Bluenog, an enterprise software and solutions company, announced today it will deliver offerings specifically designed to meet the unique needs of the higher education sector.

The company will extend Bluenog ICE(TM), its integrated suite of content management, portal development and business intelligence software, to interface with key educational support systems such as Sungard Banner, Resource25, Sakai, Moodle and Blackboard. In addition, the company's professional services division, Bluenog Solutions Group, will offer consulting services designed to help colleges and universities integrate commercial and open source solutions to meet their needs in a cost-effective manner.

"Colleges and universities are increasingly turning to commercial solutions built on open source projects, such as Bluenog ICE, to address their needs," said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst, Basex, a leading knowledge economy research firm. "Having access to professional support, customization, product updates, training and the ability to integrate with existing infrastructure is key for institutions that need to keep costs low without sacrificing functionality."

This initiative follows fresh on the heels of three client implementations at Wellesley College, Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) and NYU Langone Medical Center. Bluenog recognized higher education's heightened demand for rich portal development, dynamic website content management and enterprise reporting. Integration with strategic educational and administrative support systems was also a key requirement.

"We are focusing on the higher education sector because collaboration and integration is so important to this space," said Suresh Kuppusamy, CEO and co-founder, Bluenog. "Having thousands of users on a given portal, these organizations are looking for a way to seamlessly enhance and customize their existing infrastructures at a reasonable cost and Bluenog ICE offers that solution."

Early results from the Bluenog implementation at NYU Langone Medical Center have shown significant savings on up-front licensing and maintenance costs.

Bluenog's ability to integrate with CIESIN's existing applications eliminated the need to migrate any existing content. CIESIN also benefited from the flexibility of a pre-built portal and BI framework that can be easily added into the overall solution in the future, without any need for custom integration.

Wellesley chose Bluenog ICE after an extensive evaluation of commercial and open source software and related services to revamp their Web presence and boost functionality to provide a richer and more consistent experience for prospective and current students.