Cast Iron Systems on Monday introduced an upgraded integration appliance with a lease-like pricing plan aimed specifically at medium-size businesses.
The company's iA3000 is a hardware device that connects different systems and is optimized to convert between different data formats quickly. The 5-year-old company's strategy is to design its appliance for relatively straight-forward data integration problems and undercut established integration middleware vendors on price. Its latest device sports faster performance, the ability to do complex validations of XML data, and a Web-based remote management console. The company now has about 60 customers, according to Simon Peel, vice president of worldwide marketing at Cast Iron. In an attempt to cater to smaller organizations, it has switched from a traditional licensing structure of charging an up-front fee--starting at about $125,000 for the previous version--plus services. Instead, the company will charge $4,000 per month and do the first integration job for free, Peel said.
