|
The X-ray has nothing to do with beefed-up security measures or FAA regulations. It's about data. FedEx has been testing software from InfoRay Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., that allows it to view information in any of its more than 40 incompatible databases. That helps FedEx diagnose trends that allow it to save money and better manage resources. Early results seem promising. Two months after launching a pilot program last summer, FedEx had saved $2 million by better deploying its computer hardware, says Scott Struminger, FedEx' supply-chain chief. That means the software, which costs up to $75,000 to customize plus $100,000 a year for a 25-user license, has already paid for itself. And that came from an examination of just seven of its databases. Now, FedEx is rolling out the software across its global operations and hopes to save millions more. This isn't FedEx' first attempt to unlock the value in its data. Like many large corporations, the company has spent tens of millions of dollars on data-mining technology. And like many others, it has had mixed results. Among its scores of databases, FedEx uses a package from PeopleSoft to manage finances, another from IBM for customer service, and one from NCR Corp. for data warehousing -- all of which are difficult, if not impossible, to integrate. The company couldn't, for example, help purchasing managers find bargains on aviation fuel by matching up-to-the-minute distributor prices with currency fluctuations. FedEx had data for both but was unable to deliver it to employees when they absolutely, positively needed it. "It would be great if you could just go online...and know everything about your company, but you can't," grumbles Struminger. "CHANGE-THE-WORLD TECHNOLOGY." That's where InfoRay comes in. Its technology allows users to select data from different sources and instantly find out, say, the best place to buy oil, fuel, or even wrenches or hammers. How? InfoRay has built a layer of software that peers horizontally through numerous databases at once, says the company's CEO, 36-year-old Dutch native Ronald Tetteroo. Unlike traditional data-mining programs, InfoRay doesn't comb through the entire database, but rather hones in on the info it needs -- which speeds up the process. The information is presented in a single, colorful, Web-accessible graphic that lists key goods and their prices and shows green or red arrows to indicate real-time trends. "It's truly a change-the-world technology," says Giles McNamee, a managing director with investment bank Chase H&Q. Still, InfoRay is far from a sure bet. It's up against serious competitors, such as database king Oracle Corp. and German business-software maker SAP. While those companies' products might not do exactly what InfoRay does, they have one huge advantage: customers. Sixty-five of the 100 largest U.S. companies use Oracle products, and more than 1,300 large corporations have installed SAP's Enterprise Warehouse package. Persuading those users to shell out more money for InfoRay's software may not be so easy. And there are other ways of getting nearly the same result. The latest trend in data mining has been to collect information from incompatible sources in a "data warehouse." There, special software sorts through the information and spits out daily or weekly reports. InfoRay, though, says it has a better solution, offering a real-time view of the data rather than the daily reports offered by data warehousing. COMING TO AMERICA. Its customers agree. Cadence Design Systems, a $1.1 billion electronics design firm based in San Jose, Calif., will use InfoRay to help it keep tabs on projects scattered at client sites across the country. Dutch e-commerce startup e-Purchasing.nl will use InfoRay's software to help businesses manage purchasing online. And Fortis Bank, a Dutch financial house that manages nearly $242 billion in assets, is installing InfoRay to let its 600 managers spread across 300 branches share data. That's a monstrous challenge because Fortis has spent the past 20 months integrating five newly acquired banks into its operations. "It's a quantum leap that lets us know what's really going on," says Kees Rutten, former chief executive and currently a director of Fortis Bank. Discovering what's really going on is what prompted CEO Tetteroo to start InfoRay in the first place. The seed was planted in 1988, during a three-month internship at Royal Dutch/Shell in Amsterdam. Tetteroo found that while Shell was good at extracting oil and natural gas from the earth, it could do little to mine the data locked up in its computers. Managers asked Tetteroo to look at other Dutch corporate giants, such as Unilever, to see how they managed their data. Tetteroo's conclusion: They don't do it very well, either. He set out to find a solution. Leaving Shell, Tetteroo started his own company, 4C Corp. There, he developed a Macintosh data-mining tool that was praised by Apple Computer as one of the most innovative products of 1990. The attention was nice, but 4C was turning few corporate heads. After all, it was an Apple product in an increasingly Windows-centric world. Tetteroo founded a new company, InfoDjini and developed a Windows-compatible product. Still, InfoDjini, received little more than shrugs from Dutch corporate-technology buyers. So in 1998, Tetteroo set out across the Atlantic to try his luck, changing InfoDjini's name to the more palatable InfoRay shortly after arriving in the U.S. After nearly two years of reworking the software for the Web, Tetteroo says InfoRay is ready to zap corporate databases the world over. Sure, he only has a handful of customers so far, but Tetteroo racked up $3.2 million in sales last year, has built his staff to 120, and has bagged $23.5 million in equity capital. Investors include Gartner Group -- which plans to offer InfoRay alongside its research data to allow companies to compare their performance to that of entire industries -- as well as European venture capitalists NeSBIC CTe Fund and other small investors. "InfoRay is better than anyone else at showing managers exactly what they need to know to run their business," says Josh Greenbaum, database-software analyst at Berkeley (Calif.)'s Enterprise Applications Consulting. And that could position Tetteroo's software as the pick and shovel of the data-mining age. Ferguson covers technology news from Boston |
