Epicor to Sharpen Its Next-Generation Epicor ICE Business Architecture with Windows Azure and SQL Azure

Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organizations, today announced a strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp. whereby Epicor® will use Windows Azure to expand on-demand delivery of its next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite worldwide. The Epicor ICE Business Architecture will also benefit from Windows Azure and SQL Azure.

Epicor and Microsoft share a common vision for cloud computing and building business applications that are delivered the way people want to work; virtually any place, any time on any device. With the open and flexible Windows Azure cloud platform, applications can be quickly built, deployed and managed across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters - using virtually any language, tool or framework.

Unveiled at Insights 2012, the third major release of Epicor ICE will provide platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings using Windows Azure. The flexible service-oriented architecture (SOA) of Epicor ICE provides connectivity across a wide range of Epicor business software solutions for the manufacturing, distribution, and services industries, enabling more customers to leverage Epicor Extend solutions delivered via the cloud.

Epicor first introduced Epicor ERP, its breakthrough next-generation enterprise business software solution in 2008. The solution, designed for growing companies in domestic and global markets, was built on Epicor ICE, which fused modern Web 2.0 technologies with Epicor True SOA™ - a flexible, standards-based software architecture for creating and defining business process as reusable “services” to deliver an enabling business platform that offered new levels of flexibility, usability, and agility in support of application-to-application integration and business-to-business collaboration.

“A consistent leader in adopting forward-looking technologies from Microsoft, Epicor is now ready to take advantage of Windows Azure and SQL Azure to deliver a pre-configured virtual environment that simplifies implementation and enables more customers to use the cloud,” said Walid Abu-Hadba, corporate vice president, developer and platform evangelism, at Microsoft. “The power of Windows Azure and SQL Azure will give Epicor customers and partners even more choice, flexibility and scalability with Epicor business software solutions - whether delivered on-premise, hosted or in the cloud.”

“Epicor was an early adopter of Windows Azure at its inception,” said Erik Johnson, vice president, product marketing for Epicor. “And we have worked with a number of Epicor ERP customers to test the benefits of Windows Azure and SQL Azure, which we view as the next game-changers for cloud computing. We are pleased with the performance, scalability and flexibility of these technologies and look forward to leveraging the benefits of Windows Azure to provide our customers with extended capabilities and rich consumer-driven experience today’s end users require.”

News Facts

- Epicor and Microsoft align to bring on-demand ERP to Windows Azure cloud

- Epicor ICE will provide platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings using Windows Azure

- Flexible business architecture to provide connectivity across a range of Epicor business software solutions via the cloud