What do Sirsi and Rome have to do with one another? March 13, 2007
Posted by Rachel in In The News, SirsiDynix.trackback
A lot, apparently! SirsiDynix just announced a new, versatile technology platform called Rome that blends SirsiDynix Unicorn, Horizon/Corinthian, and other solutions to meet libraries needs. Here is a blurb from their press release:
Code-named “Rome,” this platform integrates solutions for library/consortia management, the user experience, and content management. It offers integrated technology building blocks for today’s libraries – public, academic, K-12, special, or consortia – beyond the traditional ILS, These include cost-saving software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted options, state-of-the-art portal and search solutions, new and easy-to-manage Web-based library staff software, electronic content management and presentation solutions, the broadest suite of library management and productivity solutions… and more!
Thanks to David Lee King for also sharing more information on his blog about ths announcement.
From the description, this new “technology platform” sounds like to me like it’s a competitor to Primo, the search and discovery tool that ExLibris is developing. But as you know, we, Vanderbilt, are already a development partner with ExLibris in developing Primo. I wonder what Marshall Breeding’s thoughts are on this…
Once you peel away the marketing spin in the press announcment, what they are really saying is that they have selected Unicorn as their strategic ILS platform and that development of Horizon has been terminated. Rome 1.0 = Unicorn GL3.2+. While the longer term vision for Rome / Unicorn might include some broader search and content components, I’m not aware of anything that they are doing that is quite like Primo.
While we’re fortunate that they chose Unicorn as their single flagship system, I’m a bit surprised that they are choosing to base their technology platform on an ILS with an internal architecture of fairly old vintage rather than the one that they just spent millions redeveloping with state-of-the-components.
So what is SirsiDynix’s next-generation system? It’s the one we already have.