Call center and customer relationship management firm Information Management Associates Inc has launched what it calls the internet Component Architecture, or iCA. It is a object-oriented Java- based component software architecture specifically designed to support CRM and computer telephony integration applications development, including IMA’s own Edge products, and those of third parties. IMA calls its merging of CRM and CTI technologies demand chain management.
According to IMA, the iCA framework acts as a buffer for applications and operating system, supporting Enterprise Java Beans, Corba and Microsoft Corp’s COM and DCOM. West Chester, Pennsylvania-based professional services company and object specialists Genesis Development Corp helped IMA with the development work on the framework.
Shelton, Connecticut-based IMA was founded in 1984, mainly with the aim of providing consulting and systems integration skills. It concentrated on customized call center applications for sales, marketing and customer service departments. IMA acquired the Edge suite of tools for developing call center applications in the early 1990s, and re-engineered it to function both as a packaged solution and as a foundation for continued systems integration activities. The Enterprise Application Suite of plug-in application modules, used to integrate Edge with third party business applications, was added in 1997.
IMA sells software to run on Unix, NT and AS/400 platforms. Last year it acquired two AS/400 customer interaction software houses, Marketing Information Systems Inc for sales automation, and Telemar Software International LLC for sales, marketing and customer service software, to strengthen the AS/400 side of its business. Its partners include Aspect, HP, IBM, Microsoft, NCR, Oracle and Sun on the technical side, and Ernst & Young, AT Kearney and dbIntellect for services.
