Ingres has announced the latest release of its Icebreaker BI appliance is integrated with Salesforce CRM for improved access to sales data.

The Icebreaker appliance integrates the open source Ingres database and JasperSoft BI software on the Linux platform. This version will also be listed on Force.com AppExchange portal.

The Ingres Icebreaker BI appliance can be downloaded from http://esd.ingres.com.

Vice president of Ingres Australia, Jason Leonidas, said the company is seeing more CIO's, particularly those within the retail, manufacturing and financial services industries, voting against vendor lock-in and opting for “enterprise-class open source technologies as an effective alternative”.

Integration with Salesforce CRM lets Icebreaker customers interface with data in the Salesforce cloud allowing queries and reports to run locally. This functionality is provided by a free plug-in.

Melbourne-based food manufacturer Peerless Foods is using the BI appliance to enhance its existing planning modules.

The company's CIO Adrian Hamilton said: “We are excited about how the Ingres Icebreaker BI Appliance will further compliment business planning as we look to enhance visibility of timely information and provide richer ERP functionality.”

Director of local IT services company Keylink Technology, Luke Dougherty, said after working in the BI space for over 10 years “Ingres' BI appliance provides the best value, commercial-grade business intelligence solution we have seen".

Ingres' Leonidas said implementing open standards at every point in the software stack can break the lock-in associated with traditional enterprise architectures.