Software Labs Helps Make Sense of Application Stew

Company:

Headquarters: Roseville, Calif.

Technology Sector: Software

Key Product: xFusion Studio v4.0

Year Founded: 2002

Number of Channel Partners: 60 worldwide

Ideal Channel Partner: Midmarket-focused solution provider

Why You Should Care: Software Labs' technology provides a way to integrate data from disparate applications such as SAP's BusinessOne and Salesforce.com, helping customers improve operations and cut costs.

The Lowdown: Businesses today increasingly find themselves managing a hodgepodge of on-premise and Software-as-a-Service applications, as well as the data those applications produce. That can be a costly scenario that also makes it difficult to tap into that data to, say, better understand their customers.

"Therein lies the opportunity for us at Software Labs," said Karl Chen, business development vice president.

Software Labs' flagship xFusion Studio provides data-integration capabilities to handle such knotty tasks as linking a CRM application with a billing and financial accounting system to process sales orders. Those applications can be a combination of Software-as-a-Service applications, such as Salesforce.com, or on-premise applications such as SAP BusinessOne, Microsoft Dynamics or Sage MAS ERP. The xFusion product has connectors for some 150 different applications.

The xFusion toolset puts the data into a consistent format, handling all data-cleansing chores and providing a single user interface for viewing the data. Software Labs lists some big names as competitors, including Informatica and IBM's InfoSphere product line.

But Chen said those rivals are targeting big customers, while Software Labs is focusing on midmarket businesses -- those with sales between $10 million and $1 billion. "We're seeing a gap in the market," Chen said, adding that xFusion's ease-of-use and its ability to develop repeatable processes at low cost are key selling points for solution providers working with SMB customers.

Software Labs, which started out developing software on Microsoft's .Net framework, has more than 60 channel partners worldwide that account for 100 percent of the company's sales. Many are resellers of SAP BusinessOne, Microsoft Dynamics and Sage CRM and ERP applications, and they resell xFusion as part of their data-integration and migration services.

Crossroads Partner, a Boston-based solution provider that resells Microsoft and SAP applications, also resells xFusion. Todd Eavenson, professional services director at the company, praised xFusion's development capabilities. "It's a lot quicker, a lot easier, and it makes it easy to build repeatable [data migration] processes," he said.

"They're looking for a best-in-class tool and something that's very affordable," Chen said of Software Labs' channel partners, adding that the company continues to recruit resellers.