LOS ANGELES, March 14, 2001 — Today at Spring Internet World, Microsoft Corp. and TopTier Software, Inc. announced a strategic alliance designed to make it easy for corporations to integrate enterprise applications such as those from SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft and Baan into the Microsoft® SharePoint™
Portal Server. As part of the alliance, TopTier’s iViewServer Developer Edition will be included with the Microsoft Digital Dashboard Resource Kit 3.0, which is scheduled to be available this spring and will enable developers to design, download and customize iViews to access data from enterprise applications and syndicated media sources. These iViews can then be run as Web Parts (i.e., reusable components that allow companies to integrate existing enterprise systems into their corporate portals) in digital dashboard-enabled products such as Microsoft’s forthcoming SharePoint Portal Server, giving users access to structured data from mission-critical applications such as enterprise resource management (ERP), customer resource management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) applications.
SharePoint Portal Server is the flexible portal solution from Microsoft that allows companies to easily find, share and publish information. The new server is designed to integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft Office and Windows® productivity desktop environment, allowing enterprise customers to integrate robust document management, search, subscriptions and inline discussions into their document collaboration process. And, with an architecture built on extensible Web Parts technology, SharePoint Portal Server offers companies an effective way to build and extend intranet portals.
TopTier’s iViewServer Developer Edition, which can be integrated into SharePoint Portal Server as Web Parts, is designed to provide end users with constantly updated, prepackaged
“answers”
to challenging business questions they face in their daily work. When integrated into SharePoint Portal Server, iViews are designed to enable users to streamline their decision-making process by offering quick access to detailed data found within line-of-business applications and syndicated media sources. Currently, there are hundreds of iView packages available for download at TopTier’s iViewStudio at http://www.iviewstudio.com/ .
“Our relationship with TopTier Software should enable our corporate customers to quickly deploy powerful SharePoint Portal Server-based solutions by leveraging their pre-existing information stored in enterprise applications,”
said Jeff Teper, general manager of the SharePoint Portal Server business unit at Microsoft.
“We are excited to be working with TopTier, and we believe TopTier’s Enterprise Unification Platform™ provides a compelling solution for our enterprise portal customers.”
“TopTier is pleased to be working with Microsoft to integrate our iViewServer Developer Edition into SharePoint Portal Server,”
said Shai Agassi, CEO and founder of TopTier Software.
“The ultimate winners are Microsoft’s customers who will appreciate how easy it is to create personalized desktop views of applications.”
About TopTier Software
TopTier Software is a leading provider of enterprise information portals and products that unify information residing in a business’s internal and external enterprise applications, databases, documents, Web sites, and other data sources. TopTier’s Enterprise Unification Platform software products are designed to enable a business’s extended enterprise of customers, vendors, suppliers and employees to directly access, navigate and manipulate integrated information using an intuitive and effective portal interface. With TopTier’s Enterprise Unification Platform and its patented HyperRelational™ technology, users can access, interconnect, update, edit and delete information from multiple software applications and data sources through a simple Drag and Relate™
process. By doing so, TopTier’s products are designed to enable organizations to create collaborative advantage for their enterprise by driving a real-time, frictionless flow of information between employees, partners and customers. More information about TopTier Software can be obtained by calling (408) 360-1700 or visiting http://www.toptier.com/ .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device
Microsoft, SharePoint and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
