Category Archives: Progress

B & L, Business Processes, Metalcaster, Partnerships, Progress

B & L, Progress Software Partner to Deliver Cloud-Based ERP for Metalcasters

Progress Software Corporation announced that B&L Information Systems, developers of metalcasting-specific ERP software, has successfully transformed its Odyssey ERP offering to a Software as a Service (SaaS) model with the help of the Progress® OpenEdge® product.

B&L’s Odyssey software provides foundries and die casters with precise and timely information to balance customer satisfaction, operational efficiencies and profitability. With the help of Progress Software, B&L transformed its traditional ERP software to a SaaS model and doubled its close rate for the application. The Odyssey SaaS application offering outsold the traditional model by 300% in the first year and has seen a revenue increase of 880% since 2009. The SaaS model has enabled B&L to spend more time on site with customers instead of keeping up backend systems.

The Progress OpenEdge platform helps Progress’ Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) Partners build dynamic, business process-enabled applications for secure deployment across any platform, any mobile device and any Cloud. The OpenEdge platform has evolved over the last 30 years incorporating new technologies such as multi-tenancy, data encryption and auditing, security and compliance and user-interface flexibility.

“Progress has given B&L the resources and support needed to grow our business beyond expectations,” said Matthew Gacek, vice president of Business Development for B&L Information Systems. “A major benefit for us was the Progress SaaS Empowerment Program, which helped B&L develop a business plan, determine costs, and market our applications. Progress’ tools, market intelligence and expertise are unmatched by any other provider we’ve looked into.”

Gacek continues: “Progress has allowed us to do two things very well. First, they have given us a rock solid platform to work with which means no crashes or downtime – that’s critical in our industry. Generally, our customers are smaller, privately held firms. They don’t have resources for a formal IT department. The Progress OpenEdge product has empowered us to give them a product that does not require a vast amount of maintenance resources, which, in turn, allows us to help them improve their bottom line.”

“Progress has always strived to provide our partners with the information and services needed for market success,” said Kimberly King, vice president, Global Partners and Channels for Progress Software. “It’s great to see that our Empowerment Program played a key role in growing B&L’s business, and our OpenEdge platform continues to provide loyal partners, like B&L, with new opportunities to drive their business forward.”


DataDirect, Enterprise Service Bus, Progress, Tools

Progress Software Offers DataDirect Cloud Connectivity Management Service

Progress Software Corporation today announced it’s offering a beta program of the DataDirect® Cloud service. The new SaaS-based connection management service is a key step in the company’s mission to help organizations create, run and connect to the world’s best business applications. The cloud connectivity service enables simplified SQL access to a broad spectrum of cloud-based data sources through a single standards-based interface.

Cloud is reshaping the way organizations build and deploy software and enabling the next generation of ISVs and applications to be built in less time, at less cost, all the while increasing application scalability and resilience. With the acknowledged value of cloud, there’s been an explosion of new data sources in the cloud such as SaaS CRM, Social Network Feeds, and SaaS ERP. Organizations seeking to unlock the data in these sources need an easy way to connect to them. Point-to-point connectivity might be available through a proprietary web service, but creating unique access calls that conform to multiple APIs is unwieldy and complex. The multitude of different API’s as well as their various versions is making applications too complex to maintain.

Connectivity-as-a-Service provides standards-based SQL access to cloud data without requiring customized interfaces or new libraries to learn. It executes the SQL query against the appropriate cloud data source, managing all of the complexity, API’s, and versioning itself so that the application does not have to.

The DataDirect Cloud offering provides:

  • A single ODBC and JDBC driver based on the DataDirect premium driver
    technology that plugs into almost any 3rd party application
    suite (i.e., Business Intelligence, Enterprise Service Bus, Business
    Process Management Suites, Data Integration ETL, Java EE)
  • Real-time SQL access to a broad spectrum of data sources through a
    connectivity management service that resides in the cloud
  • Web based query development tools that allow interaction with SaaS
    data without any on-premise software required
  • Elastic scalability suitable for the most demanding data access needs
  • Specifically for ISVs, the ability to distribute the DataDirect Cloud
    OEM driver “in the box” and support a broad array of data sources that
    will be updated and expanded regularly without having to redeploy to
    on premise installations.


Actional, Aurea, M&A Activity, Progress, Savvion, Sonic, Trilogy

Trilogy Enterprises Acquiring Four Progress Software Businesses to Form New Company

The software investment arm of Trilogy Enterprises, one of the largest privately held enterprise software companies in the world, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire four Progress Software businesses – Sonic, Savvion, Actional and DXSI. Trilogy will combine the businesses to form the core of a new “best of breed” intelligent business process, application, and data management company. The new company will be called Aurea Software and will be headed by enterprise software industry veteran Scott Brighton. Brighton currently serves as President of Trilogy Enterprises.

“The promise of intelligent business process, application, and data management – and the ability to provide real-time insights on complex business processes across the cloud, mobile, and social – is the most exciting idea to emerge in the business process management space since its inception,” said Scott Brighton, Aurea CEO. “With Aurea, our goal will be to take these market leading, enterprise-class products and place a renewed focus on creating the next generation iBPMS – with a specific emphasis on enabling critical, high-value business processes in key vertical markets.”

Aurea will adopt the Trilogy model of high customer touch. “Our strategy will center around an extraordinary level of customer focus through a program we call 100% Customer Success. Aurea’s customers should expect a marked increase in the level of investment in and attention paid to them. I plan to meet personally with each and every customer over the first six months of the company’s formation,” said Brighton.

“We will inherit a strong and talented team from Progress that will form the core of Aurea, and we will focus on adding critical resources that will drive customer impact across Account Management, Development, Support, and Professional Services,” added Brighton.