Press Release
INGRES LAUNCHES OPEN SOURCE ENTERPRISE CONTENT MANAGEMENT OFFERING TO DRIVE SIGNIFICANT COST SAVINGS
New Content Management Solution Powered by Alfresco Part of "The New Economics of IT"
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., February 24, 2009 - Ingres Corporation, a leading provider of open source database management software and support services, today announced the availability of the Ingres Icebreaker Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Appliance. Powered by Alfresco's open source alternative software for enterprise content management, the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance gives businesses a highly-reliable way to manage today's extraordinary business content growth. It does this at a fraction of the cost of proprietary software vendor ECM market solutions that charge expensive upfront license costs and ultimately lock-in businesses with the threat of always-rising maintenance costs. Like other commercial open source solutions, the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance lets IT purchasers pay only for the software and support they actually need. To download the latest version, please go to http://esd.ingres.com.
"Content is growing at unprecedented rates, and document retention is becoming the norm. Today's content management solutions are often cost prohibitive and difficult to implement– until now," said Deb Woods, vice president of product management at Ingres. "We built the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance which is powered by Alfresco to give businesses a real, reliable, and cost-savvy way to manage the ever-increasing abundance of content in today's business world. It is affordable because it is a solution based on the open source business model. As businesses face shrinking IT budgets – this product is another example of the New Economics of IT at work where open source solutions break the budget blockage to enable innovation."
In today's difficult economic climate, enterprises are being forced to find alternative IT solutions that are just as good, if not better, than more traditional solutions, but cost much less. Commercial lock-in from proprietary vendors leads to high up-front fees and yearly maintenance and support costs that only continue to increase. Architectural lock-in further escalates prices, eliminates options and access to code, and inhibits companies' ability to innovate. Companies that embrace The New Economics of IT will be better able to maintain their systems during the current economic downturn, keep essential projects alive, and pursue innovations that may give them a competitive advantage when present conditions improve.
"This is one solution of many others that we believe we'll see more of in 2009 and moving forward – where leading open source companies combine their advanced technologies to give businesses a real alternative to over-priced propriety offerings. By combining open source technologies from Ingres, Alfresco, and rPath we can provide a competitive alternative to a more expensive SharePoint stack and eliminate the need for only Microsoft components," said Roger Burkhardt, president and CEO at Ingres. "We believe the days of predatory pricing practices by behemoth software companies are on the way out – in today's economic climate, we believe businesses will embrace open source alternatives that are just as advanced and reliable, and in some cases, cost up to 90% less."
Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance Powered by Alfresco
For the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance, Ingres provides the open source database for a company's advanced data repository needs, Alfresco provides the content management expertise, and their technology runs on the Ingres Database. It is an appliance that allows developers to bring two best-of-breed open technologies together – and they run it all on the open source Linux operating system. The Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance seamlessly integrates the operating system, the database, and the ECM technology and is installed as a unit, managed as a unit, and maintained as a unit. It allows companies to take advantage of an already-integrated business-class open source software solution that improves IT investment around content management.
"Open source technologies like that of Alfresco and Ingres are filling a very important gap for enterprises looking to lower IT costs without compromising on performance, availability, and support," said John Powell, CEO of Alfresco Software. "The Ingres ECM Appliance powered by Alfresco is an integrated solution that offers customers all the power of an enterprise-class content management system in a simple to install, configure, and manage appliance. ConnectedWeddings is an excellent example of how Alfresco and our partners Ingres, Red Hat, and Rivet Logic have come together to deliver the customer a true open source infrastructure solution for ECM that is low cost, scalable, highly reliable and rich in functionality."
Forrester Research recently reported that office paper has undergone double-digit growth year-over-year since 1995. Internet content growth has surpassed even those numbers. Employees are spending countless hours trying to locate information and then struggle once they locate the data to determine if they have the latest version. ECM systems offer a valuable solution to this growing problem, and are focused on five key areas: capturing, storing, managing, preserving, and delivering business-class data to customers and partners.
The Ingres Icebreaker ECM appliance allows users to capture, store, and preserve data, assist in the management of data, and deliver data to customers and partners. Customers experience improved efficiency and increased profits through better performance. Key benefits include a ready to run document management platform, simplified setup and configuration, validated maintenance stream that is built for ongoing enterprise requirements, and single vendor 24X7 world-class support.
With an integrated appliance approach, end users can save the upfront integration and configuration issues associated with putting an ECM solution together coupled with an integrated maintenance stream for all the components to deliver savings for the life of the solution. Utilizing all open source components drastically reduces the total solution cost. In addition, overall maintenance costs are reduced with the appliance model, allowing access to business critical content in a more expedient manner than with traditional proprietary systems.
Partner Praise for Ingres ECM Appliance
ACXIO
ACXIO, a value-added integrator, is the editor of an ERP designed for training companies and also specializes in ECM, CRM and BI solutions. ACXIO supports its customers throughout their project's lifecycle.
"ACXIO's strategy is to reduce technological costs to benefit business process," said Antonio Merida, CEO of AXCIO. "Therefore, we have built our solutions around proven open source platforms that are sustainable and enterprise solutions such as Ingres for the RDBMS and Alfresco for the ECM. The solutions proposed by Ingres and Alfresco meet our integration projects requirements in terms of cost and risk reduction. This approach is very successful and this is why we have decided to take a step further and integrate the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance in our ERP solutions."
Ancud
Ingres partner Ancud relies on Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance to offer its enterprise customers a combined open source database and ECM offering.
"The Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance combines Alfresco's unique functionality with the outstanding reliability of Ingres Database," said Konstantin Böhm, CEO of Ancud, a provider of solutions for enterprise portals, business process management, business intelligence, collaboration and e-commerce. "Customers choosing open source products demand proven, stable solution packages with guaranteed service quality that is available 24 X 7. The Ingres Icebreaker ECM appliance meets exactly what our customers demand -- enterprise service experience and proven product quality in open source."
Business & Decision
Business & Decision is a leading international consulting and data management company specializing in business intelligence, customer relationship management, and e-business.
"Business & Decision and Ingres have decided to team together to propose end to end solutions based on Alfresco ECM platform for multiple reasons," said Tanguy Briand, EIM Sales Director at Business & Decision. "The reliability of the appliance, high quality of the consultants who bring the necessary expertise for each particular project, unified 24x7 support-hotline for the entire appliance (ECM + database + application server + OS) in multiple languages and at a very competitive price. Alfresco and Ingres provide our customers the necessary guarantee they request from us for an end-to-end ECM customizable solution based on high quality and open standards fundamentals which also respect our customers budgets that can sometimes be tight."
IF Research-Wallix
IF Research-Wallix specializes in the outsourcing of critical applications in the "managed services" or "hosted services" model for international companies, subsidiaries, or small and medium size businesses.
"The choice of the Ingres-Alfresco solution strengthens our offering of a low cost ECM platform with a performing and competitive product," Jean Noël de Galzain, CEO of IF Research-Wallix. "The packaging of the open source Ingres-Alfresco appliance reduces the application's overall deployment time. Thus, in a time of budget cuts, this IF Research-Wallix solution based on Ingres-Alfresco gives our customers an opportunity to quickly deploy their applications in a hosted or outsourced environment, while reducing their TCO through lower license fees and maintenance costs and enabling an unbeatable return on investment."
To download the Ingres Icebreaker ECM appliance today, please go to http://esd.ingres.com.
About Ingres Corporation
Ingres Corporation is a leading provider of open source database software and support services. Ingres powers customer success by reducing costs through highly innovative products that are hallmarks of an open source deployment and uniquely designed for business critical applications. Ingres supports its customers with a vibrant community and world class support, globally. Based in Redwood City, California, Ingres has major development, sales, and support centers throughout the world, and more than 10,000 customers in the United States and internationally. For more information, visit www.ingres.com.
Ingres is a registered trademark of Ingres Corporation. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.