Progress Software announced that McCamish Systems has deployed the Progress Sonic ESB platform to create a service oriented architecture (SOA) that will help them provide integrated services to their BPO clients. As a result of the ESB, McCamish can reduce the complexity of integration to their client's corporate web sites by exposing standard web services.

McCamish Systems sells life and annuity policy administration solutions to financial service clients, such as insurance providers, banks and investment management firms, the majority of whom outsource the business function of policy administration. For example, issuing new policies, billing and collection of premiums, providing custom call centers to answer policy owner questions and process policy requested changes, claims administration, agent administration, and the calculation and payment of commissions. Many of these applications (now services) were developed and deployed with the Progress OpenEdge business application platform and now the Progress Sonic ESB is the vehicle for external integration.

"Most of our clients were moving to an SOA and web services architecture, integrating many different applications into their external Web site, for example. The Sonic ESB allowed us to implement customer client business processes with zero manual effort. That is perhaps our biggest payback," said Sam Thomas, Executive Vice President, Product Management and Marketing, McCamish Systems.

Thomas continued: "Two important business goals for the next 12 months include adding to our client base and improving the end-user experience. The Sonic ESB is helping McCamish achieve and, ultimately, exceed these goals."

"McCamish Systems is a great example of a longstanding user of the Progress OpenEdge business application development platform and a Progress Application Partner that sees the operational and financial value in implementing a services-based architecture," said Hub Vandervoort, CTO of SOA Infrastructure products, Progress Software. "McCamish was very comfortable with the OpenEdge platform and found the Sonic ESB to be the cost effective choice in helping them deliver reliable and high quality service. As a result, McCamish's partners can introduce new insurance products rapidly and seamlessly, while maintaining product profitability."

McCamish Systems uses the Sonic ESB to gain additional operational business efficiencies. For example, it plans to deploy its call center application to a browser-based interface to communicate with external clients. The new interface will allow call center professionals to find information and answer inbound questions, which will ultimately save on costs and improve customer satisfaction.