Startup to create composite applications

A new company launching itself on Monday plans to deliver a framework to further the concept of composite applications.

Composite Software, based in San Mateo, Calif., will provide reusable composite views of customer, order, or risk information from databases, enterprise applications, flat files, or directories, said Jim Greene, CEO of the new company. These views can be consumed via portals, dashboards, Microsoft Excel, or reporting tools.

Green was formerly CTO of EAI heavyweight webMethods and leader of the team that developed CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture).

Composite’s framework will be designed to allow people to build “information applications” by composing them as opposed to programming them, Green said. For example, at a typical large company, a customer order will traverse multiple systems such as a Siebel CRM system, an SAP order entry system, and a finance system.

“To get a single view of the customer, you have to pull that data together in a way that the application developer doesn’t have to deal with all the idiosyncrasies with the data and the apps and the interface and network,” Green said. “We will provide a framework of building blocks to be able to access data in the format you want it.”

Composite Software will be focusing on delivering key business driver data primarily via a portal, but a portal where integration is paramount, said Kimberly Knickle, an analyst with AMR Research, in Boston.

“[Composite] is talking about a Web-based view of data from lots of information sources, which is not how portals have been used in the past just because the integration has been expensive. It’s creating what people call an application because it is a view of information, but it’s information from lots of sources.”

The startup’s framework is designed to allow enterprises to span the gap often created by multiple applications such as CRM and supply chain containing critical but unlinked data to get a more comprehensive view of enterprise operations, she added.

“You can’t say the customer is always right if the supply chain can’t create the product your customer wants,” she said.

Composite Software plans to officially unveil its product line in September. The company also announced Monday the closing of a $5.2 million funding round with venture backers.