Dutch ERP vendor Baan Co NV is pushing Business Object Interfaces (BOIs) as a way to allow real time integration between Baan software and third party products. The company has announced the release of over 200 BOIs providing connection to generic supply chain software. The BOIs form the basis of Baan’s strategy to push data from various sources across enterprise systems. To this end, the firm is launching a custom BOI developer kit, the BOI builder. The company is also releasing BaanAutomation, a developers tool which promises integration of Baan ERP software with software based on Microsoft Corp’s Windows/NT architecture. Baan partnered with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Component Software Inc to develop BaanAutomation. The software stores BOI information as COM/DCOM in a Microsoft repository on the server. A developer can then use the Business Component Browser to display business process and object information and generate a COM component for a C++, Visual Basic or Delphi program. The component can then be called from VBA – allowing integration with Microsoft Project. The tool is a another sign of Baan’s closer ties with Redmond, and CEO of development partner Component, Thomas A.Curran describes BaanAutomation as a complete Microsoft play. In addition to this, the firm has released BaanConnection Basic and BaanConnection for Corba, the Basic supports COM/DCOM, Java, C++ and VisualStudio. The Corba edition uses the Orbix ORB IIOP connection. All of these products are currently in beta, expected in the fourth quarter of this year.
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