E.piphany Inc. has announced that it will now offer its application integrated with IBM Corp.’s WebSphere and BEA Systems Inc.’s WebLogic application servers to allow enterprises a single-source J2EE customer relationship management suite.
The alliances are designed to provide businesses standardizing their IT environments on component-based solutions a CRM suite featuring integrated sales, marketing, service, and analytic capabilities fully built on J2EE, according to officials from San Mateo, Calif.-based E.piphany. The announcement marks a milestone in E.piphany’s existing relationship with IBM, expanded in July with E.piphany committing to optimize its E.6 suite for IBM’s entire e-business infrastructure.
CRM implementations have been plagued by the complexity and expense of proprietary architectures, so they are turning to those built on open standards to leverage their existing systems and data to speed implementations, said Phil Fernandez, E.piphany’s executive vice president of products and marketing.
“This is a great step & in making it easy to get into open-standards CRM,” Fernandez said. “In the past, customers could go to a propriety solution or deal with multiple vendors to deliver this solution. In half of our recent deals in the fourth quarter, customers at least in part chose E.piphany because of our commitment & to this J2EE architecture.”
As the CRM industry moves away from proprietary solutions, buyers will benefit from better data and process sharing across systems, as well as more flexible applications that are easier to implement and maintain, said Liz Shahnam Roche, an analyst with Meta Group in Stamford, Conn. Vendors that offer seamless integration with commercially available J2EE Application Servers – in lieu of their own proprietary application servers – will enable users to achieve this goal, she added.
E.piphany’s E.6 CRM suite integrated with WebSphere or WebLogic is available immediately.
