Ingres Part of a Project to Give Financial Boost to Developing Countries
Open Source Based Software Project iTax Provides Local Governments in the Philippines with an Efficient Way to Assess Local Taxes
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Feb. 12 - Ingres, a leading open source information management company for enterprise applications, announced today it is part of an effort to put developing countries on the path to financial independence. The open source software project, known as iTax, is a joint undertaking with the Government of the Philippines and the German Technical Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit, GTZ). Chaired by GTZ team leader Ernst-Dieter Fuchs, the project was launched to provide Philippine authorities with an efficient way to manage and collect taxes. The project was initially implemented in the Philippine province of Negros Oriental to raise and manage taxes for such things as real estate, trade income, and public taxes for water and energy.
With iTax, local administrations can assess taxes and public duties in an independent and fair manner. In addition, iTax provides transparency and integrity into the entire tax collection process. While initially deployed in the Philippines, iTax is flexible and can be used by many different countries needing better visibility into their tax collection systems.
"We are very proud to contribute to a project that is making such a tremendous difference in the world," said Roland Pfeiffer, country manager for Ingres in Germany. "The success of iTax once again underlines our pioneering role with regard to the adoption of enterprise-open source applications in the public sector."
"When giving aid to developing countries, cost-effectiveness is key," said Martin Hoffmann, iTax project partner and CEO of the Commitor GmbH and Chairman of the German Ingres User Association (GIUA). "Open source software is cost effective and is becoming increasingly important for the public sector when dealing with development aid projects in particular."
The iTax system was created in close cooperation with Philippine software engineers under the umbrella of the GTZ's decentralization programs. It is based on the Ingres enterprise-class open source database that provides high performance and scalability -- giving the solution an advantage over other products as well as providing the flexibility for project expansion.
"We evaluated various solutions and decided to deploy Ingres because our test results showed that none of the competing open source databases came close to the level of performance or functionality in Ingres," said Ernst-Dieter Fuchs, GTZ team leader for the iTax project. "With regard to development projects, it is very important to ensure cost-effectiveness without compromising on performance and scalability. It cannot be the case that we have to spend the scarce resources of development aid projects on licensing fees and not on actually improving the living conditions of the people there. The Ingres solution proves to be ideal -- combining reliable functionality and an attractive business model."
About GTZ
As an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations, the federally owned Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH supports the German Government in achieving its development-policy objectives. It provides viable, forward looking solutions for political, economic, ecological and social development in a globalized world. Working under difficult conditions, GTZ promotes complex reforms and change processes. Its corporate objective is to improve people's living conditions on a sustainable basis. GTZ is a federal enterprise based in Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is its major client. The company also operates on behalf of other German ministries, the governments of other countries and international clients, such as the European Commission, the United Nations and the World Bank, as well as on behalf of private enterprises. GTZ employs some 10,000 staff in more than 120 countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Eastern European countries in transition and the New Independent States (NIS). Around 9,000 of these staff are national personnel. GTZ maintains its own offices in 67 countries. For more information visit http://gtz.de/.
About Ingres
Ingres Corporation is a leading provider of open source information management services to the enterprise. Built on over 25 years of technology investment, Ingres is a leader in software and service innovation, providing the enterprise with proven reliability combined with the value and flexibility of open source. The company's partnerships with leading open source providers further enhance the Ingres value proposition. In particular, Ingres is working with leading business intelligence providers to deliver appliances that combine the benefits of open source with advanced reporting and data analysis capabilities. Based in Redwood City, California, Ingres also has major development, sales and support centers throughout the world, supporting thousands of customers in the United States and internationally. For more information, visit http://www.ingres.com/.
Source: Ingres Corporation
CONTACT: Sherry Lowe, Corporate Communications of Ingres Corporation,
+1-650-587-5544, sherry.lowe@ingres.com;
or Leigh Anne Varney of Varney
Business Communication, +1-415-387-7250, la@varneybusiness.com, for Ingres Corporation
Web site: http://www.ingres.com/
