By Tom Inglesby

"I ntegration possibilities are much greater today. Under the old model, midrange companies looked for systems with broad functionality that resided on a single computer and took a limited amount of information systems (IS) resources. That mix has changed. Now there are more "domain" and third party applications that companies want to use through integration. So the challenge for software and system suppliers is to provide integrated functionality at the same price levels systems sold for when everything was written by a single vendor. Oh, and there should be no differentiation between what the vendor writes, a best of breed application, and a third party application the vendor packages with its system."

The speaker is Scott Hiraoka, R&D chief at DataWorks in San Diego. He was cornered at the recent APICS show in Washington, D.C., and agreed to comment on software integration from a vendor's point of view. "There are specialized systems that handle how you communicate information between vendor and supplier, customer and supplier, partner companies, all sorts of combinations. The integration issue is, how do you get these specialized systems to work on a transactional basis with ERP where in the past everything was handled by the ERP system itself. A software supplier must take different, very specialized systems, designed and intended for a certain kind of user, and make them all fit together into one business solution. That's a major challenge."

Hiraoka continues, "An answer is the move to object-oriented databases. Instead of having the solution work directly with a specific database it will work with a database object. Instead of business information in a table format, which is essentially what our databases have been, the object database will handle graphics, images, videos, business transactions, all of those things through an object interface. This is important because integration can provide users more and more information in a paperless environment. For example, sales people on a remote system can access documents, CAD drawings, graphics, or scanned images along with business information. Workers in the factory, using a single interface, can access transactional and historical information on a business system as well as documents, CAD drawings, engineering examples, etc.

"Another issue, in terms of system topology, is going to be the move toward thinner and thinner clients. My guess would be that the interest in Java is definitely not going to be restricted to high-end players. Now you can write thin client applications that are distributed to different types of user interfaces — network computers, specialized computers in a factory, wireless or radio frequency systems used where people do distribution, shipping or any transactional reporting in a factory. You'll see more and more system architecture based around inexpensive network computers instead of the fat client model."

But isn't Java an "Internet thing?" Hiraoka sees a mingling of the technologies, "You're going to see people doing a lot more on the Web where the browser, whether it's Internet Explorer or Netscape, provides a standard interface for all the users on the system. That not only will be true for transactional tools, but also for things like decision support where managers can look at reports, graphics, queries, all through the Web. If people can get on your Web site, or if you're offering services to customers and suppliers through an Internet connection, it's a big advantage to have everything work through one interface."

A final thought, this on intelligent agent technology. "The idea of intelligent agents is to take the business rules and a high-level view of events in the system and put those into objects that can run themselves or run a service. Essentially they're agents looking for things to do. We can use the concept where there are varying levels of inventory and the different levels need to trigger different messages to resupply. The agent would notify the user through the most appropriate method — the application client, e-mail, computer telephony, voice mail, whatever works."

An umbilical cord of electronics? "Yep, exactly."

Seen on the Screen

Not every company has a Web site, strange as it seems. Search engines race around and find companies, products, trade names, whatever can be used as a keyword. But sometimes you know the company and still can't find the address or telephone number. Next time, try http://www1.bigyellow.com/search.rote for a telephone/address directory to 16 million U.S. businesses.

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