Business intelligence, legislative compliance highlighted by new technologies IBM on Wednesday announced the pre-release of several tools for SMBs (small and midsize businesses) designed to speed development of solutions built on IBM middleware.IBM business partners can try out the free tools by accessing the company’s alphaWorks site for emerging technologies, at www.alphaworks.ibm.com. Formal product plans for the tools have yet to be devised.The new tools support the IBM Solutions Builder Express Portfolio, which provides a set of assets and implementation road maps for IBM Express technology. The tools focus on areas such as business intelligence, legislative compliance, and data delivery. Tools include:* Industry Process Accelerator for Business Intelligence, to simplify the development of data marts through use of a wizard-driven interface. The application complements tools found in IBM’s DB2 Data Warehouse Edition. “This simplifies the approach to building business intelligence [applications],” said IBM’s John Medicke, chief architect for the small business software group at the company.* Framework for Application Data and Sources (FADS), for more quickly building software simulators. FADS allows application data to exist in multiple formats and enables two-way delivery of data across multiple sources. Users can use FADS to build and share proof-of-concepts for integration solutions built on IBM WebSphere Business Integration Server Express. * VitalFile for Simplified Document Retention, a tool enabling business partners building NAS/fileserver solutions to offer SMB customers a simple document retention add-on. The technology is useful in complying with requirements of legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). Businesses can create repositories with Write Once, Read Many capabilities and period-based retention. Also, any file server can be turned into a retention application using existing file/directory technology.* VitalFile Real-Time Workstation Backup, for transparent, real-time file level protection on Unix and Windows systems. This tool automatically creates three copies of a file, with one stored on the current system, another queued and sent to a fileserver, and a final one sent to a backup server. Software Development