Ascential Software has earned high analyst praise for its recently unveiled suite of DataStage products. It has earned this praise for its intense focus and commitment to the DataStage products, and for its twin data integration and digital asset management strategies.
Ascential has unveiled three new products: DataStage XE Portal Edition 1.0, DataStage PACK 1.0 for PeopleSoft, and DataStage PACK 1.0 for Siebel. It has also announced enriched versions of DataStage XE and DataStage XE/390.
This new generation of DataStage XE family of data integration products allows corporations to integrate data from corporate information sources, including customer relationship management (CRM), business-to-business (B2B), e-business, enterprise applications, mainframe, and data warehouse environments, in a single, company-wide business integration framework. They are available immediately.
"The announcement provides further evidence that Ascential has cast aside the Informix curse," comments Mike Schiff, an analyst with Current Analysis, "emerged from its database shadow, and is now prepared to battle fiercely on its heritage data integration turf."
Ascential was formed last year as a separate company in the Informix group; the DataStage technology had been acquired in 1999 by Informix when it bought Ardent Software; IBM subsequently bought Informix, and Ascential was left as an independent corporation.
"Analyst commentary such as this provides us with endorsement of our overall strategy and direction," comments Julian Field, GM of Ascential Software in SA. "This is vital given the growing market awareness of the role of data as a new-generation business enabler."
Major aspects highlighted by Current Analysis include:
* Ascential`s new products and upgrades enhance the overall capabilities of DataStage while demonstrating the company`s commitment to its core competency. They should enable the company to raise its visibility and sales in PeopleSoft and Siebel shops, and to raise its profile in SAP environments, where SAP itself resells the DataStage Load PACK for SAP BW.
* The impact on the ETL (extraction, transformation and loading) market is expected to be high as Ascential is one of the industry`s ETL leaders and is considered a force to be reckoned with.
* Praise for the merging of the Axielle enterprise portal with DataStage XE.
* Despite the consolidations over the past few years, the ETL market is still highly competitive and Ascential is one of the industry leaders that competitors must track closely.
* At a time when many ETL vendors are also offering their own analytic applications, potentially placing them in competition with some of their partners, Ascential is deliberately avoiding entering this market.
Current Analysis concludes with a recommendation to existing and prospective users: "DataStage users should consider the company`s increased focus on its data integration offerings to be a reaffirmation of Ascential`s willingness to invest long-term in DataStage. Prospects considering ETL technology should certainly include Ascential in their evaluations."
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