company started operations in Salt Lake from February, 2006.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1472558.cms
Anindya Datta Floats WSS, To Go For Venture Capital
EFY News Network
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Aims at ERP market consolidation with North America as the main market..
New Delhi: Anindya Datta, a US-based entrepreneur, has established Walking Stick Solutions (WSS) to take advantage of the growing application software business. Dutta targets venture capital to fund WSS’ foray into the enterprise resources space.
Datta is making an initial investment of Rs 9.66 crore in WSS, partially funded by Hyderabad-based Prithvi Solutions.
Set up by entrepreneurs, professionals and managers, WSS offers software-based specialised enterprise application support services that deliver risk-free, low-cost sustenance, enhancement and migration services for existing mission-critical legacy ERP applications.
Datta had earlier floated companies like Nano Systems and Chutney Technologies in the US through VC funding.
http://www.efytimes.com/fullnews.asp?edid=10776
Walking Stick plans to raise funds
US market to be serviced from Kolkata
Business Standard
March 17, 2006
KOLKATA: US-based Bengali entrepreneur, Anindya Datta, who terms himself as a serial entrepreneur, is hoping to go public with is Kolkata-based new venture, Walking Stick Solutions (WSS).
Entirely funded by venture capital, WSS would try to make inroads into the space of enterprise resources.
Datta informed that he is starting the initiative with an investment of Rs 9.66 crore. It is partially funded by Hyderabad based Prithvi Solutions and the rest is funded by high net worth individuals in India.
"This is my first venture in Kolkata as well as in India. I want to make it big eventually and wish to go to public here. I have floated several companies in US and later exited from those. But now I want to build a large company," he said.
Datta pointed out that making a big company in US is difficult because of the high benchmark.
It was comparatively easier in India. According to him, WSS intended to make significant impact in the way customers maintain and support enterprise application software solutions and eventually migrate between them in the era of vendor consolidation.
"We will look for ERP market consolidation. Our main market is north America and will serve the market from Kolkata," he said. Expressing dissatisfaction over the venture funding here in India, Dutta pointed out that most of the so called VC's in India are acting as a private equity fund.
"They are investing in much later stage with a pure investment motive," he said.
Datta indicated that he would try to float a VC here in India.
"Big names like SUN, Apple, Silicon Graphics, Cisco, Netscape, Yahoo, Goggle and Ebay were formed through VC funding. But here you will hardly found such names," he added.
Datta had earlier floated companies like Nano Systems, Chutney Technologies in US through VC funding. Later on he sold these companies to bigger groups.
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