INDUSTRY

IFS, the global enterprise applications company, today announced a program to deliver solutions to connect with the Microsoft Office 2007 suite. Recognizing the need for an "intelligent desktop," IFS Applications and Microsoft Office will combine secure and efficient information access with ease-of-use and flexibility to empower the information worker. The development initiative will deliver new IFS components integrating critical business information with the desktop. Familiar Microsoft Office products will act as the interface to the IFS Applications enterprise-wide backbone. By providing a secure and traceable "write-back" from the Microsoft Office suite back into IFS Applications, the intelligent desktop becomes an Office business application that greatly improves user productivity while being manageable for the enterprise as a whole. Using web-services and service-oriented architecture (SOA), IFS and Microsoft will continue to jointly exploit the business value of extending the integration with 2007 Microsoft Office. "Office has long been a preferred solution for information workers, and with Microsoft Office 2007 it has the potential to become a powerful business intelligence tool," said Par Akerblom, head of the Desktop Intelligence project at IFS. "Using SOA capabilities inherent in both IFS Applications and Microsoft Office, we will be able to provide information workers with a complete Office experience. This is coupled with full interaction with the structured processes of IFS Applications, our integrated enterprise solution that secures critical business data." "This is a perfect fit with our information worker strategy, and the collaboration with IFS is proof of the productivity potential in extending the Microsoft Office user experience to integrate ERP business processes," said Ulf Avrin, Director of ISV Strategy for Microsoft EMEA. "By creating an intelligent desktop that incorporates the best of both worlds, we will enable the information worker to speed up decision making and improve workforce productivity." A range of joint solutions are planned, with the first based on Microsoft Excel, available early in 2007. Development will then continue to further support and exploit the potential of Microsoft Office 2007.