What on earth is Middleware?

Bringing it all together

Not too long ago, if you wanted some new software for your computer, you had to visit a shop and buy a CD or DVD. Once you had installed that piece of software, it did what it did, and that’s it, and generally didn’t interact with any other software you had on your computer.

Today, in the age of the internet, we have software that runs in the cloud, and more and more software packages now offer integration with other software to help share data between them.

For example, suppose you use Xero accounting software (like we do). You want to link Xero to your Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) so customer details entered in one system can appear in the other, saving the need to enter your customer details twice into the two systems.  

Many of the larger software packages will offer plenty of pre-made integration options with others, generally in some form of ‘App store’.

Let’s say that you have found the perfect software application for your business. It could very well be a niche package designed for your sector, and you want to link it to your account system. You check for an existing integration and find to your horror, one doesn’t exist, and you will be back to manually entering data into two separate systems.

All is not lost because Middleware could be the answer.

Middleware is a piece of software designed to bridge the gap between two (or more) software systems, providing the pipeline (or software glue) that lets separate systems interact and share data with each other.

Here at Blue Squirrel Software, the vast majority of the middleware solutions we produce are web-based, designed to link separate websites and cloud software packages together.

If you want to have your customer, products, services, project, or any other data move seamlessly between your different software systems, Middleware can make it happen and allow your business to be as efficient and productive as possible.

If you have two software packages that don’t talk to each other; get in touch, and let's see if Middleware can join them up.