Tempe, AZ January 3, 2003 Business intelligence (BI) specialist Information Builders is partnering with Geac Enterprise Solutions in a deal that will have Geac reselling its new partner's WebFOCUS solution as part of its overall BI strategy for its E Series and M Series mainframe applications.
Geac, a division of Geac Computer Corp., offers enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. Information Builders said WebFOCUS is a suite of integrated BI products that enables users to deploy applications via a graphical user interface to the Internet, intranets and extranets.
The partners said that WebFOCUS would provide Geac's mainframe customers with improved levels of reporting and analysis functionality that could help these customers improve the performance of their financial and operational processes.
Geac plans to build and market business intelligence solutions for its mainframe customer base, and WebFOCUS' ability to report against a variety of information sources including some 85 data sources on 35 platforms and report directly off operational data were major influences on Geac's decision, according to the two companies.
Other WebFOCUS features include bundled ETL (extract, transform and load) tools, Web-based ad hoc reporting and various distribution capabilities.
"Our customers often tell us it is a good idea to leave vital operations on the mainframe, pulling valuable functions to the Web using tools like WebFOCUS," said Gerald Cohen, CEO of Information Builders, explaining the logic behind the deal.
Geac expects to make this new BI platform for its E Series and M Series customers available early this year.
