BLOOMFIELD, N.J. - Surround Technologies today announced completion of a new Business Partner Portal overhaul for Sherrill Furniture of Hickory, North Carolina. The portal for the Sherrill Dealer network was implemented using Microsoft's Silverlight technology within Surround's Accelerator for .NET Application Development tool and replaces a site originally built with LANSA Web Access Modules (WAMs). Woody Williams, COO of Sherrill Precedent Division, remarks, "This is a huge improvement over the last site. It looks sensational, delivers substantial performance gains, and produces more data-rich screens for the users." Sherrill's Systems Project Manager, Chad Lawing, adds, "User feedback has been exceptional. We've delivered a superior service tool to our partners."

Silverlight offers exciting rich user experiences for web apps and provides true cross-browser compatibility that simplifies development. Effortlessly, the UX is identical in IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. While generally thought of as a web-centric technology, Surround has shown a leadership position by applying it to the presentation layer for business applications in the IBM i Power Systems community.

"This project was extremely satisfying for how well the Microsoft technologies performed in the real world," says Derek Maciak, Surround's Chief Technology Officer. "The effort exceeded even our expectations for speed of development and superior performance and revealed several deficiencies in the LANSA WAM technology. And we're seeing similar results in other development projects underway."

Perhaps most of all, the project exposes the innate intelligence utilized in Surround's Accelerator Architecture, demonstrating how a new technology can quickly be supported and its benefits leveraged into business gains.
 Surround's Accelerator for .NET generates code for both Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight, granting compelling new interface potentials for modernization efforts.

Following a period of running both partner portals in tandem, user acceptance was so strong and swift that it allowed the old site to be quickly phased out. Surround is planning a more detailed case study of the Sherrill Furniture story in the coming months.

About Surround Technologies

Surround Technologies develops highly usable software tools that accelerate custom application development for Power IBM i, Windows, .NET, Unix and Linux Platforms. With offices in New Jersey and Florida, Surround provides software products and professional services that help enterprises produce advanced agile software. Surround Technologies' Accelerator products appeal to companies large and small, and are in use modernizing applications at companies like Gannett, Verizon, & GE. More information at http://www.SurroundTech.com.