Business software designed for mid-sized companies
Bluenog Monday released an integrated bundle that pulls together open source content management, portal and business intelligence software and is aimed at mid-sized companies.
Bluenog ICE 4.0 contains a number of open source projects at its foundation, including the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) Project, Hippo CMS, and various Apache works such as Wicket and Slide.
The company has offered the three components of the suite separately but has now done the work to tie them all together. The company is also adding support for the platform as a whole and has made ICE’s source code available so users can modify the platform to meet their needs.
“Bluenog competes in the middle of the build vs. buy equation,” says Jonathan Spira, CEO and chief analyst of consulting firm Basex, “If you were thinking of open source and that you’ll download the projects and integrate them, well that is all done for you. Bluenog has done the heavy lifting.”
Spira doesn’t explain ICE 4.0 as a general-purpose platform and says users will have to evaluate its capabilities against their needs.
“If the functionality of Bluenog matches your needs and you were thinking about SharePoint or some other platform this is something that deserves a closer look,” Spira says. Others who might find appeal are those looking to open source but who don’t want to integrate projects themselves, and those on a tight budget.
“If you don’t want to spend $200,000 for a full commercial platform, you might want to spend $25,000 for Bluenog.”
The Java-based suite runs on application servers JBoss, Tomcat, WebLogic, and WebSphere. It also supports various database servers, including IBM’s DB2, Sun’s MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft’s SQL Server.
Bluenog has also built connections to corporate applications such as Oracle Financials, SAP and Banner are also third-party CMS, portal, and BI platforms.
The suite also aligns with many development frameworks, including J2EE, PHP, and PERL.
The three components are: Bluenog CMS, where users can create manage and publish content that can be used on the intranet, Internet or within corporate applications: Bluenog RichPortal, a portal development environment with secure access to dynamic content, reporting functionality, and enterprise applications; and Bluenog BI, which is aimed at non-technical users so they can design, view and distribute reports based on enterprise data.
RichPortal taps into Apache Portals, Apache Jetspeed, Apache Wicket, Adobe Flex, and SpringSource; while BI is based on Eclipse, BIRT. Bluenog CMS is based on Hippo CMS, which is built on Apache Slide, Apache Cocoon and OS Workflow. Bluenog officials says the next CMS version slated to ship early next year will be based on Bluenog Portal, Apache Jackrabbit, OSWorkflow, and Apache ODE among others.
Bluenog ICE 4.0 is available now. Bluenog subscriptions are priced per-server starting at $25,000 per year.
