IBM this week announced a bevy of upgrades of software products in its InfoSphere master data management portfolio, driven largely by customer requests for improved usability.
At The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) World Conference yesterday, the company introduced IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management Server for Product Information Management (MDM Server for PIM), a new version of the software formerly known as IBM WebSphere Product Center. The upgrade includes a new user interface and navigation tools that let various functions across an organization tailor their views of product information and drill down into related workflows.
The software is integrated with the IBM InfoSphere Information Server — which itself has been upgraded — so that users can use the Information Server’s data cleansing capabilities to improve the quality of the information that is managed by InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM. Underlying technology improvements also enable swifter rollout, according to IBM.
The MDM Server for PIM manages a company’s core product data for new product introductions as well as the workflows involved in those processes, from design work to publishing product data in catalogs, on websites, and in spec sheets for business partners. With connections to CAD, ERP, and MES systems — “anything involved in the product lifecycle,” as IBM Director of Product Marketing Michael Curry put it in an interview today — companies can consolidate product versions across multiple systems, for example, into one consistent set of product data.