Microsoft and Astea integrate ERPand service-management suites

By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 9/1/2006 6:00:00 AM

Microsoft Business Solutions' latest bid to add vertical-industry functionality to its ERP offerings came via a partnership with Astea International, a field-service operations vendor.

Astea's Alliance suite will be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics AX and GP ERP packages, enabling access to a set of CRM-like applications for field-service operations support. Alliance, which caters to companies that sell and service industrial equipment, has functionality for managing field-service contracts and service-level agreements, and scheduling a field-service workforce.

The Astea/Microsoft Dynamics integration actually expands on an existing relationship between the two vendors, whereby Astea software is built on the Microsoft .NET platform.

"This is a natural progression for us," says Astea CEO Zack Bergreen. "We see many opportunities where our customers are interested in not just our software, but in replacing their back-end systems. Now we can offer them a total solution."

Bergreen says the alliance will give customers a single point of contact—Astea—for service and upgrades, and a common technology platform for both ERP and service management.

"In field service, [customers are] dealing with defects and quality issues," explains Bergreen. "If a defect is found, that information needs to be driven back into manufacturing. If the field-service and ERP systems are integrated, that information flows smoothly back and forth. Companies can put a business-intelligence layer on top of such a fully integrated system and data-mine both field service and manufacturing. This can lead to better control of data cleansing, and higher accuracy and consistency."

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