Whatever else you might call it, the flat earth is a fascinating place. Last night, for instance, I was sitting at a table at the IFS World Conference in Berlin, Germany, talking to an Iranian IT guy about the market for software among the lucrative Persian rug manufacturing sector in Iran. Very interesting conversation, in which I learned that IFS, a Swedish company, is apparently the only ERP company allowed to sell and implement its own software in Iran.

Even more interesting than the IT talk was the political discussion. (OK, I know you're all having a hard time believing that anything is more interesting than IT shop talk.) The common consensus of the international crowd around the table was that the grandstanding of politicians only accomplishes one thing -- it impedes business. The concept of "peace equals prosperity" is a general belief held by practical-minded people everywhere, Iran included. With more than 1,000 people from 39 nations around the world in attendance, that was just one of many interesting international interactions possible at this year's IFS World Conference.

Aurora -- The New Face of ERP?

As might be expected, Dan Matthews, CTO of IFS, was much in demand at his company's international gathering, so I was grateful to get a couple opportunities to talk to him. Dan's been a busy man for a while, actually, especially since about a year ago, when IFS CEO Alistair Sorbie tasked his team to deliver a user-friendly interface to become the "new face" of IFS Applications. With more than 7,000 screens to build and test, he's had a whirlwind year, and with the "Aurora" project set to drop onto desktops in '08, things aren't likely to settle down anytime soon.

IFS is working to erase a crucial "business software blind spot" with Aurora. According to Dan Matthews, "If there's one thing we in business applications are guilty of, it is believing that everything everyone does in their workday is captured into a database -- it's not." Therefore, Aurora's easy-to-use interface is the front end of an entirely new application infrastructure that is designed to give users the tools they need to embed the "soft" data of everyday business transactions into an accessible, categorizable and archivable space. It's all based on a new software design principle best described as "informational ergonomics."

I had spoken with Dan when they unveiled enterprise search some months back (see "Google Yourself"), and it turns out that search was just one of the initiatives originally destined for Aurora, but because it got developed and beta tested early, they released it early as a stand alone. It's part of IFS' "value without cost" service aesthetic, and Dan speaks proudly of this enterprise search tool as being "one small box to search, one giant leap in productivity."

Now, with the ability of Aurora to capture unstructured data from email, Word, PDFs and the like, IFS' enterprise search is now supercharged, and the demonstrations Dan arranged were impressive, both visually and performance-wise.

The user interface resembles a mashup of Microsoft Vista and the iPhone -- iVista, maybe? Regardless, if your new interface is reminiscent of the newest products from two of the biggest braintrusts in human/computer interface design, you're doing something right.

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