Commercial SW for Portfolio Design

A number of people have sent queries asking what commercial software packages do I use for portfolio design. One of the best and most cost effective Excel Add-on packages is from Hoadley:
http://www.hoadley.net/options/develtoolsaddin.htm

Hoadley offers a wealth of tools, and several tutorials describing them. If you purchase their basic derivative tool then add-ons for portfolio optimization are offered at no additional cost:
Portfolio Optimizer
http://www.hoadley.net/options/develtoolsoptimize.htm

The pricing for the derivative add-on tool is good at $78US (approx) or $AU99.00

I also use TradeSim for Trade Lab Strategies for Monte Carlo simulation. They have a good free book about Monte Carlo on their website:
http://www.tradelabstrategies.com/

Otherwise I use a number of spreadsheets I created (or altered), and spreadsheets from Gummy Stuff (http://www.gummy-stuff.org/) for performing portfolio analysis.

I am still in the process of creating Part 2 of the 401K Portfolio Design article which will explore the mechanics of creating a portfolio using MPT. The most significant finding is that there are more open questions (and assumptions) then answers in regards to some aspects of portfolio design. However the final conclusion, even with all the errata, is that you must properly diversify for long term success.