CrossWorlds on the Move in the ERP Integration Space
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) in the client/server space often creates problems. ERP modules, once implemented, must be manually coded to integrate disparate operating systems and applications. A number of companies provide integration software and services for ERP solutions, but CrossWorlds Software Inc. (www.CrossWorlds.com), with a number of new customer contracts and support from several leading ERP suppliers, appears to be a vendor on the move in the ERP application integration space.
CrossWorlds Software’s flagship product is the CrossWorlds United Applications Architecture (UAA), is a suite of applications that unite the leading ERP, customer management, human resource management systems, and supply chain management applications, as well as legacy, custom and specialized applications, into a coherent enterprise architecture. CrossWorlds UAA supports packaged applications from most major vendors, including Baan Co. (www.baan.com), Clarify Inc. (www.clarify.com), J.D. Edwards & Co. (www.jdedwards.com), Manugistics Inc. (www.manugistics.com), Oracle Corp. (www.oracle.com), PeopleSoft Inc. (www.peoplesoft.com), SAP America Inc. (www.sap.com) and Siebel Systems Inc. (www.siebel.com).
With backing from the big players in both the ERP and CIS spaces, enterprise-class customers are starting to take notice. Indeed, CrossWorlds Software began 1999 by releasing a list of corporate customers that the company signed in the second half of 1998, almost all of which are Fortune 500 players with an interest in high-tech segments.
According to Katrina Garnett, CEO of CrossWorlds Software, the company’s 1998 success was fueled by its efficacy in designing ERP, customer interaction, human resources and supply chain management integration software. "Our rapidly growing customer base is a great testament to the success of our enterprise application integration solution and our customers' confidence in CrossWorlds," Garnett explains. "We're gratified with the number of customers in production and with the increasing rate of customer reorders."
Some of CrossWorlds Software’s client wins in 1998 include Applied Materials Inc. (www.appliedmaterials.com), Ingersoll-Rand Co. (www.ingersoll-rand.com), MCI/Avantel (www.mci.com), Softbank Corp. (www.softbank.com) and Whirlpool Corp. (www.whirlpool.com). The new accounts represent the company’s targeted market segments: high-tech, industrial manufacturing and telecommunications industries.
Alberto Sancho, vice president of information technology at MCI/Avantel, says the use of a CrossWorlds Software solution provides an ability to integrate with MCI/Avantel’s existing application environment, as well as to interoperate with future applications as they are implemented. "We selected CrossWorlds as the standard integration architecture for all our telecommunications and business applications," Sancho says. "CrossWorlds will give us more flexibility to support our current application environment and let us seamlessly add more applications as we grow our business."