We know it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from us—but we think this is a great time to get you connected again so that you’ll have the tools you need to keep your System i platform going for years to come. We’re happy to announce the Infor Development Framework (IDF) technology, a next generation System i technology that ensures the future of your ERP software and allows you to use your reliable System i platform well into the future.

With IDF, you can protect your existing investments and gain cutting-edge features without having to go through an application or platform migration. You can also create intuitive role-based user interfaces and dynamic reports through simple configurations, and make your business and IT department more flexible and agile.

But that's not all. You can also better serve your customers, vendors, and partners over the Internet, by making your data available to them in a usable form, while keeping everything safe and secure. Plus, you can better support your non-ERP systems that help run day-to-day operations, yet are specific to certain departments—without burdening your support staff. In addition, you can create entire new applications that integrate seamlessly to your ERP backbone.

Finally, you can ensure that all of your systems work together, whether those systems are under one roof, in separate locations, or on different technology platforms. You can even tie in systems that are used by other companies, including your customers, vendors, and partners. Wherever your systems are located, you can make sure they communicate with each other.

Let’s dig into the IDF—here’s a run-down of all the parts and how each fits into the technology:

• Infor Enterprise Integrator—Rapidly create and maintain System i applications with this advanced technology. Your users will be able to extensively develop each application to fit their needs and integrate your departmental systems to your ERP system without IT intervention so that all your systems will look and feel the same.
• Infor Power-Link—Personalize your application, create workbenches, and get all the data you need with a mouse click using this full-featured user interface.
• Infor Net-Link—After you personalize an application in Power-Link, hit the "Refresh" button and this browser-based solution will immediately send your changes to a Net-Link client.
• Infor System-Link - Send XML data to any application that can receive XML—anytime, anywhere with System-Link.

IDF gives you a whole new range of choices—you can deploy your new application on IBM i, Linux, AIX, and Windows server platforms because IDF is written in Java, which means that it's platform-independent and supports Windows and Apple clients. But you'll still get the reliability, scalability, and lowest cost of ownership you depend on, because IDF is still built specifically to serve the dependable System i technology you’ve come to trust.

We have plenty more to say about the benefits of IDF, but why not see for yourself? Watch this quick overview video to learn more.

As always, we want to hear from you, what do you think about this technology?  We’re open to your questions and feedback.

Posted by Joe Marino, Vice President, Development, Support, and Product Management, System i, Infor