eSpline Management

David Louis Silverman, Managing Director, Product Manager and Principal Consultant.    David specializes in developing software so that SAP customers can better leverage their usage of SAP LO-VC.  This includes building modeler productivitiy tools and developing translations from SAP VC to other CPQ solutions or developing solutions that translate or migrate from a legacy or 3rd party configurator (CPQ) to SAP VC.  He is an expert in modeling of configurable products for SAP customers, and the integration of SAP product configuration and pricing into ERP, CRM, Mobile Sales, and Internet Sales environments.

His passion for the practical applications of machine reasoning and knowledge representation has guided his career to date.  At IntelliCorp, a knowledge-based tool vendor, he was a key developer of multi-purpose development tools for building object-oriented, rule-based expert systems.  At university, he authored and published technical papers on interactive classification (a process akin to interactive product selection in order management), and knowledge-based simulation.

When SAP sought a partner to co-develop a Java version of their product configurator, they chose David as the first external member of their team, due to a high degree of similarity of SAP’s planned Sales Configurator Engine (SCE) with IntelliCorp’s object and rule system.  When SAP was ready to begin development in California of a Java version of their pricing engine, they sent David to SAP headquarters in Walldorf, Germany to inject techniques and experience gained on the SCE project into the Sales Pricing Engine project (SPE).  These two components became the core of SAP’s Internet Pricing & Configurator (IPC) now widely used by SAP’s customers.

His strategy of first participating in the development of, then hands-on consulting on the application of complex software products has proven to be especially beneficial to clients with significant, challenging gaps between standard SAP software and their business requirements related to processes for selling, servicing, costing, planning, and manufacturing configurable products.  Combined with a results-oriented, your-problem-is-my-problem attitude, Mr. Silverman has a history of completing successful projects that deliver significant business value and ROI.

David holds a M.S., Computer Science, with a Concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

In Memoriam: 

Don Cochran, Partner, VP Sales, Business Developmen and Alliances.  He has over 25 years experience with a variety of companies offering configuration software (CPQ) and consulting services  He is responsible for managing and developing partner alliances, sales, business development and helping in software product definition for eSpline.  Don has worked with SAP AG helping them identify complementary software. 

Don was the Configuration Workgroup ("CWG") President in 2010 to 2011 and was a Past President and was a member of the Board of Directors for 5 years.  The CWG is a 3,600+ member, global organization focusing on SAP Variant Configuration.  Don initiated the CWG Chapter movement and a new focus on SAP [SIG] Influencing and the partnership with ASUG via the new Community Committee.  He is also active in the Program Committee for the European and North American Conferences and for the SAP Configuration Workgroup [CWG].

Don was with Technology Solutions Company [TSC] and helped establish a configuration consulting practice with over 35 CPQ consultants oriented around SAP and several third party configurator applications.  He also worked with several Global 1000 companies advising them on their configuration software selection.  He also led the effort in partner alliances and business development organizations. Prior to TSC, Don worked for Cincom, Calico Technologies, Configuration Solutions, IntelliCorp and was a manager at PWC, then Coopers & Lybrand.  Don also served as a Director of IT for 10 years with a mid-sized manufacturing company.

Don has a working knowledge of many configuration application solutions and is considered to have expert knowledge of the configuration software market place.