Lingering concerns about meeting regulatory demands has continued to contribute to a flurry of activity in recent months, including the launch of several new products and the creation of an industry-wide council.

Earlier this month, Microsoft partners SunGard and GoldenSource together with IBM and more than 20 C-level executives from investment banks, asset management firms, securities services firms and vendors formed the Enterprise Data Management (EDM) Council. Though the overall goal of EDM is to standardize and integrate reference and transaction data, Dale Richards, president of enterprise data management for SunGard noted that compliance is one of the issues that stand to gain the most from EDM standards.

“Compliance with regulatory requirements, such as Basel II, Sarbanes-Oxley or Know your Customer, is reliant on EDM. By bringing industry leaders together, the EDM Council can share best practices, and ultimately assist financial services institutions in tackling these compliance challenges,” he said.

The council’s first meeting was held on Thursday, June 16.

Meanwhile, BearingPoint and Microsoft held seminars in New York and Chicago in April to discuss the Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance solution from BearingPoint as well as how to drive compliance beyond Sarbanes-Oxley. The solution uses BearingPoint's Integrated Business Intelligence (IBI) framework (built on the Microsoft SQL Server and the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server, using Microsoft Data Transformation Services and Microsoft Analysis Services), and the Microsoft Office Solution Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley. Together these tools enhance visibility over financial processes and internal controls.

On Friday (June 17), Meridio and ember ec3 announced an agreement to deliver a fully integrated enterprise compliance platform by combining Meridio’s enterprise document and records management platform (eDRM) with ember.HeatShield, ember’s governance, risk and compliance management solution based on the Microsoft Office System. Meridio had previously released the Meridio for SOX application, an extension of the Microsoft platform that adds an enterprise-scalable document and records management layer to Microsoft collaboration technologies of the Microsoft Office System.

Meanwhile, other recently announced compliance include the Aviva Control Environment for Sarbanes-Oxley, from Aviva Consulting, which uses the Microsoft Office System; the Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Solution from Chelsea Consulting, which uses Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003; CODA-Control from CODA Financials, which controls execution of financial processes within a Windows SharePoint Services Environment; the Microsoft Office Solution for Compliance from Habanero Consulting Group which uses the Windows SharePoint Services Environment; the Immedient Sarbanes-Oxley Act Compliance Automation solution, the M&S Consulting Sarbanes-Oxley solutions, and the compliance suite from QUMAS, which all leverage Microsoft Office; and Remediation Services for Microsoft Excel from Scientific Software.

For more information on Microsoft-based compliance products see: http://www.microsoft.com/office/showcase/sarbanes/partnersol.mspx.