“Heightened User Experience”… hmmm…

I don’t know if this title is meant to be an eye grabber, with implications of ecstasy or sex (or both!).

Of course, Information Technology can be dull and boring at times, and the headline did catch my eye, so this press release was worth mentioning.

The press release didn’t go too much in detail about the benefits with Microsoft Office 2007. Time to get the VMWare test lab out!

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.–IFS, the global enterprise applications company, announced today the release of IFS Sales and Marketing customer relationship management (CRM) application with a next-generation user experience for enhanced usability that makes it easier for end-users to configure the CRM tool to meet their precise needs.

According to Dan Matthews, Chief Technology Officer at IFS, the move is part of IFS’ strong focus on providing outstanding user experience and productivity to its customers. These changes will present both technological and usability benefits to users.

“The new user experience features a visual design similar to the latest Microsoft Office products, along with several features designed to enhance user productivity,” Matthews said. “With the product now based on Microsoft .NET technology and a new plug-in architecture, organizations can use standard tools and competence to add custom visualizations and functionality. Our solid architecture assures that all security and business rules apply also to such plug-ins. Configurable user experience and enhanced usability are now offered in one client for both off-line and on-line usage.”

Apart from enabling the IT staff of IFS’ customers to build mash-ups and customizations, the new user experience for IFS Sales and Marketing will offer benefits for end-users, including greater flexibility to present data the way users wish to see it and embedded reporting tools for important metrics like the sales pipeline. The move will further strengthen the integration with the IFS Applications suite as well as other applications.

“As part of the IFS Applications suite, IFS Sales & Marketing is unique in presenting the sales force and other users with a real-time unified view of front office data and back office data from financials, projects, service, and other components in the suite. Integrations with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes has improved, and will do so further as we make full use of the new architecture,” Matthews said.

The new user experience for IFS Sales and Marketing comes as IFS Aurora, the new next-generation user experience for the full IFS Applications suite has successfully completed Alpha testing. Usability is a key factor influencing software purchases, as demonstrated by 64 percent of respondents to a recent IFS survey carried out across Scandinavia, UK and USA of more than 1,000 IT decision makers.

“As an independent enterprise applications vendor, IFS can leverage the best technologies available to maximize benefit for our customers,” Matthews said. “Through our dedication to good design, and by using the latest Microsoft .Net technologies we can provide our CRM users a user experience without compromise.”

Microsoft, Office and .NET are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies

About IFS

IFS is a public company (OMX STO: IFS) founded in 1983 that develops, supplies, and implements IFS Applications™, a fully-integrated, component-based extended ERP suite built on SOA technology. The company has more than 2,000 customers in 54 countries and focuses on seven main industries: aerospace & defense, utilities & telecom, manufacturing, process industries, automotive, retail & wholesale distribution, and construction contracting & service management. IFS has 2,600 employees. More information on IFS is available at www.IFSWORLD.com/us.