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 Marketplace
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, D&B, Gale, MapQuest, Midnight Trader,
Tax Data Systems, The Sports Network, 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, D&B, Siemens, Nike, Swarovski, ShoeBuy, and Exclusive Resorts. For
more information, visit www.strikeiron.com.
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