EAI - Enterprise Application Integration
B2B - Business to Business
B2C - Business to Client/Consumer
B2E - Business to Employee
SCM - Supply Chain Management
MI - Mobile (Wireless) Integration

Furthermore, Goldstone builds adapters for both inbound integration and outbound integration, to fulfill the clients’ business processes accurately.Are your adapters standards based?
Usually, our adapters are XML based, unless the client specifically requests otherwise. Secondly, Goldstone builds application adapters using the customers APIs, instead of at database level, protecting the integrity of the data. This too is considered as industry-best-practice and the most ideal method for building adapters.

Your brochure states that you could offer savings over 70%. Can you elaborate?
Our cost advantages are principally for two reasons – we can develop adapters faster than competitors with our cost of development being the lowest in the industry. This is a reflection of Goldstone’s value proposition – Rapid implementation time with reduced costs.

We bring our vast experience of having built adapters for several packaged/legacy applications. We have also put together mature development models and implementation processes that are considered to be one of the best in the industry, allowing our development cycle time to be considerably smaller than our competitors.

Goldstone being a global company with two large offshore development centers, has built a delivery model that is focused on passing our offshore-cost-advantage to the client, resulting in a significant reduction in development costs.

What is your specific experience with various packaged/legacy systems?
Goldstone has built adapters/connectors for a wide range of applications and legacy systems. We have developed under a variety of architectures and platforms to suit the specific needs and requirements for our clients. Here is the partial list of systems/applications that we have already developed adapters for:

ERP Applications - SAP, Peoplesoft, Oracle Applications
CRM Applications - Siebel, Clarify, Vantive
Messaging Servers - Netscape, MQ-Series, MS-MQ
Directory Servers - iPlanet LDAP
Billing Applications - Portal, Solect, Billplex
Mail Servers - MS-Exchange, Lotus Notes
Middleware - J2EE Application Servers, Viewlocity, Forte Fusion, TIBCO, Vitria, NEON Systems

And, of course, the list is continuously growing…

Who shares the responsibility of providing the development environment (Software and hardware) for adapters between Goldstone and your clients?
It depends upon the specific assignment. For onsite assignments, the complete development environment (software, hardware and networking) is expected to be provided by the client and Goldstone will only depute its experts. In case of offshore development, we sometimes look forward to the client for access to the application software. Having said that, we do own/lease licenses for a large number of applications. In situations where we do not have software, we look to the client for the necessary arrangements.

How easy/difficult are your adapters to modify or upgrade, with the change in business processes or integration parameters?
We usually build adapters using the components model which is designed to allow future changes with ease.

Are your connectors available as off-the-shelf products?
Not really. Usually integration needs and business processes differ from case to case. Such differences are seen in the functionality of the adapter, and also in the architecture, development or runtime environment. This implies that adapters need to be customized to your specific requirements. The advantage of working with Goldstone is that we have most of the building blocks available that will make the customization rapid.

What is the time frame for implementation of connectors?
It varies widely with the functionality, architecture and features required for the adapter. Implementation can range between 2 –12 weeks.

What is the development and runtime platform for the connectors?
This is normally the clients’ choice and we have the competence to accommodate your specific needs. Goldstone has built using several development options including C, C++, Java Beans, COM, etc.

Who are your clients?
Anyone who requires connectivity - we serve software vendors, system integrators, integration vendors and end-customers as well.