StrikeIron Offers Free Marketplace Edition of OnDemand for Microsoft Excel
Add-in
Drag and drop solution integrates StrikeIron Marketplace Web
services directly into Microsoft Excel creating “live” workbooks
Research Triangle Park, NC – April 11, 2006 – StrikeIron Inc., provider of
the Web Services Marketplace, today announced a free “marketplace edition” of
StrikeIron OnDemand for Web Services. This free edition enables unlimited access
within Excel to all of the Web services from the StrikeIron Web Services
Marketplace. StrikeIron OnDemand for Excel provides Microsoft Excel users
drag-and-drop access to the power of XML-based Web services, delivering “live”
workbooks to the desktop that are fed by real-time data. Now, any subscriber or
trial-user of one or more Web services from StrikeIron’s Web Services
Marketplace can build rich-client spreadsheets that incorporate live data feeds
from multiple sources. A licensed “professional version” enables the same
drag-and-drop access to any Web service, turning Excel into a rich, universal
client for service-oriented architectures and a tool for building composite,
services-driven applications.
Once a Web service has been dropped into Excel, any standard Excel
calculation or function can then be applied to the resultant output data from
that Web service, which in turn can also be designated as input data to another
Web service. In addition, Web services can be refreshed individually, all at
once, at timed intervals, or in a specific order. For security purposes,
StrikeIron has included an automatic Invisible Link option to hide access to
live data upon closing a workbook to prevent viewing by unauthorized users.
StrikeIron has created over 30 Sample Workbooks that utilize the various Web
services available from StrikeIron’s Web Services Marketplace. These workbooks
are not only solutions as is, but also demonstrate the kinds of rich-client,
services-driven applications that can be created using this plug-in. Downloads
are available at www.strikeiron.com/tools/tools_ondemand.aspx.
“People have talked about Microsoft Excel as a rich client for Web 2.0,
service-oriented applications, and any other live data sources for quite some
time. This is where the rubber hits the road.” said Bob Brauer, CEO and
President of StrikeIron. “OnDemand for Excel provides organizations with the
solution they need to rapidly create business applications that bring real-time
data from many different sources to the desktop, completely customizable within
Excel, and without any required programming.”
The StrikeIron Web Services Marketplace allows users to easily enhance the
capabilities and value of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) deployments,
increase ROI with CRM investments, improve data quality and data value, and
expand the functionality of Ecommerce applications by integrating real-time
external customer, company, and government data. Examples include real-time
address verification, email verification, 24-hour accurate reverse phone lookup,
an executive decision-makers database, state and local tax rates, global SMS
capabilities, residential and business data enhancement lookups and much more.
About StrikeIron
StrikeIron is the leader in providing innovative solutions for delivering data over
the emerging Internet. The company’s innovative Web Services Catalog provides
a technology platform, micro-transaction management and a consistent interface across
many XML-based Web services from multiple, diverse sources. This allows business
users, application developers and enterprise IT professionals to customize and integrate
external data sources and additional external functionality into enterprise, Web,
and composite applications. Currently, StrikeIron provides over 100 live data sources
and business functions from organizations such as Cortera, Gale, MapQuest,
Midnight Trader, Tax Data Systems, and Zacks.
StrikeIron also offers IronCloud™, the only comprehensive Web services delivery
platform that opens up new channels for data distribution and consumption through
Web Services. Enterprises of all sizes can now reduce the cost and complexity of
managing the challenges of data distribution which include leveraging an existing
external hardware and software architecture, controlling and metering access and
usage, external monitoring for 24x7 reliability, full usage analytics, as well as
multiple authentication scenarios and instead concentrate their focus on making
information easier for partners, customers, and distributed business units to access
and use. StrikeIron delivers value to over 1,500 customers and partners such as
Avaya, BEA, Delivery.com, IBM, Honda Europe, Siemens, Nike, Swarovski,
ShoeBuy, and Exclusive Resorts. For more information, visit
www.strikeiron.com.
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