Unique Metadata Offering Is Key Component Of Enterprise Information Portal Strategy
Hummingbird Communications Ltd. has released Hummingbird Genio Suite 3.1. The newest version of Hummingbird's broker-based data transformation engine features a number of advanced new capabilities directly relevant for two of the hottest trends in software deployment, Internet Commerce and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
Version 3.1 of the Genio Suite is the first to be launched under the Hummingbird name, following the company's acquisition of Leonard's Logic SA in March of this year. This release marks a refocusing of Hummingbird's Decision Portals direction around Genio's data exchange and information sharing capabilities, a breakaway move from the pack of more commodity-like Business Intelligence providers. It is also a key milestone in Hummingbird's accelerated roadmap for its true Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) offering.
Based on a uniquely metadata repository of information-centric business rules available today, Genio transforms, cleanses, enriches, and directs the flow of information across the entire spectrum of corporate decision support systems including data marts, data warehouses, and OLAP environments used by today's popular business intelligence tools. One of the most significant remaining barriers to business-to-business e-commerce - the inability of trading partners to present one consistent and clean set of information to one another - gets resolved powerfully and elegantly through Genio. Also, for customers of large Web-oriented companies to trust those companies' CRM initiatives, again a unified data capability is essential.
"Genio Suite 3.1 enables business users to make informed strategic decisions based on the single version of the truth that it delivers to their mission-critical enterprise and inter-enterprise applications," commented Peter Sprukulis, vice president, global marketing for Hummingbird's Decision Portal division. "We're encouraging customers to create a foundation for Hummingbird's uniquely enterprise-ready EIP offerings by introducing the scalability and power of Genio's information brokering capabilities to their organizations right now."
Some of the largest and most information-intensive corporations in the world are beginning to agree. "The Leonard's Logic-Hummingbird union has provided us with a solution that delivers superior product and service," said Mark Popolano, chief technology officer with American AIG, the leading U.S. based international insurance organization and the largest underwriter of commercial and industrial insurance in the United States. "Genio's interactive transformation capabilities provide a sound basis for an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) gateway strategy. This capability, coupled with its rules-based technology, allows an organization to streamline its computer-to-computer interfaces, thus providing a platform that indirectly effects and improves overall customer service." AIG joins a growing list of blue-chip customers for Genio, also including Hewlett-Packard, Ernst & Young, and Virgin Atlantic.
Genio enables IT professionals to realize data exchange from any source to any target across the spectrum of operational and decision support systems in the enterprise, including data warehouses, OLAP cubes, ERP, customer relationship management and financial systems. Genio automates many of the tasks that normally require time-consuming programming, allowing users to rapidly develop data transformation routines with immediate return on investment.
The Genio Suite includes:
| Designer | A multi-user graphical development environment for designing data transformation and exchange processes |
| Engine | A high-speed, multi-threaded broker-based transformation engine |
| Repository | An object-oriented, open and intelligent repository, residing on all major RDBMS |
| Scheduler | A sophisticated, time- and event-based scheduler |
| Met(at)Data Studio | A design tool to create customized views of metadata for business users |
| Met(at)Data Explorer | A metadata browser for business users |
| MetaLink | A suite of connectivity bridges that enable the extraction and transformation of data and metadata from ERP applications and repositories |
Hummingbird Communications Ltd. specializes in the development of enterprise software solutions, including network connectivity, decision portals, and knowledge portals. Hummingbird's enterprise software solutions provide access to business-critical information, structured and unstructured data. Hummingbird products are sold and supported internationally by sales personnel and authorized resellers in more than 40 countries. The Company is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with offices strategically located around the world.