Microsoft, Scribe Say Integration Will Drive Azure’s Cloud, SaaS Ecosystem 
Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud is adding integration-ready capabilities thanks to a budding partnership with a longtime software partner. Scribe Online has launched a program to help Microsoft ISVs quickly and affordably offer traditional apps as Azure-based SaaS solutions – and even integrate them with other cloud-based resources.
Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud is adding integration-ready capabilities thanks to a budding partnership with a longtime software partner. Scribe Online has launched a program to help Microsoft ISVs quickly and affordably offer traditional apps as Azure-based SaaS solutions – and even integrate them with other cloud-based resources.
Scribe Online’s solution combines the power of Windows Azure and SQL Azure with Scribe’s data integration capabilities. In specific, it provides early access to Scribe Online’s updated data integration platform optimized for Azure, direct access to Scribe’s product management and product development teams, co-marketing opportunities, and the promotion of the ISV’s solutions on Scribe’s website.
“The Scribe Online ISV program [for Azure] underscores the value of integration capabilities to public cloud ecosystems,” Lou Guercia, CEO at Scribe told IDN. “This value is just for SaaS providers and end users, but also for helping SaaS providers tie into databases and other Azure-based applications, he added.
Scribe is leveraging its technologies and relationships from its thousands of successful Microsoft Dynamics integrations and implementations, and extending that expertise to Windows Azure “to expedite the deployment and maintenance of hybrid, public and private cloud integrations for faster time to market and value,” he added.
Microsoft Azure is also seeing a strong value in bringing cloud integration capabilities directly into the Azure cloud platform. “Data integration tools provide a significant benefit to ISVs and developers who are creating applications on the Windows Azure platform with SQL Azure,” Microsoft’s Doug Hauger, Windows Azure General Manager, said in a statement. “We are pleased that Scribe is offering native services for the Windows Azure platform to help customers integrate applications across on-premise and cloud environments.”
Inside How Integration + Cloud Will Expand Growth and Value
To illustrate the value of an integration-ready Azure platform, Scribe’s Guercia shared two early examples of how Scribe Online is working with ISVs to help migrate their offerings to Azure, as well as optimize business value.
Aplicor, a global cloud-based software company, understands the importance of both connectedness and collaboration in the cloud and are using Scribe Online as a platform for enabling these capabilities from Azure, Guercia said.
“We selected Scribe as a strategic technology partner because of their proven success with Microsoft,” said Scott Creighton, president and CEO of Aplicor. “Their shared commitment to Windows Azure and .NET makes it much simpler and easier for our customers to integrate Aplicor with other applications on Windows Azure.”
In another example, MetraTech, a leading provider of billing and compensation solutions, is using Scribe Online to connect its Azure-based Metanga multi-tenant cloud billing application to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and other business applications, and create expanded support for a broad range of cloud-based services. Using Scribe Online, Metanga customers can integrate customer and transactional data with other online and on-premise business applications.
“Metanga is already on Azure, but they are now using Scribe Online to add an integration component, so that other Azure based ISVs can use their billing services,” Guercia told IDN. “Metanga is already a billing provider for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online services suite (soon to be part of Office 365), so this is a very significant play to illustrate the value of cloud integration.”
“The Scribe Online ISV program [for Azure] underscores the value of integration capabilities to public cloud ecosystems,”
Lou Guercia
CEO
Scribe
For many of its customers, Metanga already helps manage customer enrollment, product catalogs, pricing, promotions, invoicing, customer self-care, and payment capture for industry verticals, and facilitates consumption-based billing for complex online applications. Bringing integration and cloud to these capabilities will simplify the ability for Metanga to add value to customers and even other ISVs and SaaS providers, Guercia added.
Scribe founder Peter Chase summarized the budding strategic relationship with Microsoft Azure this way: “We know that .NET developers want to work in Windows Azure, we know that connecting public to private clouds is essential, and we know that customers want to manage their data without investing in additional servers or systems staff. With this knowledge we created Scribe Online, which gives our partners all of those capabilities and enables them to easily integrate applications on Windows Azure.”
Scribe Online’s Microsoft ISV program for Azure was announced at last month’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.
