Custom software solutions company Ridgian and application integration appliance pioneer Cast Iron Systems today announced a strategic alliance to provide large-scale e-business solutions to the UK's High Street banking industry.
As alliance partners, the companies will help banks and building societies overcome crucial competitive pressures that are forcing them to offer their customers ever better products, monitor sales performance, service levels and operational efficiencies. Similar solutions will be rolled out across other enterprise sectors.
Ridgian provides tailored software solutions to maximise effectiveness, efficiency, scalability and performance in areas such as e-business, database integration, business intelligence and management information solutions. Its customers include Barclays, Alliance & Leicester and CitiFinancial.
The Cast Iron Application Router(tm) will improve the cost and ease of connecting business applications with different protocols and data formats, enabling Ridgian to quickly transform large volumes of data into business intelligence. It solves the most common integration problems by connecting, transforming, and routing data and events from source to target systems and includes sophisticated features such as guaranteed delivery of messages and failure notifications.
"Cast Iron Systems' Application Router is a natural fit for Ridgian, enabling our customers to marry the power of integration with the power of intelligence," said Fred Meyer, CEO and President of Cast Iron Systems. "The Cast Iron Systems' hardware appliance is the first integration solution to address situations where traditional integration solutions are overly complex and custom programming is insufficient.
"Our hardware appliance is the simplest and least expensive way to solve data integration, enabling customers to install and integrate within hours of delivery resulting in payback in as little as four months. With Ridgian, we are able to further assist our customers with their business integration needs."
Jason Betteridge, Managing Director of Ridgian, said: "The integration of disparate systems is a challenge that most large corporations face. Traditionally projects of this nature are renowned for their overrun, complexity and high total cost of ownership. Ridgian continues to concentrate on providing business value driven solutions with the best use of technology. We believe that the Cast Iron product is truly a unique technology and will enable us to provide more cost-effective solutions."
Betteridge added: "With compelling events such as the new FSA regulations coming into effect later this year, the Cast Iron and Ridgian strategic partnership could not be more timely, and a proposition I am sure will get the attention of many companies in the Financial Services space."