News from 2002

“Solving a business and tech dilemma” by Darren Greenwood, Computerworld magazine - November 04, 2002

COMPUTERWORLD journalist Darren Greenwood describes the BPM software space and XSOL’s revolutionary new software.

XSOL and Infinity Solutions sign Heads of Agreement - October 01, 2002

XSOL and Infinity Solutions have signed a Heads of Agreement (HoA) which will see Infinity Solutions offer XSOL’s recently released Business Process Management solution XSOL ToOrder to its customers. XSOL has recently completed the training of Infinity Solutions consultants and the first client projects are expected to kick off within the next few months.

XSOL Limited has announced it has shipped Release 2.1 of XSOL ToOrder, its revolutionary new Business Process Mapping Solution. ToOrder ©, which is the first product in an integrated suite of BPM solutions, is focussed on enabling companies to map their unique business processes using a real-life user interface.

On completion of the mapping process XSOL ToOrder generates an XML document, which can be used to generate a range of system documents from Procedures Manuals to System Specifications.

“The market response to date has been extremely positive” said John Blackham Founder and Executive Director of XSOL – “initial customers have been extremely impressed with the product to date with substantial gains in both the mapping process and the optimisation of the business.”

In commenting on the use of XSOL ToOrder to map the Trade Marketing Process at Dominion Breweries, Garry Braid, Business Information Manager, commented: “We have achieved more in today’s workshop than we have done in the past six months - ToOrder definitely played a key part in this.”

Neville Brown, technology consultant and former CIO of The Warehouse, remarked: “Aside from the monumental time saving there were numerous benefits from using XSOL ToOrder, for example, senior management, for the first time was able to take a strategic view of exactly how the business was operating. Instead of an hierarchical impression that defines the processes in vertical channels, XSOL ToOrder also creates a linear perspective that highlights each department’s role in the supply chain.”

James Feeney, Business Consultant of James Feeney & Associates, can see the time reduction available through using XSOL ToOrder: “It definitely reduces the time it takes to map the enhanced processes – your work in progress very quickly becomes the end goal as the Process Manual is a direct by-product of undertaking the process definitions.”

New Zealand software development company, XSOL Ltd, in partnership with the University of Auckland, has received a further grant of NZ$840,000 from the Government’s New Economy Research Fund (NERF) to continue its ground breaking research into database technology. The grant is to be spread over a two-year period.

XSOL Director, John Blackham, says significant progress has been made by the research partnership to develop technology that will enable real-time, simultaneous access to multiple, internal and external, databases.

“There are huge advantages for a company that can integrate its database with those of its clients, suppliers, service and financial providers, all in real time,” says John Blackham.

“While this already can be achieved on a one-to-one basis between companies using similar applications, what we are exploring is real-time access to multiple databases, by multiple users, utilising a diverse range of systems.”

The race to achieve a commercially viable model is an international one potentially worth millions to the company and country that is first to achieve it. XSOL was previously awarded a $1,500,000 grant from NERF in March 2000 to initiate the research programme.

Professor John Grundy, Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Auckland comments: “The new Real-Time Dataset (RTDS) technology that we have been developing in co-operation with XSOL brings a new, unified approach to both intra- and inter-organisational Enterprise Information System integration.

The conceptual architecture of the RTDS allows a wide range of systems to be integrated both with real-time and batch communication using any integration technology supported by existing systems. The XSOL Business Process Management suite - XSOL OnDemand, is used to co-ordinate complex cross-system business transactions and to resolve data inconsistencies.”

“The market demand for new approaches to Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) has altered our research focus away from purely e-commerce databases to accessing the widest range of databases a business may come in contact with,” says Blackham.

“We have experienced huge leaps forward over the past year and the NERF grant will enable us to forge ahead in developing the results of our research - ultimately into a highly saleable product.”

XSOL Limited has announced it is preparing to ship Release 2 of XSOL OnDemand, its revolutionary new Business Process Management System, which can eliminate the 80% overhead in package software that a company doesn’t use. XSOL achieves this with its patent-applied-for Business Meta-model - ESL, which provides a framework for defining business processes in the same way a spreadsheet provides a framework for business modeling. Executive Director and Founder John Blackham said beta testing of the new release has revealed we can dramatically reduce the time and cost required to analyse and capture business processes.