02/20/2007

Kalido, an information management company, today announced the latest release of its master data management (MDM) product, Kalido MDM 8 Release 3. As the company's third major MDM release, the product contains enhancements designed to meet the growing demand for a comprehensive, subject-independent, scalable master data management solution.

ebizQ received the following:

The new capabilities strengthen Kalido's commitment to deliver an enterprise-wide active information management platform to deliver accessibility, performance and usability for business users regardless of their role, geographic location or systems knowledge.

"The need to provide accurate, consistent and accessible information has driven the market's growing demand for master data management," said Mark Smith, CEO and executive vice president, research at Ventana Research. "Kalido was an early pioneer in MDM for analytical purposes and has continued to deliver value to their customers, while innovating and improving their products."

In a recent survey conducted by The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), 83 percent of survey respondents reported that "their organizations have suffered problems due to poor master data. Hence, the vast majority of users attest that MDM problems are real, numerous and severe.” (TDWI, "Master Data Management: Consensus-Driven Data Definitions for Cross-Application Consistency," October 2006, by P. Russom)

The significant enhancements in Kalido MDM 8 Release 3 meet the needs of organizations of any size that are challenged with providing a consistent set of information across multiple subject areas, such as products, customers, employees, assets, vendors or financial information, which fuel their reporting tools and analytic applications.

With the new release, Kalido has also drawn upon the substantial experience of its global customer base, many of whom have been using Kalido solutions to deliver MDM programs for more than three years. Customers currently using Kalido to manage master data include BP, Great American Financial Resources, Inc., Labatt Breweries of Canada, Nationwide Insurance, Royal Mail and Unilever.

"With Kalido as an integral component of our information management and data governance program, we're now able to improve accuracy and consistency in the information about our business,” said Bobbi Leidenheimer, director of business intelligence at Great American Financial Resources, Inc. "More importantly, we can now begin to act upon the improved information to make better decisions about profitability and performance across our business.”

Key features of the new release include: • Enhanced Workflow - Ability to manage increasingly complex rules and processes demanded by sophisticated data governance and stewardship programs; • Comprehensive SOA-based API - Programmatic interface that facilitates connectivity to source data, including links to SOA-enabled infrastructures and the ability to deliver master data as Web services; • Expanded Reporting Options – Business model-driven set of business intelligence reporting tables, delivering the ability to easily view and report on any aspect of the master data; • Dramatically Improved Performance and Scalability – Up to five times performance and scalability improvement in key areas to match growing needs of maturing master data management programs.

"Master data management is top of mind with every CIO around the world,” said Bill Hewitt, president and CEO of Kalido. "We've succeeded in this market by listening to our customers, understanding their business environments and designing flexible, scalable solutions. This new release supports a significant number of best practices, including advanced workflow and sophisticated validation, as well as the ability to easily integrate into an organization's current environment. It's far and away the most robust analytic MDM solution on the market today.”