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SaaS Co. Cast Iron Is Joining the Microsoft Ecosystem

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Cast Iron Systems, a SaaS (News - Alert) integration company, reportedly has announced its public participation in the Microsoft ecosystem, helping connect Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamics ERP and CRM products with other enterprise applications.

 

Using what Cast Iron officials call a “configuration, not coding” approach, the Cast Iron Integration product allows the adoption and use of on-demand Microsoft Dynamics business products.

 

Cast Iron officials believe that many companies hesitate to transition to a SaaS product when confronted with the complexity of real-time integration with existing systems that contain business-critical information. They market their services as lowering the costs and risks associated with SaaS integration by delivering an integration product.

 

The product itself is available either as an integration service in the Cast Iron Cloud for complete outsourcing, or as an on-premise integration appliance.

 

Here’s how company officials diagram their solution:

 

 

Ken Comee, chief executive officer of Cast Iron, said the company looks forward to “strengthening the relationship” with Microsoft.

 

Last year, a widely disseminated Gartner (News - Alert) Research report found that the appliance-based approach to solving integration problems is set to become even more prevalent.

 

“More than 40 percent of large businesses will deploy an application-fluent network appliance by 2008,” said Frank Kenney, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Compared to custom integration, integration appliances can save money and accelerate the time to market for integration projects that involve common business processes.”

 

Founded in 2001, Cast Iron Systems counts British American Tobacco, Emerson (News - Alert), Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Salesforce.com and Tesla Motors among its clients. It’s backed by Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Lehman Brothers, is privately held and led by executives from Informatica, Oracle (News - Alert), PeopleSoft, Siebel, Vitria, and WebMethods.

 

Also last year, Cast Iron Systems introduced a family of new appliances – cute li’l darlings named iA2500-RN, iA3000-RN and iA3000HA-RN, traditional family names from the father’s side, the mother wanted to name them Cooking Pot, Stomach and Dakota – designed for RightNow’s on-demand CRM products.

 

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David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David's articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Michael Dinan