Pru targets affluent with new .com

Prudential Financial is taking aim at the oft-targeted wallets of the affluent, this time with its PruFN.com Web site. Designed to offer integrated financial services and products, the site's public side includes stock quotes, market news, calculators, planning tools, and more. Prudential clients get private access to other features such as quotes, balances, and account activity in real time, as well as market analyses, online trading and bill payments, planning tools, and more.

Prudential joined up with Standard & Poor's for the electronic initiative, courting the financial information provider to add functionality of S&P's RatingsXpress, an online search tool that scours trillions of dollars worth of S&P-rated securities to retrieve research and ratings for PruFN.com.

Microsoft .NET, Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and BizTalk Server 2000 make PruFN.com tick. XML support allows integration between Prudential systems, S&P, and other external sources.

Outlaw adds self service to healthcare suite

The Outlaw Technologies (www.outlawtech.com) Healthcare Relationship Management product suite is a bit sweeter thanks to the company's new HealthService, a set of products for health plan Internet self-service.

According to Outlaw, HealthService was designed to provide a secure environment for collaboration between providers, members, and employer groups.

The HeathService suite includes MemberFocus, in which members review claims status, benefit coverage, physician directories, modify personal information, and more; ProviderFocus, a venue for physicians to verify patient benefits, handle referrals, and review claims; and EmployerFocus, in which employer groups manage enrollment processes, review employee issues, and manage health plan inquiries.

HealthService is available as a licensed product or ASP on monthly subscriptions.

Jacada enhances interface-development products

Interface design specialist Jacada (www.jacada.com) rounded out its product suite with Interface Server 7.0, an environment for integrated user interface development and deployment.

According to Jacada, Interface Server was designed to create a common user interface layer, connecting new applications, legacy systems, and other technical investment.

A single development tool and deployment server generates all these interfaces, and keeps the interface and business logic layers separate. Interface Server 7.0 adds XML interface generation to existing support for HTML, Java, and Visual Basic; new applications can be written in RPG and COBOL. Other product enhancements include browser-based host reporting, JDBC and XML server-side integration support, foreign language support, native deployment on OS/390, and more.

Jacada also released Integrator and BPm, products based on technologies it acquired through the purchase of Propelis Software. According to Jacada, Integrator (formerly CNT Enterprise/Access and Propelis EAi) creates and supports seamless, real-time integration between legacy systems and packaged apps. BPm (formerly Propelis BPm) is a workflow management tool designed to automate the way people, processes, and data communicate.

Claims3 + 1 = V3.0

Insurance claims software developer Bridium (www.bridium.com) has updated its flagship claims process automation solution Claims3, adding user-requested functions for security, file archiving, management reporting, and document attachment.

Claims3, now version 3.0, adds automatic claim assignment to the appropriate adjuster, based on user-customizable criteria; electronic TIFF- and JPEG-formatted image attachment; claims file archive within Claims3, allowing for easier access and searches; salvage and subrogation process management; user-based security; e-mail and fax status reporting; property liability screens; and logo and letterhead printing on hard copy.

Because Claims3 is an ASP-based solution, Bridium is able to update customer software electronically, eliminating the traditional product upgrade workflow.

Small world, bigger features

Pinpoint Solutions (www. pinpnt.com) recently finished a “major upgrade” to its flagship ProfitCube solution for global insurance analysis. Now at version 4.0, ProfitCube's new functions include multi-currency support (good for purifying loss ratios from currency impacts, global risk management and other actuarial needs), reinsurance analysis (for optimizing purchases), dynamic dimensions (for precise actuarial calculations), Excel integration (allowing user to take advantage of the features of the Microsoft spreadsheet), and policy and insured centricity (to increase renewals, profitability, and selling opportunities).

According to PinPoint, ProfitCube's underlying architecture supports “efficient global deployment.” The company claims the solution can handle large volumes of data, competitive rating plan analyses, and complex calculations associated with underwriting, claim, and actuarial analysis.

IntelliForm: Simulating human logic

Database-driven information collection has a new brother-in-arms: Intermeg's IntelliForm (www.intermeg.com). The company calls it a “new paradigm,” says it's “quasi-intelligent,” and “simulates human logic.”

IntelliForm tracks how, when, and what data are collected, and delivers the data it captures via XML and using PDF files. Client-side features include a data collection engine, transaction preparation from data-capture forms, scalability-friendly local forms storage, validation rules, user preference profiles, and error processing and presentation-all on an XML base. The server-side engine includes rules-based processing, form data mapping, enterprise form repositories, and error transaction formatting. Rules interfaces were designed to allow business analysts and other, shall we say, less technical professionals to make modifications without software gurus watching over their shoulders.

IntelliForm relies on a set of logical questions and answers, according to Intermeg, to interact with data and build complex data-capture systems quickly and at a low cost.