Incuity Software Attains Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Status

Incuity Software Inc., a leading developer of real-time business intelligence software designed specifically for manufacturing enterprises, announced today that it has attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program with a competency in ISV/Software Solutions.

This status recognizes Incuity’s expertise and impact in the business intelligence marketplace for manufacturing. As a Gold Certified Partner, Incuity has demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and proven ability to meet customers’ needs and thereby receives a rich set of benefits including access, training and support, giving them a competitive advantage in the channel.

“We’re proud to have earned this designation from Microsoft because it reflects the strategic relationship we’ve had as a Windows(R)-based application developer since our company was founded in the mid-1990s,” said Doug Lawson, Incuity president and CEO.

“All of our products are Windows-based applications and make optimal use of the latest Microsoft technologies,” Lawson noted. “As part of the technical review for the partner program our Incuity HDA(TM) historical data access software successfully completed testing at VeriTest for Microsoft components such as Windows Server(TM) 2003, Windows Client, Microsoft(R) Office, Managed Code, Web Services, .NET 2.0 framework and SQL Server 2005.”

As one of the requirements for attaining Gold Certified Partner status, Incuity had to declare a Microsoft Competency, which is designed to help differentiate a partner’s capabilities with specific Microsoft technologies to customers looking for a particular type of solution. Each competency has a unique set of requirements and benefits, formulated to accurately represent the specific skills and services that partners bring to the technology industry. The ISV/Software Solutions Competency recognizes the skill and focus partners bring to a particular solution set. Gold Certified Partners that have obtained this competency have a successful record of developing and marketing software based on Microsoft technologies.

“Microsoft has a long history of working closely with ISV partners to help them deliver compelling solutions and applications to our mutual customers,” said George Taylor, group manager, U.S. Manufacturing ISV Partner Strategy at Microsoft. “Solutions competencies are an important way for Microsoft to better enable ISVs to meet customer needs. They allow ISVs to keep and win customers through their deep knowledge of solutions-based Microsoft platform technologies.”

The Microsoft Partner Program was launched in December 2003, and offers a single, integrated partnering framework that recognizes partner expertise, rewards the total impact that partners have in the technology marketplace, and delivers more value to help partners’ businesses be successful.

Incuity’s open product architecture is built atop a broad variety of industry standard technologies such as Microsoft’s .NET 2.0 framework, Web Services, OPC, SQL Server and XML. Incuity also makes extensive use of the ISA S95 standard data model, which defines the essential elements required for linking production and enterprise systems. Its open architectural approach means users can continue to use their existing databases and application systems, yet they gain the benefit of having all information available from all of these systems, all the time, for any user in any department.

“This is important because in addition to being able to access data from all popular control system historians, Incuity EMI will provide access to and from data contained in multiple sources, including popular human-machine interface (HMI) and distributed control systems (DCS); plant historians; programmable logic controllers (PLCs); computer maintenance management systems (CMMS); laboratory information systems (LIMS); asset management systems; manufacturing execution systems (MES); and enterprise resource planning (ERP) and scheduling systems,” Lawson explained.

“The other half of the issue is that the presentation and analysis of the information occurs without users needing new tools and skills,” he continued. “Incuity can produce intelligent reports that offer alert detection through live data connections and can automatically drive user attention towards exception conditions, missed targets and plan deviations. All of this information arrives via the applications that are very familiar to end users. Anyone using Microsoft Excel(R), Microsoft Outlook(R) and Microsoft Internet Explorer can rapidly find information and understand the manufacturing issues in the context in which they need to use the information. In addition, users can create their own content and portals using familiar Microsoft Office applications.

“Incuity’s rich database views and data transformations are also usable with existing data warehouse and data mining software products, so users can continually evaluate real-time production information to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and better understand events surrounding issues such as product quality or machine downtime,” Lawson concluded.

About Incuity

Incuity Software, based in Mission Viejo, is a pioneer in the creation of data management systems for reporting, analysis and business intelligence applications in manufacturing and process companies. More than 45,000 seats of the company’s products have been installed since 1998, in 13 languages and in more than 40 countries. In addition to its headquarters operations in California, Incuity has a regional sales office in Nevada and maintains an advanced solutions development group in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

For additional information about the company and its products or for a complete list of value-added resellers around the world, please visit the corporate Web site at http://www.incuity.com.