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NET-based technologies, Epicor IW utilizes the Microsoft Office system to enhance the user experience of an Epicor application with familiar desktop productivity tools. With Epicor IW users are able to synchronize Microsoft Office Outlook^® contacts, appointments and tasks with an Epicor application along with other items such as customer information, sales history, inventory levels and production schedule for offline access. A simple matter of searching and dragging Epicor ERP information from the Epicor Task Pane to fields on a Microsoft Office Word 2007 document or Microsoft Office Excel^® 2007 spreadsheet is all that is needed. Saving the document to Microsoft SharePoint® Server 2007 then initiates a workflow process to create a transaction in Epicor along with the link to the document managed by Office SharePoint Server 2007. Epicor IW increases productivity by enabling users to work smarter, incorporating line-of-business information in Microsoft Office.

"Epicor IW is an excellent example of the way in which the next generation of business applications will be delivered," said Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president of the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft. "By delivering its enterprise applications as an Office Business Application, Epicor ensures that its application functionality is accessible to its customers' employees through familiar and flexible productivity tools, enabling them to build their customer relationships, drive innovation and improve operations."

Epicor enjoys a long history of innovation, of which Epicor IW is the latest, based on Microsoft technologies. Based on this early and successful adoption of Office Business Applications, Epicor has been participating with Microsoft in the design phase helping to shape the next generation of line-of-business integration applications.

In today’s accelerating information workplace, the connection of the business worker to the right data at the right time represents a significant business opportunity for the software industry. According to Forrester Research, “As enterprises better understand the interrelationship between roles, collaboration, content, and business processes, the need to provide information within the context of an information worker's daily activities will drive the implementation of Information Workplaces.”

Sixty percent of the respondents to a recent Forrester survey about the information workplace said, “that providing content within the context of the business process is extremely important. . . By moving to contextualized information workplaces, workers will receive information seamlessly, and they no longer have to mentally and manually integrate disparate tools into their work environments.” (1)

“Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for our mutual customers to use the information captured within Epicor applications effectively,” said James Norwood, vice president of product marketing for Epicor. “The continued blurring of the lines between enterprise applications like Epicor and desktop productivity tools like Microsoft Office enables users to seamlessly interact with relevant and timely information wherever they need it and ensures continuity of information sharing and collaboration across the enterprise.”

Epicor Information Worker is scheduled to be generally available in December 2006, and will be made available across all Epicor product families: Enterprise, Manufacturing, iScala and CRS Retail.

(1) Source: Forrester Research, “Context is King in the New World of Work,” by Erica Rugullies, Connie Moore, Robert Markham (March 8, 2006)