News Briefs and Product Shorts

MAPICS Consultancy Picks EXTOL for B2B

Custom Systems Corp (CSC), a New Jersey company with considerable MAPICS expertise, recently extended its product partnership with EDI software developer Extol. As part of the new deal, CSC will recommend to its clients--made up of more than 200 MAPICS shops--that they use EXTOL's B2B software to connect their ERP systems with their trading partners' computers via EDI, AS2, UCCnet, RFID, and other emerging B2B standards. "We selected Extol because their business integration software has proven successful in the mid sized company setting of limited IT and business resources, and tight compliance deadlines," says Dan Quinones, the founder of CSC. While there are many emerging standards in the B2B space, EDI is still going strong, says Dennis Bonagura, chief operating officer of Pottsville, Pennsylvania-based EXTOL. "We have found, especially in the midmarket space, that people are doing a lot of EDI today, and it's not going away any time fast," he says. "EDI is never easy to use, because there's a lot of the complexity around setting up an EDI translator. But Extol Integrator is robust, easy, and almost automated…. it can almost do it itself."

Stampede Improves Compression with WebRider 1.1

iSeries shops looking to boost the responsiveness of their online applications may want to consider WebRider version 1.1, a new release of Stampede Technologies compression and acceleration software unveiled this month. With WebRider 1.1, Stampede has introduced Layer 5 TCP optimization, and launched new enterprise application dispatching and high availability features. Support for Layer 5 on the TCP/IP stack enables Stampede to bring caching, bi-directional compression, and its patent-pending TurboStreaming technology to non-HTTP applications, such as POP3/SMTP e-mail, FTP, and some client-server applications. The new Enterprise Application Server Dispatching helps smooth out CPU utilization and eliminate bottlenecks on Web servers running the WebRider software, as well as on the appliance version of the WebRider offering. Finally, Stampede is offering new high availability options to ensure applications stay on-line in the event that the WebRider appliance fails. WebRider is available as a software-only solution or pre-loaded on a 64-bit IBM eServer running Linux. Pricing for an entry-level server configuration starts at $35,000, while the Advanced WebRider Client, which brings Layer 5 support, starts at $49 per client. Pricing for the standard client, which only supports HTTP/HTTPS, starts at $35 per client.

ICON Picks UCN for Integrated IVR

ICON Health and Fitness, which manufactures the NordicTrack, HealthRider, and other home exercise equipment, recently integrated UCN's interactive voice response (IVR) software with its existing DB2/400 customer database to streamline certain customer interactions, UCN announced last week. UCN says ICON is using the inContact application alongside an in-house developed AS/400 application to create a self-service IVR application for handling inbound requests for delivery updates on previously ordered parts. Another application developed with inContact is an automated outbound dialer that informs customers their credit card is about to expire, or has expired, and gives them the option to update the card immediately using the inContact IVR capabilities integrated with an ICON customer database, UCN says. Mike Edvalson, ICON Telecom Manager, says about 3,000 customers are using the IVR-based, self-service credit card update system every month. "We anticipate the delivery-status system will off load an estimated 10 percent of all customer calls away from our customer service call group," he says.

Global Signs French J.D. Edwards Consultant to Reseller Agreement

Global Software is going global again. Last week, the Raleigh, North Carolina, software company announced it has signed a reseller agreement with ERA Informatique, a J.D. Edwards consultancy in Paris. As part of the agreement, ERA Informatique gains exclusive rights to sell Global's Spreadsheet Server for J.D. Edwards, Budget Manager for J.D. Edwards, and Executive DASH products across France. It can also compete for deals in the rest of the European Union. Global vice president Spencer Kupferman says the partnership represents a "golden opportunity to address the needs of the J.D. Edwards market in France with our Microsoft Excel-based financial solutions. This is a very hot market right now and ERA Informatique's customers have been calling for a product like Spreadsheet Server," he says. "Together we will bring this solution to the doorstep of every J.D. Edwards customer in France."

Fair Isaac Updates Decision Support Software

Fair Isaac, a longtime developer of decision support software for OS/400 and other platforms, last week launched Blaze Advisor 6.0, along with Blaze Advisor SmartForms, which we're happy to say run on the iSeries. Blaze Advisor 6.0 brings new enterprise rules management capabilities to its user base, which includes hundreds of companies in the financial services, insurance, healthcare, government, and telecommunications industries. The software allows large projects with hundreds of thousands of different rules to be broken down by business domain and then managed by the owner of that domain. Fair Isaac has also worked with IBM to certify Blaze Advisor 6.0 on iSeries, zSeries, pSeries, and xSeries server. The company also released new SmartForms software, which works with Blaze Advisor to improve the quality of data entered into the system. Fair Isaac says SmartForms embeds rules into the Web-based form to ensure data correctness and completeness. Only relevant questions are exposed, and as the customer makes selections, more questions may appear on the screen in order to reach a complete and correct end point.

Softscape Hopes to Attract Disaffected ERP Users to its HR Offering

Add Softscape to the list of ERP vendors looking to attract a few disaffected ERP users. Last week the Massachusetts developer of human resources software announced its ERP Upgrade Program that brings incentives for customers of Oracle, SAP, and Lawson Software to move to Softscape's Unix- or Windows-based Apex suite by the end of September. Softscape is offering several incentives as part of the promotion, including a "one for one" license exchange whereby customers get one license of the new Apex application in exchange for their previous ERP license; deferral of initial set-up fees until 2006; a (whopping) 2 percent discount on maintenance and support plans; and the obligatory free ROI analysis. "Customers of traditional ERP vendors often feel locked-in to their technology despite recognizing the added value of new cutting edge solutions," says Dave Watkins, co-founder and CEO of Softscape. "Our one-for-one license swap, deferred payments, and the resulting lowered annual maintenance costs, has removed all barriers for customers." Softscape, which claims to have more than a million end users in 42 countries, offers various components in its Apex suite, including: Workforce Planning; Talent Acquisition; Workforce Performance; Learning & Development; Enterprise Compensation; Workforce Collaboration; Workforce Analysis; and HR Management.