Microsoft and Aurum Deliver on a Common Vision For Integrated Customer Interaction Systems Based on Windows DNA
DENVER, April 21, 1998 — Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp., delivering the keynote address at BaanWorld 98 today, highlighted the new AurumFrontOffice
™as the first integrated sales automation, sales configuration and call center solution to deliver on the vision of Microsoft® Windows® Distributed interNet Applications (Windows DNA) architecture. The product, developed exclusively with Microsoft applications, is Aurum Software Inc.’s complete enterprise-class Microsoft Internet Explorer-based solution. Further, Aurum Software announced its endorsement of key Microsoft technologies including the Microsoft BackOffice® family with Microsoft SQL Server
™, the Visual Basic® development system, Internet Explorer, the Windows NT® operating system, Windows DNA, COM/DCOM and Microsoft Office, including the Microsoft Outlook
™
messaging and collaboration client. Microsoft SQL Server is the only database included in Aurum’s announcement today.
“AurumFrontOffice takes advantage of the power of Microsoft SQL Server and the BackOffice platform,”
said Charles Stevens, vice president of the application developers customer unit at Microsoft.
“AurumFrontOffice offers higher performance, increased capabilities and lower cost of ownership, proving unequivocally that the BackOffice platform is ready for enterprise-class customer management applications.”
New Generation of Web-Enabled Applications Now Available
Operating exclusively inside Internet Explorer, AurumFrontOffice signals a new class of application that is more than just a browser front end to traditional client/server architectures. Based on Microsoft COM/DCOM, Windows DNA and ActiveX® technologies, the application can access information stored in a Microsoft SQL Server database over the Web or, for detached laptops, directly from a local copy of the database. As a Baan company, Aurum benefits from the tight cooperative development based on Baan’s development memorandum of understanding in which Baan announced plans to adopt COM/DCOM as its primary component architecture for BaanSeries (see joint Baan/Microsoft release dated April 21, 1998). Because of the use of Microsoft development tools and applications, users of AurumFrontOffice benefit from increased reliability, lowered cost of ownership, increased ease of use, lower support costs and decreased time to benefit.
“By standardizing on Microsoft tools, Aurum now delivers new products to our customers more quickly than if we were relying on disparate development tools,”
said Mary Coleman, software president and CEO of Aurum.
“Aurum is also committed to centering development around Microsoft SQL Server, based on benchmarked performance benefits of Aurum applications on that platform. With the combination of Microsoft’s strength in delivering easy-to-use technologies and operating platforms and Aurum’s expertise in customer interaction solutions, our customers gain improved usability, exceptional performance and the advantage of easy upgrades when Microsoft provides new versions of its applications.”
AurumFrontOffice Delivers on the Integrated Customer Interaction System Vision
The foundation for AurumFrontOffice is the Windows DNA architecture, which provides a blueprint for developing enterprise-class distributed applications such as AurumFrontOffice. Windows DNA utilizes Microsoft COM/DCOM for interoperability and is the consistent, unifying architecture that defines a set of services required for modern distributed enterprise applications. Microsoft COM/DCOM gives Aurum developers a way to plug individual application modules into an integrated framework to enable seamless information flow across application boundaries. When software vendors like Aurum use COM/DCOM, customers benefit from applications that meet their industry-specific needs and integrate with other applications.
Microsoft Products Ease Customer Use and Simplify Deployment
AurumFrontOffice facilitates ease of learning by using key Microsoft technologies, such as Internet Explorer as the application interface. AurumFrontOffice takes advantage of the widely acclaimed user interface of the Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client to make the application as intuitive as possible. For example, using AurumExtensions for Outlook, a sales team can use Outlook to schedule selling opportunities on an enterprisewide calendar and share contact and task information, even with non-Aurum users. In this way, an entire organization can communicate vital customer information throughout the enterprise using a single system.
The AurumActiveWorkbench
™
, used to modify the application for specific business requirements, is based on Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0, validating the robustness of that solution for enterprise application development.
About Aurum Software
Aurum Software Inc., a subsidiary of The Baan Co. N.V. (Nasdaq
“BAANF”
; ASE
“BAAN”
) and a leading global provider of customer interaction solutions, has redefined the customer-interaction software market space, offering the first technologically advanced completely browser-based sales, marketing, call center and configuration applications for the front office with integration to the major back-office enterprise systems. Aurum’s front-office applications transform a global organization’s customer-facing processes by extending easy-to-use business intelligence throughout a company’s customer-facing information network, including sales, customer service, field sales and support, call centers and external sales channels.
Leading multinational companies such as Armstrong World Industries Inc., Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Eastman Chemical Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. have adopted Aurum’s solution to meet their specific industry business needs. Aurum, with headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., is dedicated to a worldwide presence.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, Windows, BackOffice, Visual Basic, Windows NT, Outlook and ActiveX are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Aurum, AurumFrontOffice and AurumActiveWorkbench are trademarks of Aurum Software Inc.
Other product and company names herein may be 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.
EDITORS’ NOTE, December 30, 2004
— This page has been revised since original publication.
