Rodan Systems

SUCCESS STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Formed in 1989 and now one of the country's most innovative companies, Polish independent software vendor Rodan Systems shows what can be achieved by intelligent, determined people who make the right decisions.

One of the early choices made by Dr. Witold Staniszkis, Rodan's founder and CEO was to reinvest a hefty 50% of annual profits in research and development. Another was from the outset to commit Rodan to the Ingres database as the standard foundation for an evolving range of integrated business productivity applications.

"Although we hadn't used Ingres 2006 until we started to develop the two new solutions, it's actually proved remarkably easy to build our own product around."

Now, with a well-established user base of indigenous private and public sector organizations to its credit, Rodan is setting its sights on a burgeoning world market for integrated workflow and document systems. And 17 years on from first choosing Ingres, it is once again committing to make the database a key component of these new developments.

"Ingres was our preferred product right from the start and it remains at the center of operations at our largest customers," says Dr. Staniszkis. Applications built around the database in the early days of Rodan and still in use include an integrated suite developed for the Polish Civil Rights Protection Office. Five modules – all using Ingres - provide a complete document management environment for some 200 users.

Meanwhile, the settlement system at the National Bank of Poland - another tried and tested application from the early days of Rodan - continues to deliver reliable service. Bank systems managers quickly became self-sufficient and now do their own maintenance and development. "It says much about the quality of the early work we did with Ingres that both those solutions are still in use," says Dr. Staniszkis. But while he looks back with pride at earlier achievements, it is on the here and now - and a re-affirmed relationship with Ingres - that Dr. Staniszkis is focused.

"We did hesitate when Ingres became a CA product. But now it is once again a stand-alone organization, and we can see serious development and marketing effort behind it, we have recommitted to Ingres as our preferred database," he says.

"It says much about the quality of the early work we did with Ingres that both those solutions are still in use".

As well as renewing its relationship with Ingres, Rodan is also seeking to establish itself as a center of excellence and best practice in the use of the database. A new generation of Ingres-based applications will be marketed across the globe. Dr. Staniszkis predicts the combination of Ingres and Rodan will deliver the first serious European rival to solutions coming out of the US. One of the keys to this success will be Rodan OfficeObjects® software products, a Java-based multi-layer architecture integrating Ingres 2006 and forming the basis of a new generation of document and workflow management applications. Among the first, and soon to be delivered, is a support system for the provincial government in the Wielkopolska region of Poland. Funded by the EU, the solution will speed and simplify much of the work of 800 civic staff, and enable 3.3 million citizens to electronically access and interact with many services.

"Where we had a few problems, the Ingres technical support people were responsive and very efficient. We are confidently expecting Ingres 2006 to provide the same high availability as the earlier versions and we think our customers are going to be delighted with the end results."

A second major project is a document management solution for the national forestry organization, Polish State Forest. Again, the system is based on Rodan's OfficeObjects platform and uses the Ingres database. Its aim is bold - nothing less than eventual elimination of all paper documents, enabling staff to process everything from correspondence and maps to financial information entirely electronically, and aided by customized workflow automation. A pilot system will be deployed to 900 of the organization's staff, enabling them to track e-documents as they transit multiple systems and processes. Full rollout to all 9,000 staff of Polish State Forest is scheduled to follow successful completion of the pilot.

Significantly, the local government and forestry solutions will be the first from Rodan supporting the ideals of KROS, a coalition for open standards created by a large group of IT companies in Poland. Signatories, including Rodan, recognized that the lack of open standards in information storage and exchange has often forced organizations to choose from a narrow menu of products, leading to higher costs and reduced competitiveness in public and commercial sectors. Coalition members have pledged to work towards solutions that adhere to open standards and which enable customers to exercise freedom of choice. Says Dr. Staniszkis: "It's clear that our choice of open source Ingres database combined with adherence of the OfficeObjects WorkFlow product to open industry business process management standards fits very well with our achievement of that very desirable goal. "With the government and forestry solutions very near to delivery, Dr.Staniszkis has found himself re-acquainted with the advantages of the Ingres database that first caught his attention more than 17 years ago. "Although we hadn't used Ingres 2006 until we started to develop the two new solutions, it's actually proved remarkably easy to build our own product around," he says. "Where we had a few problems, the Ingres technical support people were responsive and very efficient. We are confidently expecting Ingres 2006 to provide the same high availability as the earlier versions and we think our customers are going to be delighted with the end results." "I think the move to make Ingres available under General Public License was a bold decision and a very interesting one. The model of no license fees but strong support funded by subscription is a model that works very well for us an independent software vendor. It gives us a real commercial edge."

"We did hesitate when Ingres became a CA product. But now it is once again a stand-alone organization, and we can see serious development and marketing effort behind it, we have recommitted to Ingres as our preferred database."

Before long - Dr. Staniszkis is not saying exactly when - Rodan plans to make the OfficeObjects family of solutions available internationally. "We know we have arrived at a level of functionality, performance and reliability that stands comparison with many well-known products from major vendors. Building OfficeObjects around Ingres helps us deliver those world-class solutions to customers at an unprecedented low cost." His prediction raises the possibility that before too long, the first US customers will be rolling out document management systems that have Ingres at their core, yet proudly bear the phrase 'Developed in Europe' on the packaging.