Cast Iron trio

Integration appliance vendor Cast Iron Systems has introduced a family of new appliances designed for companies using salesforce.com. Alongside the release of the threesome known as iA2500-SF, iA3000-SF and iA3000HA-SF, more interesting news was released in that the company is also offering to complete integration projects free of charge and is introducing a new monthly subscription pricing program. Cast Iron’s new AppExchange Certified appliances are designed to enable companies to more efficiently integrate the Salesforce suite with other enterprise applications. Integration projects are accelerated because the need for software coding is eliminated for applications including Lawson, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, SAP, Oracle, Sybase, MS-SQL Server, Informix, DB2, flat files (FTP / HTTP), XML and web services.

Cast Iron’s salesforce.com family consists of three members, including the entry-level iA2500-SF for connecting the Salesforce suite to a single application; the iA3000-SF, an enterprise solution for connecting the Salesforce suite to multiple applications; and the iA3000HA-SF, for high-availability applications. Key features include one-click configuration of all Salesforce objects; simultaneous, real-time data access for different groups and applications; and guaranteed messaging, with complete transaction audit trails. All three appliances are now generally available and include Cast Iron’s “Implementation on Our Dime” program offering free, first-project integration services. Founded in 2001, Cast Iron Systems bills itself as “the fastest-growing integration appliance vendor.”

Backed by venture capital firms, Cast Iron is privately held and led by experienced technology executives from PeopleSoft, Sun Microsystems, Vitria and webMethods. Among Cast Iron clientele are Allianz, Emerson, Intuitive Surgical, Lawson Software, salesforce.com and Toyota. The company’s flagship iA3000 application integration appliance won Cast Iron the Network Computing product of the year award in 2005 and 2006.