Noetix Simplifying Data Integration

Noetix Corp. is looking to ease a chronic issue for many companies—data integration. The Noetix Enterprise Technology Suite, or NETS, which will be announced this week, enables IT managers to bring together data from disparate operational and transactional systems to form a single view of a companys business.

The suite brings together three Noetix products—Views, QueryServer and WebQuery—which are used, respectively, for organizing information by topic, retrieving and integrating data from multiple sources, and giving users Web access to that information.

NETS AnswerPoint, a new application available as an option for the Noetix Views module, delivers an “answer library” specific to each customers installation, providing immediate answers to common business questions. This goes beyond the function of the existing Noetix Help System, which generates application-specific help files where users can look up answers.

Noetix Views is the companys flagship module and works specifically with business applications from Oracle Corp., though that data can then be integrated with other relational and Open Database Connectivity- compliant data sources. Noetix, of Bellevue, Wash., is expected to announce a partnership with Siebel Systems Inc. next week that will extend Views to Siebel front-office applications. This integration will probably be completed by the end of the year.

NETS is in beta and due to be generally available by June.

IMCO Recycling Inc., of Irving, Texas, uses Noetix Views to manage data from its Oracle Financials and Process Manufacturing applications. The company plans to deploy the QueryServer and WebQuery modules as well so it can share information—such as invoice receipt and payment status—with its customers and suppliers.

The integrated suite should be beneficial to new customers, said Mickey McBride, manager of financial applications at IMCO. QueryServer and WebQuery were not available when IMCO first licensed Views, so instead it used Oracle Discovery, which is not as robust a product, McBride added.

Though he has not formally evaluated it, McBride was somewhat skeptical about how well the AnswerPoint application will work.

“It sounds like it would be more beneficial to someone who was brand- new to Oracle,” he said. “Its tough to run canned reports for thousands of customers. We have 2,000 customers; it would be pretty difficult to meet everyones needs right out of the box. It depends how much you can tweak it and customize it to your individual customers.”