Mountain View, CA, January 22, 2009 — Cast Iron Systems, The #1 SaaS integration Company™, today announced record results for fiscal year 2008, which ended on November 30th. Even during the worst global economic conditions in decades, Cast Iron experienced 196 percent growth in revenue over FY2007. The company also reported its largest fourth quarter ever — its ninth straight record quarter. In sharp contrast to the hype-focused vendors in the integration market, Cast Iron continues to outperform its competitors on every metric, quarter after quarter - year after year.
"While SaaS offers tremendous business value with its low cost of implementation and ease of use, integrating SaaS solutions with other SaaS and on-premise applications unlocks the true potential of these applications, said Ken Comée, CEO at Cast Iron Systems. "Cast Iron's exceptional growth is due, in large part, to the increasing adoption and integration of SaaS solutions throughout companies both large and small."
"We're able to add so many new customers and Powered By Cast Iron partners because we are the only integration provider offering the flexibility for companies to integrate in the Cloud, on-premise, and everywhere in between," Comée added.
According to Gartner, "An analysis of a cross-section of successful SaaS vendors reveals that business-to-business (B2B) flexibility — rather than any one B2B standard or approach — lowers barriers to SaaS integration and helps drive SaaS adoption."*
Cast Iron offers its customers the choice of a completely cloud-based integration service or an on-premise integration appliance as an organization's application ecosystem expands and diversifies. Now any company, regardless of size or resources, can easily connect SaaS solutions with other on-demand and on-premise applications in days, rapidly boosting productivity.
In a continuing trend, more companies are choosing the Cast Iron Integration Solution for critical on-demand to on-demand integrations. They realize even greater business value — lower cost, faster implementation, and higher productivity — when they begin to integrate their SaaS solutions with their on-premise systems, and Cast Iron delivers the solution to help them at every stage. In 2008, the company extended its market leadership in SaaS and Integration-as-a-Service (IaaS) through innovation in its product and service offerings, including the introduction of the Cast Iron Cloud, providing IaaS to companies with a majority of their applications based in the cloud, and the next-generation Cast Iron integration appliance, both physical and virtual, for companies with the majority of their applications on-premise.
According to Comée, "In this tight credit market, CIOs can cut IT capital expenditures without affecting operations by using cloud computing and SaaS solutions, both of which are budgeted as operational expenses. In the last year, we have seen more SMBs and global enterprises, in diverse industries from biotechnology to retail, turn to Cast Iron to expedite this SaaS adoption."
New customers include the following industry leaders, among many others:
Bill Hoban, CIO at Extra Space Storage, migrated six million customer records into Salesforce CRM using the Cast Iron Cloud for a virtual call-center initiative. The integration project took about three weeks from proof of concept to fully operational status. "CIOs in all industries need to step back from daily IT management and look across the enterprise," said Hoban. "I'm fortunate to be able to approach things strategically. The complexity of running an effective call center requires expert experience across multiple disciplines. By executing a cloud-based strategy, we’re benefiting from world-class services at a small percentage of the in-house cost."
Doug Menefee, CIO at Schumacher Group, is using the Cast Iron Integration Solution to manage workflow across the extended enterprise. Cast Iron has facilitated the company's adoption of SaaS business solutions such as Salesforce CRM by enabling the rapid resolution of on-demand and on-premise integration issues. "Between 50 and 60 percent of the company's business processes are now in a SaaS environment," said Menefee. "Now I can focus on solving business problems from a strategic perspective, and IT in general can focus on innovation rather than support."
"CRM continues to be a primary SaaS driver," said Comée. "We're seeing increasing success with our largest CRM partners, plus there is significant acceleration in the adoption of non-CRM solutions such as ERP, workforce management, supply chain management, and location-based services and mobile applications. Not surprisingly, therefore, we're expanding our relationships with the top SaaS providers in these markets, including NetSuite, Taleo, SPS Commerce, and Gearworks to name a few."
"Many of our customers, from small businesses to large enterprises, have used the Cast Iron solution to integrate Salesforce CRM and custom apps built on the Force.com platform with their existing IT environments," said Clarence So, CMO, salesforce.com. "Using technology from Cast Iron, a salesforce.com strategic integration partner, helps ensure that customers rapidly complete integrations and quickly realize the full business value of their investments."
Comée added, "As more and more companies realize that rapid integration is key to their SaaS and Cloud initiatives, Cast Iron is able to focus on what we do best and solve this problem for companies in days, whether that’s in the Cloud or on-premise."
Founded in 2001, Cast Iron Systems is The #1 SaaS Integration Company™. With thousands of customer integrations across all industries and around the world, including Allianz, British American Tobacco (BAT), Amerisource Bergen, Emerson, IBA Molecular, Krueger International, Peet's Coffee & Tea, PGP Corporation, salesforce.com, The Sports Authority, and Tesla Motors, among many others, companies are benefiting from the simplicity, speed, and flexibility of the Cast Iron integration solution to integrating SaaS with the enterprise in just days. Backed by Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Lehman Brothers, Cast Iron is privately held and led by experienced technology executives from Informatica, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel, Vitria, and webMethods. For more information about Cast Iron, please visit www.castiron.com.