Talend has unveiled Integration Suite RTX, a real-time data integration platform. The open source system is said to help companies synchronise information across the enterprise.

Talend Integration Suite RTX is built on the same technology as Talend’s flagship Integration Suite product and is fully compatible with projects developed with Talend Integration Suite.

According to the company, the new platform leverages over 400 connectors to source and target technologies. This includes real-time connectors to web services and business applications such as Salesforce.com, SAP, SugarCRM or Microsoft Dynamics.

The introduction of real-time capabilities to Talend’s data integration suite offers companies the opportunity to react to the available data more quickly. For online retailers, this can mean introducing promotional offers on-the-fly, based on user behaviour, the company said.

“When you go to the cash register at a supermarket to buy a new toothbrush, for example, you can get a coupon for toothpaste,” Yves de Montcheuil, Talend’s VP of marketing, told CBR. “That requires real-time analytics of your purchasing behaviour. If you think of how many items are scanned per second at major supermarkets, those items need to be processed in real-time.”

The platform can also boost customer service by synchronising data from multiple sources, so it can be accessed by anyone across the organisation in real-time. “The challenge is to provide the right product at the right time,” de Montcheuil said. “If you look at online gaming, companies can provide real-time purchasing recommendations to their players, so they can buy new body armour, for example, when they need it.”

Real-time data integration and analysis is not currently wide-spread in the enterprise, de Montcheuil said.

“Real-time BI is still a bleeding edge technology. There are not that many companies that are really getting into it; most companies are doing BI after-the-fact,” de Montcheuil said. “Real-time BI is about making a decision that can impact the course of the business, analysing events and impact them before they are over.”

It is the online space where de Montcheuil sees the most potential for the platform. “Anything that is online is ripe for real-time BI,” he told CBR. “Retail, online media are strong users. Financial institutions should be more involved in it.”

Talend has already signed up a number of clients to the platform, including a large European pharmaceutical wholesaler, delivering to over 1,000 pharmacies in the region. The firm is using Integration Suite RTX to manage orders in real-time enabling it to make last-minute adjustments to shipments that are about to leave the plant.

The product is available now with prices depending on the number of developers that will be using the platform. A typical configuration for one developer would start at around £10,000, according to de Montcheuil.

One of the benefits of open source is a quicker ROI, said de Montcheuil. “Many clients actually see a return before the investment, because they are using the open source version before buying the enterprise version, so they are already seeing the benefits,” he said.